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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent account of evolution, 25 Jan 2009
Jerry Coyne is a bit annoyed that it was necessary to write this book. I am glad he got annoyed enough to write it. In part he is writing against the intelligent design movement, and against creationism and he shows the flaws in these viewpoints not with rhetoric, but with well chosen evidence.
The book is a powerful and straightforward account of evolution showing the strength of the theory, its ability to make predictions, and giving many examples of the evidence on which evolution is based. After reading the book you have a good idea of what evolution is about, and what fields of study it applies in. Coyne is clear that evolution is a theory in biology of great explanatory power. The key idea is that of descent with modification.
He is also clear (in his final chapter evolution redux) of the limits to evolutionary thinking. Good scientists know what they know, and also have some idea where their knowledge stops. Coyne demonstrates this ability well. By doing this he becomes a far better advocate for evolution than Dawkins.
Evolution is not an ontological or moral theory. You can derive no moral lesson from evolution- it just is (p253). David Hume pointed out that deriving an ought from an is is usually to make a specious argument. The fact that the idea of evolution as progress has been misused by many is not an argument against evolution. It is an argument against the misuse of ideas.
Coyne (p248)describes that, "There is an increasing (and disturbing) tendency of psychologists, biologists and philosophers to Darwinize every aspect of human behaviour, turning its study into a scientific parlour game." He liberates us (p250)from some of the genetic determinism that sometimes accompanies evolution, "There is no reason, then, to see ourselves as marionettes dancing on the strings of evolution. Yes certain parts of our behaviour may be genetically encoded, instilled by natural selection in our savanna-dwelling ancestors. But genes aren't destiny...."genetic" does not mean "unchangeable.""
Coyne liberates evolution from its role as chief evidence for atheism.(pxix) "Nor must it promote atheism, for enlightened religion has always found a way to accommodate the advances of science. In fact, understanding evolution should surely deepen and enrich our appreciation of the living world and our place in it." Denis Alexander makes a similar point in his recent book,"Creation or Evolution:Do we have to choose."
This book does have one notable omission which arises because it sticks closely to the facts. There is no account of how the first cell ever got started, maybe because there is not yet any great evidence for how this happened. So far as I can understand evolution it describes the mechanisms of relationship between ancestors and descendants, but the tracing back of ancestors can only go back so far- to some original reproducing cell.
This book is timely this year. It's a great account of how evolution works from its 6 basic principles namely evolution (genetic change over time), gradualism, speciation, common ancestry, natural selection, and non selective mechanisms of evolutionary change. The basic principles have clear starting points and consequences which are observable or at least, inferable.
It puts evolution in a sensible context, and shows where, and to what, it sensibly applies. It is a welcome book this year and it puts the theory of evolution centre stage on its own merits, and not as a means to advocating for other ideas. Sensible, tolerant, encouraging and provoking further thought. Very scientific. Highly recommended.
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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sterling Defense of Evolutionary Biology from One of Its Greatest Scientists, 22 Jan 2009
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". That classic quote from the great Russian-American evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky is replete with far more truth now than when he uttered it in 1973. Thousands of scientists around the globe are using the principles of evolution towards understanding phenomena as simple as bacterial population growth to those as complex as the origin and spread of such virulent diseases as malaria and HIV/AIDS, and the conservation of many endangered plant and animal species. There is no other scientific theory I know of that has withstood such rigorous, and repeated, testing as the modern synthetic theory of evolution. The overwhelming proof of biological evolution is so robust, that entire books have been written describing pertinent evidence from sciences that, at first glance, seem as dissimilar from each other as paleobiology, molecular biology and ecology. But alas this hasn't convinced many in the court of public opinion, especially here, in the United States, who remain skeptical of evolution as both a scientific fact and a scientific theory, and who are too often persuaded by those who insist that there are such compelling "weaknesses" in evolution, that instead of it, better, still "scientific", alternatives exist, most notably, Intelligent Design creationism. Distinguished evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution Is True" is not just a timely book, but it is quite simply, the best, most succinct, summation I can think of on behalf of evolution's scientific validity.
No other modern evolutionary biologist has attempted to convey, with such excitement, and enthusiasm, a comprehensive, quite compelling, proof of biological evolution, unless you consider the notable literary careers of Coyne's graduate school mentors; Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. Coyne's achievement is especially noteworthy for covering virtually every major evolutionary aspect of biology in a treatment that barely exceeds two hundred and thirty pages. In essence, "Why Evolution is True" can be viewed as an updated, modern rendition of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", but encompassing those biological sciences, such as population genetics, molecular systematics, evolutionary developmental biology - better known as "evo - devo" - and, indeed, even paleobiology, which were unknown to Darwin; to put it bluntly, this is "one long argument" on behalf of evolutionary biology, told via Coyne's respectable, occasionally lyrical, prose and compelling logic.
Coyne asserts that there are six principles of evolution in the book's first chapter (having been preceded by two brief prefaces devoted to the nature of science and the ongoing intellectual threat posed by Intelligent Design creationism); evolution - which he defines as a species undergoing genetic change through time - gradualism, speciation, common ancestry, natural selection, and nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change. These are indeed the very principles recognizable to anyone who has taken an undergraduate course in evolution, the key features of the Modern Synthesis Theory of Evolution; in other words, modern evolutionary theory. And they are principles recognizable to those evolutionary biologists who concur with Gould's observation that current evolutionary theory is incomplete in explaining the origin, composition and history of our planet's biodiversity; scientifically testable principles unlike those alleged to exist for Intelligent Design and other flavors of "scientific" creationism. In the book's remaining nine chapters, Coyne offers persuasive evidence on behalf of these principles from the fossil record, from the biogeography of plants and animals, from molecular genomic data, and other aspects of biology, discusses the importance of sex in driving evolutionary change, and the process of speciation itself.
There is much worthy of praise in Coyne's elegantly terse tome in defense of biological evolution. His fossil record chapter (Chapter Two) compellingly recounts the evolution of primitive tetrapods from bony fishes in the late Devonian, the mid Mesozoic evolution and early radiation of birds from their feathered theropod dinosaur ancestors, and the early Cenozoic evolution of whales from primitive ungulates distantly related to rhinos and tapirs. He demonstrates persuasively (Chapter Three) how humans and other animals are so poorly "designed", that their "designs" bear ample witness against the existence of an Intelligent Designer. His superb treatment of biogeography (Chapter Four) echoes the literary elegance of Darwin's prose, and reminds us of the stark differences between so-called Intelligent Design "theory" and evolution in making testable, verifiable, predictions regarding both present-day and fossil distributions of plants and animals. In the book's finest chapter (Chapter Seven), devoted to speciation, Coyne - who is among our foremost authorities on speciation - offers a surprisingly comprehensive account that discusses not only the mechanisms of speciation, but also, of equal importance to biologists, how species are recognized and defined as distinct populations separated from others in space and time. But readers may find most moving, his poignant treatment of humanity as a biological species (Chapter Eight), and how evolution may still be driving the course of human evolution.
There is so much worthy of praise in Coyne's book, that it seems almost an afterthought to mention errors, omissions, and potential disagreements. The most glaring of these may be his insistence of gradualism as an important principle of evolution, since others, like his Stony Brook University colleague Douglas Futuyma, have recognized the importance of morphological stasis (Though he might contend vigorously and persuasively that to do so would be to recast the argument as one of evolutionary tempo, instead of mode.). But I am especially surprised by his omission of the significant role of mass extinctions in reshaping the composition and complexity of Earth's biosphere, not just once, but approximately seven times in the last five hundred-odd million years, which has garnered ample attention from past and current University of Chicago colleagues; paleobiologists David Raup, J. John Sepkoski, and David Jablonski, among others. By themselves, mass extinctions are the key episodes in the history of life on Earth still ignored by leading Intelligent Design creationists such as mathematician and philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe; their very existence strongly refutes the inane assertion that life has been "intelligently designed".
"Why Evolution is True" belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in science. However, those who are skeptical of evolution's scientific validity, remain its intended audience. Any of them possessing an objective, open mind, should be persuaded by Coyne's terse prose and compelling logic. The evidence for biological evolution is quite overwhelmingly true; Coyne's slender book is a magnificent presentation of this proof.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you are interested in evolution, this is well worth a read, 12 April 2009
A serious but highly readable book on evolution
This book is an excellent summary of current thinking on the development of life on Earth.
The author has set himself the additional challenge of answering the critics of the theory of evolution. His premise is simple: no-one who seriously looks at the evidence of evolution with an open mind could conclude anything other than that life has been evolving on the planet over billions of years. He is not claiming that scientist know how everything evolved. Rather, he attempts to demonstrate that the evidence is overwhelming that evolution is the mechanism by which life developed, and continues to develop.
He is less angry than Richard Dawkins, and the book is better for that. He sticks to his area of expertise. His irritation with arguments put up by those promoting Intelligent Design is clear, and his approach is to take apart their statements slowly and patiently.
Ultimately it is a shame that he is diverted away from the fascinating material on evolution by the need to answer the arguments of anti-evolutionist. Nevertheless if you are interested in evolution this is an excellent read.
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