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Scientists don't use the word 'true' lightly, but in this lively and engrossing book, Jerry Coyne shows why biologists are happy to use it when it comes to evolution. Evolution is 'true' not because the experts say it is, nor because some world view demands it, but because the evidence overwhelmingly supports it. There are many superb books on evolution, but this one is superb in a new way -- it explains the latest evidence for evolution lucidly, thoroughly, and with devastating effectiveness. -- Steven Pinker

Review

If you want a direct response to creationism, then Jerry Coyne's recent book 'Why Evolution is True' is your book. (Clive Cookson, Financial Times )

Powerful and popular book. (Randy Olson, New Scientist )

'Why Evolution Is True' suceeds in being fully accessible to any reader who has even a vague idea of what DNA is.' (Douglas J. Futuyma, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol.24, No. 7 )

It is a book that needed to be written and needs to be read. (Douglas J. Futuyma, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 24, No. 7 )

One of the very best and most important book on evolution for broad audiences in at least 50 years. (Douglas J. Futuyma, Trends in Ecology and Evolution )

A scholarly, yet delightfully readable account. (Tom Tregenza, Current Biology, Volume 19 )

We must present the evidence, and Jerry Coyne's book does an excellent job of it. (Massimo Pigliucci, Science )

Evolution is true...Coyne displays it for us in a way that no objective reader could fail to find compelling. (Richard Dawkins, TLS )

'Why Evolution is True'is outstandingly good. (Richard Dawkins, TLS )

Coyne's knowledge of evolutionary biology is prodigious, his deployment of it as masterful as his touch is light. (Richard Dawkins, TLS )

His coverage is enviably comprehensive, yet he simultaneously manages to keep the book compact and readable. (Richard Dawkins, TLS )

Coyne's book is just what we needed in this bicentennial year to anchor Darwin where he belongs. (Nigel Hawkes, The Times )

Selected as onf of the 'Fifity Books for our Time'. (Newsweek )

A clear, engaging, accessible explanation of the evidence for evolution. (Massimo Pigliucci, Science )

Excellent volume. (Clive Cookson, Financial Times )

Lucid, thorough and eminently readable, this book is a delight from start to finish. (Doug Johnstone, Scotsman.com )

Coyne gives a clear and engaging overview of what evolution is, and how it works. (BBC Focus )

Coyne is as graceful a stylist and as clear a scientific explainer as Darwin himself (no mean feat). It's one of the best single-volume introductions to evolutionary theory ever. (Wired magazine )

A masterfully concise reinstating of [Darwin's] big idea. (Karen Shook, THE )

There are many superb books on evolution, but this one is superb in a new way -- it explains the latest evidence for evolution lucidly, thoroughly, and with devastating effectiveness. (Steven Pinker )

For anyone who wishes a clear, well-written explanation of evolution by one of the foremost scientists working on the subject, 'Why Evolution is True' should be your choice. (E. O. Wilson )

I once wrote that anybody who didn't believe in evolution must be stupid, insane or ignorant, and I was then careful to add that ignorance is no crime. I should now update my statement: aybody who doesn't believe in evolution is stupid, insane, or hasn't read Jerry Coyne. (Richard Dawkins )

An engaging and accessible account of one of the most important ideas ever conceived by mankind. The book is a stunning achievement, written by one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists. Coyne has produced a classic. (Neil Shubin, author of 'Your Inner Fish' )

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

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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

By	Dr. Nicholas P. G. Davies (Halifax, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

By	John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"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

By	Richard Murphy (Winchester, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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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5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Satisfying Book
Having read this book some considerable time since it was published, nothing will be served by repeating what the earlier reviewers (with one obvious exception) have so correctly... Read more

Published 22 days ago by Doc Lee

5.0 out of 5 stars Why evolution is true
This is an excellent book by Jerry Coyne. This book should be a must for any student in their first year of a biology degree, as well as for any lay person still curious as to... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Andrew Allum

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous Read
Only laziness prevents me from giving a full review here. At the least though my 5 stars will cancel out the God Botherer's one star comments when they get round to the usual pack... Read more

Published 3 months ago by A. J. Davies

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely book of science, go as deep as you want and can with it!
What a delightful book. Another one of those gems that a.) are worth praising on-line b.) are worth buying and having on the shelf even though, as in my case, I initially obtained... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Clive Smart

4.0 out of 5 stars This book annoys me
I am not a creationist and don't need to be persuaded out of any intelligent design ideology. What I did want was a good clear book explaining natural selection. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Mr. Malachi O'Doherty

5.0 out of 5 stars A Pleasure to Read
This is the best book on Evolution that I have ever read. Written against the backdrop of the growth of Creationism, it makes its case clearly and fairly with an overwhelming... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Mr. D. Fraser

3.0 out of 5 stars ...... or false
With the publication of this book, Jerry Coyne has arguably written the best advocacy of Darwinian evolution for the general reader - in a long time - and in a poignant year... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Jonathan Green

5.0 out of 5 stars Compulsive reading
I thought this was the best scientific book on Evolution for the layman that I have read. I found it compulsive reading and would recommend it to anyone. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Mrs. J. M. Stirling

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating story of evolution
This book offers a fascinating insight into evolution and presents evidence to support the concept in a methodical and systematic manner. Read more

Published 7 months ago by D. P. Mankin

3.0 out of 5 stars Terrible print
I;d love to have read this book - however from the first opening I couldn't accept the terrible quality of the (photographic) printing and the glossy and, frankly, stinking paper... Read more

Published 7 months ago by John Basham

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