by Ben Goldacre
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Early treatments of evolution presented our species' transformation from protohominid to Homo sapiens as an orderly affair, a matter of clear lineages and constant progress. That depiction, archaeologist Jeffrey McKee suggests, is a little too neat. Drawing on recent scholarly views of primate evolution and on chaos theory, he instead argues that coincidence, accident, and luck are critically important components of our species' development.
"Human evolution," McKee writes, "has been the product of many forces that together made us neither inevitable nor probable." The same holds true for other species; with all due respect to Lamarck, McKee adds, the giraffe came to have its long neck by a roll of the genetic dice--but a roll that lent the giraffe a competitive advantage over its shorter-necked browsing cousins, and therefore one subsequently reinforced by natural selection. Illustrating his argument with the well-worn "butterfly effect"--wherein a butterfly flapping its wings in Europe can produce a typhoon half a world away--McKee examines the role of chance in the origin and decline of species, emphasising how unpredictable the dynamics of life can be even within the bounds of natural laws.
Within such disorderly circumstances, McKee observes, chance favours species that retain generalised features and behaviours; whereas, he writes, "the fossil record is littered with extinct primates that became too specialised," the ancestors of modern humans were broadly diversified, adapting to different niches and thriving in the bargain. Well written and written at an appropriately general level, McKee's book offers a useful survey of current evolutionary thought. --Gregory McNamee
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Ever since our early ancestors first stood up on their two feet, taking on an unusual stance with a peculiar gait, natural selection has guided the process of human evolution toward the species we are today. But the evolutionary road to "Homo sapiens" was not easy; indeed, there was no road to follow. There was just a dim patch cut out by the contingencies of chance, coincidence and chaos. Could chance really have played an important role in the evolution of such a sophisticated, sentient being? It is undoubtedly so! From the source of the very genes that construct our bodies to the origin of our species, chance was not only operating - it was absolutely necessary for the evolutionary process. Likewise, biological and environmental coincidences shaped our bodies and pushed our ancestors in odd directions along the dim path, leaving us to deal with opportunities as well as hindrances. Each step led directly to another. Had any link in the evolutionary chain of events been slightly different, then our species would not be as it is today ...or our ancestors may not have survived at all. Dependence on such subtle contingencies is the signature of chaos. Anthropologist Jeffrey McKee portrays a story of research on the cutting edge of both paleontology and evolutionary theory. His book delves into the excitement and frustrations of excavations at the world-renowned fossil sites of Taung and Makapansgat, two South African site that provide key evidence elucidating the initial conditions of human origins. Using a concoction of evidence ranging from fossil excavations to computer simulations McKee then lays the foundations for our scientific debates. Probing the depths of research with a variety of perspectives, the author demonstrates how the chain of human evolution was riddled with chance, coincidence and chaos. The book projects the author's personal feeling of wonder and sense of humour in order to make the new scientific revolution accessible to the general reader, while being firmly grounded with hard-hitting research so as to be of importance to the scientific community. "The Riddled Chain" then concludes with a thought-provoking assessment of the implications of the latest evolutionary research for the present and future conditions of humankind.
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