Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
List Price:
Our Price: $25.05
You Save: $14.90 (37%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Editor: Michael RuseEditor: Joseph Travis
Foreword: Edward O. Wilson
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-28
ISBN: 067403175X
Number of pages: 1008
Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Book Reviews of Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
Book Review: Disappointing hodgepodge
Summary: 2 Stars
This book begins with a collection of essays, some of which are quite interesting, though they don't "hang together" too well. The Alphabetical Guide, which comprises about 60% of the book, is where the real disappointment begins. The Guide isn't indexed and so you must literally look at every page to see what topics are discussed. I'm not sure who wrote the essays in the Alphabetical Guide, most aren't credited to anyone, and are too general to be of much use. The book's dust jacket is misleading because it shows pictures of dinosaurs when the book contains very little information about dinosaurs and the scant four page discussion in the Alphabetical Guide portion of the book is worthless. And, of course, there is little discussion of individual dinosaur species. Similarly, the three pages about Charles Darwin is also shallow. One could mine more interesting information about Darwin after five minutes of Googling than is provided here; there are no insights--nothing special. Since the early 1990's, it has been all but unanimously accepted that the K-T extinction was caused by a boloid. This was due to the rigorous research done worldwide by many scientists verifying the hypothesis proposed by the geologist Walter Alvarez and his father Luis, the Nobel prize winning physicist. Yet, this important discovery and the fascinating story behind it gets little more than a page. An understanding of geology and global warming and cooling periods is crucial to an understanding of evolution, yet there is no focused discussion of these topics. With the bold title "The First Four Billion Years", I would expect an expansive treatment of all of the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic periods and the current understanding of the life forms that evolved during them. Instead, the book uses a vast number of pages giving us the condensed biographies of Goldschmidt, Goethe, Galton, Frisch, Kettlewell, Kimura and dozens of other dead geneticists, biologists, physicians, philosophers and others who, though they played some role in the evolution of our understanding of evolution, take up too much space in a book that I would have preferred to be more about science than about people. All in all, this book would make a good bathroom reader if it were published as a paperback.
If this book is ever revised then I would recommend the following changes:
* additional essays on the topics that I suggested above and others
* gut some of the filler, e.g. the biographies
* index and summarize the Alphabetical Guide after getting rid of most of it
* add appendices which would include a glossary, good geological and evolutionary timelines, trees of life, location of continental masses through the eons and perhaps other reference material not included in the essays
* index all important charts, tables, drawings
* use color, if only sparingly; I realize that this is a bargain-priced book but it should take a few steps up from the basement
Summary of Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
Spanning evolutionary science from its inception to its latest findings, from discoveries and data to philosophy and history, this book is the most complete, authoritative, and inviting one-volume introduction to evolutionary biology available. Clear, informative, and comprehensive in scope, Evolution opens with a series of major essays dealing with the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology, with major empirical and theoretical questions in the science, from speciation to adaptation, from paleontology to evolutionary development (evo devo), and concluding with essays on the social and political significance of evolutionary biology today.
A second encyclopedic section travels the spectrum of topics in evolution with concise, informative, and accessible entries on individuals from ?Aristotle and Linneaus to Louis Leakey and Jean Lamarck; from T. H. Huxley and E. O. Wilson to Joseph Felsenstein and Motoo Kimura; and on subjects from altruism and amphibians to evolutionary psychology and Piltdown Man to the Scopes trial and social Darwinism. Readers will find the latest word on the history and philosophy of evolution, the nuances of the science itself, and the intricate interplay among evolutionary study, religion, philosophy, and ?society.
Appearing at the beginning of the Darwin Year of 2009-the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species-this volume is a fitting tribute to the science Darwin set in motion.
(20081201)Genetics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Genetics Books
Dynamical Systems with Applications using Mapleby Stephen Lynch
Birkh?user Boston; Published: 2009-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $62.95
Price in other shops:
Cats are not Peas: A Calico History of Geneticsby Laura L. Gould
A K Peters, Ltd.; Published: 2008-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $34.70
Price in other shops:
Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seedsby Claire Hope Cummings
Beacon Press; Published: 2008-03-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Culture of Animal Cells: A Manual of Basic Techniqueby R. Ian Freshney
Wiley-Liss; Published: 2005-07-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.80
Price in other shops:
From DNA to Diversityby Sean B. Carroll
San Val; Published: 2004-09-15; School & Library Binding; Book
Price in other shops:
Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planetby Denise Caruso
The Hybrid Vigor Institute; Published: 2006-11-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.59
Price in other shops:
Genomesby T.A. Brown
Garland Science; Published: 1999-06-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.99
Price in other shops:
The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the Worldby James Shreeve
Ballantine Books; Published: 2005-06-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.51
Price in other shops:
Forensic DNA Typing, Second Edition: Biology, Technology, and Genetics of STR Markersby John M. Butler
Academic Press; Published: 2005-03-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $60.00
Price in other shops:
Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Developmentby Toby Freedman
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; Published: 2009-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $35.10
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Speciesby Charles Darwin
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Published: 2009-05-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.20
Price in other shops:
The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolutionby Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending
Basic Books; Published: 2009-01-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.79
Price in other shops:
Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaningby Christian de Duve
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2002-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.79
Price in other shops:
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolutionby Nick Lane
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-06-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Darwin's Universe: Evolution from A to Zby Richard Milner
University of California Press; Published: 2009-07-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.25
Price in other shops:
Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Speciesby Dr. Sean B. Carroll
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2009-02-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.29
Price in other shops:
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societiesby Bert H?lldobler, E. O. Wilson
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2008-11-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $32.30
Price in other shops:
Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolutionby Adrian Desmond, James Moore
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2009-01-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.66
Price in other shops:
The Cambridge Companion to the 'Origin of Species' (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)Cambridge University Press; Published: 2008-11-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.99
Price in other shops:
Why Evolution Is Trueby Jerry A. Coyne
Viking Adult; Published: 2009-01-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.18
Price in other shops: