Just what is this thing called "the theory of evolution," anyway? I've found that there are more misconceptions about what Darwin's theory is, and also what it isn't, than about any other single subject in all of science, except perhaps for quantum mechanics. I've also found that when it's explained properly, evolutionary theory is very, very easy to understand.
The core of evolutionary theory today remains the same elegantly simple concept that Charles Darwin laid out in ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES in 1859: variation and selection leading to descent with modification. However, an enormous amount of progress has been made in understanding the underlying details of the theory: where the variations come from, how they're passed on from parent to offspring, and the intricacies of how selection works in the lab and in the wild. Genetics, inheritance, mutation, DNA, ecology, population dynamics -- all these are new since Darwin, and much of it has been discovered in only the last few years. I have a number of books that help explain evolutionary theory in terms that nonscientists can understand. These deal with what the theory really says, not the oversimplified junk in many public school textbooks or the deliberately twisted caricatures used by anti-evolutionists to attack the theory.
| Introduction to Evolution | Books by Richard Dawkins | Books by Stephen Jay Gould | Books by other authors |
A Basic Introduction to Evolutionary Theory
I'm hoping that at least a few of you who read this will be interested in learning more about what the theory really says, so I decided to lead off this page with a listing of four books that together form a very good introduction to evolutionary theory, suitable for just about anyone whether they have any knowledge of biology or not.
THE BEAK OF THE FINCH
Weiner, Jonathan
c.1994, Vintage Books
ISBN: 0-679-73337-X
This is a comprehensive study of the evolutionary process in action. Weiner focuses primarily on the work done by Peter and Rosemary Grant and their International Finch Unit among the finches of the Galapagos Islands. However, he also weaves in experiments on guppies and other evolutionary changes, such as insects developing resistance to insecticide and bacteria developing immunity to antibiotics. This book illustrates how the evolutionary process actually works day to day, year to year, on a scale that we can see and track and analyze. I don't have anything better for understanding evolution on the everyday scale.
BLUEPRINTS: SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF EVOLUTION
Maitland Edey & Don Johanson
c.1989, Penguin Books
ISBN: 0-14-013265-1
This is an overview of the history and development of evolutionary theory, from Linnaeus through Darwin, then up through the development of Mendelian genetics, to today. It ends with a look at ideas on hominid evolution circa 1988. This nicely complements THE BEAK OF THE FINCH; where that book talks about the day to day process, BLUEPRINTS talks about the process on a larger and more abstract scale. It's very unfortunate that this book is currently out of print.
DARWINISM DEFENDED*
Ruse, Michael
c.1982, Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0-201-06273-9
A strong and comprehensive defense of modern evolutionary theory, dealing mostly with the theoretical level but including a number of good concrete examples.
FROM SO SIMPLE A BEGINNING*
Whitfield, Stephen
c.1993, MacMillan Publishing
ISBN: 0-02-038304-5
This is a richly illustrated overview of the amazing diversity of life both modern and past, and how evolutionary theory can explain it. Whitfield reviews many types of adaptations, from bat sonar to stylized fighting rituals in deer, and shows how each can be explained within the context of evolutionary theory.
Richard Dawkins is a famous (some might say infamous) defender of evolutionary theory against its critics. He's written a number of books about evolution. His writing can be a bit repetitive, and he often lets personal opinions color his arguments, but on the whole his books can be good reads. And he definitely gives a view of the evolutionary process that you won't find anywhere else.
THE BLIND WATCHMAKER
Dawkins, Richard
c.1987, W. W. Norton
ISBN: 0-393-30448-5
Dawkins's first book on evolutionary theory. The title comes from the Reverend William Paley's famous Watchmaker Argument for proving the existence of God. Dawkins argues that the "blind watchmaker" of the evolutionary process can account for life's history perfectly well without invoking an intelligent watchmaker.
CLIMBING MOUNT IMPROBABLE
Dawkins, Richard
c.1996, W. W. Norton
ISBN: 0-393-31682-3
RIVER OUT OF EDEN
Dawkins, Richard
c.1995, BasicBooks
ISBN: 0-465-01606-5
THE SELFISH GENE
Dawkins, Richard
c.1989, Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0-19-286092-5
Dawkins's third book on evolutionary theory, focusing on his idea that genes, not individuals, are the vital agents of selection.
Stephen Jay Gould was a very well-known paleontologist from Harvard University. Until his untimely death in 2002, he was also a prolific writer on the subject of science, especially evolutionary science. From 1973 to 2000 he wrote a monthly column titled "This View of Life" in NATURAL HISTORY, the magazine of the American Museum of Natural History and one of the best magazines about nature currently published. He ended the series in December 2000, with the end of the Millennium. Gould usually talked about one or another aspect of evolutionary theory in his monthly column, but over the years his topics ranged from horses with extra hooves to Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak. A large number of his monthly columns have been collected into a series of books. Nine of these are now in print, with one more to come:
- EVER SINCE DARWIN (published in 1977)
- THE PANDA'S THUMB (1980)
- HEN'S TEETH AND HORSE'S TOES (1983)
- THE FLAMINGO'S SMILE (1985)
- BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS (1991)
- EIGHT LITTLE PIGGIES (1993)
- DINOSAUR IN A HAYSTACK (1995)
- LEONARDO'S MOUNTAIN OF CLAMS AND THE DIET OF WORMS (1998)
- THE LYING STONES OF MARRAKECH (2000)
Put together, the essays in these books provide a remarkably good and wide-ranging look at natural history, biology, and the reach of evolutionary theory. They also give a picture of Gould responding to new discoveries as they happened, such as the hominid "Lucy," the oldest known microfossils, and the fossil proto-whales of Pakistan. Gould is often opinionated and occasionally irritable; some of his essays were annoying, some uninteresting, but a great many were both informative and great fun to read. I think the quality of the columns deteriorated over the last couple of years as he more or less ran out of good ideas, but even in the last book you can find some real gems.
I have a number of other books that also try to describe evolutionary theory.
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Futuyma, Douglas J.
c.1979, Sinauer Associates
ISBN: 0-87893-199-6
An older edition of Futuyma's classic undergraduate text on the basics of evolutionary biology. (The book link goes to the current, third edition.) It's a textbook and it reads like a textbook, and has the price tag of a textbook too. Not recommended for the casual reader, but if you want to know what biologists mean when they talk about evolutionary theory, this is a very good place to look.
ONE LONG ARGUMENT
Mayr, Ernst
c.1991, Harvard Univ. Press
ISBN: 0-674-63906-5
An eloquent explanation and defense of Darwin's theory, by one of the grand old men of American biology.
THE NEW EVOLUTIONARY TIMETABLE*
Stanley, Steven
c.1981, Basic Books
ISBN: 0-465-05013-1
An introduction to Stanley's ideas on evolution. Stanley is from the same school of thought as Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, and strongly pushes a punctuated-equilibrium model of evolution.
UNDERSTANDING EVOLUTION, 5th EDITION
Volpe, E. Peter
c.1985, Wm. C. Brown
ISBN: 0-697-04944-2
