Why Evolution Is True

Why Evolution Is True

Jerry A. Coyne

Language: English

Pages: 304

ISBN: 0143116649

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


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

In the current debate about creationism and intelligent design, there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned-the evidence. Yet the proof of evolution by natural selection is vast, varied, and magnificent. In this succinct and accessible summary of the facts supporting the theory of natural selection, Jerry A. Coyne dispels common misunderstandings and fears about evolution and clearly confirms the scientific truth that supports this amazing process of change. Weaving together the many threads of modern work in genetics, paleontology, geology, molecular biology, and anatomy that demonstrate the "indelible stamp" of the processes first proposed by Darwin, Why Evolution Is True does not aim to prove creationism wrong. Rather, by using irrefutable evidence, it sets out to prove evolution right.

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the socially enforced monogamy that prevails in many societies). Males are larger and stronger than females and have higher levels of testosterone, a hormone associated with aggression. In societies where reproductive success has been measured, its variation among males is invariably higher than among females. Statistical surveys of personal ads in newspapers—granted, not the most rigorous form of scientific investigation—have shown that while men search for younger women with bodies

highly readable description of how our ancestry has affected the human body. Writ- ten by one of the discoverers of the transitional “fishapod” Tiktaalik roseae. , . . At the Water’s Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea. Free Press, New York. One of our premier science journalists describes two major transitions in vertebrate evolution: the evolution of terrestrial animals from fish, and the evolution of whales from hoofed

terrestrial mammals, is about as aquatic as a land mammal can get. (There are two species, the pygmy hippo and the “regular” hippo, whose scientific name is, appropriately, Hippopotamus amphibius.) Hip- pos spend most of their time submerged in tropical rivers and swamps, surveying their domain with eyes, noses, and ears that sit atop their head, all of which can be tightly closed underwater. Hippos mate in the water, and their babies, who can swim before they can walk, are born and suckle

recent genetic work has shown that we carry exactly the same genes that make tails in animals like mice, but these genes are normally deactivated in human fetuses. Tails appear to be true atavisms. Some atavisms can be produced in the laboratory. The most amazing of these is that paragon of rarity, hen’s teeth. In , E. J. Kollar and C. Fisher at the University of Connecticut combined the tissues of two species, grafting the tissue lining the mouth of a chicken embryo on top of tissue

easy to understand, if you are looking only at museum skins, how male and female peacocks could be classified this way. There is also the problem of variation within an interbreeding group. Humans, for example, could be classified into a few discrete groups based on eye color: those with blue eyes, brown eyes, and green eyes. These are almost unambiguously different, so why don’t we consider them dif- ferent species? The same goes for populations that look different in different places.

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