Robin Dunbar - Evolution: What Everyone Needs to Know

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dunbar, R. I. M. (Robin Ian MacDonald), 1947author.

Title: Evolution : what everyone needs to know / Robin Dunbar.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020] |

Series: What everyone needs to know |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019042379 (print) | LCCN 2019042380 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190922894 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190922887 (paperback) |

ISBN 9780190922917 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Evolution (Biology) | Evolution.

Classification: LCC QH366.2. D857 2020 (print) |

LCC QH366.2 (ebook) | DDC 576.8dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042379

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042380

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Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America

Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America

In the last paragraph of his book On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin referred to life on earth as an entangled banka collection of different species whose lives are complexly intertwined, sometimes competing, sometimes interdependent, sometimes cooperating. Of course, not that long ago, the tangled bank of nature was a great deal richer in its plants and wildlife than it is nowthanks mainly to what we have done to it in a frighteningly short span of time. But thats another story. For now, the more important point is that our planet is still amazingly rich, teeming with life forms that exist in some remarkably complex relationships, both with one another and with the physical planet itself. It might even be the richest planet in the universe, or at least so we often like to think. But even if there are other planets elsewhere that are just as rich, or even richer, the very fact that it is as rich as it is should excite our curiosity and demand an explanation. How on earth did it come to be like this?

After two centuries of intensive scientific effort, we now have the luxury of a theory that provides a general explanation for that richness, often in quite considerable detail. That theory, Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection, is famous for two reasons. One is that it is the second most successful theory in the history of science (after quantum theory in physics) in terms of its ability both to explain what we see in the natural world and to stimulate new ideas and research that have uncovered rich seams of novel findings. The second has been its ability, as a theory, to provide a unifying framework for a disparate array of disciplines that do not always see themselves as natural allies. That array includes not just the various life sciences (ecology, genetics, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and animal behavior), but also hard sciences like chemistry, the softer sciences like medicine, sociology, anthropology, and economics, and even the humanities. History, linguistics, and literature all fall under the purview of evolutionary theory.

At the same time, the theory of evolution is perhaps the most widely misunderstood theory in the whole of scienceironically, it is sometimes misunderstood even by other scientists as much as by laypeople. Of course, the theory we have now is not just Darwins original theory. That theory has been much developed and extended, to the point where Darwin himself would not recognize large parts of the modern theory as his ownthough he might well be intrigued and impressed by it. Nonetheless, everything in the modern theory derives from Darwins original insights.

My own interest in evolution stems from an unusually early introduction. When I was aged about eleven and living in Africa, my grandmother in California (a retired surgeon with a deep interest in the natural world, but equally deep religious views) used to send me the Audubon Societys sticker books for children. I confess that my eyes tended to glaze over with the ones on the desert plants of the American Southwest or the natural wonders of the world. But I found the one on evolution especially captivating, not least because it dealt with the whole of our planets history, with sections on the dinosaurs as well as human evolution. I have no doubt that this small evolutionary moment of grandparental solicitude probably did more than anything else to encourage me to become interested many years later in both human evolution and wildlife biology, and, in due course, to be willing to spend many hours watching animals, as well as humans, in the wild. The combination of the pleasure that derives from watching other species at their everyday work and the curiosity to ask why and how they come to be as they are and do what they do are both rewards in themselves and the principal drivers of curious inquiry.

Although the theory of evolution itself is elegantly simplesomething that all theories in science aspire to beapplying it in a multidimensional substrate like the biological world results in the generation of extraordinary complexity rather as the ripples on a pond spread beyond the point where the stone lands. This is a consequence of the fact that evolutionary processes are embedded in the physics and chemistry of the planet and the ways these interact with physiological and cellular processes, as well as with the cognitive and behavioral machinery that is made possible by the evolution of large brains. I like to think that evolutionary biologists sit in front of an enormous jigsaw puzzle, whose myriad bits at first seem chaotic and completely unrelated to each other. But, as the picture is gradually assembled, something emerges that is both coherent and magical in the way the pieces slot into place. The best science is always about that I would never have thought that response as the mists of our confusion clear and all is revealed.

This book does not particularly seek to justify the theory of evolution, or prove that it is true. I take that largely as read. In any case, there are plenty of books that do that already, not least among them Jerry Coynes recent volume Why Evolution Is True. Instead, I want to take a much broader view than most books on evolution would take. I want to show that if we keep asking But