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Donald R. Prothero - The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries : The Evidence and the People Who Found It

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Book:
The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries : The Evidence and the People Who Found It
Author:
Donald R Prothero
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Genre:
Books / Religion
Year:
2020
City:
New York
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The theory of evolution unites the past, present, and future of living things. It puts humanitys place in the universe into necessary perspective. Despite a history of controversy, the evidence for evolution continues to accumulate as a result of many separate strands of incredible scientific sleuthing.In The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries, Donald R. Prothero explores the most fascinating breakthroughs in piecing together the evidence for evolution. In twenty-five vignettes, he recounts the dramatic stories of the people who made crucial discoveries, placing each moment in the context of what it represented for the progress of science. He tackles topics like what it means to see evolution in action and the distance between species in space and time, following figures from Darwin to lesser-known researchers as they unlock the mysteries of the fossil record, the earth, and the universe. The book also features the stories of animal species strange and familiar, including humansand our ties to some of our closest relatives and more distant cousins. Protheros wide-ranging tales showcase awe-inspiring and bizarre aspects of nature and the powerful insights they give us into the way that life works. Brisk and entertaining while firmly grounded in fundamental science, The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries is a captivating read for anyone curious about the evidence for evolution and what it means for humanity.

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Table of Contents

THE STORY OF EVOLUTION IN 25 DISCOVERIES

THE EVIDENCE AND THE PEOPLE
WHO FOUND IT

DONALD R. PROTHERO

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries The Evidence and the People Who Found It - image 4

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

E-ISBN 978-0-231-54885-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Prothero, Donald R., author.

Title: The story of evolution in 25 discoveries: the evidence and the people who found it / Donald R. Prothero.

Description: New York: Columbia University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020013001 (print) | LCCN 2020013002 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231190367 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231548854 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: EvolutionResearch. | EvolutionHistory.

Classification: LCC QH362 .P76 2020 (print) | LCC QH362 (ebook) | DDC 576.8072dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013001

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013002

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .

Cover design: Elliott S. Cairns

Cover illustration: Trudy Nicholson

Frontispiece: Courtesy of Ray Troll

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND AND MENTOR, STEPHEN JAY GOULD (19412002). HE INSPIRED MY ENTIRE GENERATION OF PALEONTOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGISTS WITH HIS GREAT RESEARCH AND INSIGHTS INTO IMPORTANT TOPICS. HE DID SO MUCH TO EDUCATE THE GENERAL PUBLIC ABOUT THE REALITIES OF EVOLUTION. HE SHOWED THAT NATURAL HISTORY WRITING COULD BE ENGAGING AND EXCITING, AND THAT THE PUBLIC COULD UNDERSTAND COMPLEX IDEAS IF THEY ARE EXPLAINED IN A CLEAR AND ENTERTAINING WAY.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

CHARLES DARWIN, 1859

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

THEODOSIUS DOBZHANSKY, 1973

CONTENTS

Since the publication of my book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (Columbia University Press, 2007; second edition, 2017), the fields of evolutionary biology and paleontology have made many new discoveries. Meanwhile, the evidence for evolution has been piling up and accumulating since publication in 1859 of the revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. Some of that evidence is discussed in my first evolution book, but much of it is new, or mentioned only briefly in that book.

Rather than focusing exclusively on the fossil record and spending a lot of time correcting the lies and myths of the evolution deniers, I thought it would be interesting and useful to focus on individual lines of evidence that led to the discovery of evolution, and the powerful insights they give us into the way that life works. Mara Grunbaums WTF, Evolution: A Theory of Unintelligible Design (2014) and other books have made the point that life is full of bizarre and funny and ugly things that make no sense in a divinely designed universe, showing how clumsy and wasteful nature can be. However, that is basically a picture book full of jokes and one-liners with a hip, irreverent attitude. I want to make the same point in a more serious way, exploring this topic and delving deeper into its meaning.

In addition, I enjoy writing in the format of the three previous books in this series, The Story of Life in 25 Fossils (Columbia University Press, 2015), The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks (Columbia University Press, 2018), and The Story of Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries (Columbia University Press, 2019). Each chapter in this book, as in the previous titles, is a self-contained vignette describing one particular idea, often wrapped in the historical context of how people have thought about this topic. As in the previous books, the science is often framed in terms of the stories of the people who made the discoveries, and the importance of the discovery in the context of science.

The book is organized into five sections. ).

Like Darwin did in 1859, I hope to convince you, the reader, of the reality of evolution by building the case one anomalous fact of nature at a time. Each is clear evidence of evolution, and I hope you will be persuaded of the wonders of evolution just by the sheer overwhelming weight of the evidence. This contrasts with my first evolution book, which was more scholarly and philosophical and dealt directly with creationism and the broader topics around evolution.

So sit down and prepare to explore the wondrous and bizarre aspects of nature that show how it has a history, and how it evolved and changed through time. As the great Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in a 1973 essay, repeating these words in his title, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

I thank my former editor at Columbia University Press, Patrick Fitzgerald, for urging me to write this book and getting the process started, and my current Columbia editor, Miranda Martin, for seeing it to fruition. I thank Julia Kushnirsky and Elliott Cairns at Columbia University Press and Ben Kolstad at Cenveo for their tireless work on producing the book. I thank three anonymous reviewers for their early input on the project, and Pat Shipman and Norman Johnson for reviewing the finished book, or at least some chapters. Finally, I thank my supportive familymy sons Erik, Zachary, and Gabriel, and my amazing wife, Dr. Teresa LeVellefor tolerating my long absences working at the computer while I wrote this book during the summer of 2019.

EVERYTHING EVOLVES,
AND EARTH IS VERY OLD

EVERYTHING EVOLVES
AND CHANGES

Theres nothing constant in the Universe,

All ebb and flow, and every shape thats born

Bears in its womb the seeds of change.

OVID, METAMORPHOSES XV (8 CE)

Everything changes and nothing stands still.

HERACLITUS, CA. 500 BCE, AS QUOTED BY PLATO IN CRATYLUS

Our view of the universe and the solar system has changed dramatically in the past 500 years. Before 1543, almost all humans thought the earth was flat and was at the center of the universe and that the stars were tiny points of light on the dome of the heavens (revealed that Earths moon is covered in craters and is not a perfect celestial sphere. Finally, by discovering that Venus has phases similar to those of Earths moon (quarter Venus, half Venus, etc.), he showed that Venus was moving around the sun in an orbit inside our own orbit. Most important, he confirmed Copernicuss idea that Earth was just another planet orbiting the sun. By the 1670s and 1680s, Isaac Newton had worked out the laws of motion and gravitation, illustrating how the entire system could be explained by basic physics.

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