Contents:
1. Molecular Clocks: Whence and Whither 2. Molecular Clocks and a Biological Trigger for Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth Events and the Cambrian Explosion 3. Phylogenetic Fuses and Evolutionary 'Explosions': Conflicting Evidence and Critical Tests 4. The Quality of the Fossil record 5. Ghost Ranges 6. Episodic Evolution of Nuclear Small Subunit Ribosomal RNA Gene in the Stem-lineage of Foraminifera 7. Dating the Origin of Land Plants 8. Angiosperm Divergence Times: Congruence and Incongruence Between Fossils and Sequence Divergence Estimates 9. The Limitations of the Fossil Record and the Dating of the Origin of the Bilateria 10. The Origin and Early Evolution of Chordates: Molecular Clocks and the Fossil Record 11. Bones, Molecules and Crown-tetrapod Origins 12. The Fossil record and Molecular Clocks: Basal Radiations Within the Neornithes

Owen was the founder of the Natural History Museum, bringing the collections over from the British Museum. Although he was a supporter of evolutionary theory, he was reluctant to accept Darwin's version of evolution. This volume examines fossil evidence for change in species over time.

Moving away from his earlier belief in a short, catastrophic history of the Earth, Buckland's treatise envisages instead and propounds the theory of a course of progressive change that occurred as the Earth gradually cooled and became ready for human occupation. During this time, the creatures that first walked the Earth did not die out because they were poorly designed; God loved the dinosaurs and had adapted them to their various circumstances.

Huxley was one of the first adherents to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and advanced its acceptance by scientists and the public. "Man's Place in Nature" was explicitly directed against Richard Owen, who had claimed that there were distinct differences between human brains and those of apes. Huxley demonstrated that ape and human brains were fundamentally similar in every anatomical detail, thus applying evolution to the human race.

Scientists have developed a featherless chicken designed to make industrial chicken production more efficient, while specially trained Pacific bottlenose dolphins are being deployed in the Persian Gulf to disarm mines and protect our Navy. Everyone knows Darwin's theory of natural selection, but what about his idea of artificial selection-how humans, not nature, rework natural organisms to meet our needs? Industrializing Organisms brings us to the threshold of the new field of evolutionary history-from the mobilization of war horses in the nineteenth century to today's engineered plants and manipulated animals.

Floral morphology is key for understanding floral evolution and plant identification. Floral diagrams are two-dimensional representations of flowers that replace extensive descriptions or elaborate drawings to convey information in a clear and unbiased way. Following the same outline as the first edition, this comprehensive guide includes updated and relevant literature, represents the latest phylogeny, and features 28 new diagrams. Diagrams are presented in the context of the most recent classifications, covering a variety of families and illustrating the floral diversity of major groups of plants. A strong didactic tool for observing and understanding floral structures, these diagrams are the obvious counterpart to any genetic study in flowering plants and to the discussion of major adaptations and evolutionary trends of flowers. This book is invaluable for researchers and students working on plant structure, development and systematics, as well as being an important resource for plant ecologists, evolutionary botanists and horticulturists.

Where did we come from? Where are we going? Homo sapiens is the most successful, the most widespread and the most influential species ever to walk the Earth. In the blink of an evolutionary eye we have spread around the globe, taken control of Earth's biological and mineral resources, transformed the environment, discovered the secrets of the universe and travelled into space. Yet just 7 million years ago, we were just another species of great ape making a quiet living in the forests of East Africa. We do not know exactly what this ancestor was like, but it was no more likely than a chimpanzee or gorilla to sail across the ocean, write a symphony, invent a steam engine or ponder the meaning of existence. How did we get from there to here? Human Origins recounts the most astonishing evolutionary tale ever told. Discover how our ancestors made the first tentative steps towards becoming human, how we lost our fur but gained language, fire and tools, how we strode out of Africa, invented farming and cities and ultimately created modern civilisation - perhaps the only one of its kind in the universe. Meet your long-lost ancestors, the other humans who once shared the planet with us, and learn where the story might end. ABOUT THE SERIES New Scientist Instant Expert books are definitive and accessible entry points to the most important subjects in science; subjects that challenge, attract debate, invite controversy and engage the most enquiring minds. Designed for curious readers who want to know how things work and why, the Instant Expert series explores the topics that really matter and their impact on individuals, society, and the planet, translating the scientific complexities around us into language that's open to everyone, and putting new ideas and discoveries into perspective and context.

Crustaceans, due to the great diversity of their body organization, segmentation patterns, tagmatization, limb types, larval forms, cleavage, and gastrulation modes, are highly desirable for the study of questions at the interface of evolution and development. Modern interest in evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) rests on the molecular genetic approach and a variety of molecular techniques have proven fruitful when performed on crustaceans.
Evolutionary Developmental Biology of Crustacea presents a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the field, beginning with a discussion of the implications of the typological Bauplan and phylum concepts versus historical concepts such as ground pattern and monophylum for the formulation of conceptual questions in evo-devo. Following this, the authors present the results of Hox gene expression in various crustacean taxa, aspects of segment formation at the cellular and genetic levels, the formation of segmental structures such as neurons, ganglia, and limbs, and the role of morphological ontogenetic characters in resolving phylogenetic relationships.
By covering so many general aspects of crustacean development, morphology, and evolution, Evolutionary Developmental Biology of Crustacea serves as an indispensable reference for developmental and evolutionary biologists investigating the role of genetics in evolution and development.

There is a revolution underway in biology. It is based on a new perception of bodies and genes, in which the former are the end product of the latter within the continuum of evolution. Twenty five years after Richard Dawkins helped revolutionize our thinking about "selfish genes," it is time to re-evaluate. "Revolutionary Biology" explains in simple, vivid terms what this exciting approach has to offer, and then applies its stunning insights to human beings. This novel perspective, galvanizes our understanding of how evolution works, what living things are all about and, not least what it means to be human. The controversial disciplines of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have generated startling insights into longstanding questions concerning the nature and purpose of families, altruism vs. selfishness, and free will vs. biological determinism. Written by one of its foremost figures, "Revolutionary Biology" is a manifesto and educated layman's guide to this ongoing revolution.

Barash's purpose is to demystify the basic concepts of the genetic revolution and take the reader on a tour--accessible and authoritative--of the principles that underlie this fascinating turn in scientific thought. Much has been written about evolution, animals, and the animal and evolutionary origins of human behavior, yet only recently have biologists begun to appreciate these connections. The key concept is that genes--not species, not groups, and not even individuals--are the apple of evolution's eye. The result has been a major biological paradigm shift that is making itself felt in the social sciences as well. Barash explores the phenomenon of altruism both at the animal level, and the human level.

Barash draws not only on a wealth of biological evidence but on literature, philosophy, and the familiar details of everyday life to communicate the essentials of this increasingly influential approach to the study of the human species. Clearly and engagingly written, "Revolutionary Biology" will be fascinating reading for those seeking an entry into this new science.

"Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology"traces the interaction of evolutionary thought and anthropological theory from Herbert Spencer to the twenty-first century. It is a focused examination of how the idea of evolution has continued to provide anthropology with a master principle around which a vast body of data can be organized and synthesized. Erudite and readable, and quoting extensively from early theorists (such as Edward Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, John McLennan, Henry Maine, and James Frazer) so that the reader might judge them on the basis of their own words, "Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology" is useful reading for courses in anthropological theory and the history of anthropology.

This latest volume continues the series' focus on critical reviews, commentaries, original papers, and controversies in the field of evolutionary biology.

Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin reveals the ways in which the major themes of evolution were taken up in the performing arts during Darwin's adult lifetime and in the generation after his death.
The period 1830-1900 was the formative period for evolutionary ideas. While scientists and theorists investigated the law and order of nature, show business was more concerned with what was out of the natural order. Missing links and throwbacks, freak taxonomies and exotic races were favourite subject matter for the burgeoning variety theatre movement. Focusing on popular theatre forms in London, New York and Paris, Jane Goodall shows how they were interwoven with the developing debate about human evolution.
With this book, Goodall contributes an important new angle to the debates surrounding the history of evolution. She reveals that, far from creating widespread culture shock, Darwinian theory tapped into some of the long-standing themes of popular performance and was a source for diverse and sometimes hilarious explorations.

Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of "intelligent design" creationism. They examine the movement's "Wedge Strategy," which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of "intelligent design theory," they highlight its threat to public education and to the separation of church and state.

Appropriate as a textbook for graduate courses, "The Evolution and Function of Cognition" provides a systematic and progressively inclusive integration of the facts and principles of cognitive psychology. It includes contributions of information processing and reaction, and emphasizes historical continuity. In addition, the book shows how evolutionary psychology fits in with the mainstream of thought in psychological theory.
"The Evolution and Function of Cognition" will benefit scholars and researchers interested in the general topics of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.

Covering diverse species from garter snakes to Komodo dragons, this book delves into the evolutionary origins and fascinating details of the mysterious social lives of reptiles. Reptiles have been too often dismissed as dull animals with tiny brains and simple, "asocial" lives. In reality, reptiles engage in a remarkable diversity of complex social behavior. They can live in families; communicate with one another while still in the egg; and hunt, feed, migrate, court, mate, nest, and hatch in groups. In The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles, J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, and Gordon M. Burghardt-three of the world's leading experts on reptiles-bring together a wave of new research with a synthesis of classic studies to produce the only authoritative look at the social behaviors of the most provocative animals on the planet. The book covers turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodilians, and the enigmatic tuatara. Enhanced with dozens of images, it takes readers through a myriad of social interactions, tendencies, and intimacies ranging from fierce territorial battles to delicate paternal care and from promiscuous pairings to monogamous partnerships. This unique text * explains why reptiles have been neglected as subjects of social behavior studies; * provides numerous examples across all major reptilian groups that overturn the false paradigm of "solitary" reptiles; * explores the sensory, genetic, physiological, life history, and other factors underlying social behavior in reptiles; * presents the case that evolutionary "experiments" found among reptiles offer unparalleled opportunities for understanding how and why social behavior evolves in animals; and * identifies new and developing areas of research helping to reshape our view of reptiles. Revealing the secrets of reptilian social relationships through original quantitative research, field studies, laboratory experiments, and careful analysis of the literature, The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles elevates these fascinating animals to key players in the science of behavioral ecology.

Here is a book for everyone who has an interest in how our planet works, what has happened during its 4,550 million year history and what might happen in the future. It tells how Earth scientists study the pattern of events that have shaped the planet and guided the evolution of life on Earth. In clear and simple language it describes how the effects of these events are measured and the careful detective work needed to unravel the extraordinary complexity of Earth history. The latest advances in dating methods, including the detection of regular patterns of global climate change, are explained and illustrated with real case histories. Our environment is unexpectedly unstable.
Dramatic and catastrophic changes in the environment have directed the evolution of life and the rise of Man, and we can expect similar events in the future. If we are to control their effects, we will have to understand what to expect - and what could happen if we try to intervene in the 'natural' development of our home, the Earth.

The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life.

The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinism in the philosophy of science and its usefulness in understanding ecosystems, whilst the third section deals with its application in disciplines beyond the biological sciences, including evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, Darwinian morality and phylolinguistics. The final section addresses anti-Darwinism, the creationist view and issues around teaching evolution in secondary schools.

The reader learns how current experimental biology is opening important perspectives on the sources of variation, and thus of the very power of natural selection. This work examines numerous examples of the extension of the principle of natural selection and provides the opportunity to critically reflect on a rich theory, on the methodological rigour that presides in its extensions and exportations, and on the necessity to measure its advantages and also its limits.

Scholars interested in modern Darwinism and scientific research, its concepts, research programs and controversies will find this book an excellent read, and those considering how Darwinism might evolve, how it can apply to the human sciences and other disciplines beyond its origins will find it particularly valuable.

Originally produced in French (Les Mondes Darwiniens), the scope and usefulness of the book have led to the production of this English text, to reach a wider audience.

"This book is a milestone in the impressive penetration by Francophone scholars into the world of Darwinian science, its historiography and philosophy over the last two decades."

Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University

"Until now this useful and comprehensive handbook has only been available to francophones. Thanks to this invaluable new translation, this collection of insightful and original essays can reach the global audience it deserves."

Tim Lewens, University of Cambridge"

This monograph presents the results of over 10 years of paleontological and geological survey in the Baynunah Formation of the United Arab Emirates. Exposed widely in western Abu Dhabi Emirate, the Baynunah Formation and its fossils provide the only record of terrestrial environments and evolution in the Arabian Peninsula during the late Miocene epoch (12-5 Ma). This volume describes new fossils collected since 2002, presented systematically by taxon, and including mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates, as well as fossil trackways. The discoveries are framed within the results of new geological, geochemical, and geochrononological analyses, providing an updated and synthetic view of the age, environments, and biogeographic relationships of this important fossil assemblage.

More often than not, when people think of a neotropical forest, what comes to mind is a rain forest, rather than a dry forest. Just as typically, when they imagine a savanna, they visualize the African plains, rather than those dry woodlands and grasslands found in the Neotropics. These same preconceptions can be found among scientists, as these neotropical biomes receive nowhere near the attention they should - in terms of both research and conservation -considering the amount of land they encompass and the diversity of vegetation they contain. Neotropical Savannas and Dry Forests: Plant Diversity, Biogeography, and Conservation provides an engaging synthesis of information on the plant diversity and geography, as well as the conservation status, of these species-rich areas. This impressive compilation is the result of a plant diversity symposium that took place during an international conference on tropical savannas and seasonally dry forests held in 2003. Fifty leading scientists, representing a variety of disciplines have contributed to the chapters of this book in an effort to address three questions: What are the patterns of diversity, species-richness and endemism of the floras of neotropical seasonally dry forest and savannas? How and why did this endemism and diversity arise? Are these ecosystems adequately protected and, if not, which areas should be elevated into priorities for conservation, and how can this be best achieved? This work is the first extensive compilation of the patterns of plant biodiversity in these neotropical ecosystems. The overview also provides a summary of what is known of their evolutionary history, including an examination of the links to the development of analogous vegetation in Africa. In contrast to previously published titles that emphasize ecology and physiology, this work focuses on plant biodiversity and reviews molecular phylogenetic and molecular population genetic approache

What are the genomic signatures of adaptations in DNA? How often does natural selection dictate changes to DNA? How does the ebb and flow in the abundance of individuals over time get marked onto chromosomes to record genetic history? Molecular population genetics seeks to answer such questions by explaining genetic variation and molecular evolution from micro-evolutionary principles. It provides a way to learn about how evolution works and how it shapes species by incorporating molecular details of DNA as the heritable material. It enables us to understand the logic of how mutations originate, change in abundance in populations, and become fixed as DNA sequence divergence between species. With the revolutionary advances in genomic data acquisition, understanding molecular population genetics is now a fundamental requirement for today's life scientists. These concepts apply in analysis of personal genomics, genome-wide association studies, landscape and conservation genetics, forensics, molecular anthropology, and selection scans. This book introduces, in an accessible way, the bare essentials of the theory and practice of molecular population genetics.

This seven-volume series is the most extensive treatise on early life histories of the freshwater fishes of North America. It represents the state-of-the-art in fishery biology and provides a systematic approach to the study of early life histories of all the fishes in this region. Each volume contains distinguishing characteristics and a pictorial guide to the families of fishes in the OR Drainage, followed by chapters on the families. This series fills a gap in the literature, providing information on the spawning habitat requirements, reproductive behavior, and ecological relationships during the first few months of life for most species. This fifth volume examines the families aphredoderidae through sciaenidae.

Crisis in Sociology presents a compelling portrait of sociology's current troubles and proposes a controversial remedy. In the authors' view, sociology's crisis has deep roots, traceable to the over-ambitious sweep of the discipline's founders. Generations of sociologists have failed to focus effectively on the tasks necessary to build a social science. The authors see sociology's most disabling flaw in the failure to discover even a single general law or principle. This makes it impossible to systematically organize empirical observations, guide inquiry by suggesting falsifiable hypotheses, or form the core of a genuinely cumulative body of knowledge.

Absent such a theoretical tool, sociology can aspire to little more than an amorphous mass of hunches and disconnected facts. The condition engenders confusion and unproductive debate. It invites fragmentation and predation by applied social disciplines, such as business administration, criminal justice, social work, and urban studies. Even more dangerous are incursions by prestigious social sciences and by branches of evolutionary biology that constitute the frontier of the current revolution in behavioral science. Lopreato and Crippen argue that unless sociology takes into account central developments in evolutionary science, it will not survive as an academic discipline.

Crisis in Sociology argues that participation in the "new social science," exemplified by thriving new fields such as evolutionary psychology, will help to build a vigorous, scientific sociology. The authors analyze research on such subjects as sex roles, social stratification, and ethnic conflict, showing how otherwise disconnected features of the sociological landscape can in fact contribute to a theoretically coherent and cumulative body of knowledge.

Where do we come from? Where are we going? These are fundamental questions, which the human race has asked itself for centuries.
Presenting a brief and accessible overview of contemporary scientific thought, Creation is an imaginative and poetic exploration of the origins of the universe. WIllem Drees assesses the religious and philosophical impact of scientific theories of evolution and the natural world, and examines the changing relationship between us and our planet.

As a review of the status of biogeography in the West Indies in the 1980s, the first edition of Biogeography of the West Indies: Past, Present, and Future provided a synthesis of our current knowledge of the systematics and distribution of major plant and animal groups in the Caribbean basin. The totally new and revised Second Edition, Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives, emphasizes recent ideas and hypotheses in the field and includes many new chapters and contributions. The authors use the broadest possible interpretations of the concepts of biogeography, consider anthropological and geological factors, and discuss the conservation of endemic species. Drawing together contributions from the leading experts in biogeography and biodiversity, this book introduces new patterns and developments that add to our understanding of how plants and animals are dispersed throughout the region. Many contributions use new techniques such as molecular systematics to test older studies based strictly on morphological data. Unique in its inclusion of a wide variety of organisms and in its coordination of scientific data and conservation strategies, Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives, Second Edition provides the only encyclopedic discussion available on the biogeography of the Antilles.

This work is intended to portray the interrelationship of heredity, individual development, and the evolution of species in a way that can be understood by nonspecialists. In striving to offer a straightforward historical exposition of the complex topic of nature and nurture, the author tells the story through a central cast of characters beginning with Lamarck in 1809 and ending with a synthesis of his own that depicts how extragenetic behavioral changes in individual development could be the first stages in the pathway leading to evolutionary change. On the way to that goal, he describes relevant conceptual aspects of genetics, embryological development, and evolutionary biology in a nontechnical and accurate way for students and colleagues in the behavioral and social sciences. The book presents a highly selected review as a prelude to the description of a developmental theory of the phenotype in which behavioral change leads eventually to evolutionary change.
This book grew out of an invited interdisciplinary course of lectures for advanced undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Presenting the various ways about thinking about heredity, individual development, and evolution, the author had three goals in mind:
*to establish the relevance of individual development to the evolution of species;
*to describe the most appropriate way to think about or conceptualize heredity in relation to individual development;
*to show that this somewhat unorthodox manner of conceptualizing heredity and individual development gives rise to a new way to think about the behavioral pathway leading to evolution.
In conclusion, the present work will provide a contribution toward the possible dissolution of the nature-nurture dichotomy, as well as a contribution to evolutionary theory.