What separates modern humans from our primate cousins--are we a mere blink in the march of evolution, or does human culture represent the definitive evolutionary turn? Dwight Read explores the dilemma in this engaging, thought-provoking book, taking readers through an evolutionary odyssey from our primate beginnings through the development of culture and social organization. He assesses the two major trends in this field: one that sees us as a logical culmination of primate evolution, arguing that the rudiments of culture exist in primates and even magpies, and another that views the human transition as so radical that the primate model provides no foundation for understanding human dynamics. Expertly synthesizing a wide body of evidence from the anthropological and life sciences in accessible prose, Read's book will interest a broad readership from experts to undergraduate students and the general public.

"Absoliutno blagopoluchnoe ozero Baikal!" the Russian scientist looking out over the great lake says. "Lake Baikal is Perfect!" And humans can never harm it.
For a man cut loose from his life in the U.S., Lake Baikal-Siberia's sacred inland sea-becomes a place of pilgrimage, the focal point of a 25,000-mile journey by land and sea in search of connection, permanence, restoration and hope.
Following a difficult divorce, veteran environmental journalist Peter Thomson sets off from Boston with his younger brother for one of nature's most remarkable creations, in one of the farthest corners of the planet. Lake Baikal, a gargantuan crack in the Siberian plateau, is the world's largest body of fresh water, its deepest and oldest lake, and a cauldron of evolution, home to hundreds of unique creatures, including the world's only freshwater seal. It's also among the most pristine lakes on earth, with a mythical ability to protect itself from the growing human impact-a "perfect," self-cleansing ecosystem.
A trip halfway around the world by train, cargo ship and rubber raft brings the brothers to a place of sublime beauty, deep history and immense natural power. But at Baikal they also find ominous signs that this perfect piece of nature could yet succumb to the even more powerful forces of human hubris, carelessness and ignorance. They find that despite its isolation, Baikal is connected to everything else on Earth, and that it will need the love and devotion of people around the world to protect it.
On their trek to and from Siberia the author and his brother also encounter a stream of people who are also lonely, displaced and yearning for something beyond the limits of theirown lives, but many of whom are also big-hearted and deeply connected to their own communities and the world around them. What begins as a search for restoration in nature becomes as well a discovery of the restorative power of trust, faith and human connection.

This title was first published in 2000: Complex Life argues for the importance of the new perspective of non modern social theory in understanding human agency. Darwinian natural selection theory and complexity theory are used to provide new insights into human origins, mind and culture. Through bringing these ideas together it is argued that nature and culture are inseparably linked within human agency and that in consequence it is time to transcend the limitations of both modern and postmodern social science. This book argues that nature has never been controlled or transcended. Humankind is instead an emerged outcome of the historical interweaving of the environment, morphology, mind and culture. This wide-ranging analysis offers new insights into human nature for anthropologists and sociologists interested in human evolution, social theory or human agency.

Neanderthals in the Classroom examines the ongoing battle surrounding evolution from a cultural and historical perspective and then puts Theodosius Dobzhansky's claim that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" to the ultimate test by exploring the potential evolutionary roots of this societal and educational clash over human origins. In examining the biological roots of the conflict, Watts demonstrates how understanding our inner Neanderthal allows us to consciously choose more highly evolved forms of communication as a means of alleviating societal division and creating space for more effective science education. Key Features: Introduces readers to the multifaceted world of evolution education. Describes the complex interplay between religious beliefs and science as well as the clash of false information and formal education. Offers an overview of the transformation of public opinion of evolution and science over time in the United States due to the perceived conflict between science and religion. Examines students' misconceptions about the theory of evolution and the general nature of scientific discovery due to the contradictory messages that they receive in popular culture. Offers potential means to amend misconceptions so that students and other individuals can integrate evolutionary theory into their worldviews, regardless of their religious background.

Offering coverage of a wide range of topics on snake reproduction and phylogeny, this comprehensive book discusses everything from primordial germ migration in developing embryos to semelparity (death after reproduction) in the aspic viper. Beginning with a review of the history of snake reproductive studies, it presents new findings on development, placentation, spermatogenesis, male and female reproductive anatomy, hormonal control of reproduction, reproductive cycles, sex pheromones, and parental care. An indispensible reference, this book offers comparative chapters on snake phylognetics examining morphological characteristics alongside strictly molecular concerns. It is rife with illustrations and color plates.

A portable and pocket-sized guide to foundational bioscience and biomedical science laboratory skills The newly revised Second Edition of Basic Bioscience Laboratory Techniques: A Pocket Guide delivers a foundational and intuitive pocket reference text that contains essential information necessary to prepare reagents, perform fundamental laboratory techniques, and analyze and interpret data. This latest edition brings new updates to health and safety considerations, points of good practice, and explains the basics of molecular work in the lab. Perfect for first year undergraduate students expected to possess or develop practical laboratory skills, this reference is intended to be accessed quickly and regularly and inform the reader's lab techniques and methods. It assumes no prior practical knowledge and offers additional material that can be found online. The book also includes: A thorough introduction to the preparation of solutions in bioscience research Comprehensive explorations of microscopy and spectrophotometry and data presentation Practical discussions of the extraction and clarification of biological material, as well as electrophoresis of proteins and nucleic acids In-depth examinations of chromatography, immunoassays, and cell culture techniques Basic Bioscience Laboratory Techniques: A Pocket Guide is an indispensable reference for first year students at the BSc level, as well as year one HND/Foundation degree students. It's also a must-read resource for international masters' students with limited laboratory experience. In addition, it is a valuable aide-memoire to UG and PG students during their laboratory project module.

This amusing, acerbic collection of essays examines every facet of the evolution/creationism controversy. Delos B. McKown exposes the ambiguous standing of "creation science" in public education, its roots in American fundamentalism, its incompatibility with scientific inquiry, and the clever rhetorical ploys "scientific creationists" use to cover their tracks. Although the "scientific creationists" try to impose a pure myth upon our public schools in the guise of respectable science, theirs is a curious kind of reasoning having ominous consequences for any society hoping to ground its educational system on modern scientific knowledge and methodology and on open, free investigation of problems and issues. McKown takes the "scientific creationists" world view seriously. In those instances where they would like to escape a literal reading of the Bible and slip into parable or allegory to avoid embarrassment, he makes them take their scriptures straight. Moreover, McKown puts them to rout with a perfectly biblical bit of theology that he calls "Three-World Creationism". The Mythmaker's Magic puts "scientific creationism" into its proper historical perspective, shows what its legal and constitutional strengths are, and suggests what may be done to thwart, if not to destroy, its malignant influence in public education. For all those who want to actively combat the dangerous spread of "scientific creationism" in public education, this powerful book can serve as both a beacon and a guide.

Neotropical Biogeography: Regionalization and Evolution presents the most comprehensive single-source treatment of the Neotropical region derived from evolutionary biogeographic studies. The book provides a biogeographic regionalization based on distributional patterns of plant and animal taxa, discusses biotic relationships drawn from track and cladistic biogeographic analyses, and identifies cenocrons (subsets of taxa within biotas identified by their common origin and evolutionary history). It includes maps, area cladograms and vegetation profiles. The aim of this reference is to provide a biogeographic regionalization that can be used by graduate students, researchers and other professionals concerned with understanding and describing distributional patterns of plants and animals in the Neotropical region. It covers the 53 biogeographic provinces of the Neotropical region that are classified into the Antillean, Brazilian and Chacoan subregions, and the Mexican and South American transition zones.

A recent poll revealed that one in four Americans believe in both creationism and evolution, while another 41% believe that creationism is true and evolution is false. A minority (only 13%) believe only in evolution. Given the widespread resistance to the idea that humans and other animals have evolved and given the attention to the ongoing debate of what should be taught in public schools, issues related to the teaching and learning of evolution are quite timely.
Evolution Challenges: Integrating Research and Practice in Teaching and Learning about Evolution goes beyond the science versus religion dispute to ask why evolution is so often rejected as a legitimate scientific fact, focusing on a wide range of cognitive, socio-cultural, and motivational factors that make concepts such as evolution difficult to grasp. The volume brings together researchers with diverse backgrounds in cognitive development and education to examine children's and adults' thinking, learning, and motivation, and how aspects of representational and symbolic knowledge influence learning about evolution. The book is organized around three main challenges inherent in teaching and learning evolutionary concepts: folk theories and conceptual biases, motivational and epistemological biases, and educational aspects in both formal and informal settings. Commentaries across the three main themes tie the book together thematically, and contributors provide ideas for future research and methods for improving the manner in which evolutionary concepts are conveyed in the classroom and in informal learning experiences. Evolution Challenges is a unique text that extends far beyond the traditional evolution debate and is an invaluable resource to researchers in cognitive development, science education and the philosophy of science, science teachers, and exhibit and curriculum developers.

With the debate between Richard Owen and Thomas Huxley on the differences between the ape and human brains as its focus, this book explores some of the ways in which philosophical ideas and scientific practice influenced the discussion of evolution in the years before and after Darwin's publication of Origin of Species in 1859. It also shows how this episode can shed light on current philosophical notions of scientific practice and how they in turn influence our understanding of the history of science. The book advances the current historical discussion of the Owen Huxley debate by making clear that Owen's anatomical claims had much more support than most historians and philosophers of science assume.

One vital way Owen and Huxley differed in their approach to anatomy was how they handled absolute brain size. Owen argued that because the average human brain size was more than double the size of the record ape brain, absolute brain size distinguished humans from apes. Huxley by contrast, argued that because you can find a hippocampus minor in both ape and human brains, there was no great difference. In his 1863 book, Huxley had the artist make a human and chimpanzee brain the same length so that they appear similar size. But if the brain of a full grown chimpanzee is compared at the same scale with a fully grown human brain, the absolute brain size of human is as large as Owen insisted in the debate.
Owen s Ape and Darwin s Bulldog also seeks to explore differences in how Owen and Huxley approached racial issues in their debate as a case study on the interplay between values and laboratory science. Beginning in his 1835 paper and throughout the debate Owen maintained that all racial groups have similar brain sizes and intellectual abilities. By contrast, Huxley argued that African brains were intermediate between Europeans and apes: "if we place A, the European brain, B, the Bosjesman brain, and C, the orang brain, in a series, the differences between A and B, so far as they have been ascertained, are of the same nature as the chief of those between B and C.""

By asking how well theological views of human nature stand up to the discoveries of modern science, Alan Olding re-opens the question of whether the "design" argument for the existence of God is fatally undermined. A distinctive feature of the work is its emphasis on the metaphysical implications of biology and how these at times conflict with other, more plausible metaphysical positions. Another is its close critical examination of the "design" argument and of the relation God has to the world he creates. "Modern Biology and Natural Theology" takes up issues currently of concern to many thinkers and will provide fascinating reading for anyone interested in philosophical problems, particularly the impact of Darwinism on natural theology.

A richly illustrated nature tour of Galapagos-now expanded, thoroughly updated, and with more than 650 color photographs Galapagos is a comprehensive, up-to-date, and profusely illustrated natural history of this spectacular archipelago. Offering much more information than identification guides, the book provides detailed accounts and more than 650 color photographs of the islands' habitats, marine life, reptiles, birds, mammals, and plants, making the book a virtual nature tour of Galapagos. Galapagos experts John Kricher and Kevin Loughlin have thoroughly revised the original text, bringing all the taxonomy up to date and adding a wealth of new information. Individual chapters cover geology, ecology, human history, Darwin's finches and how Darwin came to his theory of natural selection from his visit to the islands, Galapagos tortoises, marine and land iguanas, mammals, seabirds, landbirds, marine life, and conservation challenges and initiatives. The concluding chapter covers each of the individual islands, including landing sites, unique plant and animal species, and points of interest, and serves as a wonderful guide for visitors as they move from island to island or plan a trip to Galapagos. With its combination of rich text and splendid photos, Galapagos is essential reading for the ecotraveler and nature enthusiast alike. Now with more than 650 color photographs, showing habitats, geology, marine life, and all the commonly encountered reptiles, birds, mammals, and plants Features a detailed island-by-island guide, including landing sites and what visitors can expect Essential reading for the ecotraveler and nature enthusiast

The Vertebrata is one of the most speciose groups of animals, comprising more than 58,000 living species. This book provides a detailed account on the comparative anatomy, development, homologies and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral and forelimb muscles of vertebrates. It includes hundreds of illustrations, as well as numerous tables showing the homologies between the muscles of all the major extant vertebrate taxa, including lampreys, elasmobranchs, hagfish, coelacanths, dipnoans, actinistians, teleosts, halecomorphs, ginglymodians, chondrosteans, caecilians, anurans, urodeles, turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodylians, birds, and mammals such as monotremes, rodents, tree-shrews, flying lemurs and primates, including modern humans. It also provides a list of more than a thousand synonyms that have been used by other authors to designate these muscles in the literature. Importantly, it also reviews data obtained in the fields of evolutionary developmental biology, molecular biology and embryology, and explains how this data helps to understand the evolution and homologies of vertebrate muscles. The book will useful to students, teachers, and researchers working in fields such as functional morphology, ecomorphology, evolutionary developmental biology, zoology, molecular biology, evolution, and phylogeny. As the book includes crucial information about the anatomy, development, homologies, evolution and muscular abnormalities of our own species, Homo sapiens, it will also be helpful to physicians and medical students.

The way language as a human faculty has evolved is a question that preoccupies researchers from a wide spread of disciplines. In this book, a team of writers has been brought together to examine the evolution of language from a variety of such standpoints, including language's genetic basis, the anthropological context of its appearance, its formal structure, its relation to systems of cognition and thought, as well as its possible evolutionary antecedents. The book includes Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch's seminal and provocative essay on the subject, 'The Faculty of Language, ' and charts the progress of research in this active and highly controversial field since its publication in 2002. This timely volume will be welcomed by researchers and students in a number of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and cognitive science

For decades, the creationist movement was primarily fixed in the United States. Then, in the 1970s, American creationists found their ideas welcomed abroad, first in Australia and New Zealand, then in Korea, India, South Africa, Brazil, and elsewhere--including Europe, where creationism plays an expanding role in public debates about science policy and school curricula. In this, the first comprehensive history of creationism in Europe, leading historians, philosophers, and scientists narrate the rise of--and response to--scientific creationism, creation science, intelligent design, and organized anti-evolutionism in countries and religions throughout Europe.

The book provides a unique map of creationism in Europe, plotting the surprising history of creationist activities and strategies there. Over the past forty years, creationism has spread swiftly among European Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, even as anti-creationists sought to smother its flames. Anti-evolution messages gained such widespread approval, in fact, that in 2007 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a Resolution advising member states to "defend and promote scientific knowledge" and "firmly oppose the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline on an equal footing with the theory of evolution."

"Creationism in Europe" offers a discerning introduction to the cultural history of modern Europe, the variety of world views in Europe, and the interplay of science and religion in a global context. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the history and philosophy of science, religious studies, and evolutionary theory, as well as policymakers and educators concerned about the spread of creationism in our time.

In most habitats, adaptations are the single most obvious aspects of an organisma (TM)s phenotype. However, the most obvious feature of many subterranean animals are losses, not adaptations. Even Darwin saw subterranean animals as degenerates: examples of eyelessness and loss of structure in general. For him, the explanation was a straightforward Lamarckian one, and one that did not involve adaptation and the struggle of existence. This volume is a comprehensive account of all known species of subterranean fishes. It includes an extensive introduction, history of investigations, consideration of non-stygobitic fishes in caves, and detailed analysis of the conservation status of these very rare animals.

Several major breakthroughs in the last decade have helped contribute to the emerging field of astrobiology. Focusing on these developments, this fascinating book explores some of the most important problems in this field. It examines how planetary systems formed, and how water and the biomolecules necessary for life were produced. It then focuses on how life may have originated and evolved on Earth. Building on these two themes, the final section takes the reader on a search for life elsewhere in the Solar System. It presents the latest results of missions to Mars and Titan, and explores the possibilities of life in the ice-covered ocean of Europa. This interdisciplinary book is an enjoyable overview of this exciting field for students and researchers in astrophysics, planetary science, geosciences, biochemistry, and evolutionary biology. Colour versions of some of the figures are available at www.cambridge.org/9780521875486.

The Compact Guide: Charles Darwin reveals the famous scientist's life in compelling detail. From his expedition aboard the Beagle and his legendary research in the Galapagos Islands, to his marriage and illness and the publication of his groundbreaking works, this book sheds fascinating light on the most remarkable aspects of Darwin's life - the extraordinary adventure of discovery that led Darwin to some of his greatest breakthroughs; the controversy with Alfred Russel Wallace on who first originated the idea of evolution by natural selection; and the Darwin family's prosperous but often tragic home life, and how Charles became one of the first Victorians to reject religion and God.

Soon to be a major motion picture
The moving, personal story of Charles Darwin and his revolutionary views on nature, evolution, and the human condition.
As Darwin's theories continue to shape much of our thinking about the roots of human nature, "Creation" (formerly "Darwin, His Daughters, and Human Evolution") reveals the personal experiences from which he drew his most deeply held ideas.
In a chest of drawers bequeathed by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes, a great-great-grandson of Darwin, found the writing case of Charles Darwin's beloved daughter Annie, who died at the age of fifteen. Offering rare insight into the family's private world, Keynes gives us a fuller picture of one of our most original thinkers, as well as a wealth of previously unseen material.

Mimicry is a classic example of adaptation through natural selection. The traditional focus of mimicry research has been on defence in animals, but there is now also a highly-developed and rapidly-growing body of research on floral mimicry in plants. This has coincided with a revolution in genomic tools, making it possible to explore which genetic and developmental processes underlie the sometimes astonishing changes that give rise to floral mimicry. Being literally rooted to one spot, plants have to cajole animals into acting as couriers for their pollen. Floral mimicry encompasses a set of evolutionary strategies whereby plants imitate the food sources, oviposition sites, or mating partners of animals in order to exploit them as pollinators. This first definitive book on floral mimicry discusses the functions of visual, olfactory, and tactile signals, integrating them into a broader theory of organismal mimicry that will help guide future research in the field. It addresses the fundamental question of whether the evolutionary and ecological principles that were developed for protective mimicry in animals can also be applied to floral mimicry in plants. The book also deals with the functions of floral rewardlessness, a condition which often serves as a precursor to the evolution of mimicry in plant lineages. The authors pay particular attention to the increasing body of research on chemical cues: their molecular basis, their role in cognitive misclassification of flowers by pollinators, and their implications for plant speciation. Comprehensive in scope and conceptual in focus, Floral Mimicry is primarily aimed at senior undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in plant science and evolutionary biology.

Crustaceans are increasingly being used as model organisms in all fields of biology, including neurobiology, developmental biology, animal physiology, evolutionary ecology, biogeography, and resource management. Crustaceans have a very wide range of phenotypes and inhabit a diverse array of environments, ranging from the deep sea to high mountain lakes and even deserts. The evolution of their life histories has permitted crustaceans to successfully colonize this variety of habitats. Few other taxa exhibit such a variety of life histories and behavior. A comprehensive overview of their life histories is essential to the understanding of many aspects of their success in marine and terrestrial environments. This volume provides a general overview of crustacean life histories. Crustaceans have particular life history adaptations that have permitted them to conquer all environments on earth. Crustacean life cycles have evolved to maximize fecundity, growth, and ageing, in a wide range of environmental conditions. Individual contributions contrast benefits and costs of different life histories including sexual versus asexual production, semelparity versus iteroparity, and planktonic larvae versus direct development. Important aspects of particular behaviors are presented (e.g. migrations, defense and territorial behaviors, anti-predator behavior, symbiosis).

The field of molecular evolution has experienced explosive growth in recent years due to the rapid accumulation of genetic sequence data, continuous improvements to computer hardware and software, and the development of sophisticated analytical methods. The increasing availability of large genomic data sets requires powerful statistical methods to analyse and interpret them, generating both computational and conceptual challenges for the field.
Computational Molecular Evolution provides an up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of modern statistical and computational methods used in molecular evolutionary analysis, such as maximum likelihood and Bayesian statistics. Yang describes the models, methods and algorithms that are most useful for analysing the ever-increasing supply of molecular sequence data, with a view to furthering our understanding of the evolution of genes and genomes. The book emphasizes essential concepts rather than mathematical proofs. It includes detailed derivations and implementation details, as well as numerous illustrations, worked examples, and exercises. It will be of relevance and use to students and professional researchers (both empiricists and theoreticians) in the fields of molecular phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, population genetics, mathematics, statistics and computer science. Biologists who have used phylogenetic software programs to analyze their own data will find the book particularly rewarding, although it should appeal to anyone seeking an authoritative overview of this exciting area of computational biology.

Genetic differences in humans, like those between individuals of any animal or plant species and those between species, are all products of the evolutionary development of the living world. Th ese diff erences, with their behavioral consequences, can only be understood in the light of evolution. Our understanding of evolution, however, has itself evolved. Th e Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution appeared in the nineteenth century. Since then, development of evolutionary thought has gone through several stages. Th e contributions in this volume describe those stages.

The first four decades after Darwin were dominated by studies in comparative anatomy, embryology, systematics, zoogeography, phytogeography, and paleontology, all intended to discover and examine the evidences of evolution. But the phylogenies of the animal and plant kingdoms, that is, the history of the linkages of animal and plant organisms as they change through time, were less well documented. In particular, the phylogeny of humans is still not completely known.

The period following World War Two saw acceleration of activity in fi elds in and bordering on behavioral genetics. Research in neuroendocrinology showed that higher cortical centers could infl uence and be infl uenced by the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, and gonads. Genetic diversity in the function of these organs had obvious consequences for social and cultural behavior. Th e failure of some early and long-reinforced attempts at conditioning by students of comparative animal behavior showed species-specifi c innate behavior could not be ignored in any theory that attempts to combine psychology and anthropology. Th is classic volume summarizes the development of evolutionary thinking, and describes how what we know about genetic diversity links up with research on human behavior.

"J. N. Spuhler" was known for his pioneering work in the department of anthropological genetics. He taught in many universities including Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Mexico. He received the National Academy of Science award for scientific reviewing and his work has appeared in scholarly journals including: "Journal of Anthropological Research, Annual Review of Anthropology," and "American Journal of Physical Anthropology."