This is a sound introduction to evolutionary biology, with a good
deal of background on Darwin himself. It adds little (if anything)
to the existing library of information on the subject, but there is
always room for another perspective on such a fundamentally
important idea. Anyone who feels they have missed out on what
evolution is all about could do a lot worse than start here.
(Kirkus UK)
Extending the human life-span past 120 years. The "green"
revolution. Evolution and human psychology. These subjects make
today's newspaper headlines. Yet much of the science underlying
these topics stems from a book published nearly 140 years
ago--Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." Far from an
antique idea restricted to the nineteenth century, the theory of
evolution is one of the most potent concepts in all of modern
science.
In "Darwin's Spectre," Michael Rose provides the general reader
with an introduction to the theory of evolution: its beginning with
Darwin, its key concepts, and how it may affect us in the future.
First comes a brief biographical sketch of Darwin. Next, Rose gives
a primer on the three most important concepts in evolutionary
theory--variation, selection, and adaptation. With a firm grasp of
these concepts, the reader is ready to look at modern applications
of evolutionary theory. Discussing agriculture, Rose shows how even
before Darwin farmers and ranchers unknowingly experimented with
evolution. Medical research, however, has ignored Darwin's lessons
until recently, with potentially grave consequences. Finally,
evolution supplies important new vantage points on human nature. If
humans weren't created by deities, then our nature may be
determined more by evolution than we have understood. Or it may not
be. In this question, as in many others, the Darwinian perspective
is one of the most important for understanding human affairs in the
modern world.
"Darwin's Spectre" explains how evolutionary biology has been
used to support both valuable applied research, particularly in
agriculture, and truly frightening objectives, such as Nazi
eugenics. Darwin's legacy has been a comfort and a scourge. But it
has never been irrelevant.
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