Reddit reviews The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

If you're really interested in this kind of stuff, check out The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. In it, he examines our common ancestors with other life in backwards chronological order (our common ancestor with chimps, then our and chimps' common ancestor with the other apes, then apes' common ancestor with all primates, etc). There's lots of interesting information about how genes express and get selected for. For example, one particularly fascinating chapter covers the origin of our tri-chromal color vision, as opposed to the vision of most other mammals, like dogs, and what happened in our genes to bring about that change.

I didn't study biology in high school because I had a full course load of physics, chemistry and mathematics in preparation for engineering school. That being said, biology is one of the courses I regret not taking.

It really is the Greatest Show on Earth. No other scientific concept explains so much about our visible world while being simple and elegant. If you like biology, but have not read any of Dawkin's biology books, I highly recommend them. In addition to the one I already linked, another excellent one is The Ancestor's Tale. Evolution is capable of explaining why species, as you put it, are built they way they are and why they function the way they do. Evolution explains the why of it all. Of course, you don't need to abandon your concept of God, either. Evolution is perfectly compatible with theology.

The Greatest Show on Earth

or

The Ancestor's Tale which is a personal favorite of mine although not specifically devoted to evidence arguments. It's just an amazing read through our biological world and along the way the case for evolution becomes overwhelming.

I think Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale is one of his best. It takes the traditional bacteria to human story of evolution and flips it on its head, escaping the sense of directed progress that so often occurs in evolutionary books. I would also second the suggestion for Shubin's Your Inner Fish.

If you haven't already, you might enjoy putting aside a few weeks reading for The Ancestor's Tale. It's just dozens of those stories.

One of the most amazing ones is about Ring Species, which are nothing short of absolute proof of speciation with no need for fossils or gene analysis.

Richard Dawkins has another book called The Ancestor's Tale which is all about evolution. I found it very enjoyable and informative.

On the topic of genetics, you might find the field of epigenetics interesting. [The Mysterious Epigenome] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Mysterious-Epigenome-What-Beyond/dp/0825441927/ref=pd_sim_b_6)

If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend Dawkins "The Ancestor's Tale." It starts with modern humans, and then it works it's way back through our ancestors (explaining as it goes along when our "cousins" join the family tree; or to put it differently, it explains, in real time (rather than going backwards), our cousins departure from our common ancestor to the place they hold today). It doesn't focus exclusively on hominids or "transitional fossils," but the scope of the book will definitely give you an idea of the mountains of evidence we have for determining our ancestors, our cousins, and our family tree. I'm only about halfway through, but I've enjoyed it quite a bit so far. Take a look at the reviews online, and if it looks good, pick it up.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolution/dp/061861916X

Along those lines, Dawkins is great for explaining evolution in easy-to-understand detail. Pick pretty much any book by him and you'll get a very good education.

OK, folks may call me a nut, but you might want to try Evolution by Loxton. It's for younger readers, but you could literally jumpstart yourself in an hour.

Then, read Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne as well as The Greatest Show on Earth by Dawkins.

Honorable mention goes to Dawkins' An Ancestor's Tale.

Similar to "Your Inner Fish", I'd also recommend The Ancestors Tale its rather long, but written in ELI5.

If you aren't interested in the actual biology of how species branch and evolve into other species I'd suggest Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale. It will give you the grand overview of life on Earth.

It doesn't deal with the Big Bang directly, but Krauss' Atom will take you on a single oxygen atom's journey from the Big Bang to its inclusion in earlier generations of stars and on to how it gets used here on Earth.

The Ancestors Tale

Dawkins gets a lot of hate, but the man knows his evolutionary biology and he can write! This is a great read, and a good overview of human ancestry, and if you're interested in the finer details of natural selection, follow it up with The Selfish Gene.

Do you have $2.16 you don't mind spending?

Buy this book (and then read it). which will answer that very question.

Richard Dawkin's book The Ancestors' Tale goes in the opposite direction -- from mankind back to the common ancestor of all life -- and tries to estimate the generations along the way. At some point before getting to Amoebas, however, he gives up, because the best approximations are complete guesses. But you could get some insight into your question from that book, I believe.

I don't have my copy on me, and Wikipedia doesn't include his estimates. But check it out! Wikipedia Amazon

> there is no such thing as different species

Exactly, there's not.

Biologists use it as a shortcut, but we've abandoned essentialism. There are no discrete, immutable, groups of animals except when taken as a snapshot in time with our limited view of the past. It can sometimes be useful to use this way of thinking when studying biology, but you must always keep in your mind that it is not the closest model of reality we have access to.

If you're interested, The Ancestor's Tale is a good way to be introduced to this way of thinking.

I second the reading idea! Ask your history or science teachers for suggestions of accessible books. I'm going to list some that I found interesting or want to read, and add more as I think of them.

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Title explains it all. It is very beginner friendly, and has some very entertaining stories. Bryson is very heavy on the history and it's rather long but you should definitely make every effort to finish it.

Lies my teacher told me

The greatest stories never told (This is a whole series, there are books on Presidents, science, and war as well).

There's a series by Edward Rutherfurd that tells history stories that are loosely based on fact. There are books on London and ancient England, Ireland, Russia, and one on New York

I read this book a while ago and loved it- Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk It's about a monk who was imprisoned for 30 years by the Chinese.

The Grapes of Wrath.

Les Misérables. I linked to the unabridged one on purpose. It's SO WORTH IT. One of my favorite books of all time, and there's a lot of French history in it. It's also the first book that made me bawl at the end.

You'll also want the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Federalist Papers.

I'm not sure what you have covered in history, but you'll definitely want to find stuff on all the major wars, slavery, the Bubonic Plague, the French Revolution, & ancient Greek and Roman history.

As for science, find these two if you have any interest in how the brain works (and they're pretty approachable).
Phantoms in the brain
The man who mistook his wife for a hat

Alex and Me The story of a scientist and the incredibly intelligent parrot she studied.

For a background in evolution, you could go with The ancestor's tale

A biography of Marie Curie

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston is a quick and easy read, and very heavy on the adventure. You'll also want to read his other book The Hot Zone about Ebola. Absolutely fascinating, I couldn't put this one down.

The Devil's Teeth About sharks and the scientists who study them. What's not to like?

The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins

Googling for "Dawkins abiogenesis" I found this recommendation:

>> Truant wrote:
Isn't this also mentioned in a chapter in The Selfish Gene, or am I remembering it wrong?
I seem to recall the "simple replicator" idea from there, but I've read so many of the professor's books now that I sometimes get them mixed up... :mrgreen:

> Yes, it is in that book, in chapter 2 'The Replicators'. He gives an excellent overview of OOL research which I believe is still relevant to this day.

----

In the same forum, I also saw The Ancestor's Tale recommended for its treatment of "autocatalysis", and The Blind Watchmaker for its discussion of the "clay" or "crystal" theory of abiogenesis.

> I more want a good timeline from the primordial ooze to me typing this message.

Dawkins' The Ancestors Tale is exactly the book you want. It starts with present day humans and works backwards, explaining the points at which different branches of species diverged along the evolutionary tree.

An hour or two ago I added The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution to my book wishlist. I don't plan on buying most books on my wishlist. I just use it as a reminder to request the book from the library when I have more time.

I just started reading some of Richard Dawkins - The Ancestor's Tale, and it seems pretty good.

Because there is no god, just the universe of which you are a part of. Get the strong feeling of being a part of this universe next time you trip (if you trip again shrooms might be the better choice). Also i think your real crisis is obvious: You seak a worldview. Go read some E.O. Willson (the social conquest of the earth) or the "ancestors tale" by richard dawkins (https://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Dawn-Evolution/dp/061861916X) and also read about some philosphers. I think THIS is what would really really help you. Go for it and speak about your new insights with your councilor. You will be happier and more fullfilled than prior the experience. But dont try to get religious, thank you.

Since gordonj has already written a fine answer, let me take another tack and suggest that the book An Ancestor's Tale is a very readable discussion of topics related to this.

Richard Dawkins
at Amazon...

I'm not a professional in the field, but my favorite free-time science books are usually focused on evolutionary biology, so here goes. One of the best discussions on this particular topic I've read is in The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins. It's an excellent 3-page discussion you can read in full by accessing the "Look Inside!" preview of the book on Amazon (link to book page) and scrolling to the bottom of page 430. Do this by searching for "Maynard Smith" and clicking on the result on page 430. You'll need to sign in in order to search.

Anyways, I'll try to summarize the discussion here (although I'm a huge fan of Dawkins' eloquence in this book so I'm afraid I won't do it much justice). At a fairly naive level, sex is an evolutionary paradox. Modern Darwinism says that every organism strives to pass on as many of its genes as possible to its offspring. If this is true, however, why does sex, which is basically throwing away half of your own genes and mixing them with half of those of some other stranger, make any sense? An asexual organism can pass on 100% of its genes to its offspring. A sexual organism can only pass on 50%.

And yet, sexual reproduction is pretty much the norm for multi-cellular organisms. This suggests that the "twofold" cost of sex is somehow "cancelled out" by some other advantage of having two parents. One possibility is if the male commits to the child (instead of just running off to have sex with some other female), the couple can, as a group, produce at least twice as many offspring as the asexual alternative. While it is true that the male puts as much effort into child-rearing as the female in a few species, (emperor penguins, for instance), it is by no means the norm. So there must be something else going on.

Genetic recombination Dawkins hesitates to say that it alone is sufficient to counteract the massive twofold cost of sex, but it is definitely a factor.

----------------------

After this Dawkins makes some points that are very interesting but not totally relevant to your question, so I'll just summarize it very quickly. High school biology teaches us that genetic recombination introduces diversity and variety to the gene pool. Dawkins makes the point that sexual reproduction simultaneously has the opposing effect as well because it introduces the very concept of a gene pool. Think about it: an asexual organism shares none of its genes with its brethren. The very idea of a gene pool is nonsensical. In fact, you could say every new creature is a separate species because from that moment on, it's evolutionary path is completely different from that of its brother or sister. Yes, sexual reproduction, through the process of genetic recombination potentially allows for greater diversity and variety. But sexual reproduction introduces a gene pool that tends to diffuse the effects of genetic recombination. Gene pools have a massive "inertia" that a single wayward member cannot easily change. Dawkins forwards this not necessarily as a benefit of sex, but rather a consequence of it.

I'm in no way qualified enough to talk about it myself but since nobody else has said anything particularly helpful, Richard Dawkins does a great job covering this stuff in a clear and easy to understand way in Ancestor's Tale

Give them The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.

Hijacked is too strong a word, but I think two points are notable. First, arguably most of the really popular and notable books on evolution released in the last twenty years were penned by New Atheists proper or by authors who basically fit the New Atheist mold but aren't one of the four specific authors. A big part of the reason for that is simply Richard Dawkins. He's a popular writer and a biologist, so it was almost inevitable that he'd pen books about Darwin and that they'd hit the bestsellers lists. And if it were limited to Dawkins, I'd think nothing of it, but there's Dennett and Shermer, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Harris release one before long. Another part of the reason is that a number of the other books about Darwinian evolution that have sold well in past decades were penned by creationists like Michael Behe, so a certain measure of response is, from my perspective at least, welcome. At that point, it's about market share, and we don't want creationists having too big a piece of the market share. Their point of view is, after all, problematic to say the least. If it weren't for my second point, it wouldn't even be problematic that a) popular books on evolution are basically split between creationists and New Atheists, and b) that New Atheists make up such a large share of that market.

But my second point is this: New Atheists aren't just popularizing or "standing up for" Darwinian evolution; they're attaching a political and ideological agenda to that effort, and that runs several risks, the most obvious being that it can polarize people against evolution, as some commentators have warned it might do in Muslim countries. To my mind, the more insidious risk is that, once you've connected a scientific theory to a political or ideological effort, it becomes all to easy for its patrons to see it in those terms even when it has nothing to do with that effort. Without much noticing it, pro-Darwinians may start seeing barely articulated associations as part and parcel of evolution, until evolution is something more than a scientific model. Dawkins, for example, has turned evolution into a theological disproof with the subtitle of "The Blind Watchmaker". The title of Shermer's "Why Darwin Matters" sums up the achievement of evolutionary theory as a form of polemic against intelligent design theory. Dawkins, at least, is close enough to the professional practice of biology that he probably doesn't need reminding that evolution isn't really about atheism, but all of these guys are writing books for people who don't have the continual reminder of working in the field where evolutionary theory is most functional.

I say none of this in defense of the Guardian article, but I do think there's something to be said for the idea that our society stands to lose by leaving it up to the New Atheists to give evolution its popularly received meaning.