Introducing Evolution Introducing Evolution
A Graphic Guide
Published on 14. March 2015
176 pages
978-1-84831-973-8 (ISBN)
Description
In 1859, Charles Darwin shocked the world with a radical theory - evolution by natural selection. One hundred and fifty years later, his theory still challenges some of our most precious beliefs.
Introducing Evolution provides a step-by-step guide to 'Darwin's dangerous idea' and takes a fresh look at the often misunderstood concepts of natural selection and the selfish gene. Drawing on the latest findings from genetics, ecology and animal behaviour- as well as the work of best-selling science writers such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker- this book reveals how the evidence in favour of evolutionary theory is stronger than ever.
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Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- The Central Idea in Biology
- Fear and Loathing in Kansas
- Old Questions
- Universal Acid
- An Idea in Two Parts
- What is Evolution?
- The Fixity of Species
- Independent Creation
- Enough Time
- The Age of the Earth
- Old Bones
- Dragons' Teeth
- What the Fossils tell Us
- The Evidence from Carbon Dating
- The Tree of Life
- The Conquest of the Land
- Four Legs Good
- A Very Recent Species
- Living Fossils
- "Scientific" Creationism
- Missing Links
- How does Evolution Happen?
- Darwin's Contribution
- So Simple, yet so Powerful
- Three Conditions
- Animal and Plant Copies
- A Tale of Butterflies
- A Change in Environment
- Multicoloured Butterflies
- Evolution by Natural Selection
- Darwin's Dangerous idea
- The Argument from Design
- Animals and Artefacts
- Adaptations
- Another Explanation for Biological Design
- A Single Step
- Many Small Steps
- Start the Story Again
- Cumulative Selection
- What Good is Half a Wing?
- The Blind Watchmaker
- Occam's Razor
- No Need for that Hypothesis
- Natural Selection Observed
- Looking in More Detail: Heredity
- Genes
- The Function of Proteins
- Development
- Growth and Specialized Cells
- Genes and Development
- Genes and Environment
- Mutation or Incorrect Copying
- No Mutation, No Evolution
- Random Drift
- Adapation and Natural Selection
- Not Everything is an Adaptation
- Adaptive Prediction
- Beneficial Mutations are Rare
- Mutations are Random
- Accumulation of Design
- The Gene's-eye View
- The Selfish Game
- Altruism
- Biological Altruism is Common in Nature
- Parental Care
- The Puzzle of Altruism is Solved
- A Thought Experiment
- Two Conditions for Selfish Genery
- The Green Beard Effect
- Do Genes Influence Behaviour?
- Genetic Determinism
- Can Organisms Tell When Others Have the Same Genes?
- Kin Selection
- Blood is Thicker Than Water
- Another Theory of Altruism
- Tit-for-Tat
- Reciprocal Altruism is Rare
- The Peacock's Tail
- Why do Peahens Prefer Big Tails?
- Natural Selection and Sexual Selection
- Female Choice and Male Competition
- The Runaway Process
- Arms Races
- The Antibiotics Arms Race
- Co-evolution
- The Origin of the Eukaryotes
- Other Differences
- Let's Talk About Sex
- Virgin Births
- Clones and Genetic Difference
- Meiosis and Gametes
- Male and Female
- Isogamy and Anisogamy
- The Cost of Sex
- What's the Advantage of Sex?
- The Family Swap
- Reproductive Isolation
- Gene Pools
- The Biological Species Concept
- The Phenetic Species Concept
- Speciation
- Splitting
- Allopatric Speciation
- Higher Groups and Lower Groups
- Varieties of Dogs
- Empires and Domains
- Which is the Highest Group?
- Monophyletic and Paraphyletic Groups
- Cladism
- The Tree of Life Again
- The Trunk of the Tree
- The Origin of Life
- A Warm Little Pond
- The Primordial Soup
- Near the Sea-bed
- Panspermia
- Extinction
- Mass Extinctions
- The End of the Dinosaurs
- Why Did the Dinosaurs Go Extinct?
- A Hundred Million Megatons of TNT
- The Lucky Ones
- The Sixth Mass Extinction
- Ecological Disaster
- The End of the Human Race
- Is the Earth One Giant Organism?
- Organisms Are Designed By Natural Selection
- Gaia
- The Deadly Species
- Killing Our Cousins
- The Neanderthals
- The Advantage of Language
- Efficient Information-sharing
- Extended Memory
- The Speaking Animal
- Human Universals
- What is Human Nature?
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Massive Modularity
- The Walls Came Tumbling Down
- Science and Speculation
- Survival Machine or Courtship Device?
- Is Art a Sexual Display?
- Humans and Culture
- The Evolution of Culture
- Memes or Mind-viruses?
- Why Do Some Ideas Catch On More Than Others?
- The Naturalness of Religious Ideas
- Evolutionary Epistermology
- Evolutionary Ethics
- Moral Evolution
- Moral Instincts
- Moral Sentiments
- Are Ideas Alive?
- Artifical Life
- Genetic Algorithms
- Evolutionary Robotics
- The Virtual World, Tierra
- A Common Thread
- The Controversy Continues
- A Scientific Answer to the Deep Questions
- The Wonder of Evolution
- Science and Values
- Further Reading
- The Authors
- Acknowledgements
- Index
