Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life [Hardcover]

Niles Eldredge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2005

A riveting tribute to Charles Darwin's life and ideas in celebration of his 200th birthday.

Charles Darwin's ideas resonate deeply in Western culture today, and his theory still lies at the heart of modern scientific evolutionary research. As other nineteenth-century figures fade, Darwin's theory of evolution still provokes controversy, spilling over into curriculum battles at state and local school boards in the United States and around the world.

In exploring the everyday artifacts of Darwin's life, his notebooks, and early manuscripts, Niles Eldredge "a candid, no-punches-pulled interpreter of the core ideas of evolutionary biology" (Science News) provides a rare glimpse into the mind of this highly intuitive, creative scientist. The celebration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday in 2009 begins in November 2005 with the opening of a major exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, curated by Eldredge, that will travel across the nation. More than a companion book to the exhibit, Darwin is a rich and inspiring reconstruction of Darwin's life through his writings and discoveries.
color throughout, 100 illustrations

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The bicentennial of Darwin's birth in 2009 and the sesquicentennial of the publication of On the Origin of Species will be commemorated by a touring exhibition curated by author Eldredge (Life on Earth), of the American Museum of Natural History, that will give audiences a rare opportunity to see Darwin's personal effects, notebooks and materials that contributed to Origin. This book primarily follows Darwin's progress on his theory in the 20 years between his return from the famous voyage on the Beagle and publication of his paradigm-shattering book. Darwin dismembered some of his notebooks, but scholars have reconstructed most of them so that readers can follow his thought processes. Eldredge shows how Darwin laid aside some ideas, like the importance of stasis (which Eldredge and the late Stephen Jay Gould developed into their concept of "punctuated equilibria"), that are now accepted in evolutionary theory. He makes the interesting observation that Darwin was one of the first scientists to abandon Baconian induction in forming hypotheses, consciously turning to the hypothetico-deductive method. Eldredge addresses advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin and takes on intelligent design. The author conveys his great admiration for his subject in a straightforward manner that will enlighten dedicated science readers. 100 illus.
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From Booklist

In anticipation of the bicentennial observance of Charles Darwin's birth in 1809, paleontologist and author Eldredge has organized an exhibition that coincides with the publication of this abundantly illustrated primer on Darwin's life, thought, and legacy. In effect a contemporary "Darwin's Bulldog" (the moniker of Thomas Huxley, who in the 1860s defended Darwin against creationist argument), Eldredge takes aim at so-called intelligent design in his final chapter. His approach, however, is, in the main, a positive one, demonstrating how evolution is a more convincing explanation for the exuberant variation and complexity of life than attributing the whole to a supernatural force. He is drawn particularly to two manuscripts Darwin wrote in the 1840s after his voyage on the Beagle. Quoting them extensively, Eldredge sets forth the principles underlying evolutionary theory, discussing why it is a testable and prediction-making science, whereas creationism is not. Weaving Darwin's biography through the science, Eldredge expresses unabashed admiration for Darwin's intellect and successfully encapsulates his revolutionary ideas for the widest audience. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393059669
• ISBN-13: 978-0393059663
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid overview of AMNH Darwin Exhibition from one of the world's great evolutionary biologists, December 3, 2005

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life (Hardcover)

"Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life" is the elegant companion volume to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Darwin exhibition which opened recently here in New York City and will remain on view at this museum through May 29, 2006. Afterwards "Darwin" will tour several museums in North America - most notably Chicago's Field Museum - before completing its tour - appropriately enough - at London's British Museum of Natural History in time for the bicentennial of Darwin's birth in 2009. Niles Eldredge, Curator, Division of Paleontology, AMNH and the exhibition's curator, is truly one of the world's foremost evolutionary biologists, perhaps best known for developing back in 1972, the evolutionary theory known as "Punctuated Equilibrium" along with his friend and colleague, the late Stephen Jay Gould. Eldredge combines his splendid gifts as a scientist and writer, along with his keen interest in the history of science, in writing this book, celebrating Darwin's genius as a field and theoretical biologist and geologist. Drawing upon Darwin's own writings, Eldredge traces Darwin's scientific development during the celebrated HMS Beagle voyage and at his suburban London estate at Down. Furthermore, he demonstrates with ample eloquence why Darwin's Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection is a genuine scientific theory, saving until the final chapter, a superb rebuke of "Intelligent Design" as a credible scientific alternative (Those who believe that "Intelligent Design" is a credible scientific theory - it's merely an untestable, unscientific idea - should read Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel", Kenneth R. Miller's "Finding Darwin's God", or Eugenie Scott's "Evolution Vs. Creationism".). Anyone interested in reading a fascinating book on scientific discovery shouldn't hesitate purchasing this elegant tome.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwin's Origin, December 13, 2005

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Reader (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life (Hardcover)

Niles Eldredge's new book on Darwin and evolutionary theory, intended as a text for lay readers, is quite good in (at least) two respects. (1) It is the first text for general readers that investigates closely the development of Darwin's ideas between 1836 (when he returned from the Beagle voyage) and 1859 (when he published "On the Origin of Species." This material is succinct and perceptive in the way that it sets out the sequence of emergence of Darwin's key insights. (Sometimes this sequence reveals doubts that Darwin had to overcome.) In addition to this explicative work, Eldridge also (and perhaps more importantly) analyzes the conceptual frameworks that Darwin constructs during this period. (Most especially the moment when Darwin turns his thinking fully around and attempts to derive expected phenomena from his theory). (2) The chapter that outlines the relationship between Darwin's own work and the subsequent history of evolutionary science is also succinct, perceptive, and very informative. Eldredge is successful in simultaneously establishing the remarkable continuity between Darwin and all of evolutionary theory while also highlighting some key issues that Darwin got wrong.

However, despite these strengths, this book will be best read by those who already have a clear grasp of the basic features of evolutionary theory. As many others have said, there is no better source for such an introduction than "On the Origin of Species" itself.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Darwin Thought the Way He Did, January 24, 2006

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life (Hardcover)

It is embarrassing that surveys show that most Americans do not believe in evolution, and do believe in scientifically unsupportable concepts that they have seen in the movies, like dinosaurs and humans living together. The great American Museum of Natural History in New York has always done what it could to combat this sort of ignorance, with a magnificent standing display of dinosaurs. It is now putting on a big exhibition entirely devoted to Charles Darwin, the man who revealed that natural selection and descent with modification were the ways that life on Earth worked. (This is not to neglect Alfred Russel Wallace, who deserves to be better known as the co-discoverer of evolution. It was his discovery of the same principles that made Darwin finally reveal his own decades of thought on the matter, and the papers of the two discoverers were simultaneously published. Darwin, however, published more on the subject, dug into it more deeply, and did his own researches that have made his contributions preeminent.) The curator of the exhibition, Niles Eldredge, is famous on his own for advocating (along with the late Stephen Jay Gould) a modern modification of Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium. For those who cannot get to the exhibition, or who wish to spend more than an afternoon absorbing its ideas, Eldredge has written _Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life_ (Norton). There are, deservedly, much bigger books that serve as biographies of this great thinker who was in many ways a completely admirable scientist and human being. The book has a basic short account of Darwin's life, but was written to give a history of the internal thought underlying Darwin's big ideas. Eldredge has gone back to the notebooks to trace inceptions, rather that to summarize the findings that were eventually published in the epochal _On the Origin of Species_ for an invigorating look at how this model scientist came to believe as he did.

Eldredge makes clear from the beginning that Darwin was up against religious orthodoxy. The greatest religious barriers he had to overcome were his own. Time and again, Darwin confronted creationist ideas but found simpler and more reasonable ones in the natural world. In his researches, starting with the voyage of the _Beagle_, he was confounded by trying to figure out the mind of God. Why, for instance, was God extinguishing some species and creating others when he could have gotten it all right in the first place? To ask such questions was not to give an unflattering picture of the capabilities of the designer, but to seek if there were not a better, more natural explanation. Eldredge takes us through the notebooks, showing the intuitive and creative leaps Darwin made, for instance, upon encountering the writings of Thomas Malthus. Before that, though, his fieldwork had convinced him that species were not immutable but rather gave rise to one another. Darwin's ideas, in retrospect, look exceedingly simple (and his friend and advocate Thomas Huxley wondered why they had taken so long for anyone to see). He didn't get everything right, but the confirmations of his overall thought continue to pour in. Evolution is a testable notion, and has passed so many rigorous tests that it is extremely unlikely that it will be overthrown in the future.

That won't keep people from trying. It is significant that there are really only religious rather than scientific objections to evolution, even if religious objections are sometimes dressed up in scientific garb. Eldredge's last chapter, wittily titled "Darwin as Anti-Christ", reviews the religious objections. Mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and Jews have had little problem with the concept of evolution. Christian fundamentalists adhere to the literal account, Eldredge says, because they must not succumb to doubt over any section of the literal Bible and because if we are "descended from monkeys" (always the phrase used by those ignorant of real descent) we will for some reason not be able to lead moral lives. It is no surprise that Eldredge finds such arguments unconvincing, but he spends several pages explaining the problems of creationism's new clothes, Intelligent Design. Darwin's ideas are testable, have been tested, and have prevailed. The Intelligent Design advocates have found a conveniently untestable proposition, for basic scientific rules insist we would have to use our senses to gain evidence of the supernatural, which just isn't done; and if the design force isn't supernatural, then the first step must be to demonstrate that it naturally exists. However, Eldredge's well-illustrated book is not a polemic. Those who are looking for a basic explanation of Darwin's ideas, and how they came to him, and how he eventually told the world of them, will enjoy this book immensely.