Customer Reviews

Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of the Species Updated

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4 star:		(5)
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2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Regardless of your interest in or knowledge of science, Jones' work is captivating. Equally important, for the general reader, it is not hard work. Using modern scientific advances including work on diseases (such as AIDS and sickle cell anemia), primate research and genetics, Jones sets out to prove Darwin's theory of "descent by modification" all over again. He succeeds both in supporting Darwin's theory and holding the reader's interest with a sharp writing style and a gift for applying useful analogies and metaphors that make his subject accessible. Some of Jones' sidebar comments will make you laugh out loud and some of his more profound conclusions will have you thinking about and recommending this book long after you have finished it.

I picked this up because of the great NY Times Book Review review--I'm not a science buff in particular, but it just sounded like a good, intelligent read. Just want to say how glad I am I took the plunge, because this book is so wide-ranging, it's about everything. It's fantastic--I've never read anything quite like it. Animals, life, AIDS, history, geography, God--you name it, Jones talks about it, and he weaves it all together into an incredibly readable book. So here's from one satisfied reader--I couldn't recommend this book more.

The last serious book I read on evolution was Darwin's Origin of Species, which I read as a requirement for a History of Science course in college. I wish had first read Darwin's Ghost. This book completely rekindled my scientific interest in evolution. Jones follows the structure of the original, but updates it with more than a century's worth of scientific progress. For example, the question of why we can't actually observe evolution in progress is answered through modern examples such as HIV. But more importantly, Jones has made The Origin of Species readable for the common man. Darwin's Ghost is enjoyable, relative easy to comprehend, and most importantly, after you have read it you actually understand and retain much of the current evidence that supports modern evolutionary theory. I would recommend this book for those who consider themselves either "evolutionists" or "creationists", because without understanding the scientific evidence for evolution it is impossible to either defend or attack evolution. Far too much of the popular press coverage of evolution occurs in a vacuum of understanding (on both sides). For the diehard evolutionist, this book will certainly pale in comparison to the original. But for the vast majority of people, who will never read The Origin of Species, I would highly recommend this book. You may even find your intellectual curiosity piqued sufficiently to delve further into the field.

This is the simply the most readable and convincing, modern argument for evolution. Steve Jones comes down to the level of laity and explains genetics, descent with modification, Darwin's development of his theory, paleobotany and transitional forms in language that is enjoyable to read. If like me, you are intimidated by trying to understand the latest research in these highly specialized fields yet you yearn to understand the implications of their findings for your worldview, then this is the best book that I could recommend. I came into it highly skeptical of evolution as a verifiable theory and came out of it wondering how I can accomidate it into my Christian faith. A word of caution to any creationists who read this book with an open mind. Like me it will transform you into a very uncomfortable agreement with it.

"Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones, a professor of Genetics at Univesity College London, is the best statement of the theory of evolution I've read. Jones reweaves Darwin's "One Long Arguement" into a format that's easy to understand for non-biologists and lay people. He uses the new science of genetics and examples from DNA evidence to demonstrate the proof of evolution: It's in the genes!

From the evolution of HIV into a species that attacks humans, to that virus splitting off into two species, HIV-1 and HIV-2, each species genetically modified to different human populations, to the constant evolutionary change of HIV-1 and -2 as we fight back with anti-viral drugs. Natural Selection never stops. Thanks to the drugs we use against HIV (and bacteriological infections), we can see evolution in action, which creationists used to get away with claiming was impossible. Jones makes us aware of that simple proof: Once again, it's in the genes.

Professor Jones has written a modern version of "The Origin of Species," and Jones' work is easier to understand (for most people) than Darwin's texts. This book is a must for people who want to understand evolution, which is nothing more than descent with modification due to Natural Selection.

Simple, eloquent proof: "Darwin's Ghost." Thank you Steve Jones.

This is a retelling, in modern dress of Charles Darwin's "one long argument," "On the Origin of Species." Where Darwin's Exhibit A was Galapagos finches, Jones shows us the AIDS virus complex. Where Darwin had the known phylogenies of pigeon varieties, Jones has similarities and differences among base-pair sequences in the DNA molecule. Maintaining the basic structure and flow of the "Origin," Jones brings in the many findings of genetics, anthropology, paleontology, and organismal biology since Darwin's day, which build the edifice of evolution ever higher. The result is a seamless tale, borne on the unifying fact of evolution. It is a tribute to Darwin's brilliance that his original chapter and sub-chapter headings remain completely relevant. In fact, the closing chapter, "Recapitulation and Conclusion," is verbatim from the "Origin;" and 140 years after the words were first written, there's not a false note among them.

This book is an updated version of Charles Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, to me the most important book of all time, no exceptions. Darwin knew nothing of genes and DNA when he wrote his book, and Jones includes evidence of this sort in his book, along with more geology and fossil finds than Darwin had available to him. The writing style of Jones is not clear and flowing in this book, although the message of evolution and how it works is very clear. This is not a book you read in one evening, I found it a very tedious read, but at the same time very rewarding as Jones really knows his science. The book covers the mechanics of evolution well, and gives many examples.

I find it simply amazing that atoms and molecules can arrange themselves, using only natural physical laws, into more and more complex forms, and eventually humans evolve and come into existence, billions of years later. That is 'magic' to me. This book illustrates this very well, evolution powered by mutations and natural selection, which continue to this day to mold and define us and all life around us. The 'fact' of evolution, which to most scientists has proven itself beyond mere theory, must be very vexatious for the creationists, who bury their heads in the sand and make up bogus arguments against it, or ignore it altogether. Jones in this book occasionally discusses the evolution vrs. creationist debate.

We live in an absolutely beautiful universe, and this book will help one understand part of it. Jones even pokes fun at his students here and there. Meanwhile, the machinery of evolution marches on.......

The theory of evolution has gone through some rough times. If you look around at life at this planet, it isn't obvious that we have been here for 3.5 billion years. When animals are born, they look pretty much like their parents, and that seems to be a "rule" about life. But as we enter the 21st century, we have learned rules about life that aren't as obvious. The information contained in our current DNA would fill encyclopedias, but there was a time when the DNA of our direct ancestors only filled a book. There was a time, about 530 million years ago, when the level of complexity in DNA crossed a threshold and new forms of life appeared suddenly. Then the DNA crossed another threshold and the DNA became stable, trapped by its own size. Instead of creating new lifeforms, new mutations messed things up. Creationists who only look at mutations in today's DNA see this problem and say, "All mutations are bad, so evolution couldn't have formed complex life forms." And the Creationists are wrong, because they have never gone back to the mechanisms. This book explains some of the mechanisms involved, but the most important one is SIZE. For the last million years or so, the only real change in human evolution has been an increase in size. And that's easy to do. When a cell divides, there has to be a mechanism to tell the cell when to stop dividing. If we reset the clock and stop it one division later, the organism doubles in size, because every cell has divided into two cells. That's how our brains got larger, when the mechanisms devoted to processing visual information and making decisions based on it grew larger. Is that a mutation? No, but it is natural selection, and that's why Darwin's theories are so important today. He may not have gotten all of the details right, but he saw a mechanism that changed life over great periods of time, called natural selection. Without it, we can't explain why humans became intelligent, or who we are. Great book!

I found this book a great read. In the interest of keeping this short, since at least one review is highly detailed - here are some quick notes. Many of the examples used were new, like the AIDS virus information and because of this the book is not only of interest to the evolution folks as an example, it is also of interest to anyone who would like to know more about some recent biological work. One other example that just stuck with me was some of the information on heredity. The example of the cats, were fully white cats are commonly deaf due to gene interrelationships.

This is a highly readable book and I for one would recommend it to anyone with some interest in evolution (be you pro or con on the subject) or recent biological work.

It's a sad commentary that so many entries here view this book as a bludgeon against ignorance, instead of letting stand on its own merits. Steve Jones' innovative approach vividly demonstrates how science has sustained the concept of evolution through natural selection. He deserves our praise for the effort he's put into assembling a wealth of resources, while presenting the information with clarity and wit. After, all compressing 150 years of steadily increasing information is no easy task. And that information must be given the fullest possible exposure. The reluctance of Christianity [the term `creationist' is meaningless distinction] to understand natural selection is depressing, but even Steve Jones is unlikely to heal that blight.

Charles Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES is the most important book ever written. Not the best known, of course, or most often read. Yet no other publication has changed so many aspects of human outlook. Daniel Dennett rightly calls Darwin's idea `the universal acid'. The concept of change over time ranges over all science from quantum physics to cosmology. Steve Jones' modernization of ORIGIN is necessarily limited to the biological realm, but as he aptly demonstrates, that's complicated enough. Biology is a busy science these days, but Jones has brought us as up to date as writing and publication schedules permit. Addressing such a diversity of topics as AIDS, where whales came from [they're not hairy fish!] and geological time scales, he's provided us with a detailed scenario of evolution's course.

There are some interesting omissions in this book. No listing of Mendel's paper in the bibliography [although the synopsis of his work in the main text is valuable]; in fact, he doesn't mention that Darwin had a copy of it in his library - unread. Nor is there anything on island biogeography. While it would be unfitting to give Albert Russell Wallace more space in the text, there are several excellent books on a subject ORIGIN was only touched lightly. More significant is the lack of reference to the Grant's work on Galapagos Finches [see Jonathan Weiner's THE BEAK OF THE FINCH]. If anyone needs confirmation that evolution works, this three-decade long study will provide it.

None of the lacks are significant shortcomings in this effort to `update' ORIGIN. Jones has presented a stunning wealth of information, but put it together in a highly readable format. He deserves the widest possible readership for this book. With luck, Jones will perform the same service with THE DESCENT OF MAN. There's little doubt it will be as valuable as this book.