Evolution [Hardcover]

Douglas J. Futuyma (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0878931872 | ISBN-13: 978-0878931873 | Publication Date: January 2005

In its scope and emphases, Evolution is a readily recognized descendant of the author's previous textbook, Evolutionary Biology. However, it is much shorter and is exclusively directed toward an undergraduate audience. Teachers and students will find the list of important concepts and terms in each chapter a helpful guide, and will appreciate the radically different dynamic figures and lively photographs. The content of all chapters has been updated, and material has been reorganized into new chapters such as "Conflict and Cooperation" and "How To Be Fit." Contributors Scott M. Edwards and John R. True have provided authoritative chapters on "Evolution of Genes and Genomes" and "Development and Evolution," two of the most rapidly developing subjects in evolutionary biology. A new final chapter on "Evolutionary Science, Creationism, and Society" treats such topics as the nature of science and the practical applications of evolutionary biology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Because it strikes the right balance between breadth and detail, and is conscientiously written with the student in mind, Futuyma s Evolution will resonate in the classroom. --Joel Cracraft, American Museum of Natural History

Doug Futuyma [makes] me want to be an undergraduate again, so that I can dedicate more hours to poring over the pages of his wonderful text. ... it is really a one-stop-shop for up-to-date assessments of what we do and do not know about evolution. ... There is hardly a page of this book lacking in skillfully chosen and crafted imagery. ... there is a carefully selected beauty here of a kind that could serve to inspire and inform students at so many levels, including those of us who are students for life. --Rich Mooi, Integrative and Comparative Biology --This text refers to the Loose Leaf edition.

About the Author

DOUGLAS FUTUYMA Ph.D. 1969, University of Michigan , Douglas Futuyma's research interests in evolution focus primarily on speciation and the evolution of ecological interactions among species. He has been a Guggenheim and a Fulbright Fellow, the President of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the American Society of Naturalists, and the editor of Evolution

Product Details

• Hardcover: 543 pages
• Publisher: Sinauer Associates Inc (January 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0878931872
• ISBN-13: 978-0878931873
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #113,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent text on evolutionary principles, September 15, 2006

By 

DR P. Dash "drdneuro" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evolution (Hardcover)

This looks to be the major text on evolution for undergrads, and it's a good one. However, it is essentially a text on evolutionary science and principles, and so if your interest is in a more detailed account of the specifics of organismal evolution at the level of the family or order you will find only spotty examples. There's quite a bit of population biology and quantitative genetics. Only in the final chapters is there a discussion of evo-devo and the importance in evolution of mechanisms such as mutations in regulatory regions of proteins, gene duplication and divergence, and the modularity of protein structure and how exon shuffling can instantly produce new proteins with new functions. These genetic mechanisms are much more important in evolution than mutations in the structural regions of proteins, which tend to be highly conserved even at the phylogenetic level. The book has plenty of color illustrations and is well written. It's a sad commentary on our times that the final chapter had to be written on refuting creationist nonsense, but DJF does a particularly excellent job here, and for those interested it can be read without having to read the rest of the text. In fact I think this chapter should be published as a small monograph and made required reading for all high school students so as to inoculate them against the pernicious lies creationists try to propogate. An understanding of evolution is critical for everybody, and yet only a tiny perentage of US citizens have a grasp of even the most basic evolutionary facts and principles.

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolution by Futuyma, July 2, 2005

By 

Elizabeth Zimmerman (Madison, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evolution (Hardcover)

This is the up-to-date edition of a standard in the field, recommended reading for the serious biologist. An understanding of biology hinges on an understanding of evolution. The book reads very easily, but is not "dumbed down" in any way. It covers the subject widely. It is well illustrated.

46 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what it could have been and not what it needs to be., April 9, 2009

By 

Ned - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evolution (Hardcover)

This is probably the fourth or fifth book I've used as a teaching assistant for a senior level course in evolutionary biology. And to be honest, I was very, very, disappointed with this book from a teaching perspective. I have two main issues with this book, organization of topics and depth of discussion.

There's not a lot to say about the organization that can't be gleaned from the TOC. How do you discuss the geography of evolution and patterns of biodiversity prior to discussing mechanisms of speciation (let alone what a species is)? How do you effectively discuss phylogenetic trees without first discussing speciation and species concepts? Worse, how can you discuss molecular clocks prior to ANYTHING about molecular evolution?

You can't.

Futuyma's previous book was often criticized for being too in depth for undergraduates. I never understood that criticism since you can always tell your students what parts of which chapters to read. Regardless, this book goes drastically in the opposite direction. When a student wants to discuss limits to the molecular clock, don't expect the text to discuss mutational saturation (the term isn't in the index and I didn't find it anywhere in the text). This sort of omission is all too common and the discussion of most topics is overly superficial.

I would recommend the newest Freeman and Herron Evolutionary Analysis over this text. F&H had some problems in earlier versions but many have been fixed. F&H also have the best figures around, for example they manage to present multivariate selection gradients in an approachable way! I didn't even know that was possible. They also provide really useful boxes for a wide variety of topics (e.g. algebraic treatments of mutation-selection balance or stable equilibria). I'm currently having to teach using Futuyma's book and routinely use F&H figures and make copies of their boxes for my students.

Better yet, have your students find used copies of Futuyma's old text which was great.