*Starred Review* If ever there were an education in a book, there’s one in this massive volume. It’s a two-part affair, the first consisting of 16 topical overviews and the second constituting a dictionary-encyclopedia of key concepts, persons, and landmark publications in the history of evolutionary science. Each piece in both parts is by an authority or authorities in its particular field, each includes its own bibliography, and there are illustrations throughout, invariably reproduced legibly large. The editors kick things off with “The History of Evolutionary Thought,” in which they delineate three stages. Before Darwin published On the Origin of Species, evolution was a pseudoscience that “rode the back of the doctrine of progress.” Though a progressive, Darwin broke the connection of evolution to progress with the concept of “blind” natural selection. But the science of his time could not support natural selection, so it remained a speculative “popular science,” adopted by some as a substitute for religion. Eventually, technological improvements and such twentieth-century developments as genetics and radioactivity led to the acceptance of evolution as a field of fully professional scientific endeavor. Surveys of scientific evolutionary topics, such as origin of life, adaptation, speciation, evolutionary medicine, molecular evolution, and sociobiology, succeed the historical essay, and four reviews of evolution’s impact on philosophy, religion, society, and American culture wrap up the first part of what is most probably the commemorative par excellence of the Origin of Species sesquicentennial. --Ray Olson
Review
If ever there were an education in a book, there's one in this massive volume...What is most probably the commemorative par excellence of the
Origin of Species sesquicentennial.
--Ray Olson (
Booklist (starred review) 20081201)
Half essay collection, half encyclopedia, it's packed with everything you'll ever want or need to know about the science of evolution.
--Zelda Roland (
Wired 20081222)
Broad, engaging, and useful.
--Gregg Sapp (
Library Journal 20081215)
Evolution, which is slightly less than 1,000 pages long, covers almost every angle of its huge subject, from the perspective of science, religion, philosophy, and history.
--Evan R. Goldstein (
Chronicle of Higher Education 20090306)
Harvard's blockbuster contribution to the Darwin anniversary is a substantial work at almost a thousand pages. (
London Review of Books 20090226)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years is as equally inviting and particularly timely in this bicentennial year of the birth of Charles Darwin and the ever-bubbling controversy with advocates of a creationist explanation for the mysteries of biology...The 16 explaining essays, followed by the second encyclopedic section offer the reader an easily and enjoyable access to what the fuss is all about and why it is important to get one's own opinions based on reality. Life, after all, is too important.
--James Srodes (
Washington Times 20090322)
More than 100 authors contribute to the rich variety of excellent articles in this highly commendable and scholarly volume. The authors explore in detail evidence supporting the role of natural selection and other forces driving evolutionary change, and consider myriad controversies and unresolved issues in evolutionary science. Illustrative examples are drawn from all levels of life on Earth. The book critically examines distinctions between microevolution--which even religious Fundamentalists generally do not dispute--and the far more contentious macroevolution. Contributors also address the influence of evolution on philosophy, sociology, and religion and provide an excellent discussion of American antievolutionism and the ongoing controversy of teaching evolution versus intelligent design/creationism in schools.
--D. A. Brass (
Choice 20090701)
