Customer Reviews

Evolution (Oxford Readers)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Most of us who have a professional or casual interest in evolution and the natural world gain our knowledge from popular articles, books and perhaps the dim recesses of our undergraduate textbook memory. While Dawkins' _The Selfish Gene_ or _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_ by Dennet may lay out the bones and flesh of our modern view of the natural world with wonderous analogies and often beautiful prose it's not until opening this volume that what's missing will be noticed: a sense of history, of excitement, of challenging thought.

Evolution (and its sub-branches) have been controversial, not just on religious terms (the less said about that the better) but in the normal manner of grand scientific theories attempting to explain the world in which we live. The importance of claims, counter-claims and paradigm shifts are hard to grasp without having been present, if not in person then intellecutally. _This_, with joy and a very sensitive editor's pen, is what Mark Ridly (author of the popular undergraduate text _Evolution_) has managed to give us with his selection of seminal papers in the history of evolutionary thought.

The articles, ranging from Darwin through to the present day) are superbly chosen and in many cases hard for students or professionals (let along lay readers) to obtain. An absence of maths from even the most statistical of papers (which still remain cogent) will be welcomed by those not up for weeks of scribbling.

The papers themselves are clear and thoughtful, their importance is always obvious and, through their arrangement, lead the reader on a merry intellectual dance of claim, counter-claim and converging streams of thought.

Reading this book is an intellectual adventure; no summaries of events long past, the papers (and the accompanying short essays by Ridley) give a sense of the issues, how thoughtful the responses and creative the science.

In short - this book make me re-think about what and how we know about evolution. It stimulated my research. Higher praise I cannot give.

May there be many more in this wonderful series.

I saw the 2 star review and decided I could not let it sit without challenge. I have just received my Phd in psychology and masters in statistics, and have decided to attempt to make a career out of behavioral genetics and evolutionary genetics. Mark Ridley's book was an absolute inspiration to me when I first read it, and it continues to be a must-have reference. The book is noteworthy because it explains the major debates in evolutionary thought in a balanced yet readable way. For example, Ridley gives an excellent introduction into the fundamental question about what maintains genetic variation in the face of selection, an issue that is given only cursory attention in other books of this kind.

I first read this as an undergraduate, yet it continues to serve as my fundamental reference to evolutionary biology. This is truly a wonderful introduction to evolution.

I have the 1994 edition. It is a textbook, but it was no act of masochism to read it through. This is a compliment to any sizeable textbook, but do not think it reads like a novel. If you skim it, you will be missing a great deal.

I liked the writing, which is clear, pleasant and efficient; no waffle. The book is carefully structured and the aim throughout is to convey the successive themes; there is not much stopping to sniff the flowers. Examples and illustrations are effectively chosen to illuminate specific points. The history of the subject and of views on the subject matter is carefully interwoven with the development of the themes, to give a powerful insight into the respective status of major current schools of thought. The book is exceptional in its dispassionate discussion of rival opinions.

I should have liked a more comprehensive index. Several times when wanting to refer back to points, I was reduced to paging and searching. The CD version must be a real luxury.

Strongly recommended to students, professionals and serious evolutionary dilletants. Creation scientists have no one but themselves to blame if they burn their fingers on it.

Ridley does a great job of summarizing the evidence for evolution, highlighting key concepts, and discussing recent research findings. The references cited throughout the book (and nicely listed all together at the end) are a great starting point for a beginning student of evolution. I'm impressed with how many of the cited works were published in 2000 or later. Although written primarily as a textbook for undergraduates in the biological sciences, his clear writing style and insistence on defining all key terms should make it accessible to a much broader audience. For those lecturing on evolution, the Web resources that accompany the text are quite handy, too. If I had one knock against the book (it's the reason for 4, rather than 5, stars), it would be the price: ~ $140 CDN seems a bit steep, and will likely deter many prospective readers.

This was the main text we used in my evolution course at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. It is a collection of influential papers, each representative of an important discovery or contribution to the development of modern evolutionary thought. As you should expect from any collection of academic papers, some parts are very interesting and exciting while others are painfully boring. A couple personal favorites in this book are the papers "evolutionary explosions and the phylogenetic fuse" and "the spandrels of san marco and the panglossian paradigm." Though, it should be noted that the latter was significantly shortened for this edition. Overall, a great and fascinating collection.

I always thought biology was no more than stamp collecting and memorization of names in a dead language. This book changed my mind. The book is thoughtful, full of examples and results from other studies. The writing is smooth and easy to understand. I particularly like the part on evolutionary genetics. Here Ridley made the insights from evolution theory rigorous by introducing some simple models from population genetics. Simple yet rigorous. Anyone with highschool math can understand.

I think it's a very good place to start when you want to learn more beyond those popular science books on evolution.

This is a fascinating book, perfect for the semi-advanced student of evolution. If you've read numerous books on evolution and have an accurate perception of the evolutionary processes, but are becoming bored with the redundancy of popular publications, then you'll appreciate this book. It's a beautifully compiled, detailed, and enlightening read for those who are seeking a more in-depth understanding in what are normally only brushed upon areas. Evolution elaborates on many speculative topics to grab your interest, and in the end could give you a much clearer idea of what direction you should pursue in your research. Be it: speciation, adaptation, macroevolution, microevolution, genomics, or something else, this is the book that could help you decide. Also, if you've yet to read any of the "classical" evolutionary biologists such as Crick, Fisher, Dawkins, Williams, Gould, Smith, or even Darwin, this will be a great introduction to each of those authors, a little of what they thought, and familiarize you with their writing style.

I am an amateur (an equity investor by profession) with deep interest in evolutionary biology. I have been doing a lot of reading by Dawkins, Gould, Carroll and others on evolution. But I had always wanted to read a book that encapsulated all the basic principles of evolution, and also laid out various points of view of experts. For example, when one reads Gould and Dawkins on punctuated equilibrium, it is hard to reach a point of view given their extreme positions.

Mark Ridley has done an amazing job of this encapsulation. Apart from being exhaustive and informative, I liked a few other things about the book that seemed insignificant in beginning, but enhanced reading pleasure a lot: (1) its ubiquitous references to specific page numbers and sections when discussing a concept that enables to reader to stay updated and current with the vast range of topics covered. For example, if he discusses postzygotic isolation in Chapter 23, just to remind us what it means, he will make a reference to Chapter 12 (page X, section Y) where it was initially discussed, (2) he discusses many contemporary and interesting issues in a "box" format in various chapters, (3) the chapters are short and one gets a sense of accomplishment after finishing one, (4) there is a great section on conclusion, and another one on summary after each chapter - a great idea that very few authors implement, (5) the reading list at the end of each chapter is very well explained.

Overall, I am very happy that I bought this book, and it is riddled with my notes on the pages (that have ample space for people like me who like to scribble!).

The price of this book is well worth it -- A book of this nature is no small task to assemble. Broad in scope, Ridley had done a very thorough job on comprehensively covering technical topics, leaving out opinion and covering subjects from multiple perspectives.
However, it is a fairly technical read, and lengthy, which should only be undertaken by those who take the subject seriously. Each topic has a multitude of citations and the chapters end with recommendations for further reading. A true work of scientific literature by an author who cares about educating his reader.

I have used this book through my undergraduate and early graduate years and have been very pleased with the layout, the content, and the writing. I would recommend this text to anyone who has taken a first year biology course and wants or needs to learn more on the background for much of the current work in evolutionary science.