Customer Reviews

The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul

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Well, Darwin's soul really isn't up for grabs. What is at stake is just who among the illuminati of the Darwinian establishment really have the goods on how evolution works and how it doesn't. "Spandrels" of the mind, "habitat tracking," how complexity affects evolution, "species sorting," whether evolution proceeds by leaps and bounds or just plods along, and other contentious matters form the body of this unsteady but interesting book.

The main antagonists are the usual suspects, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Richard Lewontin, et al., proponents of punctuated equilibrium and a "holistic" approach to evolution on the one side, and Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, John Maynard Smith, et al., gradualist reductionists, the so-called "orthodox Darwinians," on the other. Dawkins, et al. believe that natural selection is the only really important factor in evolution while Gould, et al. believe that natural selection alone cannot fully explain how evolution works. Morris reviews their various publications and quotes them, revealing that they behave rather badly at times, sometimes resorting to unseemly personal attacks on one another--which leads me to observe that Darwin, who never involved himself in hot debates, much less in name calling, must be turning over in his grave.

The irony is, as Morris fumbles to makes clear, the seemingly substantive differences that are being so hotly debated are for the most part actually ones of emphasis and interpretation. Nobody involved doubts the supremacy of natural selection as the driving force in evolutionary change, any more than any of them doubt the fact of evolution. Morris gives the reader some background information about evolution and introduces complexity theory in order that the debate may be followed. In the penultimate chapter he gives a summary of the evidence as he sees it. A final chapter entitled, "Controversy and Discovery," includes the currently hot idea "that evolution can proceed at a more rapid rate than anyone had suspected." (p. 233) There is an annotated bibliography and a useful appendix listing relevant Web sites. Morris tries to avoid taking sides in this debate. Indeed, he bends over backwards to be fair, and that attitude, along with a beguiling, easy to read style, is the strength of the book.

There are weaknesses, however. His focus is too narrow with its concentration on Gould, et al. and Dawkins, et al. and their differences when there are much more interesting and immediate questions currently being debated. (I imagine that the young lions in evolutionary biology are very tired of seeing those old guys still getting all that ink!) For an interesting book by a young evolutionary psychologist on some of the newer controversies see Geoffery Miller's The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (2000).

And then there are all those typos! I found typos on pages 41, 47, 107, 114, 199, 203, 228, and 232. In one case the word "would" was left out. In another the word "out" was used when the word "at" was meant, and in a couple of places extraneous words were left in. For example, on page 203 a sentence begins, "You should not should not automatically conclude..." When one sees a lot of typos in a book it suggests that the author did not read the proofs, or if he did, he did a cursory job of it.

Worse than the typos (and if I found eight, there are surely others) are some misstatements of fact and intent. On page 34 he writes that the mammals that survived the K-T extinction "are not more <evolved> than their dinosaur predecessors." As Morris points out on page 32 "a frog is just as <evolved> as a human being." But that means frogs living today and human beings living today. To compare how "evolved" the dinosaurs living 65 million years ago are to mammals living today makes little sense. Note too that on page 34 Morris refers to the extinction of the dinosaurs as taking place 65 million years ago, which of course is the standard take, but on page 124 he unaccountably states that the "collision with an asteroid" took place 70 million years ago. Actually he writes, "70 millions years ago," which, I just noticed, is another typo!

There is also entirely too much repetition in the book, as though the chapters were independently conceived and meant to be published separately and then not properly edited. For example on page 204 Morris repeats the same ideas, and even some of the same wording, that appears on page 123. Chapter 8, "The Evidence," in particular contains a lot of unnecessary repetition.

Finally there is a most annoying error on page 175 in Morris's discussion of the Watson selection task. As written the instructions are incomplete and must leave readers scratching their heads about what is given as the correct answer. He writes:

"Suppose you are shown the four cards marked with the following symbols: D F 3 7 You are then asked which two cards you must turn over to see if any of the cards violate the following rule:

If the letter D is on one side, then there will be a numeral 3 on the other.

Which two cards do you turn over?"

Morris's answer, cards, D and 7 is partially correct, but what about the card with the F? According to the directions it also has to be turned over (to see if there's a D there) making it three cards that must be turned over, not two. This error resulted because Morris left out the following proviso, namely that the cards always have a letter on one side and a number on the other.

This is an excellent idea for a book, but I don't think Richard Morris realized its potential.

I found this book to be a godsend. I have read extensively (30 + books) in the areas of complexity and chaos theory, evolutionary psychology,evolutionary theory, genetic programming, evolutionary history, genetic mutation, and other related areas and frequently felt lost in the forest of ideas, though increasingly familiar with each tree, twig, and type of bark (to extend the analogy). Richard Morris does an admirable job of describing the forest, and helped give me a context to understand the (frequently high-decibel!) arguements between the advocates of different positions. Right from the start, Morris categorizes thinkers into broad schools -- for example, among evolutionary theorists he groups the disputatants into two broad schools: pluralists and reductionists. He clearly explains the differences between these, and does so without himself becoming polemical. He even devotes space to very recent studies (1999 & 2000) casting light on 'which way the evidence points.' Morris sidesteps the creationists (thank you!) and examines differences within the scientific community itself. Many familiar names appear within this book: John Maynard Smith, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Niles Eldridge, Steven Jay Gould (of course!), Richard Lewontin, Charles Darwin himself and others. I was surprised at a few names that did NOT appear: Jared Diamond, Benoit Mandelbrot, Brian Fagan, John Koza and Terrence W. Deacon, just to name a few.... But my gratitude for Morris's very clear guide overwhelms my quibbles. Those of us who stumble from book to book trying to understand the issues and the reasons for disagreements (not to mention the development of various lines of thought!) have long needed an overview like this one!

I have read many books on the evolution theory and this is by far the best written and the most easily understandable.

This book is food for the hungry curious mind if one wants to learn how evolution has evolved since Darwin's theory in 1859. It introduces us to the world of scientists and their way of expressing skepticism about claims made by other scientists. As Richard Morris said that is the only way that science can progress.

I really enjoyed the details concerning the herd of elephant overrunning the world in no more than a few thousand years if all of the offspring lived to maturity. Or better the story of the brainworm, a parasite infecting sheeps, eaten by snails, whose mucus worm larvae is eaten by ants, who then crawl up a stem of grass, and wait there patiently until a sheep makes a feast with it. What about the species of ants which makes slaves, others maintain fungus farms and some other "milk" their owns. Why do you help your neighbor or give money to the homeless, why does the house sparrow have a different wingspan depending on where they live,

What about the story of Mendel and his peas? Did you know that Mendel was an Austrian monk who discovered the genetic inheritance before Darwin?

Richard Morris introduces us slowly to the evolution theory' scientific terms, which for a layman are very inspiring: Do you know what a spandrel is? What is the Wason Selection Task? The Cambrian era? What is Dr. Kettelwell experiment with moths and his findings? Who are the parents of the mule? What is a hinny and who are its parents? What is a tetrapod? Why are the same bones seen in the leg of a frog, in the wing of a bat and in the arm and hand of a human being? How new scientific disciplines like complexity theory and evolutionary psychology have emerged? Everything about the fossils creation, the radioactive dating and all the function of DNA and much more are explained.

As Richard Morris said: "The essence of science, after all is questioning, not the creation of rigid theories that have hardened into dogma." We, all of us are part of the Evolution, if you want to see where it stands now, read this book.

I am not going to give you all the answers, they are or sometimes are not in this book and you better see for yourself, and buy it!

I almost forgot I have only one little problem with this book, I am French and had to run to my dictionary for many words! I hope it will be translated into French very soon.

Yvette Lemoine

The Evolutionists by Richard Morris is a good book, but not a great book. The core idea of the book is excellent and this makes the book worth reading. Central to the book is the fact that evolution happened and that no scientist working in any field dealing with life disputes evolution. Also critical to the book is the fact that scientists in an active area of study usually do not agree on the details. Morris quickly dispatches the creationists [sorry creationists, you may have convinced the general public in the US that creationism is part of the debate, but I suspect there is a special place in Hell for folks as intellectually dishonest as you guys are] and moves on to several areas of current debate in the evolutionary sciences, including punctuated equilibrium, evolutionary psychology and complexity theory. Morris provides good coverage of all these debates, but too often repeats himself . The book falls into a stasis of repetition punctuated by moments of brilliant lucidity. Since I was highly motivated, I got through the frequent recaps to the next batch of new insights. My fear is that a less motivated reader will fail to make it to the end of the book. I also worry about some of the focus on the personalities involved [yeah, I can see the title is The Evolutionists]. I have read every essay Stephen Jay Gould has written for Natural History and respect his intelligence and I enjoy Richard Dawkins books even though I don't always agree with him, but if Morris depicts their behavior correctly, I think we have a situation of intelligent men behaving badly and I would have liked the focus to stay on the substantive parts of the debate and minimize the ad hominem crappola. That said, I do think you should read this book.

I find this book to be fascinating. It captured my interest from the very beginning and kept it throughout. The controversies surrounding the subject of evolution were explained in an unbiased fashion. I like that the book focused not on the question, if evolution happened, but on how it happened.

This book unravels the current debates, and explains the views of many of the top experts in the field of evolution. As a biology student I was overwhelmed with the information and the presentation in this outstanding book. I recommend it for anyone who adores the sciences like myself.

The struggle for Darwin's soul is an enlightening volume of the thinking surrounding top scientist in the field of evolutionary biology and the controversies encompassed within.

Darwinism is presented here in this text in all its glory. The ideas of natural selection are put forth along with the ideas of the various 'players' in the field of evolution such as Niles Eldridge and John Maynard-Smith This is not a book focusing on the tired debate between creationist and evolutionists, but instead on the known facts and the actual process of evolution.

I find this book to be fascinating. It captured my interest from the very beginning and kept it throughout. The controversies surrounding the subject of evolution were explained in an unbiased fashion. I like that the book focused not on the question, if evolution happened, but on how it happened. This book unravels the current debates, and explains the views of many of the top experts in the field of evolution. As a biology student I was overwhelmed with the information and the presentation in this outstanding book. I recommend it for anyone who adores the sciences like myself.

I recommend this book as background reading for my evolutionary psychology students, since so many of them--like most people, even the well educated--have no idea of what is really going on in research on evolution. I don't think students--or anyone else--should be talking about evolutionary psychology unless they understand the state-of-the-art in the sciences of evolution.

Outside of science, people seem to think the "big question" is whether evolution is a fact. The cognoscenti pride themselves on knowing that it is, looking down upon religious fideists of various sorts who claim otherwise. And vice versa.

Within science, though, that question does not even appear. That evolution is a set of facts to be explained, not a hypothesis up for grabs, was settled within science a century ago.

For real scientists, the real debates--the real efforts to understand reality--take place over very different questions, and the various research programs differ very significantly. This book is a nice overview of some of the leading issues.

If you are under the illusion that the debate is about whether evolution takes place, you will find this book kind of ho-hum. But thinking that makes about as much sense as being ho-hum about Newton vs. Einstein. That would be like thinking, "Newton and Einstein didn't disagree on whether gravity exists, so this is just infighting among people who differ only in emphasis."

In fact, Newton v. Einstein matters a great deal--as do the controversies explained in this book. Just as Einstein's discoveries made possible many developments we would never even have been able to conceive within Newtonian physics, so the eventual truths uncovered by the various competing research programs in evolution will determine a great deal about our ability to understand and shape our lives.

Scientists, of course, are human, and they can want for themselves all sorts of things besides scientific truth, including fame, influence, and the financial rewards of being popular celebrities. (Science journals do not pay for articles. Pop venues do. Science books rarely make much money. Lots of pop writing on science does.) Sadly, too many of the scientists, when they turn to writing for popular audiences, grossly misrepresent science, and they sometimes just get mean. Within the popular press--even the highly respectable sanctums of the intelligentsia, like The New York Review of Books--writers need not meet elementary rules of scientific writing. Routinely, they don't. They exaggerate their own claims, minimize the evidence for the claims of others, and claim to have proven grand things that every real scientist in the world knows they haven't--and that they don't even claim themselves in their scientific writing! And they do not necessarily play fair with their opponents. In the evolution debates, they have basically reduced themselves to insulting each others mothers.

Richard Morris does a nice job of avoiding such scientifically useless vituperation, helping us see where the real issues lie and what makes each possibility promising.

Of course, anyone who wants can complain about Morris's principles of selection. Personally, I wish he had not overlooked increased scientific interest in sexual selection, especially since there is evidence to show that the leading way of reconciling it with natural selection is less than clearly true. But that's really neither here nor thre. The important thing is that he has made clear what real research within science is about.

If you are a lay person who wants a fair overview of current issues involved in our efforts to understand human life, this is a very helpful accomplishment.

If, though, you have no interest in understanding how life works, just an interest in priding yourself on already accepting evolution, you will find this book boring.

Evolutionary thinking promises to open exhilirating new vistas on our lives. The new areas of research it has opened even in the last twenty years--which are certainly decades away from yielding conclusive results--give us the chance to understand ourselves and our world as never before. For those sciences to do their work, though, they need for all of us to understand why they matter, what they may accomplkish, and what they haven't yet achieved. They need that so we support them and make their work possible.

That being said, it follows that Morris has made a contribution to the future of our species--insofar as this book helps people see beyond the cant and mutual ill-will that fills public debate, to understand that evolution is a set of sciences, not a settled body of knowledge, from which we can eventually learn immense amounts.

The struggle for Darwin's soul is an enlightening volume of the thinking surrounding top scientist in the field of evolutionary biology and the controversies encompassed within.

Darwinism is presented here in this text in all its glory. The ideas of natural selection are put forth along with the ideas of the various 'players' in the field of evolution. This is not a book focusing on the tired debate between creationist and evolutionists, but instead on the known facts and the actual process of evolution.

There is an ongoing discussion amongst evolution researchers that has devolved into a series of acrimonious ad hominem attacks. For the spectators, the struggle is either sad or mildly amusing, depending on one's outlook. In either case, it's not worth a full book outlining who wrote what when.

And the book itself has problems: 1) it fails to make a convincing case that the argument is important; 2) It contains an unexplained foray into complexity theory that seems unrelated to the task at hand; and 3) Large blocks of text are written is very short, repetitive sentences reminiscent of a sixth grade textbook. In short, save your money and read Darwin's Ghost by Steve Jones.