Customer Reviews

What on Earth Evolved?: 100 Species That Changed the World

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was impressed with the theme and beautiful lay out of the book when I saw it at the book store. But on a quick review of a couple of chapters, I saw two errors which made me lose confidence in the book.

On Page 13, "Even more shocking was that of the 25,000 human genes at least 95 per cent turn out to have no apparent function at all." Ouch! I guess the author meant 95% of the DNA has no apparent function - but what an error!

On Page 170, "Elephants have no less an impact... most popularly by Indian chief Chandragupta Maurya. His 9000 elephants were according to Greek historian Plutarch, instrumental in deterring invasion by Greek adventurer Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC" Sounds well researched and impressive? But unfortunately it is wrong. Chandragupta Maurya was a teenager when Alexander invaded India. Alexander did beat King Poros and his elephant troops, but turned back before proceeding much further into India since his troops wanted to return. They might have been influenced by rumors of the strength of King Nanda of Magadha who would have been Alexander's next adversary if he had moved further into India. After Alexander left India, there was a power vacuum which Chandragupta Maurya took advantage of. But he had to fight many battles and it took many years for him to establish the Mauryan empire and its powerful army. Alexander was long dead by then!. However there is evidence of Chandragupta Maurya supplying elephants to one of Alexander's successors - Selecus, whose daughter Helen was given to Chandragupta in marriage - but that is another story.

Everybody makes errors, but there is no excuse for these type of errors in a book of this nature. After spending $45, I feel disappointed.

Sam Santhosh's review is a good warning, but he just scratches the surface about what went wrong in the production of "What on Earth Evolved?". Writing 400 pages on any topic is a gargantuan undertaking, but it is especially so when one has no obvious expertise in the subject at hand. Christopher Lloyd's lack of expertise becomes even more serious an issue because neither the book's fact checker nor proof reader has taken up the slack.

I have got to page 121 thus far. I have waded through "coral fish" which has been substituted for what apparently should be "coral polyps" on at least two occasions, frogs illustrated and captioned as "the pioneer class of semi-terrestrial fish - the amphibians" (all modern amphibians are relative late-comers to the amphibians), Cornell University being moved to Seattle, the story of European grape vines and the origin of their (modern) rootstock being made hash of twice - on pages 52-53 where it is got backwards, and again (following a reference) on pages 298-299 where the solution is straightened out but the problem is shifted to aphids without an accurate reminder of what the real problem was, Lystrosaurus being given the same thermo-regulating qualities as Dimetrodon even though the illustration shows Lystrosaurus (correctly) without Dimetrodon's sail and no other explanation being offered for its supposed thermo-regulatory powers, making a botch of the origins of pterosaurs, "as much ... than" and "here" passing for "as much ... as" and "hear" - well, you get the drift. When writing about extinct animals, Lloyd almost always goes far beyond the popular writings of paleontologists in extrapolating behavior from fossils, even though he specifically mentions the problem of doing so when discussing trace fossils (footprints).

I can get past "What on Earth Evolved?" having its specific chapters set in one of the ugliest Courier Bold-style type faces I've ever seen (the introductory chapters are rather nicely set), but I cannot get past virtually every chapter being laced with factual landmines, and the spelling and grammatical errors are inexcusable. Illustrator Andrew Forshaw has a nice enough style, tending toward a cloisonned effect, but some of his art is overly reduced so that details become muddied, and he is either a master of many styles, or the book contains oodles of art that he did not do and which are are not credited to the original artists.

Lloyd does provide several instances of new information that challenge what I have understood from older sources about the various living beings involved, and for the interest these instances generate I give one star, but I cannot trust anything he writes without checking every statement for myself, and I don't have that kind of time. If Lloyd insists on writing this sort of book, he must hire a staff that can compensate for his weaknesses and has the courage to inform the boss when he gets off-track.

I have "What on Earth Evolved?" in the smallest room of the house. Its short chapters suit that location, and I enjoy well enough playing "Got'cha" with it, but I suspect that I'm only finding about half the errors, and that is scary.

I feel regret for the people who have bought, read, and reviewed this book without realizing that it is so basically inaccurate. "What on Earth Evolved?" should NOT be used as evidence for evolution, it should NOT be given to children, and it is NOT appropriate even for any adult who does not have sufficient background in the various applicable areas of biology, paleontology, and geology to avoid being led down the garden path. This is a real shame, as a well-written book covering exactly the same topics would be a most useful source for all. Nevertheless, Mr Lloyd's writing is simply too untrustworthy to have any use except to generate interest for a competently written book to come.

The book has wonderfully rich, 4 page, information-filled entries on each of the most important organisms on Earth. Smallpox. Earthworms. Corn. T Rex. Mosquitoes. These are wonderful ways to engage with very curious 9-12 year olds; it's 10 times as interesting and 10 times as dense in content as what they're getting in school. I'm educated but not a scientist so I cannot judge the book on its accuracy. But we love it.

Our teens are devouring this book and ideas are bursting out all over. It is organized in short chapters which can be read and discussed in any order. Great book for igniting curiosity. Very accessible to scientifically interested readers.

I bought this book last year for a gift, I was so impressed I read most of it before giving it away - my granddaughter (an engineer) saw it so this was my second purchase,. a gift for her.

This is one of the most interesting books I've read....I learned a lot about long extinct species and the contributions of all of them...the fact that the symbiotic relationship between some are so close that they are married...for example a species of orchid is so specialized that only the carpenter bee can pollinate it...and of the 100 most important specides on the third rock from the sun is the worm...for without the worm it would only be a rock.

This book is easily the most interesting book I have read in several years. The evolutionary histories and historical impacts of everything from bees to flu virus to wheat are discussed in highly entertaining prose, with a ranking of each species in its importance to the Earth's history. There are so many fascinating side discussions, from the abiogenesis of life to the domestication of man by various plants and viruses that make this book even more thought-provoking and valuable. The material wets your appetite for more, and a Further Reading section is included as well as endnotes on the website.

This is a great book of knowledge that sort of reminds me of the old TV show "Connections" Easy to reag and understand.

Bought this book as a Christmas present for my wife. It became the hot topic at our house over the Holidays. First heard about the book through an NPR radio interview of the author. Here's the link:

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It will give you a great idea of what the book is all about. Nice that the book is divided into compartments so you don't feel like you need to read the whole book at once.

I have leafed through this book at a bookstore and, frankly, wanted to beat their $45 price. It looks really good. There are too many illustrations for it to be useful on a Kindle, so I need a dead tree copy. What's with the price here? Did I see a paperback version, which Amazon says is unavailable as of Feb 12, 2010?

Update: looks like Amazon dropped the price, which is now reasonable for a hardcover. Trouble is, now I want to read it on my iPad. Will a Kindle version have color illustrations? Probably not, even though reading Kindle books on iPad will create a market for such.