Berkeley Book List: Evolution
Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry 1860-1940, Peter J. Bowler, The University of Chicago Press, 1996 Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest, Adrian Desmond, Penguin Books, 1998 Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands, Edward J. Larson, Basic Books, 2001 The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul, Richard Morris, W.H. Freeman and Company, 2001 |
The books I am recommending I've read over the past three years for a variety of reasons. A citation to a Peter Bowler book turned up as I worked on a research project, and its discovery turned into a long read rather than a quick reference check. Adrian Desmond's biography of Thomas Huxley was read as a follow up on his earlier co-authored biogeography of Darwin, and was a welcome hiatus from the numerous Darwin biographies that were dominating the commentary on this important time in evolutionary thinking. Edward Larson's history of the Galápagos Islands is an interesting approach, documenting the rise of evolutionary thought from the vantage of some critical rocks off the coast of South America. Lastly, Richard Morris's book on the ongoing controversy in evolutionary biology provides a fair discussion of the clashes between micro- and macro-evolutionary biologists and was read to provide an overview and update for the discussion of this topic in my classes.
 |
 |
Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry 1860-1940 looks at efforts made to understand the Tree of Life in the time period between the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" and the new synthesis of the 1940s, especially from the perspective of the earth sciences – paleontology and biogeography. In biology, the rediscovery of Mendel's work had ushered in genetics and population thinking during this time period, but assembling the tree of life remained an often interesting mix of pre-natural selection ideas and metaphors that underwent a more gradual transformation rather than a quick revolution. Although some of the early ideas of animal relationships (e.g., annelid worms giving rise to vertebrates) seem silly in today's world of DNA sequencing, this history and analysis provides a deeper understanding of the contributions of both morphology and paleontology to evolutionary thinking than is typically acknowledged.
|
 |
T.H. Huxley is often characterized as 'Darwin's bulldog,' throwing himself into fray after fray in defense of his retiring colleague's theory. But the man that emerges from Adrian Desmond's biography, Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest, is much more complicated, generous, and visionary than that characterization allows. Huxley came not from a privileged class, but from the working poor. He persevered against formidable odds and ultimately found himself on a worldwide voyage of discovery rivaling Darwin's own on the Beagle, but his 'evolutionary' conversion came later than Darwin's. Huxley's tough "take no prisoners" approach came out of his childhood experiences and made him a different sort of scientist in Victorian England. In addition to championing evolution by natural selection, this incredible man took on battles on behalf of common people, the professionalization of science, and improving teacher education.
 |
|
The Galápagos Islands have long been a key geographical locale for the study of evolution. The literature typically focuses on the organisms and scientists that have made these contributions, but Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands takes a new and different perspective and looks at the subject from the perspective of the place. The islands were known for over 300 years before Darwin arrived and reports of the 'unusual animals' found there were filed by some of the earliest expeditions. These reports noted the unique setting with the contrast of cold, rich productive waters surrounding bleak desert islands. Since Darwin's time, the islands have become both an expedition destination and a laboratory for the study of evolution. However, it may be in their newest role as an eco-tour destination that the most difficult times for this special island ecosystem will occur.
|
 |
Hardly a month or two goes by without some claim appearing in the popular literature that evolutionary biology is being 'disproved' by the evolutionists themselves, and a full unraveling of the theory is intimate. Despite this wishful thinking by creationists, there is a deep controversy in evolutionary biology which Richard Morris clearly delineates and discusses in The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul. New ideas and models from complexity theory and competing views of evolutionary psychology are dealt with in detail. And though the author comes out slightly in favor of the late Steve Gould and his colleagues, the overall treatment is balanced and provides a good demonstration of how competing scientific ideas are vetted and argued by their most strident supporters.
About David R. Lindberg
David R. Lindberg is a professor in the Department of Integrative
Biology, having joined UC Berkeley as a lecturer in paleontology
in 1986. Since 1994 he has also been a research paleontologist
with the university's Museum of
 |
|
In his spare time Lindberg is devoted to a pair of Dobermans, the third and fourth of a series of rescued dogs.
