Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea

Начало книги

In the history of life, five years is a blink. But for us humans, it’s a major chunk of chronology. When Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea was first published in 2001, life was very different than it is today. Our conversations today are full of words and names—blogs, al-Qaeda—that would have drawn blank stares five years ago. Five years have brought tremendous advances in science as well. We now know much more about the natural world, from stem cells to planets orbiting other stars. We also know much more about how life has evolved, thanks to tens of thousands of new scientific papers that have been published since 2001.

Some of the most exciting new research on evolution has built on the work I wrote about in this book, from the early evolution of life to the causes of mass extinctions, from the coevolution of males and females to the arms race between hosts and parasites. But to me, the most stunning body of work concerns the final part of my book: the evolution of humans. It’s striking because it strikes closest to home.

Читать дальше →