Pharyngula::A book list for evolutionists

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Sunday, April 03, 2005

A book list for evolutionists

PZ Myers • 64 Comments (last page)

I frequently get requests for suggested books in evolutionary biology. Here's a short list with some very rough organization of books I've read and liked and think worth passing on. If you have any other suggestions, add 'em in the comments.

I'll probably also move the list to one of the sidebars at some point.

For the kids:

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution. Steve Jenkins. Another encyclopedic illustrated summary of evolutionary history for the younger set.

Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs . David Norman. Not really intended for kids, but packed with full-color illustrations and detailed descriptions of many dinosaur groups. My kids would spend hours leafing through this one; it's the dinosaur book I wish I'd had as a 12 year old.

Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story. Lisa Westburg Peters. Excellent, simple summary of evolutionary history, for the K-3rd grade set.

The Tree of Life : Charles Darwin. Peter Sis. Nice picture book biography of Darwin for the kids.

From the Beginning: The Story of Human Evolution. David Peters. An older book that may be hard to get, but worth it for the wall-to-wall drawings of the organisms scattered along the human lineage, from single-celled prokaryote to modern humans.

For the grown-up layman:

Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin : The Power of Place. Janet Browne. This is the best biography of Darwin out there.

Science As a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology. John A. Moore. This is part history book, part philosophy of science book; if you know someone who doesn't understand the scientific method, this one will straighten him out.

The Darwin Wars. Andrew Brown. Much as we aspire to the pure search for knowledge, scientists can be testy and political and vicious, too—this is a study of the sociology of evolutionary biology.

Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. Carl Zimmer. If you want a general survey of the history and ideas of evolutionary biology that isn't written like a textbook, this is the one you want.

At the Water's Edge: Fish With Fingers, Whales With Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea. Carl Zimmer. The focus in this one is on macroevolution of tetrapods and cetaceans. Excellently written, with a very thorough overview of the evidence.

Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution. Richard Fortey. Everything you need to know about the basics of trilobytes, with a chatty and often amusing introduction to the world of paleontologists.

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. Jonathan Weiner. A Pulitzer-winning account of the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant in documenting the evolutionary changes occurring in Darwin's finches in the Galapagos right now.

What Evolution Is. Ernst Mayr. A survey of the theory by an opinionated master.

Evolutionary Biology. Douglas J. Futuyma. If you don't mind reading a textbook, this is one of the best and most popular texts on the subject.

An Introduction to Biological Evolution. Kenneth Kardong. Another textbook, but less weighty and less expensive then Futuyma's; a book I'd use in a freshman non-majors course.

For the more advanced/specialized reader:

On Growth and Form. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. I'm afraid no developmental biologist can list important books without mentioning this one.

From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. Sean B. Carroll, Jennifer K. Grenier, Scott D. Weatherbee. Like it says…molecular genetics, evolution, developmental biology. A good textbook describing the new cutting edge of evolutionary biology.

Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?. David M. Raup. A little statistics, a lot of paleontology, a good introduction to how we try to puzzle out what the world was like from a sparse data set.

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Stephen J. Gould. Massive. Indulgently written. But full of interesting ideas.

Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. Mary Jane West-Eberhard. Also massive. If you're already comfortable with the conventional perspective on evolutionary theory, though, this one twists it around and comes at it from the point of view of a developmental biologist.

Biased Embryos and Evolution. Wallace Arthur. A slim and readable book about evo-devo.

The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment. Richard Lewontin. A slender book that lucidly summarizes the non-reductionist position on modern biology; it's a call for greater breadth in science.

The Shape of Life : Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form. Rudy Raff. Hardcore evo-devo. A little out of date, but very influential.

For the anti-creationist:

Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Barbara Carroll Forrest, Paul R. Gross. The best summary of the sneaky political strategy of the creationists of the Discovery Institute.

Unintelligent Design. Mark Perakh. Nice, blunt dissection of the pseudo-science of creationism.

Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Matt Young, Taner Edis, eds. A team-takedown of Intelligent Design's bad science.

A set of good additions to this list can be found at EvolutionBlog, in addition to the stuff in the comments below. I'll make some additions to my list (I really should include one book by Dawkins, I think) and see if I can add links to sources other than just Amazon later this week, if and when my life settles down a little bit.

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Comments:

#20920: — 04/03 at 08:13 PM
Three more suggestions:

Steve Grand: Creation - life and how to make it

A book about evolution, artificial life, and the Creatures computer game(s). It is interesting, because the writer is not a biologist - this results into interesting analogies and easy-to-understand explanations.

Tibor Ganti: The principles of life. Not exactly evolution-biology, but Ganti's definiton of life and the chemoton-theory are more than helpful for someone who is interested in biology.

John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary: The Major Transitions in Evolution

(or the lighter version: The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language )

For me, a great "sequel" of Maynard Smith's The Problem of Biology: a good summary of the developement of the life on Earth, concentrating on the key moments.

#20921: — 04/03 at 08:33 PM
While I love Janet Browne's biography of Darwin, it is massive! I think the Desmond and Moore is far more approachable...at ~800 pages.

It is quite 'externalist' and not nearly as comprehensive, but still I think a better read than the Browne if only because of the length.

#20922: Neil — 04/03 at 09:39 PM
I'm also a fan of Desmond & Moore's Darwin biography. It explores a lot of the social and political context of the time, which I think is equally as important as the validity of the science and the character of Darwin, in understanding how the work came to be accepted. You realise how highly Darwin was regarded by the end of his life, when openly declaring his lack of religious conviction was no barrier to his state burial in Westminster Abbey.

I believe one of the authors was involved with a similar work on T.H. Huxley which I never got around to reading - did anyone else?

#20924: R J Keefe — 04/03 at 10:31 PM
If someone already mentioned The Death of Adam, by John C Greene, and I missed it, I apologize. It's a splendidly readable history of the run-up to Darwin, in particular upon the importance of the new geology of Hutton and Lyle that created the temporal space, as it were, for Darwin's theories, by proposing that the earth was unimaginably old. (Yes, we may know how old it is, but we can't imagine it, which is important because we can't quite imagine evolution, either.)

#20926: bitchphd — 04/03 at 11:32 PM
Thank you for the recommendations! I will be sure and seek some of these out for PK.

#20927: — 04/04 at 12:09 AM
Let me enthusiastically second Chris Clarke's recommendation of E.C. Pielou's 'After the Ice Age,' which is the closest I have encountered to the evolutionary synopsis including plants that I want someone to write for me.

I checked the reviews at amazon (you don't have to buy the books there), and they were extraordinarily positive.

In over 40 years of encountering both antievolutionists and naive evolutionists, I have noticed something I'd elevate to the status of a Scientific Law: Creationists never mention the evoution of plants, and if you bring it up, they immediately drop it.

Yet, as I understand it, quite a few of the important mechanisms of evo/devo were first recognized or demonstrated in plants.

I won't hold the animalism (even invertebratism) here against you, since you're specialists.

Now I'm off to eBay to search for 20 titles you guys posted. Thanks.

#20928: — 04/04 at 12:18 AM
Hopefully I'll be able to indulge in some of these this summer.

Ryan, some people prefer to live in the present rather in some idealistic future. I don't buy blue or communist red or Republican red or green or black or brown. Boycotting a corporation that funds terrorists or exploits workers is one thing. Boycotting a corporation that funds a legitimate political party is as bad as organizing a boycott against a country band whose lead singer said Bush made her ashamed to be a Texan.

#20929: coturnix — 04/04 at 12:28 AM
Harry:

For Creationists, Evolution = Human Evolution. If you start talking about evolution in birds or fish or insects or plants or bacteria,...they think you are changing the topic. They do not see the connection, probably because they do not "buy into" unity of life on Earth. Humans are all that matters to them. Wonder why?

BTW, I have to get the new West-Eberhard book - everyone says it is great.

#20930: Ryan — 04/04 at 12:42 AM
Alon,

Thanks for the comment. I agree with your sentiments. I'm not issuing a fatwa here; Amazon isn't even all that bad about their contributions, so I think the Dixie Chix analogy is a good one. I'm just wondering why Amazon is the bookstore to link to.

I was mostly questioning the politically-minded bloggers. I know Myerz isn't exactly Kos, but Amazon has a PAC that holds positions counter to those held by many of these bloggers. If we choose with our dollars, why are we contradicting ourselves?

#20931: — 04/04 at 12:50 AM
I presume it's because readers are most likely to be familiar with Amazon and have an account in it. Therefore, linking to Amazon is likely to cause more people to buy the said books than linking to Barnes & Noble.

PZ doesn't strike me as someone who votes with his dollars. Kos lives an ideology rather than life so it makes sense for him to see his consumption as an extension of his politics, but for most people, even most political bloggers, life isn't reducible to liberals vs. conservatives.

#20932: — 04/04 at 01:04 AM
I would also add Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele, a courageous examination of implications of evolution many are afraid to discuss.

#20933: coturnix — 04/04 at 01:15 AM
For an excellent critique of Sarich and Miele, go here:
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2005/03/race-is-it-bell-curve-light.html

#20936: — 04/04 at 02:04 AM
Well, Amazon has those reviews, which, when they are not helpful, are often very funny.

I generally buy through eBay, though, for several reasons, including I'm cheap.

However . . .

Just ran through those 20 or so titles on eBay and bought about six of them at prices averaging around $15.

About 15 of the 20 are available on eBay, but some are pretty expensive. Expensive enough to make me think twice about buying them.

I didn't keep an exact tally, but it's pretty clear that buying 20 or so of those books would cost well over $1K.

Let's say the dearest wish of the pharynguloids were come and 10 million Americans decided to learn something about evo/creo.

That'd be an injection of $10 billion into the economy.

Evolution: a growth industry.

Could be a bumper sticker.

(PS. I'm with Alon about where you shop. Ever see the Christian Yellow Pages that were tried in many communities? Never caught on that I know of, which is why I believe most Americans are not nearly as religious, or as crazy religious as the evo/creo dispute would tend to make us think. But you guys are outnumbered. If people start shopping their politics, it won't be Amazon that suffers.)

#20938: — 04/04 at 06:11 AM
Why Amazon? Well, I am not PZ, but if you look at the URL of each of those links, you'll notice that they include "/pharyngula-20" which means that PZ will get a fee each time any of us buys a book at the end of that link. Not a very big fee, but a fee nonetheless, which he presumably can use for internet connections, server hosting or cheap booze.

#20939: — 04/04 at 06:20 AM
I don't know about any Christian Yellow Pages. What I do know is that in Israel the ultra-orthodox Jews commonly use boycotts as a tool of political blackmail to prevent supermarket chains from selling non-Kosher food or opening on Saturdays. That is the primary reason I am repulsed by efforts such as Buy Blue and the Dixie Chicks boycott.

About prices, let's see how much these books cost on Amazon, not including shipping:
The Triple Helix: $10.20
Science As a Way of Knowing: $21.95
What Evolution Is: $10.88
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory: $29.70
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea: $15.61
The Darwin Wars: $10.50
On Growth and Form: $19.77
If eBay really takes 50 dollars per book, it's not worth it. The prices above are only what I have to pay; you Americans can buy used for lower prices.

Speaking of which, how can you recommend so many books about evolutionary biology and anti-creationism without listing anything by Dawkins?

By the way, my anti-spam word here is the right-on-point "evolution"...

#20941: coturnix — 04/04 at 07:01 AM
"endosperm", "tetrade", "chromosome"...how did you get all the confirmation words to be biological? Neat trick, nonetheless.

A large number of philosophers of biology have pointed to deep logical flaws in Dawkins' thinking. If he was to follow his own logic, he does not offer a good reason why, on his trip down the levels, he picked to stop at genes, instead of going down to "selfish atoms", or "selfish subatomic particles". As more and more people are doing serious research on evo-devo, on epigenetics, on parental effects, and on the hierarchical levels of selection, less and less there is any practical use for Dawkins' model: it just does not work.

Apparently, his latest book is pretty good, probably because he is tracking the evolution of life on Earth (chronologically backwards: from present into the past) and does not write about mechanisms. That is where his great writing style is useful: to draw lay readers in. I did not read it, but some people say that "Climbing Mt.Improbable" is good, too, probably because, again, he spend little time on evolutionary mechanisms, and more on faith and atheism.

In his earlier books, his great writing ability is a hindrance, as it is seductive: you WANT to believe him. It takes large background knowledge and very sharp analytical skills to resist being seduced by style and start noticing logical fallacies. The same goes for Daniel Dennett, whose "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" is one of the most dangerous books out there, as it is very well written, yet horrendously wrong.

Dawkins has responded to criticisms over time and improved, to some extent, his scheme. While "Selfish Gene" is atrotiously wrong, subsequqnt books get better and better. As a result, his model now greatly resembles what modern biologists and philosophers think today, except that a) his terminology obfuscates the similarity in order to preserve an appearance of "his" originality, and b) he is not willing to take the next logical step and get rid of the last bad element of his model - the genocentrism - because he has so much invested in it, and without it he just falls in line with Gould and others, i.e., he declares defeat.

On one hand, Dawkins' work was useful, as it provided fuel for quite a lot of discussion, thinking and research among experts trying to show how wrong he is, with some remerkable sharpening of thinking, and some great experimental results. But those are effects within the field. On the other hand, his books are eminently readable and popular, resulting in far too many lay people getting their evolution from Dawkins, thus getting it wrong from the get-go and finding it difficult later to let go of his scheme.

For these reasons, I would suggest that Dawkins should be read (and he SHOULD be read) by professional philosophers of science, but should be banned from general bookstores. It has been apparent for some time now that it is almost as difficult to wean people off Dawkins as it is to wean them off Dembski. Apparently it is important who "gets to you first", and it should not be Dawkins. His stuff whould not be on a list of books for general audience. PZ, being an evo-devo reserahcer himself, is deeply aware of this and has rightfully decided to leave him off this particular list, as many lay people read Pharyngula and he wants to suggest only the best.

A good book that destroys Dawkins and Dennett and a MUST read (it should be on PZ's list) is "Lifelines" by Stephen Rose. Reading multiple works by Gould, Lewontin, Fox-Keller and some others (see my link above) should be able to treat you of Dawkinism.

(For more details and some references, go to the "Pure Science" category of my blog and read the WWDD series etc.)

#20943: BioMax — 04/04 at 07:44 AM
What about Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny ?

#20944: PZ Myers — 04/04 at 08:19 AM
There are some good books listed here in the comments, and I'll add them later. Since this is my list, I only include ones that I've personally read, though, so while Death of Adam, for instance, sounds very interesting, I won't be adding it yet—at least not until this summer, when I have time to get to reading it! (There's another ripe possibility for comments in that: a list of books PZ Myers better read.)

Dawkins is an interesting case. I've got a bunch of his books and I love him as an author, but I do have some mild philosophical disagreements with him. I semi-unconsciously left him off the list, while feeling vaguely guilty about it. I probably should toss something representative on there.

Ontogeny and Phylogeny is great! It definitely belongs in the "advanced/specialized" category, though.

About Amazon: they are seductive. Their referral program is a great temptation: I've made $30 from them in two years! It's peanuts, I know, but for a bibliophile to discover that he can get a free book now and then, it's irresistable. Damn the evil power of capitalism and all that. But maybe when I put the list on the sidebar I'll add links so you can pick which vendor you want to get it from: Amazon, B&N, Powell's.

Of course, you know I'd still be contributing to the wicked trend of ignoring the small local bookseller…

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#20945: Ben — 04/04 at 08:50 AM
For the sake of historical perspective, I'd add On the Origin of Species and Descent of Man.

What the lurking creationist should really pay attention to is the fact that any books by Darwin himself are no longer required reading in the evolutionary field. The theory has scientifically burgeoned to such an extent that the works of the progenitor are now considered quaint historical artifacts. Calling evolution "Darwinism" is like calling astrophysics "Keplerism". If they get nothing else out of this thread, if they never read any of the listed books in their entire life, I at least want that point to be branded into their pea-like brains.

"The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them." --Thomas Edison.

#20946: Ron Sullivan — 04/04 at 09:32 AM
Shopping tip: You might solve both the price problem and the small-bookstore problem by dealing with http://www.abebooks.com -- a consortium of stores. My husband has used them for a number of specialized and sometimes obscure natural history books, and he's been quite satisfied with their prompt delivery and prices.

#20947: — 04/04 at 09:41 AM
Abe books is great, if you live in teh US, less so outside the US.

So, PZ, you are really only into blogger for the profit and women, or at least the free books...

#20950: ionfish — 04/04 at 10:45 AM
I've found Abebooks to be excellent in the UK, but perhaps this has something to do with the vast network of second-hand bookshops (which are enjoying a resurgence with the aid of the internet).

#20951: — 04/04 at 11:16 AM
Alon, you picked the titles that had big sales. Try pricing the ones that had limited sales or are older, like 'Shape of Life.'

Sadly, all the anticreationist books on PZ's list were in the $50+ range

#20952: GrrlScientist — 04/04 at 11:20 AM
PZ and everyone,

I searched my bookshelves to find a title to add to PZ's very comprehensive list that he hadn't mentioned that I thought was really good. I found a book that I absolutely loved when I was a first year grad student in "Pizza Evolution" that I think advanced readers would also enjoy; Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life by Henry Gee. This is a collection of scientific papers that were influential in the field for one reason or another.

Now that I have looked in this book again, I want to go back and re-read it. It's really fantastic.

#20955: Tom Morris — 04/04 at 12:24 PM
I picked up both of Pennock's books at a little place in Brighton that, for some reason, had them shoved sort of half-way between the science shelf and the religion shelf. Very cheap. It's worth looking around, you can often find some of these things remaindered.

Or you can go to my favourite bookshop: Foyle's in Charing Cross Road - though their anticreationist material seems to have dropped off. A couple of months ago they had loads of anticreationist books, but they seem to only have the odd one here and there now.