Explaining Life through Evolution
Title | Explaining Life through Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | Prosanta Chakrabarty |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Total Pages | 290 |
Release | 2023-08-08 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0262375478 |
A broad overview of the science of evolution, and why understanding it matters in our everyday lives. Explaining Life through Evolution tells the origin story of life on this planet and how we arrived at the tremendous diversity among organisms that we see around us today. Prosanta Chakrabarty explains evolution in a concise, accessible, and engaging way, emphasizing the importance of understanding evolution in everyday contemporary life. Weaving his own lived experience among discussions of Darwin and the origins of evolutionary thought, Chakrabarty also covers key concepts to our understanding of our current condition, including mutation; the spectrum of race, sex, gender, and sexuality; the limitations of ancestry tests; and the evolution of viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Offering a contemporary update to classic popular evolution books by Stephen Jay Gould, Jerry Coyne, and others, Explaining Life through Evolution is not only an illuminating read, but also an essential guide to the kind of scientific literacy that we need in order to face the challenges of our collective future.
Evolution
Title | Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Zimmer |
Publisher | Harper Collins |
Total Pages | 530 |
Release | 2010-11-23 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0062038230 |
“This brilliant book is a virtual Voyage of the Beagle! Carl Zimmer shows, with the benefit of a hundred and fifty years of hindsight, how right Darwin was.” —Steve Jones, author of Darwin’s Ghost Darwin’s The Origin of Species was breathtaking—beautifully written, staunchly defended, defiantly radical. Yet it emerged long before modern genetics, molecular biology, and contemporary findings in paleontology. In this remarkable book, a rich and up-to-date view of evolution is presented that explores the far-reaching implications of Darwin’s theory. At a time when controversies surrounding creationism and education are bursting into public consciousness, this book’s emphasis on the power, significance, and relevance of evolution will make it a catalyst for public debate. Evolution marks a turning point in the 150-year debate and will be an indispensable asset to any serious reader with an interest in the life sciences, a passion for truth in education, or a concern for the future of the planet. “The evolution of life over four billion years is a grand narrative, full of plots, intrigues, surprises and deaths. Carl Zimmer tells the tale with zest and style.” —Matt Ridley, New York Times–bestselling author “Proceeding from the flurry of preparations for Darwin’s famous voyage, Carl Zimmer leads us off on a journey of our own, tracking the development—and the implications—of one of the most powerful ideas in the biological sciences.” —Scientific American “Science writer Zimmer does a superb job of providing a sweeping overview of most of the topics critical to understanding evolution, presenting his material from both a historical and a topical perspective.” —Publishers Weekly “Popular science that will truly be popular.” —Booklist
Story of Life
Title | Story of Life PDF eBook |
Author | Catherine Barr |
Publisher | Frances Lincoln Children's Books |
Total Pages | 40 |
Release | 2018-02 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781786033420 |
At first, nothing lived on Earth. It was a noisy, hot, scary place. Choking gas exploded from volcanoes and oceans of lava bubbled around the globe... Then in the deep, dark ocean, something amazing happened. This is an exciting and dramatic story about how life began and developed on Planet Earth, written especially for younger children. The authors explain how the first living cell was created, and how the cells multiply and create jellyfish and worms, and then fish with bendy necks, which drag themselves out of the water into swampy forests. They tell the story of the biggest creatures that have ever walked on land - the dinosaurs. Long after that, hairy creatures who have babies, not eggs, take over, stand on two legs and spread around the world, some of them living through cataclysmic events such as ice ages and volcanic eruptions. Everyone living today is related to these survivors. With delightful illustrations including lots of detail and humour, all carefully researched and checked, this book shows the development of life on Earth in a truly accessible and simple way. CLICK HERE to download Teachers' Notes specially written by the authors, Catherine Barr and Steve Williams, to assist teachers and librarians in the promotion and teaching of The Story of Lifein schools and to help foster a love of good books, literature and reading in children.
Explaining Life through Evolution
Title | Explaining Life through Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | Prosanta Chakrabarty |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Total Pages | 290 |
Release | 2023-08-08 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0262546256 |
A broad overview of the science of evolution, and why understanding it matters in our everyday lives. Explaining Life through Evolution tells the origin story of life on this planet and how we arrived at the tremendous diversity among organisms that we see around us today. Prosanta Chakrabarty explains evolution in a concise, accessible, and engaging way, emphasizing the importance of understanding evolution in everyday contemporary life. Weaving his own lived experience among discussions of Darwin and the origins of evolutionary thought, Chakrabarty also covers key concepts to our understanding of our current condition, including mutation; the spectrum of race, sex, gender, and sexuality; the limitations of ancestry tests; and the evolution of viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Offering a contemporary update to classic popular evolution books by Stephen Jay Gould, Jerry Coyne, and others, Explaining Life through Evolution is not only an illuminating read, but also an essential guide to the kind of scientific literacy that we need in order to face the challenges of our collective future.
Evolution
Title | Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | James Alan Shapiro |
Publisher | Pearson Education |
Total Pages | 273 |
Release | 2011 |
Genre | Juvenile Nonfiction |
ISBN | 0132780933 |
This book proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution. Shapiro demonstrates why traditional views of evolution are inadequate to explain the latest evidence, and presents an alternative. His information- and systems-based approach integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism, and points toward an emerging synthesis of physical, information, and biological sciences.
Walking with Comrades
Title | Walking with Comrades PDF eBook |
Author | Arundhati Roy |
Publisher | Penguin UK |
Total Pages | 148 |
Release | 2011-05-15 |
Genre | Literary Collections |
ISBN | 8184755899 |
‘The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with “India’s single biggest internal security challenge”. I’d been waiting for months to hear from them...’ In early 2010, Arundhati Roy travelled into the forests of Central India, homeland to millions of indigenous people, dreamland to some of the world’s biggest mining corporations. The result is this powerful and unprecedented report from the heart of an unfolding revolution.
Evolution
Title | Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | Donald R. Prothero |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Total Pages | 891 |
Release | 2017-08-22 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0231543166 |
Donald R. Prothero’s Evolution is an entertaining and rigorous history of the transitional forms and series found in the fossil record. Its engaging narrative of scientific discovery and well-grounded analysis has led to the book’s widespread adoption in courses that teach the nature and value of fossil evidence for evolution. Evolution tackles systematics and cladistics, rock dating, neo-Darwinism, and macroevolution. It includes extensive coverage of the primordial soup, invertebrate transitions, the development of the backbone, the reign of the dinosaurs, and the transformation from early hominid to modern human. The book also details the many alleged “missing links” in the fossil record, including some of the most recent discoveries that flesh out the fossil timeline and the evolutionary process. In this second edition, Prothero describes new transitional fossils from various periods, vividly depicting such bizarre creatures as the Odontochelys, or the “turtle on the half shell”; fossil snakes with legs; and the “Frogamander,” a new example of amphibian transition. Prothero’s discussion of intelligent design arguments includes more historical examples and careful examination of the “experiments” and observations that are exploited by creationists seeking to undermine sound science education. With new perspectives, Prothero reframes creationism as a case study in denialism and pseudoscience rather than a field with its own intellectual dynamism. The first edition was hailed as an exemplary exploration of the fossil evidence for evolution, and this second edition will be welcome in the libraries of scholars, teachers, and general readers who stand up for sound science in this post-truth era.