This book starts with a paradox and ends with a riddle. The paradox notes that the mammal specie with the most capable adults is the mammal specie with the most helpless of babies. Is there a connection? The author contends that there is. He attempts to show how the evolution of the helpless baby has led to reciprocal genetic and behavioural adaptions of the nursing females. In addition, the increasing length of the baby's helplessness resulted in the development of the hominid multi-age b...

This book starts with a paradox and ends with a riddle.The paradox notes that the mammal specie with the most capable adults is the mammal specie with the most hekpless of babies.Is there a connection? The author contends that there is.He attempts to show how the evolution of the helpless baby has led to reciprocal genetic and behavioural adaptions of the nursing females. In addition, the increasing length of the baby's helplessness resulted in the development of th...

In 1975, John Waters had a brainstorm. A simple enquiry into career prediction led to fascinating and disturbing insights, with the potential for profound consequences. After a varied career in surveying, mining, and transportation, the author has decided to publish his second book. This work was originally written in 1976, following a short-lived sojourn into the world of career prediction. The book was submitted for publication to over forty publishers, all of whom turned it down. For fu...

From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career.Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover

A fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new 'tales' and the latest scientific developments.THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings o...

"Coyne's knowledge of evolutionary biology is prodigious, his deployment of it as masterful as his touch is light." -Richard DawkinsIn the current debate about creationism and intelligent design, there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned-the evidence. Yet the proof of evolution by natural selection is vast, varied, and magnificent. In this succinct and accessible summary of the facts supporting the theory of natural selection, Jerry A. Coyne d...

For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection.Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to ...

To be human is to be curious. And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are--how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our own evolution. In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the Agr...

"With a delightfully irascible sense of humor, Henry Gee reflects on our origin . . . an excellent primer on how—and how not—to think about human evolution." —Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite RexThe idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new...

"Gould is a natural writer; he has something to say and the inclination and skill with which to say it."—P. B. Medawar, New York Review of BooksWith sales of well over one million copies in North America alone, the commercial success of Gould's books now matches their critical acclaim. Reissued in a larger format, with a handsome new cover, The Panda's Thumb will introduce a new generation of readers to this unique writer, who has taken the art of the scientific e...

Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? Or are they passive, incapable of independent action or social behavior? Philosophers and scientists have pondered these questions since ancient Greece, most often concluding that plants are unthinking and inert: they are too silent, too sedentary -- just too different from us. Yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged these ideas, shedding new light on the extraordinary capabilit...

"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 GhostDarwin'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 ...