Living organisms are astonishingly complex. And the more we know about them - their biochemistry, their anatomy, their behaviour - the more astonishing are the detailed adaptations that we discover. How could this complexity have arisen? Most of us are familiar with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The idea behind it being that, in nature, those individuals best able to survive and reproduce will transmit the characteristics that enabled them to do so to their offspring, ...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTThe 10th-anniversary edition of the instant classic, The Sixth Extinction, now with a new epilogue. Kolbert blends intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.

Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria.So why does disease exist? Moalem proposes that most common ailments—diabetes, hemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia—came into existence for very goo...

There have been many books, movies, and even TV commercials featuring Neandertals--some serious, some comical. But what was it really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or different from ours? In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fos...

A thought-provoking scientific exploration of the evolutionary origins of human cooperation.Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin.In A Cooperative Species, Samuel B...

This book introduces a new way to organize human understanding of nature. It reconsiders the commonly accepted yet quite arbitrary and unproven assumption about nature that space is infinite, and instead assumes that space is finite. Following the implications of this change in the most fundamental presupposition about space throughout the history of science has led to an extremely simple model of nature that is so highly organized that its single, unified pattern of change in nature appea...

If you accept evolutionary theory, can you also believe in God? Are human beings superior to other animals, or is this just a human prejudice? Does Darwin have implications for heated issues like euthanasia and animal rights? Does evolution tell us the purpose of life, or does it imply that life has no ultimate purpose? Does evolution tell us what is morally right and wrong, or does it imply that ultimately 'nothing' is right or wrong? In this fascinating and intriguing book, Steve Stewart...

**A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race“A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review**Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the O...

But Old Mr. Darwin wasn't to Blame: The Little Book of Evolutionary "Quotes", as the title suggests and, the quotes should reveal, Charles Darwin wasn't actually to blame for all that ensued in his name. In fact, he was actually quite Lamarckian in his view of evolution, as revealed in later correspondences and editions of 'Origin'. Collectively these quotes form an outline of a narrative that I hope you will find illuminating and get as much from reading them as I did from discovering the...

“Deftly weaving together science and personal observation, Lee proves an engaging, authoritative guide… of the human condition.” —Kate Wong, editor at Scientific AmericanWhat can fossilized teeth tell us about our ancient ancestors’ life expectancy? Did farming play a problematic role in the history of human evolution? And what do we have in common with Neanderthals? In this captivating bestseller, Close Encounters with Humankind, paleoanthropolog...

In the past couple of decades studies investigating the genetic background of psychiatric disorders have mushroomed. Research into brain mechanisms and the regions of the brain involved in certain dysfunctions have greatly improved our knowledge of the relationship between brain pathology and psychopathology. By contrast, we know far less about 'why' certain individuals remain vulnerable to psychiatric disease at all, and whether the causes of disease were selected by evolutionary forces o...

The invasion of land by ocean-dwelling plants and animals was one of the most revolutionary events in the evolution of life on Earth, yet the animal invasion almost failed—twice—because of the twin mass extinctions of the Late Devonian Epoch. Some 359 to 375 million years ago, these catastrophic events dealt our ancestors a blow that almost drove them back into the sea. If those extinctions had been just a bit more severe, spiders and insects—instead of vertebrates—might have become the ec...