Thread: Evo-biology book suggestions

A Creationist is willing to learn about Biology and evolution, and would like some recommendations. Can anyone suggest a book, please?

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins.

If he is an intellectual and can handle esoteric, rambling, lengthy, detailed, yet immensely informative and insightful writings then you can't beat Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Otherwise Bunbury's suggestion is excellent.

Originally Posted by Bunbury

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins.

Yea... I suggested that, though I never read it myself. I ought to, though...

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

If he is an intellectual and can handle esoteric, rambling, lengthy, detailed, yet immensely informative and insightful writings then you can't beat Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Otherwise Bunbury's suggestion is excellent.

Thanks. 8)

"Almost like a whale" by Steve Jones - a (fairly successful) attempt to update Darwin's Origin to modern times

The Ancestor's Tale is an excellent timeline of evolutionary convergence and relationships, but if your friend wants to understand the mechanism of evolution, I'd recommend The Blind Watchmaker, also by Dawkins.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

If he is an intellectual and can handle esoteric, rambling, lengthy, detailed, yet immensely informative and insightful writings then you can't beat Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Otherwise Bunbury's suggestion is excellent.

The only reason I might demur regarding the late great Gould's final hurrah is the blind spot he had regarding the role of genes in evolution: he never quite allowed the gene-centric notion of evolution (otherwise viewed as a commonplace amongst evolutionary biologists) a space in his heart. It makes much of what he says about evolution slightly theoretically suspect.

On the other hand, the best scientific essayist I've ever read and a great defender of reason and tolerance.

For a philosophical perspective, albeit sometimes provocative and frequently controversial, I haven't read better than Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

cheer

shanks

Originally Posted by sunshinewarrio

For a philosophical perspective, albeit sometimes provocative and frequently controversial, I haven't read better than Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Yes indeed. An excellent choice. Eloquent, readable and informative. (As a philosopher he seems to have a far better grasp of evolution than many biologists.) I'm interested, though, in what you thought was provocative in it - for example?

Originally Posted by scientstphilosophertheist

Originally Posted by Bunbury

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins.

Yea... I suggested that, though I never read it myself.

Why not? Are you waiting for the movie?

Originally Posted by Bunbury

Originally Posted by scientstphilosophertheist

Originally Posted by Bunbury

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins.

Yea... I suggested that, though I never read it myself.

Why not? Are you waiting for the movie?

I don't know... time, maybe. I'll read it eventually.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Originally Posted by sunshinewarrio

For a philosophical perspective, albeit sometimes provocative and frequently controversial, I haven't read better than Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Yes indeed. An excellent choice. Eloquent, readable and informative. (As a philosopher he seems to have a far better grasp of evolution than many biologists.) I'm interested, though, in what you thought was provocative in it - for example?

I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I thought that some of these were, perhaps, provocations:

1. The way in which he deals with Stephen Jay Gould, because it becomes pretty personal.

2. The way in which he applies the evolutionary idea to everything ("Universal Acid"), including universes, without an evidential warrant for it. I think he's probably right, but I suspect it is, at least for now, a matter of the reach exceeding the grasp on matters that a lot of people feel very strongly about.

3. His endorsement of Dawkins' meme idea which again, despite my fondness for it, and despite Dawkins' own work and Susan Blackmore's excellent The Meme Machine still has a long way to go to become a scientifically useful notion, if it ever does.

As I said, I don't think there's anything wrong, or fallacious, in what he writes, just sometimes a bit tail-tweak-y.

Originally Posted by sunshinewarrio

2. The way in which he applies the evolutionary idea to everything ("Universal Acid"), including universes, without an evidential warrant for it. I think he's probably right, but I suspect it is, at least for now, a matter of the reach exceeding the grasp on matters that a lot of people feel very strongly about.

It's a book I've been meaning to get around to reading, and this notion is what is so intriguing to me. It seems intuitively correct, as you point out, and yet we don't have any direct evidence for it to be so. Of course, physicists are striving for their grand, unifying theory, which will hopefully be known in the not too distant future, and advances lead us more and more into a way of thinking whereby there is only one way for all of these universal constants to be; that they are all interrelated, and none unique from any other, you see where I'm going...

For a slightly lighter read, i highly recommend, Evolution, the triumph of an idea by Carl Zimmer

Not only is it a good book for explaining evolution itself, its set out to give the evolution of the evolution idea, so it goes from darwins beagle right through to human evolution :-D

Another good one on human evolution is The origin of humankind - richard leakey

theres also another fun book called get a grip on evolution by David Burnie, its kind of a toilet book, short snippets and bullet points rather than long drawn out chapters, so you get short historys of key points in evolutions history like disruptive selection or failed ideas like the midwife toad etc

Originally Posted by sunshinewarrio

I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I thought that some of these were, perhaps, provocations:
1. The way in which he deals with Stephen Jay Gould, because it becomes pretty personal.
2. The way in which he applies the evolutionary idea to everything ("Universal Acid"), including universes, without an evidential warrant for it. I think he's probably right, but I suspect it is, at least for now, a matter of the reach exceeding the grasp on matters that a lot of people feel very strongly about.
3. His endorsement of Dawkins' meme idea which again, despite my fondness for it, and despite Dawkins' own work and Susan Blackmore's excellent The Meme Machine still has a long way to go to become a scientifically useful notion, if it ever does.

I had forgotten point 1. He does kind of stick the knife in, then twist it around.
Point 2. I was comfortable with, as he seemed to be taking it as a working hypothesis, rather than an absolute.
I tend to switch off when Dawkins comes up in discussion. I don't like Dawkins. I don't like his approach. Don't get me started.

Personally, I don't go for the more famous authors. I go straight to the horses mouth. Instead of reading "summaries", I read TEXTBOOKS. Yes. TEXTBOOKS. If he's truly an intellectual, he'll prefer the same. You can get used ones quite cheap.

I'd have to agree. If you really want to become knowledgeable about a subject relatively new to you, a text book is a great place to start. This is the text currently being used for the evolution class at my alma mater.

Yes, but always be sure to check for used ones. If you prefer saving money and reading books that have probably been markered for study purposes (personally I don't care).

http://www.bookbyte.com/

Websites like that, for example. Subjects included in a study of evolution should range from micro/macro biology, to various textbooks on elements used for dating, archeology, etc. I'm a bookworm, so this is all "moderate reading" for me.

For textbooks, would you recommend Campbell-Reece Biology? (That's what I used... it was really good, in my opinion).

Originally Posted by scientstphilosophertheist

For textbooks, would you recommend Campbell-Reece Biology? (That's what I used... it was really good, in my opinion).

For an overview of biology in general, of course. But a single textbook attempting to cover all of biology can only go into so much detail about any particular subject within the field. If you really want to learn about evolution, I'd go with an evolution textbook. It will be much more complete, and be far more likely to answer most of the questions a creationist might have about it.

Originally Posted by paralith

Originally Posted by scientstphilosophertheist

For textbooks, would you recommend Campbell-Reece Biology? (That's what I used... it was really good, in my opinion).

For an overview of biology in general, of course. But a single textbook attempting to cover all of biology can only go into so much detail about any particular subject within the field. If you really want to learn about evolution, I'd go with an evolution textbook. It will be much more complete, and be far more likely to answer most of the questions a creationist might have about it.

True.

Sadly, I'm not disposed to buy any textbooks right now (in light of my going to college and all)...

I think the textbook is a bad idea. Textbooks are dry lists of information for the most part and aren't particularly interesting especially for people first learning about a topic. If you want to learn about evolution I'd go with one of the other suggestions which will give you a better "big picture" understanding. Textbooks are better for reference.

Says you. I want the COMPLETE list of information. Otherwise I wont understand exactly what's going on. I find those "dry" lists of information quite fascinating.

Originally Posted by Neutrino

I think the textbook is a bad idea. Textbooks are dry lists of information for the most part and aren't particularly interesting especially for people first learning about a topic. If you want to learn about evolution I'd go with one of the other suggestions which will give you a better "big picture" understanding. Textbooks are better for reference.

Depends on which textbooks you're reading. The authors of most recently published textbooks have realized that dry lists of information make for sleeping students. Most books now make it a point to include many practical examples and diagrams to make learning the important information easier and less boring.

Originally Posted by paralith

Originally Posted by Neutrino

I think the textbook is a bad idea. Textbooks are dry lists of information for the most part and aren't particularly interesting especially for people first learning about a topic. If you want to learn about evolution I'd go with one of the other suggestions which will give you a better "big picture" understanding. Textbooks are better for reference.

Depends on which textbooks you're reading. The authors of most recently published textbooks have realized that dry lists of information make for sleeping students. Most books now make it a point to include many practical examples and diagrams to make learning the important information easier and less boring.

Correct. Dry, boring textbooks are soon to be a thing of the past.

Alas, so is real information. Those "dry, boring textbooks" tend to offer a better and larger amount of information than the "colorful" ones that keep you awake.

Originally Posted by Jeremyhfht

Alas, so is real information. Those "dry, boring textbooks" tend to offer a better and larger amount of information than the "colorful" ones that keep you awake.

I'd have to disagree with the "better" bit.

A textbook that provides hard examples and applications gives better quality education than that which lays out information. A person can know a whole bunch of stuff and in the end suck at applying this knowledge; yet application of knowledge is what is really important.

Also, dry textbooks tend to make you uninterested in the subject (and wonder what use half the information is). If you're uninterested and lost as to the importance of the subject, chances are you'll forget all the information; and in the end the 'colorful' textbook teaches you more.

Then apparently I'm a genius and innately know how information would be useful. :?

Originally Posted by Jeremyhfht

Then apparently I'm a genius and innately know how information would be useful. :?

I think it depends on how old you are and/or how much experience you have. If you have a good amount of experience, then applying scientific knowledge isn't very difficult.

For the record, I don't think this guy has done high school biology as yet.

I loved high school biology. It was the least boring, as, comparitively, it was the most advanced of the science subjects. I guess it differs for each person. I can understand both your viewpoints on the matter.

Here are a few Evolutionary Biology textbooks mentioned by Wikipedia:

* Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition), Sinauer Associates (1998) ISBN 0-87893-189-9
* Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolution, Sinauer Associates (2005) ISBN 0-87893-187-2
* Mark Ridley, Evolution (3rd edition), Blackwell (2003) ISBN 1-4051-0345-0
* Scott R. Freeman and Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis, Prentice Hall (2003) ISBN 0-13-101859-0
* Michael R. Rose and Laurence D. Mueller, Evolution and Ecology of the Organism, Prentice Hall (2005) ISBN 0-13-010404-3
* Monroe W. Strickberger, Evolution (3rd Edition), Jones & Bartlett Publishers (2000) ISBN 0-7637-1066-0

Originally Posted by scientstphilosophertheist

For textbooks, would you recommend Campbell-Reece Biology? (That's what I used... it was really good, in my opinion).

I'm a Zoology Undergraduate, and I am studying all three of the natural sciences in first year. That is our recommended text for Biology. It is an excellent reference, and provides discussions on the evolution of almost every topic which is covered. As mentioned, however, it is a general Biology textbook, so if it's a thorough understanding of the subject of evolution which you want, I'd go for one of the above.