Rate this book

Why Evolution Is True (2008)

by Jerry A. Coyne(Favorite Author)

4.16 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0670020532 (ISBN13: 9780670020539)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Viking

review 1: I can't judge how convincing this book is because I already know evolution is a fact and that it happens through natural selection. My review is largely based on the organization and content in the book and how elegantly it answers some people's questions.I graduated with a bachelor's in biology and would like to eventually have a career in healthcare, possibly working on clinical trials. I've gone through two short courses on evolution recently to complete my degree, but those were taught by archaeology professors who didn't really focus on the full biological evidence for evolution over the fossil evidence that they had more experience with. Coyne's book, I felt, really answered a bunch of questions I kept getting asked by people that I couldn't answer on my own.One of t... morehose was regarding classifications and taxonomy. While I know the people who question evolution don't really believe it is possible to see speciation happening right in front of them, Coyne indirectly makes a good point: we often can't classify that something's a species until much later, and tells us a condensed way of how scientists classify organisms.Coyne's book is written for a person without knowledge past high school levels of science. He avoids using lots of unnecessary terms (for example, he shows us cladograms and explains how they're used without once mentioning the actual word cladogram) and mentions one or two key scientific discoveries without losing focus by covering all related discoveries. I really think this is a strength to his writing.I love the shout out to Neil Shubin and his work on Tiktaalik. Shubin is a super elegant writer himself; I read Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" for one of my evolution courses and it was definitely one of the best books on the subject I've ever read.While the book covered a lot of areas, coming from a science background, I do wish he had talked about a few key experiments and discoveries that always fascinated me growing up and provide answers to certain things that creationists always ask. The first is the Miller-Urey experiment where they recreated the "Primordial Soup". This experiment answers the question how we got from random elements to the precursors of life: biomolecules such as amino acids and sugars. The second is the Chromosome 2 Fusion Event, which explains why humans are the only members of the family Hominidae that have 23 chromosomes instead of 24. I do realize these might get a little more technical and turn off some readers.I do have to say that people who believe in Creationism are ones that disbelieve science as a whole. There is tons of evidence out there, but the Creationists refuse to read or understand any of it.
review 2: This book is a very good read. Learning about whale legs and human tails is fascinating, and I found myself looking up the creatures mentioned in the book that I wasn't familiar with. It offers a good look at the evidence for evolution in an easy to understand format. The Blind Watchmaker was probably a bit more rewarding to read, but a harder read too. I would recommend this book to a family member interested in the topic of evolution. less

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