Explaining Life through Evolution

by Chakrabarty, Prosanta

• ISBN13: 9780262546256
• ISBN10: 0262546256
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-08-08
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Prosanta Chakrabarty is Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Fishes at Louisiana State University. He is a TED Senior Fellow, an Elected Fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, and a National Geographic Certified Educator.

Table of Contents

Part I: A Personal Prologue
Called to Action 3
Pulled Into the Fight 11
On Trust 17
Facts and Truth 21

Part II: The Evolution Revolution
Introduction to Evolution 27
The Great Chain of Being or Ladder of Life 37
Theories of Evolution 47
From So Simple a Beginning 53
The Selection of Natural Selection 67
Mendel and the Maintenance of Variation 73
Mutants and Mutations 79
Speciation: The Formation of New Species 89

Part III: Questions and Misconceptions
Who You Calling "Primitive"? 109
Our Crappy-Crappie Bodies 117
The Tree of Life 123
The Origin of Life 129
The History of Life 137

Part IV: Why Understanding Evolution Matters
Evolution in the Anthropocene 145
Natural History 155
Our Genealogy and Ancestry 163
Sex/Gender/Sexuality 175
Combating Post-Truth with Trust 189
Conversation with a Creationist 195

Epilogue 201
Acknowledgments 207
Glossary 209
Notes 219
Further Reading 257
Figure Credits 259
Index 263