The Tangled Bank An Introduction To Evolution Pdf Download UPDATED

March 01, 2022 Post a Comment

The Tangled Bank An Introduction To Evolution Pdf Download

Carl Zimmer takes the title of his book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Development, from the final paragraph of Darwin's Origin: "It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank…and to reflect that these elaborately synthetic forms…take all been produced by laws acting around u.s.a.." Like Darwin, Zimmer chooses to write in a way that is understandable for any educated reader. What ameliorate way is there to inform the general reader of Darwin's theory than to provide a lucidexplanation supported by compelling electric current evidence?

Zimmer is a popular science writer with a special interest in evolution. Among his previous books are Evolution, the Triumph of an Thought and At the Water's Edge. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Detect, Popular Science, and Scientific American. One expects that his writing will exist clear, concise, and engaging and that the science volition be correct. Zimmer does not disappoint.

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In the introduction, Zimmer writes, "the book is intended for those who are not planning to be biologists—in other words, virtually people." That is a big target, merely can information technology exist hitting? The beginning four chapters propose his aim is right on. Zimmer chooses whales—the Jonah fish—equally the hook for introducing evolution in the kickoff chapter. In the very first paragraph we meet a contemporary scientist on the cut edge of research on whale evolution. Zimmer uses this technique throughout the book, and is constructive at putting existent faces on scientists employing all the tools of modern science to examination evolutionary hypotheses.

Zimmer and so steps back to make some basic points about "descent with modification." Traits are inherited through Dna, mutations change DNA, and evolution results from mutations becoming more than or less mutual in the population. Furthermore, these changes can be used to construct a tree illustrating genetic relationshipsamong organisms. Zimmer also makes some primal points up forepart: Evolution is not directed; adaptations do not upshot in perfection; development builds by modifying existing traits; and there are always merchandise-offs, because every mutation can have multiple effects. Then, afterward discussing prove and illustrating that evolution, like many "difficult" sciences, can use both experimental and inferential evidence to test hypotheses, Zimmer brings u.s. back to the whales and the multiple lines of evidence used to certificate their evolution from an antecedent shared with hippos. Zimmer'due south engaging style and prose are the two greatest strengths of the book.

This chapter also provides a clue to ii more of the volume's strengths, the illustration plan and references. The extensively illustrated book makes use of well-designed graphics and images, both original and reproduced. Reproduced illustrations are documented in a thorough, chapterby-chapter credits section at the end of the book. Also arranged past affiliate is a salient references section at the finish that gives pertinent full general references to appropriate books every bit well every bit specific references to cited articles, ofttimes from Scientific discipline, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The majority of the references are from the past decade, including into 2009. The references and credits alone are invaluable resources for anyone pedagogy a class in development.

The second affiliate is a good story, and is ane to be expected at the beginning of a book on development— Darwin and the status of natural history in his mean solar day. In keeping with a marine theme, Zimmer begins with Nicholas Steno and the discovery of fossilized sharks' teeth. Readers are introduced non only to the usual cast of characters, Linnaeus and Lamarck, but also to Buffon and Cuvier, William Smith, and James Hutton. Smith's work, resulting in the geological map of England, Scotland, and Wales, was the first to recognize the extent of fossil-bearing strataand is beautifully illustrated in the text. The Voyage of the Beagle and evidence supporting the theory of natural selection are summarized in the 2d one-half of the affiliate. It is an engaging overview, but in that location are a few small-scale errors that in sum are disconcerting. For example, Zimmer notes that the HMS Beagle experienced an earthquake while surveying the coast of Chile, only the "centimeters" of shoreline lift were actually meters (Darwin 1860). Similarly, Zimmer attributes Darwin's observations of the Galápagos finches every bit being pivotal to his thinking—but the mockingbirds, not finches, get later mention in On the Origin of Species (Sulloway 1982).

This chapter also provides the beginning example of Zimmer's use of text boxes to address some of the major misconceptions most science. For case, the first box elaborates on the 2008 National Academy definition of science (NAS 2008). Zimmer focuses on the utilise of multiple lines of indirect evidence to support explanations and predictions. He draws on familiar examples from physics and geology before mentioning how epidemiologists runway the development of viruses using these aforementioned techniques. Other boxes in the text accost radioactive clocks, how evolution makes testable predictions, facts and theories in science, how scientists report evolution, and how not to report evolution.

Molecular biological science, formally introduced in chapter five, is the foundation for agreement the side by side five capacity. This is when most undergraduates' eyes will begin to glaze over, and where even the scientifically literate lay person will have to read more carefully, simply Zimmer does a remarkable job of providing simply enough depth to explicate key concepts without bogging down in details. A few terms slip in without definition, for example, "codon" (p. 106), "fixed" (p. 113), "Hox genes" (p. 165), and "genetic altitude" (p. 197), but overall, this is the level and approach I'd like to see in all nonmajors' textbooks. Giventhe prevalence of "intelligent design," I especially appreciated the pages spent explaining the evo-devo basis of our understanding of the molecular development of physiology and the construction of low-cal-sensitive organs in animals. My only serious complaint is an incorrect diagram of sexual reproduction in effigy 5.v. Meiosis is correctly illustrated merely the chromosomes of the sperm and egg practice non fuse every bit a result of fertilization.

The last five capacity are dorsum to easier reading, particularly given Zimmer's flowing style. Extinctions and radiations, symbiotic associations, and sexual selection are topics plant in every evolution text and are specially interesting to scientists. Most readers, however, will appoint with the final two capacity, "Evolutionary Medicine" and "Minds and Microbes: The Development of Beliefs." Readers will recognize the medical examples from recent news media, but Zimmer goes far beyond typical media coverage in providing the necessary background to understanding the often-predictable evolutionary basis of these diseases. And unlike the news media, he asks the reader to think of him or herself as a human Petri dish in which these evolutionary battles between microbes and human cells are played out.

Perchance not surprisingly, the final chapter is the longest in the volume. Behavior, particularly human behavior, is a biological topic of widespread interest to everyone—the writer's target audience. Equally Zimmer notes at the end of the chapter: "We are only at the beginning of this detail chapter in the history of science…. Simply we tin can be excused for being especially interested in information technology. Evolution helps show united states who we are, and how we got this way.

"Afterward turning the last page I had to end and reconsider, who really should read this volume? I teach a graduate/ upper-level undergraduate grade in evolution, and this is non the book I would use as a text. However, reading it for this review was a quick refresher outline of the major concepts I will be educational activity adjacent semester, and I madenotes of examples and applications I will want to use. Those of y'all specializing in other areas of biology will observe this to exist a satisfying introduction to current evolutionary thought. But Zimmer specifically targets those non going on in biology. How does it fit that audience? In the all-time of all worlds, every educated American could and should read this volume, and as a outcome, would take a much richer understanding of development as a forcefulness directly affecting our lives. My hope is that a great number of us who teach in colleges and universities will focus our introductory-level biology course for preservice teachers on evolution. After all, "Cypher in biological science makes sense except in the light of development" (Dobzhansky 1973). The Tangled Depository financial institution would be an excellent textbook for such a course.