Product Description
Throw out your fossils—the best evidence for evolution is now found in DNA.

DNA is the genetic blueprint of all creatures. Scientists have only recently discovered that it is also a living chronicle of evolution. In this book, leading biologist and writer Sean B. Carroll takes us on an exhilarating tour of the exquisite evolutionary record. The DNA record of evolution is filled with surprises. Immortal genes and evolution repeating itself are two of the stunners that await the lucky reader. The case for evolution can no longer be contested now that the DNA evidence is revealed. 50 b/w illustrations; 8 pages of color.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 38 reviews)

The Fittest Record

We do not know how much farther science will take us, but from "Making of the Fittest", Prof Carroll in tracing the record of evolution through genetic studies suggests that even though we have come a long way, the distance ahead may appear infinite, but has all the prospects of exhilaring scholarship. The genetic record of evolution is an impressive record that goes back 2 billion years. Carroll explains how the record of evolution (descent with modification and the related "survival of the fittest" principle)is embedded in our genes. If the idea of it all is breathtaking and seemingly incredible, it was set out and explained in very clearly and lucidly that non-scientists will have no difficulty understanding the text or its implications. If all living things have common amino acids, and genetic codes, as well as how and why they evolved and differentiated as they did, the idea of a personal god promising heaven and hell seem to belong to the category of fairy tales - naturally. The genetic tale of evolution is told through a series of stories, beginning with how and why the Antarctic ice fish evolved its red blood cells into oblivion save for the tell-tale record of its previous existence. He explains how genetic evolution is part of a constant battle among living things. If sickle cells are weaker and more fallible than normal cells, why did they continue to be manufactured? The link turned out to be that people with sickle cells are more resistant to malaria. The stories include the cloak-and-dagger account of the discovery and explication of the DNA. It wasn't too long ago when people were screaming, "DNA! DNA! Everyone talks about it but has anyone seen it?" Carroll not only shows us the DNA but explains to us what it does and how it works.
August 24, 2008

Destined to be a classic.

I was reading "The Origin of Species" along with this book, and it truly was an amazing experience. To read Darwin questioning (150 years ago) how varieties arise (and to remarkably attribute it to "something" with the reproductive organs by watching animals in domestication), and then within the same day read examples about gene duplication and the effects of point mutations, about the effect of just ONE amino acid substitution, about fossil genes, etc etc..was incredibly beautiful.

I'm a 3rd year Biology/Chemistry undergrad, and this really cemented my love for science. Sean B. Carroll has a passion that just flows through the pages, and is just infectious. Highly recommended.
August 21, 2008

Black box no more

Ever since Darwin, scientists have worked their way closer and closer to a real model of how in fact natural selection could produce both the extant and extinct biodiversity of this planet. Carrol's book (written for the interested but not necessarily academically experienced reader) does an excellent job at bridging the gap from Darwin's grand theory to actual mechanism.

The terrible truth is that without a class in genetics less than ten years ago, all would be lacking in some of the greatest insights science has to offer on evolution of life's diversity. Carrol here does a great service in updating the general reader on the nuts-and-bolts of how random mutation and natural selection work together to create new traits and discard old traits. These arguments are not 'compelling' in the sense that they 'sound good', but rather are compelling through the evidence--in short, the writing is on the wall, with little doubt as to just how evolution in fact works.

Of most interest to me was the discussion of 'fossilized' genes, how probability ensures that certain traits will arise (given that they are permitted by natural selection), and the discussion of how certain traits have evolved multiple times and why.

As mentioned elsewhere, the discussion of creationism may in large be pointless. While I am glad to see both Carrol's and Miller's dismantling of ID, it is simultaneously a waste of time. The last nail in literal creationism/ID's coffin was pounded in long before all the new evidence from genetics, so regardless of how well we understand the mechanisms by which evolution happen, these arguments are going to fall on deaf ears.

What must be done, if Carrol feels as strongly as he does in regards to this matter of ID, is to popularize the information in these pages such that they can reach a larger audience--larger than the one which reads science books. That means articles in popular magazines, and new documentaries that reach a broader public. That also means forgetting the ID movement for a second and instead focusing on the facts and evidence.

July 22, 2008

How DNA supports the fact of biological evolution

Most of this book is a primer on how the study of DNA code from various species sheds light on the evolutionary process. The text is as clear as such a text can be considering how abstract the DNA sequences are to even the well educated reader. There are numerous charts and tables, drawings, black and white photos (and some color plates) and such in this timely, handsome and well-presented book to guide the reader. I only wish that I could have grasped the details in a more concrete manner.

DNA codes for proteins, of which there are vast numbers. These proteins are formed from amino acids of which life uses twenty, and in turn these amino acids are called up by the sequence of letters in the code. Presumably (Carroll does not make this clear) as the zygotic cell divides, working its way to the composition of the complete organism, the DNA code is read in sequence like a tape fed into a bar code. First this protein and then that protein and then still another is made and somehow strung together in an exacting order so that, voila! a massively complex organism is constructed. What is not in this book is an explanation of how these proteins know where to go and when. Presumably that knowledge is part of the very sequence of the code, or perhaps it is implicit in the positions in space of the proteins relative to one another. In others words, the DNA code is only the most obvious and "visible" part of the microscopic reproductive process.

If you are like me and are looking for the same sort of explanation, this book will be of limited value. Prof. Carroll's purpose is not to make transparent the reproductive process at the chemical level. His purpose--and a laudable one it is--is to show how DNA analysis is yet another piece of evidence pointing to the truth of biological evolution. That is why he uses the word "forensic" in the subtitle.

One of the most powerful uses of DNA is in reconstructing the so-called "tree" (or "bush") of life. Carroll shows how it is now clear beyond almost any doubt that our closest relatives are chimpanzees and bonobos followed by the other great apes and then monkeys. He shows how DNA analysis can also (and by the same logic) be used to show the relative age of species. Interesting is the discovery of how exactly similar are some sections of code in diverse species, indicating that such code is very ancient. In fact Carroll points to "immortal" sequences of code that have resisted all attempts at corruption or mutation. He explains that such code is so nearly indispensible to living forms that natural selection is, and has always been, active in keeping it intact.

In this regard (and moving to the latter chapters of the book) we find a particularly delightful refutation of one of the notions of "Intelligent Design." Carroll quotes perhaps the best known of the intelligent designers, Dr. Michael Behe, as writing:

"Suppose that nearly four billion years ago the designer made the first cell, already containing all of the incredibly complex biochemical systems discussed here and many others. (One can postulate that the design for systems that were to be used later, such as blood clotting, were present but not `turned on.' In present-day organisms plenty of genes are turned off for a while, sometimes for generations, to be turned on at a later time)." (p. 244)

How brilliant this sounds! However Carroll writes:

"This is utter nonsense that disregards fundamentals of genetics. Dr. Ken Miller of Brown University has described this scenario as `an absolutely hopeless genetic fantasy of pre-formed genes waiting for the organisms that might need them to gradually appear.' As we saw in chapter 5, the rule of DNA code is use it or lose it. The constant bombardment of mutation will erode the text of genes that are not used, as it has in icefish, yeast, humans, and virtually every other species. There is no mechanism for genes to be preserved while awaiting the need for them to arise." (p. 244)

Indeed, if Behe were correct, there would be in virtually all species "silent pre-formed genes" waiting to be called upon. There aren't.

In the chapter entitled "Seeing and Believing" Carroll recalls Louis Pasteur's struggle to demonstrate to non-seeing and non-believing doctors that childbed fever was caused by their dirty hands. He reprises the horrific and bizarre story of the Soviet head of (political) biology Trofim Denisovich Lysenko who denied genetics, and how Stalin's support of him led to massive failures in agriculture and subsequent starvation. He further recalls how Mao Zedong, using the same unscientific ideas, sponsored massive starvation in China due to crop failures.

What Carroll is getting at is that political corruption of science can be very dangerous. In the United States today under the power of the Bush administration, faith-based (and corporate-sponsored) science is denying global warming and other deleterious effects of rampant pollution. This sort of science denial is likely to lead to human suffering and death, just as did the communist denial of genetics.

July 16, 2008

Preaching to the choir

Even though it is now over 120 years since Darwin's death, relatively few people truly understand Evolution. Unfortunately, the author of this book does not appear to be one of them. Don't get me wrong, Dr. Carroll is a respected scientist, well published, and a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin, but he is also what Ortega y Gasset called a "barbarian of specialization." He understands the minutia of his scientific field but not the larger implications of Science, the principle he attempts to defend or the ideas he tries to attack.

The title itself betrays part of the problem. As Prof. Carroll notes briefly, Darwin did not coin the unfortunate term "Survival of the Fittest," but he seems unaware of Tom Bethell's criticism that the term is a tautology, i.e., species survive because they are fit but they are considered fit because they survived. Jay Gould addressed this criticism adequately long ago, but Carroll misses a great opportunity to address this problem and others anew with his numerous examples of natural selection at the molecular level - his academic specialization. Prof. Carroll is not the second coming of Jay Gould though you get the feeling he wants to be. But, he fails to lay out clearly any of the many objections to Principle of Evolution and deal with each of them systematically and scientifically as Gould did. He never clearly explains the problems associated with speciation relative to simple molecular selection (the examples he provides do not in themselves lead to new species) and he does not clearly enunciate the importance of geographical isolation in that process. He addresses the problem of transitional species only in passing and his regard for climate change is paradoxical. Indeed the book is noteworthy for all it neglects. It is simply this; Prof. Carroll is utterly convinced that his barrage of examples of natural selection at the molecular level will absolutely convince any reasonable reader, as it has convinced himself, of the irrefutable "Truth" of Evolution. He almost shouts "HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE IT." But his is the truth of a religion formed around a "belief." It is not Science. His constant harangue that you must "believe" is the equivalent of a sermon at a tent revival not a convincing academic presentation. Read Darwin for that.

That said, the best part of the book is the examples of natural selection at the molecular level, the explanation of the necessity time in the process of natural selection and some of the mathematics of Evolution (the Hardy-Weinberg Law is strangely neglected?). Prof. Carroll's explanations of these many examples are clear and simple if somewhat redundant. One particular example of molecular selection Prof. Carroll chooses is perfect, what could be better then a discussion of opsin and the development of the eye. One of the greatest debates among evolutionary scientist and their opponents since the time of Darwin has been over the development of complex anatomical structures, particularly the eye, in the context of natural selection. This is the example of all examples, but Prof. Carroll seems utterly unaware of the enormous historical context of it and neglects any discussion of the problem of complex structures.

The worst part of the book is the last chapter, an unsystematic retaliation against the foes of Evolution, the foes of Prof. Carroll's religion. He describes the dreadful tactics of these enemies of all mankind in their persecution of the Sacred Order of Darwin then turns around and uses exactly the same tactics in a totally unselfconscious attempt to discredit them. The weak arguments here will not faze those whose faith demands they cling to Intelligent Design. Nevertheless, the book has been well and uncritically received as other reviews attest. That is because it is perfect solace for the sophomoric atheists who paste that silly and inaccurate outline of a fish with four legs on the back of their cars thereby demonstrating that they understand neither what they advocate nor what they mock. Prof. Carroll will be a hero to this crowd.

I am a biologist, a chemist and a physicist. I do not "believe" in Evolution any more than I "believe" in the Second Law of Thermodynamics or Relativity. Rather I know that these three principles consistently and accurately describe the physical and biological phenomena of this Earthly realm to the degree that we can detect and observe them. I know that probably these principles will all be superseded by more advanced ideas as they have themselves superseded previous ways of describing physical reality. As religion, science is cold gruel. And when science is presented as utterly unquestionable dogma it is every bit as barbaric as the Jesuit prosecution of Galileo and every bit the social and intellectual equivalent.

June 18, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science Of Evo Devo And The Making Of The Animal Kingdom
by Sean B. Carroll

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
by Neil Shubin

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
by Donald R. Prothero
by Carl Buell

The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma
by Marc W. Kirschner, John C. Gerhart
by John Norton

Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA
by Daniel J. Fairbanks