Despite the fact that I stayed home and did almost nothing for two weeks, I've been a terrible person and decided not to read anything. I mean, sure- I read plenty of bird reports, magazines, field notes, college information, facebook stuff, and books for schoolwork, but outside of that, I haven't read any literature. For this reason, I'm going to review The Making of the Fittest- a book by Sean Carroll that I'm supposed to read for AP Bio.
For a book that is supposed to teach me everything I would otherwise learn from textbook chapters, I have to say this is a good read. In The Making of The Fittest, Sean Carroll describes all the intricate genetic processes, mathematics, and mutations behind evolution. It's really quite interesting. Carroll presents the facts to his readers with a simple, down-to-earth prose-- far removed from the scientific jargon that you might expect from this type of book. This makes the book fun, somewhat fast-paced, and fairly easy to comprehend. Some of the things I particularly like about Carroll's writing style is that he's willing to provide examples, make analogies, and delve into background information. When describing how Old World Monkeys and apes evolved color vision, he first describes what exactly makes color vision, the genes responsible for our vision, how color vision evolved in birds and fish but not mice, and goes on to explain how color vision may have disappeared in early mammals.
Even though I have yet to complete the book, Carroll has taught me some fascinating things. Until now, I never fully understood how organisms lost certain traits over time. According to Carroll, the phrase "use it or lose it" applies to genes. When a gene does not face pressure from natural selection, there is nothing stopping a mutant gene from reproducing and being passed on to offspring. Where I thought organisms evolved blindness or flightlessness simply because they didnt need eyes or wings, I now know it's because mutations are allowed to accumulate in certain genes of theirs.
I must say, Carroll's writing occaisionally goes over my head when he talks about base pairs or protein codes, but I believe that his writing beats alot of scientific works in terms of readibility.
Your information here is very helpful to a non science oriented person such as myself. Now there is a good chance I might just read this book! Thanks
ReplyDeleteWhan interesting analysis. It makes me think that I should check this book out at B&N or Amazon. Perhaps all the Creationists should be given this book to read and ponder.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how you would compare Carroll's approach to evolution and writing style to that of Richard Dawkins. I think you would enjoy Dawkin's 1976 work, The Selfish Gene. It is written in an easy-to-understand manner but introduces some interesting concepts. For example, Dawkins proposes the idea of the gene as the unit of evolution. In other words, evolution favors organism behavior that perpetuates the organism's genes, even if that behavior does not benefit the organism itself. For example, a male spider's genes drive its instinctive mating behavior, which serves to perpetuate those genes, even though it also exposes the male to the threat of being devoured by the cannibalistic female.
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