How the Leopard Changed Its Spots : The Evolution of Complexity

Rating:
Summary: Well I've changed my spots!
Review: The main theme is about how DNA doesn't need to provide information in every detail to produce an organism. Chemical, physical and mathematical forces also play a significant part in the production of an organism. The book is also about how natural selection is not the only process at work for evolutionary advancement. I totally agree with the conclusion, and he's sure changed my thoughts on the subject, but it was a challenge to read it all because of the way it is written. It could have been more fun.

For the others that read this book and still don't get "how the leopard changed its spots" - its a metaphor. Leopards aren't supposed to change their spots. The leopard symbolises scientists like Richard Dawkins and others who are fixated with genetic evolution and DNA. After reading this book, will they change their ways? Its not about leopards!

It does have loads of fascinating examples, with all the relevant diagrams & figures to make the point clear, so he's done a good job assembling all of those. From ant colonies & the BZ reaction, to evolution of the eye & fibrillation in the human heart. An example: it is the concentration of calcium that causes the single celled organism (Acetabularia) to grow to a particular shape, NOT the DNA. He also explains why a sunflower seed head forms a spiral, and it is all to do with mathematics, nothing to do with sunflower DNA.

The trouble with this book is that the author uses the word "dynamic" waaaay too much. It quickly becomes very annoying. He is obsessed with that word. Open the book at random, and you will see what I am talking about. Aside from that, it is very tedious to read. Instead of making the ideas easily understood, it seems Brian Goodwin goes out of his way to make it complicated.

I'd really like to give it 3.5 stars, because at the end of it I was glad I read it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone, because there are better books out there (you might like to see my other reviews on popular science books). Remember that you can only read a limited number of books in your lifetime, and this one is not perfect. Buy it ONLY if you're specifically interested in this field of science OR you've read all the truly good books out there and want to lower your standards a bit and still keep reading popular science!

Rating:
Summary: Neither Goodwin nor Dembski understands evolution
Review: This book is the source of a widely circulated quote by William Dembski which proves beyond a doubt that neither Goodwin nor Dembski has the faintest idea of how evolution works.

Goodwin describes how Sol Spiegelman put some viral RNA in a test tube, along with a "replicase" molecule whose job is to duplicate RNA. He heated the RNA for a while to force the replicase to make copies of the RNA, then took a sample, purified it and used it to innoculate a second test tube. After the RNA in that test tube had been copied, he took a sample, purified it and used it to innoculate a third test tube. This continued for twenty some "generations", at which time the RNA was reduced to a small fraction of its original length and was duplicating much faster than the original because there was so much less to duplicate.

First Goodwin, then Dembski and now the whole Intelligent Design universe think this somehow shows that evolution is impossible. What it actually shows is that if RNA or DNA has no function, it won't be missed if it disappears - and 90 percent of the RNA had no function in the test tube environment. The only parts that were doing something were the parts that the replicase used to find the start and end points for its copying function.

This is made abundantly clear in the original paper when Spiegelman states that after the fourth transfer, the RNA became incapable of infecting a cell. That means that in real life, the "experiment" would have stopped right there because the shortened, defective RNA would not have been passed on.

Unfortunately, first Goodwin and then Dembski completely misunderstood this experiment and now Dembski has spread the misunderstanding to the entire religious community. They both owe the world an apology.

Rating:
Summary: Dynamics and evolution
Review: This is a great book. Readers interested in understanding the rules that shape morphogenesis over evolution should read it. Goodwin provides convincing evidence for fundamental dynamic rules involved in the generation of form. Together with natural selection, these mechanisms offer a more complete view of how evolution works.