The Ancestor's Tale : A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

Rating:
Summary: Good, but....
Review: A great amount of detailed research has gone into this book. Taking us from the present to the genesis of life through these millions of years, has required much effort on the author's part. My problem with the book is that the author seems to be driven by his own biases to insert his political beliefs into his subject matter. It's obvious he detests US republican presidents. He misses no opportunity to inject his opinions wherever he feels they may fit the subject he is discussing. I thought these many asides were inappropriate for a book of science and they distracted me from the content.

Rating:
Summary: Dawkin's Opus
Review: A short review.

As a lover of layman science books, I find Dawkin's the king of layman science in evolution.

The Ancestors Tale (assume the pun is intended) is the most ambitious work on the subject ever tackled for the layman. The approach is novel and the amount of information presented is simply staggering. This book is a complete handbook of evolution, written with around 100 short seques into related individual topics that are absorbing in themselves.

Even though this book cost a ridiculous $70AUD it is well worth the outrageous price.

Simply put, this it the best layman's science book ever released.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent compilation of the science behind Evolution!
Review: Dawkins takes the complex theory of evolution and breaks it down, species by species, to show how Human beings came to be what we are. His insights and enlightenments are innovative, demonstrating clearly how many branches of science are involved in proving Evolution. Anyone who reads this book with an open, intelligent mind will come away with a tremendous understanding of the progression life has taken on this planet.
Many will criticize this book solely based on their own ignorance and bias. Some will claim to be "professors", but will simply be people that want to subvert knowledge, hide facts, and ignore the evidence. If you were told not to read something, not to obtain knowledge, then I would strongly encourage you to start listening to someone else.
Honestly, I'm not sure how anyone can read "The Ancestor's Tale", and still retain significant doubt about the evolution of life on this planet.


Rating:
Summary: i'll try to keep this short...
Review: I don't know, with the tide of reviews, if mine will make much difference...but here goes. This is an excellent book, and Mr. Dawkins is an inspiring and honest author, possibly the best living writer about science. This is admittedly not his most accessible book, but it may be the most impressive, thorough, and up to date, and should be within the reach of most educated people. The Blind watchmaker and river out of eden are best as an intro to Dawkin's ideas, and evolutionary theory in general. Do read Ancestor's Tale at some point, you shant regret it.



Rating:
Summary: Another great but flawed work from the king of bio-writers
Review: Richard Dawkins is one of the best science writers out there. He has once again produced a work that is in-depth, informative and fun to read. For the layman with an interest in the evolutionary side of biology, this is the author with which to start. Unfortunately, Dawkins clutters his work with juvenile, left-wing political commentary (thankfully they are brief), and this book is no exception. If you can ignore the occassional Bush-hating nonsense, the rest of the book is great. A remarkable "journey" back through the evolution of life - from modern man to primordial life-like self-replication billions of years ago. Thrilling and thought-provoking.

Rating:
Summary: Making the inaccessible accessible.
Review: This is a very important book that should be read by all who have the mental faculty, those who thirst for knowledge and have the money to buy it. The only excuse for ignorance is poverty. Simply there is no other work that documents the formation and development of life in a more readily accessible or readable form. God truly is within us - he never left us. It improved my understanding of evolutionary genetics, (and other branches of science) a hundred fold and it was written in such an entertaining way, that I did not watch TV for a couple of weeks including ESPN and the O'Reilly Factor. The complexities of biological science have become inaccessible to most people and this book bridges the gap like a bridge across the Atlantic. If you thought you knew all there was to know about the evolution of life on this planet you're probably going to be in for a very pleasant surprise and you will love this book. I disapprove of the political statements in the book, but I think they are WELL earned! If Dawkins hadn't written this book then we would probably still be in the dark ages.

Rating:
Summary: Dreaming of Owles and Apes
Review: This is one of Prof. Dawkins' best books. Unlike some of his recent efforts, which were "Dawkins Lite", Ancestor's Tale is a witty, detailed look at the development of life, using a Chaucerian pilgrimage as a frame. It shows Dawkins at his best as a scientist and as a prose writer. I will not attempt to surpass the fine and detailed reviews appearing at this site. I will note, however, that Dawkins does not regard Evolution as a Communist plot, and on one or two points he makes sly remarks that might indicate that he does not hold our current President and the distinguished representative from Texas in the deepest of reverence. The former is a necessity for any detailed discussion of the topic, the latter is an incidental of no great importance

There is one point I would like to make, something that prospective buyers might want to think about: the book was published in both the U.S. and the U.K., but the British edition, by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, is rather different from the American. With a slightly different title(Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life, rather than to the Dawn of Evolution), it has glorious illustrations and a more luxurious format. It will set you back 25 pounds plus shipping, but if you are thinking of putting this book into your permanent collection, and that is where it deserves to be, you might want to consider making the investment and getting it from Amazon.uk. Just use the link at the bottom of this page.

Rating:
Summary: The Ancestor's Tales
Review: This issue's book review by Mike Stahl can be commented on by e-mailing him at [e-mail]



The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, by Richard Dawkins.


"Pilgrimage implies piety and reverence...true reverence with which we are moved to celebrate the universe, once we understand it properly".



This is a big book. Although it is nearly 700 pages and as a hardback weighs about 5 pounds, that is not what is meant by big book. It is large because it sets out to explain how we humans came to be through a 3 billion year journey. Reading the book requires rigor and careful attention to the details. Dawkins is writing to a popular audience in the sense that he explains scientific technicalities so that those readers (like this one) who have limited biology backgrounds can begin to understand things that occur in this journey.



This is a pilgrimage as the title explains and it is patterned after Chaucer's CanterburyTales. The books takes us through a series of 39 Rendezvous. It travels from today back to what can be figured as the beginning of heredity or more specifically the first replicator gene. At each Rendezvous, Dawkins and Yan Wong travel with the last common ancestor (concestor as Dawkins says) to the next rendezvous where we all meet and head to the next rendezvous. This goes on for 3 billion years and the adventure is well told all the way through. If the reader has seen the movie, Allegro non Troppo they may recall backward time travel to the sound of Ravel's Bolero while reading this book.



Throughout these travels Dawkins digresses to explain the science behind his descriptions. This is a crucial aid to those who need some help with understanding. Without these digressions only biologists could read the book. He also digresses with political asides. This reviewer particularly enjoys them and that is in large part due to the similarity of our ideology. Many people have written that Dawkins can be supercilious but this did not occur to the reviewer and perhaps that is due to a similar personality trait.



The book uses a methodology of convergence that is critical in making a case for what appears obvious to the thinking individual. Unfortunately, the theory of Evolution requires constant re-proving. Evidence which has been overwhelming for the last 150 years is still subject to "debate" for a contingent large in numbers, who have attempted to erode the credibility of this science by locating little chinks in the over all armor. Briefly, convergence is the making of inductions from classes of facts that may be disparate in and of themselves and making strong scientific cases for each class. Once that is done the convergence of all of these explanations makes an extraordinary case for the over all objective. In this case the objective is that the theory of evolution is once again, strong and obvious.



Dawkins credits many scientific minds throughout the book to assist him in explaining how he came to conclusions that he arrived at. The scientific veracity is thorough and of course documented well. Several authors and books struck this reviewer with a desire to read them and they are found in the Side Bar.



While preparing for this review, several scientific pieces of information were gathered and reviewed but in the actually writing of this, they were determined to be too cumbersome and too subjective to use. Suffice it to say that were the reader of the Ancestor's Tale a less sophisticated scientist, the book provides extensive data to support his convergence of evidence and is readable enough so that any reader can gather a general understanding of the concept Dawkins is explaining. To go into more detail would not only give away the story but would be repeating nearly verbatim, what he details in the book.



So...rather than give away the ending, you should read the book. Ultimately it is a good story. The prose is there to keep up the interest in anyone who is interested in science despite a paltry background. The book once read entirely, can also serve as an excellent reference book. It can be used to return to for further clarification and to jolt the memory that fades over time. Thinking scientifically does not make anyone a scientist. Those readers who are not, can make use of this book in more than one way.



In the end, Dawkins looks at the journey back into time with amazement and reverence. Life evolved out of nearly nothing and led to things like humans understanding it. It is a "Reverence for life itself"




Rating:
Summary: Great? It's not!
Review: Well I noticed that another reviewer called this tome a 'magnum opus' and that it truly is but width doesn't necessarily mean quality. Whereas I've enjoyed Dawkins' earlier works like the famous 'Blind Watchmaker' I feel this misses the mark by a long way as it is basically unreadable. I found that I had to force myself to read The Ancestor's Tale and finish it up. This was unlike a similar 'magnum opus' Jared Diamond's 'Guns, germs and steel' which had me turning the pages in anticipation from cover to cover. So, what made this book miss the mark for me?:

1. The somewhat trite and after a short while irratating usage of the Chaucer's Canterbury's Tale device.

2. The incredibly stodgy and stream of conciousness writing style. In some cases you need to read and then re-read a paragraph or two to get what the writer is saying.

3. The constant references to various other 'tales' yet to be encountered in the book.

4.The use of co-authors for some chapters - it made the already muddy waters even more so.

Dawkins is undoubtly an intellectual giant and is a biologist to be reckoned with. His theories on selfish genes and 'memes' are outstanding breakthroughs for our times. His dismissal of bigotry and creationalism are to be admired but I just wish this book had been more tightly edited and thus more compelling and attainable. Nice idea Mr Dawkins, I just think it needs a re-work to become "The Human Zoo" or "A Short History of Time" of it's era.

Rating:
Summary: Mr Dawkins: You Couldn't Resist, Could You?
Review: Well Mr Dawkins, you just couldn't resist could you? You could only write 27 pages before you planted your first political wink-wink, nod-nod to your fellow liberals in academia and elsewhere. In your attempt to describe human evolution, you speak of the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the "fertile Crescent", some 10,000 years ago. Of course, this is an excellent time to try to take a dig at America's efforts to bring peace to this region. You claim that during the purge of Saddam and his torturous, murderous henchmen, the treasures of the Baghdad Museum were looted right under the "indifferent eyes" of the Americans, who were too busy "protect(ing)... the Ministry of Oil". This is a blatant falsehood. Very few, if any of the artifacts in the museum were hurt or stolen. They had been removed prior to the war by Iraqis themselves, for safe keeping.

From the London Guardian, as reported in the Wall Street Journal (6.12.03), "...(the) London Guardian reported June 10, ''It's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up . It's bollocks.'' It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began."

Well, that was it for me. I gave your book a chance, but now I will not waste anymore time with it. How can I expect to learn anything about the history of the evolution of life on Earth from you, a person who cannot even get recent history correct?!? You should be ashamed, on two accounts. The first is that you tried to slip false information in as a sly jab against America in your book. The second is that you did it with a lazy abandon. Mr Dawkins, rather than tarnish America, you have only hurt your reputation.

How about this for evolutionary history: tomorrow I return this book of yours to the primordial swamp, the bookstore from whence it came.