Darwin's Ghost : The Origin of Species Updated

Rating:
Summary: The unrolling scroll.....
Review: Every now and then I read a challenging book that leaves me exhausted, awe inspired, and somewhat sad. Such is DARWIN'S GHOST: THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES UPDATED by the English geneticist Steve Jones. Apparently, Jones has the reputation of being one who can distill, combine, and convey complex scientific findings and conclusions to a lay audience. Although it seems to have been relatively well received, I suspect only a limited number of people will actually read this book from cover to cover as I did.

GHOST is not "pop" science. Nor is it a scientific text. It is a jam-packed overview of a complex topic and a book someone contemplating a career in biology should read. Jones includes no copious footnotes and very few citations, although he does provide the reader with sources for further research. While I think he covers most areas superficially, he includes more than enough for the educated lay person. Taking a page from Darwin's books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man", he says the natural world has evolved and is still evolving, and humans have evolved and are still evolving. Going beyond Darwin, Jones notes that a good deal of the biodiversity Darwin described following the voyage of the Beagle has disappeared. Jones suggests humans have done a great deal in a short while to destroy the natural world.

Evolution does not follow the trajectory some have imagined-from simple to complex (progress). It is not straightforward. It is messy. Sometimes it is retro. Jones compares evolution to the banyan tree whose branches drop down to the ground, grow roots, and ascend as a new trunk. Punctuated equilibrium is a phrase used by some scientists to describe the evolution of a single species. Species change in response to a stimulus. When the stimulus disappears or is addressed via adaptation (or extinction), equilibrium resumes (i.e. the creature is no more or it goes about it's business). Jones provides many examples of stressful evolutionary change including the story of the island of Krakatau east of Java which exploded in the late 19th Century destroying all life with the exception of a single spider. Today, the island is relatively stable and is somewhat repopulated, but it's diversity has been diminished. Another example of change is the spread of the zebra mussel over most of the open waterways in the world-owing to shipping.

Jones says humans like to order everything into categories of understanding. Unfortunately, most classification systems are faulty when it comes to ordering the natural world. For example, using morphology as the basis for classifying creatures has it's limits. Some folks once classified certain mammals as fish because they swam in water. Others thought pandas were bears and alligators and crocodiles were closely related. Comparative anatomy and it's successor DNA sequencing suggest pandas are closer to racoons and alligators are closer to birds.

Genealogy (the fossil record and DNA sequencing) provides strong evidence for evolution-or change over time. No other paradigm fits the empirical evidence. How evolution occurs is open to discussion. Jones describes what he believes has transpired. His discussion covers many things from AIDS research to zebra mussels.

If you are interested in the environment and species diversity-and/or planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands or Hawaii-and/or thinking of taking up biology as a career--you will find this book instructive.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than the Original!
Review: Having never read "Origin of a Species", I found this book invaluable. It laid out the arguments and descriptions of evolution all in one place, in a very readable format. It is naturally superior to Origin in that it is an update of 150 years of science, especially genetics and plate tectonics. But this isn't a mere rewriting in modern English or with modern scientific arguments added in. As Jones himself states, it is more a rewriting of the *ideas* within Origin, in Jones' voice and with his own arguments. Steve Jones writes with a wonderful style, similar to dearly departed Stephen Jay Gould, merging science with popular culture and limitless trivia. (My friends are quickly getting tired of me quoting much of the trivia from the book- like the percentage of genetic variation between individuals and "races", or the male ability to lactate!)

I must however disagree with Jones on one point- Darwin was not a great writer. Summaries and the final chapter of The Origin are reprinted here- and with good reason!- Darwin's arguments were profound and instrumental, and should be included in his own words in part in a book that is a rewriting of those ideas. But Darwin's wordiness and vagueness only serve to highlight both his much superior abilities as a scientist, and Jones' much superior writing skill.

Rating:
Summary: This ghost should be laid to rest.
Review: I found this book disappointing. Its approach is more akin to journalistic rhetoric than careful scholarship. It contains many inaccuracies and half-baked arguments. Below are just a few examples:

On whale evolution, the author echoes the views that (i) the fossil evidence suggests a mesonychian ancestry (p16), and (ii) the molecular evidence suggests an artiodactyl ancestry, in common with hippos (p18). Yet he claims "the fossil evidence is confirmed by the record of the genes" (p16). But the two scenarios are in conflict, not in agreement! The mesonychian vs artiodactyl confusion is furthered by the discovery, announced in "Nature" (1/10/98), of two "ancient whale astragali [ankle bones]", which possess features that do not support either scenario! The argument for whale evolution, as for evolution in general, may look feasible at a superficial level, but breaks down on closer examination.

"A dog show is evolution chalked out for all to behold" (p24) - The examples given all involve deleterious traits: Nellie had no front legs (p24), pugs' eyes have to be pressed back into their sockets and Techichis can't bark (p25), Labradors have small brains (p28), Chows are almost blind (p32), etc., etc. What sort of evolutionary outcome does the author envisage from an accumulation of defects?

"genes are full of waste and redundancy" (p111) - The argument from so-called "junk DNA" shows that evolutionists have not learnt the lesson from the debunked "vestigial organs" argument. Ignorance of function does not equate to its absence, and redundancy serves a valuable purpose i.e. protection against mutational damage. Back-up systems in engineering design are another example of purposeful redundancy. Evolutionists frequently, and blindly, make the charge that the concept of creation would stifle research, yet the concepts of "junk DNA" and "vestigial organs" are actual instances where scientific investigation has been hindered by ignorance dressed up as knowledge, in conformity to the dogma of evolution.

Speaking of vestigial organs, the author mentions "useless organs such as the human appendix" (p303) - He has obviously not kept up to date with medical advances in this instance. This mistaken belief, based on evolutionary assumptions, has led to the medical malpractice of removing perfectly healthy organs from countless children.

"The Green River beds of Wyoming contain twenty million of these annual bands" (p196) - The assumption of 'annual' bands is refuted by the fact, among others, that fossils in that formation transgress many bands, and fossils require rapid burial for preservation. Ironically, the author mentions Mt. St. Helens, obviously unaware of the fact that a 25 foot thick deposit containing many bands formed there in less than a day!

Jones calls Haeckel "the great nineteenth-century German biologist" (p294), and downplays his fraudulent embryonic data as "somewhat doctored to support the idea [embryonic recapitulation]" (p298). Contrast this with the stark comment by one evolutionist researcher: "This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud. What he did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development. They don't. These are fakes." Intellectual integrity has to play second fiddle to the need to convince people that evolution is true.

I could go on and on ....

For a less proselytizing and more sober account of evolution, see "Evolution" by Colin Patterson, 1999. For a scholarly critique of Darwinian evolution, see Lee Spetner's "Not By Chance".

Rating:
Summary: No respect!
Review: It is interesting to notice that while Charles Darwin remains the main reference in evolutionary theory, it is becoming more and more difficult to show respect for the ideas of a man that, besides being mentally sick, didn't really know what he was talking about. Since Darwin thought that the cell was just a little bit of indiferenciated protoplasm, it was fairly easy for him to come up with some just so stories about its hipothetical evolution out of nothing. Random mutations and natural selection have proved to be incapable of explaining evolution. Today, what we know about DNA and molecular machines is enough for us to conclude that there is no such thing as simple life and that we can hardly imagine how the complex specified information in the cell could be generated without the work of God, the Super Inteligent Designer. Besides, all the mutations that are generally presented as evidence of evolution has proved to be totally incapable to generate new DNA information. What is remarkable is how easily the intelectual community accepted Darwin's just so stories. But then again, if one thinks about how easily many intelectuals accepted Karl Marx's "scientific socialism" one just has to conclude that most intellectuals will readily accept all kinds of nonsense, as long as it keeps God out of the equation. They call this science, but for me it is just a (not that clever) form of self deceit.

Rating:
Summary: A praiseworthy effort
Review: It's a sad commentary that so many entries here view this book as a bludgeon against ignorance, instead of letting stand on its own merits. Steve Jones' innovative approach vividly demonstrates how science has sustained the concept of evolution through natural selection. He deserves our praise for the effort he's put into assembling a wealth of resources, while presenting the information with clarity and wit. After, all compressing 150 years of steadily increasing information is no easy task. And that information must be given the fullest possible exposure. The reluctance of Christianity [the term 'creationist' is meaningless distinction] to understand natural selection is depressing, but even Steve Jones is unlikely to heal that blight.

Charles Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES is the most important book ever written. Not the best known, of course, or most often read. Yet no other publication has changed so many aspects of human outlook. Daniel Dennett rightly calls Darwin's idea 'the universal acid'. The concept of change over time ranges over all science from quantum physics to cosmology. Steve Jones' modernization of ORIGIN is necessarily limited to the biological realm, but as he aptly demonstrates, that's complicated enough. Biology is a busy science these days, but Jones has brought us as up to date as writing and publication schedules permit. Addressing such a diversity of topics as AIDS, where whales came from [they're not hairy fish!] and geological time scales, he's provided us with a detailed scenario of evolution's course.

There are some interesting omissions in this book. No listing of Mendel's paper in the bibliography [although the synopsis of his work in the main text is valuable]; in fact, he doesn't mention that Darwin had a copy of it in his library - unread. Nor is there anything on island biogeography. While it would be unfitting to give Albert Russell Wallace more space in the text, there are several excellent books on a subject ORIGIN was only touched lightly. More significant is the lack of reference to the Grant's work on Galapagos Finches [see Jonathan Weiner's THE BEAK OF THE FINCH]. If anyone needs confirmation that evolution works, this three-decade long study will provide it.

None of the lacks are significant shortcomings in this effort to 'update' ORIGIN. Jones has presented a stunning wealth of information, but put it together in a highly readable format. He deserves the widest possible readership for this book. With luck, Jones will perform the same service with THE DESCENT OF MAN. There's little doubt it will be as valuable as this book.

Rating:
Summary: Ghostwriter Jones
Review: No great adventure, quest, or mystery here. No assistance with this book from beyond by Darwin himself although Jones does say "helpful though that would have been." No, instead in the best traditions of Ghostwriting, we have a work faithful to it's original with full recognition and even admiration for the author. The original is of course THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by Charles Darwin, which Jones says is "without doubt, the book of the millennium". Yet it's not a widely read book. Broadening readership is one of Jones' objectives but he also tackles creationism and puts the social sciences in their place. The latter point being that "evolution is to the social sciences as statues are to birds: a convenient platform upon which to deposit badly digested ideas." Attempts to apply the laws of natural science to civilization are, Jones says, "more or less infantile" and are thus not even discussed. That's interesting for two reasons: (1) sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and attempts to come up with a synthesis of all knowledge are very current topics of debate. Some of it originating with Jones' fellow biologists such as E O Wilson in CONSILIENCE and Jared Diamond's GUNS GERMS AND STEEL. Others by non-scientists may be what he was refering to as "infantile" although recent works such as Robert Wright's NONZERO and historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's CIVILIZATIONS are sophisticated, entertaining, and definitely thought provoking. (2) Jones is himself an evolutionary psychologist yet his book doesn't bring up the subject at all. Nor is it only sociobiology and Wilson that is missing from discussion. There's no Dawkins, Gould, or any modern scientist mentioned.

Jones has instead stayed very close to Darwin using the chapter titles and structure of the original book and in fact lifting the entire last chapter of Darwin's conclusions and reproducing it here. What Jones adds in this update is current examples of the process of natural selection and a modern, readable writing style (oftentimes very humorous as is the style of so many writers on evolutionary biology. Is there some selection of fitness for humor taking place here?). I can think of a couple of his colleagues who could use a little of Jones' levity and ease up on the debate a bit. Maybe he had them in mind when he said "the sea squirt, after an active life, settles on the sea floor, and like a professor given tenure, absorbs its brain."

Jones ranges far and wide with his restatement of how natural selection works. Given his view that "there is no mystery to Darwin's machine: it is no more than genetics plus time" it is to be expected that the illustrations he uses are both meaningful and are explained in a straightforward way. Beginning with a discussion of HIV/AIDS which is shown to contain Darwin's "entire argument" of "variation, a struggle for existence, and natural selection that in time leads to new forms of life" Jones then goes on to use whales, birds, cats, dogs, argiculture, and even zoos to illustrate that this process - "the factory for the almost impossible" - can have some unusual results. Cincinnati zoos breeding of albino tigers at above normal rates being a case in point.

Well written with much humor and obviously directed at the generalist as an introduction to Darwin's great thesis, this book accomplishes what it set out to do. It's not perfect - like natural selection there are errors, although with evolution it's through reproduction not from poor editing and cross checking - but the book nevertheless is as close to the original as you could want while bringing it up to date and making this important subject much more readable.

Rating:
Summary: An absolute Must read book!
Review: Steve Jones's "Darwin's Ghost" should be regarded as the most lucid exposition on behalf of the Neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis theory of evolution. Jones does an admirable job pointing out where advances in genetics and biochemistry have vindicated Darwin's thoughts on the evolution of new species via Natural Selection. Unfortunately, he tends to minimize the importance of evidence from developmental biology and especially, paleobiology, which runs counter to any strict gradualistic interpretation of evolution via natural selection. Frankly, I am surprised that Jones gives punctuated equilibria more than a passing nod, and emphasizes the significance of abrupt appearances in the fossil record without discussing the importance - if any - of long-term evolutionary stasis. Still, Jones has provided the general public a valuable service demonstrating how evolution is ongoing, citing the evolution and spread of HIV/AIDS viruses as a prime example. And he does all of this with splendid, lucid prose that isn't far removed from Darwin's with regards to literary quality.

Rating:
Summary: Evolution is all around us!
Review: This book is an updated version of Charles Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, to me the most important book of all time, no exceptions. Darwin knew nothing of genes and DNA when he wrote his book, and Jones includes evidence of this sort in his book, along with more geology and fossil finds than Darwin had available to him. The writing style of Jones is not clear and flowing in this book, although the message of evolution and how it works is very clear. This is not a book you read in one evening, I found it a very tedious read, but at the same time very rewarding as Jones really knows his science. The book covers the mechanics of evolution well, and gives many examples.

I find it simply amazing that atoms and molecules can arrange themselves, using only natural physical laws, into more and more complex forms, and eventually humans evolve and come into existence, billions of years later. That is 'magic' to me. This book illustrates this very well, evolution powered by mutations and natural selection, which continue to this day to mold and define us and all life around us. The 'fact' of evolution, which to most scientists has proven itself beyond mere theory, must be very vexatious for the creationists, who bury their heads in the sand and make up bogus arguments against it, or ignore it altogether. Jones in this book occasionally discusses the evolution vrs. creationist debate.

We live in an absolutely beautiful universe, and this book will help one understand part of it. Jones even pokes fun at his students here and there. Meanwhile, the machinery of evolution marches on.......

Rating:
Summary: A Great Intellectual Feast
Review: This book purports to "update" Darwin's Origin of Species. But, as Jones says, "It would be presumptuous to present this essay as more than a shadow of its original, in content or in form." Moreover, "The Origin is...a work of high Victorian seriousness, with no concession to any desire to be entertained. In these more flippant times I yield to the temptation to leaven a scientific narrative with tales from the curious history of evolution and those who study it."

Ok, fair enough. So, what is this book's intended audience? In Darwin's case, he was writing to the educated lay person of his day, which mostly meant Victorian gentlemen of conventional morality and religion, but interested in science, and with minds that could follow an argument and be changed. But he was writing to scientists mainly, and was acutely conscious of the need to be comprehensive, clear, and conservative as regards the evidence, and rigorous in argument.

Jones is not writing to convince his audience that all the variety of life that we see about us arose out of simpler forms (or, even, just one simple type of proto-creature) by descent with modification over eons of time, with the environment doing the selective breeding, as it were. His audience should already believe that. (Those that most vehemently do not are certainly not addressed here.) Rather, he is giving us an informal survey of natural history in its great and entertaining variety, using Darwin's great argument as a "scaffolding" upon which to hang his discussions. Throughout he implicitly assumes that you accept the reality of evolution. What he is doing is guiding you through its implications and outcomes in a great number of ways. Thus, for example, Darwin used the chaotic nature of the geologic strata to argue for various events that could fold rocks or raise ancient seabeds up to the tops of mountains by referring to Lyell's theories, which were still controversial. Jones simply assumes we believe the by-now-well-established facts of geology, and uses these to discuss the spottiness and contrariness of the fossil record.

Thus, Jones has a much easier task than Darwin had, so can have more fun with his material. And he does have fun, and so will you. This book is entertaining and enlightening: if you are familiar with the main arguments for evolution, it will remind you of them, and enrich your feeling for them. Jones talks widely about nature and the issues raised by natural selection. However, if you have never before encountered arguments for natural selection ("descent with modification"), then perhaps you should consult some more diagrammatic and focused work that lays bare the logic behind it. And then read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Destined to become a classic
Review: This is one of the most interesting and rewarding books I have read in a long time. Having always felt somewhat hesitant about tackling Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species", I was grateful when I came across Steve Jones' dutifully updated version, a comparatively easy book to read but nonetheless a masterpiece in itself.

Jones - writing as "Darwin's ghost" - has taken it upon himself to restate the famous biologist's long argument, enlivening it on the way with examples borrowed from modern science textbooks and also correcting the occasional (but still remarkably rare) error. Indeed, considering that the theory of natural selection and all the other elements of the canon of evolution have proved to apply to countless disciplines nothing was even known about at the time the original book was published in 1859, Darwin's work simply has to be called a stroke of genius! Evolution is all around us, a fact that is gently being impressed upon the reader thanks to the explanatory power of Jones' writing style. Nowhere become his skills more palpable than when he leaves his accustomed fields of microbiology or fruit flies and ventures to draw on examples such as the pyramids of Gizah, the complex structures of operas or the characteristics of a particular painting by John Constable. Apart from a few passages that were slightly confusing, to read this book has not only been an interesting but above all a rather pleasant experience, and equipped with the background knowledge procured by Steve Jones I now finally feel ready to tackle the original "The Origin of Species" from Darwin's own pen.