We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species Darwin's opus continues to be inspiration and catalyst for discovery of the myriad patterns and processes that distinguish life on Earth. So much has happened in the past 200 years to advance a science already standing on a sturdy foundation that evolution cannot be considered a modest topic to cover in a textbook, even one more than 600 pages long. Given the truth in Dobzhansky's assertion that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, a writer of a textbook on this subject is basically up against trying to present to students a work dealing with practically all of biology. Doug Futuyma has done precisely that in ways that almost make me want to be an undergraduate again, so that I can dedicate more hours to poring over the pages of his wonderful text.

Full-text (PDF) Evolution, Second Edition. By Douglas J. PDF This is the third edition of Douglas Futuyma’s popular textbook on evolution. It provides a comprehensive.

Odin Share Trading Software. There is such a wealth of information in these pages that only a full-on course would come close to doing it justice—it is really a one-stop-shop for up-to-date assessments of what we do and do not know about evolution. There are chapters and sections on just about everything. The mainstays of Darwin's triumph are all there, of course: phylogenetics, natural selection, variation, adaptation, the fossil record. But to this pantheon have been added pieces that Darwin did not have at hand: the synthesis, heterochrony, allometry, tectonics, radiometric dating, and especially genetics and evo-devo—not to mention lucid armories for the fight against creationism and other anti-intellectual forces that would find the scholarly mass of the rest of the book an affront to their misguided sensitivities.

Futuyma deftly covers the issues of why “creation science” is oxymoronic, and how it squeezes itself into new shapes to confound and confuse those not yet equipped to evaluate the difference between fact, theory, science and ideological obfuscation. The book is worth every penny for this alone and as a bonus, you get one of the most on-point Doonesbury cartoons in the history of the funny pages.

Speaking of the comics, many figures are further illuminated by little “cartoon speech balloons” that spring from pieces of the illustration that might require parenthetical explanation. I found these extremely eye-catching, useful, and actually charming in cases in which the diagrams and the subjects therein seem to be speaking to the reader like the characters from some evolutionary funny pages (the cetaceans on p. 86 were great in this regard).

There is hardly a page of this book lacking in skillfully chosen and crafted imagery. That there is indeed “so much beauty throughout nature” comes through not only in the aesthetic joy of things like “ Anomalocaris”, but in the theoretical appeal of the colorfully coded maps and graphs that reveal their inner beauty in educational messages of great impact.

In attempting to teach phylogenetics to undergraduates engaged in our own programs at the California Academy of Sciences, I have had to try and find a suitable book that covers the basics of evolutionary biology but that also emphasizes cladistics. I have gone to various specialized texts on phylogenetic theory, but I am starting to rethink that approach in favor of a book such as Futuyma's.

My students will get more than enough phylogenetics, set in the context of Darwinian theory where it belongs, from his book. Better yet, the students will have in a single resource a primer on so many of the other tools they will need to perform and understand the research projects in which they find themselves occupied. Where else would I find a text on evolution that succinctly covers some basic statistics right next to the seminal work of the Grants on Darwin's finches? Or contains such a pithy piece of the nitty-gritty as what distinguishes a holotype from a paratype next to a reproduction of Darwin's only figure from the Origin? The richness goes on and on, and it is hard to know where to stop in trying to express my happiness at having this book in my library.

But wait, there is more! Nes Tiny Toon Adventures Cool Rom. Installing Gom Player Codecs Pack. On the flyleaf, and in many places in the body of the text, there are invitations to visit the Evolution, Second Edition website.

There, students and instructors will find an indispensable resource that includes an online version of the glossary appearing in the book, a way to generate flash cards, problem sets pertinent to each chapter, chapter outlines, and chapter summaries. But for me there is nothing quite like flipping the pages of the volume itself, which appropriately comes out in a year full of Darwin-inspired anniversary celebrations. I am surprised to say this about a textbook of all things, but there is carefully selected beauty here of a kind that could serve to inspire and inform students at so many levels, including those of us who are students for life.