How Evolution Explains Everything about Life

by New Scientist

Overview

How did we get here? It's the journey of a lifetime.

All cultures have a creation story, but a little over 150 years ago Charles Darwin introduced a revolutionary new one. We, and all living things, exist because of the action of evolution on the first simple life form and its descendants.

We now know that it has taken 3.8 billions of years of work by the forces of evolution to turn what was once a lump of barren rock into the rich diversity of into plants, animals and microbes that surround us. In the process, evolution has created all manner of useful adaptions, from biological computers (brains) to a system to capture energy from the sun (photosynthesis).

But how does evolution actually work? In How Evolution Explains Everything, leading biologists and New Scientist take you on a journey of a lifetime, exploring the question of whether life is inevitable or a one-off fluke, and how it got kick-started. Does evolution have a purpose or direction? Are selfish genes really the driving force of evolution? And is evolution itself evolving?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529381962
Publisher:	Mobius
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,060,271
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Since the first magazine was published in 1956, New Scientist has established a worldbeating reputation for exploring and uncovering the latest developments and discoveries in science and technology, placing them in context and exploring what they mean for the future.

Each week through a variety of different channels, including print, online, social media and more, New Scientist reaches over four million highly engaged readers - over a million readers for the print magazine alone.

Table of Contents

Series introduction vii

Contributors ix

Introduction xi

1 Darwin's discovery 1

2 But what exactly is evolution? 25

3 Darwin and DNA: How genetics spurred the evolution of a theory 37

4 How life began 67

5 Nature's greatest inventions 95

6 Myths and misconceptions 119

7 Digging deeper 137

8 Evolving questions 165

9 The evolution of selfless behaviour 185

10 On the Origin of Species revisited 211

11 The future of evolution 227

Conclusion 245

Fifty evolutionary ideas 247

Glossary 266

Picture credits 269

Index 271