"In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field--the study of life's diversity and relatedness at the molecular level--is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived...

Sifting through rich layers of scientific evidence, Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth" is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument."

The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work in this revised edition that offers a comprehensive look at evolution. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims...

A Harvard museum curator draws on the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology to examine how tiny, random convergences, from mutations to butterfly sneezes, have triggered remarkable evolutionary changes.

"For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions--our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations--we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society. In Blueprint, Nicholas...

"This fascinating scientific foray into the animal kingdom examines how the world's creatures-- weird, wonderful, and everything in between-- are inextricably linked." -- Amazon.com

"Charles Darwin presented his theory of evolution in his book On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. In so doing, he transformed biology from a scientific backwater to a fully professional science. Prior to Darwin, biology was little more than the art of catching a critter, killing it, cutting it open, and then writing detailed descriptions of what you saw. Alternatively, some biologists concerned themselves with classifying organisms according...