Why Evolution is True - Two Thumbs Up

Why Evolution is True by University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne - what a great book.

I'm embarassed to say that I just finished this book even though I ordered it some time ago. My excuses include a hectic litigation practice, three demanding kids and a deluded Christian (who appears to have fallen of the face of the earth) who convinced me to work my way through The Purpose Driven And How to Waste Your Life.


I recommend Jerry Coyne's new book to any and all of the following audiences:


1. Anyone interested in a primer on the current state of the theory of evolution (i.e. what we know and what we still don't know);


2. Atheists who are sick and tired of listening to fundies suggesting that gaps in the fossil record somehow undermine the theory of evolution; and


3. Anyone with an open mind who currently believes that the events described in the Bible are literally true (i.e. creationists). Obviously, there is no point reading if you have closed to your mind to any facts which rebut your chosen belief system.


As the title suggests, the thesis of Coyne's book is explaining how evolution is much more than a theory - it is a fact. Anyone who can read this book and refuse to accept that argument might as well believe that the world is flat. Coyne summarizes this position well in his final chapter:


"Every day, hundreds of observations and experiments pour into the hopper of the scientific literature. Many of them don't have much to do with evolution - they're observations about the details of physiology, biochemistry, development, and so on - but many of them do. And every fact that has something to do with evolution confirms its truth. Every fossil that we find, every DNA molecule that we sequence, every organ system that we dissect, supports the idea that species evolved from common ancestors. Despite innumerable possible observations that could prove evolution untrue, we don't have a single one. We don't find mammals in Precambrian rocks, humans in the same layers as dinosaurs, or any other fossils out of evolutionary order. DNA sequencing supports the evolutionary relationships of species originally deduced from the fossil record. And, as natural selection predicts, we find no species with adaptations that benefit only a different species. We do find dead genes and vestigial organs, incomprehensible under the idea of special creation. Despite a million chances to be wrong, evolution always comes up right. That is as close as we can get to a scientific truth." [my emphasis]

I love the fact that Coyne ends the book with a chapter entitled The Beast Within. He hits back at the suggestion that evolution necessarily entails a nihilistic apporach to morality: "Evolution tells us where we came from, not where we can go." What a great line.