New Scientist Essential Guide 6 2020 Evolution.pdf

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ESSENTIAL
GUIDE№6
THE ORIGINS OF EVOLUTION
WHAT DARWIN DISCOVERED
GENETICS AND DNA
EVOLUTION MYTHS
AND MISCONCEPTIONS
THE FUTURE OF EVOLUTION
AND MORE
EVOLUTION
DARWIN’S THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION
AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR LIFE
EDITED BY
RICHARD WEBB
NEW
SCIENTIST
ESSENTIAL
GUIDE
EVOLUTION
HERE is grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed
into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst
this planet has gone cycling on according to
the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
There can be no better words to introduce this
latest
New Scientist Essential Guide
than those with
which Charles Darwin closed his magisterial work of
1859,
On the Origin of Species.
The theory of evolution
by natural selection introduced by Darwin in that book
has few equals in the history of human intellectual
achievement. It is an idea in its kernel so simple, yet
in its scope so grand and its detail so complex, that
we are still getting to grips with all its implications.
I hope you enjoy learning more about the nature
of Darwin’s ideas, how they arose and how our
understanding of them has evolved and continues
to evolve, in this
Essential Guide
– as indeed I did in
putting it together. Do visit shop.newscientist.com
to obtain more issues in the series; feedback is, as ever,
welcome at essentialguides@newscientist.com.
Richard Webb
NEW SCIENTIST ESSENTIAL GUIDES
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© 2021 NEW SCIENTIST LTD, ENGLAND
NEW SCIENTIST ESSENTIAL GUIDES
ARE PUBLISHED BY NEW SCIENTIST LTD
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EDITOR
Richard Webb
CONSULTANT EDITOR
Kate Douglas
DESIGN
Craig Mackie
SUBEDITOR
Chris Simms
PRODUCTION AND APP
Joanne Keogh
TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT (APP)
Amardeep Sian
PUBLISHER
Nina Wright
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Emily Wilson
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
+44 (0)20 7611 1291
displayads@newscientist.com
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Richard Webb is executive editor of
New Scientist
ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTORS
Carrie Arnold, Colin Barras, Michael Brooks, Kate Douglas,
Adam Hargreaves, Bob Holmes, Graham Lawton, Michael Le Page,
John Pickrell, Penny Sarchet, Chris Simms
New Scientist Essential Guide | Evolution |
1
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
HOW
EVOLUTION
BEGAN
Charles Darwin didn’t invent
the idea of evolution. But his
groundbreaking ideas of how species
adapt and change in response to
their environment revolutionised
our ideas of how life’s astounding
diversity arose
–
and aroused
controversy from the start.
p. 6
On the origin of evolution
p. 9
Evolution before Darwin
p. 11
Who was Charles Darwin?
p. 13
An idea of its time
p. 14
Evolution vs creation:
The great 1860 debate
DARWIN’S
EVOLUTION
GENETICS
AND
EVOLUTION
It’s all very well to say that
species adapt and change, but what
mechanism lies behind it? Darwin tried
and failed to resolve this question,
whose answer lay in a very different
strand of research already going on
elsewhere in the world.
p. 32
Darwin and DNA
p. 35
Gregor Mendel and the birth
of genetics
p. 38
The evolution of genetics
p. 40
How genetic inheritance works
Uniquely among scientific
disciplines, evolutionary biology
has its roots in a popular book by a
single author. Yet astoundingly, the
basic principles Darwin set out in
On the Origin of Species
remain how
we understand evolution today.
p. 18
On the Origin of Species,
revisited
p. 24
Evolution in a nutshell
p. 28
Evolution all around us
2
| New Scientist Essential Guide | Evolution
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
EVOLUTION
MYTHS
EVOLUTION’S
OPEN
QUESTIONS
Our understanding of aspects of
evolution is far from complete – from
the basic problem of what a species
is to new questions about how genes
and the environment interact to effect
evolutionary change.
p. 68
What is a species?
p. 71
Six ways to define a species
p. 74
Where do we get our
genes from?
p. 77
Are genes really destiny?
p. 81
Can evolution learn?
p. 85
The biggest gaps in evolution
THE FUTURE
OF EVOLUTION
The sometimes complex workings
of evolution, coupled with the
controversy it can arouse, has led
to many myths and misconceptions.
p. 44
MYTH: Its outcomes are
equally likely
p. 47
MYTH: It’s just random
p. 49
MYTH: It’s all about survival
of the fittest
p. 52
MYTH: It promotes survival
p. 54
MYTH: It favours complexity
p. 55
MYTH: It makes perfectly
adapted life forms
p. 57
MYTH: It has no use for
half a wing
p. 59
MYTH: It explains all of nature
p. 61
Why don’t wildebeest
have wheels?
p. 62
Why evolution is smarter
than you
Evolution is still evolving. For many,
its future means moving beyond its
current “modern synthesis” based
solely on genes. By bringing in
new insights from fields such as
epigenetics and developmental
biology, the hope is to reach a new,
broader view of the relationship
between genes, organisms and their
environments.
p. 90
Beyond the selfish gene
p. 95
Modern vs postmodern
New Scientist Essential Guide | Evolution |
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