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Loading... The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (original 2004; edition 2004)by Richard Dawkins, Yan Wong (Research)
Work detailsThe Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins (2004)
Very, very interesting stuff. Made me want to be a geneticist. (  ) shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |  I love this book. It's not the kind of thing I usually read, because I prefer fiction to non-fiction by far, at least when I have a choice about it. And I really, really loathe Dawkins' The God Delusion, largely because of the tone he takes toward people who are religious believers. But The Ancestor's Tale is mostly just science, and it's written in an accessible, almost conversational way. It actually has literary ancestors (ha), in the form of The Canterbury Tales, which Dawkins chose as his format to tell the tale of a pilgrimage through history to find our ancestors. He does slip in some references to his own beliefs, but here they aren't too offensive or intrusive. When I say 'accessible', I don't mean 'dumbed down'. The science and maths and the theory and the sheer detail is here. I read a couple of reviews that people found it boring once it got to a certain point because there's 'too much detail' about things like bacteria. Which I think is more of a 'your mileage may vary' attitude than anything -- I think Dawkins gave the space to the bacteria that they deserve, all things considered. There's a lot of speculation in here, too -- but so much of science is speculation. Dawkins is fairly clear about when he can and can't 'prove' things, and explains the methods by which they can be proved if they can. You don't have to have a huge knowledge of science or maths to understand -- some, and an interest in it, I suppose, but not so very very much. (  ) shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 | While this book is interesting it's also kind of boring so it's been very slow going. finalcut | Apr 2, 2013 | I am enjoying this book immensely. Dawkins tells me so many interesting scientific things in the most conversational and understandable way, feeding my hunger for knowledge of the history of life on Earth. No really -- a nonfiction that I can't put down! Stay tuned, science buffs. ( ) Felixelhombre | Mar 31, 2013 | This was so interesting. Dawkins traces evolution from our starting point in the present backward through time. We start marching into the past from our little twig on the tree of evolution. As we travel, we meet up with different twigs and then branches of other types of life also moving backwards. It's a fascinating way to look at evolution and it was really enjoyable to learn about different animals and our relationships to them. amaraduende | Mar 30, 2013 |
 Beginning with modern humans and moving backwards in time, he describes our lineage as we successively join — a geneticist would say coalesce — with the common ancestors of other species. Human evolution has involved 40 such joints, each occupied by what Dawkins calls a "concestor", and each is the subject of a single chapter. He begins, of course, with our common ancestor with chimps, followed by the concestor with gorillas, then other primates, and so on through the fusion with early mammals, sponges, plants, Eubacteria and ultimately the Ur-species, probably a naked molecule of RNA. This narrative is engagingly written and attractively illustrated with reconstructions of the concestors, colourful phylogenies, and photographs of bizarre living species. The book is also remarkably up to date and, despite its size, nearly error-free. Especially notable are Dawkins' treatments of human evolution and the origin of life, the best accounts of these topics I've seen in a crowded literature. Evolutionary trees have become the lingua franca of biology. Virus hunters draw them to find the origin of SARS and H.I.V. Conservation biologists draw them to decide which endangered species are in most urgent need of saving. Geneticists draw them to pinpoint the genes that have made us uniquely humans. Genome sequencers draw them to discover new genes that may lead to new technologies and medical treatments. If you want to understand these trees -- and through them, the nature of life -- ''The Ancestor's Tale'' is an excellent place to start.  Dawkins has already expounded the arguments that form his vision of life, both in the natural and human realm. Now, having risen from the Bar to Bench, he is in a position to offer himself as judge and senior guide. In The Ancestor's Tale, he has become the kind of teacher without whom childhood nostalgia is incomplete: unflagging in his devotion to enlightenment, given to idiosyncratic asides. His mission is to tell the story of the origin of species backwards
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