Darwin's Ghost [Paperback]

I must however disagree with Jones on one point- Darwin was not a great writer. Summaries and the final chapter of The Origin are reprinted here- and with good reason!- Darwin's arguments were profound and instrumental, and should be included in his own words in part in a book that is a rewriting of those ideas. But Darwin's wordiness and vagueness only serve to highlight both his much superior abilities as a scientist, and Jones' much superior writing skill.

Jones has instead stayed very close to Darwin using the chapter titles and structure of the original book and in fact lifting the entire last chapter of Darwin's conclusions and reproducing it here. What Jones adds in this update is current examples of the process of natural selection and a modern, readable writing style (oftentimes very humorous as is the style of so many writers on evolutionary biology. Is there some selection of fitness for humor taking place here?). I can think of a couple of his colleagues who could use a little of Jones' levity and ease up on the debate a bit. Maybe he had them in mind when he said "the sea squirt, after an active life, settles on the sea floor, and like a professor given tenure, absorbs its brain."

Jones ranges far and wide with his restatement of how natural selection works. Given his view that "there is no mystery to Darwin's machine: it is no more than genetics plus time" it is to be expected that the illustrations he uses are both meaningful and are explained in a straightforward way. Beginning with a discussion of HIV/AIDS which is shown to contain Darwin's "entire argument" of "variation, a struggle for existence, and natural selection that in time leads to new forms of life" Jones then goes on to use whales, birds, cats, dogs, argiculture, and even zoos to illustrate that this process - "the factory for the almost impossible" - can have some unusual results. Cincinnati zoos breeding of albino tigers at above normal rates being a case in point.

Well written with much humor and obviously directed at the generalist as an introduction to Darwin's great thesis, this book accomplishes what it set out to do. It's not perfect - like natural selection there are errors, although with evolution it's through reproduction not from poor editing and cross checking - but the book nevertheless is as close to the original as you could want while bringing it up to date and making this important subject much more readable.

Ok, fair enough. So, what is this book's intended audience? In Darwin's case, he was writing to the educated lay person of his day, which mostly meant Victorian gentlemen of conventional morality and religion, but interested in science, and with minds that could follow an argument and be changed. But he was writing to scientists mainly, and was acutely conscious of the need to be comprehensive, clear, and conservative as regards the evidence, and rigorous in argument.

Jones is not writing to convince his audience that all the variety of life that we see about us arose out of simpler forms (or, even, just one simple type of proto-creature) by descent with modification over eons of time, with the environment doing the selective breeding, as it were. His audience should already believe that. (Those that most vehemently do not are certainly not addressed here.) Rather, he is giving us an informal survey of natural history in its great and entertaining variety, using Darwin's great argument as a "scaffolding" upon which to hang his discussions. Throughout he implicitly assumes that you accept the reality of evolution. What he is doing is guiding you through its implications and outcomes in a great number of ways. Thus, for example, Darwin used the chaotic nature of the geologic strata to argue for various events that could fold rocks or raise ancient seabeds up to the tops of mountains by referring to Lyell's theories, which were still controversial. Jones simply assumes we believe the by-now-well-established facts of geology, and uses these to discuss the spottiness and contrariness of the fossil record.

Thus, Jones has a much easier task than Darwin had, so can have more fun with his material. And he does have fun, and so will you. This book is entertaining and enlightening: if you are familiar with the main arguments for evolution, it will remind you of them, and enrich your feeling for them. Jones talks widely about nature and the issues raised by natural selection. However, if you have never before encountered arguments for natural selection ("descent with modification"), then perhaps you should consult some more diagrammatic and focused work that lays bare the logic behind it. And then read this book.