Explaining Life through Evolution

June 1, 2023
A fine short overview of evolution. Chakrabarty, a professor of evolutionary biology and curator of fishes at LSU, urges readers to approach his argument in favor of evolution with an open mind and, if they disagree, to seek good evidence from a trustworthy source. Like many popular science writers, he seems unaware that that is not how most humans reason. Confronted with facts, people with a deeply held false belief rarely change their minds, so few evolution disbelievers are likely to take him up on it. After the traditional earnest introduction, Chakrabarty gives a well-informed account that should refresh the knowledge of curious readers and convince those with open minds. The beginning emphasizes that Darwin was not the first to propose that life evolved, and his explanation of its mechanism was full of gaps that were not filled in for another century. What his earthshaking book On the Origin of Species contained was overwhelming evidence that evolution was actually happening. Chakrabarty moves on to fill in the gaps with discussions of Mendel's basic genetics, the discovery of mutation and recombination after 1900, how species form, and the discovery and operation of DNA by midcentury. The author also investigates the so-called scientific evidence supporting racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination. These "misguided" ideas, he writes, have "led some people to argue that white men are at the top of the evolutionary ladder, a convenient argument to enslave people of 'lesser' races or to keep the womenfolk at home barefoot and pregnant." The author concludes with a fictional dialogue with a creationist. Despite repeated defeats in the courts and legendary humiliation in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, American anti-evolutionists are thriving. Local school boards feel their pressure, so this book is a superb gift for a teenager fascinated by science but frustrated at the careful, abbreviated approach to evolution they are likely to encounter in high school biology class. Good music unlikely to be appreciated beyond the choir.

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June 12, 2023
This eclectic primer by Chakrabarty (A Guide to Academia), a biology professor at Louisiana State University, explores the science of evolution. The author expounds on three proposed explanations for genetic variation: natural selection (survival of the fittest), sexual selection (survival of the most attractive), and Japanese biologist Motoo Kimura’s “neutral theory of molecular evolution,” which posits that much genetic difference between species is effectively random and has little bearing on individuals’ ability to survive and reproduce. However, the presentation of the science is somewhat scattered, with tidbits about Aristotle’s hierarchy of living creatures, the nature of truth, and what humans share with their distant marine ancestors (the larynx evolved from gills) jumbled together. Nonetheless, the freewheeling spirit sometimes works to the book’s benefit (one amusing chapter offers a comic of Charles Darwin’s life) and the author’s humorous tone keeps the proceedings light (“Nipples on males—what’s up with that?”). The strongest sections propose how science can inform political debates, as when Chakrabarty notes that the existence of same-sex mating across the animal kingdom casts doubt on the assumptions of those who consider homosexuality “unnatural.” Pop science fans willing to look past some disorganization will be rewarded.