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40 reviews for:
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom
Sean B. Carroll
4.04 AVERAGE
40 reviews for:
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom
Sean B. Carroll
4.04 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
You've heard the stories how we share 98% of genes with chimpanzees and something like 30% with daffodils. This seems confusing because we don’t look like we’re one third daffodils. Sean B Carroll’s book tries to explain this conundrum to the general reader by introducing us to the new, exciting field of Evo Devo (Evolutionary Developmental Biology) and giving me another weapon to fight against the creationists (though I don’t think they are particularly interested in having a fact-based debate from what I've noticed). This also explains why all embryos look so much alike, which also used to baffle me.
More than 95% of our DNA is non-coding, it’s, as Carroll calls it, ‘dark matter’ and when embryology, genetics and evolutionary biology finally came together they managed to discover what some of this DNA ‘junk’ does. It appears it plays a crucial role in ‘teaching old genes new tricks’. Scientists studying a humble fruit fly discovered a set of genes that, while not coding anything themselves, serve as switches for other genes and thus control the general layout of the fly and the growth of the correct appendages in correct places. If you dick around with those 'switch' genes, you’re going to make flies grow legs on their heads (and best believe those scientists did). What’s more fascinating it seems all kinds of animals have Hox genes and they do the same thing – control the layout and the growth of legs, arms, paws, wings. Is your mind blown yet? It is a mystery to me why anyone would want to believe in the mind-numbingly boring creationist theory when the actual science is so amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful. Carroll calls this kind of genes ‘toolkit genes’ and he is now announcing revolution. His hypothesis is that all evolution relies mostly on those genes which switch the coding genes on and off and thus produce all the ‘endless forms most beautiful’.
It’s a tempting and bold claim and you can hardly fault Carroll for being insanely passionate about the field he’s devoted himself to and hoping it would mean nothing would ever be the same again. However, despite Evo Devo producing major breakthroughs and explaining how a very rapid diversification of multicellular organisms is possible, it’s probably not going to produce a paradigm shift that would justify using the word 'revolution'. It is most likely going to add another piece to the puzzle (ok, maybe 10 pieces) of our understanding how evolutionary changes occur. But then again, it’s hard to assess these things until a few decades later anyway.
I highly recommend this book if you have already read all the usual evolutionary primers by Dawkins and co. What’s refreshing here, is that Carroll doesn’t speak to creationists at all. This is not a book to win you over for the science cause. You already must be on the science side of this debate. The downside is that, unfortunately, Carroll is a great scientist but not the greatest writer. And I say it in the nicest way possible. He is enthusiastic and tries to convey this enthusiasm with bombastic opening paragraphs and cheesy metaphors that lull you into a false sense of security that this is going to be an easy read before hitting you with hard, hard science right in the face. Because of that the book feels unbalanced but it’s extremely informative, and it being pretty much the only “pop” book about evo devo (correct me if I’m wrong), you really can’t be too picky.
More than 95% of our DNA is non-coding, it’s, as Carroll calls it, ‘dark matter’ and when embryology, genetics and evolutionary biology finally came together they managed to discover what some of this DNA ‘junk’ does. It appears it plays a crucial role in ‘teaching old genes new tricks’. Scientists studying a humble fruit fly discovered a set of genes that, while not coding anything themselves, serve as switches for other genes and thus control the general layout of the fly and the growth of the correct appendages in correct places. If you dick around with those 'switch' genes, you’re going to make flies grow legs on their heads (and best believe those scientists did). What’s more fascinating it seems all kinds of animals have Hox genes and they do the same thing – control the layout and the growth of legs, arms, paws, wings. Is your mind blown yet? It is a mystery to me why anyone would want to believe in the mind-numbingly boring creationist theory when the actual science is so amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful. Carroll calls this kind of genes ‘toolkit genes’ and he is now announcing revolution. His hypothesis is that all evolution relies mostly on those genes which switch the coding genes on and off and thus produce all the ‘endless forms most beautiful’.
It’s a tempting and bold claim and you can hardly fault Carroll for being insanely passionate about the field he’s devoted himself to and hoping it would mean nothing would ever be the same again. However, despite Evo Devo producing major breakthroughs and explaining how a very rapid diversification of multicellular organisms is possible, it’s probably not going to produce a paradigm shift that would justify using the word 'revolution'. It is most likely going to add another piece to the puzzle (ok, maybe 10 pieces) of our understanding how evolutionary changes occur. But then again, it’s hard to assess these things until a few decades later anyway.
I highly recommend this book if you have already read all the usual evolutionary primers by Dawkins and co. What’s refreshing here, is that Carroll doesn’t speak to creationists at all. This is not a book to win you over for the science cause. You already must be on the science side of this debate. The downside is that, unfortunately, Carroll is a great scientist but not the greatest writer. And I say it in the nicest way possible. He is enthusiastic and tries to convey this enthusiasm with bombastic opening paragraphs and cheesy metaphors that lull you into a false sense of security that this is going to be an easy read before hitting you with hard, hard science right in the face. Because of that the book feels unbalanced but it’s extremely informative, and it being pretty much the only “pop” book about evo devo (correct me if I’m wrong), you really can’t be too picky.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This is my favorite nonfiction book. It covers evolutionary developmental biology in a fascinating way and was very understandable for me (14 y.o. at the time) to read. This is what got me into biology as a whole.
A very good primer on what Evo Devo ('evolutionary developmental biology' shortened) is and how it greatly adds to our understanding of how parts and pieces develop, relatedness, etc. Especially interesting after reading [b:Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters|4591|Genome the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters|Matt Ridley|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1362958533s/4591.jpg|1987129], seeing how science has progressed to looking at the changes in switches/expression rather than hunting for specific genes and assuming species developed them independently.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Enjoyable read. Carroll is skilled at reducing complex processes into manageable segments. The color plates are fantastic and extremely helpful in understanding how/where gene activation occurs in embryonic development. Definitely vertebrate-centric, but extremely accessible to readers interested in learning more about evo-devo.
"What's beautiful in science is the same thing that is beautiful in Beethoven. There's a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It expresses a complex of human concerns that goes deeply to you, that connects things that were always in you that were never put together before." Victor Weisskopf
Good book but probably not something that should be listened to as an audiobook, as I did.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Only a 2.5 from a 17 year olds perspective, it took a long time to get through to understand although the information was really interesting