Which version of the origin of species?

[Anomalocaris]

i know evolution isn't an origin story i'm just trying to trace it back to the beginning. i mean if all life on earth at one point or another was single celled it had to somehow become multi celled. but, if single celled organisms where already super efficient at reproducing where is the motivation to evolve further? @chuck will check that out still want to read the original version though even though it seems so simple in it's basic concept

Life Ascending sets out, over several chapters, just how abiotic molecules may have first acquired the mechanism for reproduction, then mechanism for chemical biostasis to form the first rudimentary cellular organism. It also outlines energy budgets to show the intrinsic limits of simple cells, the advantages of complex cells, and the evolutionary mechanisms that could derive complex cells from multiple single cells of different heritages. Nick lane also outlined how complex cell can operate in colonies to their advantage, and how colonies deriving from a single genetic heritage can profit from differentiation, thus paving the way for multicellular organisms. He also outlines the evolutionary pluses and minuses of sexual reproduction, molecularly how it could have first evolved, and how it would be selected.

The stories are probably more complex then you imagine at the moment, but they are well worth a patient read.

[mamamia88]

i know evolution isn't an origin story i'm just trying to trace it back to the beginning. i mean if all life on earth at one point or another was single celled it had to somehow become multi celled. but, if single celled organisms where already super efficient at reproducing where is the motivation to evolve further? @chuck will check that out still want to read the original version though even though it seems so simple in it's basic concept

Life Ascending sets out, over several chapters, just how abiotic molecules may have first acquired the mechanism for reproduction, then mechanism for chemical biostasis to form the first rudimentary cellular organism. It also outlines energy budgets to show the intrinsic limits of simple cells, the advantages of complex cells, and the evolutionary mechanisms that could derive complex cells from multiple single cells of different heritages. Nick lane also outlined how complex cell can operate in colonies to their advantage, and how colonies deriving from a single genetic heritage can profit from differentiation, thus paving the way for multicellular organisms. He also outlines the evolutionary pluses and minuses of sexual reproduction, molecularly how it could have first evolved, and how it would be selected.

The stories are probably more complex then you imagine at the moment, but they are well worth a patient read.

Alright thanks for the advice. As soon as I finish the current book I'm reading I will start with Origin of Species then move onto that. Seems like the logical order.

[Anomalocaris]

If you have some background in evolutionary biology then I would skip Origins for now and come back to it for historic interest so you can appreciate it in a more sophisticated framework the can be gleamed from the book itself.

[Darwinian]

I would recommend Stephen Jay Goulds Wonderful Life and Richard Dawkins Greatest Show on Earth

[leo-rcc]

Or Donald Prothero's book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters.

Origin of species was a very good first attempt at describing the proces, but as our knowledge on the subject increased a lot of the stuff in Darwin's book has been deemed factually incorrect and outdated. The base is still solid, but if you look for specific details on a specific topic, that would not be my first choice of information. I wouldn't rely on a textbook from the 70's to teach me about micro-electronics.

Kind of ironic. The very people that creationist love to call "Darwinists" do not rely on the work of Darwin anymore. Loads more information from many other sources have become much more valuable.

[theVOID]

It's like calling the sat nav company a bunch of Newtonists, it's sorta true...

[Minimalist]

The very people that creationist love to call "Darwinists" do not rely on the work of Darwin anymore.

Simpletons like to keep it "simple," Leo.

[Anomalocaris]

I would recommend Stephen Jay Goulds Wonderful Life and Richard Dawkins Greatest Show on Earth

Gould's Wonderful Life is a great example of a well crafted popular science book with a lot of literary merit. It is truly a delight to read. Unfortunately much of the evidences Gould presented for his his view regarding the Cambrian explosion and the rise of complex animal life on earth has been severely challenged. His theory that higher animal life evolved in one huge big bang at the beginning of the cambrian and arrived at the scene in far greater variety of body plans than has survived to this day is no longer generally accepted. Many apparently weird Cambrian animals which Gould deemed to be unclassifiable into existent modern phylums, and therefore represent failed great experiments at the beginning of the evolution of modern complex animals, has been shown by later analysis and discovery to in fact either belong to, or was closely related to existent modern phylums. Many of these strange animals Gould thought to have flash into existence at the beginning of the Cambrian and then died out at the end of Cambrian have one been shown by new fossil evidence to have roots much older than Cambrian, and lasted hundreds of million years after end of Cambrian.

Gould's underlying thesis, that outcomes of evolution is chaotic and unpredictable, that whole phylums of animals arise and then die out for the tinest causes that are virtually impossible to reconstruct with confidence later, has not endured the test of later fossil discovery and improved analysis. Evolution is not like the film "Wonderful Life". If you rewind evolutionary history to a certain point in the past and then let it run forward again, what you get will not be utterly different from what came around the first time, as Gould suggested.

If you are inclined to dig, you might do some research on the hero of Gould's book, the British paleonotologist Simon Conway Morris. It was Morris who first demolished the long standing view championed by the great paleonotogist Charles Walcott of early 20th century, that the Cambrian fauna fits very neatly into modern classes of complex animals. Morris and Gould showed many of the Cambrian specimens do not fit neatly into modern classification as was then known. But from here they diverged. Gould believed many Cambrian forms are fundamentally different from modern forms, and their existence demonstrates the genetically driven, chaotic and divergent nature of evolutionary outcomes. Morris believed that evolution tended to provide convergent outcomes. Morris launched a broadside against Wonderful Life with his own book, the Crucible of Creation, in which he outlined objections to Gould's interpretation. Although Gould's sketch of Morris was extremely favorable, Morris' protrail of Gould's views was startlingly scathing.

It so happens that Morris is a devout Christian and a creationist, as well as a evolutionary paleonotologist. But that didn't stop him from letting evidence guide him where they are avilable, and doing outstanding work that earned him a fellowship in the Royal Society. But where there is no evidence, or scant evidence, he resorts to his god of gaps and preached the guiding hand. This led him to make some controversial remarks in science outreach programs. A rebuttal of the great paleonotologist's god of the gaps is offered by Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True.

[mamamia88]

damn i need to get a kindle.

[Justtristo]

damn i need to get a kindle.

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