User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
As I read this book, I wondered: why am I only learning about evolution in depth NOW...and through my own desire to learn? How did I get through school--including a Bachelor's Degree--without really understanding the nitty gritty of evolution? I think much of the problem is that so many discoveries were so recent, but actually there is no excuse. I THInK I paid attention in school. But if I remember learning about Geometry, and, in fact, had at least one high school class CALLED Geometry, shouldn't I have also had a class called Evolution? If there was such a class offered in my enormous suburban public high school, how did I get out of it?
This is crucial stuff. Read it. This needs to be ingrained knowledge from like first grade on up.
Rating: really liked it
Shocking and sadHere in Europe we tend to forget that the USA are not exclusively a country of reason and progress. Books like this remind us that there is also religious fundamentalism and that uneducated people who believe that the world is 6000 years old and favour „intelligent design“ can rise to the highest political offices.
The shocking thing is what this book reveals about the condition of our society. What kind of society is it where brillant scientists feel compelled to waste valuable time writing serious books to refute harebrained nonsense like a flat earth, geocentrism or creationism / intelligent design?
In Europe creationism is usually perceived as a minor problem, at least one not affecting the educational system. In America it seems that creationists are able to gain influence in schools, so much so that in some cases they have to be subdued in court. The introduction to this book detailing a recent court case is enough to make your skin crawl. How far have we actually come since the times of the Scopes trial? If the „Untergang des Abendlandes“ should come it will begin like this. With the rise of religious fundamentalism and the abolishment of reason in education.
The saddest aspect of this book is the realization that those who are really in need of learning the facts will not read it. People already interested in life, in biology or in evolution will read ist. People who want to know, people who wish to learn, people who have an open mind will read this book.
Religious fundamentalists are not interested in facts. They cannot be convinced by facts because they have an entirely different outlook on life. They cannot be reached by the truth because they have chosen to ignore it, fabricating their own twisted and bigoted versions of truth.
So, sadly, this excellent treatise on evolution, lucid and compelling, will benefit only those who are already open-minded and critical. It makes for a great introduction to the subject for younger readers or for people with little previous knowledge in biology. It may be less suitable for Europeans as the frequent references to creationism would probably be considered distracting and unnecessary by most readers. But take out these parts and you have a wonderful introduction to evolution ready for translation into French or German, Italian or Greek, Polish or Swedish.
Weathermen say that with the prevailing currents it usually takes three weeks for heavy weather from North America to reach Europe. Creationism is decidedly slower and it has not yet gained a strong foothold in most European countries. Let us hope that it does not act like the weather and that it can be vanquished before it spreads and pollutes the world.
If anything it will be books like this which may help to teach and enlighten at least those who are willing to learn.
Rating: really liked it
I'll come right to the point: Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution Is True" is arguably the best general-interest reference book on the scientific evidence for evolution currently in print. It really is.
Many of the items that Coyne marshals will be familiar to those who are well-versed in this topic. But I found several items that I had never before seen. One example is the recent discovery that diurnal and annual patterns in the growth of Devonian corals could be used to date these corals, since the length of years (396 days) evident in these records matches the age (approximately 380 million years old) coincides with radiometric ages.
One of the myths about evolution that Coyne explodes is the claim that there are lots of "missing links" in the fossil record. To the contrary, in the past decade or two numerous transitional fossils have been found, in many cases bridging gaps (such as the fish-terapod link) that creationist critics of evolution have asserted could never be bridged. Coyne addresses human evolution in particular, and shows how the fossilized bones of hominin ancestors fit perfectly into the predicted intermediate forms.
Coyne's analysis of how evolution coincides with the geographical history of the earth (meaning the history of how continents have shifted) is particularly good. Other notable parts include the evolution of vision, sexual selection selection and evolution, and observations of evolution acting on bacterial species (such as Hall's experiments). Coyne's chapter on vestigal organs and instances of "bad design" (such as the loss of Vitamin C machinery in primates) is alone worth the purchase price.
It will be quite a while before someone tops Coyne's book. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Rating: really liked it
I picked this book after reading Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth. After a series of conversations I had with some young-earth creationists, and in light of what is occurring in the battle for science curriculum here in Texas, I wanted to find a book that I could recommend to creationists, since most creationists have absolutely no clue about the actual science. Dawkins' book is not that book because he is unable to keep his contempt for young-earth creationists out of the conversation. I think the book would only insult those people who I wish would open up their worldviews a bit. To that end, Dawkins defeats his own purpose for writing the book in the way he delivers the material.
This book has a far more neutral tone, and is a a nice succinct look at the science of evolution. He chases less rabbits than Dawkins also, and he presents the evidence with a less impassioned tone than Dawkins, which I think is real plus if you're actually hoping to get those who disagree with you to listen to what you're saying.
You can see the differences in these two books just by looking at the titles. Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth is an impassioned case for evolution. It's practically a love letter to the natural world. Why Evolution is True is a far drier presentation of much of the same evidence. I personally enjoy Dawkins clever writing and all his rabbit chasing, and the passion for the subject that he can not hide, so personally I didn't enjoy this book as much as The Greatest Show on Earth. But it's a very good general-interest overview of the science of evolution. Reading these two books together, I realize how much my education as a child failed me, largely because my science teachers were clearly afraid of wrath of the religious influences in our community if they really taught the facts of evolution. To me that this is still going on is a travesty.
Since I started the quest for a book that I could share with young-earth creationists, I've realized the search is a futile one. Once you realize where creationists begin their argument, you realize there's no point in trying to have a reasoned conversation with them. They start by stating their hypothesis is fact, and indeed is revealed through God's own words. Then they work in reverse. Anything that doesn't support this conclusion is suspect, and is thrown out, or otherwise ignored. They aren't looking at the evidence to see where it leads, they are looking at the evidence to figure out how to discredit it, or how they can possibly warp it into a way in which it might lend some kind of credibility to what they already believe. Their minds are already made up. They have no respect for the scientific process, and consider the academic process of peer reviewed publication--probably one of the greatest things to happen to the process of learning--to be a conspiracy. I don't know how I forgot this, but i'm grateful for the reminder. Far greater minds than me have been unable to get these people to see how flawed this worldview is. It's certainly not something I'm going to cure. So I think this book concludes my quest. I don't think it will sway many minds that are already made up, But if you're someone out there just looking for a great overview so you can learn more about about the massive evidence used to understand the process that got us here, or if you genuinely don't know what to believe, because science education in this country has failed you miserably, this is a great place to start.
One more thought. I think he should have left the final chapter out. I understand why he feels like he needs to assuage fears that if society in general accepts evolution is true, we'll quickly de-evolve into a pack rabid dogs, but i don't think the argument is something that can be tacked on to this conversation and dealt with fairly in a few pages, and I don't think it has any place in a book about the science itself. It's the job of science to excavate the truth about how the world around us works. It's up to philosophers and religious leaders and the like to figure out what to do with that information. I think the fear of evolution destroying religious world views is about as rational as the fear that the entire universe doesn't revolve around the earth will end the Christian world view. When religion and science spar, historically, religion always loses, and it always finds a way to bounce back. I think the best way to forward for science is to continue to present the evidence and let the religious leaders work out how they're going to work it into their wordview, though I see why Coyne and Dawkins and others feel that to this point, that approach hasn't worked out so well. Still I think the important point that should be hammered relentlessly is that science makes no commentary on faith. Evolution makes no true commentary on God. It isn't even a theory on origins, merely a theory on how life adapted over time. Faith deals with the super-natural. Science stops at the natural world. I think the scientific world would make better progress if they continue to make this point with the religious communities.
Rating: really liked it
I read this as a first-year life sci student at the University of Toronto in 2016. It felt like a rite of passage: since the book's publication, it's been as much a staple in Prof. James Thomson and Prof. Spencer Barrett's BIO120 lecture as the cavernous, drafty Con Hall—capable of seating 1000+ barely awake undergrads—in which these lectures were held.
The copy I owned was bought from a second-year girl who'd bought it from someone else before her, and so on. It was ruffled with water damage from who knows how many generations before me.
I distinctly remember reading this and feeling surprised at the accessibility of its language and ideas, the lyricism of its prose. This was my first exposure to science writing that I can recall; it was an important moment for me.
Profs. Thomson and Barrett (aka good cop-bad cop 😂) retired in 2018 after over a quarter of a century of teaching this class. (Of course,
Why Evolution Is True only featured for 10 of those years, but it was a defining feature of recent memory nonetheless.) I can only hope that this book is passed on to the next generations of BIO120 students!
Rating: really liked it
Coyne is direct and no-nonsense. He doesn't get bogged down in the pointless debate of trying to disprove a negative, he simply states what IS and what IS NOT. Evolution is not a belief, it's a science. It's a science supported by 150 years of research and (literally) mountains of evidence. And, like any true science, the timelines and conclusions have been tweaked and recalculated with the introduction of new data.
In the end, everyone will draw their own conclusions. Either the theological narrative of the origin of life is not entirely accurate or the sciences of paleontology, anthropology, astrophysics, genetics and evolutionary biology are bogus and irrelevant.
Rating: really liked it
Coyne admittedly had the uphill struggle of trying to prove something that is not true.
Rating: really liked it
First of all, this is a very well-written book that powerfully makes the case for Darwinian evolution. The author is well-versed in the subject. I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, has little knowledge of the actual science of evolution but wants to learn.
That said, I am not really bothered by evolution (and I am an evangelical Christian, though not a creationist). Yes there are theological challenges that the science of evolution brings to scripture. I don't think these challenges are as much in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 comes across poetically and I highly doubt whomever wrote it was intending to write modern science. The bigger challenge comes in Genesis 2 and 3 which presents Adam and Eve as the first humans and of course, Paul speaks of Adam as the first human in parallel to Christ as the new human. But even there, many Christians have found a way to reconcile evolution and faith.
The rest of this is not so much a review of the book as my thoughts on the real questions at the heart of the debate (which are philosophical, not scientific, questions)
I think part of the problem in the whole debate is the rhetoric both sides use. Throughout the book Coyne attacks creationists. To some degree this is necessary as creationists are the ones most opposed to evolution. But such rhetoric tends to put people on the defensive. I mean, I think everyone has been in an argument where they knew they were wrong but kept arguing anyway to save face. The fact is that whether evolution is true or not is irrelevant to the question of whether God exists.
A parallel to other sciences may help make my point. The Bible talks often about God sending rain and sunshine. Yet when meteorology explains how weather patterns occur naturally, no one blinked an eye. People of faith continued to see that behind those natural processes, God is still involved in the weather. There is no battle to get a creationist view of meteorology taught in schools. But I imagine when you read a meteorology textbook there are no slams on God, there is no argument that because we know how weather arises naturally we know God has nothing to do with it.
When we get to evolution, the dialogue changes. Again, this is not a knock on Coyne for he is specifically defending evolution against creationists, so of course he will attack them. I just wonder how the debate would change if both sides admitted that the science of evolution does not prove God does not exist. Maybe I am idealistic, but if we heard more people in the middle (believers who accept evolution, nonbelievers who accept evolution but admit it does not rule out God) and less extremes (both Richard Dawkins and Ken Hamm see evolution as ruling out God) perhaps the debate would change.
Coyne manages to mostly avoid the problem of moving from science into philosophy. In the last chapter he writes: "How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life's diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life" (225). Nice. In the next paragraph he notes that finding meaning, purpose and moral guidance are outside the domain of science.
But by the end of the chapter Coyne is talking about "deriving your spirituality from science" (232). That seems muddled. Right before this, he writes: "The world still teems with selfishness, immorality, and injustice. But look elsewhere and you'll find innumerable acts of kindness and altruism. There may be elements of both behaviors that come from our evolutionary heritage, but these acts are largely a matter of choice, not of genes. Giving to charity, volunteering to eradicate disease in poor countries, fighting fires at immense personal risk - none of these acts could have been instilled in us directly by evolution" (230-231). Then where did they come from? Not science.
He goes on to say evolution acts in a "purposeless, materialistic way" (231). This is okay, because people find meaning in all kinds of places, including religion (231). Then he gets to spirituality from science, ending up with a quote from an author lamenting the failure of science to replace conventional religion (232). He ends by assuring us that accepting evolution will not cause us to behave like beasts because, well, look how much great art and literature humans have made.
I do wonder though, earlier he talks about infanticide among lions (122). If humans are just a part of nature, then why is infanticide wrong for us? Likewise, he seems to lament humans introducing foreign species into habitats that then kill native animals off (110). But if humans are part of nature, are we not just playing a role in natural evolution where some animals survive and others do not?
It appears like on one hand he is saying the science of evolution says nothing about religion for science only talks about how. On the other hand, if only we could get rid of religion and just have science. But back to the first hand, science alone gives us no meaning and purpose. Thus, we have some vague "spirituality from science", whatever that is. To me, it seems muddled.
Overall, this is a good book to learn about the science of evolution. But whether this science is true or not (and Coyne makes a strong case that it is) reveals little to nothing about the questions of meaning, purpose and God's existence.
Rating: really liked it
I'd give it 2.5 stars if I could. Seeing how I think he's wrong, though, I'll downgrade rather than upgrade.
I probably agree with 70% of what's in the book, which may be surprising, me being a creationist. I'm not going to try to untangle all the mixtures of agreement and disagreement.. but its interesting that I definitely am fully onboard with over half of the book, but still disagree with the major premise; that evolution is true.
Coyne succeeds in presenting a case for neo-darwinian evolution. By which I mean, he successfully explains observations in light a modern evolutionary theory. He paints a fairly complete systematic understanding of the history of life. I recommend the book to everyone for this reason. E.O. Wilson is correct when he writes in the blurb on the back that this is a "clear, well-written explanation of evolution."
Unfortunately, he doesn't begin to explain the serious difficulties of darwinism (he outright denies the existence of such problems!). That's a major drawback of the book... it presents it more as a defensive boast rather than a scientific and critical examination of evidence.
A further detriment is the apparently intentional strawman portrayal of creationists. There is an endnote on page 33 that explains the creationist position as allowing for microevolutionary change within biblical 'kinds'. But this is the only place in the book creationists are treated this honestly. Everywhere else 'special creation' is caricatured as a special creation event for each and every species of organism. It is dishonest and, once again, takes away from the argument of the book.
The final failure of the book I will mention is the last chapter, where Coyne attempts to deal with philosophical and metaphysical implications of evolution. It is a sad attempt... while he should be praised for recognizing the need to deal with these issues, he should have stopped when he honestly stated the case: "How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't." (p225)
Rating: really liked it
This one is like the Beak of the Finch: it shows impressive work on Natural Selection, but it doesn't prove that the little changes must lead to the huge changes between people and animals. This book also illustrates how scientists are trying to be historians--a kind of integrating of subjects--and they are failing miserably. If any historian tried to pass of these kinds of arguments as history they wouldn't survive the laughter. Evolutionists reason like this: if these two bone structures look alike they must be related; therefore one must have come from the other. That's like an historian saying Alexander the Great and Charlemagne were both kings; therefore one must have come from the other. Evolutionists assume a system and then fit everything into it, but they seem to think that they are not making assumptions. Some how they are assumption free. Really?
Rating: really liked it
The author has successfully build a convincing case for evolution. As the introduction suggests this book has gathered all the evidences from paleontology, molecular biology, anthropology, geography and many more threads. The book actually is a answer to many of the misconceptions around evolution and more like a case made against creationism and intelligent design.
The author does admit in the end that all these evidence wont really convince a faithful person because faith is precisely ignorance to facts and evidences. Also people have problems accepting evolution because it somewhere hampers the special human identity which we tend to make ourselves believe. Charles Darwin had beautifully conveyed this " We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” The only thing I dont agree is lowly origin. It should be more like one evolution story of all beings including humans.
Every fossil that we find, every DNA molecule that we sequence, every organ system that we dissect supports the idea that species have evolved from common ancestors including humans. Also despite innumerable possible observations that could prove evolution untrue, we dont have a single one.
Rating: really liked it
This was such an awesome book. I have read a lot of books on evolution, but this is the first that actually made me interested in fossils. Very, very cool. Of course it wouldn't convince a dummy that evolution is true because you actually have to have some reading comprehension and be able to understand what you read, but for anyone with a brain that doesn't believe in evolution (I still can't undertand how there are people out there that fit that bill, but I digress), this book will remove all doubt and if it doesn't, you aren't understanding it.
Rating: really liked it
This book avoids bickering over details and goes right for the throat; exposing Creationism and Intelligent Design for the unworkable, unscientific ploys that they are. It does so without being too aggressive, a la Dawkins, because such heavy hitting really isn't necessary, when there's so much evidence to be presented. Instead, the chapters cover fossils and a little bit of genetics. The reader is walked through the process of how we came to know what we know. It's not a challenging book, nor a long one, but it does suffice to show Why Evolution Is True.
Rating: really liked it
“... all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys!” - Homer Stokes, O Brother, Where Art Thou?I read an uplifting article in the
New York Times about Birds Aren't Real, a conspiracy theory "[positing] that birds don’t exist and are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans." What Birds Aren't Real actually turns out to be, according to its founder, 23 year-old Peter McIndoe, is a Gen-Z parody social movement satirizing the lunatic conspiracy theories and disinformation unleashed in American society, in the grips of which millions of young people like McIndoe have grown up. As the NYT summarizes in sentences I had to read in the classic trailer narrator voice: "In a post-truth world dominated by online conspiracy theories, young people have coalesced around the effort to thumb their nose at, fight and poke fun at misinformation. It’s Gen Z’s attempt to upend the rabbit hole with absurdism." What's that trendy dumbass saying — "The kids are alright"? At any rate, McIndoe, like other Birds Aren't Real organizers, "grew up in a deeply conservative and religious community with seven siblings outside Cincinnati, then in rural Arkansas. He was home-schooled [and] taught that 'evolution was a massive brainwashing plan by the Democrats and Obama was the Antichrist'... [McIndoe says:] 'I was raised by the internet, because that’s where I ended up finding a lot of my actual real-world education, through documentaries and YouTube... My whole understanding of the world was formed by the internet.'"
Except for growing up in Cincinnati and rural Arkansas with seven siblings, my educational upbringing was quite similar to McIndoe's. I was even lugged,
twice, to Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky, and was required to take a course on creationism as part of a biblical worldview curriculum. What's amazing is that it was in fact by reading the creationists' arguments I was directed to read that I rejected their worldview as comically absurd — which, if you didn't guess, was the opposite of the intended effect that I would only believe what they said. I guess miracles
are real, omg. Becoming conversant in evolutionary theory was something that came a little later, on my own time, as all the genuine education I've received has been self-achieved.
What I love about all of this is that I first saw good ol' Jerry Coyne's book here in the library of the religious school I went to. What the fuck were they thinking, having this satanic material displayed to corrupt young Christian minds? We used to joke that the school's president sent drones to spy on critics and blast pro-Christian music (they did, actually,
always have Christian praise music playing from speakers). I'm sure they ordered the librarian assassinated after this misstep. But what is even better is that one of the top ten Goodreads reviews of this book, which is shelved under "apologetics-evangelism" and reads "Coyne admittedly had the uphill struggle of trying to prove something that is not true," is written by one of the co-authors of a "classical Christian" textbook series used in my home-schooling days. I am ecstatic. It's all coming together.
As for the book: it's well-written and gives a good overview of the reasons why evolutionary theory is true, and what that means. In chapter 1, Coyne gives a programmatic definition of evolution: "Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection." Coyne emphasizes six features of the definition: (1) evolution, (2) gradualism, (3) speciation, (4) common ancestry, (5) natural selection, and (6) nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change. The rest of the book marshals all the impressive evidence supporting the theory.
You can just see Jerry Coyne absolutely dying inside when he talks about the "both sides" analysis of creationism/intelligent design vs. evolutionary theory, and people who deflate evolution on the grounds that it's merely a "theory." There are two interrelated annoyances here: (1) the annoyance of acting like it's still an open question for scientists, whether evolution is true as compared with creationism; (2) the success of the religious-political movements that have pushed that narrative in American society, making many people believe that the question does remain open among scientists. It reminds me of the depressing story of climate change denial as told by Oreskes & Conway in Merchants of Doubt. While I generally find science-guy new atheist types, circa mid-2000s to present, annoying, Coyne is mostly not insufferable in this book, and generally just informative. I've had a hankering for science-themed books come over me, and plan to read more along these lines, until the enthusiasm runs its course.
Rating: really liked it
This is an eloquent, detailed and fascinating study of Evolution. An idea as controversial, and one with such profound socio-political repercussion, deserves to be treated the way Coyne has dealt it. He presents arguments systematically and he is not too keen on bashing creationists. He keeps his nose out of futile arguments and focuses primarily on the scientific aspect of evolution and not the psychological or philosophical elements that often become a part of such a discussion. This makes the book an excellent and in-depth introduction to Evolutionary Biology, its historical significance and the tremendous amount of scientific research that has been undertaken over the years by scientists.
Coyne at length describes fossil evidence, vestigial organs, genetics and other subjects that are involved in every sophisticated study of Evolution. Recent studies have been mixed with previous predictions and some beautiful diagrams illustrate them for convenience.
This is a brilliant book and I can’t recommend it enough.
