Selected Book
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo
- Paperback
- Author: Sean B. Carroll
- Publisher: W. W. Norton
- Release Date: April 2006
- ISBN-10: 0393327795
- ISBN-13: 9780393327793
- List Price: $15.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
Summary"Every animal form is the product of two processes--development from an egg and evolution from its ancestors," writes Sean B. Carroll in his introduction to Endless Forms Most Beautiful. The new science of "evo devo"--or evolutionary developmental biology--examines the relationships between those two processes, embryonic development and evolutionary changes, despite their radically different time scales. Carroll first offers a recap of how genes express themselves in a growing embryo, then peers into the life histories of real-life examples to explain how those genes have changed (or not changed) over millions of years of evolution. Paraphrasing Thomas Huxley, he asks us to consider evolution and development as two sides of the same coin. We may marvel at the process of an egg becoming an adult, but we accept it as an everyday fact. It is merely then a lack of imagination to fail to grasp how changes in this process that assimilated over long periods of time, far longer than the span of human experience, shape life's diversity."The book's second half is where Carroll really gets at the meat of evo devo, explaining how regulatory genes control such mysteries as individual and population changes in butterfly's spots, jaguar fur, and hominid skulls. Evo devo is one of the hottest areas of study in 21st-century biology, and Carroll's outline of the field is a great place to start understanding it. --Therese Littleton |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Sean Carroll has done it again
Rating:
This is a fantastic read; informative, yet laid-back enough to make it easy to digest. Carroll has a way of integrating just enough humor to keep you interested, without going overboard. If you're super science-savvy, you may be a bit bored in a few places where he goes over the basics of DNA structure, etc., but the fact that he starts at the bottom makes his books suitable for a much broader audience. If you want a good popular-science style read, this is your book.
Parsimony of Nature in Action -- As Darwin Stated
Rating: 
With all of the general intros into contemporary genetics and significance of mutant changes, it is sometimes difficult to obtain a book that has a specific hook incorporating a really unique theme. But with this book, we have the wonder of over 150 years since evolution was posited and Darwin is still teaching us new and wonderful things in the guise of evolutionary development.
In this book the new science of evolutionary development biology is explained as one of the core understandings of how natural selection actually works.
The key to this book is the genes that act as suppressor genes turn on or repress phenotypic variations in species or -- very importantly between species. Carroll describes how this new concentration of knowledge in biology has revealed the importance of tool box genes that allow variation to develop. Most importantly he proves that the actual amount/kind of these genes is very limited and that actual genes in one species are carried to other species and either expressed or not according to these "tool box" or Hox genes.
One wonderful carrolary idea is the parsimony of nature: nature does not have to develop one building block base pair at a time for changes to occur within a species. The "tool box" genes have been transferred between species and allow different expressions in different species, so it is not nessary to build up genotypic changes over time, base pair by base pair, species by species. The "tool box" genes allow function to be conveniently transferred to each developed speciers.
The implications are great. It means that evolution can unfold actually much, much faster than previously thought -- with species capable of development in very short time cycles. This principle of parsimony, which Darwin, with a prescience that is frankly freakishly outstanding, has been only verified within the past few years.
I only gave the book three stars because I think that at times it dragged a little and was redundant. Also while butterflys are most interesting and we do know a lot about them, I thought that there could be whole lot of other species variations that would be much more interesting... (perhaps another future book?).
Also, I think that he could had gone more into the implications of his theory more. For example this is further proof that crackpots such as Michael Bene are right out of it when they assume that every species has to evolve, base pair by base pair in order to achieve variation. I think that Carroll could have put him more in his place -- either that or just do not sully his wonderful prose buy even giving time to the views of Bene.
Anyway the latter comments may not really be fair -- but I include them because that is the way I thought whilst reading the book. In sum this is a very interesting book on a very unique but certainly in another 5-10 years, rather commonplace subject.
Super info - ok writing
Rating:
This book is so full of interesting, amazing information - but the writing is very, very dry. I loved "Your Inner Fish" which overlaps the content of this book, but is much more engaging.
Interesting reading
Rating:
This is an interesting take on evo-devo. I'd recommend it for the popular science reader (its stays in pretty shallow waters scientifically).
The "Butterfly Effect" in the genes
Rating:
The best feature of this book is the fantastic sense of the complexity of the development of the organism from the genes. Sean shows with genius how the tiniest changes in a gene can lead to huge effects in the developing organism -- much like in Chaos theory (see the book "Chaos: making a new science" for example)in mathematics where complex systems are affected by the tiniest influences (i.e., a puff of air from a butterfly's wings) which can be magnified to change the entire face of a complex multi-determined system from what it would have been (i.e. weather patterns) over time. This book shows how and why all life is related, yet very different. For example, we share about 50% of our genes with a banana plant, and about 99% of our genes with Chimpanzees, yet we are very different physically and intellectually. This applies ESPECIALLY with that most unique of human characteristics -- our large and staggeringly complex brains. This can explain differences everything from mental diseases or IQ to personality and temperament differences. There are not really any other books out there like this. A MUST-READ in an emerging and exciting area of science. Stunning.
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