Sunday, March 14, 2010

Book Review: Why Evolution is True

Title Why Evolution Is True
Author Jerry Coyne
Rating ****1/2
Tags non-fiction, evolution, science, creationism 


Coyne has done an excellent job of explaining evolution in terms understandable to the lay person. He explains that scientific theories are not "just theories" but well-thought out structures that both explain observed phenomena and predict solutions to not-yet made observations. There is no clear-cut line where a scientific theory becomes scientific fact, but evolution is as well-proven as anything else in science. It has both explained much of the scientific record and predicted other parts. For example, biologists have looked at the fossil record and predicted that fossils of certain transitional animals would be found in fossil records of a certain date, and then gone out and found just those fossils.

Coyne painstakingly goes through the proofs that natural selection is the only mechanism that can explain what we know from many different fields. He is a good writer and manages quite well most of the time to be comprehensible to the non-scientist. Well done, and highly recommended.

Publication Viking Books (2009), Unknown Binding
Publication date 2009

Posted via web from reannon's posterous

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