by Daniel J. Fairbanks
Prometheus Books, May 2012
Humans too often view evolution through the lens of the past tense. We extant hominins seem to prefer looking back upon the sweep of our evolutionary history as a nature lover might admire the course of a rushing river, perched safely on its banks. But now more than ever, argues geneticist Daniel Fairbanks, we must climb down into that river and realize that we’re still subject to its eddies, swirls, and riffles.
In his latest book, Evolving, Fairbanks reconstructs the typical pillars of support for evolution—peppered moths, the human fossil record, etc.—while laying out a convincing case for how important it is to recognize that evolution (of both nonhuman and human organisms, both past and ongoing) has ...
