The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Rise and Reign of the Mammals by Steve Brusatte are two books on Paleontology. These books demonstrate the value of good science writers by counterexample. In between interesting anecdotes from the field, biographical sketches, and fascinating accounts of evolution in action, the author falls into the trap of academic writing with long lists of acknowledgments, obscure technical terminology, and Latin names. If you can skip the boring part, the books are great.
When scientists finally used DNA to build evolutionary trees, they learned that the traditional morphological trees were incorrect. Odd-toed mammals were not all closely related. Even-toed mammals were not all closely related. Similar morphological groups were also not closely related. These similarities were all the result of convergent evolution. The roots of the evolutionary trees are not morphological at all. The roots are geographical with one tree rooted in Africa, another in South America, another in North America, and the fourth in Eurasia.
Did you just say, “Duh? That’s obvious?”
Scattered throughout the books are interesting examples of how arbitrary the evolution of homo sapiens was and how easy it would have been to have a different outcome.
Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Check out https://amzn.to/2SpaDMN to see my books.
Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.
No comments:
Post a Comment