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Questa Idea Della Vita
(Recent Thoughts About Evolution)

Dateline: Sardinia, 1997: My first awareness of Orgosolo was from the 1960 film The Bandits of Orgosolo. This rural hill town is indeed better known for bandits, hatred of authority, and a post WWII tradition of political graffiti and murals than for profound reflections on the origin of species. But there it was – a mural composed chiefly of a quotation (translated into Italian) from Stephen Jay Gould. Under the heading of “This Idea of Life,” the quote is about a species of bamboo, endemic to China, which flowers every 120 years. After returning home I sent my photograph of the mural to Dr. Gould thinking that he would find it curious and hoping to receive a reply. I loved Gould’s column in Natural History magazine and regarded him as a hero for his ongoing original observations on evolution, for the riches he mined from Darwin, for the grace and precision of his writing, and for his steadfast refusal to allow the tribe of outspoken, willfully ignorant, literalist religionists to have the last word on the teaching of science.

Gould is important for his writing about science and for his elegant and passionate defense of enlightenment. We need public intellectuals like him and his colleagues E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins to champion our cause, because one hundred and fifty years after the publication of On The Origin of Species evolution is still the big idea in biology. Because eighty-four years after the Scopes trial evolution is still the flag of battle with which conservative religionists have staked their ground in the American culture wars – an ongoing clash based on the willful refusal to accept that homo sapiens has more in common with the ephemeroptera than with the god of the bible, and on the inability to recognize a difference between accuracy and truth.

Elegant and perceptive as they were, neither Gould, Dawkins, nor Wilson were able to answer the most nagging questions concerning the biochemical mechanisms by which change occurs and is passed along to future generations. That would have to wait for the Evo Devo guys whose work bore its main fruit after Gould’s death. But Gould’s writing still stands out as fresh, relevant, and enjoyable. If you haven’t read his essays lately, I highly recommend The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould, published in 2006, four years after his death, by W. W. Norton and Company.

Yes, evolution is still the big idea. One can no more do biology without evolution than one can do physics without gravity. Recent writing about evolution is rich in ideas which inform our understanding of our own natures and of the nature of the world we share with (Darwin's) endless forms most beautiful. There are three recent books which should be on the shelves of anyone who enjoys thinking about the origins and nature of life.

The first is Sean B. Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo (W.W. Norton and Company, 2005). Carroll is one of the key investigators in Evo Devo (evolutionary developmental science) and a compelling writer. Combining developmental science with evolution enabled researchers to postulate answers to the most nagging questions about the biochemical mechanisms by which change occurs and is passed along in species. In Endless Forms…Carroll explains the genes which form the molecular switches which turn development on and off and how hox genes govern the sequencing (i.e., the hip bone comes before the shin bone, etc.) of development in all species. It is through evo devo that investigators were able to establish the molecular basis of Stephen Gould’s idea (explained in The Panda’s Thumb) that species share a small tool kit – that all species share a very limited number of genes which allow different parts to become re-purposed as with the vestigial wrist bone in the panda which has been repurposed to serve the same function as an opposable thumb. Evo devo also provides a molecular basis for understanding the randomness and chance of biological change and compelling proof of the of the trap of mistaking a current condition for a preordained destination.

Next up is Evolution: The First Four Billion Years, edited by Michael Ruse & Joseph Travis (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009) This is a big book, (almost 1,000 pages) a collection of essays which attempts to cover, in more than cursory form, the philosophy, history, and the current state of thinking about evolution, from the germ of the idea in Aristotle to Darwin, to Linneaus, Louis Leakey, and up to the most current molecular research. It is, as the publisher describes it, a kind of bible of evolution. �����DZ��ܳپ��Dz�… requires, by no means, a cover-to-cover reading, but a determined reader will come away with a comprehensive knowledge of the subject and a thirst for futher study.

The most accessible and most entertaining new book on the subject is Darwin’s Universe: Evolution From A To Z, by Richard Milner (University of California Press, 2009) Like Evolution..., Darwin's Universe is organized like a dictionary, with short articles arranged alphabetically by subject.  It is one of those books that you will dip into again and again. With authoritative entries on such diverse subjects as “The Origin of Cuteness,” “Inherit the Wind,” “The Panda’s Thumb,” “Evo Devo,” and “Sperm Competition: Natural Selection of Gametes,” Darwin’s Universe provides a comprehensive survey of evolution in an easily digestible form that can be ingested in bite-sized chunks according to the appetite of the reader. If you are looking for something to snack on while waiting for the ghost of Stephen Jay Gould, this book belongs on your coffee table or night stand.