Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life

by Niles Eldredge

Charles Darwin's ideas resonate deeply in Western culture today, and his theory still lies at the heart of modern scientific evolutionary research. As other nineteenth-century figures fade, Darwin's theory of evolution still provokes controversy, spilling over into curriculum battles at state and local school boards in the United States and around the world.

In exploring the everyday artifacts of Darwin's life, his notebooks, and early manuscripts,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393059669
• ISBN13: 9780393059663
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.7" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

One of the Best Short Books on Darwin

Niles Eldredge is an excellent writer on evolutionary theory and he was certainly a good choice to write the companion volume for the American Museum of Natural History's 200th birthday of Charles Darwin exhibition. In "Charles Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life" he covers not only the basis of Darwinian thinking, but adds illustrations of Down House, the famous sand walk, various documents associated with Darwin and some modern phylogenetic analyses. Indeed, this book gives the reader a peek into Darwin's very though processes, where he was on the right track and where he went wrong on occasion. Darwin's accomplishment is not diminished by his errors, but is more appreciated by the difficulties of arriving at the truth, or as much of the truth as humans can comprehend. If you cannot read Janet Browne's detailed two volume biography, this is certainly the book to read! While a great companion to the exhibit, if the reader has the opportunity to see it, it is also a stand alone text that is well worth the effort to read on its own!

A Fine Introduction to Darwin and his Impact

I found this book to be both highly informative as well as beautifully produced. The author, a distingished paleontologist currently at New York's American Museum of Natural History, who was curator on the smashing exhibit last year commemorating Darwin at the museum which I had the privilege of seeing, accomplishes a number of objectives in this volume. First, he focuses upon Darwin's own history, methods and theories. Next, he does an examination of Darwin's famous Red and Transmutation notebooks, including interesting photographs of some of the pages. The reader soon comes to understand why the author feels that much of Darwin's evolutionary theory was anticipated in these journals long before he published "On the Origin of Species." This discussion is succeeded by one on Darwin's own early manuscripts (i.e., "The 1842 Sketch" and "the Essay of of 1844"), which integrates well with his analysis of the notebooks. The author also does a concise review of the "Origin" itself. One of the most interesting chapters is on "Evolution After Darwin," including the period when discussion of Darwin almost disappeared from the scene. The final chapter discusses Darwin, religion and the current "intelligent design" debate. The author strikes a remarkable balance between a level of discussion aimed at the general reader while injecting some substantial scientific information as well. His recounting of some of the most recent leading evolutionary research is particularly informative. The book's illustrations are exceedingly helpful in illuminating the author's analysis--many are beautiful color photographs of the first quality. The book is printed on the finest glossy paper as well, resulting in a beautiful production. So, while written for a general audience, there is a good dose of scientific information as well. And the writing is always clear and concise (the entire book including illustrations and bibiography runs around 245 pages). A solid addition to the literature on Darwin and evoluton.

Why Darwin Thought the Way He Did

It is embarrassing that surveys show that most Americans do not believe in evolution, and do believe in scientifically unsupportable concepts that they have seen in the movies, like dinosaurs and humans living together. The great American Museum of Natural History in New York has always done what it could to combat this sort of ignorance, with a magnificent standing display of dinosaurs. It is now putting on a big exhibition entirely devoted to Charles Darwin, the man who revealed that natural selection and descent with modification were the ways that life on Earth worked. (This is not to neglect Alfred Russel Wallace, who deserves to be better known as the co-discoverer of evolution. It was his discovery of the same principles that made Darwin finally reveal his own decades of thought on the matter, and the papers of the two discoverers were simultaneously published. Darwin, however, published more on the subject, dug into it more deeply, and did his own researches that have made his contributions preeminent.) The curator of the exhibition, Niles Eldredge, is famous on his own for advocating (along with the late Stephen Jay Gould) a modern modification of Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium. For those who cannot get to the exhibition, or who wish to spend more than an afternoon absorbing its ideas, Eldredge has written _Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life_ (Norton). There are, deservedly, much bigger books that serve as biographies of this great thinker who was in many ways a completely admirable scientist and human being. The book has a basic short account of Darwin's life, but was written to give a history of the internal thought underlying Darwin's big ideas. Eldredge has gone back to the notebooks to trace inceptions, rather that to summarize the findings that were eventually published in the epochal _On the Origin of Species_ for an invigorating look at how this model scientist came to believe as he did. Eldredge makes clear from the beginning that Darwin was up against religious orthodoxy. The greatest religious barriers he had to overcome were his own. Time and again, Darwin confronted creationist ideas but found simpler and more reasonable ones in the natural world. In his researches, starting with the voyage of the _Beagle_, he was confounded by trying to figure out the mind of God. Why, for instance, was God extinguishing some species and creating others when he could have gotten it all right in the first place? To ask such questions was not to give an unflattering picture of the capabilities of the designer, but to seek if there were not a better, more natural explanation. Eldredge takes us through the notebooks, showing the intuitive and creative leaps Darwin made, for instance, upon encountering the writings of Thomas Malthus. Before that, though, his fieldwork had convinced him that species were not immutable but rather gave rise to one another. Darwin's ideas, in retrospect, look exceedingly simple (and his frien

Darwin's Origin

Niles Eldredge's new book on Darwin and evolutionary theory, intended as a text for lay readers, is quite good in (at least) two respects. (1) It is the first text for general readers that investigates closely the development of Darwin's ideas between 1836 (when he returned from the Beagle voyage) and 1859 (when he published "On the Origin of Species." This material is succinct and perceptive in the way that it sets out the sequence of emergence of Darwin's key insights. (Sometimes this sequence reveals doubts that Darwin had to overcome.) In addition to this explicative work, Eldridge also (and perhaps more importantly) analyzes the conceptual frameworks that Darwin constructs during this period. (Most especially the moment when Darwin turns his thinking fully around and attempts to derive expected phenomena from his theory). (2) The chapter that outlines the relationship between Darwin's own work and the subsequent history of evolutionary science is also succinct, perceptive, and very informative. Eldredge is successful in simultaneously establishing the remarkable continuity between Darwin and all of evolutionary theory while also highlighting some key issues that Darwin got wrong. However, despite these strengths, this book will be best read by those who already have a clear grasp of the basic features of evolutionary theory. As many others have said, there is no better source for such an introduction than "On the Origin of Species" itself.

Splendid overview of AMNH Darwin Exhibition from one of the world's great evolutionary biologists

"Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life" is the elegant companion volume to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Darwin exhibition which opened recently here in New York City and will remain on view at this museum through May 29, 2006. Afterwards "Darwin" will tour several museums in North America - most notably Chicago's Field Museum - before completing its tour - appropriately enough - at London's British Museum of Natural History in time for the bicentennial of Darwin's birth in 2009. Niles Eldredge, Curator, Division of Paleontology, AMNH and the exhibition's curator, is truly one of the world's foremost evolutionary biologists, perhaps best known for developing back in 1972, the evolutionary theory known as "Punctuated Equilibrium" along with his friend and colleague, the late Stephen Jay Gould. Eldredge combines his splendid gifts as a scientist and writer, along with his keen interest in the history of science, in writing this book, celebrating Darwin's genius as a field and theoretical biologist and geologist. Drawing upon Darwin's own writings, Eldredge traces Darwin's scientific development during the celebrated HMS Beagle voyage and at his suburban London estate at Down. Furthermore, he demonstrates with ample eloquence why Darwin's Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection is a genuine scientific theory, saving until the final chapter, a superb rebuke of "Intelligent Design" as a credible scientific alternative (Those who believe that "Intelligent Design" is a credible scientific theory - it's merely an untestable, unscientific idea - should read Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel", Kenneth R. Miller's "Finding Darwin's God", or Eugenie Scott's "Evolution Vs. Creationism".). Anyone interested in reading a fascinating book on scientific discovery shouldn't hesitate purchasing this elegant tome.