Richard Dawkins
Paperback | Pages: 688 pages Rating: 4.13 | 21757 Users | 732 Reviews
Itemize Books As The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
| Original Title: | The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution |
| ISBN: | 061861916X (ISBN13: 9780618619160) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Royal Society Science Book Prize Nominee for General Prize (2005) |
Representaion Toward Books The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism. Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.Describe About Books The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
| Title | : | The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution |
| Author | : | Richard Dawkins |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 688 pages |
| Published | : | September 2nd 2005 by Mariner Books (first published September 2nd 2004) |
| Categories | : | Science. Nonfiction. Biology. Evolution. History |
Rating About Books The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Ratings: 4.13 From 21757 Users | 732 ReviewsAppraise About Books The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Dawkins was the author who made me realize how fascinating evolutionary biology is. I had read a few of his books before I started this one, but they were all around 300 to 400 pages. This one is 614 pages. It goes back in time, starting in the present moment until we finally reach the dawn of evolution. What an interesting way to write a book! It tells the stories of many species and the common ancestors that we share with them. As the book progresses, our cousins get more and more distant.6-stars[NOTE: I like to provide a 6-star rating to a book when it has been able to keep me in a state of amazement almost continuously for at least 80% of its content.]A terrific book on evolution from the vast spectrum of creatures on this planet. Truly, a lot of information has been provided. Can be a bit heavy to people who may not be from a scientific academic background. Almost every topic that I read in the book kept me in a state of awe while I learnt new things. The book is a must-read
It's a shame that some people get caught up in Mr. Dawkins as a supposed spokesman for Atheism because first and foremost, he's a scientist, and this book is about the science behind life on Earth. In order to better explain evolutionary science, Dawkins metaphorically borrows Chaucer's journey to Canterbury to travel back in time. We start in the present day, and then examine our common ancestors from mammals, to birds, reptiles, etc... all the way back to bacteria and how life itself may have
Fascinating zoology but plenty of flotsam. "The Beaver's Tale" "The Duckbill's Tale" and "The Axolotl's Tale" are outstanding examples of modern naturalism. The classical genetics is adequate but the molecular data is explained minimally and not compelling. More details on the challenges and uncertainties inherent in genomic sequencing and cross-species comparisons would have been helpful. When Dawkins is not discussing zoology the writing is overly verbose, and suffers the professor's conceit
4 stars = I really liked itDividing the book into two digestible parts (that themselves count as books really) was what I've done and I can recommended it, yet the drawback is one does not remember very well the points he made in the first half of the book, however it was not at all disturbing - even though Dawkins makes connections, each chapter is standalone and he makes the effort to look at the key points one has learned throughout the book from various angles, which summarises the whole
Non-Fiction. 4 billion years of evolution, practically in real time. To avoid any "human-centrism," Dawkins -- famous for his outspoken stance against creationism -- does this backwards and models the journey on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Scared yet? Well, it's not in rhyme or Old English, but Dawkins does tend toward lofty language and wild, rambling digressions. It bugged me at first, but over the course of this SIX HUNDRED PAGE BOOK, I got used to it and even grew to appreciate Dawkins and
I love this book. It's not the kind of thing I usually read, because I prefer fiction to non-fiction by far, at least when I have a choice about it. And I really, really loathe Dawkins' The God Delusion, largely because of the tone he takes toward people who are religious believers. But The Ancestor's Tale is mostly just science, and it's written in an accessible, almost conversational way. It actually has literary ancestors (ha), in the form of The Canterbury Tales, which Dawkins chose as his
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