The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution

Genetics science has mushroomed the last 50 years, overturning many cherished preconceptions in biology and other Natural Sciences, while buttressing other theories with an abundance of hard scientific evidence. Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection has been in the later category, with its core assumptions confirmed by the new data about DNA structure, history and function.The book is composed by a series of essays on the nature and function of genes within the DNA code, embedded in the cells of every living organism. The author offers ample evidence, from experimental data, about how exactly the workings of genes are ultimately responsible for the shaping and evolution of the Natural World around us. The point of the whole demonstration is to establish that Natural Selection mechanisms, as defined by Darwin about 150 years ago, are alive, well and firmly supported by the new data.The text is aimed at the general public but some knowledge in basic biology and DNA function will help the reader to follow the arguments more closely. It is not a prerequisite though, since the author explains thoroughly the more stringent points, with help from the illustrations.The last part of the book is the most disappointing, since it involves the denial of evolution, based on religious grounds, and a dire comment on the continuing destruction we inflict to the planet's ecosystems. The author's position, and one that I personally agree totally with, is that alarm bells are already sounding in many quarters and we no longer have the option of intellectual blindness.

In this book the author examines how genomics, the comparitive study of species DNA, has enhanced and furthered our understanding of evolution and how this new evidence helps propel the case for evolution as the basis for life's diversity beyond any reasonable doubt.Using examples as diverse as the bloodless icefish of antarctic waters, the evolution of trichromatic colour vision in primates, fossil genes and the science of Evo Devo, the author shows how these consistently validate the reality of Darwin's central idea of natural selection acting on variation within a population.Whilst he doesn't dwell too much on anti-evolutionary ideas he does spend some time showing how these discoveries undermine intelligent design and why it is important that evolution is taught and understood and shows using the example of Lysenko how disastrous the consequences can be when the scientific process is stifled or abandonded all together.In the final chapter, the author reels off a depressingly familiar series of tales that show how the denial of evolution, ignorance of our own impact on "unnatural selection" coupled with the politics of greed and self interest have bought so many of our planet's species to the brink of oblivion.Overall, a really well written, accessible and thought provoking book. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in evolution and why it matters.

Author is excellent but somewhat spoiled by the publisher using cheap paper and pale,difficult to read typescript.Photographs very poor-this is not unusual. Would it really hurt the publisher`s profit that much to produce some decent quality? Why not even colour photos ?

Brilliant written using DNA as a bluepint

There are some lengthy reviews already of this book, and I'm not going to add to the wordage much, even if I were capable. I found this book very difficult to understand for much of the time, but determinedly ploughed on, to be was rewarded with some some real nuggets of information. Then all of a sudden, about three-quarters of the way through, the book becomes totally accessible to the normal reader, and I was glad I had persisted. (Atlhough Mr Carroll was preaching to the converted in my case, I'm glad to have some ammunition I can use, even if it won't come from the opening chapters!)

Distinguished evolutionary developmental biologist Sean B. Carroll's "The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution" is a superb popular introduction to some of the most important principles of biological evolution and of the key role which DNA plays in affecting biological evolution, and thusly, influencing both the current composition and structure of Planet Earth's biodiversity. Moreover, Carroll stresses the relatively new role in which DNA evidence has played - and continues to play - in understanding the timing of events in the history of life on Planet Earth which includes the development of "antifreeze" in certain species of Antarctic teleost fish (Chapter 1) recognizing the relative "unity of all life" which, via DNA evidence, demonstrates that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor (Chapter 3), the origins of color vision in animals (Chapter 4), the history of many lineages as represented in their currently inactive "fossil genes" (Chapter 5) and why evolution tends to repeat itself in different lineages of animals (Chapter 6). One of the most lucid accounts on the nature of Natural Selection is offered by Carroll in a chapter (Chapter 2) that stresses the mathematics of Natural Selection, giving readers a succinct understanding as to how Natural Selection works as the primary mechanism for biological evolution. He also succeeds in introducing readers to the concept of coevolutionary arms races and, in citing the prevalence of the sickle cell trait in Africans and Afro-Americans, demonstrates how this trait - as the result of a coevolutionary arms race with African pathogens - is an excellent example of evolution's "improvised" nature, lacking any preconceived, premeditated conception of evolutionary progress or intelligent design. Much to his credit, Carroll notes repeatedly why DNA evidence does not support any notions of "evolutionary progress" and "Intelligent Design", devoting much of a chapter (Chapter 9) in stressing the nature of science, especially with regards to well-established, well-corroborated, scientific theories such as contemporary evolutionary theory which has at its core, the Darwin - Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, and in demolishing the breathtakingly inane claims of Intelligent Design creationist proponents that theirs is a credible, scientific, alternative to contemporary evolutionary theory, relying almost exclusively on DNA evidence and related aspects of molecular biology in making his most credible argument demolishing Intelligent Design. Once more Carroll demonstrates why he has become one of our foremost popularizers of science, while he is still actively engaged a scientific career that may prove to be far more important than those of such illustrious predecessors as Stephen Jay Gould and Carl Sagan.