Must read evolution Books
Discover the best evolution books to read, from Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Explore science, genetics, and human history in this curated must-read list.
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The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science
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The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
Reprint of the 1987 original with a new introduction and preface. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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The Red Queen
by Matt Ridley
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.
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What Evolution Is
by Ernst Mayr
A pillar of evolutionary biology, Mayr (comparative zoology, Harvard U.) writes for three types of readers: anyone, biologist or not, who wants to know more about evolution; those who accept evolution but doubt the Darwinian explanation of it; and creationists who want to learn more about it even if only to challenge it better.
