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Donald R. Prothero's Evolution is an entertaining and rigorous history of the transitional forms and series found in the the fossil record. Its engaging narrative of scientific discovery and well-grounded analysis has led to the book's widespread adoption in courses that teach the nature and value of fossil evidence. Evolution tackles flood geology, rock dating, neo-Darwinism, and macroevolution. It includes extensive coverage of the primordial soup, invertebrate transitions, the development of the backbone, the reign of the dinosaurs, and the transformation from chimpanzee to human. The book details the many "missing links," including some of the most recent discoveries, that flesh out the fossil timeline and the evolutionary process. In this second edition, Prothero describes new transitional fossils from various periods, vividly depicting such bizarre creatures as the Odontochelys, or the "turtle on the half shell," fossil snakes with legs, and the "Frogamander," a new example of amphibian transition.
List of contents
Foreword: Why People Do Not Accept Evolution
To the Reader: Is Evolution a Threat to Your Religious Beliefs?
Prologue: Fossils and Evolution
Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Part I: Evolution and the Fossil Record1. The Nature of Science
2. Science and Creationism
3. The Fossil Record
4. The Evolution of Evolution
5. Systematics and Evolution
Part II: Evolution? The Fossils say YES!6. Life¿s Origins
7. Cambrian ¿Explosion¿¿or Slow Fuse?
8. Spineless Wonders of Evolution
9. Fish Tales
10. Fish Out of Water
11. Onto the Land and Back to the Sea: The Amniotes
12. Dinosaurs Evolve¿and Fly
13. Mammalian Explosion
14. Bossies and Blowholes
15. The Ape¿s Reflection?
16. Why Does It Matter?
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Donald R. Prothero is a Research Associate in Vertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He has taught college geology and paleontology for 40 years at institutions such as Columbia University, Vassar College, Knox College, and Pierce College, and currently at Cal Poly Pomona. For 27 years, he was Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers published in leading journals and over 30 titles in geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology.
Summary
Donald R. Prothero’s Evolution is an entertaining and rigorous history of the transitional forms and series found in the fossil record. In this second edition, Prothero describes new transitional fossils from various periods, and reframes creationism as a case study in denialism and pseudoscience.
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"If you're one of these people who likes to read Dawkins, Gould and Darwin, I would highly recommend this book. If you doubted that evolution was true before, and then you looked at this book, I don't see how you could possibly continue to question it." Jerry Coyne, author of Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
