Good books on evolution

[Joykins]

I have recently acquired an interest in evolutionary biology and anthropology.

I am interested in learning more. What are your favorite books? I am interested in books that do not make little jabby rude remarks about Christianity or religion in general. I may be interested in books that talk about how religion may be adaptive.

I have read the following:


_Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution_ by Kenneth R. Miller ~ I enjoyed this.

_Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul_ by Edward Humes ~ This is about the Dover PA case. Interesting.

_Evolution_ by Stephen Baxter -- fiction, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway

These last three were really awesome:

_The Third Chimpanzee: the Evolution and Future of the Human Animal_ by Jared Diamond

_Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality_ by Jared Diamond

_Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species_ by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

I have _The Selfish Gene_ but Dawkins has one of those attitudes...

Any more recommendations? What are your must-read choices on the subject?

 

[gluadys]

I have recently acquired an interest in evolutionary biology and anthropology.

I am interested in learning more. What are your favorite books? I am interested in books that do not make little jabby rude remarks about Christianity or religion in general. I may be interested in books that talk about how religion may be adaptive.

I have read the following:


_Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution_ by Kenneth R. Miller ~ I enjoyed this.

_Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul_ by Edward Humes ~ This is about the Dover PA case. Interesting.

_Evolution_ by Stephen Baxter -- fiction, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway

These last three were really awesome:

_The Third Chimpanzee: the Evolution and Future of the Human Animal_ by Jared Diamond

_Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality_ by Jared Diamond

_Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species_ by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

I have _The Selfish Gene_ but Dawkins has one of those attitudes...

Any more recommendations? What are your must-read choices on the subject?

In spite of the rude jabs, I do consider The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins a must-read.

Another of my favorites is Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll on evolution and embryological development (evo-devo).

And a potpourri of others I have found interesting:

The Cooperative Gene by Mark Ridley
The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson
In the Blink of an Eye by Andrew Parker (focuses on the Cambrian Explosion)
The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner (about the 20+ year study of the Galapagos finches by Peter and Rosemary Grant as well as some other studies of natural selection)
Deep Ancestry by Spencer Wells (tracing the history of human migration through DNA)
The First Word by Christine Kenneally (on the evolution of the biological basis of human language)
The Language Instinct by Steve Pinker (also on the evolution of language but more about how the mind processes language).

 

[Mallon]

I'm about to start into Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, which is supposed to be good.
Any of Gould's Reflections on Natural History books are pretty good, too. Start with Ever Since Darwin.

 

[Joykins]

Oh, yeah, I have read _Mapping Human History_ and _The Seven Daughters of Eve_ also and enjoyed them immensely.

 

[Joykins]

Thanks for the recommendations. Keep 'em coming!

 

[MattLangley]

A great thread, have gotten some good books myself off of this. I'll throw one out there too. Though this book isn't directly about Evolution, it talks about evolution in context to the Genetic support for it and from the perspective of the Director of the Human Genome Project. It also comes from a Christian who is a leading geneticist, Christian, and believes in evolution. Definitely one of the best reads I have had:

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins

 

[atomweaver]

Thanks for the recommendations. Keep 'em coming!

Might I (in my role as Cpt. Obvious) recommend "On the Origin of Species" by Mr. Charles Darwin..?

You can read it for free here;

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/

 

[shernren]

The Creationists by Ronald Numbers for historical background on the creationist movement.

Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, very good mix of technical science and reflective theology.

I found The Extended Phenotype by Dawkins to be a very good, technical book (notice how the adjective "technical" seems to relate to "good" for me so often XD), with very little of his usual atheistic flavor and very strong scientific questionings of the kind of genetic determinism which ironically creationists themselves indulge in.

Alister McGrath is a generally good theologian - while not particularly interested / interesting in the cr-evo field, he seems to have taken upon himself the mantle of being Mr. Anti-Dawkins in theology and in the public eye. He has a short (and slightly unsatisfying) book out called Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life as well as a more recent one The Dawkins Delusion. I haven't read the latter, but the former was good. In particular, he has very strong and interesting thoughts in his A Scientific Theology about how natural theology in 18th.c. England (particularly Paleyism and its intellectual relatives) fell short. In fact A Scientific Theology, while not being particularly about the cr-evo dispute, is an invaluable resource for those seeking to build a generally strong and biblical theology on creation and the physical universe, as is one of his companion books which I've read, The Order of Things. He's one of my favorite theologians.

 

[USincognito]

What does it mean to be 98% Chimpanzee by Jonathan Marks and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan.