What evolution is
/ Ernst Mayr
- New York : Basic Books , c2001.
- xv, 318 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [293]-303) and index.
Mayr (emeritus, Harvard Univ.; This Is Biology) has written a clear, comprehensive, and very informative introduction to the theory of evolution. He offers major insights into taxonomy, adaptation, common descent, biodiversity, and those mechanisms of organic evolution that result in the process of speciation. His analysis points out important contributions that molecular biology and population thinking have made to both understanding and appreciating modern Darwinism. Mayr stresses that an individual organism is the unit of natural selection, while a population is the unit of biological evolution. He rejects essentialism (typology), creationism, and teleology (orthogenesis) and gives much attention to the various aspects of macroevolution. Other topics discussed include extinction, mosaic evolution, exobiology, and the roles that both chance and necessity play in organic evolution. Of special interest is a chapter on human evolution. Mayr presents the empirical evidence substantiating hominid evolution, as well as the most recent scientific interpretation for the emergence of our species over the past five million years from an apelike ancestral group in Africa. This significant contribution to science will be of enormous value to anyone interested in evolution.