Book Review: Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters

In his foreword to the book, Michael Shermer calls Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters "the best book ever produced on [creationism]." I have not read many other books on creationism, so I cannot comment on Shermer's assessment. However, I agree that it is a fine book and I recommend it for those who want an introduction to creationism, paleontology, and what fossils tell us about the history of life.

Donald Prothero is a professor of geology and paleontology whose career extends at least back to 1980, and he occasionally draws on personal experience when making his case. These experiences give additional weight to his descriptions of fossils--some of which he has studied firsthand--and his explanations of paleontological concepts. For example his treatment of the often misunderstood and abused concept of punctuated equilibrium is clear, and agrees with what I had read elsewhere. (In short, it is the the paleontological application of Ernst Mayr's concept of allopatric speciation.) Perhaps the most notable feature of the book is the many illustrations and photographs depicting either fossils or concepts. (The color plates can be viewed here.) These are quite helpful as aids to understanding and visualizing Prothero's descriptions, and are probably the book's greatest strength.

The chapters are divided into two parts. The first part deals with background issues like the nature of science, the history of creationism (you can read that chapter here), and an introduction to evolution and systematics. The second part is essentially a tour of the history of life on earth from the origins of life to modern humans. Special emphasis is given to transitional fossils between major groups such as fish and tetrapods, dinosaurs and birds, and synapsids and mammals. Short of picking up a paleontology textbook, this is probably one of the friendliest and most convenient introductions to major fossil groups that you will find (or at least that I know of so far).

The final chapter addresses the question of why any of this matters. A number of reasons are given including scientific competitiveness, separation of church and state, and medical progress. Ultimately I think this chapter is probably superfluous. Lovers of science value evolution for its own sake and despise creationist arguments for their corrosive effect on science and public understanding. Those who read the book and still cannot accept evolution will not finally be moved. Nevertheless, it makes for interesting reading.

Now for my complaints:

1. I found a surprisingly high number of grammatically incorrect or jumbled sentences. They occurred frequently enough that I thought that they detracted from the book. Also, in at least a couple of places Prothero dates his writing of a particular passage by referring to current events, which is fine except that it looks funny when he dates a passage to 2005, but then on the next page references a 2007 book. Hopefully future editions will at least fix the English.

2. The enormous scope of the subject is such that Prothero could not frequently dwell on details and still produce a readable popular-science book. Readers who are interested in more details will find many references for further reading. However, the attribution of some claims and quotes are poor. For example reference is made to a New York Times article, but no citation is provided, and quotations used to introduce chapters or subheadings frequently list the author but without the reference from where the quote was taken.

3. Because the subject matter is so broad, Prothero was bound to make some mistakes, especially outside of his own field. For example, the "central dogma" is popularly misunderstood to mean that information flows exclusively from DNA --> RNA --> Protein, so phenomena such as retrotranscription of RNA --> DNA is sometimes claimed (e.g. in this book) to represent a violation of central dogma. But central dogma as originally advanced by Francis Crick is nucleic acid (DNA or RNA --> Protein); retrotranscription is therefore not a violation of central dogma. (In fairness, although central dogma was first advanced by Francis Crick, apparently James Watson later gave a differing version [DNA --> RNA -->Protein], and this is the reason for confusion. Crick's version has not been overturned.)

Another mistake is evident in this passage:

Molecular phylogeny emerged in the 1960s with very crude methods.... Other methods compared the strength of the immune response (more closely related organisms have stronger immune responses than distantly related organisms, because the former have more genes in common than the latter).

That sentence doesn't make any sense. Stronger immune response to what? No reference is provided, but it appears to me that Prothero is a little confused. In early studies rabbits were immunized with human albumin, and then the reactivity of the rabbit antibodies to the albumin protein of various apes and monkeys was evaluated. The strength of reaction indicated similarity of proteins (i.e. fewer mutations), which suggested a closer relationship. (This was before the days of DNA sequencing.)

3. Again, because of scope, Prothero does not usually get into the nitty-gritty of creationist arguments. Creationists will probably complain that he has not given their arguments a full hearing, and occasionally they may have a point. This is unfortunate because some may conclude that Prothero cannot answer the details of creationist arguments.

However, don't let my gripes get in the way. This is not the first book I would recommend to someone with no previous knowledge of evolution, but it very well might be the second.

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