(Part 2) Top products from r/evolution

Sure thing! The great, and not so great, thing about learning about evolution is that there is so much information out there it can be a bit overwhelm at times, and it is not always easy to know where to start. The best place to start it probably a university class, but that is not always an accessible resource. In lieu of that, I will strong recommend learning from biologist Richard Dawkins. While he is currently well-known for his stance on religion, he has devoted his life to teaching about evolution to the public. I'll give you a few of my favorite references of his. They are arranged in terms of the length of time they will probably take you. Also, so that you won't be intimidated, they are not references in which he explicitly denounces religion or anything; although, as you will see, he does explain evolution in contrast to some of the claims of creationism. I hope that is not a problem, as it is kind of necessary to learn why biologists take one view as opposed to the other.

Anyway, here are the references! =)

This video (5 parts, 10 min each) is a great introduction to some of the basic concepts of evolution, and was really eye-opening for me.

This lecture series (5 episodes, 1 hour each) goes into much more detail than the above video, gives much more evidence, illustrates some of the arguments, and has many fun and beautiful examples.

The Selfish Gene is a book that answered a huge number of questions about evolution for me (e.g., how can a "survival of the fittest" scheme give rise to people being nice to each other? The answer, it turns out, is fascinating.)

The The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution May be the book you are looking for. This book clearly lays down the evidence for evolution, complete with wonderful illustrations. It is very detailed, and very readable.


There are many other great authors besides Richard Dawkins, but this is a great place to start. You are about to go on a very beautiful and moving journey, if you decide to take it. I envy you! I would love to do it all over again. Enjoy!

I know for a fact that the second hypothesis (increased brain size-> increased social complexity) has been put forward by a number of scientists (I'm a psychologist so I' m more into human behaviour and differential traits). I don't remember particular references as I did my degree 6 years ago but I remember books like this, or this had a huge impact on me. For a fact, a huge step in our evolution has been the frontal lobe. It is what facilitates the creation of memories, gives us a clearly defined personality that can be expressed through language and internalizes the moral/ethical/religious rules we live by (it is where the filter for inhibition lives in our brain-to put it very simplistically).

However, let me be devil's advocate for a minute. How do you define intelligence? Sure we have a referential language, we travel at the speed of sound, we have created complicated machines etc. This is not entirely unexpected considering the size of our brain, our opposable thumbs, our physique and biological makeup etc.

However, if intelligence is the ability to adapt in order to maximize survival, is it fair to say that human intelligence is superior to the great apes'? (ex. if you threw me in a jungle I don't think I'd be able to adapt soon enough to survive. That doesn't mean necessarily that I am a stupid human being but to the average great ape I'd look like an absolute idiot!)

Here are some books, articles, websites and YouTube Videos that helped me on my journey from a hardcore creationist to a High School Biology teacher.

BOOKS

The Language of God - By Francis Collins ~ A defense of Evolution by the head of the Human Genome Project (Who also happens to be Christian)

Only a Theory - By Ken Miller ~ Another Christian biologist who accepts and vigorously defends the theory of evolution

Your Inner Fish - by Neil Shubin ~ The wonderful story of how Tiktaalik was found

Why Evolution is True - By Jerry Coyne ~ A simple and thorough treatment of evolution written for the mainstream

The Greatest Show on Earth - By Richard Dawkins ~ A wonderful and beautifully written celebration of evolution

The Panda's Thumb - By Stephen Jay Gould ~ A collection of eloquent and intelligent essays written by SJG. Any of his collections would do but this one is my favorite.

ARTICLES

Crossing the Divide - By Jennifer Couzin ~ an article about an ex-creationist and his difficult journey into enlightenment.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense - John Rennie ~ a nice rundown of the major objections to evolution.

WEBSITE

An index of Creationist Claims - Via the TalkOrigins archive ~ an impressive index of the major problems creationists have with evolution, as well as good, evidence based rebuttals.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS/PLAYLISTS

Why do People Laugh at Creationsts? - Via Thunderf00t ~ a scathing review of outrageous sins of logic committed by creationists. Thunderf00t's style isn't for everyone, since he can come off as smug and superior

How Evolution Works - Via DonExodus2 ~ a nice and thorough overview of how evolution works

The Theory of Evolution Made Easy - Via Potholer54

Evolution - Via Qualia Soup ~ short (10 minutes), simple and well made, this is one of my go-to videos to help logically explain how evolution happens.

I'm shocked this is even still a debate in schools... There is no competing theory that does anything close to explaining the natural world as well as evolution.

The debate should be framed not on "pro versus anti evolution" but rather is there any competing theory that can be presented which debunks evolution or better describes the natural world. There isn't, but if there were evolution would be replaced with that theory.

That being said the opposition presumably will advocate for Intelligent Design (I.D.) which is not scientific in the slightest and should be easily debunked with a bit of research. If you have time read this book, it does a wonderful job explaining the nuance of the debate. I read it in college and loved it; never had a second thought about evolution again.

https://www.amazon.com/Only-Theory-Evolution-Battle-Americas/dp/0143115669

If you don't have time these are a couple examples of evidence supporting the theory of evolution I didn't see posted below. Or maybe you could find a synopsis of the book I mentioned.

https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2014/09/13/why-humans-must-eat-vitamin-c/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality

Science isn't a pro vs anti debate; if that's the debate it's just an excuse to let religion into the classroom. The theory with the most credible evidence which best helps us understand natural phenomena should be the leading Theory. I.D. is not that theory.

Ernst Mayer, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins have written some decent books broadly covering the evidence for evolution. Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters fits into that general category, and does a good job of outlining the evidence for evolution as well, in particular from a paleontological perspective.




Astrobiologist / Paleontologist Peter Ward has written a ton of fantastic books. I'd start with Rare Earth, which outlines the Rare Earth hypothesis, ie complex life is likely rare in the universe. If you read Rare Earth, you'll come away with a better understanding of the abiotic factors which influence the evolution of life on Earth. If you end up enjoying Rare Earth, I'd highly recommend Ward's other books.




Terra, by paleontologist Michael Novacek describes the evolution of the modern biosphere, in particular from the Cretaceous onwards, and then discusses environmental change on a geological scale to modern environmental challenges facing humanity. It's one of those books which will change the way you think about the modern biosphere, and the evolution in the context ecosystems, as opposed to individual species.




Another book by a paleontologist is When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, looking at the Permian mass extinction, which was the most catastrophic mass extinction of the Phanerozoic wiping out 95%+ of all species. More focused on the geology than the other books I mentioned, so if you're not into geology you probably wont enjoy it so much.



Biochemist Nick Lane has written some great books. Life ascending would be a good one to start off with. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life is really excellent as well.




The Origins of Life and the Universe is written by molecular biologist Paul Lurquin. It mostly focuses on the origin of life. It's pretty accessible for what it covers.




Another couple of books I would recommend to people looking for something more advanced are: Michael Lynch's Origins of Genome Architecture, which covers similar stuff to much of his research, although takes a much broader perspective. Genes in conflict is a pretty comprehensive treatment of selfish genetic elements. Fascinating read, although probably a bit heavy for most laypeople.

>evolution is based around the fact that existence is random and chaotic.

>random system

Evolution is the opposite of random. It's natural selection, not natural shit happens (no offense). It's a pattern: the things likely to be reproduced are reproduced the most, and there end up being the most of those things, until they completely overpower the others and they're all that's left and they're the new standard. (To answer your questions: The hornier humans made more babies. Then there were more horny babies and humans. Today, all the humans are horny (inclined to mate), to paraphrase.)

We're not naked all the time because it snows. (I'm simplifying, but do you see my point?) Also, culture. That's been around, in anthropological terms, fo eva. (Shyness is something else. This is all extremely complex.)

>And if you take into account that that would accelerate reproduction too much, food supply would diminish and natural selection would kick in.

Looks like you answered your own question there. It's like trees: being taller (mating more) gets them an advantage; but being too tall costs too many resources (we eat too much) and they even out.

I hate to sound insulting, but there are soo many things wrong with your post; you don't understand evolution at all. I think you should read up on it a little. If you're willing to read a book, Richard Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth is amazing. Not only will it give you a wonderful understanding, but it's just a brilliant read, and I plan on rereading it for the fun of it. And I got the tree thing from Chapter 12. (Dawkins explains it much better.)

But if you don't want to read a whole book, maybe find some articles or something.

Anyway, good luck.

Kaufmann is fairly well respected in the community of complexity researchers, but his work is veeery abstract. You might find the stuff you read there interesting, but I doubt you'll find anything to sway someone skeptical of the plausibility of non-God-initiated abiogenesis that their skepticism is mainly based on bias.

With that goal in mind, I'm not sure that pursuing the math angle directly is really the best route either (if there actually are any best routes towards that sort of goal). The appeal to mere mathematical plausibility is abstract enough that it's for a person to dismiss that and still maintain that it isn't plausible physically. It would maybe be better instead or in addition to approach the topic of known environmental contexts that make abiogenesis seem like a physically plausible thing to have happened.

From that perspective, I'd say the first couple chapters of Lane's Life Ascending is still one of the better sources out there. It's a very approachable text.

I'd also suggest getting some cheap used books such as: Sex, Evolution and Behavior or Haldane's classic:The Causes of Evolution. Other authors worth checking out would be Dawkins, Darwin and Zahavi. Between free online courses and erudite but still very accessible books you can get a solid foundation on the basics, for much much less than a single college course, and perhaps find a particular field that really intrigues you. Lastly, there are a number of great blogs out there, John Hawkes is a favourite. I'd suggest steering clear of Gould, but The spandrels of San Marco is a classic, and wrestling with Gould's semantic-based arguments and being able, to your own satisfaction, refute them using facts, is a worthy exercise.

Oh, and I'd be remiss without throwing out Trivers or Lieberman

I'll second /u/Deadlyd1001's recommendation... The Singularity Trap was good and interesting, but the Bobiverse series is one of the best books/series I've read in years.

He has a new series coming soon that is also worth checking out if you like those two. The audiobook of the first book is available now, but the print version will be released in a couple weeks. It's also not as good as the Bobiverse books, but it was a fun read (well, listen).

I found The Tangled Bank is an excellent introductory college-level textbook. Easy reading, with lots of nice diagrams, pictures and data!

Also, Relics of Eden is a great book, which focuses on the genetic evidence that shows how humans are undeniably linked to other primates (e.g. shared mutations etc), it is kind of narrowly focussed on that side of things, but worth reading, and interestingly written by a Mormon academic (so goes against their general belief).

There is now an entire field about this which is not taught, generally, unless you elect it. About seventeen years ago I took a sabbatical during which I really poured my heart into this. One of the best things I read is, unfortunately (because the field has not progressed much) still one of the best things on the subject (and it is in my toilet, so I just re-read it a few days ago). It is chapter in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-All-Directions-Lectures-April-November/dp/0060728892

It is thought that altruistic behavior is actually innate and passed down genetically and thus a product of natural selection, it's part of our survival behavior that actually got us (a bunch of pretty weak apes) this far...

Here's a great book on the genetics and altruism Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley

Campbell's biology textbook is the best university level biology textbook I've seen.


https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-11th-Lisa-Urry/dp/0134093410

Basically all of biology is relevant to understanding evolution (as well as a general understanding of chemistry, physics being also useful).

For something a bit harder (but requiring some more basic science knowledge), molecular biology of the cell is good.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26879/

"Why Evolution Is True" by Jerry A. Coyne (who is also a doctor) gives a pretty comprehensive and concise account of all the evidence for evolution from fossils to genetics. Amazon link here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0199230854

https://www.amazon.com/Relics-Eden-Powerful-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1616141603

This is one of my favorite books on evolution. It is written by a Genetics professor who is also a Christian.

It's a good question why there is something rather than nothing. I suggest you read this book or at least watch the related YouTube videos.

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468

Might help: http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Reality-Whats-Really/dp/1451675046

> Tiktaalik was not a direct ancestor of modern theropods.

Therapods came 170m years later. I think this is a typo and you meant to write tetrapods?

> What you have provided is not equivalent in any way to finding "a rabbit in the Precambrian".

Sure. It just shows that the sequence has no order. At any given time in history, there are millions of species with hundreds of suitable morphological intermediates between most taxonomics level. Take this guy who connects amphibians and nematodes. Now go to the fossil record, where something like only 5% of an organism's phenotype is preserved, and you can make it tell any story you want. Coyne makes an excellent point of this:

1. "Artificial selection clearly has created forms that, if found in the fossil record, or if you saw them and didn’t know they were products of artificial selection, would clearly be regarded as different species. ... All seven descendant vegetables have the same common ancestor, and were bred for various traits (the odious Brussels sprout, for example, for small unopened heads). Does anybody doubt that if we found fossil impressions of these, or saw them growing as wild plants in nature, they’d be regarded as different species, or even different genera? ... there is much more variation among living breeds of dogs--artificially selected within the past 10,000 years at most--than there is among the wild species of canids in nature. If dog breeds like the two above were found in the fossil record, they’d be regarded at least as different species, or even different genera (remember that Australopithecus and Homo are different genera)."
   
   > These results provide us with the earliest direct evidence of kinematically human-like bipedalism
   
   You can find paleoanthropologists on both sides of the bipedalism debate--some ignore the laetoli prints and put the australopiths as our ancestors, others the opposite and put the origin of bipedalism much later. My point is that the fossil data is contradictory, far beyond "one fossil was to be found in the strata where it did not belong"
   
   > a bird before reptiles
   
   Some are doubting that birds are even descended from dinosaurs, "birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from. That's a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories."
   
   Also from Cladistics and the Origin of Birds: A Review and Two New Analyses, Ornithological Monographs, 2009
   
   
2. On the basis of our results, the next two major challenges are to evaluate further the possibility that some maniraptorans in fact be long within Aves, rather than the reverse, and to further explore whether birds may have been de­rived from theropods, “early archosaurs,” or cro­codylomorphs, the three most likely candidates given current evidence. At present, the origin of birds is an open question.
   
   It's interesting to see how flexible these relationships actually are.
   
   > Let us imagine that the fossil record had no particular order.
   
   It does indeed have order to it. Fish, arthropods, and several other types appear over a period of about 10m years in the cambrian at 530m years ago, tetrapods at 400m years, and mammals and birds roughly 200m years ago. The fossil record shows sudden appearances, long term stasis, and then extinction. It seems to be the enemy of every view.
   
   
3. "The fossil record, like the stratigraphical record, is thought to be episodic with long periods of quiescence separated by short periods of explosive evolution, expropriations and extinctions ... The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find' over and over again' not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.", Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Fossil Record, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 1976
   
4. "There is a striking lack of correspondence between genetic and evolutionary change. Neo-Darwinian theory predicts a steady, slow continuous, accumulation of mutations that produces a progressive change in morphology leading to new species, genera, and so on. But macroevolution now appears to be full of discontinuities, so we have a mismatch of some importance. That is, the fossil record shows mostly stasis, or lack of change, in a species for many millions of years; there is no evidence there for gradual change even though, in theory, there must be a gradual accumulation of mutations at the micro level." The coming Kuhnian revolution in biology, Nature Biotechnology, 1997
   
5. "In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms." Fossils and Evolution, Kemp, Oxford University Press, 1999, p246
   
6. "Microevolution provides no satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary burst of novelty during the late Neoproterozic-Cambrian radiation, nor the rapid production of novel plant architectures associated with the origin of land plants during the Devonian, followed by the origination of most major insect groups. Each burst was followed by relative quiescence, as the pace of morphological innovation fell. Non-random appearance of major groups continues at lower taxonomic levels as well.". Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution, Evolution and Development, 2000
   
7. "The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. ... The Cambrian explosion in animal evolution during which all the diverse body plans appear to have emerged almost in a geological instant is a highly publicized enigma. Although molecular clock analysis has been invoked to propose that the Cambrian explosion is an artifact of the fossil record whereas the actual divergence occurred much earlier, the reliability of these estimates appears to be questionable.", Koonin, The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution, Biology Direct, 2007

Link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0141017775?pc_redir=1404880277&robot_redir=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199267944/?coliid=I3BETERVS0FSIY&colid=I7EQL06MGW4X&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

For an in depth treatment of the genetic mechanics of forming eyes and feet and arms and such pick up a copy of Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll. Super-interesting and informative with regard to evolutionary development which will shed a lot of light and further your understanding.

I believe that a question prefaced with "If evolution simply came out of nothing...", is a subset of the question "Did the universe simply come out of nothing?". The physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote a book called "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing" that explains how it is possible that the universe did in fact evolve out of nothing. There's also videos on YouTube of him explaining this, and here's one of them.

Once you can wrap your mind around that possibility, it can then be inferred that just about everything else could also come out of nothing, including evolution.

Dawkins' book, The Magic of Reality

> “Jeremy’s work represents potentially interesting exercises in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of simple abstract systems.” Any claims that it has to do with biology or the origins of life, he added, are “pure and shameless speculations.”

most important sentence. I really fail to see how his equations are qualitatively different than any of the examples posited by Stuart Kauffman years ago about how entropy can generate ever-changing patterns.

eg - https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Order-Self-Organization-Selection-Evolution/dp/0195079515

You might be interested in this book, The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived.

The title is a little misleading as the book primarily focuses on early anatomically modern humans and not Neanderthals (plus some of the science pertaining to neanderthals is a bit out of date by this point). However, he primarily addresses your question, focusing on environmental changes that took place during this planetary era of cohabitation.