I just finished Sean B. Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo the other day, and I must confess: I was initially a bit disappointed. It has a few weaknesses. For one, I didn’t learn anything new from it; I had already read just about everything mentioned in the book in the original papers. It also takes a very conservative view of evolutionary theory, and doesn’t mention any of the more radical ideas that you find bubbling up on just about every page of Mary Jane West-Eberhard’s big book. One chapter, the tenth, really didn’t fit in well with the rest—the whole book is about pattern, and that chapter is suddenly talking about a few details in the evolution and development of the human brain.
So I read the whole thing with a bit of exasperation, waiting for him to get to the good stuff, and he never did. But then after thinking about it for a while, I realized what the real problem was: he didn’t write book for me, the inconsiderate bastard, he wrote it for all those people who maybe haven’t taken a single course or read any other books in the subject of developmental biology. I skimmed through it again without my prior biases, and realized that it’s actually a darned good survey of basic concepts, and that I’m going to find it very useful.
Take, for instance, chapter 5, titled, “Dark Matter of the Genome: Operating Instructions for the Toolkit”. It’s a simple overview of regulatory logic, explaining what regulatory regions are, describing the kinds of logical operators to which they correspond, and bringing in the idea of genetic switches and modules. This is difficult stuff to teach; I generally charge in with specific examples and try to draw out some general understanding by showing the details. But on reading this, I see a better way. I’m going to have to model a lecture on this chapter and ease students in with an overview of the big picture (in other words, I am so stealing Carroll’s work).
He also does an excellent job of tying together paleontology and development, explaining how the concepts of modularity and genetic switches that he’d just covered are not just useful for understanding how butterflies get spots on their wings, but also makes the transformations we observe in the fossil record more comprehensible. Why are developmental biologists suddenly getting so interested in evolutionary biology? Because for the past 100+ years, we’ve been building a conceptual toolkit for analyzing embryos, and we’ve just recently noticed that applying those tools to evolutionary questions gives us a powerful perspective.
The final chapter is simply excellent, and carries a message I try in my own clumsy way to communicate, too. It has two themes: “Evo Devo as a Cornerstone of a More Modern Synthesis”, in which he explains how developmental biology is inspiring a revolution in evolutionary thinking, and “Evo Devo and Teaching Evolution”, where he discusses how this interdisciplinary mode of thinking helps us understand biology better. He also addresses the battle with creationists, and is appropriately dismissive of their pseudoscientific claims while warning us all to wake up to their political shenanigans.
Here’s an excerpt from the section on teaching evo devo. It might irritate some of the evolutionary traditionalists, but I think he has many good points here.
The evolution of form is the main drama of life’s story, both as found in the fossil record and in the diversity of living species. So, let’s teach that story. Instead of “change in gene frequencies,” let’s try “evolution of form is change in development.” This is, of course, a throwback to the Darwin-Huxley era, when embryology played a central role in the development of all evolutionary thought. There are several advantages of an embryological approach to teaching evolution.
First, it is a small leap to go from the building of complexity in on generation from an egg to an adult, to appreciating how increments of change in the process, assimilated over greater time periods, produce increasingly diverse forms.
Second, we now have a very firm grasp of how development is controlled. We can explain how tool kit proteins shape form, that tool kit genes are shared by all animals, and that differences in form arise from changing the way they are used. The principle of descent by modification (of development) is clear.
Third, an enormous practical advantage is the visual nature of the Evo Devo perspective. The Chinese proverb I cited in chapter 4, “Hearing about something a hundred times is not as good as seeing it once,” is sound educational doctrine. We learn more by combining visuals with text. Let’s show the students embryos, Hox clusters, stripes, spots, and the glory of making animal form. The evolutionary concepts follow naturally.
A fourth benefit of this approach is that it brings genetics much closer to the powerful evidence of paleontology. Dinosaurs and trilobites are the poster children of evolution, and they inspire the vast majority of those who touch them. By placing these wonders of the ancient past in a continuum from the Cambrian to the present, life’s history is made much more tangible. It would indeed be a wonderful world if every student had guided, repeated classroom contact with some fossils.
If you’re a developmental biologist, this book may make you snooze. But if you’re anyone else, I recommend Endless Forms Most Beautiful highly—this is the primer that will bring you up to speed on the basics of evo devo in a pleasant way. It’s full of butterfly wings and zebra stripes and exotic arthropods and molecules in stripes, and along the way you learn a fair bit of developmental biology.
I’ll add that in the few years since I reviewed this book, I’ve used it as an auxiliary text in my developmental biology classes. The students have been generally positive about it, but they also haven’t found it easy going, especially the middle section which emphasizes the conceptual issues of developmental gene regulation. I’ll be using it again, though, because even though it may be hard to grasp and is surprisingly novel to students’ thinking, it’s still an essential collection of ideas that they must understand to be able to follow modern developmental biology. Don’t be dismayed if you find parts of it difficult — it means you’re thinking about new and important stuff!
I read the book this summer at your recommendation, PZ. And as a practicing lawyer, I was fascinated. You are owed another tip of the hat for providing some further insights that the book skimmed. For example, the book suggests in a number of places that development is driven by an essentially binary process — either a gene is off or it is on. You had a series of posts clarifying the concept of gradients.
Most importantly, the book reminded me how much I like learning about things I know nothing of. (Much like this blog.)
Cheers
I am not now, nor have I ever been a biologist beyond reading the usual stuff by Dawkins, Gould et al.
I read Endless Forms… and enjoyed it, but felt that he laboured his points sometimes. I was also waiting for the seemingly obvious comparisons with computer science, algorithmic complexity or DNA the tape for a Turing Machine, but they never arrived. But then, I’m a computer programmer; it’s all computation as far as I’m concerned.
I’m on the last chapter now. Having finished a genetics course last winter, I found the explanations in this book much clearer than those of my textbook. I was familiar with most of the concepts going in, but I couldn’t say the consequences of those concepts had fully sunk in until reading this. It pulled it all together nicely.
Thanks PZ. I have found myself wanting something like this numerous times when reading the posts here. Got a copy on hold at the local library just waiting for me to get off work. Always looking for an interesting read.
I, too, was disappointed in Endless Forms when I read it last year. However, Carroll’s new book, The Making of the Fittest( http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393061639 ), is much better. Maybe he has become a better writer, or maybe the subject matter of the second book (molecular evidence for evolution) is just closer to my own interests. In any case, I highly recommend it.
Let me second PZ and Francis’ recommendations: it was a lucid and compelling introduction to a field about which I knew almost nothing.
Didn’t Evo-Devo do that “Whip It” song years ago?
Reading your review, I was struck by the vast contrast between your approach and that of many who have reviewed Dawkins, Hitchens, and others. You took the time to evaluate the book for what it is and from the perspective who it was written for, rather than providing a knee-jerk reaction that took your own initial thoughts as the only worthwhile way to view the text. It was a refreshing difference.
I’m off to order a copy of the book now. Thank you for the recommendation.
In other words, he wrote it for me.
That said, I truly enjoyed it.
My local Borders had Making of the Fittest on its Atheism endcap. So I moved it to Biology. (oh no!)* Carroll doesn’t really talk about Creators in that book, does he?
* In front of their cover-out stack of Behes. Oh NO!
I read EFMB as an undergrad, and I wish it had been published earlier. It answered so many of the questions my high-school biology teacher shrugged her shoulders at – questions I *really* wanted answers to.
I saw this book in a store a couple of months ago, remembered it getting recommendations and bought it.
I thought it was great. Not having much of a biology clue, I found it quite fascinating. I hadn’t really thought that DNA regulated how you grew as well as *what* you grew, and it makes a lot of sense and seems to complement my limited understanding of genes that I gleaned from Dawkins’s books very nicely.
If this was amazon, I’d be giving it 5 stars about here.
I found myself wondering if you could combine genetic algorithms with cellular automata in some way to simulate a developing body, rather than the more programming type of simulations like avida, or tierra/corewars.
As a mere biology “hobbyist”, I quite enjoyed Endless Forms and in particular, I guiltily confess, the visuals where it shows patterns where the groundwork has already been laid in the tissues for future development. I enjoyed the discussion of distal-less and even the small revelation about how incomplete melanocyte migration can lead to critters with white forehead and chest marks.
His Making of the Fittest was pretty good, but I was less impressed at it, since it really seemed to in many spots just belabor the examples that were in Endless Forms, making me feel like a third of the book was “The Story So Far: A Recap”. I know… I’m whiny – I bought a new book and wanted totally new examples :)
The Ancestor’s Tale in the club-over-your-head coffee table book version is still my favorite book overall of all the evolution books for the layman. Add a little evo-devo in there and I think I’d have a nerdgasm.
Rey -> Making of the Fittest is in Atheism? What the…? Did you move any of the Exploring Evolution books over to the religious or new age section as well to more properly reflect its supernatural basis? :)
Ritchie: No, I’m not quite on that side of the reshelving wars. However, two cover-out copies of Vic Stenger’s Failed Hypothesis were on top, which I thought was kinda cool.
I’m intrigued by this coffee-table edition of Ancestor’s Tale though. Saw the cover of it on Wikipedia, but couldn’t find it on Amazon. I want physical dimensions.
I picked that up randomly at the library and loved it. (I don’t remember finding any of it too difficult.) Any other layman books on evo-devo out there?
I read it a couple of months back, and I’ll just say what some others have said…I’m not a biologist but I’m interested in biology, and he wrote it for people like me. I really enjoyed it. I feel I now have a reasonable layman’s understanding of something I was previously very hazy about.
I think it complements (rather than is antagonistic to) the Dawkins/gene frequencies approach. Dawkins has always seemed very hand waving on how genes express as features visible to selection, and this tells me stuff about that.
PZ,
Clearly it is time for you to write your book! Come on, you know you want to!
PZ,
How soon can we expect to see some excerpts from the book? You know that’s how you build up the buzz for new releases these days, right?
Time to learn about this stuff, step out of the physics world for a bit, so I bought two! One as a gift.
Thanks for the review.
I would not say that Making of the Fittest is in any sense an atheist book, but inasmuch as Carroll is very upfront in his anti-creationism and specifically addresses the fact that there is nothing intelligently designed about organisms, the book is atheistic in the sense that all real science must be. But shelving it on an atheism end-cap is just silly. If possible, it makes even LESS sense than shelving Behe, Dembski, Johnson, etc., in biology.
I haven’t read the book yet but plan on doing so. A book I am currently reading is The Origins of Order. Its by Stuart Kauffman and is pretty good so far. Anyone else read it?
That’s me. Developmental biology is the area I most regret overlooking. Thanks for the heads-up.
It’ll be my next read.
PZ, I was disappointed too! Although I cannot really say it was Dr. Carroll’s fault. I simply want to know more… more than is probably known…
The mystery of development was the most facinating question when I studied biology in the late 70’s. I went on to be an engineer – yes some of us took many college level courses in biology (actually I was a biochem major(okay pre-med) first then MSEE).
I am scarfing up every detail all you folks write. I appreciate the blog medium, it helps keep us outsiders informed.
PaulH wrote:
Heh, I’m working on a PhD in cognitive science, and my planned dissertation topic involves an evo-devo model of the mammalian neocortex with artificial neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. I’d like to generalize the encoding scheme to 3D body plans, but I’d also like to finish within a decade.
“I realized what the real problem was: he didn’t write book for me, the inconsiderate bastard, he wrote it for all those people who maybe haven’t taken a single course or read any other books in the subject of developmental biology.”
How gracious of you.
Loc,
stop showing off, that book (Origins of Order) is not popular science!! I had a go, but only because it was relevant to my work and then didn’t get very far because it takes way too much effort. From what I have heard people have been having trouble applying the ideas to anything useful, but it’s definitely a good book. But not in any way targeted towards the audience of Endless Forms most beautiful or the ancestor’s tale.
“in other words, I am so stealing Carroll’s work”
Isn’t that how great teachers and/or Mark Mothersbaugh truly evolve?
.
I am a software developer but with a lot of interest in learning about biology and evolution, any other book recommendations for a newbie?
I am a software developer but with a lot of interest in learning about biology and evolution, any other book recommendations for a newbie?
Oliver,
I’m only in the first chapter, the history of evolution. It hasn’t become daunting yet and actually starts out like popular science. My professor gave it to me and he didn’t find it too hard. However, I wasn’t showing off. If it is difficult, I’ll definitely struggle with it.
Here is a sad OT story.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653653,00.html
“Are We Failing Our Geniuses?”
Interesting article.
Have you read the part on funding at the bottom of the first page? As they say… No Child’s Behind Left.
Interesting article.
Have you read the part on funding at the bottom of the first page? As they say… No Child’s Behind Left.
Loc,
all the best with that book, go for it, I hope I’ll find the time one day to give it the attention it deserves myself. I also read the first chapter, but then stopped once it moved into nK models and spinglasses.
Thank you PZ, I’ve just bought the book. No thanks to you, I might add! :D
I really love your reviewing style, wonderful critique, and here is something I definitely need to properly learn. :)