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Evolution, Second Edition. Douglas J. Futuyma.

Article in Integrative and Comparative Biology · November 2009

DOI: 10.1093/icb/icp095

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722
this book to anyone working on communication, as it
would be beneficial to those interested in both human
and nonhuman animal systems. Although communi-
cative flexibility is often mentioned in the literature,
the range of issues is rarely compiled in a single
volume of papers. As such, this unique book is likely
to be a useful resource for years to come.
Reference
Tomasello M. 2008. The origins of human communication.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cory T. Miller
Cortical Systems and Behavior Laboratory
Evolution, Second Edition. Douglas J.
Futuyma.
Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2009. 633 pp. ISBN
978-0-87893-223-8 (hardcover), $108.95.
We can to a certain extent understand how it is
that there is so much beauty throughout nature;
for this may be largely attributed to the agency of
selection.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Darwin’s opus continues to be inspiration and
catalyst for discovery of the myriad patterns and
processes that distinguish life on Earth. So much has
happened in the past 200 years to advance a science
already standing on a sturdy foundation that
evolution cannot be considered a modest topic to
cover in a textbook, even one more than 600 pages
long. Given the truth in Dobzhansky’s assertion that
nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of
evolution, a writer of a textbook on this subject is
basically up against trying to present to students a
work dealing with practically all of biology.
Doug Futuyma has done precisely that in ways that
almost make me want to be an undergraduate again,
so that I can dedicate more hours to poring over the
pages of his wonderful text. There is such a wealth of
information in these pages that only a full-on course
would come close to doing it justice—it is really a
one-stop-shop for up-to-date assessments of what we
do and do not know about evolution. There are
chapters and sections on just about everything. The
mainstays of Darwin’s triumph are all there, of course:
phylogenetics, natural selection, variation, adaptation,
the fossil record. . . . But to this pantheon have been
added pieces that Darwin did not have at hand:
the synthesis, heterochrony, allometry, tectonics,
Book Reviews
Department of Psychology
University of California, SanDiego
La Jolla, CA 92093,USA
E-mail: corymiller@ucsd.edu
Michael Osmanski
Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
E-mail: mosmanski@jhu.edu
Advance Access publication August 25, 2009
doi:10.1093/icb/icp087
radiometric dating, and especially genetics and evo-
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devo—not to mention lucid armories for the fight
against creationism and other anti-intellectual forces
that would find the scholarly mass of the rest of the
book an affront to their misguided sensitivities.
Futuyma deftly covers the issues of why “creation
science” is oxymoronic, and how it squeezes itself into
new shapes to confound and confuse those not yet
equipped to evaluate the difference between fact,
theory, science and ideological obfuscation. The book
is worth every penny for this alone and as a bonus,
you get one of the most on-point Doonesbury
cartoons in the history of the funny pages.
Speaking of the comics, many figures are further
illuminated by little “cartoon speech balloons” that
spring from pieces of the illustration that might
require parenthetical explanation. I found these
extremely eye-catching, useful, and actually charming
in cases in which the diagrams and the subjects therein
seem to be speaking to the reader like the characters
from some evolutionary funny pages (the cetaceans on
p. 86 were great in this regard). There is hardly a page
of this book lacking in skillfully chosen and crafted
imagery. That there is indeed “so much beauty
throughout nature” comes through not only in the
aesthetic joy of things like “Anomalocaris”, but in the
theoretical appeal of the colorfully coded maps and
graphs that reveal their inner beauty in educational
messages of great impact.
In attempting to teach phylogenetics to under-
graduates engaged in our own programs at the
California Academy of Sciences, I have had to try
and find a suitable book that covers the basics of
evolutionary biology but that also emphasizes cladis-
tics. I have gone to various specialized texts on
phylogenetic theory, but I am starting to rethink that
approach in favor of a book such as Futuyma’s.
 Book Reviews
My students will get more than enough phylogenetics,
set in the context of Darwinian theory where it
belongs, from his book. Better yet, the students will
have in a single resource a primer on so many of the
other tools they will need to perform and understand
the research projects in which they find themselves
occupied. Where else would I find a text on evolution
that succinctly covers some basic statistics right next
to the seminal work of the Grants on Darwin’s
finches? Or contains such a pithy piece of the nitty-
gritty as what distinguishes a holotype from a paratype
next to a reproduction of Darwin’s only figure from
the Origin? The richness goes on and on, and it is hard
to know where to stop in trying to express my
happiness at having this book in my library.
But wait, there is more! On the flyleaf, and in many
places in the body of the text, there are invitations to
visit the Evolution, Second Edition website. There,
students and instructors will find an indispensable
resource that includes an online version of the
Not By Design: Retiring Darwin’s
Watchmaker. John O. Reiss.
Berkeley, CA: UC Press, 2009. 440 pp. ISBN 978-05-202-
5893-8, $49.95.
Georges Cuvier served as one of the founders of
vertebrate paleontology in the 19th century, and yet
he is often viewed as an example of stubborn
orthodoxy during an era that heralded significant
new milestones and insights regarding evolution and
the history of life on our planet. Frequently lauded
for his anatomical expertise, Cuvier’s holistic view of
organisms as integrated functional systems led to his
legendary ability to predict the form and function of
entire species from extremely meager samples of
fossil remains. Although he was instrumental in
establishing the reality of extinction of species and in
developing the concept of stratigraphy using index
fossils, he strongly resisted the emerging theories of
organic evolution and “transformism,” arguing that
any small, random change in physiology or morph-
ology would disrupt the delicate balance that allowed
an organism to function and, ultimately, to survive
(Rudwick 1997).
Reiss, however, suggested that Cuvier’s principle of
“conditions for existence” has been misunderstood by
generations of evolutionary biologists, including
Darwin himself, and actually forms a critical founda-
tion for an accurate understanding of evolution. He
presented evidence that Darwin’s natural selection is
based upon an unnecessary analogy to an intelligent
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glossary appearing in the book, a way to generate
flash cards, problem sets pertinent to each chapter,
chapter outlines, and chapter summaries. But for me
there is nothing quite like flipping the pages of the
volume itself, which appropriately comes out in a year
full of Darwin-inspired anniversary celebrations. I am
surprised to say this about a textbook of all things, but
there is carefully selected beauty here of a kind that
could serve to inspire and inform students at so many
levels, including those of us who are students for life.
Rich Mooi
Department of Invertebrate Zoology & Geology
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118, USA
E-mail: rmooi@calacademy.org
Downloaded from http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on March 5, 2013
Advance Access publication September 18, 2009
doi:10.1093/icb/icp095
designer, in which “the achieved result of the evolu-
tionary process is seen as a previously vacant place in
the economy of nature” (p. 353). Cuvier’s principle of
conditions for existence of life, however, avoids this
downfall by rigorously maintaining the connection
between existence and adaptation, whilst Darwin
decoupled the two phenomena, “since without this
separation, the species would have gone extinct before
it could adapt to the new environmental conditions”
(p. 133). Even Alfred Russell Wallace is cited as
initially recognizing and resisting the teleology inher-
ent in Darwin’s language in On the Origin of Species,
although later in his career his refusal to accept
human evolution led him into his own brand of
teleological explanations (Shermer 2002, pp. 229–
231). In contrast, Cuvier’s principle of conditions for
existence states that any organism must already be
satisfying its conditions for existence, by virtue of the
fact that it does indeed exist in order for us to observe
it. Consequently, the idea of organisms being
“selected” for some hypothetically superior state is
unnecessary and misleading.
The issue of teleology in Darwin’s theory has been
the subject of vigorous debate amongst both
scientists and philosophers. Darwin addressed the
issue with his contemporary critics, dismissing
accusations of teleology and anthropomorphism as
“superficial objections,” that took his metaphors too
literally and citing chemists’ discussion of atomic
“affinities” as another example of harmless literary
language in scientific discourse (Darwin 1859 [1872],