Reading The Making of the Fittest is like spending a few hours with an extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic dinner companion

This is a fast-paced tour of evolution and an eloquent refutation of Intelligent Design from a world class authority in DNA and biology

DNA evidence not only solves crimes - if you know how to read it, it can also reveal the history of life on earth. This fast-paced book guides the general reader on a tour of the DNA record left by three billion years of evolution to see how the fittest were made. And what a eye-opening tour it is - one featuring immortal genes, fossil genes, and genes that bear the scars of past battles with terrible diseases. Natural selection eliminates harmful changes and embraces beneficial ones, and each change leaves its signature on a species' DNA codes. For example, the Antarctic ice fish today has no red blood cells; yet a fossilized gene for hemoglobin remains in its DNA, showing that the fish has adapted over 55 million years by losing the red blood cells that thicken blood and make it harder to pump in extreme cold.The fish has developed other features that allow it to absorb and circulate blood without hemoglobin. Carroll points out that by examining the DNA of these ice fish species, it's possible to map its origins as well as the history of the South Atlantic's geology.

He also uses dolphins, colobus monkeys, pigeons, fruit flys and microbes to demonstrate how deeply evolution is etched in DNA.

For more than a century, we were restricted to studying evolution from the outside, observing its progress only through the fossil record. No longer. We can now also read the DNA record. As well as containing the operating instructions for everyday existence and for making the next generation, DNA contains a vast and detailed history of the development of life on Earth. It is a living chronicle of evolution, pinpointing the precise changes that have enabled Earth's marvelous creatures to inhabit the planet's shifting environments, from the freezing waters of the Antarctic to the lush canopy of the rainforest.
Our new ability to read the DNA record has resoundingly confirmed Darwin's main principles and has led to some surprising discoveries. We now know that there is a set of "immortal" genes in the DNA of nearly every creature, from bacteria to whales. These genes first emerged three billion years ago and have survived the constant onslaught of mutations that would have erased them eons ago were it not for natural selection. We have also discovered fossil genes - areas of DNA that have fallen into disuse and decay. Such relics illuminate the traits and capabilities that have been abandoned as species, including humans, evolved new lifestyles.
Perhaps the most profound surprise is that evolution can and does repeat itself. Identical adaptations have occurred in species as different as butterflies and humans - a discovery that overthrows the notion that if we replayed the history of life, all of the outcomes would be different.
Captivating and lucid, The Making of the Fittest delves deep into the DNA record to reveal not just how the fittest survive but also how they are made.

A generation ago, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene changed our view of the living world and the evolutionary forces that shaped it. Sean B. Carroll's The Making of the Fittest is destined to be the watershed book for the new generation.
"Of all the scientists in the world today, there is no one with whom Charles Darwin would rather spend an evening than Sean Carroll" Michael Ruse, author of The Evolution-Creation Struggle

Sean B. Carroll is an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His scientific discoveries have been featured in Time and The New York Times, and Carroll himself has written articles for Natural History and Playboy. His first book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful was a 2005 Top Popular Science Book of the Year (USA Today). He and his wife and children reside in Madison, Wisconsin.

2008-06-22 Superb

All species' lifeforms are encoded in DNA sequences. In Humans this is 7 billion characters long. During replication, not all characters are copied correctly. For example, in humans it is estimated 125 or so are copied incorrectly. In certain cases this can mean the resultant amino acids and proteins, which the DNA encodes will be different. This is a mutation. If the mutation provides an advantage, natural selection will mean it is probable it will propagate throughout the species.

DNA provides detail of the mirco mechanisms and strong evidence when critical events happened in evolutionary history. We don't actually need a fossil record to explain evolution. This is the main theisis in this book.

For example, Old World Monkeys and Apes have trichromatic vision whereas New World monkeys are just dichromats. Why? When? How? Carroll explains all in succinct detail by locating the exact location of the relevant gene and then working through the sequence of events.

He uses simple mathematics, running through some probability examples and statistics analysis to the point that one has a full understand of the mirco details, feeling there are no "missing links". It's reductionism at its very best.

He then shows why understanding infectious diseases requires understanding evolution. We are involved in germ warfare. For example, in areas where malaria or typhoid fever is endemic, the genetic profiles of humans shows that they have evolved genes which provide resistance to some forms of these diseases. The problem of course is that these diseases are also evolving (not just to human resistance but to the antibiotics that are used to treat them). Our hole approach to combating these diseases is shaped by our understanding of evolution - right at the level of DNA. For example, it is the reason why triple antiretroviral drugs are used in treating HIV AIDS.

Carroll is superb at explaining micro details. The only criticism I would have is a quick run through speciation and the Popperian scientific method would have helped many who do not understand the big picture, how evolution explains new species being created and how the scientific method validates that explaination. Even though 20 minutes on google will give all that, it would have been helpful for those who do not have any scientific acumen.

The book concludes with some of the challenges facing Science. This may manifest in many forms from political circles to religious fundamentalists. When one factors in pertinent realities such as climate change it only becomes all too obvious how important it is we have a scientific understanding of the world and we make the best judgments from that.

I have read several books on evolution and this right up there with the best. It's just as good as anything I have read from Dawkins and doesn't have any of the caustic anti-religion undertones. He explicitly states that the Pope John Paul II publicly accepted evolution as do most Protestants Churches; Christian creationists and fundamentalists are really only a minority.

It is a book which contains superb explanations of the micro details of evolution. It is full of helpful diagrams, charts and graphs which really help understand the concepts being explained. Don't get it from the library, buy it because you'll want to keep it.