Evolution

I'm a senior in biology, and have been using this book for my evolution class. Well, not much can be said other than it's great. Well written, good use of the technical language, very nice examples, etc, etc, etc...

Great book of knowledge towards understanding evolution and it's concepts. Even if your just curious and want to know how evolution works this is the book for you.

This looks to be the major text on evolution for undergrads, and it's a good one. However, it is essentially a text on evolutionary science and principles, and so if your interest is in a more detailed account of the specifics of organismal evolution at the level of the family or order you will find only spotty examples. There's quite a bit of population biology and quantitative genetics. Only in the final chapters is there a discussion of evo-devo and the importance in evolution of mechanisms such as mutations in regulatory regions of proteins, gene duplication and divergence, and the modularity of protein structure and how exon shuffling can instantly produce new proteins with new functions. These genetic mechanisms are much more important in evolution than mutations in the structural regions of proteins, which tend to be highly conserved even at the phylogenetic level. The book has plenty of color illustrations and is well written. It's a sad commentary on our times that the final chapter had to be written on refuting creationist nonsense, but DJF does a particularly excellent job here, and for those interested it can be read without having to read the rest of the text. In fact I think this chapter should be published as a small monograph and made required reading for all high school students so as to inoculate them against the pernicious lies creationists try to propogate. An understanding of evolution is critical for everybody, and yet only a tiny perentage of US citizens have a grasp of even the most basic evolutionary facts and principles.

I must say that this is one of the best evolutionary biology textbooks available for an undergraduate student. I personally used the previous edition before graduation thus this one was not available yet but the new edition seems to be even more elegant and informatic. And the most imortant thing of all - it is quite easy to understand as other Futuyma's textbooks as well. Of course, it is a kind of thin and most ceartinly it is not enough for a person willing to get e.g. a PhD on evoltonary biology or ecology. It still remains a good companion for those whose field is not specifically evobio and of course, as I mentioned before, it is brilliant for undergraduates. If anyone asked me what should be the student's first gate to evolution I would surely recommend this texbook.

This is the up-to-date edition of a standard in the field, recommended reading for the serious biologist. An understanding of biology hinges on an understanding of evolution. The book reads very easily, but is not "dumbed down" in any way. It covers the subject widely. It is well illustrated.