Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

Spencer Wells
4.07/5 (1218 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
Spencer Wells traces human evolution back to our very first ancestor in The Journey of Man. Along the way, he sums up the explosive effect of new techniques in genetics on the field of evolutionary biology and all available evidence from the fossil record. Wells's seemingly sexist title is purposeful: he argues that the Y chromosome gives us a unique opportunity to follow our migratory heritage back to a sort of Adam, just as earlier work in mitochondrial DNA allowed the identification of Eve, mother of all Homo sapiens. While his descriptions of the advances made by such luminary scientists as Richard Lewontin and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza can be dry, Wells comes through with sparkling metaphors when it counts, as when he compares genetic drift to a bouillabaisse recipe handed down through a village's generations. Though finding our primal male is an exciting prospect, the real revolution Wells describes is racial. Or rather, nonracial, as he reiterates the scientific truth that our notions of what makes us different from each other are purely cultural, not based in biology. The case for an "out of Africa" scenario of human migration is solid in this book, though Wells makes it clear when he is hypothesizing anything controversial. Readers interested in a fairly technical, but not overwhelming, summary of the remarkable conclusions of 21st-century human evolutionary biology will find The Journey of Man a perfect primer. --Therese Littleton
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
unknown
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
0812971469
ISBN13:
9780812971460
kindle Asin:
B009MYAOQU

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

Spencer Wells
4.07/5 (1218 ratings)
Read Download
Spencer Wells traces human evolution back to our very first ancestor in The Journey of Man. Along the way, he sums up the explosive effect of new techniques in genetics on the field of evolutionary biology and all available evidence from the fossil record. Wells's seemingly sexist title is purposeful: he argues that the Y chromosome gives us a unique opportunity to follow our migratory heritage back to a sort of Adam, just as earlier work in mitochondrial DNA allowed the identification of Eve, mother of all Homo sapiens. While his descriptions of the advances made by such luminary scientists as Richard Lewontin and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza can be dry, Wells comes through with sparkling metaphors when it counts, as when he compares genetic drift to a bouillabaisse recipe handed down through a village's generations. Though finding our primal male is an exciting prospect, the real revolution Wells describes is racial. Or rather, nonracial, as he reiterates the scientific truth that our notions of what makes us different from each other are purely cultural, not based in biology. The case for an "out of Africa" scenario of human migration is solid in this book, though Wells makes it clear when he is hypothesizing anything controversial. Readers interested in a fairly technical, but not overwhelming, summary of the remarkable conclusions of 21st-century human evolutionary biology will find The Journey of Man a perfect primer. --Therese Littleton
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
unknown
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
0812971469
ISBN13:
9780812971460
kindle Asin:
B009MYAOQU

More Books

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time

Jonathan Weiner

Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Neil Shubin

Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine

Randolph M. Nesse

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

Carl Zimmer

Записки Кирпатого Мефістофеля. Повісті та оповідання

Volodymyr Vynnychenko

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoğlu

The Liminal Zone (Junji Ito)

Junji Ito

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

Philip Gourevitch

The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

Boris Johnson

Pölsan

Torgny Lindgren

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins