My top 20 evolution books. 12 February 2025

Darwin Day 12 February 2025

Last year population geneticist Zach Hancock made a video 10 most influential papers on evolution. His list is a personal list and reflects his areas of research: Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution. Although this covers a large part of what is called 'Evolutionary Biology' today, my own list would be significantly different. However, I hadn't made such a list yet. When a visitor of my website asked whether I could produce  my own top-20 books, I decided that after 20 years of devouring books that have 'evolution' or 'Darwin' in the title, it was about time!

Surprise: this requires some additional thinking! What are the most important books? Choices have to be made. Perhaps the biggest difference with Hancock's list and with many of the popular evolution textbooks is that I have sought to include books that place evolution in its planetary and cosmological context. Life happens on a planet, so this fact must show up in the evolution textbooks. Practically speaking, Evolutionary biology textbooks are aimed at biology students preparing for a job in biological research, mostly lab research, sometimes field work. Evolutionary biology has become a specialized field separated from related scientific disciplines such as ecology, geology, paleontology, climatology, cosmology and Earth System Science. But all these disciplinary borders are created for practical purposes only. Nature does not know these borders. They are artificial. They are created by humans [1].

An Evolution textbook should discuss questions such as: Why is the Earth a habitable planet? What are the necessary conditions? How likely is the origin of a planet suitable for life? (introducing astrobiology and Earth systems science). Does a habitable planet require a moon? Is a solar system like ours inevitable? Is a planet with oceans and continents necessary for complex life? Could complex life originate on a planet with only oceans or only continents? Does life require a geologically active planet with continental drift and vulcanism? Do we need a planet that is rotating around/on its axis? a tilted axis? an orbital period of one year? Does the earth have the right size for life or could it be significantly smaller or larger? What about the composition of the atmosphere? Assuming the Periodic Table of Elements, how many chemical elements are necessary for life? How likely is it that they are present on a planet in the right proportions? Which features of life are universal and which are earth-bound? Is the origin of life on the earth inevitable? Is life necessarily a far-from-equilibrium system? Is life necessarily cellular? Why DNA? Is DNA the only possible carrier of hereditary information? Why proteins? Is the DNA-protein system the only possible form of life? Could proteins be replaced with RNA? Why exactly this genetic code? Are there alternative genetic codes possible? Is the genetic code a 'frozen accident' or is it necessary or both? Is the genetic code earth-bound or truly universal? Is the universal genetic code the main proof of common descent of all life on earth? Is photosynthesis a necessary precondition for the evolution of animal life? Is the autotroph-heterotroph system necessary for the evolution of complex life? Is oxygen necessary for any form of life on any planet? What is the likelihood that life on earth has existed uninterrupted for 3,5 billion years without going extinct? Why did it take so long for life to invent multi-cellularity? Is multicellularity the most difficult transition in evolution? Is the soma-germline distinction (Weizmann) necessary for complex life? Must complex life necessarily be of the haploid-diploid system? Could complex life be haploid? Is Mendelian heredity necessary for complex life? Is sex necessary? Is the prokaryote-eukaryote dichotomy necessary or could there be intermediates? Must complex life originate from endosymbiosis harboring mitochondria? Or could evolution have developed alternatives for energy production? Does the human species need exactly 46 chromosomes? Do humans require 25,000 protein-coding genes? Do we require 3.1 billion base pairs in our genome? Why do we have so much junk DNA? Are there alternatives for all these features? Combining the probability of all events in the history of the Earth, is the origin of 'intelligent life' inevitable? Does evolution need millions or billions of species in order to be able to create humans? Is natural selection, that is the differential reproduction of heritable variants, the only way to create (complex) life? Must 'intelligent life' necessarily be a warm-blooded mammal with internal fertilization and gestation?

Ideally, evolutionary biology textbooks should discuss these questions to inspire the students, to stimulate the imagination, to ask exciting new questions and to make evolution an attractive study. Furthermore, both biology students and evolution doubters alike must be confronted with the fact that 'Darwin' and 'evolution' stand for evolutionary processes lasting 4.5 billion years on planet Earth. That planet is part of a planetary system which itself has a history. And that this planetary system itself is part of a universe which itself has a history. So, Darwin-doubters and evolution-deniers should be made aware that the theory of evolution is not an isolated biological theory that could be denied or replaced without consequences for the rest of the scientific knowledge. Textbooks should not make the same error of teaching evolution in isolation.

"There is grandeur in this view of life,
with its several powers, having been originally breathed
into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling
on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
have been, and are being, evolved."
Charles Darwin

Surely, evolution textbooks are intended to prepare students for a research job in a biology department. Laboratory science is based on isolating organisms from the environment and from the whole earth system. But that is not a good reason for textbook authors to neglect the way in which evolution is connected with the earth as a system (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere). The history of our planet shows that there were many geological disasters, resulting in several large extinctions, despite the fact that there is a continuous line of descent from the first forms of life to our own species. Students can not understand evolution if they don't understand why the earth is a habitable planet. Yes, in practice researchers have to specialize, they can't be allround scientists, but biology students should learn the essentials of the whole system. You can't have a scientifically correct worldview if it is restricted by the borders of your own scientific discipline. My choice of books is based on these criteria. A textbook that meets all these criteria doesn't exist, but taken together the following books come close to the perfect evolution textbook. They are listed here in no particular order:

1. John Maynard Smith & Eörs Szathmáry (1999) The Origins of Life. From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language (review) is a popular version of The Major Transitions in Evolution (1995). The authors are authorities in the field of evolutionary biology and write in a logical and factual style. They focus on the central and often unsolved problems in evolutionary theory and discuss them in a way understandable for the non-professional reader. A really unique achievement.
   
2. Jerry A. Coyne (2009) Why Evolution Is True. We still need a book that focuses on the evidence for evolution without the technical details present in a standard textbook. I hope an updated edition will be published (and a separate chapter about common descent will be added).
   
3. S J Gould (2002) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. (review). Not many people will want to read this intimidating book from page 1 to page 1433, but what he wrote about the logical structure of evolutionary theory is very useful (chapter 1,2,7).
   
4. Brian K. Hall and Benedikt Hallgrímsson (2008) Strickberger's Evolution, Fourth Edition and Fifth edition 2013. This textbook includes the planetary context and geological timescales. Compare with Stearns and Hoekstra below. Listed on my Introduction page.
   
5. Mark Ridley (2000) Mendel's Demon. (review). A popular and educational account of the fact and consequences of the eukaryotic merger, uni-parental inheritance of mitochondria, Mendelian inheritance, sexual reproduction, error threshold, mutational meltdown. These are the fundamental issues in evolutionary biology. More important than Dawkins' Selfish Gene.
   
6. Nick Lane (2002) Oxygen. The Molecule that made the World. (blog). This work was an eye-opener for me. According to Lane, Oxygen made the existence of complex animals possible. More than that: he shows how life itself created a habitable planet. Absolutely crucial. Lane connects evolution, geology and biochemistry. Oxygen is a prime example of niche construction on a planetary scale. Amazingly, this fact is not reflected in the evolution textbooks. Quotes: "Viewing evolution through the prism of oxygen gives us some surprising perspectives on our lives and deaths. If water is the foundation of life, then oxygen is its engine. Without oxygen, life on Earth would never have got beyond a slime in the oceans, and the Earth would probably have ended its days in the sterility of Mars or Venus." p.340. "Oxygenic photosynthesis only ever evolved once" (p.145).
7. James Lovelock (1988) The Ages of Gaia. A Biography of our Living Earth. (review). Lovelock is important because he pointed out that the atmosphere of a planet harboring life is in a chemical disequilibrium. This is a signature of the presence of life on any planet. Again: one cannot have full understanding of evolution without its planetary context. Darwin didn't know this. Now, we do know. It's time this fact is included in the textbooks.
   
8. Lynn Margulis (2002) Acquiring Genomes. A theory of the origins of species (review). Margulis deserved the Nobel Prize for the theory of eukaryotic endosymbiosis. A revolution in biology. She is often ignored in the textbooks because of her criticism of neo-Darwinism.
   
9. F. John Odling-Smee (2003) Niche construction. The neglected process in evolution (review). The reality of niche construction is undeniable. One can disagree about the extent, but not about its existence. Organisms do not passively adapt to their environments. Niche construction ought to be discussed in the evolution textbooks. Compare with Dawkins Extended Phenotype.
   
10. Stuart Kauffman (1995) At Home in the Universe (review). This theoretical biologist had a huge impact on my thinking. This book was published 30 years ago, but still important. Kauffman developed a theory about life and the origin of life build on first principles (auto-catalysis). He is a critic of the gene- and DNA-centered worldview of Neo-Darwinism.
    
11. Kevin W. Plaxco, Michael Gross (2006) Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction. The emphasis is on the 'biology' part of astro-biology. Putting life in its planetary and cosmic context. The best popular introduction with the proper amount of detail.
    
12. Paul Davies (1999) The Fifth Miracle. The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life. Important chapter 'Against the tide" (chapter 2): "One of the principal ways in which life distinguishes itself from the rest of nature is its remarkable ability to go "against the tide" and create order out of chaos". Chapter 4: 'The message in the Machine' contains a superb explanation of the fundamental concepts "order", "organization", "entropy", "chance", "randomness", "information", "complexity". Particularly his insightful explanation of what it means that genomes contain information. Davies explains life in a way no biologist could have done.
    
13. Tim Lenton (2016) Earth System Science: A Very Short Introduction. Recommended introduction. Earth system science must be included in the evolution textbooks simply in order to understand why the earth has been a habitable planet for billions of years.
    
14. Stephen Stearns, Rolf Hoekstra (2005) Evolution. Second edition. I include this evolution textbook (now 20 years old) because of the treatment of 'The history of life' (83 pages) including a chapter 'Key events in evolution' and 'Major events in the geological theater'. Unfortunately no new edition has been published.
15. Ernst Mayr (1982) The Growth of Biological Thought. A conceptual and historical overview of Darwinism by one of the founders of neo-Darwinism. Very rich in content and complete. I learned a lot from this book. Very important is his identification of Darwin's Five Theories (page 505-510). A shorter version of this work is: One Long Argument. Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (1991).
16. Tibor Gánti (2003) The Principles of Life with commentary by James Griesemer & Eörs Szathmáry (review). His definition of life is superior. Based on first principles. Withstood the test of time. A standard by which all other definitions must be compared. It continues to have a fundamental influence on my thinking on what 'life' is and how the problem of the origin of life must be approached.
    
17. Sean Carroll (2001, 2004) From DNA to Diversity. Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. See also: Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (2005). A beautifully illustrated popular exposition of evo-devo. Animal development is under genetic control, and genetic modifications create animal diversity.
    
18. Johnjoe McFadden (2021) Life Is Simple: How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe. Not about evolution. An illuminating history of science viewed from Occam's perspective. In a sense, Occam started the scientific revolution in the 14th century. Original. Very well written. A rewarding and entertaining read.
    
19. Edward Dolnick (2017) The Seeds of Life. (blog in Dutch). Evolution cannot be understood without a good understanding of sexual reproduction. The struggle to eliminate stubborn misconceptions about sex. What are the contributions of males and females to the next generation?
    
20. David Sedley (2008) Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (review). Greek philosopher Epicurus was opposed to creationism and advanced a non-creationist explanation of adaptation. Paley argued against this Epicurean explanation. Darwin argued against Paley and strongly improved the Epicurean argument. Darwin in his historical and philosophical context.
    

Disclaimer: when a book is not on this list, it certainly doesn't mean it is unimportant! Very probably, it is on the Introduction page of my WDW website. If not, please leave a comment!

Finally, some books have wrong ideas, but nonetheless (or because of!) stimulated my thinking. Two of them are: 

Periannan Senapathy (1994) Independent Birth of Organisms. A New Theory That Distinct Organisms Arose Independently From The Primordial Pond Showing That Evolutionary Theories Are Fundamentally Incorrect. (review). This is an extreme DNA-centric view of life and the origin of life [1]. This book is wrong in unsuspected ways. Many problems are easy to find.  But, it took me many years to see the elephant in the room and formulate the most decisive argument against this theory. While unraveling the tangle of the facts and his arguments, I gained fundamental insights about the DNA-centric view of life, the origin of life and evolution in general. It showed me the best reasons why we need a theory of evolution!     

Michael Behe (1996) Darwin's Black Box. (review). Now nearly 30 years old. 'Irreducible Complexity' is an interesting potential falsifier of the theory of evolution by natural selection. According to Karl Popper, falsifiability is a requirement for a proper scientific theory. Michael Behe has been crucified over and over by the scientific community because he believes in Intelligent design. However, ID can safely be rejected without rejecting the idea of irreducible complexity as a potential falsifier. It highlights the fact the Darwinian gradualness has its challenges. It stimulated research in to seemingly irreducible complex biological systems in fruitful way.

Notes

1. "...if we want to create a synthesis, we must understand that evolution is not something that pertains exclusively to biology, but rather to all domains of reality. Nature knows nothing about disciplines." David Obon (2024) Evolution: the invention of creativity: a new unifying vision.
2. Craig Venter made in essence the same mistake as Senapathy. See also: František Baluška, Guenther Witzany (2014) Life is more than a computer running DNA software,  World J Biol Chem. (I think the authors didn't bring up the most important objection).