Explaining Life Through Evolution, Prosanta Chakrabarty
Explaining Life Through Evolution, Prosanta Chakrabarty
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Explaining Life Through Evolution

Author: Prosanta Chakrabarty

Narrator: Alexander Thomas

Unabridged: 4 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/04/2024

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

The story of four billion years of life on EarthLooking forward to a book that explains life? Well, here it is! Explaining Life Through Evolution opens a window to the four billion year history of the millions of species we see on this planet. This book does not simply narrate the story of evolution: It brings to light who we are and where we came from. As humans we often focus on identifying our differences, no matter how small; Prosanta Chakrabarty demystifies our perceived differences and emphasizes our similarities. As more and more people take ancestry tests, sending their DNA samples and money to genealogy testing centres, we need to be educated on what the results actually mean scientifically; and we all have to decide together what it means socially. He thinks we should be celebrating the fact that our diversity comes from the same little drops of water and sunlight, each of us just shining a little differently as seen through the prism of evolution.Prosanta encourages us to think of life as being like a book, one that is always in the making. What we see living around us today are just the last few pages. If we look out on to the millions of species that we share this planet with we can trace their histories, and ours, back through nearly four billion years of evolution. We can also think of all the living things around as the young leaves on an ancient and gigantic 'Tree of Life', all of us connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors.Evocative, comprehensive and thought-provoking, this is a book which will compel you to reimagine life.

About The Author

Prosanta Chakrabarty is an evolutionary biologist at Louisiana State University where he is a professor and curator. He is a Senior Fellow at TED, a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He grew up in New York City; his undergraduate degree is from McGill University in Montreal (the city where he was born) and his PhD is from the University of Michigan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Udit on July 04, 2022

The book is an attempt to demystify evolution by setting things in perspective. There is nothing extraordinarily great in the book but yet it makes a great read because of the simplicity. Most of the points referred or discussed in the book are already known to scientist, professors and well read re......more

Goodreads review by Lewis on October 09, 2024

This author was inspired by a recent piece of legislation in his home state of Louisiana that ordered the teaching of creationism in state schools. Firstly, good on him for fighting back against the knuckle-draggers of the the religious right. We need more of this courage. However.... This is not a g......more

Goodreads review by Kim on October 31, 2023

A surprisingly readable and enjoyable book. It tackles many of the currently held erroneous preconceptions about evolution, including the ever popular "it's just a theory" argument. It explains that evolution is not a straight line of changing organisms but more of a very large family tree in which......more

Goodreads review by Dena on February 12, 2024

I found this book at the store and bought it because I've always been interested in biology and wanted to know how evolution works. The author is a university professor, and his ability to simplify a complex topic and make it digestible for the average person is apparent in this book. I learned so m......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on December 08, 2023

This is a great review or introduction to evolution. The pacing is good and the information isn’t overwhelming. The author also sites many primary sources and other books that allows for the reader to seek out additional information on topics of interest. Four stars because there is some “soap box”......more