Thread of Life
About this book
In the century since Charles Darwin's death in 1882, science has come far toward unraveling one of the central mysteries of nature- the long, tangled story of the evolution of life on earth. Each generation of scientists has made major new discoveries, answered old questions, posed new ones. As knowledge accumulates, theories become more complex and subtle, questions more fundamental and difficult. Today, for instance, atomic "clocks" put the origins of life at more than a billion years ago, yet the nature of life's progenitors remain elusive. At lest three million known species of living things run, hoop, creep, slither, skitter, flitter, flap, flop, swim or entwine their roots in infinitely varied habitats from mountain top to ocean deep-and they are only one percent of all the species that have ever lived. How did life begin? How did it achieve its astonishing diversity? By what process did it adapt to so many environments? And what do the most recent finds, the best methods, the most penetrating observations reveal about these and the other great evolutionary puzzles? The Thread of Life, Roger Lewin has undertaken a journey through space and time to bring together the story of evolution, a story of continuity and time to bring together the story of evolution, a story of continuity and change, of life forms strange and familiar, of moving continents and shifting seas. He has visited many lands-the mountains of British Colombia, the Great Rift Valley of Africa, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Galapagos Islands-to see the evidence first-hand. He has prowled the corridors of noted research institutions-the Smithsonian among them-to discover how recent findings in geology, paleontology, biochemistry-even astronomy-support or deflate various evolutionary theories. Thread of Life is a profound and exciting tale of the processes that have touched all living things, even changed the very face of our planet. We are all products of evolution...