My education began in a one room school in rural western New York. A lonely, curious childhood led me to love reading, and to explore woods, fields, and creeks. After high school I had no expectations of college, but serendipity led me to earn science degrees from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts. Soon serendipity struck again: I was hired for a rookie editing/writing job at a children's science magazine. Lucky me, my curiosity about "how" and "why" questions led to being an award-winning author of 125 books, some for adults, nearly all children's nonfiction—about history, environmental problems, ecology, lives of scientists, and many creatures—including some that fascinated me as a kid.
I wrote
Billions of Years, Amazing Changes: The Story of Evolution
I believe that evolutionary biologist Dr. Jerry Coyne is a national treasure—a renowned scientist who writes clearly about the complexities of evolution.
I find it hard to name a more credible source for the evidence he presents here—from ancient fossils to recent observations that demonstrate that evolution is going on right now. That's why I asked him to check the manuscript of my book for accuracy—and was delighted when he wrote in its foreword "in your hands is the book I wish I had read when I was your age."
For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection.
Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many…
Author Daniel Loxton's words are delightfully illustrated.
I loved that the clearly written text is made more appealing by being broken up in mini-chapters, with titles that get to the heart of explaining evolution. For example, How Change Happens; Big Changes = New Species; How Do We Know That Evolution Happens?; Can We Ever See Evolution Happening?
Evolution is the process that created the terrible teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex and the complex human brain, clever enough to understand the workings of nature. Young readers will learn how a British naturalist named Charles Darwin studied nature and developed his now-famous concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest. And how modern-day science has added to our understanding of the theory of evolution. Can something as complex and wondrous as the natural world be explained by a simple theory? The answer is yes, and now Evolution explains how in a way that makes it easy to understand.
I am impressed by how the author packs into just 94 pages a wealth of basic information, and even some fascinating obscure details about the process of evolution.
It is generously illustrated with color photographs and charts. Drawings and captions show "How Fossils Form," "Geological Time," and "Evidence in the Rocks," and Anne Wanjie's text is inviting and clear.
This compelling text examines evolution, its definition, the scientific evidence that evolution has taken place, natural selection, Darwin’s Origin of Species, genetics and evolution, population genetics, patterns in evolution and species concepts, the story of life and geological time, and human evolution. The easy-to-follow narrative offers students additional biological information in sidebars, such as “Closeup” boxes that give details about main concepts, “Try This” boxes that provide safe experiments for readers to perform, “What Do You Think?” panels that challenge students’ reading comprehension, “Applications” boxes that describe how biological knowledge improves daily life, “Red Herring” boxes that profile failed theories,…
I used to wonder: where did Earth's amazing variety of animal and plant species come from, and how do new species arise?
The co-authors gave me a fascinating and thorough explanation from diverse sources, from populations of fruit flies in laboratories to wild creatures on geographically isolated islands. The latter I find especially fascinating—with the evidence from Hawaii, New Zealand, Madagascar, and other lands where a richness of unusual species live, thanks to evolution.
Published by Sinauer Associates, an imprint of Oxford University Press.
Over the last two decades, the study of speciation has expanded from a modest backwater of evolutionary biology into a large and vigorous discipline. Thus, the literature on speciation, as well as the number of researchers and students working in this area, has grown explosively. Despite these developments, there has been no book-length treatment of speciation in many years. As a result, both the seasoned scholar and the newcomer to evolutionary biology had no ready guide to the recent literature on speciation--a body of work that is enormous, scattered, and…
Like many people, I used to think that evolution is always a very slow process, producing changes over spans of many thousands of years.
Thompson clearly presents evidence that significant changes can happen quickly, in a few years. Global warming is causing rapid change in environments, including severe droughts that speed evolutionary changes in birds and insects.
You don't need stone fossils as evidence of evolution. You and I can see evolution happening right now, as animal populations respond to dramatic changes in their usual habitats.
At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In "Relentless Evolution", John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is…
"Lions and tigers and bears, Oh, My"—not to mention all of Earth's delightful variety of life: from sloths to cicadas, sunflowers to ferns—and deadly germs. This dazzling diversity exists through the process of evolution. And so I wrote about evolution, with details from history, key discoveries, monumental evidence, and new findings—in short, what we know and how we know it. This is a "children's book," —fifth grade and up, including adults. Many adult readers know that such books are much more accessible than scientific tomes—convenient shortcuts to gain a clear understanding of complex subjects. Whether focusing on shifting continents, fossils in stone or amber, or examples of evolution happening right now, this visually stunning book explains evolution clearly to young and old.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
