The Problems of Evolution

Download or read book The Problems of Evolution written by Mark Ridley and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1985 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is evolution true? If so, what is the force that drives it? Can natural selection account for so complex an organ as the eye--or is Darwin's theory merely what an eminent nineteenth-century astronomer call 'the law of higgledy-piggledy'? Is molecular evolution a random process? What is the real relationship between the theory of evolution and biological classification? Why do living things appear to come to recognizable units called species, and how can one species split into two? Does evolution proceed gradually, or in jerks? What causes the grand patterns of change in the fossil record?