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The functionality of teaching evolution is the topic of a recent Op-Ed by Olivia Judson in the New York Times. Judson: “[Evolution is] discussed as though it were an optional, quaint and largely irrelevant part of biology.”

It reminds me of two birds I sketched a few years ago at the National Zoo, then, later, somewhere on Roosevelt Island. The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and some type of Eastern shore bird, most likely a type of piper. Their respective quarry, carrion and crustacean, guided the process of beak formation. A beak, after all, is a bird’s utensil, and they come shaped as spatulas, toothpicks, scissors, spoons, sieves, nutcrackers, and forms unrelated to human design. And there’s that bugbear word: design. Design in this sense does not imply guidance of an intelligent or premeditated sort.

However, as Judson notes, intelligent humans can partake in another species evolution by over hunting, habitat destruction, and electing republicans to office.

I’m starting a new series on the book Evolution by Nicholas H. Barton, Derek E.G. Briggs, Jonathan A. Eisen, David B. Goldstein, and Nipam H. Patel.

Since I’m in no position to critique these guys and their book, what follows will be more of a dissemination/impression of a close and selective read of the text. Here’s an author background sketch, so I’ll just say that Barton bounces around with grasshoppers, butterflies and toads. Briggs digs fossils. Eisen examines extremophiles. Goldstein gravitates to fellow homosapiens. And Patel is craven towards cows, chickens, grasshoppers (grasshoppers, really?) and the everybody’s favorite, Drosophila.

Evolution breaks the titled topic into four parts, 26 chapters, and 770 pages, and I’ll do what I can to the best of my ability.

First, a quote: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”–Theodosius Dobzhansky.

From the first sentence in the introductory section:

“Our world is filled with an extraordinary diversity of living organisms. The Sun’s light is harvested by bacteria, algae, and plants, and every feasible source of chemical energy, from hydrogen gas to carbon monoxide, is exploited in some microbe.”

They go on to list other examples of life’s diversity, but the authors do the right thing: waste no time in putting bacteria front and center in their assessment of life on earth. Later, they make another point: evolution is a valuable tool. Not a theory, or dogma, but a tool. Creationists take note. The introductory section concludes with a hat-tip to molecular biology. I like these guys already.

Acknowledgments go out to The Arborist for lending me this book.

Next up, Chapter 1: An Overview of Evolutionary Biology
Here’s a teaser: Darwin.

I venture to say it does, and I think Spain would agree. As a side note, Christopher Columbus, a Spaniard, referred to the Caribs as canibalis, a derivative of which was used as the half brute, half human spawn of a witch in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Caliban was a debauch and drunkard who mistook man for god.

The technical term intraspecific predation can still be reserved for describing within species dining. However, cannibalism, I think, grants me slightly more leeway. According to the Random House dictionary, cannibalism means “the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of its own kind.” Are not primates and non-human primates of the same kind?

The impetus for all this is a new study presented at the International Primatological Society conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Apparently, hunting our fellow primates for food is driving them to extinction.

Russell A. Mittermeier, chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group, said that along with habitat destruction, “in many places, primates are quite literally being eaten into extinction.”