Almost Like A Whale

Product Description

In his new book Steve Jones takes on the challenge of going back to the book of the millennium Charles Darwins The Origin of Species. Before The Origin biology was a set of unconnected facts. Darwin made it into a science linked by the theory of evolution the grammar of the living world. It reveals ties between cancer & the genetics of fish between brewing & inherited disease between the sex lives of crocodiles & the politics of Brazil. Darwin used the biology of the nineteenth century to prove his case. Now that science has been revolutionized & his case can be reargued using the twentieth centurys astonishing advances. From AIDS to dinosaurs from conservation to cloned sheep bursting with anecdotes jokes & irresistible facts Almost Like a Whale is a popular account of the science that makes biology make sense. It will catch the millennial mood & tell all those for whom Darwin is merely a familiar name what he really meant. It exposes the Darwinian delusions which try (and fail) to explain human behaviour in evolutionary terms & while giving an up-to-date account of our own past shows how humans are the first species to step beyond the constraints of biology.