Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Rough Guide to Evolution mentioned in the journal Nature


Nature, a journal founded with help from Darwin's associates Huxley and Hooker, has this week run a special feature on Darwin200, the Darwin bicentenary year. 

The timing is rather odd, as we still have over two months to go to Darwin's 200th birthday, but the supposed hook on which it all hangs is that Monday marks the 149th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. I guess does make some sense to fill people in on the bicentenary a few weeks in advance, so they can buy all the relevant books and read them in time to appreciate why we are celebrating this remarkable man!

Anyhow, I was delighted to see The Rough Guide to Evolution gets a passing mention in an article entitled Books in brief: a Down House bookshelf:
"The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen (Rough Guides) provides a popular summary, including the cultural impact of Darwin on music, plays and novels, and a list of Darwin bicentenary events."
although I have to stress that there is much more in the book than just a "popular summary" of evolution, including a a brief biography of Darwin, which delves into his notebooks, an overview of the evidence for evolution and an account of creationist opposition. Plus a fair bit of palaeobiology and palaeoanthropology!

But it is nice to see the first of what I hope will be many mentions and reviews!

1 comment:

Michael D. Barton, FCD said...

I saw your book on a list of books on the Darwin 200 website:
http://www.darwin200.org/media-information.html