The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004 - Science - 673 pages
The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism. Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.
 

Contents

I
1
II
12
III
26
IV
37
VII
41
VIII
48
IX
62
X
64
LXV
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LXVI
320
LXVII
322
LXVIII
328
LXIX
330
LXX
332
LXXI
334
LXXII
336

XI
66
XII
71
XIII
75
XIV
77
XV
86
XVI
100
XVIII
104
XIX
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XXI
108
XXII
112
XXIV
115
XXV
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XXVII
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XXVIII
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XXX
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XXXII
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XXXIII
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XXXIV
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XXXV
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XXXVI
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XXXVII
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XXXIX
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XL
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XLI
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XLIII
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XLIV
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XLV
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XLVI
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XLVII
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XLVIII
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XLIX
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L
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LI
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LII
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LIII
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LIV
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LV
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LVI
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LVII
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LVIII
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LIX
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LX
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LXI
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LXII
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LXIII
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LXIV
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LXXIII
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LXXIV
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LXXV
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LXXVI
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LXXVII
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LXXVIII
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LXXIX
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LXXX
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LXXXI
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LXXXII
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LXXXIII
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LXXXIV
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LXXXV
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LXXXVI
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LXXXVII
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LXXXVIII
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LXXXIX
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XC
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XCI
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XCII
458
XCIII
463
XCIV
477
XCV
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XCVI
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XCVII
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XCVIII
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XCIX
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C
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CI
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CII
502
CIII
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CIV
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CV
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CVI
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CVIII
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CIX
536
CX
540
CXI
543
CXII
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CXIII
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CXIV
582
CXV
617
CXVI
619
CXVII
624
CXVIII
642
CXIX
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About the author (2004)

Richard Dawkins was educated at Oxford University and taught zoology at the University of California and Oxford University, holding the position of the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He writes about such topics as DNA and genetic engineering, virtual reality, astronomy, and evolution. His books include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, The God Delusion, and An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist.

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