Books by Niles Eldredge

How is our fate linked to the earth's creatures, and the cycle of flourishing and extinction? Does human activity accelerate extinction? And what really causes it? This account of the widespread reduction of the world's wildlife examines humankind's role in the larger life cycles of the earth, composing a provocative general theory of extinction.

All organisms and species are transitory, yet life endures. The origin, extinction, and evolution of species-interconnected in the web of life as "e;eternal ephemera"e;-are the concern of evolutionary biology. In this riveting work, renowned paleontologist Niles Eldredge follows leading thinkers as they have wrestled for more than two hundred years with the eternal skein of life composed of ephemeral beings, revitalizing evolutionary science with their own, more resilient findings.Eldredge begins in France with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who in 1801 first framed the overarching question about the emergence of new species. The Italian geologist Giambattista Brocchi followed, bringing in geology and paleontology to expand the question. In 1825, at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduced the astounding ideas formulated by Lamarck and Brocchi to a young medical student named Charles Darwin. Who can doubt that Darwin left for his voyage on the Beagle in 1831 filled with thoughts about these daring new explanations for the "e;transmutation"e; of species.Eldredge revisits Darwin's early insights into evolution in South America and his later synthesis of knowledge into a theory of the origin of species. He then considers the ideas of more recent evolutionary thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the young and brash Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay Gould, who set science afire with their concept of punctuated equilibria. Filled with insights into evolutionary biology and told with a rich affection for the scientific arena, this book celebrates the organic, vital relationship between scientific thinking and its subjects.

In this text, palaeontologist Niles Eldredge reviews the relation between biological and cultural evolution, showing how the agricultural revolution freed humans from dependence on local ecosystems and allowed us to assert our dominion, as the Christian Bible has it, over the beasts and the field.

A major refutation of the almighty status of genes in evolution and human behavior.

Argues that the Earth is confronting a disaster in the making - an ecological crisis that, if left unresolved, could lead to mass extinction on the scale of that which killed the dinosaurs. This book reviews evidence for this "biodiversity crisis" ', showing that species are dying out at an unnaturally rapid rate.

A riveting tribute to Charles Darwin's life and ideas in celebration of his 200th birthday.