Brian Skyrms presents a fascinating exploration of how fundamental signals are to our world. He uses a variety of tools -- theories of signaling games, information, evolution, and learning -- to investigate how meaning and communication develop. He shows how signaling games themselves evolve, and introduces a new model of learning with invention. The juxtaposition of atomic signals leads to complex signals, as the natural product of gradual process. Signals operate in networks of senders and receivers at all levels of life. Information is transmitted, but it is also processed in various ways. That is how we think -- signals run around a very complicated signaling network. Signaling is a key ingredient in the evolution of teamwork, in the human but also in the animal world, even in micro-organisms. Communication and co-ordination of action are different aspects of the flow of information, and are both effected by signals.

Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is the first comprehensive synthesis on development and evolution: it applies to all aspects of development, at all levels of organization and in all organisms, taking advantage of modern findings on behaviour, genetics, endocrinology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory and phylogenetics to show the connections between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary change. This book solves key problems that have impeded a definitive synthesis in the past. It uses new concepts and specific examples to show how to relate environmentally sensitive development to the genetic theory of adaptive evolution and to explain major patterns of change.
In this book development includes not only embryology and the ontogeny of morphology, sometimes portrayed inadequately as governed by "regulatory genes", but also behavioural development and psychological adaptation, where plasticity is mediated by genetically complex mechanisms like hormones and learning. The book shows how the universal qualities of phenotypes - modular organization and plasticity - facilitate both integration and change. Here you will learn why it is wrong to describe organisms as genetically programmed; why environmental induction is likely to be more important in evolution than random mutation; and why it is crucial to consider both selection and developmental mechanism in explanations of adaptive evolution. This book satisfies the need for a truly general book on development, plasticity and evolution that applies to living organisms in all of their life stages and environments. Using an immense compendium of examples on many kinds of organisms, from viruses and bacteria to higher plants and animals, it shows how the phenotype is reorganized during evolution to produce novelties, and how alternative phenotypes occupy a pivotal role as a phase of evolution that fosters diversification and speeds change.
The arguments of this book call for a new view of the major themes of evolutionary biology, as shown in chapters on gradualism, homology, environmental induction, speciation, radiation, macroevolution, punctuation, and the maintenance of sex. No other treatment of development and evolution since Darwin's offers such a comprehensive and critical discussion of the relevant issues.
Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is designed for biologists interested in the development and evolution of behaviour, life-history patterns, ecology, physiology, morphology and speciation. It will also appeal to evolutionary paleontologists, anthropologists, pscyhologists and teachers of general biology.

A dramatic account of the rate of language extinction, and how it endangers the future of biodiversity Few people know that nearly 100 native languages once spoken in what is now California are near extinction, or that most of Australia's 250 aboriginal languages have vanished. In fact, at least half of the world's languages may die out in the next century. What has happened to these voices? Should we be alarmed about the disappearance of linguistic diversity? The authors of Vanishing Voices assert that this trend is far more than simply disturbing. Making explicit the link between language survival and environmental issues, they argue that the extinction of languages is part of the larger picture of near-total collapse of the worldwide ecosystem. Indeed, the authors contend that the struggle to preserve precious environmental resources-such as the rainforest-cannot be separated from the struggle to maintain diverse cultures, and that the causes of language death, like that of ecological destruction, lie at the intersection of ecology and politics. And while Nettle and Romaine defend the world's endangered languages, they also pay homage to the last speakers of dying tongues, such as Red Thundercloud, a Native American in South Carolina, Ned Mandrell, with whom the Manx language passed away in 1974, and Arthur Bennett, an Australian, the last person to know more than a few words of Mbabaram. In our languages lies the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Indeed, each language is a unique window on experience. Vanishing Voices is a call to preserve this resource, before it is too late.

本书包括：进化的分子基础；氨基酸序列的进化演变；DNA 序列的进化演变；同义与非同义的核苷酸替代等内容。

A groundbreaking book about how ancient DNA has profoundly changed our understanding of human history.
Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry.
In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows readers to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species. Reich delves into how the genomic revolution is transforming our understanding of modern humans and how DNA studies reveal deep inequalities among different populations, between the sexes, and among individuals. Provocatively, Reich’s book suggests that there might very well be biological differences among human populations but that these differences are unlikely to conform to common stereotypes.
Drawing upon revolutionary findings and unparalleled scientific studies, Who We Are and How We Got Here is a captivating glimpse into humankind—where we came from and what that says about our lives today.

The Phylogenetic Handbook is a broad, hands on guide to theory and practice of nucleotide and protein phylogenetic analysis. This second edition includes six new chapters, covering topics such as Bayesian inference, tree topology testing and the impact of recombination on phylogenies, as well as a detailed section on molecular adaptation. The book has a stronger focus on hypothesis testing than the previous edition, with more extensive discussions on recombination analysis, detecting molecular adaptation and genealogy-based population genetics. Many chapters include elaborate practical sections, which have been updated to introduce the reader to the most recent versions of sequence analysis and phylogeny software, including BLAST, FastA, Clustal, T-coffee, Muscle, DAMBE, Tree-puzzle, Phylip, MEGA, PAUP*, IQPNNI, CONSEL, ModelTest, Prottest, PAML, HYPHY, MrBayes, BEAST, LAMARC, SplitsTree, and RDP. Many analysis tools are described by their original authors, resulting in clear explanations that constitute an ideal teaching guide for advanced-level undergraduate and graduate students.

Living things are organized in a hierarchy of levels. Genes group together in cells, cells group together in organisms, and organisms group together in societies. Even different species form mutualistic partnerships. Throughout the history of life, previously independent units have formed groups that, in time, have come to resemble individuals in their own right. Evolutionary biologists term such events "the major transitions". The process common to them all is social evolution. Each transition occurs only if natural selection favors one unit joining with another in a new kind of group.
This book presents a fresh synthesis of the principles of social evolution that underlie the major transitions, explaining how the basic theory underpinning social evolution - inclusive fitness theory - is central to understanding each event. The book defines the key stages in a major transition, then highlights the shared principles operating at each stage across the transitions as a whole. It addresses in new ways the question of how, once they have arisen, organisms and societies become more individualistic.

人類之所以成為萬物之靈，大腦可說是居功厥偉，它使人類與動物在智慧上產生差異，然而人腦的大小與智力商數的相關卻只有○‧三，亦即僅百分之九的IQ可以用腦大小來解釋，並非一般人想像的重要。大腦究竟與聰明才智有何關係？而它又是如何演化來的？
作者歐門博士專事大腦演化研究逾三十年，本書結合目前所知最複雜的組織系統--大腦，以及最具高度智慧挑戰的知識--演化，連同遺傳發展法則、地質歷史、動物生態、解剖和生理學等學科進行多面性的探究，從靈長目在視覺方面的成就，探查視網膜上的視覺影像是如何在牠們的腦中轉換成神經訊號。此外，當面對可能威脅生存的有害環境變遷時，大腦正是可使生物免受衝擊的緩衝物之一。歐門博士透過分析生物體結構的變異過程來了解大腦演化，可說是了解生命本質的關鍵所在。

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics.
Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning.
The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

In evolution, most genes survive and spread within populations because they increase the ability of their hosts (or their close relatives) to survive and reproduce. But some genes spread in spite of being harmful to the host organism--by distorting their own transmission to the next generation, or by changing how the host behaves toward relatives. As a consequence, different genes in a single organism can have diametrically opposed interests and adaptations. </p>
Covering all species from yeast to humans, Genes in Conflict is the first book to tell the story of selfish genetic elements, those continually appearing stretches of DNA that act narrowly to advance their own replication at the expense of the larger organism. As Austin Burt and Robert Trivers show, these selfish genes are a universal feature of life with pervasive effects, including numerous counter-adaptations. Their spread has created a whole world of socio-genetic interactions within individuals, usually completely hidden from sight. </p>
Genes in Conflict introduces the subject of selfish genetic elements in all its aspects, from molecular and genetic to behavioral and evolutionary. Burt and Trivers give us access for the first time to a crucial area of research--now developing at an explosive rate--that is cohering as a unitary whole, with its own logic and interconnected questions, a subject certain to be of enduring importance to our understanding of genetics and evolution. </p>

In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies — solar energy, genetic engineering, and worldwide communication — together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth.
Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. Such tool-driven revolutions have profound social consequences: the invention of the telescope turning the medieval view of the world upside down, the widespread use of household appliances in the 1950s replacing servants, to cite just two examples. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society. Solar power could bring electricity to even the poorest, most remote areas of third-world nations, allowing everyone access to the vast stores of information on the Internet and effectively ending the cultural isolation of the poorest countries. Similarly, breakthroughs in genetics may well enable us to give our children healthier lives and grow more efficient crops, thus restoring the economic and human vitality of village cultures devalued and dislocated by the global market.
Written with passionate conviction about the ethical uses of science, The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet is both a brilliant reinterpretation of the scientific process and a challenge to use new technologies to close, rather than widen, the gap between rich and poor.

At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations.Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem.
Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner's Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system--and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems--in terms of evolutionary dynamics.

- The only version of this classic text in print
- Incorporates all Fisher's published and unpublished amendments
- Foreword and extensive notes by Henry Bennett
R A Fisher's classic The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection was first published by the Oxford University Press in 1930. It was the first attempt to assess and explain Darwin's evolutionary theories in terms of the genetic processes underlying them, and was also original in being the first book to establish a firm theoretical basis for evolution. Since then, it has become a classic text in evolutionary biology, with Fisher hailed as one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of this century. This Variorum edition will be the definitive version - the only version of The Genetical Theory in print: it will include both Fisher's original 1930 text and that of a second edition of the book, published by Dover publications in 1958, which is now out of print. It also has a new Foreword, some unpublished material by Fisher that he wrote in his own copy, and letters between Fisher and Darwin's grandson, Leonard Darwin. Students, researchers, and general readers with an interest in the history of evolutionary biology will welcome this new edition.

A brilliant book celebrating improbability as the engine that drives life, by the acclaimed author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. The human eye is so complex and works so precisely that surely, one might believe, its current shape and function must be the product of design. How could such an intricate object have come about by chance? Tackling this subject--in writing that the New York Times called "a masterpiece"--Richard Dawkins builds a carefully reasoned and lovingly illustrated argument for evolutionary adaptation as the mechanism for life on earth. The metaphor of Mount Improbable represents the combination of perfection and improbability that is epitomized in the seemingly "designed" complexity of living things. Dawkins skillfully guides the reader on a breathtaking journey through the mountain's passes and up its many peaks to demonstrate that following the improbable path to perfection takes time. Evocative illustrations accompany Dawkins's eloquent descriptions of extraordinary adaptations such as the teeming populations of figs, the intricate silken world of spiders, and the evolution of wings on the bodies of flightless animals. And through it all runs the thread of DNA, the molecule of life, responsible for its own destiny on an unending pilgrimage through time. Climbing Mount Improbable is a book of great impact and skill, written by the most prominent Darwinian of our age.

This book lays out foundations for a "science of morals." Binmore uses game theory as a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters. He reinterprets classical social contract ideas within a game-theory framework and generates new insights into the fundamental questions of social philosophy. In contrast to the previous writing in moral philosophy that relied on vague notion such as " societal well-being" and "moral duty," Binmore begins with individuals; rational decision-makers with the ability to emphasize with one another. Any social arrangement that prescribes them to act against their interests will become unstable and eventually will be replaced by another, until one is found that includes worthwhile actions for all individuals involved.

该书荣获普利策奖。
加拉帕戈斯群岛是太平洋赤道附近的一个群岛，几百年前还籍籍无名，甚至很少出现在航海图上。现在，这个群岛看成全世界生物学家心中的圣地，因为达尔文曾经在他的环球航行中考察过这个群岛，他后来所提出的闻名于世的、改变世界的科学理论——进化论就是在这里得到了启发。
本书讲述的是美国 普林斯顿大学著名生物学家——格兰特夫妇在加拉帕戈斯群岛的科学考察故事。他们对岛上的达尔文雀进行了几十年的研究，生活在该岛上的这种鸟发生了惊人的变化，展现了一副活生生的演化图，生动说明了自然选择既不少见，也不是个极为缓慢的过程：它随时随地都在发生，我们可以观察得到。

Motoo Kimura, as founder of the neutral theory, is uniquely placed to write this book. He first proposed the theory in 1968 to explain the unexpectedly high rate of evolutionary change and very large amount of intraspecific variability at the molecular level that had been uncovered by new techniques in molecular biology. The theory - which asserts that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral mutants - has caused controversy ever since. This book is the first comprehensive treatment of this subject and the author synthesises a wealth of material - ranging from a historical perspective, through recent molecular discoveries, to sophisticated mathematical arguments - all presented in a most lucid manner.

《演化：跨越40亿年的生命记录》讲述的是地球上一切生命的进化史，从早期原始生命的产生到物种大爆炸又大灭绝的原因，从雄性和雌性的共同进化到寄主和寄生物之间的进化比赛，当然更包括了十分详细的、关于我们人类自身的进化历程。
本书同时也是进化论本身的故事，“进化”这个观念如何在达尔文和少数几个科学家的脑中形成，又如何遭到宗教势力的残酷打击以及科学界的普遍质疑，以致达尔文潜伏20年之久酝酿巨著《物种起源》，展现了达尔文冒险而勤奋的一生。
在阐述进化生物学的作用时，作者通过大量案例生动展现了其在医药和农业等方面对人类日常生活产生的巨大影响——其中涉及抗生素滥用的后果方面，在当今更显其意义；而进化论最深刻的作用还在于它彻底改变了人类对自身的认识，重构了人类的信仰体系，作者对此的论述简洁清晰，令人有豁然开朗之感。
进化论如今虽已经得到近似真理般的认可，但作者并没有就此摒弃其他的可能性，而是在最后一章中特别探讨了“上帝”的位置，体现出一种开放而严谨的科学态度，使得全书视野更加开阔，带来深入而有趣的思考。

只有細胞核基因組，能夠告訴我們人類演化的完整故事
是什麼，讓我們成為真正的人類？
尼安德塔人的基因是一扇獨特的窗口，
讓我們能藉此一窺我們人族親戚的生活，
同時也可能解開一個謎團：
為何尼安德塔人滅絕，而人類活了下來？
2010年，瑞典遺傳生物學家帕波宣布完成尼安德塔人基因組定序，從此人類演化研究邁入新紀元。在《尼安德塔人》這本書中，帕波描述自己在25年漫長的研究中所進行的工作，並敘述為了找出人類和近親尼安德塔人之間遺傳差異，最終獲致的成功，以及期間所付出的極大努力。
帕波從1980年代研究埃及木乃伊開始，不斷試驗萃取絕種物種DNA的技術，排除古代DNA污染問題，建立可靠重建DNA準則，最終使用在重建人類演化史的聖杯上，定出共有三十億個核苷酸序列的尼安德塔人基因組。
由於演化人類學及古生物學家對於現代人類起源以及與尼安德塔人的關係，一向頗多爭議，帕波的研究透過基因組的分析，打破許多人對遺傳學真能對人類學有所貢獻的疑慮，解開人類演化之謎。更驚人的是，他發現尼安德塔人並沒有滅絕，所有現代人類體內都帶有尼安德塔人的基因，也就是說，我們都是尼安德塔人的後代。這個發現讓人不得不重新描繪人類演化的歷程。
這是一個關於深具遠見的科學家與科學研究本質的故事，對於「我們是誰」這個基本問題，提供了豐富的見解。這也是一本好看的實驗室文學，科學家在探索科學真相時理論上的思辨，不斷檢驗實驗成果並尋求出路時的波折連連，實驗室成員的互動以及與科學競爭團隊的競合，將科學工作的第一手資料極為生動地記錄下來。