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Life began about four billion years ago on our planet. Like an old patchwork quilt, evolution stitched the human being together from parts of ancient species now long extinct. Like any species, humans have hundreds or even thousands of traits that have been passed down through time. The evolutionary age of our different traits can be told from how widely distributed they are among today's living creatures.
The book aims to explain some human traits and how we – as social, sexual, language-obsessed technological apes – evolved into our own modern species. Combining hard science with philosophical thought, this work aims to explain where humans have come from, and where we are going. Free of complicated jargon, it breaks down the concept of evolution starting with the human body's most basic component – our cells. Building from there, chapters explore which traits became inherited over evolutionary time, ultimately projecting what could be next for our species.
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: The Patchwork Human, Old and New Parts
1. The Human Machine
2. Cells, Genes, and Other Small Parts
3. The Embryo: Construction and Continuity
4. Evolution: The Process
5. Evolution: The Pattern
6. Bigger Is Sometimes Better
7. Bilateral Symmetry
8. The Sexy Beast, Part I
9. Up the Mammalian Path
10. Fur
11. A Warm-Blooded Animal
12. Upright Living
13. The Brain
14. The Sexy Beast, Part II
15. On Being Social
16. The Truly Musical Animal
17. The Talkative Ape
18. Human Races, Real and Imagined
19. The Future of the Only Remaining Human Species
Appendix I: Tissues, Systems, Organs, and Cell Types
Appendix II: Some Musical Preferences
Background and Further Reading
Index
Peter Luykx, professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Miami, Florida, has published research in genetics, cell biology, and evolution, and has taught and written for the non-scientist in those areas. He lives in Miami.
