Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated

Steve Jones is the not-so-ghostly presence in this charming, informative and very accurate book. He uses his expertise in modern genetics (he is a professor of genetics at University College, London) combined with an evident passion for what in other hands might be considered the musty domain of oldfashioned naturalists: to serve up a defense of Darwin’s original theory. Jones claims that he is no more than Darwin’s ghostwriter and, true to his word, the book closely follows Darwin’s original The Origin of Species. In fact, it begins with a facsimile of the title page and annotated contents of the first John Murray edition published in 1859. True to this format throughout, the book’s chapters follow the outline of Darwin’s original work, each updated with information on recent work in evolutionary genetics. These chapters also conclude with Darwin’s original summaries. The final chapter is Darwin’s own Neural Transplantation