The Ancestor's Tale

Infobox Book
name = The Ancestor's Tale
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author = Richard Dawkins
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subject = Evolutionary biology
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publisher = Boston: Houghton Mifflin
release_date = 2004
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pages = 673
isbn = ISBN 0618005838
preceded_by = A Devil's Chaplain
followed_by = The God Delusion

"The Ancestor's Tale" (subtitled "A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life") is a 2004 popular science book by Richard Dawkins, with contributions from Dawkins' research assistant Yan Wong. It follows the path of humans backwards through evolutionary history, meeting humanity's cousins as they converge on common ancestors. The book was nominated for the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books.

ynopsis

The narrative is structured as a pilgrimage, with all modern animals following their own path through history to the origin of life. Humans meet their evolutionary cousins at rendezvous points along the way, the points at which the lineage diverged. At each point Dawkins attempts to infer, from molecular and fossil evidence, the probable form of the most recent common ancestor and describes the modern animals that join humanity's growing travelling party. This structure is inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales".

The pilgrimage visits a total of 40 "rendezvous points" from rendezvous zero, the most recent common ancestor of all of humanity, to rendezvous 39, eubacteria, the ancestor of all surviving organisms. Though Dawkins is confident of the essential shape of this phylogenetic taxonomy, he enters caveats on a small number of branch points where a compelling weight of evidence had not been assembled at the time of writing.

At each rendezvous point, Dawkins recounts interesting tales about cousin animals which are about to join the band of pilgrims. Every newly recruited species, genus or family has its own peculiar features to offer as amusement for readers. For instance, Dawkins discusses why the axolotl never needs to grow up, how new species come about, how hard it is to classify animals, and why our fish-like ancestors decided to move on to land. These peculiar features are studied and analyzed using a newly introduced tool or method from evolutionary biology, carefully woven into the tale to illustrate how the few simple assumptions of Darwinian evolution can explain all diversity in nature.

Even though the book is best read sequentially, every chapter can also be read independently as a self-contained tale with an emphasis on a particular aspect of modern biology. As a whole, the book elaborates on all major topics in evolution. "The Ancestor's Tale" can be considered an encyclopedia on evolution disguised as a collection of fascinating stories.

Dawkins also tells personal stories about his childhood and time at university. He talks with fondness about a tiny bushbaby he kept as a child in Malawi (Nyasaland). He described his surprise when he learned that the closest living relatives to the hippos are the whales.

The book was produced in two hardback versions: a British one with extensive colour illustrations (by Weidenfeld & Nicolson), and an American one with a reduced number of black-and-white illustrations (by Houghton Mifflin). Paperback versions and an abridged audio version (narrated by Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward) have also been published.

The book is dedicated to Dawkins' friend and mentor, population geneticist John Maynard Smith, who died shortly before the book went to press.

Phylogenetic trees

List of rendezvous points

Dawkins uses the term "concestor"—coined by Nicky Warren—for the most recent common ancestor at each rendezvous point. At each rendezvous point, we meet the concestor of ourselves and the listed species or collection of species. This does not mean that the concestor was much like those creatures; after the "rendezvous", our fellow "pilgrims" have had as much time to evolve and change as we have. Only creatures alive at the time of the book's writing join us at each rendezvous point. Except for a few special cases, numerous extinct species and families such as the dinosaurs are excluded from the pilgrimage.

Prologue

Non-mammal chordates

In what Dawkins calls the "Great Historic Rendezvous", he describes the significantly important event of endosymbiosis, which results in the beginnings of eukaryotic cells. In his estimates, this occurred in two or three steps, roughly two billion years ago. Firstly, bacteria, perhaps related to "Rickettsia", entered proto-protozoan cells. For one reason or another, the bacteria were not digested and did not kill the cell. The cell offered protection to the bacteria, and the bacteria provided energy to the cell, resulting in a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. This is the speculated origin of mitochondria. Subsequently, photosynthetic bacteria (thought to be related to cyanobacteria) entered some, but not all, of these mitochondria-containing cells. These ancient bacteria evolved to become chloroplasts, and the cells became the Plant and Algal lineages. Meanwhile, the cells which this second endosymbiotic relationship did not occur in went on to form the Kingdoms Fungi and Animalia, as well as various Protozoa.

Chloroplasts and mitochondria have their own genomes, and they replicate independent of the cell in which they live. Dawkins acknowledges how the endosymbiotic theory proposed by Lynn Margulis is now virtually universally accepted.

Prokaryotes

Editions

* (2004) US hardcover ISBN 0-618-00583-8
* (2004) UK hardcover (2004) ISBN 0297825038 (a handsomely illustrated edition)
* (2005) US paperback ISBN 061861916X
* (2005) UK paperback ISBN 0753819961
* (2005) UK Audio ISBN 0-7528-7321-0

Translations

* Dutch translation: Het verhaal van onze voorouders
* French translation: Il était une fois nos ancêtres
* Italian translation: Il racconto dell'antenato
* Korean translation: 조상 이야기

References

ee also

*Evolutionary history of life
*Phylogenetic tree
*Timeline of evolution
*Timeline of human evolution

External links

* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2074449289114305786 Video introduction by Richard Dawkins]
* [http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2004/Nov/hour2_111904.html Richard Dawkins talks to Ira Flatow on "Science Friday"]
* [http://thegreatstory.org/ancestors-tale.html Family and kid's experiential programs based on "Ancestors Tale"]