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Title: In the Blink of an Eye by Andrew Parker ISBN: 0-7382-0607-5 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Lighting the path of evolution
Comment: In this illuminating [sorry!] study, Parker contends that light is the driving force behind evolutionary change. Light, he argues, is the most prevailing environmental element. Crossing biology, geology, ecology and physics with a bridge of optics, he shows how many body structures have varied due to light's availability and intensity. Most important to the reader, is his contention that when life developed a greater sensitivity to light, evolution was given a significant boost. We call the time of that "boost" the Cambrian Explosion. According to Parker, the mechanism driving the boost was the evolution of the eye. The wide diversity exhibited by evolution's abrupt advances around 550 million years ago produced creatures whose descendants are cats, bears, birds, and you. Parker provides a wealth of background material in developing his thesis. The forces of plate tectonics, the way light is absorbed, reflected, bent, and even biologically generated are all presented. He shows the relevance of each aspect in a slowly and carefully built concept.
Parker presents his theme with verve. "Let there be images!" is a concluding example. New ideas in science tend to use a forceful approach. Since he's laid a firm Darwinian foundation for this exclamation, perhaps his enthusiasm is warranted. He explains much about early life, the nature of light and how animals have adapted body plans to use light effectively. Parker shows how new research tools can analyse fossils to reveal the past wasn't the soft, dull, colourless world often portrayed. Some of the tricks developed by Nature millions of years ago weren't duplicated by human technology until very recently. Light, he explains, was both an attractant and a repellent in the shallow seas of early oceans.
The mortar binding the facets of Parker's idea is predation. Both eaters and eaten needed to detect each other to survive. In parallel with the eye, bodies changed to avoid detection and deflect biting mouths. Survival in evolutionary terms, he reminds us, means more than eating or avoiding being a meal. Vision enhanced the process of sexual selection, with the new body forms exhibiting colours to attract mates. These and other factors combine to provide what Parker calls his "Light Switch" view of the Cambrian period. As a foundation for his hypothesis, Parker joins the ranks of Eldredge and Gould's "punk-eek" [punctuated equilibrium] cabal of evolutionary biologists. This step is taken to grant eye evolution a rapid pace in line with the many changes the Cambrian Explosion seems to evidence. That's unfortunate, since it isn't necessary and he refutes the idea many times in citing his own evidence. A species span of
120 million years without a bump is equilibrium indeed!
Parker's ebullient prose is supplemented by excellent line drawings and photographs. These provide both background and examples of his points. His style, while ardent, is a bit rambling, although this can be forgiven in a book covering so many aspects of evolution's path. What cannot be forgiven is the lack of any bibliography or notes. This lack is outrageous and insults the reader. Although many researchers are presented, few titles grace the pages, leaving the reader with the task of seeking further information or confirmation almost from scratch. The publisher has no excuse for allowing this lack. Read this book, reflect on Parker's ideas, and remember there are other proposals for the cause of the Cambrian Explosion equally or better presented. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 5
Summary: What Caused the Big Bang in Animal Evolution
Comment: There have been living creatures on Earth for about four billion years, but most of that time they were blind. Most of that time, also, they were very simple (single cell animals, sponges, and soft-bodied animals). The famous Cambrian explosion was the sudden boom in animal diversity that happened between 543 and 538 million years ago. It is when teeth and armor appeared. It is also when eyes appeared. It is easy for us to imagine the drama of, say, the destruction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but according to Andrew Parker the Cambrian explosion is "the most dramatic event in the history of life." Other dramatic events have their explanations (an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs, for instance), but there has not been a satisfactory explanation of the Cambrian boom. Until now, according to Parker, and he has come up with it. _In the Blink of an Eye_ (Perseus Publishing) is a convincing explanation that he first announced seven years ago: the Cambrian explosion was caused by the evolution of vision.
What happened in the explosion is that animals acquired armor, hard body parts, and a huge variety of different shapes. Parker explains that the shapes and armor came along because eyes came along. In the blind pre-Cambrian world, creatures took in sensation by smell / taste, sound, or touch. It did not matter what the creatures looked like, because no other creature could see them. It didn't matter if creatures had no armor, because predators weren't chasing them. Creatures scavenged upon dead animals, but did not need claws or jaws to catch those; catching prey was unlikely for a creature that was blind, so predation was not the rule. And then there was light! Parker thinks that a soft-bodied ancestor of the trilobite was the first creature to get a light sensitive patch that eventually differentiated into different units of an eye. The trilobite that could gradually see better could gradually become a better predator. Not only does vision power a diversity of the trilobite itself, into such skills as agility and efficient use of muscular propulsion, it powers changes in prey. In the dark, an animal has no need to care what it looks like. Pursued by creatures that can see, an animal has many avenues of change that it might follow, like making camouflage, developing its own armor, swimming faster, growing bigger, or gaining its own eyesight. And then the predators can become modified to overcome those tactics, and the familiar evolutionary battle is enjoined in earnest. Vision started diversity, and has powered it ever since.
Parker's book is a rich account of how he came to these conclusions, with a wide-ranging gathering of supportive evidence. He writes clearly, and with a witty understatement. When, for example, he describes examining seed-shrimps and dissecting them under the microscope, he says, "The seed-shrimps tend to roll around and fall in exactly the positions that are not required of them." Any scientific theory is open to question, and surely the very simplicity of Parker's explanation will make it a target for other theorizers with new data. Right now, though, in considering the Cambrian explosion, the Light Switch Theory is the way to see things.
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Title: Life on a Young Planet : The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll ISBN: 0691009783 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 17 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time by Michael Benton, Michael J. Benton ISBN: 050005116X Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Snowball Earth : The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know It by Gabrielle Walker ISBN: 0609609734 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World by Nick Lane ISBN: 0198508034 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth by Alan Cutler ISBN: 0525947086 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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