Improbable Destinies

Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution

By: Jonathan B. Losos

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works

Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life on other planets?

Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be.

Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos's insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.

This is a brilliantly told account of contingency and determinism, entertaining to both laypeople and evolutionary biologists!

In this book, the author explains complex biological phenomena in a way that is digestible to anyone, regardless of whether they are just interested in biology and evolution or whether they’re a professional evolutionary biologist. The author provides a comprehensive overview of the many breakthroughs that have occurred in evolutionary biology over the past half a century.

Chance and Predictability

understands the chance in evolution as well as the predictability on it reading this book

Fantastic read and easy to follow

Lots of information that is easy to follow. Losos does a great job going into enough detail in each study for the reader to understand the intent, result, and significance. I don't think you need a background in biology to get all the great lessons from this book. Losos does a good job keeping it fun and I think the narrator has a voice to also keep people engaged.

Interesting read

Compelling and convincing argument for convergent evolution. The examples used are thought provoking and you will find yourself discussing them at cocktail parties. The book does get a little long toward the end, and while I did still want to hear about the experiments, I did not need to have the theme pointed out over and over.

Overall, I highly recommend this book and feel that as we continue to use DNA sequencing instead of phenotype to re-build phylogenetic trees, the theme of this book will become even more relevant.

Starts out great, gets very full halfway through

The first third or so is fascinating. Deep philosophical questions about evolutionary development of life on earth. The author offers points and counter points from respected evolutionary biologists and considers the randomness vs inevitability of evolution. Though, about halfway through, Los gets stuck in the weeds summarizing study after study on mundane examples of microevolution. after several hours of this, I had to put the title down.