'Never mind the lectures or the "workshops" be Mowed to the motor coach excursions to local beauty spots forget your fancy visual aids and radio microphones the only thing that really matters at a conference is that John Maynard Smith must be in residence and there must be a spacious, convivial bar. John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) He saw a draft and graciously accepted the dedication, which now, sadly, must become THE ANCESTOR'S TALE A PILGRIMAGE TO THE DAWN OF LIFE R ICHARD D AWKINS with additional research by YAN WONG At the end of the journey lies something remarkable in its simplicity and transformative power: the first, humble, replicating molecules.īy the same author: The Selfish Gene The Extended Phenotype The Blind Watchmaker River Out of Eden Climbing Mount Improbable Unweaving the Rainbow A Devil's Chaplain "The Ancestor's Tale" represents a pilgrimage on an unimaginable scale: our goal is four billion years away, and the number of pilgrims joining us grows vast - ultimately encompassing all living creatures. The tales are interspersed with prologues detailing the journey, route maps showing joining lineages, and life-like reconstructions of our common ancestors. Together they give a deep understanding of the processes that have shaped life on Earth: convergent evolution, the isolation of populations, continental drift, the great extinctions. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way or glimpsed from afar - the "Elephant Bird's Tale", the "Marsupial Mole's Tale", the "Lungfish's Tale". The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past, gorillas at 7 million years, orang utans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. "The Ancestor's Tale" is a pilgrimage back through time a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors.
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