Tangled Bank: Read the Excerpt And Then Stuff That Stocking!

The National Center For Science Education (now at its new ncse.com address) is offering a free pdf of a chapter from my book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. The chapter, called "Radiations and Extinctions," is about the two sides of biodiversity. First I look at how biodiversity rises over time (the ascent of the animal kingdom, for example, and the wild exuberance of insects). Then I look at how biodiversity falls, thanks to background extinctions and mass extinctions. And t...