Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA in Science and Inquiry

Jan 05, 2021 Petra X rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed, 2021-100-reviews, medicine-science, 2021-read, 10-star-books

"The poet William Blake wrote of seeing "the universe in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower." When you know how to look you can see billions of years inside the organs, cells and DNA in all living things and relish our connections to the rest of life on our planet."

To those who don't believe in evolution, I would say, isn't it a greater God who could create a world where everything came from everything and would be eternally connected? Where to the end of time, the history of all beings ...more

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Oct 18, 2025 GONZA rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebk, goodreadsgroups

A book that, through the history of discoveries that have led to identifying the reasons why some species have evolved in a certain way and others have not, seeks to sow the seeds of understanding in the minds of those who, like me, may not remember science very well.
Furthermore, evolutionary biology also provides many keys to understanding evolutionary leaps that probably would not have happened if it weren't for viruses and their DNA. Now I have to go and read the previous book, because the s ...more

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Oct 14, 2025 taylor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What a read...the history and reveals of evolutionary biology. The author, a distinguished paleontologist, turned from rocks to DNA to find fossils. Indeed DNA is as much a history book as it is the instructions to create new life. At least 10% of DNA is the made up of ancient viruses and only about 2% differentiates us from our immediate evolutionary ancestors. Our evolutionary record can be found in rocks and DNA.

The central theme of the book is that there were not major step function changes. ...more

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