Unnatural Selection

About this book

A lavishly illustrated look at how evolution plays out in selective breeding Unnatural Selection is a stunningly illustrated book about selective breedingthe ongoing transformation of animals at the hand of man. More important its a book about selective breeding on a far far grander scalea scale that encompasses all life on Earth. Wed call it evolution. A unique fusion of art science and history this book celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwins monumental work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication and is intended as a tribute to what Darwin might have achieved had he possessed that elusive missing piece to the evolutionary puzzlethe knowledge of how individual traits are passed from one generation to the next. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight Katrina van Grouw explains evolution by building on the analogy that Darwin himself usedcomparing the selective breeding process with natural selection in the wild and like Darwin featuring a multitude of fascinating examples. This is more than just a book about pets and livestock however. The revelation of Unnatural Selection is that identical traits can occur in all animals wild and domesticated and both are governed by the same evolutionary principles. As van Grouw shows animals are plastic things constantly changing. In wild animals the changes are usually too slow to seespecies appear to stay the same. When it comes to domesticated animals however change happens fast making them the perfect model of evolution in action. Suitable for the lay reader and student as well as the more seasoned biologist and featuring more than four hundred breathtaking illustrations of living animals skeletons and historical specimens Unnatural Selection will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in natural history and the history of evolutionary thinking.