Charles Darwin started it: the debate the divided Victorian society and set the questions which shaped scientific research through this century. Today evolution is being used to explain hot topics, such as how we choose our partners, emerging scientific generalizations such as the molecular clock, long-standing mysteries such as homology, and astonishing lab-bench results such as the eyeless gene. Mark Ridley's unique Oxofrd Reader represents a multitude of viewpoints, featuring major contributions to the universal debate by writers such as Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Jacques Monod, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Francis Crick. -- from back cover.