New Books in Biology and Evolution

New Books Network
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

  1. 3D AGO

    Daniel R. Langton, "Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolutionary Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

    In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Professor Daniel Langton, author of Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolutionary Theory (Oxford UP, 2026), to explore how Jewish thinkers responded to one of the most disruptive ideas of the modern world: evolutionary theory. Spanning a century of debate, the conversation traces how traditionalists, reformers, secular intellectuals, mystics, and philosophers reimagined Judaism in light of Darwin—from Europe to the United States. Rather than a simple science-versus-religion clash, Langton reveals a rich and creative dialogue shaped by modernity, Jewish-Christian relations, and a distinctive Jewish tendency toward pan(en)theistic thinking—understanding God as deeply intertwined with an evolving universe. Together, Katz and Langton explore how Darwin forced Jewish thinkers to rethink creation, divine action, and morality, and how those debates continue to shape modern Jewish belief and identity. Daniel Langton is Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester and a leading scholar of modern Jewish thought and Jewish-Christian relations. His work focuses on how Jews have engaged major intellectual movements of modernity, including science, philosophy, and theology. Rabbi Marc Katz is a congregational rabbi, author, and teacher whose work bridges classical Jewish texts and contemporary cultural questions. He is the author of Yochanan’s Gamble: Judaism’s Pragmatic Approach to Life and writes widely on Judaism, ethics, and modern life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    54 min

  2. 3D AGO

    Ellen Clarke, "The Units of Life: Kinds of Individual in Biology" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    While we tend to think of biological individuals in terms of paradigmic cases – a dog, a starfish, a bacterium – our ordinary criteria for distinguishing one individual from another are inadequate for making these distinctions in general. If a starfish can literally split itself in two and each half regenerates into a new starfish, why hold that there was just one starfish to begin with rather than many? In The Units of Life: Kinds of Individual in Biology (Oxford UP, 2025), Ellen Clarke defends the idea of evolutionary individuals: units created and maintained by mechanisms that ensure the parts share a common fate. Such individuals enable good evolutionary bookkeeping, in particular our ability to predict which variations in these individuals will enable natural selection to occur. Clarke, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Leeds, considers the merits of her view in relation to alternatives, how her view explains the emergence of new levels of biological individuality, and how the need for idealization and scientific choice of individual boundaries can avoid conventionalism about biological individuals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 9m

  3. 5D AGO

    Oren Harman, "Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History" (Basic Books, 2025)

    A search for the meaning of one of nature's greatest riddles: why do so many creatures transform? “How many creatures walking on this earth / Have their first being in another form?” the Roman poet Ovid asked two thousand years ago. He could not have known the full extent of the truth: today, biologists estimate a stunning three-quarters of all animal species on Earth undergo some form of metamorphosis.But why do tadpoles transform into frogs, caterpillars into butterflies, elvers into eels, immortal jellyfish from sea sprigs to medusae and back again, growing younger and younger in frigid ocean depths? Why must creatures go through massive destruction and remodeling to become who they are? Tracing a path from Aristotle to Darwin to cutting-edge science today, Harman explores that central mystery in Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History (Basic Books, 2025).Metamorphosis, however, isn’t just a biological puzzle: it takes us to the very heart of questions of being and identity, whatever kind of change we humans may undergo. Metamorphosis is a new classic of natural history: a book that, by unveiling a mystery of nature, causes us to relearn ourselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    38 min

  4. JAN 30

    Max Telford, "The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle" (W.W. Norton, 2025)

    Are humans really fish? Why are we the only animals with chins? How much of our DNA do we share with the trillions of bacteria in our bodies? For centuries, scientists have chased the secrets of how life on our planet arose, how it assumed its dazzling diversity of forms, and how we humans are related to everything else on earth. With increasingly sophisticated genetic methods now bringing us ever closer to answers, leading evolutionary biologist Max Telford takes us inside one of science's greatest quests. In the intellectually thrilling The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle (W. W. Norton, 2025), Telford shows how reconstructing the web of relationships between all our planet's species, from birds and butterflies to mushrooms and moose, allows us to unravel the epic history of life on our planet. In Telford's hands, the many-branched evolutionary trees that biologists assemble--from Charles Darwin's first sketches to the vast computer-generated diagrams scientists are building today--become time machines that take us on a vivid journey through four billion years of life's history. We meet long-lost ancestors, picturing them in the environment of a much younger earth, and discover where we first acquired our backbones and nipples and, conversely, where we lost our tails. We learn how insects are "actually" crustaceans, and how dogs and wolves are more closely related to whales than to the recently extinct Tasmanian wolves they so resemble. Far from a dry representation of the dead, the tree of life is a living, shifting thing that constantly alters our perspective on the past, present, and future of life on earth. For any reader fascinated by evolution and natural history, The Tree of Life is an essential portal to the distant past and a window onto our collective origins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 1m

  5. JAN 20

    Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

    A bold reimagining of life that bridges science, philosophy, cybernetics, and the complexities of biological existence The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI (Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, 2026) is an intriguing synthesis of decades of interdisciplinary research by eminent mathematician and biological scientist Giuseppe Longo. A unique collaboration between Longo and philosopher of technology Adam Nocek, the volume confronts foundational issues in the history of mathematics, computer science, physics, and theoretical biology. Challenging conventional approaches that apply computational and formalist models to the biological world, Longo reveals how the limitations of these models hinder the understanding of organismic complexity, development, and evolution. Through a critique of dominant scientific paradigms, he emphasizes the need for a new biological theory that accounts for the temporal and spatial intricacies of life. Enhanced by Nocek's comprehensive introduction and a fascinating three-part interview with Longo, The Organism Is a Theory offers a bold rethinking of the biosciences, integrating the work of Alan Turing, Bernhard Riemann, Henri Poincaré, Kurt Gödel, and others into Longo's vision of critical biology. Bridging scientific and philosophical discourses, this book creatively applies insights from mathematics, physics, and computing into the study of the organism to present a new theoretical approach to understanding biological complexity that resists reductive mechanistic and informatic explanations. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with image accompanied by short alt text and/or extended description. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 14m

  6. JAN 18

    Justin Gregg, "If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity" (Little, Brown, 2022)

    What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination, and the creation of a world teetering towards climate catastrophe. What if human exceptionalism is more of a curse than a blessing? As Dr. Justin Gregg puts it in his book If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity (Little, Brown (US), 2022, Hodder (UK), 2023), there’s an evolutionary reason why human intelligence isn’t more prevalent in the animal kingdom. Simply put, non-human animals don’t need it to be successful. And, miraculously, their success arrives without the added baggage of destroying themselves and the planet in the process. In seven mind-bending and hilarious chapters, Dr. Gregg highlights features seemingly unique to humans – our use of language, our rationality, our moral systems, our so-called sophisticated consciousness – and compares them to our animal brethren. What emerges is both demystifying and remarkable, and will change how you look at animals, humans, and the meaning of life itself. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    31 min

  7. JAN 13

    Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer, "Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior" (MIT Press, 2025)

    In Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior (MIT Press, 2025), Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded in animal behavior science match those of the already powerful. How can animal behavior science escape this trap of naturalizing dominant culture? Drawing from decades of feminist, antiracist, queer, disability justice, and Marxist contributions—including those of biologists—Kamath and Packer break down persistent assumptions in the status quo of animal behavior science and offer a multitude of alternative approaches. Core concepts in animal behavior science and evolutionary biology—from sex categories and sexual selection to fitness, adaptation, biological determinism, and more—are carefully contextualized and critically reexamined. This unique collaboration between an animal behavior scientist and a feminist science studies scholar is an illuminating and hopeful read for anyone who is curious about how animals behave, and anyone who wants to break free from scientific approaches that perpetuate systems of oppression. Ambika Kamath is trained as a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She lives, works, and grows community in Oakland, California, on Ohlone land. Melina Packer is Assistant Professor of Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, on Ho-Chunk Nation land. She is the author of Toxic Sexual Politics: Toxicology, Environmental Poisons, and Queer Feminist Futures (NYU Press, 2025). Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University, on Mississauga Anishnaabeg land. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 12m

  8. JAN 7

    Jim Endersby, "The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology's Imaginary Futures, 1900-1935" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

    The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imaginary Futures, 1900–1935 by Jim Endersby In the early twentieth century, varied audiences took biology out of the hands of specialists and transformed it into mass culture, transforming our understanding of heredity in the process.In the early twentieth century communities made creative use of the new theories of heredity in circulation at the time, including the now largely forgotten mutation theory of Hugo de Vries. Science fiction writers, socialists, feminists, and utopians are among those who seized on the amazing possibilities of rapid and potentially controllable evolution. De Vries’s highly respected scientific theory only briefly captured the attention of the scientific community, but its many fans appropriated it for their own wildly imaginative ends. Writers from H.G. Wells and Edith Wharton to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, J.B.S. Haldane, and Aldous Huxley created a new kind of imaginary future, which Jim Endersby calls the biotopia. It took the ambiguous possibilities of biology—utopian and dystopian—and reimagined them in ways that still influence the public’s understanding of the life sciences. The Arrival of the Fittest recovers the fascinating, long-forgotten origins of ideas that have informed works of fiction from Brave New World to the X-Men movies, all while reflecting on the lessons—positive and negative—that this period might offer us. Jim Endersby is professor of the history of science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Orchid: A Cultural History, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science, and A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 9m
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About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

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