Part I: In the beginning: everything evolves, and Earth is very old
1. Everything evolves and changes: discovery of the evolving universe
2. The abyss of time: the immense age of the Earth
Part II: Darwin's evidence for evolution
3. Evolution in action: transformation in real time
4. Our common body plan: homology
5. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: evidence in embryos
6. The sinking of Noah's ark: biogeography
7. The branching tree of life: phylogeny
8. The case of the cruel wasps: nature is not moral
9. Jury-rigged contrivances: nature is not optimally designed
Part III: Great transitions in the history of life
10. A whale of a tale: vestigial organs and walking whales
11. Invasion of the land: amphibians crawl out of the water
12. Missing links found: macroevolution and transitional fossils
13. Birds with teeth: the dinosaurs among us
14. A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! The evolution of equines
15. How the giraffe got its neck: Lamarck, Darwin, and the left recurrent laryngeal nerve
16. How the elephant got its trunk: the evolution of the proboscideans
17. A warm little pond: how did life originate?
18. Genetic junkyard: most of our DNA is useless
19. Legs on their heads: homeotic mutants and evo-devo
20. The eyes have it: the evolution of photoreception
Part V: Humans and evolution
21. A tinkerer, not an engineer: are humans well designed?
22. The third chimpanzee: are we really 99 percent the same?
23. The ape's reflection: are humans really that different from other animals?
24. Bones of our ancestors: the human fossil record
25. The once and future human: are humans still evolving?
