The dude kind of rambles, and has a not-quite-right way of putting things, or often just chooses the wrong word, and he repeats himself a lot because he doesn't trust the general populace to remember things that aren't explained time and time again, but his science is in the right place, so I forgive him.

Pros: Cool facts about some animals
- Jellyfish in water are nearly invisible to visible light but not to predators that can see polarized light
- many animals are iridescent but conceal it
- birds are OP, and instead of using their color for camouflage they can evolve it for mating

I'm curious what would happen if one designed an a-life world where color did not exist, i.e. every critter has the same color shader. In our reality that is not possible due to geometry inducing color. Perhaps some analogue of color would emerge in textures still (e.g. organisms evolving bumps that are too big to affect wavelength of light, but big enough to create interesting patterns). Maybe color is needed to bootstrap vision?

Cons:
Jeez, the information in the book could have been concisely written into a 2 page, single-spaced document, along with all the neat animal facts. There was so much repetition and the way the author tried to walk through the scientific conclusions without giving away the main idea ("The sudden appearance of eye types and hard parts was caused by an arms race of vision, prey & predation beginning in the precambrain era").

I feel like there simply isn't enough ecological and cogsci data in the fossil record to tell us the more interesting story of "what was the change in ecological fitness per unit change of the ability to form a clear image", or explore some of the ideas in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6u0V...

"第一双眼睛必然是因为环境中的阳光增强而形成，这是个无关演化的因素除非拥有能看见周围环境的眼晴，否则动物是不会飞速演化出生物发光（动物本身发出的光）的能力的。事实上，地质学家已经发现，在前寒武纪即将结東时，地球表面的阳光强度确实较强这与地球磁场有直接关系，而石所保存的碳14和铍16元素的含量，会随着光照强度的增加而增多；与此同时地球的温度也在同步升高。因此我们有了答案，或者说有了部分答案：当主导选择压力的齿轮加速运转时，眼开始演化，但是我们仍然在寻找使得光线增强的因素。来自太阳系的光线，越过太阳系的太空（行星间的介质），穿过地球的大气层，并且掠过海洋（记住，寒武纪时期只有海洋生物）。因此，当地表的阳光光量增加时，必然发生以下两种情况之一：不是太阳射出的光量增加，就是太阳和地球海底间的介质变得更加通透."
蓝藻细菌（习惯上误称为“蓝绿藻”）在“生命演化史”的第三章中出现，这是一种能从水中直接获取氢的生物。它所依靠的是一种演化而来的重要物质一一叶绿素，这是藻类植物和高等植物生存的命脉。与硫化氢不同的是，在地球上拥有大量的水，这也就意味着生命可以在地球上处处生存。随着蓝藻细菌从地球的水中获取了氢，氧被留存下来并进入了大气。直至今天，蓝藻细菌仍然被视为最简单的生命形式，而它第一次出现的时间，人们是通过化石证据了解到的。在澳大利亚西部马布尔巴市附近的皮尔巴拉矿区，人们在35亿年前的岩石中发现了一种被称为燧石的微晶矿物。将这种燧石切割成半透明薄片并放置在显微镜下，科学家从中观察到了蓝藻细菌的形状。……在显微镜下，哈美林池Hamelin pool的叠层石所具有的独特构造与皮尔巴拉矿区的燧石相同，我们由此得知皮尔巴拉的燧石其实是由远古时代的叠层石所组成的。因此，皮尔巴拉地区的燧石也被世人所熟知，好似一块记载着地球生命之初的动人故事的墓碑（尽管格陵兰岛上的化学证据显示，早在35亿年前地球上就已有生命出现，但这个观点尚未被人们广泛接受）。所以哈美林池水中所发生的一切，很可能与20亿年前地球上出现的一样。更为重要的是，我们必须得感谢蓝藻细菌，因为是它们使得地球约在此时获得了一个富含氧气的大气层。要知道，大气层中的氧气不仅支持了高等生物的呼吸，同时也提供了一道保护层一一臭氧层一一避免动物组织受到阳光中紫外线的伤害。

I bought this when there's a 70% discount on the book and because of the pretty cover and lastly because of the Cambrian explosion.

The Cambrian explosion has been long confused Darwin because it defies his theory of gradual evolution.
Thus Andrew Parker tries to explain what happened back than that caused the said explosion.

I wouldn't go on rambling about what he said on the book, and i'm not sure i could with my limited knowledge of evolution theories.

Let's just say that i acquire new knowledge and though i got mighty confuse in the middle of reading the book, it somehow worth it.

This book is all about the evolution of the first visual receptors that eventually turned into eyes. The author's theory is that this event triggered the Cambrian Explosion by suddenly giving life an entirely new stimulus to respond and adapt to.

Pretty cool facts and very nicely organized. A very plausible explanation of the Cambrian explosion. I enjoyed the various optical systems described with specific examples.

Anti-climactic, not terribly well written but interesting.

Brilliant. Explained very well and clarifies some theories and beliefs that have been misunderstood in the past.

This is a fascinating read on the Cambrian Explosion. It covers a lot of related science that helps explain how thing work and how conclusions are reached. Very readable.

This book presents a new theory to explain the Cambrian explosion, a sudden diversity of life 545 million years ago. It's a brilliant idea, based around the evolution of vision and the opening of predatory niches that sight provided. The trouble is, the idea isn't presented in the best of manners. I've studied invertebrate palaeontology, so I might be a little biased as none of the information presented was new to me, but there was never really any stage where this book grabbed me. I found it a little repititious - there's no sense of movement towards answering the question the book poses, it just stalls.

If you're interested in the topic then by all means give it a go, but for a causal popscience reader there's some better offerings out there.

Sebbene potenzialmente interessante per il contenuto la particolare tecnica narrativa scelta dall autore rende la lettura così noiosa da portarla al limite della sofferenza quasi fisica .

3.5 stars.

I'll come back and write a fuller review later, or perhaps do it on several posts on my blog. It's a good book, but Parker gets bogged down in extinct species names, makes frequent references to what he said earlier chapters and coming chapters. It was hard to follow and annoying to deal with.

My main complaint about the book is that it can't decide if it's scholarly or popular. It's a little too scholarly to be popular, and too popular to be scholarly. He gets his point across, that the Cambrian Explosion of species was most likely the result of the evolution of the eye. He doesn't, however, make his points well that the eye evolved suddenly, and what the conditions were to cause that sudden evolution.