NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Henry Gee's The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution (University of Chicago Press, 2013). The preview consists of chapter 2, "All about Evolution," in which Gee introduces natural selection ("All it requires to work are four things, three of which are readily apparent with eyes to see") and evolution in the sense of descent with modification ("in which life itself would from simple beginnings become more diverse, elaborate, and complex").
Carl Zimmer writes, "With a delightfully irascible sense of humor, Henry Gee reflects on our origin and all the misunderstanding that we impose on it. The Accidental Species is an excellent primer on how — and how not — to think about human evolution." Gee is senior editor for biological sciences at Nature; his previous books include In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life (Free Press, 1999) and Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome (W. W. Norton, 2004).