Books

Diogo, a multi-awarded biologist and anthropologist, addresses a critical question for the understanding of science, beliefs, idolization, systemic racism and sexism, and our societies in general: why has Charles Darwin been idolized in such a unique way, particularly by Western male scholars? Diogo shows that many evolutionary 'facts' included in Darwin's works on human evolution are inaccurate narratives based on Victorian biases and stereotypes that starkly contrast and contradict the mostly accurate, and often brilliant, ideas put forward by Darwin concerning non-human organisms: Europeans are superior, women are less intelligent, Victorian society was the pinnacle of evolution, and so on. Remarkably, it was the combination of Darwin’s brilliant ideas, his use of catchy simplistic and often exaggerated metaphors that were easily absorbed by the broader public, and his social conservatism and biased ideas about women and non-European ‘savages’ that led to his idolization. Tragically, having one of the most famous and idolized scientists of all time portraying such sexist and racist ideas as “facts” subsequently provided easy ammunition for other scholars, populist leaders, misogynists, colonialists, and white supremacists to 'scientifically' defend social hierarchies, sexism, racism, discrimination, oppression, and segregation. 

Due to the widespread idolization of Darwin among Western scholars, few have ventured to openly discuss these darker societal and scientific repercussions of Darwin’s work, and the ones that did often shield Darwin by arguing that ‘back then’ everybody was racist and sexist. Diogo deconstructs this argument in two ways. Firstly, he shows that the problem is not that Darwin was, personally, racist and sexist, but that he included unfounded, erroneous racist and sexist narratives in his books as if they were scientific ‘facts’. Secondly, he provides enthralling details about works and travel descriptions that were also written ‘back then’ by prominent scholars such as Wallace and Humboldt and that praised the indigenous peoples that repulsed Darwin, and criticized the social hierarchies and Western imperialism that Darwin praised. The aim of this book is therefore to discuss Darwin's writings, their historical context, scientific accuracy, and repercussions in a broader and less biased way, without taboos, omissions, idolization, or demonization, because if we fail to acknowledge and emphasize the biases, prejudices, inaccuracies, and abuses of our past, and merely continue to blindly idealize it, the next generations will be condemned to undertake or suffer similar societal abuses in the future. 

Most textbooks and atlases of human anatomy chronicle only a few cases of muscle variations in the "normal" human population, or of muscle anomalies within congenital malformations. Consequently, there is a misconception of what is considered "normal" human anatomy and what that looks like. Each person within the "normal" population has at least a few muscle variations, and there are millions of individuals born globally each year with muscle anomalies. There are crucial knowledge gaps between what is taught, what students learn, what textbooks and atlases show, and what truly happens in nature and within our species. This handbook fills this gap by: 1) providing a comparative evolutionary context for muscle variations and defects in humans, 2) summarizing the major types of variations and anomalies found in humans, and 3) including didactic figures for a visually engaging learning experience. This book is of interest to students, professors, and researchers in biological anthropology, comparative anatomy, functional morphology, zoology, and evolutionary and developmental biology, as well as to clinicians and practicing health professionals.

Whatever are your beliefs, background, education, political views, or interests, one thing is sure: this book will engage you, teach you something new, and more importantly make you re-think deeply about critical aspects of your daily life, including sex, love, food, physical activities, diseases, work and stress, and how you see and deal with other people, other animals, and the planet in general. Indeed, it focuses on topics that have fascinated people from all places and historical periods since times immemorial: Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?

This book proposes a new way to think about evolution. The author carefully brings together evidence from diverse fields of science. In the process, he bridges the gaps between many different--and usually seen as conflicting--ideas to present one integrative theory named ONCE, which stands for Organic Nonoptimal Constrained Evolution. The author argues that evolution is mainly driven by the behavioral choices and persistence of organisms themselves, in a process in which Darwinian natural selection is mainly a secondary--but still crucial--evolutionary player.

Chimpanzees, including bonobos and common chimpanzees, are our closest living relatives. However, surprisingly, the information about the soft tissues of bonobos is very scarce, making it difficult to discuss and understand human evolution. This book, which is the first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of bonobos (Pan paniscus), adopts the same format as the photographic atlases of other apes previously published by the same authors. 

Understanding Human Anatomy and Pathology: An Evolutionary and Developmental Guide for Medical Students provides medical students with a much easier and more comprehensive way to learn and understand human gross anatomy by combining state-of-the-art knowledge about human anatomy, evolution, development, and pathology in one book.

The vertebrate head is the most complex part of the animal body and its diversity in nature reflects a variety of lifestyles, feeding modes, and ecological adaptations. This book will take you on a journey to discover the origin and diversification of the head, which evolved from a seemingly headless chordate ancestor. Despite their structural diversity, heads develop in a highly conserved fashion in embryos.

Chimpanzees, including common chimpanzees and bonobos, are our closest living relatives. This book, which is the first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of the genus Pan, adopts the same format as the photographic atlases of Gorilla and Hylobates previously published by the same authors. highly conserved fashion in embryos. 

This book is the first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of Hylobates, and adopts the same format as the photographic atlas of Gorilla published by the same authors in 2010. This book is a part of a series of monographs that will set out the comparative and phylogenetic context of the gross anatomy and evolutionary history of the soft tissue morphology of modern humans and their closest relatives.

Chordates comprise lampreys, hagfishes, jawed fishes, and tetrapods, plus a variety of more unfamiliar and crucially important non-vertebrate animal lineages, such as lancelets and sea squirts. This will be the first book to synthesize, summarize, and provide high-quality illustrations to show what is known of the configuration, development, homology, and evolution of the muscles of all major extant chordate groups. 

Orangutans, together with chimpanzees and gorillas, are our closest living relatives. Photographic and Descriptive Musculoskeletal Atlas of Orangutans, the first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of the genus Pongo, adopts the same format as the photographic atlases of Gorilla, Pan, and Hylobates previously published by the same authors.

This book challenges the assumption that morphological data are inherently unsuitable for phylogeny reconstruction, argues that both molecular and morphological phylogenies should play a major role in systematics, and provides the most comprehensive review of the comparative anatomy, homologies, and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles of primates.

Even though the gorilla is our closest living relative, information about its anatomy, and particularly its musculature, is scarce. This book is the first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of the gorilla. It includes high-quality photographs of musculoskeletal structures from most anatomical regions of the body, along with textual information about the attachments, innervations, and weight of the reported muscles.

The Vertebrata is one of the most speciose groups of animals, comprising more than 58,000 living species. This book provides a detailed account of the comparative anatomy, development, homologies, and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral, and forelimb muscles of vertebrates

The book provides insight into the osteology, myology, phylogeny, and evolution of Osteichthyes. It not only provides an extensive cladistic analysis of osteichthyan higher-level inter-relationships based on a phylogenetic comparison of 356 characters in 80 extant and fossil terminal taxa representing all major groups of Osteichthyes but also analyses various terminal taxa and osteological characters. And also provides a general discussion on issues such as the comparative anatomy, homologies and evolution of osteichthyan cranial and pectoral muscles, the development of zebrafish cephalic muscles and the implications for evolutionary developmental studies, the origin homologies and evolution of one of the most peculiar and enigmatic structural complexes of osteichthyans, the Weberian apparatus, and the use of myological versus osteological characters in phylogenetic reconstructions.

This book focuses on human anatomy and medicine and specifically on both muscular and skeletal birth defects in humans with trisomy. Moreover, this book also deals with Down syndrome, which is one of the most studied human syndromes and, due to its high incidence and the fact that individuals with this syndrome often live until adulthood, is of special interest to the scientific and medical community.

The first photographic and descriptive musculoskeletal atlas of a baby gorilla, this book details the comparative and phylogenetic context of the gross anatomy and evolutionary history of the soft tissue morphology of modern humans and one of their closest relatives. With detailed high-quality photographs of musculoskeletal structures, it provides an updated review of the anatomical variations within gorillas as well as an extensive list of the synonyms used in the literature to designate the structures discussed. It will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers studying primatology, comparative anatomy, functional morphology, zoology, and physical anthropology.

An understanding of gonorynchiform morphology and systematic inter-and intra-relationships has proven vital to a better understanding of the evolution of lower teleosts in general, and more specifically of groups such as the clupeiforms (e.g., herrings and anchovies), and ostariophysans (e.g., carps, minnows, and catfishes). This book examines the current knowledge of gonorynchiform biology, including comparative osteology, myology, epibranchial morphology, and development.

The major aim of this work is, to help clarify the interrelationships of catfishes, with major implications on the study of the general evolution of these fishes. A great part of this work, therefore, deals with a cladistic analysis of catfish higher-level phylogeny based on extensive morphological data, in which are included some terminal taxa not included in previous analyses, but principally a large number of characters traditionally excluded from those analyses, with particular attention being given to catfish morphology.