 Macmillan Audio presents Undeniable, Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye, edited by Cory S. Powell, and read by me, Bill Nye. Dedicated to science students of all ages, wishing you countless safe journeys and the infinite joy of discovery. Chapter 1 Me and You and Evolution 2 I think it started with the bees. I was about seven years old and I watched them. All day. That Sunday I had read the Ripley's Believe It or Not column in the Washington Post which claimed, The Bumblebee, considering its size, shape and wingspan, is an aerodynamic misfit which should be unable to fly. It was frustrating because here they were flying. I got caught up in the details. Their wings looked like decoration, no more useful than a store-bought bow glued to a gift. I looked closely at my mother's azalea flowers, so many delicate parts. Somehow the bees were able to get in there, fill their pollen baskets from the flowers and fly away again and again. How did bees learn to do all that? Where did they come from? Where did the flowers come from? Come to think of it, how did any of us get here? Why did Ripley's have it so obviously wrong? I was getting pulled into something much larger than myself. The yearning to know about nature and where or how we fit in is deep within all of us. As I learned about evolution and descent by natural selection, the answers fell into place. We are all aware that evolution happens because we all have parents. Many of us have or will have children. We see the effects of heredity up close and personal. We've also experienced first hand what Charles Darwin called descent with modification, the way that an entire population of living things can change from generation to generation. Think about the food grown on farms. For about 12,000 years, exploding the phenomenon of evolution, humans have been able to modify plants through a process known as artificial selection. In wheat farming and horse racing, we call it breeding. Darwin realized that breeding and domesticating plants and animals involves exactly the same process that occurs... Sample complete. Ready to continue?