In a rare though hardly surprising development, two evolution researchers at the University of Chicago have the top two books in the “Evolution” category at amazon.com. (It’s hardly surprising because the university’s graduate program in ecology and evolutionary biology is consistently ranked the best in the nation… end of gratuitous plug.) The #1 bestseller in the category is Neil Shubin’s “Your Inner Fish,” and #2 is Jerry Coyne’s new hardcover, “Why Evolution Is True.”

Now it’s turned into a well-nigh Darwinian struggle to see who can claim and keep the top spot, with Jerry openly yearning to wrest away Neil’s bestseller mojo.

In truth they’re both fine books with very different audiences, and Science Life is shamelessly exploiting both authors. We’ve already run interviews with Neil on misconceptions about evolution and other topics, and soon we’ll have a dialogue with Jerry about the links between biology and ideology. For a preview, check out Jerry’s recent essay in The New Republic on why efforts to reconcile evolution and religion are doomed to fail. I disagree with him on some points, including the minor issue of whether God exists. But he’s certainly right that a religion that takes evolution seriously might look very different from the religious views that most believers hold. I wrote about the same subject for the Chicago Tribune magazine last year, complete with a colorful description of Jerry’s own de-conversion experience.

UPDATE: Now Jerry is in the lead, and Neil is second. The Botany Pond grudge match continues…

I sat down yesterday with Robert Richards, author of “The Meaning of Evolution,” to talk about Darwin’s cultural influences and his place in history. Richards gave a very nice explanation of how deeply Darwin was influenced by John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”

When [Darwin] was on The Beagle, he carried Milton’s “Paradise Lost” with him everywhere. He read the poem incessantly. And of course it’s the story of death and suffering - man’s fall. But man’s fall is a necessary prerequisite for the coming of the savior, and the production of life more abundantly, a new kind of life. And if you read those last paragraphs [in "The Origin of Species"], it looks as though Darwin is trying to justify suffering and death. How do you do it? Death and suffering are justified because of the production of the higher animals, life more abundantly. A life leading to the production of the highest animal, namely us, with our moral sentiments.

Darwin’s theory has been so successful that we sometimes overlook the extent to which it was a product of his time, and his distinct way of seeing the world. This link to “Paradise Lost” casts the evolutionary process as something tragic, yet containing the seed of great beauty.