Het boek van Michaël Ruse en Joseph Travis bestaat uit de volgende onderdelen :

1-Voorwoord van Edward O.Wilson.
2-Inleiding door M.Ruse en J.Travis.
3/1-The History of Evolutionary Thought.
3/2-The Origin of Life.
3/3-Paleontology and The History of Life.
3/4-Adaptation.
3/5-Molecular Evolution.
3/6-Evolution of the Genome.
3/7-The Pattern and Process of Speciation.
3/8-Evolution and Development.
3/9-Social Behavior and Sociobiology.
3/10-Human Evolution.
3/11-Evolutionary Biology of Disease and Darwinian Medicine.
3/12-Beyond the Darwinian Paradigm : Understanding Biological Forms.
3/13-Philoso^phy of Evolutionary Thoiught.
3/14-Evolution ans Society.
3/15-Evolution and Religion.
3/16-American Antievolutionism :Retrospect and Prospect.
4-Alphabetic Guide : Begrippen van de evolutie theorie en actoren van deze theorie (korte biografieën).
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FOREWORD. (EDWARD O.WILSON).

Two centuries after its author's birth and 150 years after its publication Charles Darwin's "On the origin of Species" can fairly be ranked as the most important book ever written......It is the masterpiece that first addressed the living world (with "The Descent of Man following) humanity's place within it,without reference to any religion or ideology,and upon massive scientific evidence provided across successive decades.
So solidly have the fields of biology built  upon the Darwinian conception of evolution that it makes sense today to recognize it as one of the two laws that govern our understanding of life.The first law is that all the elements and processes that define living organisms are ultimately obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry.The second law,the formation and product of evolutionary biology as well as much of organismic and environmental biology,is that all elements and processes defining living organisms have been generated by evolution through natural selection.The first law addresses how a phenomenon occurs and the second law addresses why it occurs.These laws are fully complementary,a prime requirement for the recognition of scientific law generally.Modern biology as a whole has little meaning without the joining of(...) approaches guided by the two laws.
The science is presented here,but also some of the main practical  and inevitably,with fundamental relevance, as the consequences of evolutionary thought for philosophy and religion.
The great questions - "Who are we ?","Where did we come from ?" and "Why are we here ?"- can be answered only,if ever,in the light of scientifically based evolutionary thought.