Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease

Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
Average customer rating:

Very,very, interesting

Evolution in a way you never knew!

Understanding genetic disease from an evolutionary point of view

Razzle dazzle them

Somewhat difficult subject matter for those lacking a background in science or medicine..

Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
Sharon Moalem , and Jonathan Prince
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060889659
Release Date: 2007-02-06

Book Description

Read it.

You're already living it.

Was diabetes evolution's response to the last Ice Age? Did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Will a visit to the tanning salon help lower your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are some people immune to HIV? Can your genes be turned on -- or off?

Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria.

Through a fresh and engaging examination of our evolutionary history, Dr. Moalem reveals how many of the conditions that are diseases today actually gave our ancestors a leg up in the survival sweepstakes. When the option is a long life with a disease or a short one without it, evolution opts for disease almost every time.

Everything from the climate our ancestors lived in to the crops they planted and ate to their beverage of choice can be seen in our genetic inheritance. But Survival of the Sickest doesn't stop there. It goes on to demonstrate just how little modern medicine really understands about human health, and offers a new way of thinking that can help all of us live longer, healthier lives.

Survival of the Sickest is filled with fascinating insights and cutting-edge research, presented in a way that is both accessible and utterly absorbing. This is a book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth -- and, especially, what that means for us.

Customer Reviews:

Very,very, interesting.......2007-09-21

This is one of those books that is a delightful read, educating, interesting, and entertaining. The author puts forth his theories that many modern diseases are variations of evolutionary traits that were held by our ancestors that enabled them to survive the ice age and bubonic plague. He goes on to describe how viruses cause certain behavior in their carriers to help the viruses survival. The common cold leaves you well enough to stay moving and go to work so you can spread the virus to others, while the parasitic malaria wants you immobile and in bed because mosquitos can continue to carry it even better with you immobile.
The author also presents a case currently making head way in evolutionary science that is challenging the savannah theory. He proposes that we are evolved form aquatic apes as opposed to grassland dwellers, which would explain our hairlessness like other aquatic mammals and being bipedal. We also have fat stored at the skin like water dwellers and our infants have swimming instincts at birth that have been proven by water birthing that is very successful.
And finally I was really fascinated by the finding that what scientists have believed were "junk DNA" is slowly being shown to actually be a creative force that causes mutations in DNA for the benefit of survival of the species. I have always had trouble believing in the evolutionary theory because no mechanism could be created with causing it outside of God, and God would not need it. I also believed that the key was in DNA. Now I have a cause, the DNA itself creates and casues beneficial mutations.
I really can not do this book justice in a review with out making it far to long so buy the book if the above sounds interesting. The book presents an excellent case and has made me a believer.

Evolution in a way you never knew!.......2007-09-08

Everything out there is influencing the evolution of everything else. The bacteria and viruses and parasites that cause disease in us have affected our evolution as we have adapted in ways to cope with their effects. In response they have evolved in turn, and keep on doing so.

There are many dietary diseases that have had an evolutionary advantage in our ancestors but that today do more harm than good. In a person with hemochromatosis, for example, the body always thinks that it doesn't have enough iron and continues to absorb iron unabated. The excess iron can lead to liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, and even cancer.

Why would a disease so deadly be bred into our genetic code? Remember how natural selection works. If a given genetic trait makes you stronger--especially if it makes you stronger before you have children--then you're more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass that trait on. People with hemochromatosis have therefore an evolutionary advantage--protection against the bubonic plague!

On one set of experiments, macrophages from people who had hemochromatosis and macrophages from people who did not were matched against bacteria in separate dishes to test their killing ability. The hemochromatic macrophages crushed the bacteria. They are thought to be significantly better at combating bacteria by limiting the availability of iron than the nonhemochromatic macrophages. So though hemochromatosis will kill those inflicted with it decades later, they are much more likely than people without hemochromatosis to survive plagues, reproduce, and pass the mutation on to their children.

Diabetes also provided an evolutionary advantage to our ancestors by providing superior ability to withstand the cold by eliminating water and driving up sugar levels (like alcohol, sugar is a natural antifreeze). As a theory, it's hotly controversial, but diabetes may have helped our European ancestors survive the sudden cold, including the ice-age.

Malaria is an infectious disease that infects as many as 500 million people every year, killing more than 1 million of them. But not everyone who gets bit by malaria-carrying mosquitoes gets infected. And not everybody who gets infected dies. So what's helping the malaria survivors? People with a genetic tendency for sickle-cell anemia, another inherited blood disorder, had better natural resistance to malaria.

As you've seen with hemochromatosis, diabetes, and sickle-cell anemia, one generation's evolutionary solution is another generation's evolutionary problem.

At the end of the day, every living thing shares two hardwired imperatives: Survive. Reproduce. To achieve this, some organisms have inherited ingenious techniques to manipulate their hosts--the phenomenon that occurs when a parasite provokes its host to behave in a way that helps the parasite to survive and reproduce.

Orb weavers are a family of spiders that experience host manipulation. A wasp bites the spider, temporarily paralyzing it, then deposits its egg in its abdomen. The spider then goes on with his life oblivious to the egg in him. The egg then hatches, and the larva slowly feeds off the blood of the spider. When it is ready to cocoon, it injects chemicals into the spider's bloodstream to manipulate the spider into building a special web for it--instead of building circular webs, it goes back and forth building a rectangular web. Once the web is completed, the larva kills the spider by sucking off all its blood, and then throwing its carcass to the jungle floor below. It then uses the specially built web for it to cocoon by hanging on it.

A worm that infects ants is a classic example of another host manipulator. As the worms being carried by the ant develop, one of them makes its way to the ant's brain where it manipulates the ant's nervous system. Suddenly, the ant behaves in completely uncharacteristic fashion. At night, it leaves its colony and hangs on the tip of a grass, waiting to be eaten by a sheep. If it does not, it returns to its colony only to resume again its journey at night to the tip of a grass waiting to be eaten. Once eaten by a sheep, the worm would have succeeded in its manipulation, and would grow inside the sheep's stomach, its intended host.

The rabies Virus is another interesting host manipulator. It manipulates its host into becoming aggressive, which will make its host bite others and thus also infecting others.

Here is one amazing example of host manipulation: One researcher has discovered that women infected with T. gondii spend more money on clothes and are consistently rated as beings more attractive than women without the infection. Infected women were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends, and cared more about how they looked. However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men. Infected men, on the other hand, were less well groomed, more likely to be loners, and more willing to fight. They were also more likely to be suspicious and jealous and less willing to follow rules.

A normal sneeze occurs when the body's self-defense system senses a foreign invader trying to get in through your nasal passages and acts to repel the invasion by expelling it with a sneeze. But sneezing when you've got a cold? There's obviously no way to expel the cold virus which is already lodged in you. The cold virus has learned this reflex so it can infect your colleagues, family and your friends. Your body is actually being manipulated by the virus into sneezing!

The herpes virus may heighten sexual feeling, which will increase the probability of transmission. In other words, sometimes the herpes virus may want you to get some action in order for it to spread to other hosts.

So what if we made it easier for a given type of bacteria to survive in a healthy human than to survive in a sick human? Would this create evolutionary pressure against behavior that harms us? In fact there is an evolutionary advantage for the malaria parasite to push its hosts toward the brink of death. The more parasites swarming through our blood, the more parasites the mosquito is likely to ingest; the more parasites the mosquito ingests, the more likely it will cause an infection when it bites someone else. Cholera is similar--it doesn't need us moving around to find new hosts, so there's no reason for the bacteria to select against virulence. The bottom line is that if an infectious client has allies (such as mosquitoes) or good delivery systems (such as unprotected water supplies), peaceful coexistence with its host becomes a lot less important. In those cases evolution is likely to favor versions of the parasite that best exploit its host's resources, allowing the parasite to multiply as much as possible. Some researchers believe that we can use this understanding to influence the evolution of parasites away from virulence. The basic theory is this: shut down the modes of transmission that don't require human participation and suddenly all the evolutionary pressure is directed at allowing the human host to get up and get out. According to this theory, the virulence of a cholera outbreak in a given population should be directly related to the quality and safety of that population's water supply. If sewage flows easily into rivers that people wash in or drink from, then the cholera strain would evolve toward virulence--it can multiply freely, essentially using up its hosts, relying on its access to the water supply for transmission. But if the water supply is well protected, the organism should evolve away from virulence--the longer it remains in a more mobile host, the better its chance of transmission.

A series of cholera outbreaks that began in Peru in 1991 and spread across South and Central America over the next few years provide compelling evidence that this theory might actually work. The water supply systems from country to country ranged from relatively advanced to seriously rudimentary. Sure enough, when the bacteria invaded nations with poorly protected water supplies, such as Ecuador, the virus became more harmful as it spread. But in countries with safe water supplies, such as Chile, the bacteria evolved downward in virulence and killed fewer people. The implications of this are huge. Instead of challenging bacteria to become stronger and more dangerous through an antibiotic arms race (which we are currently losing), we could essentially challenge them to get along. If mosquitoes didn't have access to bedridden malaria patients, the microbe would be under evolutionary pressure to evolve in a way that allowed the infected person to remain mobile, increasing the opportunity for it to spread.

A series of groundbreaking research has shown that certain compounds can attach themselves to specific genes and suppress their expression. Let's take a look at a few examples. Depending upon the time of year the vole (a type of mouse) is due to give birth, baby voles are born with either a thick coat or a thin coat. The gene for a thick coat is always there--it's just turned on or off depending on the level of light the mother senses in her environment around the time of conception.

One species of lizard is born with a long tail and large body or a small tail and small body depending on one thing only--whether their mother smelled a lizard-eating snake while pregnant. When her babies are entering a snake-filled world, they are born with a long tail and big body, making them less likely to be snake food.

This is a fascinating book and I highly recommend it. I truly enjoyed reading it and I have learnt things I never imagined! Now that's what I call precious reading!

Understanding genetic disease from an evolutionary point of view.......2007-09-01

We really don't "need" disease. This is a bit misleading. It just so happens that some genetic disorders, such as sickle-cell anemia, favism, diabetes, hemochromatosis, the tendency to obesity, etc., confer on the afflicted compensatory advantages. Thus a predilection for getting fat is adaptive if a drought or a long winter beckons, or a person with a genetic tendency toward sickle-cell anemia is less likely to get malaria, and so on. Note that it is only diseases caused by genetic mutations that Dr. Moalem is talking about.

One of the techniques our bodies use when fighting infection is to reduce the amount of iron available to the invaders. Bacteria need iron to reproduce. If there is a lot of it available their numbers can grow quickly. Without iron they can't reproduce at all. Iron is a limiting factor for many kinds of life. Vast stretches of ocean support little in the way of life because the microorganisms that begin the food chain can't grow where there is so little iron. As Dr. Moalem reports in this wide-ranging and eyebrow-lifting book, sprinkle some iron onto those patches of ocean and they will quickly turn green with microorganisms.

So it is a bit of an irony that people who have hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes them to retain large amounts of iron in their bodies, are able to survival infections like the plague. This is because they starve the invading microbes through "iron locking." They have a lot of iron in their bodies, but they keep it away from the bacteria. Other people who have low levels of iron in their bodies are able to withstand bacterial attacks because they also keep what little iron they have away from the germs. In fact, one of the body's initial responses to microbial invasion is to limit the amount of free iron in the system.

Genetic coding for levels of iron in the body is an example of evolutionary adaptation, part of the ongoing arms race between us and the microbes that live in and on our bodies. This is just one of several interesting and new ideas coming from the growing science of evolutionary medicine that I found in Survival of the Sickest. Incidentally, one way to manage hemochromatosis is through donating blood on a regular basis, which explains in part why physicians of old were sometimes successful when they bled their patients.

This got me to thinking about "only women bleed" which led me to think about hemorrhoids (which prove that it isn't only women who bleed). Perhaps bleeding instead of retaining blood, which seems like the more natural thing for our bodies to do, has adaptive value in some people in some environments.

Another interesting idea is this from page 58: "ACHOO syndrome--its full name is autosomal dominant compelling heliopthalmic outburst syndrome." It is a "disorder that causes uncontrolled sneezing when someone is exposed to bright light, usually sunlight, after being in the dark." Dr. Moalem suggests that "way back when our ancestors spent more time in caves, this reflex helped them to clear out any molds or microbes that might have lodged in their noses or upper respiratory tract." Now this may sound a bit far fetched, but I have suffered from low grade allergies all my life, and used to have asthmatic attacks. I came to believe that the buildup in my lungs and the sneezing were signals to me to move on! Of course now I clean and vacuum like a germaphobe, but the idea is the same. My symptoms were adaptive. They more or less forced me to reduce the level of potential irritants and microbes in my environment.

But there is more. I noticed long ago that sometimes the sun in the morning would cause me to sneeze. I never figured out why until I read the above from Dr. Moalem. I am just the kind of person who would need to sneeze those molds out.

Later on in the book Moalem returns to an evolutionary idea that has been kicking around for decades. Beginning with the work of Elaine Morgan from the 1970s the public became aware of the notion that we humans had an aquatic past. She got the idea from marine biologist Alister Hardy. Through such books as The Descent of Woman (1972) and The Aquatic Ape: A Theory of Human Evolution (1982) Morgan argued that some of our unusual adaptations came about because we had an aquatic past. Taking up the idea, Moalem writes, "Every hairless mammal is aquatic or at least plays in the mud--think of hippos, elephants and the African warthog. But there aren't any hairless primates." (p. 198) Furthermore we have fat directly under our skin to help keep us warm just as aquatic mammals do. Also, Moalem notes, "the ability to survive on land and sea" gives us adaptive flexibility. If "chased by a leopard, the semiaquatic ape could dive into the water; chased by a crocodile, it could run into the forest." (p. 199)

These ideas are familiar but what I didn't know was that an aquatic past could have figured in our evolution toward bipedalism. "[S]tanding upright in water allowed...[aquatic apes] to venture into deeper water and still breathe, and the water helped to support their upper bodies, making it easier to support them on two feet." (p. 199)

This is an easy to read book, aimed at a general readership. An earlier, slightly more technical book that covers some of the same territory is Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (1994) by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams, which I also recommend.

Razzle dazzle them.......2007-08-27

This book embodies much of what I dislike in popular cience books, while having few of the qualities I admire in such books. It relies more on sleigh of the hand and razzle dazzle, you-wouldn't-have-thought-of-it than on throughly thought out, well substantiated lines of thought.

Let's start with the subtitle: "A medical maverick discovers why we need disease". That is a clear case of fiction: nowhere in the book does the author "discover" anything; he merely retells the study of others. This, of course, is not a demerit, as many interesting scientists have difficulties in explaining their work in clear terms, acessible to the layman. However, the author must be hyped as the "discoverer", as the center figure in the tale.

Since James Burke's "Connections", it seems that popular science must explore all the crossroads, no matter how irrelevant. So Moalem goes on long tangents that have little to do with the theory he is trying to substantiate. In order to show how diabetes works to protect the body against cold, the reader is taken through the mechanism of an ice age, how ice core samples are removed and so on. If one were to remove all this "extra" material, this book would be thin indeed.

The book seems to revolve around this material and the author's use of jokes. Unfortunately, his sense of humour tends more towards ha-ha than funny, which helped to further fray my patience towards this book.

All of this is indeed a pity, as the subject is very interesting. If more pages had been dedicated to developing a central line of thought and substantiation and to showing the debate behind all these ideas (in a real light, instead of "the thickheaded traditionalists who won't accept new ideas"), it would be well worth the read.

Somewhat difficult subject matter for those lacking a background in science or medicine.........2007-07-08

From time to time I pick up a book on a subject I know virtually nothing about. Ordinarily I devour books about history or politics or current events. These are topics I am well versed in and comfortable with.
Dr. Sharon Moalem's "The Survival of the Sickest: sounded like a fascinating departure from my ordinary fare. So I thought I would give it a whirl. Unfortunately for me the results were somewhat mixed. Although Dr. Moalem and her co-author have written this book in fairly simple language that most should be able to follow pretty easily I found myself overwhelmed at times by the number of terms I was simply not familiar with at all. I'm afraid my lack of education in the sciences was showing. Blame me not the good doctor. Yet in spite of these difficulties I was still able to glean some important information from this book. I now have a somewhat better understanding of the whole business of why disease exists in the first place. I also discovered the important role viruses play in our ability to survive and reproduce. I also found out that the development of diabetes in human beings probably emerged as natures response to people having to cope with conditions in regions with extremely cold temperatures. This makes perfect sense and was interesting to me because a number of people in my family have battled this disease. Perhaps the most fascinating thing I learned in "Survival of the Sickest" is that exposure to the sunshine actually helps to convert the cholestorol in our bodies into the vitamin D we all need to ensure strong bones and help avoid osteoperosis. I had never heard this before and found this revelation to be quite interesting indeed!
For me, attempting to read "Survival of the Sickest" was a little like visiting a foreign country and not knowing the language. I was simply unprepared to get the most out of this book. As you can see, other reviewers continue to heap praise on Dr. Sharon Moalem for her book. I suspect their evaluation of this book is right on the money. In the end I found that reading "Survival of the Sickest" was time well spent anyway. After all, it is impossible to expand your horizons if you never make the attempt.

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

Average customer rating:

Makes evolution understandable
"Passionate advocacy" and storytelling: 2 stars?
Please Read (Especially if You're Religious)!
468 pages of evasive reasoning
Great explanation of evolution

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Richard Dawkins is not a shy man. Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist in the witty British style:

I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence.

The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."

Dawkins is a hard-core scientist: he doesn't just tell you what is so, he shows you how to find out for yourself. For this book, he wrote Biomorph, one of the first artificial life programs. You can check Dawkins's results on your own Mac or PC.

Book Description

"The best general account of evolution I have read in recent years."—E. O. Wilson. With a new introduction.

Twenty years after its original publication, The Blind Watchmaker, framed with a new introduction by the author, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte. Natural selection—the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially nonrandom process Darwin discovered—is the blind watchmaker in nature.

Customer Reviews:

Makes evolution understandable.......2007-10-02

It is some years since I read this excellent book on evolution. But I still remember it as the book that really laid out the nuts and bolts of the process and made it easy to understand at the "Ah now I see" level. I know of no better layman's guide to evolution.

"Passionate advocacy" and storytelling: 2 stars?.......2007-10-02

". . . there are wonderful stories to be told, and I love storytelling." Dawkins, tBW, chapter 2.

It must be admitted that Dawkins is an entertaining expositor, at least when he avoids repetition and a bad habit of prolonged hammering away at very simple concepts, often for pages on end, as if his assertions and arguments were more difficult to grasp than they actually are. In some instances he explains rather well, in comfortably pedestrian language, certain specific biological details, but when he tries to generalize and extend his views to larger scale philosophical perspectives, his assertions quickly disintegrate under critical scrutiny. All things considered, TBW isn't very impressive.

Dawkins states early on that he is writing from the perspective of a "passionate advocate" rather than that of a scientist proceeding along lines of argument that might be recognized as being scientific. He says that he does this because the reader can't grasp the science involved, therefore he is to invoke "wonderful stories." He frets that some will not believe him because they do not "want to believe." Dawkins wants to believe.

I find it curiously disingenuous, perhaps even insulting and intellectually evasive on Dawkins' part, that he suggests he must deal in metaphors and stories because his readers are too stupid (no, he doesn't use the word `stupid', but this is what he repeatedly describes) to understand his deep, scientific understanding of the Darwinian story. His lengthy insistence that evolution has hard-wired us to be unable to understand and appreciate echolocation in bats, is obviously wrong. In Dawkins' hands, this kind of suggestion is supposed to, in its own merit, buttress some of his arguments (see the following paragraph). A thinking person begs to differ. Many of the most brilliant and penetrating minds of modern theoretical science and mathematics, including Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, and Kurt Gödel, among others, have found the Darwinian story to be non-compelling at best, and on some points glaringly wrong. Dawkins may want to dismiss them as `not wanting to believe' or as being somehow stupid, but . . .

Dawkins: "Our minds can't cope with [large numbers] . . . Our minds can't imagine a time span [greater or less than `routine' human experience]," because "it offends the economically minded human." Dawkins says "there was no need for our ancestors to cope with sizes and times outside the narrow range of everyday practicality, so our brains never evolved the capacity to imagine them." Dawkins loves this mythic defense and ducks behind it frequently, but it is a hapless argument. It is "a slander against humanity," as one philosopher of science has stated, and it is self evidently wrong. The human mind can certainly `imagine' larger numbers than we experience in "routine experience!" Consider for a mere moment the insights of a Gauss, Cantor, or Riemann; consider that even a modestly competent math student CAN not only imagine very large and very small numbers [including quantities of distance and time units], but CAN engage and manipulate these numbers accurately, often rather easily when abstracted with recognizable notations like exponents!

It is not a matter of this _kind_ of observation being inherently untrue; many physicists, including Paul Dirac, have spoken this way about quantum mechanics, for example. Indeed it is difficult to understand quantum mechanics because neither Bohr's complimentarity principle nor Heisenberg's uncertainty principle have any obvious analogs within normal human experience, let alone the way in which these two surprising qualities are entangled. But this observation is fundamentally different than Dawkins' argument that humans cannot understand imaging with non-visible frequencies or what to make of big numbers! Anyone curious person who has ever considered a sonogram or x-ray image, or seen a movie featuring submariners watching sonar screens, grasps non-visual spectrum images, and any modestly competent high school student well understands what large numbers are!

Dawkins' sluggardly argument "whistles past the graveyard" that is home to a real problem for the great Darwinian thesis: why should our abilities to examine non-commutative algebras or higher dimensional topologies or even advanced number theory [or any of the more esoteric fields of mathematics] exist at all in a Darwinian world? Certainly not for any of the rationales that Dawkins appeals to. They provide no survival or reproductive advantage within evolutionary `routine experience,' or in any other sense whatsoever. They avail "the selfish gene" nothing. They exist as a non-Darwinian/ anti-Dawkins reality.

Dawkins says that "5 per cent of an eye" would probably provide "5 per cent vision." Skepticism seems reasonable here, except perhaps for those who "want to believe." He presents many such dubious assertions, like: "living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around" (ultimately--in DNA--teleology and `purpose' are alive and well!) and, "DNA molecules themselves, as physical entities, are like dewdrops" (true in a very limited and caricatured sense perhaps, but grossly misleading, to put it mildly). Presumably Dawkins would deflect criticism of some such colorful assertions by claiming them mere metaphors. Okay, but what then are the actual `truths' he is trying to demonstrate? Can they be stated precisely or directly and seem less cartoonish? Or are his readers merely too stupid for the `scientific' explanations that he is protecting them from? (With apologies to Dawkins' fans who might consider the last question a cheap shot [I do not].)

There are so many aspects of Dawkins' book that beg critical analysis, that, in the desire to keep this review short, I will have to simply point some of them out briefly before moving forward: (1.) His programmed stick figure "bio-morphs" obviously have been brought into `existence' by design, in an intelligently designed `world,' and for a specific purpose, how does this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? (2.) His `typing monkeys,' borrowed from one of his heroes, TH Huxley, is hopelessly burdened with design, purpose and intelligent contrivance--who builds the typewriters, who made the language and symbols thereof that the builder of the typewriters clearly needed as a starting point, who makes the paper (cuts and mills the trees, etc), who keeps those 99.999. . . percent of monkeys that would simply smash the typewriters away from them and keeps that rare typing monkey on task?--again, how could any of this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? He eventually (chapt 6) admits that it does not. (3.) His computer program designed to derive a sentence from Hamlet, if given the necessary letters to work with, and if specifically designed to achieve a specific result, will do so--well folks, are you beginning to see a pattern here? Design is supposed to equal no design! Dawkins' core thesis in TBW, as presented in the book's subtitle, "the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design," fails utterly in all of his memorable and now famous arguments, no matter what points concerning natural selection one may believe he has made cleanly.

"It could happen:" Dawkins' most fundamental and foundational arguments and speculations are also his most flawed, and are appropriately employed in the center of the book, chapter six, "Origins and miracles." Here Dawkins quickly demands that an extra-cosmic designer (God) must be an "organized complexity" that evolves naturally within an infinite regress of causes. This is certainly a convenient construction, as it makes "god" quite expendable by definition, but the definition is poor quality straw. The god whose fire he steals is not the "simple unity" or the "first cause of causes" that one finds in either Abrahamic or neo-Platonic theology. His wrong argument simply defeats a wrong god. He next sketches a somewhat accurate picture of the profound difficulties of `abiogenesis'/ `autogenesis'/ `spontaneous generation' of life theories. He says that to effectively put these problems aside, we only need to imagine that these difficulties were somehow overcome--"it must have happened." The "pathway" model he chooses to champion as being plausible is due to Graham Cairns-Smith, and goes something very like this:

Carbon macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids, necessary to all carbon-based life, that is all life that we know of, are so complex that it is hopelessly difficult to imagine them arising spontaneously in any non-living substratum. That Stanley Miller and others have synthesized amino acids is of no real help here, the gap between mere amino acids and the highly complex carbon macromolecules is too great. So let's imagine something simpler, that silicon-base lattices are "life-like" in that they are "organized" and rudimentarily "complex." Now imagine that non-directed geological and meteorological forces in some sense "select" certain silicon dust crystals such that they accumulate and form larger "organizations." Now imagine that these silicon "organizations" become something that might be described as "RNA-like" mud. Now imagine that actual RNA begins to "take over" the "RNA-like" mud. Carbon macromolecules somehow have arisen and now somehow replace silicon structures. Viola! "Life-like" "organizations" of "RNA-like" mud are now organizations of RNA and RNA organizations eventually become DNA organizations and "life-like" organizations become life. Inorganic structures somehow `commute' to carbon molecules. Mineral (silicon being the best candidate) crystal `genes' commute to carbon-based genes, RNA "takes over" "RNA-like", DNA eventually takes over. I suppose this is plausible for a `true believer' for whom the proper kind of `imagination' is sufficient, but it's not plausible in any scientific sense. The entire heart of the original problem remains intact. Where did the carbon macromolecules come from? How did RNA "appear"?

Dawkins defense of this problem is interestingly empty and invokes "a marble statue of the Virgin Mary suddenly" waving its hand at us. Here it is: "In the case of the marble statue, molecules in solid marble are continuously jostling against one another in random directions. The jostlings of the different molecules cancel one another out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still. But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us. It could happen. The odds against such a coincidence are unimaginably great but they are not incalculably great. A physicist colleague has kindly calculated them for me. The number is so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts! It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump over the moon with something like the same improbability. The conclusion to this part of the argument is that we can calculate our way into regions of miraculous improbability far greater than we can imagine as plausible."

All that is left to Dawkins is to again regale our inability to imagine numbers "so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts!" It's the final sum of his argument--we don't have good enough imaginations! It is interesting that Dawkins doesn't recognize that this same specie of argument can more easily be employed to defend belief in a First Cause of causes (here Dawkins seems to have a contentedly parochial imagination). And of course, neither a cow jumping over the moon nor a marble statue waving at us either establishes or quantifies the plausibility of life spontaneously arising from non-life.

Although his deepest philosophical assertions fail grandly, although he is repetitive and wordy, and although he is given to belittling his readers' intelligence even while trying to educate and entertain them, the book has its moments; Dawkins certainly doesn't get EVERYTHING wrong, he IS at times entertaining, and this book isn't as bad as The Selfish Gene.

Please Read (Especially if You're Religious)!.......2007-09-29

I have a degree in English and American Literature and my minor was in History. In other words, I'm not great at science or math. But I've always been interested in some aspects of science and biology and evolution happen to be subjects I like. I'm not a complete moron when it comes to scientific subjects but I'm sure any 8th grade science geek could probably run rings around me.

Consequently, this book by Richard Dawkins is made for me. The way I understood it it was written with a general reader in mind. The book is well written and plausibly argued. And as long as you pay attention and follow the logic of the author's arguments it's not that hard to follow.

The basic premise of the book is to show how life could appear in the universe without a creator or any pre-conceived notion of design (the whole "Intelligent Design" argument now being debated across the U.S.). Dawkins obviously loves Darwin and bases his argument on cumulative evolution over billions of years (the age of the Earth [and please shut-up you stupid creationists trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old!]). Dawkins patiently explains how such a slow and random process like natural selection could evolve our life-forms over vast amounts of time. Like I said, I'm no great scientist, but the argument makes perfect sense and I still fail to see why anyone tries to argue otherwise (except, of course, for religious reasons, but those are very silly reasons).

Overall, this is a good way to try to understand evolution in more depth than the few words hopefully given to you in high school and college. There are a few parts which I found to be boring (like the taxonomy debates and different schools of thought in taxonomy) but I think this book is an important read--especially now that religious nuts are trying to dumb people down.

468 pages of evasive reasoning.......2007-09-15

Dawkins' thesis in this book is to prove that the universe is a non-sentient thing which merely exists. There is no God who creates. What order there is (e.g. life) has been produced by mutation and cumulative selection (i.e. evolution).

But one could ask, who designed evolution? How did the universe come to be? Dawkins' sidesteps these questions for 468 pages (in my edition of the book).

As an engineer, I find his whole approach disturbing because he asks us to have faith in evolution rather than in God. I write this because evolution seems to be an untestable theory. If I propose to do an experiment to evolve bacteria into human beings a Darwinist will tell me that it is impossible to do because the time required would be much, much longer than that of a single human lifespan. And Dawkins seems to be saying that even if one could do that, the result would not be a human being but maybe something resembling a human being. What is there left to do but have faith in the priests of evolution? It's not as though I can test their theory. Given this, Dawkins' obvious contempt for those who believe in God is hard to take.

Great explanation of evolution.......2007-09-13

This book is an excellent explanation of evolution. It's a little on the dry side, and people who already know quite a bit about evolution will find it slow in the beginning. It picks up, though. Dawkins starts off with simple concepts and gradually builds into the more complex understandings of evolution. He explains everything very clearly, using analogies to help visualize some of the more difficult concepts. This book does a great job of clearing up a lot of the misunderstandings of what evolution is really about and putting a beautiful concept in science into terms any lay person can understand. Dawkins makes evolution impossible to dispute once you have read his book. I think most people who try to argue with evolution could only possibly be doing so because they do not fully understand it.

Average customer rating:

That Is The Point
You'd best have some background knowledge
Enjoyable Science
Could have/should have been much better
Get to the point!

How the Mind Works
Steven Pinker
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Neuropsychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

ASIN: 0393045358

Amazon.com

Why do fools fall in love? Why does a man's annual salary, on average, increase $600 with each inch of his height? When a crack dealer guns down a rival, how is he just like Alexander Hamilton, whose face is on the ten-dollar bill? How do optical illusions function as windows on the human soul? Cheerful, cheeky, occasionally outrageous MIT psychologist Steven Pinker answers all of the above and more in his marvelously fun, awesomely informative survey of modern brain science. Pinker argues that Darwin plus canny computer programs are the key to understanding ourselves--but he also throws in apt references to Star Trek, Star Wars, The Far Side, history, literature, W. C. Fields, Mozart, Marilyn Monroe, surrealism, experimental psychology, and Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty and his 888 children. If How the Mind Works were a rock show, tickets would be scalped for $100. This book deserved its spot as Number One on bestseller lists. It belongs on a short shelf alongside such classics as Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel C. Dennett, and The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, by Robert Wright. Pinker's startling ideas pop out as dramatically as those hidden pictures in a Magic Eye 3D stereogram poster, which he also explains in brilliantly lucid prose.

Book Description

In this extraordinary bestseller, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, does for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct. He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, "No other science writer makes me laugh so much. . . . [Pinker] deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him." The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting.

Customer Reviews:

That Is The Point.......2007-10-09

The use of the word mind has been and continues to be an albatross for the human understanding of the science of the human brain. I think Pinker uses the word mind to help people relieve their mystical understanding of this word and allow them to see the material reality of the incredible organ we call a brain and some still refer to as a mind. I think that is great. Of course the misunderstanding will continue, one review even pointed to Noam Chomsky as a hero, while he champions ignorance and the so called mysteries of the mind. Personally mention of his name causes a reflexive response that makes me vomit. Excuse me. Nim Chimpsky is the antithesis to human understanding of the brain and mentioning him in the same light as people with insight is indefensible, but enlightening in that it shows how important this book is to help bridge the gap between illusion and fact. Nim is the perfect example of the ignorance that is not only accepted, but respected in our society. He says something similar to: We can't understand the mind it will forever be mysterious. The idiot of course wrote a scathing criticism of B.F. Skinner(a true personal hero). Skinner provided actual scientific evidence to allow us to understand the way the brain works and allow us to understand human behavior. Nim Chimpsky of course continues to stand by his worldview. The mind is incomprehensible and so is human behavior. He even provided a plethora of irrational arguments that reinforce his worldview and make sure evidence will not ruin the mysteries of his world, arguments that only a conditioned brain could formulate. Irony. He even made groundbreaking contributions to linguistics a science anagolous to alchemey. The man is a cancer, but enough of that. The idea is to show the importance of this book. It providies actual evidence of it's finding in an entertaining manner. It avoids the ignorant rhetorical devices of unfairly respected members of pseudo-science like Nim Chimpsky. I recommend this book to anyone that prefers understanding things to living in mystery.

You'd best have some background knowledge.......2007-08-29

I first read sections of this book a year ago and was initially somewhat disappointed that it did not focus on how the mind works via the neurobiological or the physiological approach. This book rarely mentions specific brain structures or neurotransmitters. Rather, it is a look at the brain via the computational theory of mind - via the perspective that the brain is an informational processing organ that is best analyzed via the selection pressures that influenced the reactions that the brain makes to stimuli. For those who are more interested in specific neurobiological approaches, one is advised to read "Synaptic Self" (LeDoux) or "The Quest for Consciousness : A Neurobiological Approach." However, I recently re-read it a week ago and finally appreciated its significance.

Pinker's book is very rewarding for the person who likes to analyze complex adaptive systems via means of general principles rather than of specific facts. As a result, he comments a lot on comparisons between the human mind and both animal minds and "computer minds." This approach is an excellent approach for generating hypotheses and explanations for human behavior, even though it does not analyze the specific neurological processes that are intermediate between stimuli and response. His approach is especially relevant when it comes to the study of family values and sex, when it comes to the chapter on family values, since it helps explain the idiosyncrasies associated with complex adaptive systems that must replicate by means of sex.

Pinker's book does go off numerous off tangents. He has commentary on the "Standard Social Science Model", he goes off into hypotheses into the reasons why biological organisms have sex, and he touches on implications of cognitive science. Those are interesting, although they do add to the length of the book.

The book isn't exactly perfect from my perspective. It would be nice if he wrote a little about the parts of the brain that underly mental representations and mental images.

By the way - as for those who are unfamiliar with the definition of a "complex adaptive system" - read Murray Gell-Mann's "Quark and the Jaguar."

Enjoyable Science.......2007-04-11

Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" is the best science book that I have read in my life (aging boomer). He has an excellent command of the available research in the field and is able to present it in an engaging style. The scientific understanding of the mind has progressed significantly in the last 30 years and this books serves as an excellent summary of and guide to the understanding of these developments. I learned a lot by reading it and I enjoyed it too. What more can one expect from a book or say about it? Buy it, read it, enjoy it and learn!

Could have/should have been much better.......2007-01-26

This is a book by a noted expert in a fascinating area which both could have and should have been much better.

Generally, reading Steven Pinker at one the same time reminds one both of Josephus, the First Century Jewish historian and the comedian Dennis Miller. Pinker is like Josephus because like Josephus Pinker is unnecessarily discursive and Pinker is like Dennis Miller because one comes away from the experience of listening to him thinking that the guy was more interested in showing you that he knew of lot of stuff rather than actually trying to inform you about a lot of stuff.

Here are a couple of for instances:

In discussing intelligence generally, Pinker segues into a long discussion about Frank Drake and the famous Drake equation for positing the existence of intelligent life off the planet. In praising Congress for zero funding the Search for Intelligence Life (SETI), Pinker noted that Drake's equation unnecessary factored in the inevitable quality of the emergence of intelligent life. Not only was Pinker's observance an incorrect rendition of Drake's formula but it was also quite to the point of why Congress zero funded the program.

Congress zero funded the program (like the Supercolliding Superconductor) because Congress was too sheepish to go to its constituents and tell them that like military prowess, scientific research runs to the heart of a nation's strength. In other words, Congress thought like the midevil Chinese when they dismantled the Emporer's fleet.

In discussing family values, Pinker noted the old saw that people were more at risk of homocide from their relatives than strangers. Then, when he went on to try and prove his point, he did so by semantically re-categorizing spouses and significant others as "non blood relations." Throughout his discussion, it seemed as if Pinker was more intent on seeming clever than providing actual, on the ground analysis.

And indeed, these limitations aren't necessarily critical because Josephus is great history reading and Dennis Miller at least has the potential to be entertaining. Even Pinker himself, writing in this same, style, produced a great book when he wrote "The Blank Slate."

But Josephus and Miller and Blank Slate are different because in this book, a book which purports to describe the actual workings of the human mind, there is a need for the author to be clear, cogent and to the point.

How DOES the mind work? How did it evolutionarily come to be? What are its evolutionary objectives? What systems does it use to carry out those objectives? Are there ways in which it can be decieved? How? Why?

Like the articulation of a scientific theory is improved by it's elegance, books expositing on scientific matters must needs themselves be elegant.

And so, for those truly interested in this topic, I would recommend the following list of books:

1) "The Selfish Gene" -- Richard Dawkins' 1976 book remains a classic exposition on contemporary gene theory and it's implications for human life;

2) "The Red Queen" -- Matt Ridley produced a wonderful, up to the date book detailing sexual mating and its implications;

3) "Before the Dawn" -- Nicholas Wade's 2006 book likewise provides up to the date research and insight not only the fact of human evolution but the fact that human evolution is still continuing apace even today and how;

4) "Phantoms in the Brain" -- V.S. Ramashandran has produced a wonderful, highly readable book about the different ways in which human cognition can falter;

5) "A Brief Introduction to Consciousness" -- Again, V.S. Ramashandran plums the depths of human consciousness and in so doing produced a highly readable and eloquent survey of the mind;

6) "Consciousness Explained" -- Dan Dennett's exposition on the workings of the brain easily rivals and exceeds that presented by Pinker. True, Dennett may ultimately be proved to be wrong but at least he presents a cohesive and credible theory of cognition;

7) "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" -- Again, Dan Dennett is wonderful at bringing complicated concepts to life with his unique brand of brilliant insight;

8) "How We Love" -- Helen Fisher's book on human attraction and mating practices places an appropriate literary focus on humanity's actual genetic focus, namely: reproduction;

9) "The Origins of Virtue" -- Again Matt Ridley has tackled a significant topic rendering it both accessible and relevant. Why do people cooperate? Because it's in their self interest to do so and Ridley's book shows one how; and finally

10) "Religion Explained" -- Pascal Boyer takes a nettlesome problem and uses actual scientific method to arrive at a solution. Like Dennett, Boyer's findings may ultimately be either wrong or just incomplete but again like good science is supposed to it provides an explanation and not just mere pedantic puffery.

By no means should this review be construed as a screed against Pinker. As stated, his Blank Slate was a remarkable master work and underscored the importance of academic tolerance. However, it's because Pinker is capable of such quality that he can legitimately be expected to have produced better.

In other words, an eagle is most striking in flight among the clouds...not standing on the ground in a field of turkeys.

Get to the point!.......2006-11-09

This was another Pinker book I couldn't finish. If he was a taxi-driver he would take you from Brooklyn to New York via San Francisco. Sometimes even his asides have asides! Perhaps like pulp fiction writers he gets paid by the word.

Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History

Average customer rating:

Aquarium Corals
Absolutly recommended for all reefkeepers
A wonderful gift
decent book on corals
The best book on Corals available today

Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History
Eric H. Borneman
Manufacturer: TFH Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Fish & Aquariums | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Reef Invertebrates: An Essential Guide to Selection, Care and Compatibility
A PocketExpert Guide to Marine Fishes: 500+ Essential-To-Know Aquarium Species
A PocketExpert Guide to Marine Invertebrates: 500+ Essential-to-Know Aquarium Species
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist: A Commonsense Handbook for Successful Saltwater Hobbyists
The Reef Aquarium: Science, Art, and Technology, Vol. 3

Product Features:

by Eric Borneman. This thorough book covers the identification and care of over

ASIN: 1890087475

Product Description

464 pages, hardcover. By Eric H. Borneman. Color photographs. Designed to help new and experienced aquarists to select the most appropriate corals for their systems and to provide guidance in keeping them healthy for the long term, this all-new book is pa

Customer Reviews:

Aquarium Corals.......2007-10-10

This book is quite informative even for a beginner. The in-depth knowledge expressed is invaluable, it is understandable as well as being scientific. I highly recommend this book for the begginer as well as the advanced aquarist who desires information regarding coral animals & husbandry, algae, and water chemistry.

Absolutly recommended for all reefkeepers.......2007-08-19

Covers almost everything what you need to know about corals in reef tank.
very valuable and helpfull as an identification guide, source of information about preferred conditions and requirements of corals in your tank, taxonomy etc etc. very valuable part about coral's health and diseases. also nice chapter explaining role of zooxanthellae, energy budgets, coral's feeding, anatomy, reproduction etc etc etc...

this is just "a must" position in everyone reefkeeper library.

A wonderful gift.......2007-05-07

I received this book as a birthday gift and I definitely love it. I always looked the information on the Internet but it takes times and is confusing on the other hand this book gives me all the information I need and more.
Love the pictures and the easy way to give information. Every time I have a question the first thing I do is check this book. I don't know what I would do without it.
This is the best book ever.

decent book on corals.......2007-04-11

this is one of the best coral books out there. it's loaded with lots of pictures. it's a must for every reef tank keepers out there.

The best book on Corals available today.......2007-03-12

Its no need for a very long review. Far this is the best and most updated Coral book on the market. An absolute must-have for any aquarist, professional or not.

From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals)

Average customer rating:

Can't Beat It
Four classics
Wonderful writing wrong package
Too big
From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, T

From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals)
Charles Darwin
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Darwin: The Indelible Stamp; The Evolution Of An Idea
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
The God Delusion
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth

ASIN: 0393061345

Book Description

A gorgeous gift and a landmark work that is an essential addition to everyone's personal library.

Never before have the four great works of Charles Darwin—Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (1845), The Origin of Species (1859), The Descent of Man (1871), and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)—been collected under one cover. Undertaking this challenging endeavor 123 years after Darwin's death, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson has written an introductory essay for the occasion, while providing new, insightful introductions to each of the four volumes and an afterword that examines the fate of evolutionary theory in an era of religious resistance. In addition, Wilson has crafted a creative new index to accompany these four texts, which links the nineteenth-century, Darwinian evolutionary concepts to contemporary biological thought. Beautifully slipcased, and including restored versions of the original illustrations, From So Simple a Beginning turns our attention to the astounding power of the natural creative process and the magnificence of its products. Slipcased hardcover; 101 illustrations, map.

Customer Reviews:

Can't Beat It.......2007-04-03

I bought this book knowing very little about Darwin or his theories. From So Simple a Beginning was an easy read about a very interesting man. I would hope that not just supporters of evolution would read this book there is more to the man then just one theory.

Four classics.......2007-01-12

Excellent in every particular. Five stars in delivery time, condition, quality of the experience.

Wonderful writing wrong package.......2007-01-10

There is no gainsaying the writings of Darwin or the thinking of my favorite living scientist, E.O.Wilson. But the package is wrong.
Four books in one. Too heavy, too cumbersome. Discouraging.

Too big.......2007-01-05

This book is way too big to hold to read, so it is not useful. From the picture I thought I was ordering 4 different books in a book holder, not one giant book. I recommend buying them separately unless you have very strong arms and wrists.

From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, T.......2006-07-02

Good

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (Great Discoveries)

Average customer rating:

Beware the audio book verson
Short, Fast, and Informative
On the Evolution of Darwin
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin by David Quammen
Quammen on Darwin

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (Great Discoveries)
David Quammen
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
The God Delusion
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution

ASIN: 0393059812

Book Description

A fresh look at Darwin's most radical idea, and the mysteriously slow process by which he revealed it.

Evolution, during the early nineteenth century, was an idea in the air. Other thinkers had suggested it, but no one had proposed a cogent explanation for how evolution occurs. Then, in September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that "natural selection" among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific basis of Darwin's twenty-one-year delay constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin is a book for everyone who has ever wondered about who this man was and what he said. Drawing from Darwin's secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.

Customer Reviews:

Beware the audio book verson.......2007-09-13

Be forewarned: the narrator of the audio book version is an unfortunate cross between J. Peterman from Seinfeld, Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes, and the narrator of old elementary school film strips. The content is very good (as described in other reviews posted here) but you should have a friendly warning about the audio version. The narrator will put you to sleep.

Short, Fast, and Informative.......2007-04-25

"The Reluctant Mr. Darwin" by David Quammen is a concise, fun, and fast read. If you want to learn the bullet points about Charles Darwin's life and the formative people, events, and intellectual and social climate that surrounded Darwin's publication of the On the Origin of Species, then this book is for you. Quammen does not spend too much time on any one point, but maintains a theme that Darwin was not lazy in publishing his famous book many years after his voyage but reluctant, wanting to make sure his ideas were sound and well evidenced.

An outline of Darwin's life can be found in many places, even Wikipedia, but what makes Quammen's book particularly helpful is the sections he devotes to writing about Darwin's contemporaries and their contributions to natural history and Darwin's work. Quammen writes about Charles Lyell and his advocacy of the idea of uniformitarianism, the idea that was formed by slow-moving processes, which opposed the idea of catastrophism, the idea that was consistent with Christian theology of the times and based on the belief that certain catastrophes shaped the geologic features of the earth as it is today. Quammen also writes about John-Baptiste Lamarck and his idea of the inheritance of acquired traits, an idea that has been found to be incorrect, but one that Darwin uses in his famous book. These sections in "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin" give historical and scientific context to Darwin's work and allow the reader to more completely appreciate the specific and significant contribution that Darwin made in advocating the idea of evolution by natural selection.

Another important aspect of Quammen's book was how Quammen made it a point to show the evolution of Darwin's famous publication from its infancy, where he first wrote his ideas in journals titled Journal A, Journal B, Journal C, and so on to his obsession with writing a tome that covered every possible argument and objection to his idea with as much evidence as possible to his final rushed publishing of On the Origin of Species due to the threat of Alfred Russel Wallace nearly publishing the same theory before Darwin himself.

This book definitely gives the reader a good picture of Darwin and the social and scientific climate in which he lived. I came away from the book having what I felt was a basic yet complete understanding of Darwin's life.

On the Evolution of Darwin.......2007-04-25

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a quick read on the life and works of Charles Darwin. David Quammen beautifully integrates excerpts from primary sources into this biography, really making the work a book, and not just a really long research paper. The sections are smartly headed and the writing style is engaging and makes the biography an easy and interesting read.

The biography itself provides an intimate portrait of Charles Darwin the son, husband, father, friend, etc., which also reveals much about his tendencies as a scientist. The author gives a good overview of all the theories regarding speciation that had already been discussed throughout the intellectual community before Darwin came up with his idea on the "transmutation" of species. It was particularly interesting when trying to imagine a society before the theory of evolution. My struggles to do so only further demonstrate how much Darwin has impacted our modern thinking. Quammen's summary on the ideas and examples provided in "The Origin of Species" may be interesting to many who do not wish to read the 500 pages or so of the actual book, but in my opinion, it was unnecessarily dry and seemed out of place in an otherwise interesting and engaging work.

However, one point that I particularly enjoyed was the fact that Quammen explored the evolution of Darwin's theory of evolution: from the beginnings of its fabrication in "notebook B" to its revealing to the public in the first edition of "Origins" to subsequent subtle changes in order to rectify problems brought up by opponents and finally to its modern applications in the field of molecular biology. The author definitely provided a persuading argument on the "fitness" of Darwin's great idea.

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin by David Quammen.......2007-03-31

This book is by far one of the best I have read on Darwin. David Quammen puts you inside the period in Enland as well as providing a great understanding of Darwins personal thinking and self doubt as he formulated his theories on evolution. This is an excellent book for anyone but especially a non-scientist such as myself.

Larry Wilkinson
Howell, Michigan

Quammen on Darwin.......2007-03-12

This work focuses on the post Beagle period of Darwins life, and although I would have liked more included on Wallace, Lyell,and Huxley, Darwin was the deserving subject.
David Quammen is an excellent writer on science and scientists, and if you are starting with this work, you should check out his other works.

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Elegantly brilliant
More Christian propaganda to seperate people
Great edition
One of the Greatest Books ever written
A Handy Edition of this Vital Classic

The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
Manufacturer: Gramercy
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The Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches (Penguin Classics)
The Descent of Man (Penguin Classics)
The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics)
The Descent of Man (Great Minds Series)
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

ASIN: 0517123207
Release Date: 1995-05-22

Amazon.com

It's hard to talk about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is one of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly readable.

To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.

Darwin's friend and "bulldog" T.H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Book Description

The Origin of Species sold out on the first day of its publication in 1859. It is the major book of the nineteenth century, and one of the most readable and accessible of the great revolutionary works of the scientific imagination.
The Origin of Species was the first mature and persuasive work to explain how species change through the process of natural selection. Upon its publication, the book began to transform attitudes about society and religion, and was soon used to justify the philosophies of communists, socialists, capitalists, and even Germany's National Socialists. But the most quoted response came from Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's friend and also a renowned naturalist, who exclaimed, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!"

Download Description

In the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply held beliefs of the Western world. Arguing for a material, not divine, origin of species, he showed that new species are achieved by 'natural selection'. Development, diversification, decay, extinction and absence of plan are all inherent to his theories. Darwin read prodigiously across many fields; he reflected on his experiences as a traveller, he experimented. His profoundly influential concept of 'natural selection' condenses materials from past and present, from the Galapagos Islands to rural Staffordshire, from English back gardens to colonial encounters. The Origin communicates the enthusiasm of original thinking in an open, descriptive style, and Darwin's emphasis on the value of diversity speaks more strongly now than ever.

Customer Reviews:

Elegantly brilliant.......2007-09-17

I had read The Voyage of the Beagle first. It is easy to see how Darwin's theory of evolution was growing as he traveled and saw how plants and animals adapted to different environments. Then he invented a theory to explain what he had observed.
This book is a 300 page definition of the theory of natural selection. Darwin goes through a detailed explanation of how evolution must have occured. He is very methodically, very detailed. When he doesn't understand something, he says he doesn't. He is humble in his presentation, giving credit to other scientists. I was amazed at how many experiments he performed himself, growing generations of plants and insects, watching how they developed and changed.
There is a quote in the book from Darwin's gardener who said, "He's really a sad little man. Sometimes he stands and stares at a flower for hours. I really think he'd be better off if he had something to do."
We are so lucky that Darwin inherited money and could spend his early years traveling and his later years in contemplation and writing.

More Christian propaganda to seperate people.......2007-07-31

Darwin was a born again Christian. Few people know that. And if there's one thing you need to know about Christians it's the fact that they are always trying to put one group of people against another. Divide and conquer. Darwin's plan(actually the plan of the intelligentsia that Darwin was a member of) was to create a new theory for the creation of man and then use Christian beliefs to blow it out of the water. It didn't work though. Even though Darwin picked the most crazy idea he came up with, man coming from monkeys!!!, people began to believe it. The powers that be saw that Science could very well be a new religous dogma and people would believe anything as long as a man in a white coat said it. Besides everyone knows that Allah created man in his supreme mercy, Allah Akhbar!!

Great edition.......2007-06-02

I liked the edition very much. Its legibility is very nice and it's a lightweighted version, dispite its 470 pages. I was just disapointed with the illustrations, that have very little relation to the text. But this fact doesnt compromise the quality of the whole. And the content... well, it's darwin world changing work, very readable.

One of the Greatest Books ever written.......2007-05-12

Darwin was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. He was perhaps the greatest observer the world has known. In 1831, he set sail on the Beagle, a tiny little ship, for a five-year cruise around the world, and without pay, as naturalist. He had studied theology, medicine, and, finally, biology and geology. He saw how organisms change with time and environment and how Biblical events simply could not have happened as stated. He spent twenty-three years going over his notes, rethinking, and agonizing over the results. In 1859, he published Origin of Species, and it upset the world. He demonstrated evolution as no one had. Uneducated religious leaders may ridicule it, but evolution is a fact, accepted by any intelligent, educated, honest person.

A Handy Edition of this Vital Classic.......2007-05-11

There are many different versions of Darwin's "The Origin of Species" available, but I found this one particularly helpful. First, while it is nicely printed and easy to read on good paper, it is not terribly expensive. Second, it reprints the first or original version of the book which Darwin subsequently modified substantially in the the further five editions he published. Third, it also includes Darwin's "Historical Sketch" and "glossary" which had not appeared in the first edition. Fourth, the color cover illustration by the Victorian artist Henry de la Beche is an important indicator of why the Victorians were so into prehistoric studies. However, the thing that really distinguishes this Penguin Books edition is the incredibily incisive and invaluable introduction by the editor, J.W. Burrow. Burrow is beyond question one of the most significant intellectual historians of our time. Among other things he has written extensively on the concept of evolution in Victorian thought in his classic "Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory." In 37 crisp pages, Burrow incomparably sketches the Victorian intellectual background against which Darwin wrote. Although the essay is nearly 40 years old, it has stood the test of time very well. It alone is worth the price of the book. Altogether, a very nice introduction to this critical event in scientific and intellectual history.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

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Complex and Entertaining
like good medicine
Unintelligent design explained
Entertaining materialist philosophy
Intellectually Stimulating

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
Daniel C. Dennett
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Binding: Paperback

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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
The God Delusion
Consciousness Explained
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

ASIN: 068482471X

Amazon.com

One of the best descriptions of the nature and implications of Darwinian evolution ever written, it is firmly based in biological information and appropriately extrapolated to possible applications to engineering and cultural evolution. Dennett's analyses of the objections to evolutionary theory are unsurpassed. Extremely lucid, wonderfully written, and scientifically and philosophically impeccable. Highest Recommendation!

Book Description

In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet," focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

Customer Reviews:

Complex and Entertaining.......2007-07-09

While Dennett comes off, at times, sounding pompous and headstrong, that may simply be because he is, in my opinion, correct about certain aspects of the human mind's ability to cope with conflicting beliefs. My personal religious beliefs aside, I do feel that, at a point, religion and evolutionary science do come into direct conflict. Some of Dennett's thoughts and ideas, in conjunction with Dawkins's ideas, can run a little wayward of what I would call science, but simply because the ideas are blended with speculation and opinion. For further reading on the evolutionary perspective of religious thought, I would recommend Scott Atran and Pascal Boyer. Again, I really enjoyed the book, my personal disagreements notwithstanding.

like good medicine.......2007-07-08

This is not an easy read. It's rocky, at times pedantic, somewhat oblique, and about as picky as a book on logic. Dennett has difficulty keeping the reader engaged in his point, as his examples tend to be somewhat obscure at times, and his verbosity often masks the clarity of his vision. I sometimes had to turn back to the beginning of the chapter to remind myself what he was trying to say. Luckily, he seems to understand this, and provides summary statements after each chapter -- good thing, because without these navigational aids, he can be difficult to follow.

However, what Dennett has achieved here will stand the test of time because it is USEFUL. He is able to look at all the objections to the theory of evolution by natural selection and take them apart logically, scientifically, and heuristically. These objections are not limited to the religious variety, but also include scientific backlashes to Darwin like those of Gould, Chomsky, and Kaufmann. In other words, if you want to understand the breadth and depth of Darwin's theory, this is a masterwork.

What it lacks is, unfortunately, what the back cover promises: a look at Darwinism in the light of ethics, morality, and culture. Sure, Dennett devotes a (delicious) chapter to the topic, invoking Nietzsche and Hobbes, and there are scattered sections in the book that are like mind candy for the intellectually thirsty reader. It's a good thing those brilliant sections are scattered randomly throughout the book, because they may be the only thing that keeps the general reader interested.

Unless you're a biologist or anthropologist, you may want to read something shorter and more to the point. This book is for scholars who want exactitude. And to those scholars, I say read this book as quickly as possible, because it's VERY hard to come back to after putting down for a week or so.

Unintelligent design explained.......2007-06-02

This book is a philosophical work rather than straight science, the author does an excellent job of looking at all the various species of darwinian theories and their mutations, from scientific,to pop culture to philosophical,and subjecting them to a harsh environment of critical thought and logic, so selecting out the fittest for survival at the end of the book.I may be a bit biased as I have come to the same conclusions as the author,that there is only one true version of natural selection that works with no god or intelligent design, nor any adaption via senses, or experience of any organism, it is pure random mutation followed by the environment killing off what is not the best,strongest or most efficient. It is certainly not the sort of touchy-feely stuff some people seem to seek to explain things, its cold and harsh,cruel and unforgiving, although the author keeps it less harsh that my own view of it, and rightly states in a way,that just because it is harsh,doesnt change the reality of how we feel it and percieve it, love is still love no matter its mechanical, survival,or other basis. If you feel that describing something like life or love in a cold hard scientific way will change your view of it ,ruin it for you, if you are that open to suggestion, dont read this book. If you want a great philosophical arguement to open your mind and cut through the B.S. and sugar coating,if you think in a scientific way, and yes it can be quite a harsh and cold look at things, then this book is an excellent read. The author has done an enormous amount of research and distilled it into one volume, and some of the arguements or view points will be unknown to most people,and quite useless in a way, but seeing so many view points is always good for anyone who likes to think deeply and be challenged. I didnt learn alot from this book that I hadnt already figured out for myself using common sense,yet really enjoyed it for its excellent arguements and insights, its enjoyable for the philosophical side even if you have no interest in the subject matter. Also highly recommended is the authors book on consciousness, although its fairly hard going as the concepts are alot harder to grasp than evolutions mechanisms.

Entertaining materialist philosophy.......2007-05-02

It is hard to imagine that a 600 plus page book on materialist philosophy could be entertaining and a fairly quick read, but it is. The tone is too dogmatic, and there is way too much space devoted to quibbling, but it is rare to find a book this informative and thought provoking.

Intellectually Stimulating.......2007-03-31

Darwin's Dangerous Idea is one of Daniel Dennett's more notable works, being a 1995 national book award finalist (as advertised on the cover). I'm not really sure why it didn't win though, because had I been on the panel of judges, I would probably have chosen it over the competition (whatever they were). The book thoroughly explains Darwin's theory of evolution with regard to biology (including its finer philosophical and technical details) and extends the theory even further to just about everything, including the universe itself. The basic premise being that complexity arises out of simplicity and this is precisely what it would take for anything in the known universe to be in existence today.

Dennett sees no contradiction for example, in how humans behave by explaining that memes (cultural elements) that influence our behaviours and which seem to have a far greater effect than genes on our future evolution are themselves merely products of genetic evolution. Think of it as many smaller cranes (tiny steps in evolution that build upon one another) building a better, bigger crane (i.e. humans capable of storing, producing and transmitting memes). As a philosopher, the man has a vast knowledge of science, biology and computer science, in particular. He is extremely well-read and explains his ideas with such lucidity, you'll be amazed at how he can actually get you to understand very complex ideas and examples.

I sometimes found myself unable to follow certain topics but every time, Dennett grabbed my hand and lifted me back into my seat of understanding with his natural flare of wanting more than anything, not to obfuscate in any way the message he is trying to get across. If only all educators were like that. He presents many examples and references from diverse fields in science and literature (e.g. Borge's Library of Babel) that will amaze and get you thinking. Dennett also critiques work by other scientists such as Stephen J. Gould and Noam Chomsky where relevant, to name just two. I learned a lot about science in general, not to mention artificial intelligence, architecture, philosophy and literature by reading this book.

The last chapter is very nice closure to his whole thesis. Despite being an atheist, Dennett does not see religion as completely evil and acknowledges the role it played (as a result of cultural evolution) that in some ways have benefitted mankind; not "spiritually" but at least in terms of comfort and artistic inspiration. At 586 pages, it is an extremely satisfying read. I'm eager to dig into his latest book, "Breaking the Spell" and one of his earlier works, "The Mind's, I" soon.

The Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself

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Integration of physiology and evolution

The Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself
J. Scott Turner
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales
The Tree of Life: A Phylogenetic Classification (Harvard University Press Reference Library)
Animal Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence
Singularities: Landmarks on the Pathways of Life
The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures

ASIN: 0674023536

Book Description

Most people, when they contemplate the living world, conclude that it is a designed place. So it is jarring when biologists come along and say this is all wrong. What most people see as design, they say--purposeful, directed, even intelligent--is only an illusion, something cooked up in a mind that is eager to see purpose where none exists. In these days of increasingly assertive challenges to Darwinism, the question becomes acute: is our perception of design simply a mental figment, or is there something deeper at work?

Physiologist Scott Turner argues eloquently and convincingly that the apparent design we see in the living world only makes sense when we add to Darwin's towering achievement the dimension that much modern molecular biology has left on the gene-splicing floor: the dynamic interaction between living organisms and their environment. Only when we add environmental physiology to natural selection can we begin to understand the beautiful fit between the form life takes and how life works.

In The Tinkerer's Accomplice, Scott Turner takes up the question of design as a very real problem in biology; his solution poses challenges to all sides in this critical debate.

Customer Reviews:

Integration of physiology and evolution.......2007-01-15

Turner's first book (The Extended Organism) was interesting, and well written. The same is true of this book but I would add a third descriptor as well, ambitious. Turner acknowledges at the start that some readers may be inclined to throw the book across the room in disgust, so he asks the reader's indulgence to stay with him to the end of the book. I think persistence will be rewarded with some very intriguing insights and a very challenging thesis.

First, Turner is attempting an integration of physiology with evolution. Second, he is using his integration to explain what he sees as an ignored problem, obvious design in the form and functioning of animals. Turner refers, somewhat indirectly, to a frequently mentioned problem with the results of modern DNA sequencing of whole genomes. There aren't enough genes to specify all of the complex structure and function that we see in animals. So where does it come from if we are not going to just leave the problem for intelligent design advocates to exploit? Turner's answer is homeostatic mechanisms, the ability of organisms to regulate their internal structure and function within narrow limits. A really fun part of the book for me was his series of examples on muscle and bone structure, circulation, embryogenesis and development, and intestines. Turner is a wonderful writer as he models thinking like a physiologist. Tuner's point is that each of his examples can be thought of as a Bernard Machine, named after the French physiologist who first identified the central role of homeostasis in physiology. Each of his examples show how homostasis can produce (design) an adapted structure that is not directly a result of genes.

Then Turner wisely admits that the thesis of his next section is where the reader's irritation is likely to build. Homeostasis can be used as an explanation for the origins of consciousness. I told you that this book was ambitious. I will be very interested in seeing if anybody takes up Turner's hypothesis as the basis for a research program. This idea really needs some more data. I, for one, would like to see somebody try to flesh out this idea.

A year of two ago, a writer in the journal Science pointed out that comparative physiology had become something of a moribund research discipline. That writer's suggested solution was the use of gene expression patterns by using DNA chips. Turner may well have presented another way to energize the field, integrate physiology into evolution in a really deep way, similar to what has happened to developmental biology recently.

I am tentatively convinced by Turner's arguments; they are reasonable if speculative at times. Turner points out that he doesn't think that any of the ideas in his book originate with him. He is just trying to put them together in a coherent form. I hope that biologists don't just ignore him.

One problem that readers will face in this book has nothing to do with the ideas but rather the presentation. Sometimes the material is quite accessable and other times it can be challenging. The neurobiology can be slow going. The general reader may have difficulty in places; the trained biologist will not have significant difficulty. The conversational style of writing and Turner's obvious enthusiasm will carry any reader along.

Read this book and let the debate begin.

The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)

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Good info
More delving for truth, less bashing falsehood
Very extended
Injustamente esquecido
Difficult but eminently worthwhile

The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
Climbing Mount Improbable
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

ASIN: 0192880519

Book Description

By the best selling author of The Selfish Gene 'This entertaining and thought-provoking book is an excellent illustration of why the study of evolution is in such an exciting ferment these days.' Science 'The Extended Phenotype is a sequel to The Selfish Gene . . . he writes so clearly it could be understood by anyone prepared to make the effort' John Maynard Smith, London Review of Books 'Dawkins is quite incapable of being boring this characteristically brilliant and stimulating book is original and provocative throughout, and immensely enjoyable.' G. A. Parker, Heredity 'The extended phenotype is certainly a big idea and it is pressed hard in dramatic language.' Sydney Brenner, Nature 'Richard Dawkins, our most radical Darwinian thinker, is also our best science writer.' Douglas Adams 'Dawkins is a superb communicator. His books are some of the best books ever written on science.' Megan Tressider, Guardian 'Dawkins is a genius of science popularization.' Mark Ridley, The Times

Customer Reviews:

Good info.......2007-08-23

Beware that this book is a lot more technical than the Selfish Gene, although Dawkins writes it in a similar fashion and includes a glossary for the tricky terms.

I did find it more repetitive than I was expecting as Dawkins really strives to drive the point home, but as a whole it's still a great book.

More delving for truth, less bashing falsehood.......2007-05-18

Lots of people seem to know about Dawkins as a Enthusiastic Bright, or at least as a 'staunch atheist'. Selfish Gene takes digs at religion. Blind Watchmaker certainly takes digs at religion. Ancestor's Tale even seems to have some (though I've not got all through it yet.) I haven't even opened "The God Delusion" yet, and I can make a good guess about the digging I'll find there.

The Extended Phenotype, on the other hand, is pretty well free of anti-religious side commentary. It reads much more like a scientist making a case to his peers, and less like a science writer trying to explain things to a nonscientific audience. That means freedom from much of any religious commentary (I don't remember any, so if there was some, it was minor), but it also means the writing style is a little less conversational. It still feels recognizably Dawkins to me, but the emphasis is more on making his point and less on getting people to listen.

I'd say it's a less /fun/ read than, for example, Blind Watchmaker or Selfish Gene, but at the same time it's a more /interesting/ read.

Very extended.......2007-01-18

Thought book was very well written, although it was hard to follow in some places. But this is a more detailed account of evolution and how the gene and DNA make up what we our today. Overall great work done by one of the best scientists in the field today.

Injustamente esquecido.......2007-01-10

Este é um dos livros de referência do Richard Dawkins mas que é frequentemente relegado como uma obra secundária. Este livro traz uma ótica nova sobre a relação entre genótipo e o fenótipo e em última análise com o indivíduo, redefinindo praticamente este último conceito.
Para os leitores tardios do autor, este livro pode parecer muito técnico já que foi escrito após O Gene Egoísta e visava reforçar alguns pontos de vista desta obra e introduzir todo um novo conceito de fenótipo, isto torna a leitura mais acessível para os que têm maior fluência nas ciências biomédicas mas em momento algum compromete o entendimento da questão central do livro pelo público interessado em ciência mas mais leigo nesta área.

Difficult but eminently worthwhile.......2006-12-30

This is a long and difficult book, although not as long and difficult as it might be if it had been written by somebody without Richard Dawkins' gift for clarity of thought and expression.

The crux of Dawkins' thesis is expressed early on and much of what follows is a very detailed supporting argument. What he wants us to see is that the "selfish gene" has a reach that extends beyond the confines of the individual organism that houses the gene. The phenotype of our genes is the human organism in all its glory; however the extended phenotype of our genes is not only the human organism but part of the environment in which the organism finds itself. In other words, the gene has the power to influence not only our behavior but the behavior and structure of elements in the world in which we live.

This thesis is not as striking to me as it has been to many others mainly because I have studied Eastern religious views, and it is a tenant of such views that the distinction between ourselves (the "selfish organism," in Dawkins' terminology) and the environment is an artificial one, an illusion actually. We are part and parcel of all that is around us and within us, and the boundary of our skin is merely functional. We cannot be understood by looking at only our bodies. Dawkins makes the point that looking at a beaver and microscopically examining it and its genes is not sufficient to an understanding of what a beaver is. We have to also consider the dams that the beaver builds, the trees that it gnaws down and even the streams that it dams and turns into lakes.

Presenting a point of view somewhat at odds with that of Dawkins (and one that I think that Dawkins does not sufficiently appreciate) is Franklin M. Harold in his book, The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life (2001). He writes, "Organisms process matter and energy as well as information; each represents a dynamic node in a whirlpool of several currents, and self-reproduction is a property of the collective, not of genes.... DNA is a peculiar sort of software, that can only be correctly interpreted by its own unique hardware.... [S]ending aliens the genome of a cat is no substitute for sending the cat itself--complete with mice." (p. 221)

Dawkins tries to discount the view of those he calls "group selectionists" who see life from a "group benefit" viewpoint. Dawkins has, since writing this book, stepped back from this position to allow that some group selection may take place. I believe some day he may see the world not from a "selfish gene" point of view, and not from a "selfish organism" point of view, but from a "selfish ecosystem" perspective--well, more likely his successors will see this, since the work of a lifetime is not easily amended in one's later years.

Dawkins gives what he calls "our own 'central theorem' of the extended phenotype" on page 233: "An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it."

This is a mouthful. Clearly we can say that the genes of the reed warbler code for behavior that benefits the genes of the cuckoo who has laid its egg in the warbler's nest. This is what Dawkins has in mind. But then arises the question, "how far afield can the phenotype extend?" Here Dawkins gets cautious and writes, "The farthest action at a distance I can think of is a matter of several miles." (p. 233) Note the chosen terminology, "action at a distance." This is from physics of course causing Dawkins to ask if there is "a sharp cut-off" of the genes' reach or "an inverse square law" at work?

It is here that I believe Dawkins has come so, so close to that which he will not see (or couldn't see then), namely that everything works toward an ecology and that the idea of selfish genes and selfish organisms is a limited view. In truth the reach of the genes should be governed by something like an inverse square law since humans are now reaching beyond the solar system.

When we look at such great distances we might want to credit the dreaded and verboten "group selection" that Dawkins is at pains to reject. Just as some see our earth as "Gaia," an organism itself, so too might we see those organisms that have the means to survive the destruction of the home planet by migrating to other planets as being selected by group as opposed to other groups who have no such ability. Planet A produces beings that extend beyond their solar system; planet B produces beings that do not. Both planets blow up. Who is "selected" by the (extended) environment and who is not?

Dawkins is one of the geniuses of science, and I don't mean to argue with the great insights he has brought to biology, but my point is that it is always something of an artificiality to speak of living systems as confined to one level of existence or expression. We may think of earth creatures as being completely separate from the rest of the universe, yet without the sun, 93 million miles away, we would not exist; and come a supernova even many light years away, we will be affected.

So all is one and one is all in some extended sense. And using the word "selfish" (as Dawkins knows) at any level of life is merely to be anthropomorphic.

Daniel Dennett, in a new afterword written in 1999, asks if this book is science or philosophy, and he answers both. I agree, and it is science and philosophy of the highest order, aimed equally at the professional and at the educated layperson.

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