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Title: Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution by Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Philip Morrison ISBN: 0-387-94927-5 Publisher: Copernicus Books Pub. Date: August, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting, but not wonderful...
Comment: I came upon this book while doing some research into the Gaia hypothesis and found it interesting, especially the autobiographical essays. However, I still think the Gaia hypothesis is a little extreme when formulated as if organisms have a reason to sacrifice their individual survival for the benefit of "Gaia" as a whole. When this anti-natural selection aspect is removed, Gaia says only that organisms have effects on their environment and can evolve feedback systems, which isn't really anything new. It was a fascinating and revolutionary idea - and I do respect it for "thinking outside the box", so to speak - but I just don't see it working out. And attacking reductionism never got anybody anywhere...sometimes things must be understood at their most fundamental level.
Rating: 5
Summary: Big Trouble in Biology
Comment: No scientist of our times has more right than Lynn Margulis to crow about her once-ridiculed but now-vindicated discoveries, such as the cell symbiosis hypothesis. Yet, for all her enthusiasm in promoting her now widely respected triumphs and her new, still-to-be-tested hypotheses, Margulis does not gloat. She is gracious with her opponents and generous in sharing credit with her grad students and other collaborators. One of the volume's most attractive features is that it summarizes the development to date of the views of James Lovelock and herself, on their widely debated and very influential Gaia hypothesis. We are treated to numerous fascinating anecdotes about the making of such a controversial theory, and about its reception (not always very polite, let alone friendly) by the community of "objective" scientists. The real gems of the book, however, are two autobiographical pieces by Margulis, "Sunday with J. Robert Oppenheimer" and "The Red Shoe Dilemma," and a third article "Big Trouble in Biology." In the first, we witness the encounter between the precocious sixteen year old future scientist Margulis and the recently deposed titan of atomic physics and "father of the atomic bomb" at his home in Princeton. The second piece offers Margulis's retrospective on what it meant to be a woman during our times who tried to be a great scientist, as well as a great wife and mother. Her spare use of words throws sharply into relief the realities still facing young women who would make a career in the sciences. Every one of those young women should read this book, and especially "The Red Shoe Dilemma." For any critics of the excesses of late-twentieth century reductionism in the life sciences, "Big Trouble in Biology" will be a call to arms, albeit a very thoughtful and provocative one. Lynn Margulis is no anti-science crackpot; nor is she a latter-day vitalist. But from one of the most successful practitioners in the methodology of reductionism, this heart-felt call for LOOKING at whole, living organisms and marvelling at their living qualities is a challenge that demands serious attention.
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Title: Symbiotic Planet : A New Look at Evolution (Science Masters Series) by Lynn Margulis ISBN: 0465072720 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors by Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Lewis Thomas ISBN: 0520210646 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species by Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Ernst Mayr ISBN: 0465043917 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 18 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Concepts of Symbiogenesis: A Historical and Critical Study of the Research of Russian Botanists (Bio-Origins Series) by Liia Nikolaevna Khakhina, Lynn Margulis, Mark McMenamin, Liya Nikolaevna Khakhina, Mark Mnmenamin ISBN: 0300048165 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: January, 1993 List Price(USD): $42.00 |
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