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Title: What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr, Jared Diamond ISBN: 0-465-04426-3 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Good Technical Overview
Comment: This book is not aimed at refuting creationism or primarly defending evolution. While there are some chapters dealing with the evidence for evolution, the book is largely a technical overview of evolutionary theory. There is a lot about speciation, and an introduction to concepts of macroevolution.
In reading the book, I got the impression that Mayr is a bit miffed at how various others in his field have misunderstood certain concepts, or tried to ride his coattails. The average laymen has probably heard of punctuated equilibrium, but has probably not heard of parapatric speciation. That's a shame, because parapatric speciation is easily the more fundamental and far reaching idea.
Some of the terms where a bit technical, but I usually skipped them and kept reading. I was still able to pick up the main points. I think this book is an excellent companion to Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God, which address the creation/evolution issue directly. Read Miller's book, and then read this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: Must read for anyone interested in evolution
Comment: This book is simply a MUST for anyone interested in the theory of evolution, including, and especially for, those human beings who are curious about the origins of their present constitutions, both biological and psychological, and who want to be informed of the most up-to-date natural and scientific explanations about them, rather than to continue to lie ignorantly, though comfortably, in the consolation of religious or supernatural dogmas.
I cannot think of anyone else who is able to present all levels of the complexity and subtely of the process of evolution and the theory of natural selection with such precision and clarity than Ernst Mayr, a venerable scientist, "the world's greatest living evolutionary biologist" (Steven Jay Gould), "the Darwin of the 20th century" (New York Times).
This book is not only consisted of rigorous arguments, but also full of compelling illrustrative examples picked up from the diversity of living beings on our earth of various geological ages (from the fossil record to modern human beings) and places in support of those arguments.
Mayr's knowledge in biology is so comprehensive and his narrative so straighforward and lucid that he recounts those examples of evolution history just like a grandfather telling some everyday stories to his grandsons.
And I especially recommend those who once found or still find the so-called "GENE EYES' VIEW" (as popularized by Richard Dawkins) attractive shall seriously study this great work. And then he or she, I think, will soon discover that how imprecise and misguiding is the metaphorical language of those sociobiologists in their description of almost every parts of the process of evolution. This book shall at least provoke our cautions towards the trend of reductionism and atomism in various branch of scientific endeavor.
Besides, Jared Diamond's preface is also well written. It let us have a look into the extraordinary life of this great scientist. I am especially moved to read that Mayr "at the age of 97, still writing a new book every year or two."
Finally, I have also to point out what seems to me to be hardly a harmless drawback of this otherwise excellent work. This is the author's explicit belief, as expressed in the section on HUMAN ETHICS, in the "moral education" of the "world's great religion", especially for the "cultures of the Christian world". I feel quite puzzled how Mayr could think that some "perfectly sound" ethical principles could ever be deduced from a utterly absurd world-view, as that which is presented by the creationists, which, in so far as I understand it, seems to Mayr to have already been completed refuted by the Darwinian evolutionists.
Rating: 3
Summary: What Evolution Was
Comment: Although it might be a good introduction for beginners, the views presented by Mayr have a feeling of 80s and 90s. Mayr does little to include the cutting edge research in evolutionary biology and his vision for the future of evolutionary biology is at best short-sighted.
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Title: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0674006135 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 2002 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Third Chimpanzee : The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared M. Diamond ISBN: 0060984031 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 02 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Dawkins vs. Gould : Survival of the Fittest by Kim Sterelny, Jon Turney ISBN: 1840462493 Publisher: Totem Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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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: Evolution : The Triumph of an Idea by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 0060958502 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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