Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Full House : The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0-609-80140-6 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 16 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.46 (41 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Natural selection is not a synonym of progress
Comment: This book is a forceful illustration of some basic theorems presented by G.C. Williams in his book 'Adaptation and Natural selection': 'there is nothing in the basic structure of the theory of natural selection that would suggest the idea of any kind of cumulative progress' and 'Evolution was a by-product of the maintenance of adaptation'.
Gould corroborates these theorems by showing that the main modus of life on this planet is and has always been 'bacterial'.
He explains clearly that the second law of thermodynamics is only valid for closed systems, not for the earth.
He stresses also that cultural changes are fundamentally different from Darwinian evolutions. The former are Lamarckian, the latter are forced by the less efficient process of natural selection.
But Gould warns rightly that the enormous technological revolutions are not necessarily cultural or moral improvements because of the real risk of, e.g., environmental poisoning or a nuclear catastrophe.
One needs a basic knowledge of statistics to fully understand the book.
In his vigorous and persuasive style, S.J. Gould puts some good-looking scientific and moral ideas into a coffin.
Not to be missed.
Rating: 3
Summary: not an essential read, but a pleasant one
Comment: I come to the book partly as a result of a direct self-study on the issues of creation-evolution-design debate, and partly because i like SJG's writings. At this point i am rereading some of his collections of essays in order to psych myself up for the week or more that his 'brick' _The Structure of Evolutionary Theory_ will take. I don't like baseball and had only skimmed this book previously, so for a couple of easy reading hours it occupied my mind.
It is basically about how to think about statistics. Summed up on pg 169ff. "Life's necessary beginning at the left wall. This is a takehome message from the excellent example of the drunkard's walk, pg 149ff. Left wall's are 'no one can earn less than zero dollars', 'no one can live and weight less than 50 lbs'. but Bill Gates can make enough money to skew the income and wealth curves so they look like capital 'L's. "Stability throughout time of the initial bacterial mode", most of the world's biomass is bacteria, no you or me. "Life's successful expansion must form an increasingly right-skewed distribution", this is the reply to evolution as progressive complexity to eventually produce US, thinking, creative, human beings. We are the >.400 baseball score, we are the very few that prove the rule that the masses are bacteria. "The myopia of characterizing a full distribution by an extreme item at one end", "Causality resides at the wall and in the spread of variation: the right tail is a consequence, not a cause", The only promising way to smuggle progress back into such a system is logically possible, but empirically false at high probability" and "Even a parochial decision to focus on the right tail alone will not yield the one, most truly desired conclusion, the psychological impetus to our yearning for general progress-that is, the predictable and sensible evolution to domination of a creature like us. endowed with consciousness."
It is not an earth-shaking book by any means, rather a collection of essays where the most interesting part is his explanation of dealing with cancer, which apparently is what he died from nearly 20 years after the first diagnosis, and the reasoning about statistics that started with his predicted death rates from it as he lay there in a hospital bed.
The drunkards walk could have been greatly enlarged, so for instance, by the addition of multiple drunkards bumping into each other, thus temporary right walls. Much like the biosphere is a changing mosaic of different species and different individuals.
But like all his essays, it is time well spent, not just to get a new example or more ways of handling data, but for the pleasant time with SJG and his excellent writing.
Rating: 4
Summary: Some very good points - if a bit strained philosophically
Comment: It is sad that Dr. Gould was taken away so soon. He always made interesting points, offered some startling insights, and was generally fun - he was even acerbic in a fun way.
He wrote this book for the general audience, of which I am a part. I cannot hope to challenge his or even approve of his professional points. I don't really have the training. But I can offer impressions. It seems to me that when he is talking about science he is very good and gave me quite a bit to think about. Honestly, he gave me some new views on distributions and natural selection that will stick with me.
I found his sociological and philosophical conclusions drawn from these observations to be somewhat strained and overburdened his evidence a bit. He really doesn't address the concept of decadence much as it relates to the dying out of things. For example, baseball could very well be played better than ever and yet not be played as well as it could be because of secondary desires such as home runs instead of base hits.
What fans want to see leads to a selection in a style of play that pleases them and brings in money. Then money is the point of the game and not pure excellence in play. Therefore, the best athletes of all time could be playing the game and yet their style of play would be less effective than it could be because of what the fans want to see. But wouldn't a style that led to more wins be adopted? Certainly, no one would adopt a losing strategy. But maybe the optimal difference is only slight but pleasing the fans brings in so much more money that it changes the way everyone plays the game. Football did this to make their game a passing game - which fans like more. Clearly, with the rules and styles all supporting the pass, no team can be based primarily on the run as they used to be.
Anyway, the book has some very interesting points to make, it isn't a difficult read, and I think you will get some good food for thought. Enjoy!
 |
Title: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms : Essays on Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0609804758 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 02 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Dinosaur in a Haystack : Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0517703939 Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 12 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
 |
Title: The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox : Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0609601407 Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 08 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
 |
Title: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins ISBN: 0393315703 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: Rocks of Ages : Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life by Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 034545040X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 26 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
