About this title: This work assesses Darwin's theory of evolution and looks at why it arises such heated debate among scientists, philosophers and sociologists. The book aims to show that Darwinism does not devalue the miracles of life.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 6/12/1996
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Fine. 068482471X NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996-06-12
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Very Good. Cover shows some shelf wear or creases. No highlighting or underlining. Remainder mark on bottom page edge. This book really opened my eyes! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 592 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. This massive softcover has no marks, writing or bent pages. Wrap has minor edge and corner wear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 592 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Spine straight w/o creases, binding tight, appears unused, no reader/library marks, sm remainder marks btm edge, covers/pgs flat w/sharp corners, very slight shelf wear. 586 numbered pgs., Audience: General/trade. Photos or other information available by e-mail. Daily orders/e-mail responses. E-mail confirmation of shipment. Check our feedback. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. bright shiny brand new condition. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 592 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Date Published: 1996-06-12
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780684824710. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780140167344ISBN:014016734X
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 592 pages. (592 pages) assesses darwin's theory of evolution and looks at why it arises such heated debate among scientists, philosophers and sociologists. this book shows that darwinism does not devalue the miracles of life. bibliography, index (Paperback) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 6/12/1996
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Fine. 068482471X little crease on corner Ships Within 24 Hours. Excellent Customer Service. Upto 15 Days 100% Money Back Gurantee. Try Our Fast! ! ! ! Shipping With Tracking Number. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996-06-12
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Good. Paperback. Solid and complete with no spine creases or tears. Has a few coffee stains inside front cover and medium cover wear. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780684824710ISBN:068482471X
Description: Very Good- 068482471x. Wraps show gentle standard rubbing & wear; annotations are seen throughout text. Still a good reading copy, clean and tightly bound. Evolution. Pasadena's finest independent new and used bookstore.; 1.2 x 9.2 x 6.2 Inches; 586 pages. read more
"As I neared the end of my second month of slogging through this book, I asked myself, "What keeps you going? Each night you read a page or two, re-read half of those, and then start again the next night."
The answer is that this book is so dense and well written that it deserves to be savored and thought about. For an evolutionary neophyte like myself (both in evolutionary time, and in terms of how much I know about the concept of evolution) the book has some fairly difficult and complex sections.
But Dennett overcomes the jargon and is able to distill the ideas to their essence in every chapter. I feel VERY good about my understanding of the idea now.
Particularly useful was the concept of a library with every volume ever written, AND every variation on those volumes. Start with Moby Dick as an example. This library contains every version of that book ever written, edited or published. So what? Well, the library also contains a version of the book that begins, "Call me Jshmael." There are millions of versions of Moby Dick with subtle variations, some which have little or no effect on the readability; others are a complete mess that no one would or could read.
A quick translation to the idea of genes, and we have what Dennett referred to as the "Mendelian Library." All of the various ways our billions of genes can be arranged, and the results of these arrangements.
This library concept illuminates the vastness of "design space" available for genetics to operate in. This metaphor carries much of the book, and has been hugely useful in helping increase my understanding of the ideas behind Darwinian AND post-Darwinian evolution (remember, Darwin didn't know about genes.)
The only reason I gave this a 4 instead of a five is just because of the sheer burden of having to force myself through the work."
"Dennett is a real expert on the subject. It seems obvious he has spent a tremdous amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about it. But i rate books only on how much i enjoy reading them. As for this one, well, i really liked the part of the book about Darwin, his ideas and the explanations of evolution, but at least half the book was apparently working on the "meanings of life" aspect and i just didn't get much of it and i struggled through to the end. I'd have given it a 4 or 5 if i could have stopped half way through..."
"Goes into depth in places where many books brush over stuff. A lot more theoretical depth than most. Brings up clarifications and important caveats not normally discussed.
I like its argumentativeness. It doesn't pander to the people it's at war with. It plants its feet and throws some solid punches.
Gives some good critiques of where evpsych goes too far.
Quotes:
"On this occasion, we are not going to settle for "There, there, it will all come out all right." Our examination will take a certain amount of nerve. Feelings may get hurt. Writers on evolution usually steer clear of this apparent clash between science and religion. Fools rush in, Alexander Pope said, where angels fear to tread. Do you want to follow me? Don't you really want to know what survives this confrontation? What if it turns out that the sweet vision - or a better one - survives intact, strengthened and deepened by the encounter? Wouldn't it be a shame to forgo the opportunity for a strengthened, renewed creed, settling instead for a fragile, sickbed faith that you mistakenly supposed must not be disturbed."
"There is no future in a sacred myth. Why not? Because of our curiosity. Because, as the song reminds us, we want to know why. We may have outgrown the song's answer, but we will never outgrow the question. Whatever we hold precious, we cannot protect it from our curiosity, because being who we are, one of the things we can deem precious is the truth. Our love of truth is surely a central element in the meaning we find in out lives. In any case, the idea that we might preserve meaning by kidding ourselves is a more pessimistic, more nihilistic idea that I for one can stomach. If that were the best that could be done, I would conclude that nothing mattered after all. This book, then, is for those who agree that the only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it. Others are advised to close the book now and tiptoe away."
"Do organisms belong to different species when they can't interbreed, or when they just don't interbreed."
"If a single step in the genotype can produce a giant stop in the phenotype, intermediate steps for the phenotype may simply be unavailable, given the mapping rules."
"The philosopher Ronald do Sousa once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgment was up. But we can lower it if you really want to. It's your serve. Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. That's not much of a God to worship!" If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "Oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves? Either the net stays up, or it stays down. If the net is down, there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down."
"The temptation, when we think about phenotypic variation, is to adopt a sort of Identikit tactic of assuming that all the minor variations we can imagine on the themes we find in actuality are truly available. Carried to the extremes, this tactic will always vastly - Vastly - overestimate what is actually possible. If the actual Tree of Life occupies Vanishingly narrow threads through the Library of Mendel, the actually possible Tree of Life is itself some rather bushier but still far from dense partial filling of the apparently possible. We have already seen that the Vast space of all imaginable phenotypes - Identikit Space, we might call it - no doubt includes huge regions for which there are no recipes in the Library of Mendel. But even along the paths through which the Tree of Life wanders, we are not guaranteed that the neighboring regions of Identikit Space are actually all accessible."
"If you believe: (1) that adaptationism has been refuted or relegated to a minor rol in evolutionary biology, or (2) that since adaptationism is "the central intellectual flaw of sociobiology", sociobiology has been utterly discredited as a scientific discipline, or (3) that Gould and Eldredge's hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium overthrew orthodox neo-Darwinism, or (4) that Gould has shown that the fact of mass extinction refutes the "extrapolationism" that is the Achilles' heel of orthodox neo-Darwinism, then what you believe is a falsehood."
"One can hold that all adaptive characteristics are the result of natural selection without holding that all characteristics are, indeed, adaptive."
"Meme evolution is not just analogous to biological or genetic evolution, according to Dawkins. It is not just a process that can be metaphorically described in these evolutionary idioms, but a phenomenon that obeys the laws of natural selection quite exactly."
"There is no necessary connection between a meme's replicative power,its "fitness" from its point of view, and its contribution to our fitness."
"It cannot be "memes versus us," because earlier infestations of memes have already played a major role in determining who or what we are. The "independent" mind struggling to protect itself from alien and dangerous memes is a myth."
"Dawkins argues for the biological perspective that recognizes the beaver's dam, the spider's web, the bird's nest as not merely products of the phenotype - the individual organism considered as a functional whole - but parts of the phenotype, on par with the beaver's teeth, the spider's legs, the bird's wing."
"Experience teaches, however, that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can misinterpret it."
"Showing that a particular type of human behavior is ubiquitous or nearly ubiquitous in widely separated human cultures goes no way at all towards showing that there is a genetic predisposition for that particular behavior."
"If a trick is good, then it will be routinely rediscovered by every culture, without need of either genetic descent or cultural transmission of the particulars."
"Whereas animals are rigidly controlled by their biology, human behavior is largely determined by culture, a largely autonomous system of symbols and values, growing from a biological base, but growing indefinitely away from it. Able to overpower or escape biological constraints in most regards, cultures can vary from one another enough so that important portions of the variance are thereby explained...Learning is not a general-purpose process, but human beings have so many special-purpose gadgets, and learn to harness them with such versatility, that learning often can be treated as if it were an entirely medium-neutral and content-neutral gift of non-stupidity."
"Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.""
"This is the most thorough (and readable) explanation of Darwinian theory ever written. If you have any doubts or questions about the impact of Darwin's idea, not just on biology but ethics, religion, or any other intellectual discipline, you should read this book. It is a bit too long, perhaps, at five hundred pages, but even reading a hundred of those are well worth the cover price. The style is light, the content intellectually dogged."
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