20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cat fighting among the old guard in evolutionary biology, November 16, 2001
Well, Darwin's soul really isn't up for grabs. What is at stake is just who among the illuminati of the Darwinian establishment really have the goods on how evolution works and how it doesn't. "Spandrels" of the mind, "habitat tracking," how complexity affects evolution, "species sorting," whether evolution proceeds by leaps and bounds or just plods along, and other contentious matters form the body of this unsteady but interesting book.
The main antagonists are the usual suspects, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Richard Lewontin, et al., proponents of punctuated equilibrium and a "holistic" approach to evolution on the one side, and Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, John Maynard Smith, et al., gradualist reductionists, the so-called "orthodox Darwinians," on the other. Dawkins, et al. believe that natural selection is the only really important factor in evolution while Gould, et al. believe that natural selection alone cannot fully explain how evolution works. Morris reviews their various publications and quotes them, revealing that they behave rather badly at times, sometimes resorting to unseemly personal attacks on one another--which leads me to observe that Darwin, who never involved himself in hot debates, much less in name calling, must be turning over in his grave.
The irony is, as Morris fumbles to makes clear, the seemingly substantive differences that are being so hotly debated are for the most part actually ones of emphasis and interpretation. Nobody involved doubts the supremacy of natural selection as the driving force in evolutionary change, any more than any of them doubt the fact of evolution. Morris gives the reader some background information about evolution and introduces complexity theory in order that the debate may be followed. In the penultimate chapter he gives a summary of the evidence as he sees it. A final chapter entitled, "Controversy and Discovery," includes the currently hot idea "that evolution can proceed at a more rapid rate than anyone had suspected." (p. 233) There is an annotated bibliography and a useful appendix listing relevant Web sites. Morris tries to avoid taking sides in this debate. Indeed, he bends over backwards to be fair, and that attitude, along with a beguiling, easy to read style, is the strength of the book.
There are weaknesses, however. His focus is too narrow with its concentration on Gould, et al. and Dawkins, et al. and their differences when there are much more interesting and immediate questions currently being debated. (I imagine that the young lions in evolutionary biology are very tired of seeing those old guys still getting all that ink!) For an interesting book by a young evolutionary psychologist on some of the newer controversies see Geoffery Miller's The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (2000).
And then there are all those typos! I found typos on pages 41, 47, 107, 114, 199, 203, 228, and 232. In one case the word "would" was left out. In another the word "out" was used when the word "at" was meant, and in a couple of places extraneous words were left in. For example, on page 203 a sentence begins, "You should not should not automatically conclude..." When one sees a lot of typos in a book it suggests that the author did not read the proofs, or if he did, he did a cursory job of it.
Worse than the typos (and if I found eight, there are surely others) are some misstatements of fact and intent. On page 34 he writes that the mammals that survived the K-T extinction "are not more <evolved> than their dinosaur predecessors." As Morris points out on page 32 "a frog is just as <evolved> as a human being." But that means frogs living today and human beings living today. To compare how "evolved" the dinosaurs living 65 million years ago are to mammals living today makes little sense. Note too that on page 34 Morris refers to the extinction of the dinosaurs as taking place 65 million years ago, which of course is the standard take, but on page 124 he unaccountably states that the "collision with an asteroid" took place 70 million years ago. Actually he writes, "70 millions years ago," which, I just noticed, is another typo!
There is also entirely too much repetition in the book, as though the chapters were independently conceived and meant to be published separately and then not properly edited. For example on page 204 Morris repeats the same ideas, and even some of the same wording, that appears on page 123. Chapter 8, "The Evidence," in particular contains a lot of unnecessary repetition.
Finally there is a most annoying error on page 175 in Morris's discussion of the Watson selection task. As written the instructions are incomplete and must leave readers scratching their heads about what is given as the correct answer. He writes:
"Suppose you are shown the four cards marked with the following symbols: D F 3 7 You are then asked which two cards you must turn over to see if any of the cards violate the following rule:
If the letter D is on one side, then there will be a numeral 3 on the other.
Which two cards do you turn over?"
Morris's answer, cards, D and 7 is partially correct, but what about the card with the F? According to the directions it also has to be turned over (to see if there's a D there) making it three cards that must be turned over, not two. This error resulted because Morris left out the following proviso, namely that the cards always have a letter on one side and a number on the other.
This is an excellent idea for a book, but I don't think Richard Morris realized its potential.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A searchlight in the night, November 3, 2001
I found this book to be a godsend. I have read extensively (30 + books) in the areas of complexity and chaos theory, evolutionary psychology,evolutionary theory, genetic programming, evolutionary history, genetic mutation, and other related areas and frequently felt lost in the forest of ideas, though increasingly familiar with each tree, twig, and type of bark (to extend the analogy). Richard Morris does an admirable job of describing the forest, and helped give me a context to understand the (frequently high-decibel!) arguements between the advocates of different positions. Right from the start, Morris categorizes thinkers into broad schools -- for example, among evolutionary theorists he groups the disputatants into two broad schools: pluralists and reductionists. He clearly explains the differences between these, and does so without himself becoming polemical. He even devotes space to very recent studies (1999 & 2000) casting light on 'which way the evidence points.' Morris sidesteps the creationists (thank you!) and examines differences within the scientific community itself. Many familiar names appear within this book: John Maynard Smith, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Niles Eldridge, Steven Jay Gould (of course!), Richard Lewontin, Charles Darwin himself and others. I was surprised at a few names that did NOT appear: Jared Diamond, Benoit Mandelbrot, Brian Fagan, John Koza and Terrence W. Deacon, just to name a few.... But my gratitude for Morris's very clear guide overwhelms my quibbles. Those of us who stumble from book to book trying to understand the issues and the reasons for disagreements (not to mention the development of various lines of thought!) have long needed an overview like this one!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book on Evolution, July 14, 2001
I have read many books on the evolution theory and this is by far the best written and the most easily understandable.
This book is food for the hungry curious mind if one wants to learn how evolution has evolved since Darwin's theory in 1859. It introduces us to the world of scientists and their way of expressing skepticism about claims made by other scientists. As Richard Morris said that is the only way that science can progress.
I really enjoyed the details concerning the herd of elephant overrunning the world in no more than a few thousand years if all of the offspring lived to maturity. Or better the story of the brainworm, a parasite infecting sheeps, eaten by snails, whose mucus worm larvae is eaten by ants, who then crawl up a stem of grass, and wait there patiently until a sheep makes a feast with it. What about the species of ants which makes slaves, others maintain fungus farms and some other "milk" their owns. Why do you help your neighbor or give money to the homeless, why does the house sparrow have a different wingspan depending on where they live,
What about the story of Mendel and his peas? Did you know that Mendel was an Austrian monk who discovered the genetic inheritance before Darwin?
Richard Morris introduces us slowly to the evolution theory' scientific terms, which for a layman are very inspiring: Do you know what a spandrel is? What is the Wason Selection Task? The Cambrian era? What is Dr. Kettelwell experiment with moths and his findings? Who are the parents of the mule? What is a hinny and who are its parents? What is a tetrapod? Why are the same bones seen in the leg of a frog, in the wing of a bat and in the arm and hand of a human being? How new scientific disciplines like complexity theory and evolutionary psychology have emerged? Everything about the fossils creation, the radioactive dating and all the function of DNA and much more are explained.
As Richard Morris said: "The essence of science, after all is questioning, not the creation of rigid theories that have hardened into dogma." We, all of us are part of the Evolution, if you want to see where it stands now, read this book.
I am not going to give you all the answers, they are or sometimes are not in this book and you better see for yourself, and buy it!
I almost forgot I have only one little problem with this book, I am French and had to run to my dictionary for many words! I hope it will be translated into French very soon.
Yvette Lemoine
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