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Book Description
ISBN-10: 1880323869 | ISBN-13: 978-1880323861 | Publication Date: August 2001
How did life begin? How is it changing? How do we understand our place in the world in relation to other living beings? The Nature of Life: Readings in Biology encourages inquiry-based discussion of scientific writings that attempt to answer universal questions about the nature of life.
The anthology includes 19 selections written by major scientists and questions designed to spark lively shared inquiry discussion. This anthology is ideal for students and adult readers interested in developing a deeper understanding of the life sciences.
Selections from: Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Claude Bernard, Rachel Carson, Paul Colinvaux, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, Konrad Lorenz, Lucretius, Lynn Margulis, Gregor Mendel, James D. Watson, and Edward O. Wilson.
Author and co-author of twenty-four books translated into eleven languages, Dorion Sagan has written for Natural History, Smithsonian, BioScience, The Sciences, The Ecologist, Co-Evolution Quarterly, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Skeptical Inquirer, Wired, Pabular, Times Higher Education Supplement, Whole Earth Review, and Cabinet. He writes the column "In Orbit" at Wild River Review, an online magazine devoted to culture, travel and politics. He is recipient of an EdPress Association of America Excellence in Educational Journalism Award, a Humana scholarship, and has been anthologized in scientific collections such as those edited by Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson, as well as in philosophical collections such as Zone 6: Incorporations, published by MIT Press. Sagan's co-authored Into the Cool, on life and energy, was called "fascinating" by Nobel Laureate chemist Roald Hoffmann; his co-authored Up From Dragons, on neuroscience and brain evolution, was called "Thrilling" by Publishers Weekly; his co-authored Microcosmos, was called "a seminal book" by science fiction author Ben Bova. Writing about this book in The New York Times Book Review, Dr. Melvin Konner wrote that "this admiring reader of Lewis Thomas, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould has seldom, if ever, seen such a luminous prose style in a work of this kind." Peter Warshall, an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, called his co-authored What is Sex? "The most interesting text written on sex." His coauthored What is Life? (Foreword by Niles Eldredge), was called "A masterpiece of science writing" by Orion, and included with works by Billie Holiday and William Shakespeare on a list of "100 Mind-Altering Masterpieces" by Utne Reader. Death/Sex, the double book with NYU professor Tyler Volk, won Bookbinders' Guild of New York 2009 Award for Best Nonfiction Hardcover. Of Sagan's contribution Denis Noble, Professor Emeritus of Physiology, Oxford University, Fellow of the Royal Society, and former thesis advisor for Richard Dawkins had the following to say: "In just 100 pages, everything you really need to know about sex: Why? When? Where? With whom? Dorion Sagan slides effortlessly from seductive prose to bringing the reader sharp up against one astonishing scientific discovery after another." His latest books include, The Sciences of Avatar, released exclusively on Kindle, and Notes from the Holocene, recently released in Chinese. Cofounder of Chelsea Green Publishing Company's Sciencewriters imprint, and a Fellow of the Lindisfarne Association, Dorion has been a Humana Scholar at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Sputnik Observatory, a New York cultural intelligence group. He currently divides his time between Toronto and western Massachusetts.
