Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

28 used & new from $25.20

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Tell the Publisher! I�d like to read this book on Kindle Don�t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology (Paperback)

by Massimo Pigliucci (Author), Jonathan Kaplan (Author)
Key Phrases: vernacular fitness, predictive fitness, holey landscapes, North America, Sewall Wright, Male Sword (more...)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

List Price:	$28.00
Price:	$25.20 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:	$2.80 (10%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Tuesday, July 21? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

16 new from $25.20 12 used from $25.69

Also Available in:	List Price:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Hardcover	$70.00	$70.00	14 used & new from $49.95

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Explore more great deals on 1000's of titles in our Bargain Book store.

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $53.69

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology by Massimo Pigliucci
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage) by Neil Shubin
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Evolution and the Levels of Selection

by Samir Okasha

4.0 out of 5 stars (2) $30.55

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)

by Eva Jablonka

4.5 out of 5 stars (12) $13.57

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage)

by Neil Shubin

4.6 out of 5 stars (127) $10.04

Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, 3rd Edition (Bradford Books)

by Elliott Sober

5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $34.12

Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science

by Massimo Pigliucci

4.3 out of 5 stars (21) $22.45

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The philosophical analysis in this book offers a clear conceptual perspective for evolutionary geneticists trying to get their mathematical apparatus clear and make an estimation of its relevance to explaining biological phenomena. But it also should encourage philosophers that evolutionary quantititative genetics is a fertile domain for analysing the meaning and use of concepts."?Alan C. Love, Mind (Alan C. Love Mind ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Making Sense of Evolution explores contemporary evolutionary biology, focusing on the elements of theories—selection, adaptation, and species—that are complex and open to multiple possible interpretations, many of which are incompatible with one another and with other accepted practices in the discipline. Particular experimental methods, for example, may demand one understanding of “selection,” while the application of the same concept to another area of evolutionary biology could necessitate a very different definition.

Spotlighting these conceptual difficulties and presenting alternate theoretical interpretations that alleviate this incompatibility, Massimo Pigliucci and Jonathan Kaplan intertwine scientific and philosophical analysis to produce a coherent picture of evolutionary biology. Innovative and controversial, Making Sense of Evolution encourages further development of the Modern Synthesis and outlines what might be necessary for the continued refinement of this evolving field.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 236 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (November 15, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226668371
ISBN-13: 978-0226668376
Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #225,775 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
vernacular fitness, predictive fitness, holey landscapes, informal fitness, testing adaptive hypotheses, indiscriminate with respect, measure natural selection, discriminate processes, other developmental resources, functional talk, trait variants, functional ascriptions, optimization analyses, informal selection, natural selection and fitness, organismal biologists, genic selection, adaptive landscapes, genic level, ensemble level, adaptive hypothesis, malaria resistance, selection debate, fitness surface, practicing biologists

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
North America, Sewall Wright, Male Sword, Van Valen, Biological Hypotheses

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	72% buy the item featured on this page: Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $25.20
	8% buy Why Evolution Is True 4.2 out of 5 stars (62) $18.45
	7% buy Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) 4.5 out of 5 stars (12) $13.57
	7% buy Evolutionary Biology 4.4 out of 5 stars (7) $96.95

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

evolution(3)

evolutionary theory(3)

evo(1)

See all 6 tags...

Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search

No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

1 Review

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Level: advanced, January 11, 2007

By	Shaun Johnston "evolved self" (Tillson, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I came to this book for an introduction to the statistics at the heart of current evolutionary theory. It gave me that, and a whole lot more--a great round up of issues in evolution at the professional level, most of it way over my head. I felt well satisfied that I'd been introduced to modern evolutionary discourse, to how professional evolutionists think about the subject and what issues matter to them. I noticed how little that discourse connects to the roots of evolutionary theory in the 19th C. Discussion of basics went back no further than the 1920s and '30s. My overriding impression was that professional evolutionists no longer have a language in which to talk to laypeople about lay interests. I recommend that, if you want to argue with evolutionists about something, you read this book first and see if your "something" can be framed in their discourse. If not, you may be met with an expression of well-meaning puzzlement--"what are you talking about?". Well-written, easy to read, except for the inscrutability of the subject matter itself, which I ultimately found just uninteresting.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; }

Customer Discussions

Beta (What's this?)

New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.

This product's forum (0 discussions)

	Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
	No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

[Cancel]

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
science Step up and point out the flaws of evolution/science	2796	2 minutes ago
science The emperor of evolution has no clothes. Who is the Emperor?	2032	1 hour ago
science in 140 characters or fewer...	18	2 hours ago
evolution Evolution Science Research: A Double Standard?	320	2 days ago
evolution How has creationism affected your view of the Christian faith?	147	2 days ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	40	4 days ago
textbook Does anyone use Discovering Geometry: An Investigative Approach?	5	4 days ago