The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science)
by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 June, 1999)
list price: $16.95 -- our price: $11.53
(price subject to change: see help)
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France

Reviews (24)

Poor quality
Very small print size, poor quality printing and mediocre paper detract. . . .

A scholarly exposition of "the long reach of the gene".
Firstly in reference to another review below, I think it is mean-spirited to give a negative review to a book you confess not to be capable of understanding!

This book was marketed as the sequel to The Selfish Gene, and chronologically it certainly was. However, the book is far more scholarly in its approach and for that reason is different in tone from Dawkins' other major works. Dawkins states at the outset that he is writing primarily for the professional biologist, but that anyone who makes the effort may understand and enjoy the work (I paraphrase).

This is true. With occasional reference to the helpful and educational glossary provided at the back of the book, I found it easy to make progress, to enjoy and to follow the arguments presented. I highly recommend this to all professionals, and to all others who may have read Dawkins' other works and feel ready to go deeper.

Why Will Dawkins not admit he's wrong
Dawkins refuses to let it go.Astrobiology and microbiology is pushing the final nail in the coffin of this ultra-Darwinist garbage.BUT, Dawkins refuses to let it go, using same flawed reasoninng to back his claims.It is time to abandon the current evolutionary paradigm, and ebrace the more than plausible models that have been pushed away by dogma of ultra-Darwinists. ... Read more

Isbn: 0192880519
Sales Rank: 25169
Subjects:  1. Evolution (Biology)    2. Gene expression    3. Genetics    4. Life Sciences - Evolution    5. Life Sciences - Genetics & Genomics    6. Natural selection    7. Science    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Evolution    10. Genetics (non-medical)    11. Science: General Issues   

Ontogeny and Phylogeny
by Stephen Jay Gould
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 March, 1985)
list price: $26.95 -- our price: $26.95
(price subject to change: see help)
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France

Reviews (10)

Serious competetion for barbiturates
Oh my friends, I tried Atlas-fashion but to no avail. This drawn out excercise in long haired erudition was simply too much for me. I'm sorry but there were cracks on the cieling that needed observing, weekends to be spent at the market and hangnails to chew. No, Ontogeny and phylogeny was simply not to be. I tried mind you, I read it up to page 223 where Gould set out to delineate De Beer's eight categories of heterochrony in part II, chapter 7 of this opus, where upon I cried "enough!!" I really like Gould too. I loved "Wonderful Life" and devoured "Ever Since Darwin." Indeed, Gould waxed eloquently (and succintly) on neoteny, paedomorphism and heterochrony in "Ever Since Darwin." Ontogeny and Phylogeny on the other hand will make you wish you'd never heard of these terms. I will say, having read part I, that I did get a thorough grounding in why Haeckel's recapitulation is untenable, but I was able to get that in one paragraph in Werner Muller's "Developmental Biology." Maybe this book was just a bad personality fit for me, and lord knows I love biology better than money or food, but I found it to be a not pleasant to read, sparingly informative, massive waste of time. This may seem harsh to Gould-ophiles, but I'd be lying if I said otherwise. On a positive note, it did give a good historical account of such 19th century natural science luminaries like Haeckel, Von Baer, de Beer, et al, and the development of their thought. Maybe if I were incarcerated I'd read this book, as it is there are too many other interesting and rewarding activities to pursue.

Ontogeny and Phylogeny
Ontogeny and Phylogeny by Stephen Jay Gould is an enlightening book filled with facts, history, knowledge, science, sociology, biology and mixed with this is the Gould Factor.

By this, Gould Factor, what I mean is this.There are illustrative bits woven into the tapestry of this scientific work.I always liked how Gould did this... always bringing more information into the mix.Then, when you think you know how he is going to arrive at the conclusion he brings you into a whole different level of thinking and you become enlightened and then, only then, do you see... you arrived at the conclusion... via the Gould Factor.

Now, some may say that, why doesn't he get to the point... ah those are the impatient ones... as knowledge to be wisdon has to be appreciated...thought through to the end and only then... will the enlightenment be appreciated.The same has to be said about Ontogeny and Phylogeny, as the development of the individual leads to the development of the whole (type).

Gould's clever brilliance is evidenced here and you'll see him working the esoterics, bringing the reader on, interlacing ideas, and ultimately to the conclusion.A learning process that is evident here as only Gould could do.Gould also brings the reader a broad base of knowledge at the begining forming a foundation.From this foundation, the book begins to construct the major points of Gould's perseptiveness, then later we get the major point of the work.

I found the book to be very well written with excellent documentation and a classic of felicity of style.

Deeply knowledgeable, thoughtful,and philosophical
This is one of the three most influential books I've read in the last 20 years.

"The world was a better place when I was young," "Kids today are worse than they were 20 years ago," are two of the more egregious examples I hear of people confusing ontogeny (development of an individual) with phylogeny (development of a type or collective).The world has always been a complicated and widely mixed placed.It is far more likely for an individual's perceptions to change in the course of a lifetime than the world that we perceive.

Gould's essays (and books collecting them) are pleasant bits of fluff that entertainingly (and sneakily) deliver well-informed and timely bits of science. "Ontogeny and Philogeny" goes the next level down, using interesting bits of (mostly) science to deliver well-informed and timely bits of philosophy.

I bought this book because I was curious about the relationship between ontogeny and philogeny."Does ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny?" was on my mind.No, says Gould.Better, he describes what that relationship is.Along the way, he explains how humans are differentiated from other species (a topic well expanded by Jared Diamond in "The Third Chimpanzee").

Gould starts with the history of science (Lamarck, Ernst Haeckel); philosophy (Anaximander, Aristotle); and psychology (Cesare Lombroso; Freud).He starts by showing the history of the perceived relationship between phylogeny and ontogeny.The illustrative bits of science follow as he discusses heterochrony and paedomophosis, showing how phylogeny relates to ontogeny, which I will grossly oversimplify: ontogeny selectively draws from phylogeny with occasional complete departures that may or may not be helpful (which is also true of the retained bits of phylogeny).The past may be selectively retained, but retaining one part does not necessitate the retention of all parts or even the relationship between the retained parts.Gould takes 409 carefully reasoned and well-written pages to get there.It's worth the trip. ... Read more

Isbn: 0674639413
Sales Rank: 238008
Subjects:  1. Developmental Biology    2. Life Sciences - Biology - General    3. Life Sciences - Evolution    4. Organic Evolution    5. Science    6. Science/Mathematics   

Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate
by Ullica Segerstrale
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 March, 2001)
list price: $15.95 -- our price: $10.85
(price subject to change: see help)
US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France

Editorial Review

How do scientists separate their politics from their work--or is such a distinction even possible? These questions frame the two levels of sociologist Ullica Segerstrale's analysis of the sociobiology controversy, Defenders of the Truth. From E.O. Wilson's 1975 publication of Sociobiology to his 1998 release of Consilience, he has consistently been the often-unwilling center of the vitriolic debate over human nature and its scientific study. Heavy hitters like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, and John Maynard Smith have lined up to attack and defend the scientific, political, and moral interpretations and implications of Wilson's synthesis, and Dr. Segerstrale tells a compelling story of their battles on multiple fronts. The author knows her science, having trained extensively in biochemistry before turning to sociology. While she distances herself from assessing the validity of the various claims, Segerstrale is clearly sympathetic to Wilson, who seems almost naïve at times when his ideas are interpreted ideologically rather than scientifically.

That, of course, is the heart of the contention surrounding sociobiology. The political left, well-represented among evolutionary biologists, has long considered any genetic influence on human behavior anathema--such theories are believed to support racist policies, even in the unlikely event that they were not merely reflections of racist attitudes. To their credit, many scientists held more complex beliefs, but some used the ideological argument as a back door to introduce their own neo-Darwinian scientific theories. The struggle for understanding has been eclipsed for some time by the struggle for political and academic survival and dominance, and Segerstrale reports and scrutinizes both with humor, intelligence, and aplomb. The end of the controversy--if there can be one--is far off, but a careful reading of Defenders of the Truth will give insight into the forces influencing our scientific self-examination. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Reviews (19)

Who is the custodian of biological truth?
Ullica Segerstråle is a sociologist who, as a student, decided to move from undergraduate training in biochemistry and organic chemistry to do her doctoral work in the sociology of science, choosing the arguments about "sociobiology" and "genetic determinism" as her theme. This proved to be a remarkably prescient choice of research topic, as it allowed her to observe at first hand the remarkably vicious battles between different groups of biologists from the middle 1970s onwards about the proper development of Darwinism and evolutionary theory.Defenders of the Truth is the fruit of her observations, and its title reflects the almost religious fervour with which each side maintains that it is the custodian of The Truth, the other being doctrinaire, unscientific, racist etc. As tends to happen in these disputes, both liked to compare their opponents with Nazis.

As Segerstråle started her study at the very beginning of the controversy, she was present at some of the more dramatic confrontations, such as the debate between Edward O. Wilson and Stephen J. Gould when Wilson gave his presentation only after beingdrenched with water by members of a group calling itself the International Committee against Racism. Not only that, but as she had been attending meetings of a somewhat less disreputable group, the Sociobiology Study Group, she was able to recognize one of Wilson's assailants as someone she had seen at such a meeting. This eye-witness character gives her book much of its vividness, but in addition she interviewed many of the participants subsequently, and studied the scientific bases of their positions. All of this adds up to a remarkably impressive achievement.

It is interesting to compare Defenders of the Truth with The Darwin Wars, another book written on the same subject at about the same time by Andrew Brown. The two books cover much the same ground, but Brown's is much shorter (about half the length, if one allows for the smaller amount of text on each page), and is written from the point of view of a journalist rather than that of an academic sociologist. He shares Segerstråle's concern with seeing both sides of the dispute, with getting his facts right, and with presenting the different points of view in a fair way. Both books are excellent, and both are essential reading if one is interested in the subject. Neither mentions the other, but they were being written at the same time, and published at much the same time, so neither author is likely to have had access to the other's work while writing.

Why Do Marxists Hate Sociobiology?
Segerstrale gives an excellent account of the debates over the Sociobiology controversy. Basically, they were over issues raised by an ad hoc Sociobiology Study Group at Harvard that was organized by Marxist professors Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. No details are available on the actual origins of that group but by going on the attack they succeeded in setting the agenda for the debates to follow in succeeding years. They later associated themselves with Science for the People, a group still in existence. Writing a quarter century later, Segerstrale observes that "For a surprisingly long time, ... the favorite target of SftP seems to have been sociobiology and Wilson." But the key can be found in Segerstrale's description of a meeting between Lewontin and Chomsky that took place at a Sociobiology Study Group meeting in 1976. At this meeting, which she attended as an observer, it turned out that Chomsky and Lewontin held differing views on development of history, having read different works of Marx. Chomsky's Marx spoke of an unchanging "species nature" ofhumans while Lewontin's Marx saw a socially shaped and historically changing nature. Because of this ideological fine point Chomsky refused to write a review attacking Wilson simply because Wilson did not seem threatening to him. Lewontin's view of course is the heart of what is called their "materialist theory of history." "Darwinism is the theory of biological evolution, Marxism, of social evolution" is how it was taught to Soviet children. To a true Marxist natural selection stops and the materialist theory of history takes over as soon as there is a human society. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness" is how Marx himself puts it. This pedantic sentence is also a key to Mao's Cultural Revolution and to Pol Pot's re-education camps. Mao's aim was to change the nature of his subjects brought up in a capitalist environment by immersing them in a socialist means of production. To this end, he closed the universities and sent those professors to work on collective farms. Pol Pot saw this but did not think Mao had it quite right. For one thing, he did not think it would work if they had had too much capitalist education. Hence, he set an admission limit of eighth grade for his re-education camps and ordered those with more than eighth grade education shot right away. But all this ideology is directly contradicted by sociobiologists' claim that human nature has an inherited component and that this inherited component is a product of natural selection over millennia. It was clear to Lewontin,if not to the rank and file of the protesters, thatthis claim would severely undermine the materialist theory of history. And this is the source of the urgency that motivated them to organize the Sociobiology Study Group. Their efforts were international. In the UK their leader was Steven Rose whose task it was to neutralize Dawkins. Their charges against Wilson were basically red herrings that succeded in diverting attention from their main concern, namely that sociobiology cuts the ground right out from under their materialist theory of history. Marx had locked them into a Lamarckian view of human nature and they acted upon it. This kind of Lamarckism has been characterized by Steven Pinker as a belief that an infant's mind is a "blank slate" upon which experience writes a life story. The attack on Wilson that opened in 1975 and is still going on is described well by Segerstrale. Most of the charges they succeded in putting on the agenda were lies and distortions that are essentially red herrings to cover up their true concern which is defending the materialist theory of history against the onslaught of sociobiology. Even under attack, Wilson published a book "On Human Nature" in 1978 which clearly lays out his views on the subject. It won a Pulitzer prize and is still in print, in its tenth printing. It is a truly humane book and should be read by anyone as an antidote to the Marxist propaganda against Wilson.

Ridiculous
Here we have one more contribution to the mythical version of the sociobiology wars, with Wilson, Dawkins, and company cast as the heroes, and Gould, Rose, and company as the villains.(Segerstrale is, of course, a personal friend of Wilson's.)I personally have no use for angels and devils, instead accepting the fact that *both* sides were (consciously or otherwise) informed by ideology and that people on either side of the debate can and do differ in good faith in their views. ... Read more

Isbn: 0192862154
Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Physical    2. General    3. Philosophy & Social Aspects    4. Psychology    5. Science    6. Anthropology    7. Biological anthropology    8. Designed / suitable for A & AS Level    9. Evolution    10. History of ideas, intellectual history    11. Popular science