PZ Myers. 2005 Apr 03. A book list for evolutionists. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/a_book_list_for_evolutionists/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 29.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, April 03, 2005
A book list for evolutionists
I frequently get requests for suggested books in evolutionary biology. Here's a short list with some very rough organization of books I've read and liked and think worth passing on. If you have any other suggestions, add 'em in the comments.
I'll probably also move the list to one of the sidebars at some point.
For the kids:
Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution. Steve Jenkins. Another encyclopedic illustrated summary of evolutionary history for the younger set.
Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs . David Norman. Not really intended for kids, but packed with full-color illustrations and detailed descriptions of many dinosaur groups. My kids would spend hours leafing through this one; it's the dinosaur book I wish I'd had as a 12 year old.
Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story. Lisa Westburg Peters. Excellent, simple summary of evolutionary history, for the K-3rd grade set.
The Tree of Life : Charles Darwin. Peter Sis. Nice picture book biography of Darwin for the kids.
From the Beginning: The Story of Human Evolution. David Peters. An older book that may be hard to get, but worth it for the wall-to-wall drawings of the organisms scattered along the human lineage, from single-celled prokaryote to modern humans.
For the grown-up layman:
Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin : The Power of Place. Janet Browne. This is the best biography of Darwin out there.
Science As a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology. John A. Moore. This is part history book, part philosophy of science book; if you know someone who doesn't understand the scientific method, this one will straighten him out.
The Darwin Wars. Andrew Brown. Much as we aspire to the pure search for knowledge, scientists can be testy and political and vicious, too—this is a study of the sociology of evolutionary biology.
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. Carl Zimmer. If you want a general survey of the history and ideas of evolutionary biology that isn't written like a textbook, this is the one you want.
At the Water's Edge: Fish With Fingers, Whales With Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea. Carl Zimmer. The focus in this one is on macroevolution of tetrapods and cetaceans. Excellently written, with a very thorough overview of the evidence.
Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution. Richard Fortey. Everything you need to know about the basics of trilobytes, with a chatty and often amusing introduction to the world of paleontologists.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. Jonathan Weiner. A Pulitzer-winning account of the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant in documenting the evolutionary changes occurring in Darwin's finches in the Galapagos right now.
What Evolution Is. Ernst Mayr. A survey of the theory by an opinionated master.
Evolutionary Biology. Douglas J. Futuyma. If you don't mind reading a textbook, this is one of the best and most popular texts on the subject.
An Introduction to Biological Evolution. Kenneth Kardong. Another textbook, but less weighty and less expensive then Futuyma's; a book I'd use in a freshman non-majors course.
For the more advanced/specialized reader:
On Growth and Form. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. I'm afraid no developmental biologist can list important books without mentioning this one.
From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. Sean B. Carroll, Jennifer K. Grenier, Scott D. Weatherbee. Like it says…molecular genetics, evolution, developmental biology. A good textbook describing the new cutting edge of evolutionary biology.
Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?. David M. Raup. A little statistics, a lot of paleontology, a good introduction to how we try to puzzle out what the world was like from a sparse data set.
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Stephen J. Gould. Massive. Indulgently written. But full of interesting ideas.
Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. Mary Jane West-Eberhard. Also massive. If you're already comfortable with the conventional perspective on evolutionary theory, though, this one twists it around and comes at it from the point of view of a developmental biologist.
Biased Embryos and Evolution. Wallace Arthur. A slim and readable book about evo-devo.
The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment. Richard Lewontin. A slender book that lucidly summarizes the non-reductionist position on modern biology; it's a call for greater breadth in science.
The Shape of Life : Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form. Rudy Raff. Hardcore evo-devo. A little out of date, but very influential.
For the anti-creationist:
Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Barbara Carroll Forrest, Paul R. Gross. The best summary of the sneaky political strategy of the creationists of the Discovery Institute.
Unintelligent Design. Mark Perakh. Nice, blunt dissection of the pseudo-science of creationism.
Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Matt Young, Taner Edis, eds. A team-takedown of Intelligent Design's bad science.
A set of good additions to this list can be found at EvolutionBlog, in addition to the stuff in the comments below. I'll make some additions to my list (I really should include one book by Dawkins, I think) and see if I can add links to sources other than just Amazon later this week, if and when my life settles down a little bit.
Posted by PZ Myers on 04/03 at 11:43 AM
Books & Papers • Science • EvoDevo • 8 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
Books & Papers • Science • EvoDevo • 8 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
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Thanks for the list, but why do you link to Amazon? Political contributions from Amazon execs favored Republicans, whereas Barnes & Noble execs gave exclusively to Dems. (Go to buyblue.org for the numbers.)
I'm not trying to run your site for you, of course. I just find it strange that so many bloggers on the left seem so eager to contribute to the Amazonian contributions to the Republican party. -
I recommend another book for the list, for educated laypeople:
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley
It's a downright poetic look at each of the 23 chromosomes and what sorts of biological and disease processes genes from each of them are involved in, along with a nice dollop of evolution of the genome. I highly recommend it.
Not to mention that it has a chapter on homeobox genes... -
For thge kids: The Evolution Book by Sara Stein.
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 12:24 PM
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Great list. A few additions:
Eldredge's The Triumph of Evolution is useful and inspiring, both as a survey of evolutionary thought and a clarion call against creationism.
Pat Shipman's Taking Wing is an excellent and readable treatment of current thinking at printing on bird evolution and the evolution of that instance of powered flight.
And though it's really paleoecology rather than evolution, EC Pielou's After the Ice Age is an indispensible (for North Americans at least) look at our close temporal neighborhood.#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 04/03 at 12:45 PM -
I'd certainly add Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker, both as a general explanation of evolution and as a particular refutation of what has come to be known as intelligent design. Dawkins can sometimes be tendentious -- or, as people less reticent than I might put it, a bit of a prick. (To be clear: I am a theist, but Dawkins's militant atheism bothers me not a bit. What annoys me at times is his arrogance, not to mention his occasional stage-Englishmanliness.) Yet he is a supremely gifted, beautifuly lucid writer. The odd minor irritation is a small price to pay to watch a writer this good at his work.
Which reminds me, PZ, to add my voice to the chorus urging you to contribute more to cellulose-based science writing for the general audience. You've listed some good stuff above there. But your stuff here on Pharyngula is not inferior to any of it. There's an appetite for this sort of thing; g'wan, feed it.#: Posted by Mrs Tilton on 04/03 at 12:57 PM -
If you cite Gould, then you should
cite, "The ancestor's tale : a pilgrimage
to the dawn of evolution," by Richard
Dawkins, 2004. Equal time and all that.
Another book for the lay reader is
Pennock's, "Tower of Babel." It relates
the evolution of language (Creationists
also insist languages were created
in Genesis) as an analogy to biological
evolution.
My favorites are Gould's collections of
essays starting with "The Panda's Thumb,"
because when I was a TA, these essays
provided me with fuel for discussion
periods, particularly for the devo
question, "does ontogeny recapitulate
phylogeny?"#: Posted by on 04/03 at 01:08 PM -
Thanks for the list PZ, I cedrtainly need to get hold of some of those books. Also thanks to all the other commenters for their supplementary suggestions.
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 01:45 PM
- Thank you! I was begining to think I would have to write my own books for my kid.
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Linked from II's Evolution/Creationism book list:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=44461#: Posted by on 04/03 at 02:34 PM -
For the sake of historical perspective, I'd add On the Origin of Species and Descent of Man. For anti-creationists, Massimo Pigliucci's Denying Evolution is quite good. For an overview of the growth and role of the creationist movement in America, Ronald Numbers' The Creationists and Douglas Futuyma's Science on Trial. And for teachers, Defending Evolution in the Classroom by Brian J. Alters and Sandra M. Alters.
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 02:35 PM
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When Mrs. Tilton referred to cellulose,
at first I thought she was anticipating
my request, which would be for some books
on plant evolution.
I'd recommend my favorites, but I've never
found a really good one -- pitched to a
reader of my type, interested amateur,
unafraid of textbooks.
Mayr's 'Principles of Biological Thought'
covers as much as anyone could wish,
though it was presented as 'vol. 1.'
No vol. 2 appeared, as far as I know.#: Posted by on 04/03 at 02:37 PM -
Thank you. I agree on Tower of Babel - one of the best about IDC (some of the older ones, e.g., by Eldredge, Ruse, Berra and Futuyma are against YEC, but still good).
Eldredge's "Reinventing Darwin" I liked quite a lot.
Of course, all of Gould, even if it is about baseball. But the "Structure" is probably the most important book on evolutionary biology written in the past 50 years or so, and should remain influential for another 50 if we do it right.
"Sex and Death" by Griffiths and Sterelny is the easiest introduction into philosophy of evolutionary biology, after which one should be able to read more sophisticated works by Bob Brandon, Elliott Sober etc.
"Unto Others" by Sober and DSWilson is an important (thought one-sided, but I like that side myself) book about group selection and evolution of altruism.
Susan Oyama's "Ontogeny of Information" is a very important book on Developmental Systems Theory.
A few months ago I wrote my own list of favourite science books:
Science Books - Dr. Myers, this is great! I was just about to email you and ask you for evo-devo book suggetions, but you posted them, saving me the trouble. This is why I love your blog. Not only are you wise, but you're psychic as well!
- Peter Atkin's Creation Revisited. It's not about biological evolution, but the book's basic premise, that by understanding & explaining the most primitive we can demonstrate that no creator was needed in the beginning, is as applicable to physics as it is to biology.
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I like most of the suggestions added in the comments, and I'd like to add a few more:
River out of Eden by Richard Dawkins - Explains his vision of the selfish replicator.
Pattern of Evolution by Niles Eldredge - How the patterns of evidences shows the fact of evolution, and the fact of punctuated equilibrium.
Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller - A Christian debunks creationism and shows how evolution can be compatible with Christianity.
The Machinery of Nature by Paul Ehrlich - An ecological approach to evolution.
The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey - Introduction to human evolution.
Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution by Douglas Futuyma - One of the best books debunking YEC. -
One of the books that shaped my understanding of not just
evolution, but of the meaning of chance and destiny, was
Gould's "Wonderful Life". -
Excellent.
And I suggest http://www.powells.com as another non-Amazon vendor. They have been a part of the culture of downtown Portland for many years.#: Posted by on 04/03 at 05:22 PM - My pick is another Richard Fortey title - "Life: An Unauthorised Biography". Sweeping, ambitious look at the history of life on earth, nicely written and more of the aforementioned quirky palaeontology anecdotes.
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Robert Park's Voodoo Science,
Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things,
and Richard Dawkin's <i>Climbing Mount Improbable</i>. Amongst many other things this one has a fantastic description of how the human eye evolved and that it is, in fact, <b>not</b> perfectly "designed"...as Creationists and IDers would have it. Old news to most in here, I'm sure, but excellent for that high school student or college grad just discovering their humanistic/scientifically minded selves!#: Posted by on 04/03 at 05:44 PM -
I'll have to second the votes for Genome and Life: An Unauthorized Biography.
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 05:44 PM
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Hmmm, what happened there with the italicized and bold mess ups?
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 05:47 PM
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I would add Massimo Pigliucci's Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science to the list. It defintely falls into the category of "anti-creationist" and "specialized reader." I don't know if it's a little too complex for the lay reader (I don't think so). It's an excellent and well-written rebuttal of creationism and definition of science and the scientific method as it relates to evolutionary biology.
#: Posted by Michael Feldgarden on 04/03 at 06:52 PM
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Off topic, but I'm proud bec ause I just stumbled across my very first find of a nutty creationist saying stupid things:
http://mynym.blogspot.com/#: Posted by Craig Carlyle Clarke on 04/03 at 06:55 PM - I can't decide if I'm a grown-up layman, a specialized reader, or an anti-creationist.
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DS, We have often wonder the same about you.
#: Posted by on 04/03 at 07:48 PM
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Three more suggestions:
Steve Grand: Creation - life and how to make it
A book about evolution, artificial life, and the Creatures computer game(s). It is interesting, because the writer is not a biologist - this results into interesting analogies and easy-to-understand explanations.
Tibor Ganti: The principles of life. Not exactly evolution-biology, but Ganti's definiton of life and the chemoton-theory are more than helpful for someone who is interested in biology.
John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary: The Major Transitions in Evolution
(or the lighter version: The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language )
For me, a great "sequel" of Maynard Smith's The Problem of Biology: a good summary of the developement of the life on Earth, concentrating on the key moments.#: Posted by on 04/03 at 08:13 PM -
While I love Janet Browne's biography of Darwin, it is massive! I think the Desmond and Moore is far more approachable...at ~800 pages.
It is quite 'externalist' and not nearly as comprehensive, but still I think a better read than the Browne if only because of the length.#: Posted by on 04/03 at 08:33 PM -
I'm also a fan of Desmond & Moore's Darwin biography. It explores a lot of the social and political context of the time, which I think is equally as important as the validity of the science and the character of Darwin, in understanding how the work came to be accepted. You realise how highly Darwin was regarded by the end of his life, when openly declaring his lack of religious conviction was no barrier to his state burial in Westminster Abbey.
I believe one of the authors was involved with a similar work on T.H. Huxley which I never got around to reading - did anyone else? - If someone already mentioned The Death of Adam, by John C Greene, and I missed it, I apologize. It's a splendidly readable history of the run-up to Darwin, in particular upon the importance of the new geology of Hutton and Lyle that created the temporal space, as it were, for Darwin's theories, by proposing that the earth was unimaginably old. (Yes, we may know how old it is, but we can't imagine it, which is important because we can't quite imagine evolution, either.)
- Thank you for the recommendations! I will be sure and seek some of these out for PK.
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Let me enthusiastically second Chris Clarke's recommendation of E.C. Pielou's 'After the Ice Age,' which is the closest I have encountered to the evolutionary synopsis including plants that I want someone to write for me.
I checked the reviews at amazon (you don't have to buy the books there), and they were extraordinarily positive.
In over 40 years of encountering both antievolutionists and naive evolutionists, I have noticed something I'd elevate to the status of a Scientific Law: Creationists never mention the evoution of plants, and if you bring it up, they immediately drop it.
Yet, as I understand it, quite a few of the important mechanisms of evo/devo were first recognized or demonstrated in plants.
I won't hold the animalism (even invertebratism) here against you, since you're specialists.
Now I'm off to eBay to search for 20 titles you guys posted. Thanks.#: Posted by on 04/04 at 12:09 AM -
Hopefully I'll be able to indulge in some of these this summer.
Ryan, some people prefer to live in the present rather in some idealistic future. I don't buy blue or communist red or Republican red or green or black or brown. Boycotting a corporation that funds terrorists or exploits workers is one thing. Boycotting a corporation that funds a legitimate political party is as bad as organizing a boycott against a country band whose lead singer said Bush made her ashamed to be a Texan.#: Posted by on 04/04 at 12:18 AM -
Harry:
For Creationists, Evolution = Human Evolution. If you start talking about evolution in birds or fish or insects or plants or bacteria,...they think you are changing the topic. They do not see the connection, probably because they do not "buy into" unity of life on Earth. Humans are all that matters to them. Wonder why?
BTW, I have to get the new West-Eberhard book - everyone says it is great. -
Alon,
Thanks for the comment. I agree with your sentiments. I'm not issuing a fatwa here; Amazon isn't even all that bad about their contributions, so I think the Dixie Chix analogy is a good one. I'm just wondering why Amazon is the bookstore to link to.
I was mostly questioning the politically-minded bloggers. I know Myerz isn't exactly Kos, but Amazon has a PAC that holds positions counter to those held by many of these bloggers. If we choose with our dollars, why are we contradicting ourselves? -
I presume it's because readers are most likely to be familiar with Amazon and have an account in it. Therefore, linking to Amazon is likely to cause more people to buy the said books than linking to Barnes & Noble.
PZ doesn't strike me as someone who votes with his dollars. Kos lives an ideology rather than life so it makes sense for him to see his consumption as an extension of his politics, but for most people, even most political bloggers, life isn't reducible to liberals vs. conservatives.#: Posted by on 04/04 at 12:50 AM -
I would also add Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele, a courageous examination of implications of evolution many are afraid to discuss.
#: Posted by on 04/04 at 01:04 AM
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For an excellent critique of Sarich and Miele, go here:
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2005/03/race-is-it-bell-curve-light.html -
Well, Amazon has those reviews, which, when they are not helpful, are often very funny.
I generally buy through eBay, though, for several reasons, including I'm cheap.
However . . .
Just ran through those 20 or so titles on eBay and bought about six of them at prices averaging around $15.
About 15 of the 20 are available on eBay, but some are pretty expensive. Expensive enough to make me think twice about buying them.
I didn't keep an exact tally, but it's pretty clear that buying 20 or so of those books would cost well over $1K.
Let's say the dearest wish of the pharynguloids were come and 10 million Americans decided to learn something about evo/creo.
That'd be an injection of $10 billion into the economy.
Evolution: a growth industry.
Could be a bumper sticker.
(PS. I'm with Alon about where you shop. Ever see the Christian Yellow Pages that were tried in many communities? Never caught on that I know of, which is why I believe most Americans are not nearly as religious, or as crazy religious as the evo/creo dispute would tend to make us think. But you guys are outnumbered. If people start shopping their politics, it won't be Amazon that suffers.)#: Posted by on 04/04 at 02:04 AM -
Why Amazon? Well, I am not PZ, but if you look at the URL of each of those links, you'll notice that they include "/pharyngula-20" which means that PZ will get a fee each time any of us buys a book at the end of that link. Not a very big fee, but a fee nonetheless, which he presumably can use for internet connections, server hosting or cheap booze.
#: Posted by on 04/04 at 06:11 AM
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I don't know about any Christian Yellow Pages. What I do know is that in Israel the ultra-orthodox Jews commonly use boycotts as a tool of political blackmail to prevent supermarket chains from selling non-Kosher food or opening on Saturdays. That is the primary reason I am repulsed by efforts such as Buy Blue and the Dixie Chicks boycott.
About prices, let's see how much these books cost on Amazon, not including shipping:
The Triple Helix: $10.20
Science As a Way of Knowing: $21.95
What Evolution Is: $10.88
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory: $29.70
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea: $15.61
The Darwin Wars: $10.50
On Growth and Form: $19.77
If eBay really takes 50 dollars per book, it's not worth it. The prices above are only what I have to pay; you Americans can buy used for lower prices.
Speaking of which, how can you recommend so many books about evolutionary biology and anti-creationism without listing anything by Dawkins?
By the way, my anti-spam word here is the right-on-point "evolution"...#: Posted by on 04/04 at 06:20 AM -
"endosperm", "tetrade", "chromosome"...how did you get all the confirmation words to be biological? Neat trick, nonetheless.
A large number of philosophers of biology have pointed to deep logical flaws in Dawkins' thinking. If he was to follow his own logic, he does not offer a good reason why, on his trip down the levels, he picked to stop at genes, instead of going down to "selfish atoms", or "selfish subatomic particles". As more and more people are doing serious research on evo-devo, on epigenetics, on parental effects, and on the hierarchical levels of selection, less and less there is any practical use for Dawkins' model: it just does not work.
Apparently, his latest book is pretty good, probably because he is tracking the evolution of life on Earth (chronologically backwards: from present into the past) and does not write about mechanisms. That is where his great writing style is useful: to draw lay readers in. I did not read it, but some people say that "Climbing Mt.Improbable" is good, too, probably because, again, he spend little time on evolutionary mechanisms, and more on faith and atheism.
In his earlier books, his great writing ability is a hindrance, as it is seductive: you WANT to believe him. It takes large background knowledge and very sharp analytical skills to resist being seduced by style and start noticing logical fallacies. The same goes for Daniel Dennett, whose "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" is one of the most dangerous books out there, as it is very well written, yet horrendously wrong.
Dawkins has responded to criticisms over time and improved, to some extent, his scheme. While "Selfish Gene" is atrotiously wrong, subsequqnt books get better and better. As a result, his model now greatly resembles what modern biologists and philosophers think today, except that a) his terminology obfuscates the similarity in order to preserve an appearance of "his" originality, and b) he is not willing to take the next logical step and get rid of the last bad element of his model - the genocentrism - because he has so much invested in it, and without it he just falls in line with Gould and others, i.e., he declares defeat.
On one hand, Dawkins' work was useful, as it provided fuel for quite a lot of discussion, thinking and research among experts trying to show how wrong he is, with some remerkable sharpening of thinking, and some great experimental results. But those are effects within the field. On the other hand, his books are eminently readable and popular, resulting in far too many lay people getting their evolution from Dawkins, thus getting it wrong from the get-go and finding it difficult later to let go of his scheme.
For these reasons, I would suggest that Dawkins should be read (and he SHOULD be read) by professional philosophers of science, but should be banned from general bookstores. It has been apparent for some time now that it is almost as difficult to wean people off Dawkins as it is to wean them off Dembski. Apparently it is important who "gets to you first", and it should not be Dawkins. His stuff whould not be on a list of books for general audience. PZ, being an evo-devo reserahcer himself, is deeply aware of this and has rightfully decided to leave him off this particular list, as many lay people read Pharyngula and he wants to suggest only the best.
A good book that destroys Dawkins and Dennett and a MUST read (it should be on PZ's list) is "Lifelines" by Stephen Rose. Reading multiple works by Gould, Lewontin, Fox-Keller and some others (see my link above) should be able to treat you of Dawkinism.
(For more details and some references, go to the "Pure Science" category of my blog and read the WWDD series etc.) - What about Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny ?
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There are some good books listed here in the comments, and I'll add them later. Since this is my list, I only include ones that I've personally read, though, so while Death of Adam, for instance, sounds very interesting, I won't be adding it yet—at least not until this summer, when I have time to get to reading it! (There's another ripe possibility for comments in that: a list of books PZ Myers better read.)
Dawkins is an interesting case. I've got a bunch of his books and I love him as an author, but I do have some mild philosophical disagreements with him. I semi-unconsciously left him off the list, while feeling vaguely guilty about it. I probably should toss something representative on there.
Ontogeny and Phylogeny is great! It definitely belongs in the "advanced/specialized" category, though.
About Amazon: they are seductive. Their referral program is a great temptation: I've made $30 from them in two years! It's peanuts, I know, but for a bibliophile to discover that he can get a free book now and then, it's irresistable. Damn the evil power of capitalism and all that. But maybe when I put the list on the sidebar I'll add links so you can pick which vendor you want to get it from: Amazon, B&N, Powell's.
Of course, you know I'd still be contributing to the wicked trend of ignoring the small local bookseller… -
For the sake of historical perspective, I'd add On the Origin of Species and Descent of Man.
What the lurking creationist should really pay attention to is the fact that any books by Darwin himself are no longer required reading in the evolutionary field. The theory has scientifically burgeoned to such an extent that the works of the progenitor are now considered quaint historical artifacts. Calling evolution "Darwinism" is like calling astrophysics "Keplerism". If they get nothing else out of this thread, if they never read any of the listed books in their entire life, I at least want that point to be branded into their pea-like brains. -
Shopping tip: You might solve both the price problem and the small-bookstore problem by dealing with http://www.abebooks.com -- a consortium of stores. My husband has used them for a number of specialized and sometimes obscure natural history books, and he's been quite satisfied with their prompt delivery and prices.
#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 04/04 at 09:32 AM
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Abe books is great, if you live in teh US, less so outside the US.
So, PZ, you are really only into blogger for the profit and women, or at least the free books...#: Posted by on 04/04 at 09:41 AM - I've found Abebooks to be excellent in the UK, but perhaps this has something to do with the vast network of second-hand bookshops (which are enjoying a resurgence with the aid of the internet).
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Alon, you picked the titles that had big sales. Try pricing the ones that had limited sales or are older, like 'Shape of Life.'
Sadly, all the anticreationist books on PZ's list were in the $50+ range#: Posted by on 04/04 at 11:16 AM -
PZ and everyone,
I searched my bookshelves to find a title to add to PZ's very comprehensive list that he hadn't mentioned that I thought was really good. I found a book that I absolutely loved when I was a first year grad student in "Pizza Evolution" that I think advanced readers would also enjoy; Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life by Henry Gee. This is a collection of scientific papers that were influential in the field for one reason or another.
Now that I have looked in this book again, I want to go back and re-read it. It's really fantastic.#: Posted by GrrlScientist on 04/04 at 11:20 AM -
I picked up both of Pennock's books at a little place in Brighton that, for some reason, had them shoved sort of half-way between the science shelf and the religion shelf. Very cheap. It's worth looking around, you can often find some of these things remaindered.
Or you can go to my favourite bookshop: Foyle's in Charing Cross Road - though their anticreationist material seems to have dropped off. A couple of months ago they had loads of anticreationist books, but they seem to only have the odd one here and there now.#: Posted by Tom Morris on 04/04 at 12:24 PM -
Ben,
best point in the thread, if you ask me.#: Posted by Mrs Tilton on 04/04 at 02:00 PM -
their anticreationist material seems to have dropped off. A couple of months ago they had loads of anticreationist books, but they seem to only have the odd one here and there now.
One can, of course, construe an hypothesis under which this is a good thing (though concededly inconvenient for your own good self).#: Posted by Mrs Tilton on 04/04 at 02:03 PM -
coturnix and PZ (and anyone else, for that matter),
If I could bother you...I happen to be one of those who has been influenced by Dawkins. I like the way he refuses to get all weepy and warm and fuzzy when it comes to science v religion. Science and religion are not compatible. Now, I am strictly a layman. Science in general and human evolution in particular are my hobbies, not even close to professions. When Dawkins or Gould get too technical, too deep into the science, I'm lost. What one says sounds as reasonable and understandable (or not!) as what the other says, frankly. That said, could you explain why it is bad for someone like me to read and, hopefully, learn from Dawkins? I genuinely believe in the scientific method, i.e. don't get too wedded to(or dogmatic about?) any one hypothesis or theory or idea or a particular scientist's teaching...things change, be open minded. This is me being open minded. What have I missed?
Many thanks,
the guy with the "neandertal" moniker.#: Posted by on 04/04 at 02:55 PM -
Hmmmm...this is tough.
First of all, Dawkins is a serious and respected figure, even when wrong. Quacks like Desmond Morris are just ignored - Dawkins is not ignored at all.
If a lay person with no intentions of becoming a biologist would ask me what to read: Dawkins and Dennet or Behe and Dembski (and Gould and Lewontin are for some reason not an option), I would happily suggest Dawkins and Dennet. They are excellent writers, and they get much of it right - enough for a lay person to get a decent understanding of evolution and get immunized against creationism and similar quackery. And definitely kudos to both of them for their valiant fight against superstition and pseudoscience, e.g., what they are doing with The Brights movement (the Newdow case, for instance).
The problems start when you get deep into the field. Perhaps the problems with Dawkins's theory should remain within the field, as they confuse the educated lay people.
Over the past 10 years or so I've been attending bi-weekly meetings of a Philosophy of Biology group. It is a nice mix of people, from researchers in evo-devo and geneticists, through ecologists and evolutionary biologists, to historians and philosophers of biology. Topics change over time (there was a whole year on cultural evolution, another on modularity of development, and another on philosophy of ecology, for instance), but it keeps coming back to the question of the role of genes in evolution.
One of the resident philosophers has done research and written some of the best stuff out there on hierarchies of units/levels of selection and on constraints, among else - most definitely a pluralist (perhaps a "Gouldian"). The other eminent philosopher arrived a couple of years ago a hard-line "Dawkinsian". The first few weeks were fireworks! Guess what - he is not Dawkinsian any more. Why? Because he is a VERY smart guy and over time we have read several dozen of headache-inducing philosophy papers that expose, through tough math and fancy thought-experiments, as well as some experimental evidence, serious flaws in Dawkins' philosophy - so over time he saw the light.
The core flaw is an arbitrary choice of genes (DNA) as the main, if not sole unit of selection. No other additions to the theory that Dawkins added in response to criticisms have done anything to change this. His is the case of extreme "genocentrism".
Both philosophers and biologists have, since about 1970s, worked on this problem and realized that this level does not have any particular primacy over other levels (from atoms to species and everything in between, e.g., cells, tissues, embryos, organs, organisms, groups, demes, etc.).
In its most crude and devious shape (see Gene Expression blog), genocentrism is religious (DNA as a substitute for God), and is used for pushing racist or sexists pseudo-scientific arguments. Dawkins is much more sophisticated than that, but his followers are a murky lot and use his ideas to push their agendas.
Finally, adherence to Dawkins' schemce hiders one's ability to do research correctly. A couple of years ago I saw a seminar by a very eminent biologist who is a strict Dawkinsian. He put up a slide with data that were screaming: group selection! What did he say? He said that he had no idea how to interpret that dataset. Afterwards, I asked him about it, and he got mad: "There is no such thing as group selection! Let's not even talk about it". How is he going to design his next set of experiments if he denies existence of a powerful (and already quite well documented) evolutionary mechanism which is, actually, extremely important in his study syste (a social mammal with co-operative breeding)? Answer: he will not. He will keep beating the old horse until he retires and someone younger, raised on post-Dawkinsian biology, picks up his work.
I have tried to write more about it, e.g., here (this is a long serious piece):
What Would Darwin Do(WWDD)
...and here (these two are meant to be provokative and opinionated):
God, Genes and Conservatives
Genocentrism Aids Anti-Abortion
Try this for good books about it:
Science Books, e.g., these:
Stephen Rose - Lifelines
Richard Lewontin - The Triple Helix
Evelyn Fox Keller - The Century of the Gene
David Moore - The Dependent Gene
Jonathan Marks - What it means to be 98% chimpanzee
Lewontin, Rose and Kamin - Not In Our Genes
Dorothy Nelkin and M.Susan Lindee - The DNA Mystique
Ruth Hubbard and Elijah Wald - Exploding the Gene Myth
Also, see my comments above. -
Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability
Richard Potts#: Posted by on 04/04 at 05:02 PM -
Many thanks for taking the time. I guess I have yet more reading to do. I'll probably check in from time to time for clarifications and such...if nobody minds.
#: Posted by on 04/04 at 05:04 PM
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Thanks, PZ; I plan to work my way through the appropriate part of your list, like DS, when I figure out which category I belong in. Perhaps I should start with the kids' books.
One more reason, completely apolitical, to avoid Amazon: in many big businesses, Amazon's web site is blocked by the company's filtering s/w. A friend who is a medical editor for a large hospital is endlessly frustrated by this; the editors frequently need the citations, reviews, etc. that they find on Amazon, but can't get to them.#: Posted by Steve Bates on 04/04 at 05:05 PM -
Sorry about the Amazon links. A good alternative in the US is BookSense, which is a network of 1100 indy bookstores across the country. Order online and your local joint fills your order (and gets your money.)
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 04/04 at 05:12 PM
- I use Amazon to get info and read reviews. Sometimes I order from them, sometimes I just get the ISBN code and take it to my local independent bookstore (Quail Ridge Books) and order there. If Amazon does not have a rare book, though, I can often find it on alibris.com
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I've never gotten anything directly from Amazon, but I've used them as an intermediary for deals with third parties (used stuff). I expect they get a profit out of that.
I don't take the whole "buy blue" stuff too seriously, and I buy from Republican-promoting businesses like Walgreens without too much worry. However, if any others take this seriously, probably the most convenient option is barnesandnoble.com -- their execs give their money to Dems. I'm thinking I'll eventually copy the Amazon reviews I've done to B&N, since they don't have many reviews. Powells is another option, though I find its interface less familiar.#: Posted by on 04/04 at 08:35 PM -
'The Theory Of Evolution' by John Maynard Smith remains one of the best overviews of the modern synthesis. "The best general introduction to the subject now available" according to Richard Dawkins in the foreword to the 1993 Canto edition. As an undergraduate I found it invaluable.
#: Posted by on 04/04 at 11:12 PM
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I've just finished reading 'Almost Like a Whale: The 'Origin of Species' Updated' by Steve Jones. I'd say it is a good entry-level/intermediate level introduction to evolution. Some are put off by Jones' style apparently, but I found it congenial.
#: Posted by David Hadley on 04/05 at 09:35 AM
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Coturnix,
Regarding your posts about Richard Dawkins. Something about them had me somewhat distressed. At first I couldn't put my finger on it, but I've had some time to re-read and think on them. You cite an "eminent biologist" and an "eminent philosopher" above, both are Dawkinsian. At least at first. The philosopher, you say, "sees the light" eventually and is now no longer Dawkinsian. The biologist (the actual biologist!) apparently never does or cannot and is, in fact, intolerant of any discussions that don't square with his Dawkinsian view of science. The man doesn't seem to want people to even think about "group selection", for instance. Sounds dogmatic and extreme to me. Kind of like someone saying his books "should be banned from general bookstores!" Or "should not be on a list of books to general audience." It wouldn't surprise me if the biologist you cite started comparing those who disagree with him to Dembski and Behe, saying their view of science was "religious". Worse, there would be suggestions that they are "racist" or "sexist", that those who follow them are "a murky lot." Ending all debate or discussion.
As I've stated before, I am no scientist though I appreciate the disagreements of phenotype vs genotype. But appreciate is the best I can do. Obviously, I can offer no real scientific argument one way or the other. But the apparent vitriol that is thrown about between "eminent" scientists, vulgar accusations about racism and the like really does distress me. It was after reading your posts and seeing your list of books to read that I was reminded...I've seen this before. Steven Pinker covers the arguments between E.O. Wilson, Dawkins and Rose Lewontin and Gould in The Blank Slate. Reductionist, determinist, racist...all these words are used repeatedly (by Lewontin et al) to describe the "Dawkinsians" and/or their scientific views. Pinker, I think, does an excellent job of refuting all of this, point by point. Now, I imagine given this you are no fan of Pinker's. As you seem to have the same outlook as Lewontin and Gould. Disagree with us and you are reductionist and of course are attractive to that "murky lot" of racists and sexists. In either case you should not be on general book lists or in bookstores.
It so nice to see the phenotypist is the tolerant one.
Cheers.
P.S. I'd still love to hear PZ weigh in on all this.#: Posted by on 04/06 at 06:42 AM -
Amazon sent me an email recommending a book titled "Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom" by Sean B. Carroll. I wonder if anyone has read it, and if it's too technical/advanced for an educated layman.
neandertal, Pinker's book "The Blank Slate" is filled with strawmen caricatures of the opposing position. Try searching through Pharyngula for PZ's assessment of that book.