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Prior books on
EVOLUTION |
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The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Planet
By James Lovelock
Encountering the Earth from
space, a witness would know immediately that the planet was
alive. The atmosphere would give it away. The atmospheric
compositions of our sister planets, venus and mars, are:
95-96% carbon dioxide, 3-4% nitrogen, with traces of oxygen,
argon and methane. The earth's atmosphere at present is 79%
nitrogen, 21% oxygen with traces of carbon dioxide, methane
and argon. The difference is Gaia, which transforms the outer
layer of the planet into environments suitable to its further
growth. For example, bacteria and photosynthetic algae began
some 2.8 billions of years ago extracting the carbon dioxide
and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, setting the stage
for larger and more energetic creatures powered by combustion,
including, ultimately, ourselves. That is how James Lovelock
discovered Gaia; from outer space: "The name of the
living planet, Gaia, is not a synonym for the biosphere that
part of the Earth where living things are seen normally to
exist. Still less is Gaia the same as the biota, which is
simply the collection of all individual living organisms.
The biota and the biosphere taken together form a part but
not all of Gaia. Just as the shell is part of the snail,
so the rocks, the air, and the oceans are part of Gaia. Gaia,
as we shall see, has continuity with the past back to the
origins of life, and in the future as long as life persists.
Gaia, as a total planetary being, has properties that are
not necesarily discernable by just knowing individual species
or populations of organisms living together ... Specifically,
the Gaia hypothesis says that the temperature, oxidation,
state, acidity, and certain aspects of the rocks and waters
are kept constant, and that this homeostasis is maintained
by active feedback processes operated automatically and unconsciously
by the biota." |
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The
Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – And
How We Can Still Save Humanity
By James
Lovelock
Availability: This item has
not yet been released in the U.S., but may be ordered through
Amazon U.K.
Lovelock's unique authority and original perspective sets
this book apart from other books on environmental change.
He speaks as a planetary physician with more than forty years'
experience of thinking about how to respond to the Earth's
needs as a living organism. Illustrated with examples drawn
from his experiences around the world, Lovelock draws many
radical conclusions, most controversially a passionate advocacy
of nuclear energy. This, he argues, is not only a secure,
safe and reliable source of energy but also the only way
to counter the lethal heat waves and rising sea levels, which
will increasingly threaten civilizations. |
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Quantum Evolution
By Johnjoe McFadden
The hairiest heresy of evolutionary
biology, the one most likely to get scientists figuratively
burned at the stake, is the notion that any force more selective
than blind chance could drive mutation. Such "directed
evolution" smacks too much of a retreat into creationism
for most science-minded readers to be comfortable with, but
there's no a priori reason to reject the idea. Molecular
biologist Johnjoe McFadden risks the Inquisition by suggesting
just such a possibility in Quantum Evolution: The New Science
of Life. Directed at a general but somewhat sophisticated
readership, the book covers the basics of both standard evolutionary
theory and quantum-level physics, then synthesizes them in
an interesting theory of made-to-order mutation that explains
enough to warrant attention and is, importantly, testable.
McFadden's writing is clear and sharp, and it shows a high
regard for the reader's intelligence and patience for complex
ideas. This is no airplane book – except for those
already well-versed in the latest in both evolutionary theory
and subatomic physics. The rewards of reading are great,
and the author bows just enough to established theory that
he might meet the fate of his intellectual predecessors.
The ideas underlying Quantum Evolution may be right or wrong,
but they challenge received wisdom without plunging into
dogmatism – and that's good science. |
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God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory
By Niall Shanks and Richard
Dawkins
In the last fifteen years a
controversial new theory of the origins of biological complexity
and the nature of the universe has been fomenting bitter
debates in education and science policy across North America,
Europe, and Australia. Backed by intellectuals at respectable
universities, Intelligent Design theory (ID) proposes an
alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary theory:
that life is so complex, and that the universe is so fine-tuned
for the appearance of life, that the only plausible explanation
is the existence of an intelligent designer. For many ID
theorists, the designer is taken to be the god of Christianity.
Niall Shanks has written the first accessible introduction
to, and critique of, this controversial new intellectual
movement. Shanks locates the growth of ID in the last two
decades of the twentieth century in the growing influence
of the American religious right. But as he shows, its roots
go back beyond Aquinas to Ancient Greece. After looking at
the historical roots of ID, Shanks takes a hard look at its
intellectual underpinnings, discussing modern understandings
of thermodynamics, and how self-organizing processes lead
to complex physical, chemical, and biological systems. He
considers cosmological arguments for ID rooted in so-called "anthropic
coincidences" and also tackles new biochemical arguments
for ID based on "irreducible biological complexity." Throughout
he shows how arguments for ID lack cohesion, rest on errors
and unfounded suppositions, and generally are grossly inferior
to evolutionary explanations. While ID has been proposed
as a scientific alternative to evolutionary biology, Shanks
argues that ID is in fact "old creationist wine in new
designer label bottles" and moreover is a serious threat
to the scientific and democratic values that are our cultural
and intellectual inheritance from the Enlightenment. |
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Quest for Truth: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs
By Mano
Singham
Mano Singham, a fundamental-particle physicist at
Case Western Reserve University, has been active in the
effort to keep "intelligent design creationism" out
of the Ohio science education standards. But creationism
is
only one of the factors – perhaps a minor one – that
have motivated him to write this book. Singham acquaints
the nonspecialist reader with mainstream philosophical
views of the nature of science.
As one would expect, the discussion centers on the works
of philosophers of science Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre
Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Richard Rorty; by far the
heaviest
emphasis is placed on Kuhn's analysis of scientific revolutions
(Kuhn 1996). Inevitably, as the author warns the reader,
the discussion cannot be complete – only so much
can be conveyed in a relatively brief summary.
"Truth," the
key word in the title, is a slippery term. In theology, it has
at least one clear meaning: What is
revealed in sacred scriptures is by definition true, and theological
argument can proceed on this sound foundation – at
least among those theologians who share faith in that
particular revelation. Science, however, does not have such a
starting
point. Popper stressed the now widely accepted view that
science can never achieve truth but it can make and then
test assertions that are falsifiable. If a theory survives
numerous and varied attempts at falsification, one can
have a degree of confidence in the reliability of that
theory
over a broad range of phenomena. Moreover, if a statement
is inherently not falsifiable (for example, "God is
just"), it cannot be a scientific statement.
Singham's
solution lies in acceptance of the ideas that (a) all
knowledge is valid and (b) science does not seek truth
but control over the environment. As a corollary, he
argues that the important court decisions that distinguish between
creationism and science are not intellectually honest.
Singham
further reconciles the Kuhnian concept of incommensurable
paradigms (for example, Newtonian physics vis-à-vis
quantum mechanics) by making an analogy with biological
evolution. Just as species branch from pre-existing species
– the
metaphor is that of a proliferating shrub – new theories
branch from pre-existing ones. In both cases, the process
is contingent; if the pre-existing branching structure
had been different, the new branching would have been,
too. Singham
argues further that this metaphor avoids the misconception
that knowledge – at least, scientific knowledge
– is finite and we will someday know everything there
is to
know about the universe. Rather, Singham's shrub branches
out
unendingly into the spaces available between and above
the existing branches. |
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