Book Description
What is the biological reason for gossip?
For laughter? For the creation of art?
Why do dogs have curly tails?
What can microbes tell us about morality?
These and many other questions are tackled by renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. With stories that entertain as much as they inform, Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. Now everyone can move beyond the sterile debates about creationism and intelligent design to share Darwin’s panoramic view of animal and human life, seamlessly connected to each other.
Evolution, as Wilson explains, is not just about dinosaurs and human origins, but about why all species behave as they do—from beetles that devour their own young, to bees that function as a collective brain, to dogs that are smarter in some respects than our closest ape relatives. And basic evolutionary principles are also the foundation for humanity’s capacity for symbolic thought, culture, and morality.
In example after example, Wilson sheds new light on Darwin’s grand theory and how it can be applied to daily life. By turns thoughtful, provocative, and daringly funny,
Evolution for Everyone addresses some of the deepest philosophical and social issues of this or any age. In helping us come to a deeper understanding of human beings and our place in the world, it might also help us to improve that world.
Customer Reviews:
wow.......2007-10-02
David Sloan Wilson is riiight. It's so simple! Oh thank you, jeez! My eyes are opened! Hey everyone, I'm an atheist! No, I totally get it now! Evolution explains everything! There is no great mystery to life, just evolution and God's a spaghetti monster! Thank you, David!
/sarcasm
Gee Whiz Science.......2007-09-06
I've never met David Sloan Wilson, but he strikes me as one of those professors we've all had at least once. You can imagine him clasping his hands together, looking straight through those large glasses and shouting with joy, "gee isn't that great!" "Evolution explains everything." Okay, maybe he didn't exactly say that, but the take home message is implied. A more accurate statement might be that most everything has been shaped by the forces of selection.
In his book, he sets out to show us that not only is biology best explained by natural selection but so is art, medicine, politics, war, economics, infanticide and religion. That's quite a tall order for one book, but in places he does uncover some nuggets, especially in group selection theory. Some of this ground has been covered before and if you can get past his gee whiz enthusiasm coupled with his goofy braggadocio, he is at times an engaging and entertaining writer.
Unfortunately, his anecdotes and case histories of art, dance and music rest on pretty shaky scientific grounds. And it is precisely this weakness that makes it hard to know who would benefit from this book. The evolutionists already know this is probably right, but the antievolutionists will be inclined to select his weakest arguments to bolster their case.
Nevertheless, I must admit that his intellectual journey provided a stimulating ride. Surely, he's no Dr. Feynman, but you come to realize that Wilson himself is the culmination of some rather curious selection forces.
Incredibly stimulating.......2007-09-03
I really appreciate this book. Well written, funny, precise, documentated and full of anecdotes. Undoubtedly a must read. I recommended it to all my friends and collegues.
Evolution as religion.......2007-08-14
I'm a broad reader and an evolutionist. I'd read a review, bought the book, read it and am truly disappointed. Wilson brags constantly about a previous book he wrote, saying he described religion in evolutionary terms. Sadly, he's doing the reverse in this book: Describing evolution as an acolyte rather than a scientist.
He spends too much time making a claim, waving a wand, and claiming he's proven something. His chapter on laughter is a good example: Lots of muttering, no scientific linkage and then a claim it must be evolutionary. He writes well so even that might have been passable and he does have occasional real examples that are worth reading (keeping this review from being a 1).
What's bad are the sections that completely lack logic, such as on page 184, where he's claiming the importance of dance in evolution. Not only does he show no evidence, he makes a false logical claim while talking about the military. As he writes: "The visceral power of dance made it possible for armies to be formed out ot people who had no objective reason for fighting. Merely by marching in time and other intense communal activities, they become emotionally bonded to each other. ... J. Glenn Gray puts it this way in 'The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle': 'Many veterans who are honest with themselves will admit, I believe, that the experience of communal effort in battle ... has been the high point of their lives...."
Notice, first, that he's quoting one man's opinion ("I believe") as factual support. More importantly, notice how Gray is specifically describing the effects of shared combat. Not dancing. Not marching. Not "other intense communal activities." Combat.
I hate it when people on my side are just as ignorant and pompous as the people I oppose. I'm afraid that people will not learn about evolution from this book, only that some evolutionists believe in it as strongly as others believe in the false science of ID. This book damages our cause, and I suggest people avoid it.
gnaw this juicy bone!.......2007-07-27
Some books you don't so much read as gnaw on like a hound with a particularly juicy bone. This is such a book. Some authors, far from remote figures lurking behind their texts, become much-valued friends. David Sloan Wilson is such an author. The title, Evolution for Everyone, is deceptive. While in fact very apposite, it suggests at first sight an over-simplifying textbook, an `Idiots Guide to Darwin'. No such thing. Wilson gives us a passionate and yet affably urbane argument for evolution as a kind of general theory of everything. He sees evolution as relevant to most aspects of human existence. For example, why do humans enjoy music? Why do they enjoy dancing? Wilson suggests that making rhythmic sounds and dancing may well have preceded speech among our remote simian ancestors. Peoples who communally dance unite in co-operation rather than exterminate themselves in fratricidal fighting. A rabble of a hundred individuals can be transformed into an effective regiment of soldiers working as one by drilling together (never more so than when accompanied by martial music). So also literature: it plays an essential role in cultural evolution. Wilson observes: "the primary human adaptation is for our behaviour to be acquired less and less directly from our genes and more and more from other people". Narratives, whether literary or historical, play a part in this process. These are only a few of scores of hares Wilson's engagingly fertile mind puts up for us to pursue. Good hunting!
Book Description
For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic insight into a possible, plauible future of humans and the universe.......2007-10-07
This is one the the favorite books I have ever read. It is not an easy read for a non-scientist, but absolutely rewarding. It is surprisingly accessible, despite the technical and intellectual scope. The logical and insightful nature of Kurzweil's arguments make it a compelling and inspirational read. The book has had a huge impact on my thinking and introduced me to the whole subject of futurism. It is affecting my investment and career decisions. There were numerous mind-bending, mind-expanding moments during reading this as the gravity of the concepts sank in. Garreau's book, Radical Evolution, is a great follow-up read, comparing and contrasting Kurzweil's optimism with the pessimism of others. It is a joy and luxury to be exposed to the visions such "big thinkers".
Look-out future here we come.......2007-09-10
I read this book with such optimism for our future. I only hope to live long enough to see some of the exciting events in our future on this planet. Just when you think you have seen it all, you "ain't seen nutt'n yet". Come on world let's work together and solves some of the mysteries that are tearing us apart.
hold onto your hat.......2007-08-29
the future is going to be wild.
ray kurzweil is the leading guru of the not so far off world where key technologies merge to allow us to turn ourselves into non biological humans.
no crack pot he. when kurzweil presented his thesis at MIT the arguments centered on the when, not the if of kurzweils predictions
Not for non geeks!.......2007-07-26
Although the reading is tedious for someone who is not that scientifically or computer oriented, the concepts and ideas the book presents are fascinating and a bit scary!
Most important book of the next 50 yrs.......2007-07-25
At some point I hope that people will stop paying attention to Paris Hilton and read this book. Our species is at a crossroads and we have some very important decisions to make in the next few decades. This book more than any other will prepare us to make the right choices. Read it now, or be devoured by a swarm of nanobots in 2029 when Skynet takes over.
Average customer rating:
- If you think you know all about sex, think again!
- Good Book and Great Class!
- Great
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Human Sexuality Today (5th Edition)
Bruce M. King
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ASIN: 0131891642 |
Book Description
This appealing, readable and humanistic guide to human sexuality achieves a sound balance between facts and understanding, giving readers the information they need to make responsible decisions and helping them feel comfortable about themselves while learning about their sexuality.
A wide range of chapter topics discuss hormones and sexuality, similarities and differences in our sexual responses, sexually transmitted and sexually related diseases, birth control, pregnancy and childbirth, communicating about sex, gender identity and gender roles, sexual orientation, love and relationships, sexual problems and therapy, sexual victimization, and sex and the law.
For individuals seeking to learn more about human sexuality and its most current issues.
Customer Reviews:
If you think you know all about sex, think again!.......2006-05-24
I had to use this textbook when I took Dr King's Psychology class at the University of New Orleans (Spring '06). I found it to be a very informative eye-opener. Dr King presents information in a clear, concise, just-the-facts way, yet it doesn't read like a 'boring old textbook.' The information really makes the reader think twice about the West's cultural, historical, and scientific perspectives on the nature of sexuality.
Read this book, for a class or personal education or whatever reason. At the very least you'll come out with some interesting facts about human behavior, but more likely you'll change your entire perspective on human sexual behavior.
Good Book and Great Class!.......2005-09-27
I recently had Dr. King's class at the University of New Orleans during the Spring semester of 05, his class is the best! I enjoyed every minute of sitting through his lectures! He's is a great professor and a great writer! Keep up the good work!
Great.......2005-09-19
The book arrived in timely manner. Also, the book was in good condition
thanks
Book Description
Marc Hauser's eminently readable and comprehensive book Moral Minds is revolutionary. He argues that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Experience tunes up our moral actions, guiding what we do as opposed to how we deliver our moral verdicts.
For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that moral judgments arise from rational and voluntary deliberations about what ought to be. The common belief today is that we reach moral decisions by consciously reasoning from principled explanations of what society determines is right or wrong. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is founded entirely on experience and education, developing slowly and subject to considerable variation across cultures. In his groundbreaking book, Hauser shows that this dominant view is illusory.
Combining his own cutting-edge research with findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, he examines the implications of his theory for issues of bioethics, religion, law, and our everyday lives.
Customer Reviews:
Natural Morality.......2007-09-17
Over the last decade the study of the human brain has moved out of the leafy halls of academia into many different fields, including ethics and the law. If socially unacceptable behavior is being driven by some wiring problem in the brain, is a person legally liable? Or is the brain just one part of the chain of causes with learning and experience playing a larger part? The lion's share of the evidence indicates that genes and the brain determine how we interact with the environment rather than determining how we behave, but there is still a great deal of research that needs to be done.
This book has been getting a lot of attention and for a very good reason: not only is it a well-written account by someone who is an exceptionally clear thinker, but the implications of his book stretch far beyond simple academic discussions: they have implications not only for neuroscience, but for ethics, spirituality and the law.
Marc Hauser is a biologist at Harvard and in this book he argues that the human moral sense is inbuilt and the product of evolution, much like our capacity for language. He suggests that the structure of our minds - or at least our brains - reflect our egalitarian hunter-gatherer past and reveals "left over circuitry from the cavemen."
Hauser begins by contrasting three approaches to moral thinking:
The first was espoused by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, who proposed that we follow a categorical imperative. In Kant's view, we could and should live by the Golden Rule, treating others as we would have them treat us, and never using people merely as a means to something else.
The second approach was proposed by the eighteen century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who came to the conclusion that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions. So if we do something because we are frustrated or angry, we should be castigated and punished because we failed to express out true nature.
The third approach is that of the political philosopher John Rawls. Rawls - like the Harvard linguist Noam Chomsky - proposed that there are deep similarities between language and morality. Chomsky believes that we are hardwired to understand and produce language, while Rawls believes that we all have an innate moral faculty. What that means is that we are all born with an ability to form moral judgments, and that we do not simply embrace the views of our family, tribe or church. The rub is this: because it is an innate ability bred of countless millennia of evolution, we often have no idea why we hold the views they we do.
The parallels between our innate morality and language are explored in this book.
When a twenty-nine year old Chomsky produced his first book in 1957 it created a firestorm of protest as well as some enthusiastic acceptance. We know that people the world over utter grammatical sentences in their own language, but it had been assumed that it began as simple mimicry: children copied the language, syntax and grammar of their parents and others. But Chomsky proposed that the ability is hardwired into the structure of the brain, and that is why we have little or no insight into how grammar works. By analogy, Hauser proposes that children and adults construct moral codes and make judgments without any insight into their reasons for doing so.
Hauser is an acclaimed academic, and it is no surprise that he supports his hypothesis with an array of thought-provoking examples, some better known than others.
One of the better known has been used in psychology and philosophy classes for years. It is the Trolley Problem, taken from a classic set of moral dilemmas proposed by the philosopher Phillipa Foot. The story goes like this. A bystander named Denise is a passenger on an out-of-control railway trolley, which is speeding down the track with an incapacitated driver. The vehicle is heading directly toward five people on the track ahead, bringing with it certain death. Denise can flip a switch that would turn the trolley onto a sidetrack with just one person on it. That one person will die, saving the other five. Should she flip the switch? Hauser's own intuition is that she should, and he marshals various moral arguments to support him.
But now comes the second part. Consider another bystander named Frank. He is on a footbridge over the same railway trolley with the same five endangered people. On the bridge is a large man whom Frank can push off the bridge and so stop the trolley and save the five. Should he do so? Should he sacrifice one man to save five?
Here Hauser's view is that he should not. But exactly why not? Is it because of Denise and Frank's intentions? Is it because Frank would be using the man as a means? In each case the result is the same, one person is killed and five are saved. This is interesting, not as an academic exercise, but because most people come up with similar responses to the dilemma.
Here is another example: what if a surgeon can save the lives of five dying people by taking organs from one perfectly healthy person? Almost no one says that this action is justified, but why not? In fact when such a thing was actually done during the Holocaust, the prosecutors at Nuremberg considered it to be one of the most egregious of all the crimes committed. The utter breakdown of agreed moral norms during those dark years and continuing depravity in some parts of the world remains a challenge for philosophers and scientists to this day; including the author of this book.
Hauser is evidently a good teacher, and he constructs a number of variations of these themes to show us that, with the kinds of exceptions that I just mentioned, the intuitions of very different people are usually much the same. Second. He shows how difficult it is to provide logical justifications for those intuitions. Like all good teachers he includes some personal disclosures, and tells an amusing tale about his own father, who, despite being an intelligent and well-educated physicist, became confused and frustrated when he tried to find logical justifications for his immediate responses.
Hauser reviews evidence from different cultures and from his own research using an online Moral Sense Test, to show how little judgments vary between people of different backgrounds and cultures.
This leads to another important similarity between language and morality. Languages are not chaotic: they follow certain constraints. All known languages follow a set of universal principles. But there are also a set of variable parameters that include the order of words, different ways of making plurals, gender attributions and all those other nuances that can frustrate anyone trying to master a foreign language. Hauser argues that it is the same with morality: there are universal principles and culture-bound parameters. He continues the parallels to point out that as with a language, once people acquire their specific moral grammar, other grammars may seem as incomprehensible as does Japanese to a native English speaker.
He illustrates his thesis with valuable discussions about murder and manslaughter, the treatment of women in different cultures, attitudes to abortion, euthanasia, pedophilia and incest, together with notions of fairness and punishment.
The book is illustrated by some delightful little drawings that do an excellent job of breaking up the narrative.
Marc Hauser if a very good writer and the book is not a difficult read, despite weighing in at over 400 closely reasoned pages. He makes many points that need to be heard. Not only by his colleagues and by people curious to understand more about themselves and those around them, but also by politicians, lawyers and ethicists.
Highly recommended.
Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life
A poor collection of sophomoric philosophy.......2007-04-01
In a grand way Marc Hauser represents centuries of philosophy intermingled with anecdotes from psychological, anthropological, and economic research. Unfortunately, what he doesn't do is provide a scientific grounding for understanding moral choice.
To understand why people call things right and wrong you need to start with the biology of learning, expectation, and cognition. Given that we are just barely now scratching the surface of these topics Hauser's attempt was bound to fail. His own morals pervade the book and act as logical starting points for his arguments, but rarely does he act as a scientist and dismiss his own morality to seek out the real question which is, "How does the brain create a sense of right and wrong, and is there any definitive proof that there is a universal biological morality?"
Neuroscience tells us that there are very few things we are hardwired to do that we cannot unlearn or adapt to deal with our environments. Hauser spectacularly fails to convince that any moral code is anything other than a learned societal norm.
great idea, poor execution.......2007-03-31
I agree with Rick: great idea, poor execution. Various moral and social systems have long tried to codify and explain away through religious and other naratives what is only natural to us. Kudos to Mark Hauser for bringing our innate "moral organ" to broad attention.
His writing however is another matter. I suggest, read his introductory chapter "What Is Wrong?" and then cherry-pick from the rest of the book as much of the following material is highly repetitive. This is topic waiting to be tackled again by another, stronger writer.
Placing morals into the biological realm where they belong.......2007-03-23
This book affirms something that I have thought true for some time now - that morality is governed by instinctual paradigms in healthy individuals. Hearing from birth and from right-wing sources on the news daily that our morality can only be saved by a reversion to "biblical" mores, I had always wondered why the statistics do not back this "moral majority" up. For instance, in countries like Sweden and Iceland and many other European nations where secularism is high, they have much lower rates of crime and their citizens are just as happy if not more so than the average Sunday-bible-toting-American who thinks they have a "higher" version of morality than the "godless heathen."
Hauser cites empirical data that shows that morality is often operating at an unconscious level in human beings as evidenced by tests where subjects make a moral choice but then can offer only incoherent justifications. Hauser's parallel to our "Language Instinct" here is spot on, given that most native speakers can form perfectly grammatical sentences, but if asked about detailed grammatical structures and relationships, they fail miserably. This, I think, is one reason that religion enjoys its ascendant status (at least in America) in regards to morality. Religion is an overt manifestation of moral principles, something people otherwise have little or no conscious access to. It doesn't matter how outdated or ridiculous religious "morals" are, people will cling to them because in their minds it is the only available source of a description of morality. The faster that science can describe these principles, the better off humanity will be.
Taking in relevant topics from moral philosophy, economics, psychology, and of course, the meat of his argument, socio-biological findings from our primate and animal cousins, Hauser shows that the precursors of human morality, at least in rudimentary form, are present in many other animals. This presence gives science a strong foothold in the arena of ethics. These findings must be to the chagrin of such writers as Francis Collins who invoked the god of the gaps in "The Language of God" to explain that human morality must be due to divine fiat. Indeed it is not.
It's just not written well.......2007-03-21
I got this book after hearing Hauser give a very illluminating and fascinating interview on NPR. Sadly his book is not as nearly interesting as his interview technique is. He repeats his thesis into the ground many times. His clever examples are sometimes not so clever. The book is too long and wordy. Being a lover of philosophy, I of all people never thought I would say that about a book. That can be a good thing in capable hands, but Hauser is definitely a scientist and not a writer. Some better editing and tightening of the text would've made this book a real winner. Finally, the link to linguistics, a main theme of the book, is a turn off for me personally as the linguistics field in no way interests me. However, one refreshing aspect is that he amdits its a theory. Sometimes I feel contemporary science books are too ready to start claiming themselves to be fact. Only get it if you can find it cheap, and hopefully Hausers honesty, enthusiasm and knowledge will get you past the poor writing, sadly it wasn't the case for me.
Average customer rating:
- Great Read -- But pay attention
- A Passion for Life on Earth
- " a title" ! What do you mean? explain
- Not the Fittest
- The creation: An Appeal to Save LIfe on Earth
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The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
Edward O. Wilson
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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Letter to a Christian Nation
ASIN: 0393062171 |
Book Description
In this daring work, Edward O. Wilson proposes an alliance between science and religion to save Earth's vanishing biodiversity.
Dear Pastor:
We have not met, yet I feel I know you well enough to call you friend. First of all, we grew up in the same faith. Although I no longer belong to that faith, I am confident that if we met and spoke privately of our deepest beliefs, it would be in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwill. I write to you now for your counsel and help. Let us see if we can, and you are willing, to meet on the near side of metaphysics in order to deal with the real world we share. I suggest that we set aside our differences in order to save the Creation. The defense of living Nature is a universal value. It doesn't rise from nor does it promote any religious or ideological dogma. Rather, it serves without discrimination the interests of all humanity.
Pastor, we need your help. The Creation—living Nature—is in deep trouble.
The Creation is E. O. Wilson's most important work since the publications of Sociobiology and Biophilia. Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, it is a book about the fate of the earth and the survival of our planet. Yet while Carson was specifically concerned with insecticides and the ecological destruction of our natural resources, Wilson, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, attempts his new social revolution by bridging the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of fundamentalism and science. Like Carson, Wilson passionately concerned about the state of the world, draws on his own personal experiences and expertise as an entomologist, and prophesies that half the species of plants and animals on Earth could either have gone or at least are fated for early extinction by the end of our present century.
Astonishingly, The Creation is not a bitter, predictable rant against fundamentalist Christians or deniers of Darwin. Rather, Wilson, a leading "secular humanist," draws upon his own rich background as a boy in Alabama who "took the waters," and seeks not to condemn this new generations of Christians but to address them on their own terms. Conceiving the book as an extended letter to a southern Baptist minister, Wilson, in stirring language that can evoke Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," tells this everyman minister how, in fact, the world really came to be. He pleads with these men of the cloth to understand the cataclysmic damage that is destroying our planet and asks for their help in preventing the destruction of our Earth before it is too late. Never a pessimist, Wilson avers that there are solutions that may yet save the planet, and believes that the vision that he presents in The Creation is one that both scientists and pastors can accept, and work on together in spite of their fundamental ideological differences. 25 line drawings.
Customer Reviews:
Great Read -- But pay attention.......2007-10-05
It took me a couple of weeks to read this book, because the biology in it requires you to really pay attention. But Wilson's chapter on extinctions is scary and saddening.
A Passion for Life on Earth.......2007-09-13
It seems that Edward O. Wilson's goal in this book as an open letter to a southern Baptist minister was a persuasion to an enthusiasm in the enjoyment of the diversity of life, to use this to protect "The Creation" which is the biological riches that are still here, and indirectly to share his belief in evolution. Other than the last goal I felt his eloquent writing and passion was quite persuasive. He made me feel a bit guilty for not continuiing on as a biology teacher.
Wilson does mention evolution in the book but his mentioning is not part of an overall arguement in defense of it. I imagine some people that either do not believe in evolution or do and would like it well defended were disappointed in this aspect of the book. I did not feel that it was the main point, despite the title and it's near play on creationism, and I think Wilson's writing and avidity for the diversity of life are the substance of this book.
There are plenty of biological gems illuminated in "The Creation" and I think anyone would be interested and fascinated by such information as the existence of over 700 species of bacteria in the average person's mouth or details of the underground biosphere that could continue existing even with a complete scorching of the earth's surface. Wilson's has learned much about the life of the earth and this small book is a distillation of his learning and thoughts from a life of study. I would recommend it to anyone.
" a title" ! What do you mean? explain.......2007-08-08
Very detail analysis of issues. I hope our leaders are required to read such material
Not the Fittest.......2007-06-09
The book didn't quite live up to its billing. I'd expected something that was not at all incendiary or overtly driven by scientific (evolution theory dogmatic) beliefs. Instead, the book came across much more as smelling of sarcasm with tones of "surely everyone knows this stuff". This is certainly scientific apologetics, without apology to its supposed intended audience. Staunch marcoevolutionists will smirk at the veiled selfaggrandizement. Creationists will find nothing new in the "others'" view. Those with feet in both camps still await the Rosetta Stone that bridges the gulf.
The creation: An Appeal to Save LIfe on Earth.......2007-05-14
The book is written as an "impassioned letter to a Southern Babtist Pastor". I'm not sure that this letter would convince a "Southern Babtist Pastor" to help in efforts to save the bioshpere. He does have good arguments that would convince persons in the scientific community that we must save the biodiverity of the earth.
E. O. Wilson is a gifted author and keeps it interesting.
Book Description
Meta-analysis, decision analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis are the cornerstones of evidence-based medicine. These related quantitative methods have become essential tools in the formulation of clinical and public policy based on the synthesis of evidence. All three methods are taught with increasing frequency in medical schools and schools of public health and in health policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. This book is a lucid introduction, and will serve the needs of students taking introductory courses that cover these topics. It will also be useful to clinicians and policymakers who need to understand the quantitative underpinnings of the methods in order to best apply the information that derives from them. The second edition of this popular book adds new material on cumulative meta-analysis as a method to explore heterogeneity. The coverage of cost-effectiveness analysis has been brought into close alignment with recommendations of the U.S. Public Health Panel on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Health and Medicine. Many of the examples have been replaced with more current examples, and all of the material has been updated to reflect recent advances in the methods and the emergence of consensus about some previously controversial issues. analysis. These three closely related methods have become even more important for synthesizing research since the first edition was published in 1994. And they have gained legitimacy as tools for guiding health policy.
Customer Reviews:
Best guide for analysis.......2006-12-20
There are several ways to do analysis of the health care industry but this book covers the big three. Cost Effectiveness is the most useful from a business standpoint. This book covers the math and theory behind each of these methods and gives strong arguments for how to write in each of them. As a health and pharmaceutical economist I found this book to be invaluable. It is written very clearly and helps sort through many of the issues especially meta analysis. If you are starting out in the health analyst field this is a must read and a book you will want to have handy at all times.
An excellent introductory text.......2002-02-05
Meta-analysis, as both an applied and theoretical science, continues to develop from its rather humble beginnings. Since most physicians lack a strong background in quantitative science, rigorous statistical approaches to clinical decision making have been slow to gain widespread support. Despite its limitations, meta-analysis is proving to be an important vehicle for making sense of the increasingly overwhelming amount of published data in the biomedical sciences. Petitti's book goes a long way in demystifying meta-analysis for the rank and file and also serves as an excellent introduction to the field for the more statistically literate.
Most of my own work is in meta-analysis and I bought the book exclusively for this content and not information on decision analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. I do not mean to minimize the importance of the latter but rather point out my own narrow interest in the Petitti text.
The book is well written and concise. Petitti "cuts to the chase" explaining the theory underlying meta-analytic methods and provides many useful examples from the medical literature. The text is easy to follow, understandable and well balanced. A thorough reading should leave the reader well prepared for further exploration of applied meta-analysis as well as capable of articulating its strengths, weaknesses and future direction.
Overall, Petitti's text is an excellent place to start for those interested in learning the fundamentals of "research synthesis". The book is also an extremely handy references for the more experienced practitioner. I highly recommend it.
clearest yet description this topic.......1997-07-08
In a forest of mirky and arcane descriptions of a field that has come to dominate medical research and policy making, this book stands out for its clarity. Dr. Petitti speaks a language that normal people can understand. She avoids jargon and frequently uses quantitative examples that make it easy to plug in your own problems and directly apply her lessons to your tasks. This is easily the best book in print on this topic
From Amazon.co.uk
Just as we trace our personal family trees from parents to grandparents and so on back in time, so in The Ancestor's Tale Richard Dawkins traces the ancestry of life. As he is at pains to point out, this is very much our human tale, our ancestry. Surprisingly, it is one that many otherwise literate people are largely unaware of. Hopefully Dawkins's name and well deserved reputation as a best selling writer will introduce them to this wonderful saga.
The Ancestor's Tale takes us from our immediate human ancestors back through what he calls `concestors,' those shared with the apes, monkeys and other mammals and other vertebrates and beyond to the dim and distant microbial beginnings of life some 4 billion years ago. It is a remarkable story which is still very much in the process of being uncovered. And, of course from a scientist of Dawkins stature and reputation we get an insider's knowledge of the most up-to-date science and many of those involved in the research. And, as we have come to expect of Dawkins, it is told with a passionate commitment to scientific veracity and a nose for a good story. Dawkins's knowledge of the vast and wonderful sweep of life's diversity is admirable. Not only does it encompass the most interesting living representatives of so many groups of organisms but also the important and informative fossil ones, many of which have only been found in recent years.
Dawkins sees his journey with its reverse chronology as `cast in the form of an epic pilgrimage from the present to the past [and] all roads lead to the origin of life.' It is, to my mind, a sensible and perfectly acceptable approach although some might complain about going against the grain of evolution. The great benefit for the general reader is that it begins with the more familiar present and the animals nearest and dearest to us—our immediate human ancestors. And then it delves back into the more remote and less familiar past with its droves of lesser known and extinct fossil forms. The whole pilgrimage is divided into 40 tales, each based around a group of organisms and discusses their role in the overall story. Genetic, morphological and fossil evidence is all taken into account and illustrated with a wealth of photos and drawings of living and fossils forms, evolutionary and distributional charts and maps through time, providing a visual compliment and complement to the text. The design also allows Dawkins to make numerous running comments and characteristic asides. There are also numerous references and a good index.-- Douglas Palmer
Book Description
With unparalleled wit, clarity, and intelligence, Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most renowned evolutionary biologists, has introduced countless readers to the wonders of science in works such as The Selfish Gene. Now, in The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and a riveting read.
Customer Reviews:
In the beginning..........2007-10-05
Over 600 pages, Dawkins traces back our genetic past from human down to Eubacteria. It is a fascinating look at where branches of life broke off onto their own path, and how it all fits together. Rarely dry, Dawkins gives plenty of anecdotes and explanations that make the entire thing very easy to understand. This book is for anyone wanting to know a lot more about Evolution, beyond theory.
Walking backwards towards the whole picture, holes included.......2007-10-02
Dawkins is one of the best non-fiction writers today, whether you always agree with him or not. Here he attempts to give a complete overview of the current state of the science of evolution and evolutionary history. It is sometimes a challenging read, and sometimes the storytelling device of the 'tales' structure makes it even a little confusing.
He does not shy away from pointing out disagreements among scientists and holes in our status of knowledge. Expecting this knowledge to be complete would be misunderstanding the process of science. Claiming that incompleteness means that everything is still out in the open is also false, though of course it remains true that everything is true only until it has been proven untrue...
The book is so large and so much exposed to the changes brought out by current research that one fears the soon to become necessary revision may take up so much of Dawkins' time that he will not be able to write much else in future. Which would be a pity, we need him him for the debates with IDists and creationists.
Evolution Looking Backward.......2007-09-24
I found this an exciting book that was hard to put down, which I cannot often say about a 600-page serious work of scientific reportage. It is even better than Fortey's excellent Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth (1997), which I enjoyed immensely several years ago and still refer to. I believe that The Ancestor's Tale is the first systematic description of our ancestry for the general reader that fully incorporates the results of molecular dating and genetic biology's study of the genome of multiple species. Also, Dawkins is very readable. In this book, he adopts the style of The Canterbury Tales in a journey beginning in the present and moving backward in stages to humanity's common ancestors ("concestors") with other life forms, as each of our more distant cousin forms of life join the journey. After a discussion of early hominids, our closest cousins, the chimpanzees, join about 6 million years ago (mya), and we move on in ever longer jumps as the primates have all joined us by about 63 mya, cats and dogs around 85 mya, birds and reptiles at 330 mya, fish about 440 mya, insects and spiders at 590 mya, sponges at 800 mya, plants at almost 2,000 mya, and on to the first bacteria around 4,000 mya. In all, 39 concestor points are discussed, and at each there are one or more tales to be told by a species in the group. These tales are not just descriptive, but each illustrates some aspect of the science, whether gene splitting, fossil dating, isolation, continental drift, evolution of the eye, etc., etc. The journey finally arrives at "Canterbury," which is the origin of life/heredity. Uncertainties and issues still to be resolved are fully discussed.
A Beguiling Trek Through The Taxonomy And History Of Life That's Led By Richard Dawkins.......2007-09-14
"The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution" is a beguiling literary trek through the taxonomy and history of life on Planet Earth; one that's led with ample eloquence by eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In this vast tome Dawkins has crafted what is indeed the popular scientific equivalent of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", taking us along a long journey back to the dawn of life itself, approximately 4 billion years ago, via a molecular phylogeny designed by his former undergraduate student Yan Wong. But it's a long, long trek that's quite unlikely to be viewed as tedious by the reader. Here, Dawkins is truly at his most expansive, using this taxonomy to discuss the compelling issues of contemporary evolutionary theory and history, in which he covers everything from genetics, speciation, convergent evolution and mass extinctions to microevolution, sexual selection, biogeography, and the relevance of plate tectonics to past and current biogeographic distributions of organisms. Relying on Wong's intricate molecular phylogeny, Dawkins takes us along to forty branching points - previous geological moments - in that phylogeny, where we meet the "concestor" - the last common ancestor - of all organisms at that very point. It is a quite compelling, often insightful, narrative that Dawkins admits does owe much to Chaucer's legendary "The Canterbury Tales".
Dawkins doesn't hesitate to interrupt the relentless ebb and flow of his narrative in a series of individual "tales", that are designed illustrate some unique trait of a given species, and then, by mere extension, serve as the jumping off point(s) for riveting discussions on some aspect(s) of modern evolutionary biology. A classic example is the section that he devotes to the sauropsids, which consists of lizard-like and dinosaur-like (archosaurs, including birds) reptiles in the chapter entitled "Rendezvous 16". In the first of these tales, "The Galapagos Finch's Tale", Dawkins recounts the decades-long fieldwork of ecologists Peter and Rosemary Grant who have been studying microevolution in the Galapagos Finches. He focuses upon the aftermath of a severe drought in 1977 that led inevitably to sharp declines in the populations of several species, observing that those individuals in the dominant species, Geospiza fortis, who were only 5 percent larger than their peers, were the ones who survived; a classic example of "a small episode of natural selection in action, during a single year." Within the same species, the Grants and their coworkers observed selection pressures resulting not only in larger body size, but also in larger beak size too. In the chapter's next tale, "The Peacock's Tale", Dawkins emphasizes the importance of sexual selection, arguing persuasively that it may have had a role in shaping the course of human evolution, perhaps via preferential selection of females for "smarter" males. That is followed, in turn, by "The Dodo's Tale", in which Dawkins discusses not only the Dodo's extinction, but also the tendency towards flightlessness in bird species inhabiting remote oceanic islands.
While Dawkins has crafted a most compelling narrative in this vast book, "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution", is far from perfect, especially in its depiction of the fossil record. Much to my amazement, he doesn't discuss the existence of long-term stasis in the fossil record, predicted by the theory of punctuated equilibria, which has been substantiated by decades of extensive fieldwork by paleobiologists, ever since the publication of the classic 1972 paper coauthored by noted American paleobiologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould (This is a rather peculiar omission since Dawkins has been a staunch critic of punctuated equilibria.). Nor does he discuss, except only in passing, the diverse, radical differences in the compositions of marine faunas during, respectively, the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, which have been noted for decades due to excellent fieldwork, and more recently, by excellent statistical modeling done by paleontologist Jack Sepkoski and his colleagues at the University of Chicago. And he also misses the important history of predator-prey interactions that form much of coevolution, which has been discussed admirably elsewehere by noted marine ecologist Geerat Vermeij. But, in retrospect, my criticisms of Dawkins' omissions are relatively minor, simply because he has accomplished successfully, the arduous task of making both the taxonomy and history of life a most beguiling tale. Without question, "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution", should be regarded for a long time as one of the classics of popular evolutionary biology literature.
Tough Read .......2007-08-29
Richard Dawkins is a renowned evolutionary biologists with a current bestseller, The God Delusion. He is one of the most influential scientists of our time.
This book offers a reverse tour through evolution, from present day humans back to the microbial beginings of life four billion years ago when life began.
The Ancestor's Tale is a truly marathon book which offers one of the best explainations of evolution in the world by allowing us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in as full and clear picture of the way life developed on our planet as you are likely to find anywhere.
This book is an immensely informative book weighing in at over 600 pages
Book Description
You think you know about Darwinism and intelligent design, but did you know: *There is no overwhelming evidence for Darwinism; *Intelligent design is based on scientific evidence, not religious belief; *What many public schools teach about Darwinism is based on known falsehoods; *Scientists at major universities believe in intelligent design; *Scientists who question Darwinism are punished --by public institutions using your tax dollars. Battle-hardened veteran with doctorates in biology and theology sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwin and Intelligent Design.
Customer Reviews:
The index tells it all.......2007-09-20
If you simply look at the index for Intelligent Design, evidence for, you will see listed 1, 4, 8, 198-199. Turn to those pages and you will see the "evidence" is merely the use of the word evidence in a statement like "since intelligent design is based on evidence..."
I've read this cover to cover, and I did find the arguments ID makes against Darwinism's evidence (which have been answered in other books -- flagellum, blood cascade, the eye) but there is no evidence presented for ID beyond that. Wells just says it's based on evidence, that there are experiments and field work being carried out (in secret), but he never gives us more.
It is interesting that Wells states that the evidence for Darwinism --common descent, natural selection, random mutation--is underwhelming. Interesting because his friends and ID colleague Michael Behe writes:
"As I wrote inThe Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Darwinism is a multifaceted theory, and to properly evaluate the theory one has to be very careful not to confuse its different aspects. Common descent, natural selection, and random mutation are separate concepts; the first two are well supported, but the power of random mutation is not. " The first two are well-supported. By evidence, one assumes.
This was a truly frustrating book.
Same old rehashed "arguments"..........2007-09-02
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought "politically incorrect" meant "having a charming and irreverent disregard for the political norms of the day when discussing topics that are usually stifled by convention". Apparently it just means "rabid, frothing, conservative pap".
Skeptisim not allowed.......2007-08-30
It is doubtful that there is a more divisive issue in our public schools than the mere thought of explaining our existence in terms other than Darwinism. Regardless of the innumerable holes in the theory any suggestion of other possibilities is anathema.
Intelligent Design the Darwinists say is nothing more than code for God based creation. And of course anything smacking of something greater than us leads secularists to fits of explosive anger.
Evolution means change over time and I don't know many people that have a problem with that. However Mr. Darwin's theory is entirely different. The "theory" holds that... Natural Selection plus Random Mutation equals an ENTIRE NEW SPECIES. And look as they may, over 150-years now, no one has come close to proving that.
My personal problem with Darwin, a problem that is explored deeply in this terrific book, is how those that accept it do so to the exclusion of any other possible explanation. Science has a twin, a virtually conjoined twin, "Skepticism." But Darwinists have rejected sciences twin with the utmost vehemence.
We are not allowed to be skeptics in discussing the origin of life. We must, herd like; accept Darwinism and all its myriad problems. We must have faith that an amateur naturalist that lived 200-years ago, was and continues to be right in all respects regarding the greatest scientific and philosophical question since the beginning of time.
Skepticism is not allowed.
Many of the reviews of this book are being written by people.......2007-08-28
who have not read it.
It is a well written, easy to understand book on an Theory of Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
This book is easy read and will get your brain in gear as you analyize both sides of the story. When, as suggested by the author I took a look at my son's biology book and saw Haeckel's sketches I was convinced.
"To support his case he [Haeckel] began to fake evidence. Charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court at Jena, he agreed that a small percentage of his embryonic drawings were forgeries; he was merely filling in and reconstructing the missing links when the evidence was thin, and he claimed unblushingly that hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge."--*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 120.
For that alone it is worth your time.
The Unfittest Sometimes Survive Anyway.......2007-08-27
Jonathan Wells understands current evolutionary theory about as well as George W Bush understands the Constitution... that is, not at all. I'm sorry I was suckered into buying this foolishness by the passion of these reviews; I won't be fooled again. For a solid and lucid statement of how evolutionary development is understood today, please do yourself the favor of reading Sean Carroll's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" or any of his other recent explanations.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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Similar Items:
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Average customer rating:
- very interesting account
- WHAT CONTROVERSY?
- A Riveting Account Well Worth the Read
- Get the monkey off Darwin's back
- Riveting
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Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul
Edward Humes
Manufacturer: Ecco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Education
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Science & Religion
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Creationism
| Theology
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| B |
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (The University Center for Human Values Series)
The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God
Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
