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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Searching... | EB000453 | EB 000453 | Electronic Book | 1:EBOOK | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Thanks to the popular media, and to books by Dawkins, Fortey, Gould, Margulis and other writers, people are informed about many aspects of biology. Everyone seems to know a little about evolution, for example, and about DNA and the possibilities (good and bad) afforded by research in molecular genetics. Most people know some of the arguments for and against the likelihood of life on other planets. And so on. We are glad that these pieces of information have become so widely available. However, we do not assume any particular knowledge (other than the most basic) in this book. Our aim is to address general questions rather than specific issues. We want to enable our readers to join their disparate pieces of knowledge about biology together. The most basic of these general questions - and perhaps the most difficult - can be expressed in beguilingly simple words: "What is life"? What does modern biology tell us about the essential differences between living organisms and the inanimate world? An attempt to answer this question takes us on a journey through almost the whole of contemporary cell and molecular biology, which occupies the first half of the book. The journey is worth the effort. The provisional answer we attain provides a coherent, unifying context in which we can discuss evolution, the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, the meaning of "intelligence", the evolution of the human brain and the nature of mind.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This delightfully written book addresses major questions and some of the biggest ideas in biology today. Using a discussion of the basic characteristics that distinguish living organisms from inanimate matter as a starting point, the authors (both UK-based scientists) devote ten chapters to a summary of cell structure and function, and how gene expression responds to external and internal stimuli to maintain the living state. The remaining eight chapters focus on genetic change through time, the evolution of diversity, the history of life on Earth, the possibility of extraterrestrial life, human evolution, and the evolution of the human brain and mind. What is most appealing is the authors' willingness to engage in informed speculation about these grand issues, carefully identifying speculative hypotheses and the sort of data that could be used to test them. The book is moderately well-illustrated with photomicrographs and line drawings, but the quality of the illustrations does not match that of the narrative, which is both clear and engaging. The book includes numerous insightful analogies and covers somewhat offbeat topics that an instructor could easily adapt to enliven classroom presentations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above. P. E. Hertz Barnard College
