IniciGrupsConversesMésTendències
Cerca al lloc
Aquest lloc utilitza galetes per a oferir els nostres serveis, millorar el desenvolupament, per a anàlisis i (si no has iniciat la sessió) per a publicitat. Utilitzant LibraryThing acceptes que has llegit i entès els nostres Termes de servei i política de privacitat. L'ús que facis del lloc i dels seus serveis està subjecte a aquestes polítiques i termes.

Resultats de Google Books

Clica una miniatura per anar a Google Books.

S'està carregant…

Dawkins vs. Gould : Survival of the Fittest

de Kim Sterelny

MembresRessenyesPopularitatValoració mitjanaMencions
2608101,754 (3.37)4
An international bestseller when originally published, this brand-new and completely revised edition updates the story of one of science's most vigorous arguments. Science has seen its fair share of punch-ups over the years, but one debate, in the field of biology, has become notorious for its intensity. Over the last twenty years, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have engaged in a savage battle over evolution, which continues to rage even after Gould's death in 2002. Kim Sterelny moves beyond caricature to expose the real differences between the conceptions of evolution of these two leading scientists. He shows that the conflict extends beyond evolution to their very beliefs in science itself; and, in Gould?s case, to domains in which science plays no role at all.… (més)
S'està carregant…

Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar.

No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra.

» Mira també 4 mencions

Es mostren 1-5 de 8 (següent | mostra-les totes)
The short and readable summary of the long public spat of Gould and Dawkins. It`s very interesting to see how two great scientist can reach very different conclusions form the same facts and principles the same time not questioning those principles and the science of evolution itself. ( )
  TheCrow2 | Oct 31, 2018 |
The background to the highly public spat between the two highest profile popularisers of evolutionary theory. My score: Dawkins - 1, Gould - 1/2.
Read Samoa May 2003 ( )
  mbmackay | Nov 28, 2015 |
This book is just what the title says, a summary of the views of Dawkins and Gould, with focus on controversial areas. The two biologists were (Gould died not long after this book was published) engaged in public and not always civil disagreement over issues that to the casual observer might not seem to warrant intense emotion. This book has been criticized for not including the verbal exchanges, which would be more entertaining than summaries, but that's its purpose -- stripped of ego and emotion, what are these guys actually arguing about, and why does it matter?

(read 24 Mar 2009)
1 vota qebo | Jul 16, 2011 |
Given that it covers a particularly vitriolic skirmish between two huge, polarising and consistently outspoken opposing generals in the Science Wars, Kim Sterelny had on his hands a fascinating topic. He quite easily could have crammed this brief volume full of the proverbial sizzling gypsies - gory details of the academic handbags which were exchanged in full view of an admiring dilettante public - but inexplicably, he chose not to. Instead, the fieriest debate is reduced to its desiccated intellectual premises and is presented worthily and dryly. This is, no doubt, second nature to a professional scientist like Sterelny, but it displays a lack of worldliness for an aspiring popular author; a worldliness, ironically enough, possessed in oodles by both of his subjects.

Unlike your usual zoologist (though granted, I don't know that many), Richard Dawkins invites extremes of adoration or vitriol from just about anyone who's heard of him (and, given his gift for self publicity, that's most people); The late Steve Gould was (on this side of the ditch at any rate) of less general reknown but equally susceptible, in the right circles, to excitable opinion.

Dawkins the zoologist is a crusading atheist - irony intended - and devoted son of the enlightenment; Gould the paleontologist was possessor of a more open-minded view on woolly artsy pursuits like religion, literature and architecture, allowing them to bleed into his professional scientific opinion in a way that horrified the purist in Dawkins. Also, apparently, Gould was a Marxist. Battle lines accordingly drawn.

Now, to his (professional, if not authorial) credit, Sterelny abstains from addressing Gould's politics, and instead succinctly and patiently outlines the camps' respective differences in evolutionary theory - differences which are relatively subtle to non specialists, truth be told - but (no doubt being a good scientific chap - clean fight, fair play and all that) refrains from descending into the real particulars of the debate, in particular referring only in passing to a petulant and protracted exchange in the New York review of books following publication of Daniel Dennett's Dawkinsesque Darwin's Dangerous Idea. (How about that for a bit of alliteration, by the way).

Such noble dispassion is a mistake, in this reviewer's opinion, for it neuters a book which, had it been rendered breathlessly enough, could have been a rip-snorter.

If it were me I would have extracted much of the debate in full and provided some journalistic context around how it came about, and certainly extracted some of the peachier exchanges. For example, how about this one:

"[Dennett's] limited and superficial book reads like a caricature of a caricature--for if Richard Dawkins has trivialized Darwin's richness by adhering to the strictest form of adaptationist argument in a maximally reductionist mode, then Dennett, as Dawkins's publicist, manages to convert an already vitiated and improbable account into an even more simplistic and uncompromising doctrine. If history, as often noted, replays grandeurs as farces, and if T.H. Huxley truly acted as "Darwin's bulldog," then it is hard to resist thinking of Dennett, in this book, as "Dawkins's lapdog."

Cracking stuff - but it finds no place in Sterelny's volume, and I had to look it up online (it, and the whole vituperative article from which it came, is reproduced at the New York Review of Books' website.)

Sterelny's main problem seems to be that he is such a frightfully good egg he can't bring himself to dramatise proceedings, which are screaming out for it, at all. He confesses an intellectual kinmship with Dawkins but then is so scrupulously fair to Gould in his assessment of their competing arguments that it is hard to comprehend what he even sees in Dawkins' view.

That might be my bias: while much taken by Dawkins' and Dennett's books when I first read them, I have found more resonance in Gould's humanist, pragmatic view the more I've read of it (and the older I've got), so (as a point of disclosure) I come out on the other side of the argument to Sterelny. That's not my problem with his book; however, quite the opposite: it's the very bloodlessness of it. ( )
5 vota JollyContrarian | Nov 25, 2008 |
Slim and readable.

I had read all of Dawkins and nothing by Gould and saw this as a necessary scene setter before diving into Gould's work. It worked in this role very well by giving a great overview of the various areas of agreement and dispute.

Easy to read for the non-specialist, I whizzed through it in an afternoon.

A fantastic suggested reading section, split down by chapter and with quick summary reviews of the suggestions which also gives details of which are suitable for the non-technical reader. This section alone is almost worth the cover price. I added significant length to my wish list after reading this book.

3.5 out of 5 stars. ( )
1 vota psiloiordinary | Dec 27, 2007 |
Es mostren 1-5 de 8 (següent | mostra-les totes)
Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Has d'iniciar sessió per poder modificar les dades del coneixement compartit.
Si et cal més ajuda, mira la pàgina d'ajuda del coneixement compartit.
Títol normalitzat
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Títol original
Títols alternatius
Data original de publicació
Gent/Personatges
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Llocs importants
Esdeveniments importants
Pel·lícules relacionades
Epígraf
Dedicatòria
Primeres paraules
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Nota de desambiguació
Editor de l'editorial
Creadors de notes promocionals a la coberta
Llengua original
CDD/SMD canònics
LCC canònic

Referències a aquesta obra en fonts externes.

Wikipedia en anglès (5)

An international bestseller when originally published, this brand-new and completely revised edition updates the story of one of science's most vigorous arguments. Science has seen its fair share of punch-ups over the years, but one debate, in the field of biology, has become notorious for its intensity. Over the last twenty years, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have engaged in a savage battle over evolution, which continues to rage even after Gould's death in 2002. Kim Sterelny moves beyond caricature to expose the real differences between the conceptions of evolution of these two leading scientists. He shows that the conflict extends beyond evolution to their very beliefs in science itself; and, in Gould?s case, to domains in which science plays no role at all.

No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca.

Descripció del llibre
Sumari haiku

Debats actuals

Cap

Cobertes populars

Dreceres

Valoració

Mitjana: (3.37)
0.5
1
1.5
2 5
2.5
3 7
3.5 3
4 10
4.5 1
5 1

Ets tu?

Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing.

 

Quant a | Contacte | LibraryThing.com | Privadesa/Condicions | Ajuda/PMF | Blog | Botiga | APIs | TinyCat | Biblioteques llegades | Crítics Matiners | Coneixement comú | 203,251,354 llibres! | Barra superior: Sempre visible