rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter) (08/07/90)
I have been reading for pleasure and profit Ernst Mayr's book "Toward a new philosophy of biology, Observations of an evolutionist", Harvard University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-674-89666-1. I recommend it highly. I expect I will be quoting from it and discussing thoughts drawn from it from time to time. For the moment here is the table of contents: I Philosophy 1 Is Biology an Autonomous Science? 2 Cause and Effect in Biology 3 The Multiple Meanings of Teleological 4 The Probability of Extraterrestrial Life 5 The Origins of Human Ethics II Natural Selection 6 An analysis of the Concept of Natural Selection 7 Philosophical Aspects of Natural Selection III Adaptation 8 Adaptation and Selection 9 How to Carry Out the Adaptationist Program? IV Darwin 10 Darwin, Intellectual Revolutionary 11 The Challenge of Darwinism 12 What is Darwinism? 13 Darwin and Natural Selection 14 The Concept of Finality in Darwin and After Darwin 15 The Death of Darwin? V Diversity 16 Toward a Synthesis in Biological Classification 17 Museums and Biological Laboratories 18 Problems in the Classification of Birds VI Species 19 The Species Category 20 The Ontology of the Species Taxon VII Speciation 21 Processes of Speciation in Animals 22 Evolution of Fish Species Flocks VIII Macroevolution 23 Does microevolution explain Macroevolution 24 The Unity of the Genotype 25 Speciation and Macroevolution 26 Speciational Evolution through Punctuated Equilibria IX Historical Perspective 27 On Weismann's Growth as an Evolutionist 28 On the Evolutionary Synthesis and After I gave the table of contents just to illustrate the variety and depth of the topics discussed. The following appeared in New Scientest, "Mayr is the greatest living commentator on biology; and if biology is what you do, as a resarcher, teacher, writer, or as an amaterur, then this is a book you should own." Definitely. -- Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc. Net address: jjmhome!smds!rh Phone: 508-369-7398 US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742 This sentence no verb. This sentence short. This signature done.