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About this book
Focuses on 3 issues of debate - the nature of selection, the nature and scope of adaptation, and the question of evolutionary progress. In a clear, non-technical style, it traces the varying interpretations to which these issues were subjected from the beginning and the fierce contemporary debates that still resonate.
Contents
Introduction; Part I. Selection: 1. Darwin and natural selection; 2. The group selection controversy; 3. For whose good does natural selection work?; Part II. Adaptation: 4. Darwin (and others) on biological perfection; 5. Adaptation after Darwin; 6. Adaptation(ism) and its limits; Part III. Progress: 7. Darwin on evolutionary progress; 8. Evolutionary progress from Darwin to Dawkins; 9. Is evolution progressive?; 10. Human physical and mental evolution; Epilogue.
Customer Reviews
By: Timothy Shanahan
342 pages, no illustrations
This is a thoughtful and clearly written book that serves as a fine introduction to the ways in which evolutionary thought has itself evolved since the time of Darwin. I learned a lot from it, and I feel confident that anybody who is fascinated by these centrally important ideas will also take something useful away from it. Bioscience, Chrisopher Wills, UC San Diego