- Book 107. Why Things Bite Back, Edward Tenner
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frumiousb- November 18th, 11:05
- Book Review-- 14. Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others, Martin Rees
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- frumiousb
- March 1st, 2008
Poll #1146989 Why did frumiousb buy this book?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18Why did frumiousb buy this book?
View AnswersShe didn't look carefully, and thought that it was a book about Religion and Spirituality.
0 (0.0%)She bought it cheap during a sale at the American Book Store and didn't look too carefully at what it was actually about.
4 (22.2%)She had asked for a recommendation about a good introductory book on cosmology and was referred to Before the Beginning
4 (22.2%)The book turned up highly recommended in somebody else's blog.
4 (22.2%)She saw the book noted in the bibliography of some other book and added it to her wish list.
6 (33.3%)
( answer and review below the cut )
- Book Review-- 137.Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould
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- frumiousb
- December 1st, 2007
Arguments that propose adaptive superiority as the basis for survival risk the classic error of circular reasoning. Survival is the phenomenon to be explained, not the proof, ipso facto, that those who survived where "better adapted" than those who died. This issue has been kicking around the courtyards of Darwinian theory for more than a century. It even has a name-- the "tautology argument."Critics claim that our motto "survival of the fittest"is a meaningless tautology because fitness is defined by survival, and the definition of natural selection reduces to an empty "survival of those who survive.
pg. 236
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