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Sto caricando le informazioni... A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution (originale 2021; edizione 2021)di Jeremy DeSilva (A cura di), Janet Browne (Introduzione)
Informazioni sull'operaA Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution di Jeremy DeSilva (2021)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. A book of contributed papers detailing the current state of knowledge of evolution, and comparing it to Darwin's Descent of Man. Much of what is discussed are things Darwin actually got right, though of course there were a number of places where the science of his day didn't give him the information he needed to get everything right. Bonobos hadn't even been discovered in his day, and the primates have undergone some extensive reclassification since his time. There were two chapters that were related to his racism and sexism, both of which were in range for the mainstream opinions of his day but sound pretty awful to those of us looking back from the twentieth century. The chapter on racism is well done and reasonable, and leaves us with the ambiguity of whether we should fault someone for being a creature of their time. The chapter on sexism was not as well done. For one thing, it deviated into racism quickly before coming back to sexism, but also, the conclusions seemed inchoate and also dismissive of science having any role, let alone the major one, in defining what sex is and what the characteristics of the sexes are. While much of the work I imagine Darwin approving of and finding enlightenment from if he were to come back today, that chapter is muddled and I suspect he would frown at the science dismissal. Perhaps his frown would resemble mine. Overall, a good work, but like all collections by a variety of authors, some of them were better than others. The editing was well done, and I didn't see much in the way of howlers of syntax or structure. I recommend the book to anyone interested in the history of science. ( ) nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
"In 1859, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for biological evolution in his most famous work, On the Origin of Species. However, Origin makes little mention of humans. Despite this, Darwin thought deeply about humans and in 1871 published The Descent of Man, his influential and controversial book in which he applied evolutionary theory to humans and detailed his theory of sexual selection. February 2021 will mark the 150th anniversay of it's publication. In A Most Interesting Problem, twelve leading anthropologists, biologists, and journalists revisit The Descent. Following the same organization as the first edition of Descent - less the large section on sexual selection -- each author reviews what Darwin wrote in Descent, comparing his words to what we now know now. There are chapters on evidence for human evolution, our place in the family tree, the origins of civilization, human races, intelligence, and sex differences. An introduction by Darwin biolographer and historian Janet Browne provides context for Descent and a conclusion by Science magazine journalist Ann Gibbons looks to the future of the study of human evolution. All the chapters are written with a broad audience in mind. Ultimately, readers learn that Darwin was remarkably prophetic in some of his predictions, such as that the earliest human fossils would be discovered in Africa. But he was wrong in other areas, particularly in regards to variations between the sexes and races. Thus, A Most Interesting Problem is not so much a celebration of Darwin as it is a tribute to how science works, how scientific ideas are tested, and the role of evidence in helping structure narratives of human origins. The reader is left with a view of how far we have come in our quest for understanding human origins, biological variation, behavior, and evolution"-- Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)591.56Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Specific topics in natural history of animals Habits and behavior Philoprogenitiveness; BreedingClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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