Richard Dawkins taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. Among his previous books are The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil's Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with his wife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.
发表于2024-12-23
The Greatest Show on Earth 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
Dawkins 确实是一位学识深厚的科学家,书中提供了极丰富的案例,实验和分析,读起来非常有趣。而让我有些意外的是他对编程也不是门外汉,在第二章中提到的几个进化模拟程序 biomorphs,conchomorphs 和arthromorphs都是很有意思的东西,网上能搜到互动版本动手玩,我自己也impl...
评分道金斯的几本书纠正了我的一系列错误观点。 1、生物有所谓高级和低级之分。人类中心论。人比蟑螂高级,不过如果美苏脑子抽筋互发核弹,人类死光了,蟑螂可能还能生存,到底谁高级呢? 2、人是有猴子进化来的。峨眉山上那些讨厌的猴子跟人类祖先不是同一种猴子啦,人与现在的猴...
评分道金斯的书真是科普啊,讲了年轮测年法,放射性元素测年法(以前不明白起始条件,另外还有放射性元素是按照一个固定的概率,多长时间多少百分比的,现在的问题是放射性元素为什么会是这样一种行为模式)。 还有同样的DNA是怎么让分裂出来的每个细胞表现出不同的形态而构成整个...
评分 评分Dawkins 确实是一位学识深厚的科学家,书中提供了极丰富的案例,实验和分析,读起来非常有趣。而让我有些意外的是他对编程也不是门外汉,在第二章中提到的几个进化模拟程序 biomorphs,conchomorphs 和arthromorphs都是很有意思的东西,网上能搜到互动版本动手玩,我自己也impl...
图书标签: 科學 理查德·道金斯
From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Jonah LehrerRichard Dawkins begins The Greatest Show on Earth with a short history of his writing career. He explains that all of his previous books have naïvely assumed the fact of evolution, which meant that he never got around to laying out the evidence that it [evolution] is true. This shouldn't be too surprising: science is an edifice of tested assumptions, and just as physicists must assume the truth of gravity before moving on to quantum mechanics, so do biologists depend on the reality of evolution. It's the theory that makes every other theory possible.Yet Dawkins also came to realize that a disturbingly large percentage of the American and British public didn't share his enthusiasm for evolution. In fact, they actively abhorred the idea, since it seemed to contradict the Bible and diminish the role of God. So Dawkins decided to write a book for these history-deniers, in which he would dispassionately demonstrate the truth of evolution beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt.After only a few pages of The Greatest Show on Earth, however, it becomes clear that Dawkins doesn't do dispassionate, and that he's not particularly interested in convincing believers to believe in evolution. He repeatedly compares creationists and Holocaust deniers, which is a peculiar way of reaching out to the other side. Elsewhere, Dawkins calls those who don't subscribe to evolution ignorant, fatuously ignorant and ridiculous. All of which raises the point: who, exactly, is supposed to read this book? Is Dawkins preaching to the choir or trying to convert the uninformed? While The Greatest Show on Earth might fail as a work of persuasive rhetoric—Dawkins is too angry and acerbic to convince his opponents—it succeeds as an encyclopedic summary of evolutionary biology. If Charles Darwin walked into a 21st-century bookstore and wanted to know how his theory had fared, this is the book he should pick up.Dawkins remains a superb translator of complex scientific concepts. It doesn't matter if he's spinning metaphors for the fossil record (like a spy camera in a murder trial) or deftly explaining the method by which scientists measure the genetic difference between distinct species: he has a way of making the drollest details feel like a revelation. Even if one already believes in the survival of the fittest, there is something thrilling about learning that the hoof of a horse is homologous to the fingernail of the human middle finger, or that some dinosaurs had a second brain of ganglion cells in their pelvis, which helped compensate for the tiny brain in their head. As Darwin famously noted, There is grandeur in this view of life. What Dawkins demonstrates is that this view of life isn't just grand: it's also undeniably true. Color illus. (Sept. 29)Jonah Lehrer is the author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
"Like a detective reconstructing a crime" (San Francisco Chronicle), Dawkins amasses a mountain of evidence in this richly illustrated, enormously readable explanation of the theory of evolution. Though Dawkins may have softened his attitude toward those who can reconcile their religious beliefs with evolution, he still harbors great hostility toward its detractors, equating them to Holocaust deniers—a label that riled the New York Times Book Review. Objecting to Dawkins's abrasive dogmatism, many critics felt that the biologist is at his best when he forgets his opponents and focuses on the science. He is indeed a master of explaining complex scientific ideas to nonscientific readers, and though The Greatest Show on Earth may not be his best book, it is a well-written, captivating review of the science behind the theory.
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The Greatest Show on Earth 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书