Did Darwin Get It Right?: Essays on Games, Sex and Evolution

ISBN-13: 9780412038211 / Angielski / Miękka / 1998 / 147 str.

John Hayward Smith

Opis

Now in paperback, Did Darwin Get It Right discusses some of the hottest issues in biology today. Its author, the eminently quotable John Maynard Smith, discusses such fascinating conundrums as how life began, whether the brain works like a computer, why most animals and plants reproduce sexually, and how social behavior evolved out of the context of natural selection--a process which would seem to favor selfishness. A humorous and insightful writer, John Maynard Smith has the special ability to convey the excitement of science, its complexity and fascination, without baffling or boring his readers. In these 28 brief and accessible essays, Maynard ranges widely over such issues as science and the media, the birth of sociobiology, the evolution of animal intelligence and the limitations of evolutionary theory. For his work on the evolution of sex, Smith won the Darwin medal from the Royal Society, and he has pioneered the application of game theory to animal behavior.

Spis treści

1 Science, Ideology and Myth.- 1. How to win the Nobel Prize.- 2. Storming the Fortress.- 3. Symbolism and Chance.- 4. Science and the Media.- 5. Molecules are not Enough.- 6. Science, Ideology and Myth.- 2 On Human Nature.- 7. The Birth of Sociobiology.- 8. Models of Cultural and Genetic Change (written with N. Warren).- 9. Constraints on Human Behaviour.- 10. Biology and the Behaviour of Man.- 11. Tinkering.- 12. Boy or Girl.- 13. Genes and Memes.- 14. Natural Selection of Culture?.- 3 Did Darwin get it Right?.- 15. Palaeontology at the High Table.- 16. Current Controversies in Evolutionary Biology.- 17. Did Darwin get it Right?.- 18. Do we need a new Evolutionary Paradigm?.- 4 Games, Sex and Evolution.- 19. Why Sex?.- 20. The Limitations of Evolution Theory.- 21. The Evolution of Animal Intelligence.- 22. Evolution and the Theory of Games.- 5 The Laws of the Game.- 23. The Counting Problem.- 24. Understanding Science.- 25. Matchsticks, Brains and Curtain Rings.- 26. Hypercycles and the Origin of Life.- 27. Popper’s World.- 28. Rottenness is All.- Acknowledgements.