The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

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Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.

Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. As relevant and influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent overview of evolution.......2007-10-08

Scholars pro-evolution can generally be divided into 1) those who believe in evolution at the group level (ie: The reason lions behave in a particular way is because they want to survive as a species) or 2) those who believe in evolution at an individual level (ie: The reason a particular bird behaves in a particular way is because he wants to survive as an individual bird). Dawkins' views are closer to the latter. In fact, he takes it a step further and argues for evolution at the gene level. I think he makes a very convincing case for his views. Of course nothing is certain (except uncertainty perhaps) so he does not prove his theory definitively.

The book can be hard to read at times and may be a bit slow for those with no background in biology or science. Nevertheless I think anyone with patience can read, enjoy and learn from this important book.

No matter what your views this is a very educational and important book. Highly recommended.

Fancifully Dark.......2007-09-21

In his play "Suddenly, Last Summer," Tennessee Williams writes of a young man who, on vacation at the seashore, watches newly hatched baby turtles struggling down to the safety of the water. Only a small percentage get there, though, because the gulls overhead scoop them up and eat them faster than they can crawl. The young man, observing this and already under great psychic tension, tells his cousin that now "I have seen God!" Later on, we realize the man is morally insane, and that perhaps this was the turning point; his descent into insanity.
Whether Williams himself thought of God the same way, I don't know. But certainly the example of the turtles and gulls had been chosen, out of thousands of other such biological observations, because the young man chose to find God - or truth - in it. He could, if he had been in a sunnier mood, chosen to look at nesting robins or a mare and her colt.
In "The Selfish Gene," Dr. Dawkins argues against the idea of altruism in nature: mothers take care of their young because they love them, etc. Dawkins says they do it because it's in their genes. But he takes it one step further: he says it's the genes themselves that are struggling to survive - not the whole animal. The analogy of genes "using" animal bodies for their own "selfish" ends, as if we were robots and the genes our drivers, is made over and over again.
Of course, Dawkins realizes this is not correct. Darwinism asserts that biological life came into existence blindly: cells and animals came (and continue to come) into being, not because they chose to, but because of natural selection. And the ones who survive do so because of serendipity.
This is a very hard concept, of course, to understand. I remember Sister Pauline laboring to explain to us girls in junior biology class that the white butterflies didn't decide to turn black; they turned black over generations, due to natural selection. She had a hard time of it. (Catholics are "allowed" to choose between a literal or analogous interpretation of the Bible, so she was not breaking any official rules!)
In other words, a "selfish" gene (or animal) makes no more sense in Darwinistic terms than an "altruistic" one.
Dawkins explicitly states this on page 196. But he uses the selfish gene analogy so many more times - hundreds of times - that, just from the sheer repetitiveness of the theme, it may sink in too deeply (and do some psychic damage) to people who are not currently living on the sunny side of the street, so to speak.
For those people, like the gentleman who wrote the touching review of how this book contributed to fits of depression, I'd say: This point of view has no more legitimacy than the altrustic point of view.
An additional (and, I think, unnecessary) weight on the sensitive reader's soul is the aspersions that Dr. Dawkins, an aggressive atheist, throws on the concept of God - limited mainly, I think, to his chapter on memes (he saves most of his vituperation on this issue for another book, "The God Delusion").
On that score, I'd say: please realize that scientists don't know everything. People in different professions develop different mental prejudices: lawyers think like lawyers, engineers like engineers, etc. And scientists, for whom scientific method is everything, tend to think that anything that's not measurable therefore doesn't exist. This is a logical fallacy. They also tend to think they are so intelligent, and the world outside science is so simple, that they can read a few survey books on religion, philosophy, or history and know all there is to know about the field. This leads them to made irresponsible, blanket statements, completely unaware of how little they know.
On page 201, he winds up a chapter by saying all is not gloomy; humans can still strive towards altruism; that "[w]e, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." Then, in a long footnote, he writes that some of his colleagues disapproved of this passionate summation. "In some cases, the criticism came from doctrinaire sociobiologists jealously protective of genetic influence...." and in others, from "high priests of the left jealously protective of a favorite demonological icon!" (His exclamation point.) These latter, apparently, were objecting that he on the one hand implied a belief in free will while on the other hand talking like a genetic determinist. He objects to this, saying, if I understand it, that he's both, and ends the argument by saying, "We, that is our brains, are separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them. ...[W]e do so in a small way every time we use contraception."
Now, I don't pretend to have a handle on the philosophical and sociobiological arguments regarding whether or not humans have free will, or even what exactly free will is. But in the above I don't see that Dr. Dawkins really does, either: he treats it far too simply.
In sum, read the book, but don't let it get you down. After all, if the village priest doesn't have the right to bully people intellectually, than neither does the research scientist.

Mandatory reading for students/interested persons.......2007-09-17

This is an excellent primer to biological evolution and could also be a valuable co-text with a standard high school biology course. Written in British english, it is quite understandable though more academic than casual.
Dawkins' use of the 'gene's eye view' of the world permeates the text. It is very easy to follow. A great book to rebut any creationist's
viewpoint. This was Dawkins' first book in the field. It will not disappoint or talk down to you.
Enjoy.

a mixed bag.......2007-09-09

Parts of the book were utterly fascinating to me, such as the groundbreaking idea of the "meme" as a unit of cultural transmission. But the argument that species are survival machines for our "immortal genes" seems seriously flawed.

First and foremost in my mind, it is hard for me to swallow that organisms practice altruism because the gene or genes that are responsible for this altruism have a probability of existing in the recipient of the altruism, the probability increasing with the closeness of familial relatedness. How, then, to explain altruism beyond the family, or even beyond the species? The author mentions that there is at least one well-documented case of a dolphin rescuing a drowning human being. In the book this was suggested to be a mistake. One of Earth's most intelligent animals has a gene for rescuing long, narrow objects and cannot tell the difference between a human and its own species. I got doubtful when contradictory evidence was explained as a mistake. And what about organisms' adopting children originating from other parents? Always a mistake? Highly expensive practice for when the real deal arises?

I do not understand why there must be *a* unit of natural selection. Can't there be more than one, sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes in tandem? I do believe genes are selected over other genes, but I believe groups can be selected over other groups, too. Perhaps other units, both larger and smaller than genes (Why not the selfish base pair?), are also naturally selected.

Finally, especially considering recent discoveries in genomics that have downsized the number of estimated human genes, there cannot be one gene behind any behavioral trait you can think of, a gene for being nice to your cousin, for example. I get that a gene can have many functions and can have a net effect of being nice to your cousin, and in its absence you would be less nice to your cousin, but this makes for a complicated web which would get torn apart as succeeding generations inherit just part of the web. The influences of biology, environment, and history get harder to ignore.

a new way to look at the world.......2007-08-29

Dawkins challenges us to look at old ideas (Darwinian) in a new light. At times I found his mathematical calculations tedious to follow, however when I bothered to think them through, they did make sense. I esepcially enjoyed the chapter on game theory because it helped to explain why humans do not usually behave in blatantly exploitive ways in spite of our "selfish genes". I recommend the book to anyone who wonders how the world works.

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How much of your behavior is ruled by sexual evolution?

Sex, Evolution and Behavior
Martin Daly , and Margo Wilson
Manufacturer: Brooks Cole
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0871507676

Book Description

* Provides elementary-level discussion of theory relating to evolutionary and adaptive aspects of reproductive behavior.

Customer Reviews:

How much of your behavior is ruled by sexual evolution?.......2001-02-08

I read this book in a college class. Mind you, I didn't read most of my college books, but I couldn't put this one down. It gives a clear, intelligent, remarkably well-documented, fascinating description of how sex evolved and how that evolution effects the behavior of everything from bacteria to modern social humans.

This book is very accessible to any reasonably educated reader, regardless of your knowledge of evolutionary biology. And each idea is punctuated with a fascinating example taken from nature.

Book Description

This reader introduces learners to the most significant topics in the field of anthropology of gender—drawing not only from classic sources, but also from the most recent, diverse literature on gender roles and ideology around the world. It features high quality introductions to each section of articles, broad geographical coverage, and the most current research available. An extensive range of topics includes the relationship between biology and culture as it pertains to gender issues; gender and prehistory; the cultural construction of gender and sexuality; women and the state; and the impact of development and the global economy on women. For an awareness and understanding of the sociology of women and gender roles.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

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A self-help book
A very interesting point of view
Great Style and Openness
A very readable and fun book on Evolutionary Psychology
One of the most important books you'll ever read

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
Robert Wright
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679763996
Release Date: 1995-08-29

Amazon.com

An accessible introduction to the science of evolutionary psychology and how it explains many aspects of human nature. Unlike many books on the topic,which focus on abstractions like kin selection, this book focuses on Darwinian explanations of why we are the way we are--emotionally and morally. Wright deals particularly well with explaining the reasons for the stereotypical dynamics of the three big "S's:" sex, siblings, and society.

Book Description

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics--as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies. Illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

A self-help book.......2007-09-03

If you are a modern woman, educated with all the equalitarism lectures, professional, qualified, and have gone through a life very much like that of the girls of "Sex and the City", put your Cosmo aside and read this book. It may shock you, it may even infuriate you but it may help you to understand why certain past relationships did not work, what people thinks of you and it will provide you with a general dynamucs of human relations.
It's not like you are going to accept that every person in the world follows the behavior patterns exposed here but it helps you to comprehend why some people do (even though they preached and believed on exactly the opposite attitudes) and, moreover, once you accept these patterns underlie most human motivations you can use this knowledge for your own benefit... I got a ring on my finger out of it... as well as great success as a HR manager...
And the gossip about Darwin's life is quite interesting too...

A very interesting point of view.......2007-08-28

A series of hypothesis and theories, always supported by a scientific presentation of evidence found in other works on the relevant subjects. A very interesting insight in the human nature, in the relationship between men and women, with special regard to the driving forces which influence the human behaviour (sexual desire, greed, hunt for power and wealth etc.).

Great Style and Openness.......2007-06-14

Here is a lively discussion of evolutionary psychology and what it means for our views on human morality. Robert Wright has a very good writing style and a way of explaining EP that aids even those of us who have already read widely on the subject. Here he also uses Darwin's own life and experiences to illustrate the subject.

The first section is about the sexes which, contrary to what some people might think, does not present men with anything to be proud of. It does show us why both sexes are a disappointment to each other. Wright overemphasizes female 'monogamy', as many writers do, when promiscuity should really be presented as more relative than the good for men/bad for women dichotomy. There is still much to be debated in this area but Wright does try to cover the subject as broadly as he can. I certainly don't see him as deliberately shying away from any aspect that may be relevant to the discussion. We just need much more input from female evolutionary psychologists to get the bigger picture.

The second section covers sociality - kin selection, reciprocal altruism - and the evolution of emotions, such as gratitude, obligation, guilt, frienship, that aid or aided us in our inclusive fitness maximization behavior. Section three is about hierarchy and status and how we 'deceive ourselves in order to deceive others better'. Wright puts together an interesting whole which meshes genetic and environmental determinisms with developmental and behavioral plasticity and flexibility. Not forgetting how this evolved in an environment we no longer live in and is therefore always potentially maladaptive. Perhaps he only just manages to get away with it!

The final section is a focus on morality. Wright reveals himself, and Darwin, as utilitarians. This obviously will sit best with those readers who are also utilitarians or at least, like myself, have a soft spot for J S Mill and Utilitarianism. Wright is not afraid to discuss how problematic morality can be for EP. 'The situation is, in short, a mess' he admits at one point. But most evolutionary psychologists agree with Wright that out evolved instincts for survival as social beings gives most of us a sense of how to behave in what we term a moral way.

It would be possible to argue with many things in this book but it is so successful in getting the general ideas across and facing the problems that arise from these ideas that disagreement with some of the actual content is almost irrelevant. It should not be the only book read on EP but it deserves to be one of the first. It has a great style and an essential openness and honesty.

A very readable and fun book on Evolutionary Psychology.......2007-06-12

This was one of my first books on the topic - and to this day I find it one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and eye opening books for laymen in this field, like myself.

Robert Wright has written a very engaging and well organized book in explaining why we behave the way we do. Citing Darwin's own life through the chapters to illustrate the points of Darwinism was a brilliant idea and fun to read. Most part of the book explains viewing 'morality' (or the lack of it), in biological terms. It doesn't draw any lessons out of the story, in a way advocating to accept (our) human nature the way it is. The last few chapters, however, start drawing some conclusions and 'lessons' on morality which get rather flaky (e.g.: that a woman murdering a husband for self-defence should be punished as a lesson to others for the 'greater common good'), and frankly, annoying -- in particular as the end of such a great book.

Overall, it is still a must read for all those curious and intelligent souls out there who understand that self-awareness is the first step towards real happiness.

One of the most important books you'll ever read.......2007-05-07

While most theoretical science books can be rather dry, this one has a wry sense of humor, plus an excellent presentation of how the mind (brain) evolves through natural selection along with the already accepted physicality of the species.

The first half of the book many women might not like, but Robert Wright allows in the second half for the ability of mankind to rise above his or her innate nature.

You could almost imagine Charles Darwin saying-"Drat, why didn't I think of that,. It's a natural extension of my physical take on natural selection."

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An important book, if a bit outdated nowadays...
Thought provoking in every page
Thinking about how we think.
Thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, & highly recommended
About "On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson

On Human Nature
Edward O. Wilson
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 067463442X

Book Description

No one who cares about the human future can afford to ignore Edward O. Wilson's book. On Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?

With characteristic pungency and simplicity of style, the author of Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the nature-nurture debate. He shows how...evolution has left its traces on the most distinctively human activities, how patterns of generosity, self-sacrifice, and worship, as well as sexuality and aggression, reveal their deep roots in the life histories of primate bands that hunted big game in the last Ice Age. His goal is nothing less than the completion of the Darwinian revolution by bringing biological thought into the center of the social sciences and the humanities.

Wilson presents a philosophy that cuts across the usual categories of conservative, liberal, or radical thought. In systematically applying the modern theory of natural selection to human society, he arrives at conclusions far removed from the social Darwinist legacy of the last century. Sociobiological theory, he shows, is compatible with a broadly humane and egalitarian outlook. Human diversity is to be treasured, not merely tolerated, he argues. Discrimination against ethnic groups, homosexuals, and women is based on a complete misunderstanding of biological fact.

But biological facts can never take the place of ethical choices. Once we understand our human nature, we must choose how "human" in the fullest, biological sense, we wish to remain. We cannot make this choice with the aid of external guides or absolute ethical principles because our very concept of right and wrong is wholly rooted in our own biological past. This paradox is fundamental to the evolution of consciousness in any species; there is no formula for escaping it. To understand its essence is to grasp the full predicament of the human condition.

Customer Reviews:

An important book, if a bit outdated nowadays..........2007-04-24

An oldie but a goodie. Published in 1978, On Human Nature completes Wilson's self-declared "trilogy" (The Insect Societies, 1971, and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 1975) that proposes the scientific search for genetic explanations for social behavior in animals, including humans.

Then and now, Wilson has been criticized by both religious and atheistic folks for reducing human behavior to the cold and limiting science of genetics. However, I didn't read it that way at all. Over and Over Wilson emphasizes the complexity, and that these are merely tendencies that are indeed influenced by environment (nurture). Consider that men tend to be faster than women, but that a female Olympic runner will always beat the average man in a race.

Some people in my book club had difficulty with some of the science, but I didn't at all (partially due to a minor in anthropology, and a cultivated layman's interest in science), so I doubt the average skeptic would have difficulty reading and fully understanding this book.

While this book was rather groundbreaking when it first came out, further developments in evolutionary psychology make it look rather dated, as do passages like these:

"There is, I wish to suggest, a strong possibility that homosexuality is normal in a biological sense, that it is a distinctive beneficent behavior that evolved as an important element of early human social organization. Homosexuals may be the genetic carriers of some of mankind's rare altruistic impulses. The support for this radical hypothesis..."

Hmmm, not so radical these days. This one's even better:

"...note that it is already within our reach to build computers with the memory capacity of a human brain. Such an instrument is admittedly not very practical: it would occupy most of the space of the Empire State Building and draw down an amount of energy equal to half the output of the Grand Coulee Dam. In the 1980's, however, when new "bubble memory" elements already in the experimental stage are added, the computer might be shrunk to fill a suite of offices on one floor of the same building."

Tee hee hee.

But most of Wilson's book still have powerful and provacative messages for today's readers. The preface and first four chapters prove to be a bit of a slow setup, but the next four: "Aggression", "Sex", "Altruism", and "Religion" vividly suggest naturalistic explanations for moral and ethical tendencies in each of these areas. Wilson deals with all the juicy issues: racism, male-female roles, good-n-evil, etc. This is great stuff to memorize for debates with absolute moralists. The chapter on "Religion" is sort of a precursor to Daniel Dennet's new book Breaking the Spell. Although Wilson's ultimate conclusion is clear: no amount of naturalistic explaining of religious belief will stop people from believing. Here's a bold statement coming from a scientific humanist:

"The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature."

Wilson spends a good amount of time explaining and giving examples of an interesting concept called "hypertrophy" or as it is defined in the Glossary:

"The extreme development of a preexisting structure. The elephant's tusk, for example, represents the hypertophic enlargement and change in shape through evolution of a tooth that originally had an ordinary form. In this book it is suggested that most kinds of human social behavior are hypertrophic forms of original, simpler responses that were of more direct adaptive advantage in hunter-gatherer and primitively agricultural societies."

It is fascinating, to say the least, to read about the enslavement of women compared to an elephant's tusk (hypertrophy via genetic tendency plus extreme cultural exaggeration). Almost as cool as seeing human self-sacrifice compared with that of bees and wasps.

Thought provoking in every page.......2006-08-21

It is rare that I read a book which makes me stop and think at every page. Littered with deep insights and interesting information, and still an easy read. E.O. Wilson projects a briliant mind that knows how to express and communicate his thoughts to any reader. Being a scientist myself (Physics), this book was a great vehicle to learn on sociobiology. Wilson has an incredible ability to provide just enough facts to support his ideas in a clear and economical style. I wish more scientist would know how to write like him. A pleasure from beginning to end.

Thinking about how we think........2006-03-29

Since the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick, a whole slew of fields have arisen in the life sciences that relate various aspects of life, its meaning, history and its manifestations, to genetics. Correspondingly, there has been a growth of related literature. This classic by E. O. Wilson is one such work. Probably one of the more widely read authors in the life sciences, this is one of the more influential and widely read books by him. In short, this book provides explanations for various human behaviors by examining how they help to advance the gene pool of both the individual manifesting the behavior, and the species itself. As such, culture, religion, language, government, and free will itself are all brought under the domain and hence pressures of human evolution. The book is itself quite easy to read for both scientists and non-scientists. Yet it is difficult to read in that at times the book mixes commentary with opinion with fact. Not a standard textbook this is. It reads more like an introduction to a new way of thinking... about how humans think! In all a recommended book for anyone who ever pondered the meaning of it all.

Thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, & highly recommended.......2005-03-07

If Edward O. Wilson's On Human Nature sounds familiar, it's because this printing represents the 25th anniversary of the original classic that gave birth to the field of evolutionary psychology. Adding a new preface to this edition, Wilson reflects on how he came to write the book which would led to a political, religious and scientific uproar. A seminal, groundbreaking, informative, thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, and highly recommended read.

About "On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson.......2004-08-29

About "On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson.

Wilson considers "On Human Nature" (1978) to be part of a trilogy that began with "Insect Societies" (1971) and includes his "Sociobiology - The New Syntheses" (1975). He describes the inception of this third book of the trilogy as follows:
"The aftermath of the publication of Sociobiology led me to read more widely on human behavior and drew me to many seminars and written exchanges with social scientists. I became more persuaded than ever that the time has come to close that famous gap between the two cultures, and that general sociobiology, which is simply the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory, is the appropriate instrument for the effort. On Human Nature is an exploration of that thesis."
About the book itself he says:
"To address human behavior systematically is to make a potential topic of every corridor in the labyrinth of the human mind, and hence to consider not just the social sciences but the humanities, including philosophy and the process of scientific discovery itself. Consequently, 'On Human Nature' is not a work of science; it is a work about science, and about how far natural sciences can penetrate into human behavior before they will be transformed into something new."
This is a theme he was later to pursue also in his "Consilience - The Unity of Knowledge" (1998). Discussing the great branches of knowledge in it he says: "The greatest enterprse of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and the humanities. The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarsip." I find myself in total agreement with that. "Consilience" subsequently inspired the New York Academy of Sciences to organize a three day conference entitled "Unity of Knowledge - The Convergence of Natural and Human Science" in June 2000. Wilson was the keynote speaker and when it came time for questions, the first question out of the box was about his support for eugenics. Marxists have always been trying to pin that label on him ever since "Sociobiology" came out. This is part of the ongoing Marxist attack on Wilson and sociobiology which he himself referred to as "The aftermath of the publication of Sociobiology..." The full account of that attack which has lasted more than a quarter century and is still going strong is found in "Defenders of the Truth - The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond" by Ullica Segerstråle. She was originally against him, even attended meetings of the Sociobiology Study Group as an observer, but has come to feel that Wilson has been vindicated.

"On Human Nature" covers aggressioin, sex, altruism and religion as well as heredity, development and emergent behavior brilliantly. He is extremely persuasive and has a very humane approach to these topics. To find out about him as a person you can read his memoir "Naturalist." And for those who truly desire a more in-depth analysis I recommend that they also take in Wilson's "Consilience" and Segerstråle's "Defenders of the Truth."

The Tending Instinct: Women, Men, and the Biology of Relationships

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extremely useful

The Tending Instinct: Women, Men, and the Biology of Relationships
Shelley E. Taylor
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805072896

Book Description

For generations, scientists have taught us about the 'fight or flight' response to stress. But is this instinct universal? Renowned psychologist Shelley E. Taylor explains that 'fight or flight' may only be half the story. Humans-particularly females-are hardwired to respond to stress differently. As Taylor deftly points out in this eye-opening work, the 'tend and befriend' response is among the most vital ingredient of human social life. Ranging widely over biology, evolutionary psychology, physiology, and neuroscience, Taylor examines the biological imperative that drives women to seek each other's company, and to tend to the young and the infirm, bestowing great benefits to the group but often at great cost to themselves. This tending process begins virtually at the moment of conception, and literally crafts the biology of offspring through genes that rely on caregiving for their expression. In the tradition of groundbreaking books about the science of human nature such as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct, Taylor's book will change forever the way we talk and think about ourselves.

Customer Reviews:

extremely useful.......2003-10-16

The book is an amazing compilation of basic up to the minute neuroendocrinology and social psychology.

Combined with work on gender development, e.g., "The Two Sexes: Growing Apart, Coming Together," by Stanford psychologist Eleanor Maccoby, this book provides deep background for two of the most salient issues confronting the reproduction of American culture: collaborative parenting and collaborative conflict resolution.

It is extremely unfortunate that this book is not ranked higher on the Amazon sales chart It's a must read as a nuts and bolts book about the elementary conditions necessary for true "family values."

Book Description

Oxford presents, in one convenient and coherently organized volume, 20 influential but until now relatively inaccessible articles that form the backbone of Boyd and Richerson's path-breaking work on evolution and culture. Their interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that culture is crucial for understanding human behavior; unlike other organisms, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes, and values heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are deeply intertwined with our biology. Culture then is a pool of information, stored in the brains of the population that gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning processes. Therefore, culture can account for both our outstanding ecological success as well as the maladaptations that characterize much of human behavior. The interest in this collection will span anthropology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science.

Customer Reviews:

The Baldwin effect writ large.......2007-05-15

Over a hundred years ago, James Baldwin posited that through the development of a good trick individuals could give themselves a survival advantage over individuals lacking such a good trick.

As a simple illustration, monkeys using sticks to extract ants from an anthill would have an advantage over monkeys who fail to use such a tool. Likewise, vampire bats who share their evening take with less successful bats and thereby are reciprocated on nights when they themselves are unsuccessful at the hunt would be another example.

Significantly, through culture, human opportunities to acquire knowledge of useful tools and acquire society through which to obtain reciprocal benefits have sort of created a Baldwin effect writ large...an uber good trick that has enabled them to populate pretty much every biosphere on the planet.

This book is a very articulated discussion of the delicate calculus of this process in human society propogated on all levels...from the reasons for its origins to comparisons in interdisciplinary study of its findings.
Relevant to law, economics and religious studies, it's a significant and helpful read.

Bridgeing natural and social sciences: the case of cultural evolution.......2006-07-06

This book is a splendid and well-organised collection of papers in which the authors developed and argued for their understanding and explanation of humans and human societies. This theory is known as the theory of dual inheritance.

The book consists of 5 parts: the evolution of social learning; ethnic groups and markers; human cooperation, reciprocity and group selection; archaeology and culture history; and finally links to other disciplines.

Being a social scientist whose interest in long-term historical processes increasingly stretched out until it comprised the evolution of hominids and homines and who learnt a lot of the biological and archaeological part of the story from books by Robert Boyd and colleagues, this book adds a kind of finishing touch.

From other work by Boyd I learnt that there are alternatives or rather extensions to socio-biology and evolutionary psychology that preserve a lot of sociological wisdom on the nature and mechanisms of institutional change. The key is that cultural change, which is predicated on the evolutionary acquired capacities to (observational) learning and cooperation by mostly credulous beings, can lead to cumulative adaptive changes which could not have been caused by natural selection.

Robert Boyd and Joan B. Silk, How Humans Evolved, W.W. Norton & Company, New York. London, 2003, 3rd ed.) already convinced me of the wisdom and validity of the approach. The most attractive feature of the book under review here lies in the fact that the ideas put forward and explained in the Boyd-Silk textbook can be found argued in a much more detail and scientific finesse.

In my view the book is indispensable for social scientists trying to find their way in the controversies that still surround this important field of intellectual endeavours

One personal note: I still do not completely understand the following enigmatic paragraph in Boyd and Silk (2003, p. 475):
"If aging is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, there will be many synchronized causes of aging.
Organisms are complex systems with many different, partially independent subsystems, each potentially subject to aging. The kinds of failures leading to aging of the teeth are likely to be quite different from the kinds of failures leading to aging of the heart, eye, or brain.
To see why these processes should be synchronized, suppose that one cause of aging, such as heart disease, acts at much earlier ages than all of the other causes of aging.
Then selection would either favor the postponement of the expression of genes that cause heart disease so that heart disease becomes synchronized with other forms of aging, or it would favor earlier action of all the other causes of aging, so that they become synchronized with heart disease.
In either case selection would cause all forms of aging to occur simultaneously.
Thus if aging, is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, it is unlikely that curing one, or only a few processes would lead to indefinitely long life."

Frans Kerstholt

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals

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Delightful
Great book about your brain and your body in the world
Fascinating reading, and learn stuff along the way.
Opens many new doors [while closing a few]
Nature VIA nurture - a concise, witty, irreverent explanation of how our genes really operate

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals
Robert M. Sapolsky
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0743260163

Book Description

How do imperceptibly small differences in the environment change one's behavior? What is the anatomy of a bad mood? Does stress shrink our brains? What does People magazine's list of America's "50 Most Beautiful People" teach us about nature and nurture? What makes one organism sexy to another? What makes one orgasm different from another? Who will be the winner in the genetic war between the sexes?

Welcome to Monkeyluv, a curious and entertaining collection of essays about the human animal in all its fascinating variety, from Robert M. Sapolsky, America's most beloved neurobiologist/primatologist. Organized into three sections, each tackling a Big Question in natural science, Monkeyluv offers a lively exploration of the influence of genes and the environment on behavior; the social and political -- and, of course, sexual -- implications of behavioral biology; and society's shaping of the individual. From the mating rituals of prairie dogs to the practice of religion in the rain forest, the secretion of pheromones to bugs in the brain, Sapolsky brilliantly synthesizes cutting-edge scientific research with wry, erudite observations about the enormous complexity of simply being human. Thoughtful, engaging, and infused with pop-cultural insights, this collection will appeal to the inner monkey in all of us.

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"The human animal in all its fascinating quirks of nature is showcased in this thoughtful and entertaining essay collection from America's most beloved neurobiologist/primatologist. In these essays -- updated for this volume -- Robert M. Sapolsky once again applies his curiosity, compassion, and generous insight into the human condition to make a case for the science of behavioral biology that tells us who we are, why we are, and how we are. The first section, ""Genes and Who We Are,"" addresses the physiology of genes, featuring a dissertation on ""The 50 Most Beautiful People in the World"" and tackling the vital question: How did they wind up on the list? Another essay explains the invisible genetic warfare that takes place between men and women as they conceive a baby and that continues as the fetus develops. As Sapolsky says, ""Warning: this essay does not make pleasant wedding-night reading."" The second section, ""Our Bodies and Who We Are,"" focuses on our physical natures and dwells on such diverse topics as why dreams are in fact dreamlike, why we are sexually attracted to one another, and why Alzheimer's disease tends to be a postmenopausal phenomenon. As Sapolsky writes, ""Sometimes, all you need to do is think a thought and you change the functioning of virtually every cell in your body."" In the third section, ""Society and Who We Are,"" Sapolsky takes his interdisciplinary curiosity out into the wilds of civilization and poses such interesting questions as: When and why do our preferences in food become fixed? Why do desert cultures tend to be monotheistic and sexually repressed, whereas rainforest cultures tend to be sexually relaxed and polytheistic? Why do different cultures think differently about dead bodies? ""We are shaped by the sort of society in which we live,"" Sapolsky tells us, ""and we would not be the same person if we had grown up elsewhere."" In each of these investigations, we see a brilliant mind synthesizing his and others' research in a thoughtful, engaging, and witty voice that reveals the enormous complexity of simply being human. Charming and erudite in equal measure, this collection will appeal to the inner monkey in all of us. "

Customer Reviews:

Delightful.......2006-10-16

I have never read anything by Sapolsky before. Now that I have he goes right to the top of my list with Richard Dawkins and Desmond Morris.

Great book about your brain and your body in the world.......2006-08-28

I absolutely LOVED this book! I read it very quickly and had trouble putting it down. It is fascinating, educational, funny, enjoyable and well written about complex issues.

Sapolsky, who is the author of A Primate's Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone and Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and a recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant. I found his genius not only to be in his insight and ability to frame questions and pursue their answers, but also to be able to write about it in a way that is accessible to a "nongenius."

This book is a collection of previously published essays that are updated for this edition (the updates include notes for further reading and on source materials). Sapolsky divides the book into three parts ("Genes and Who We Are," "Our Bodies and Who We Are" and "Society and Who We Are") and introduces each section with cogent current thinking on the issues addressed. For example, to introduce the first section, Sapolsky writes about how the nature-nurture argument is a red herring; genes contribute to personality/behavior when the environment interacts with them in ways conducive to gene-induced behavior! For example, in "Of Mice and (Hu)men Genes," Sapolsky writes about genes that may indicate a proclivity for depression, but only in certain environments, and summarizes that the reader should be wary of simple expanations. (And, he asserts, as humans we may have more responsibility to create positive environments that interact benignly with risky genes than to understand which genes cause what.) In the second section's "Why are Dreams Dreamlike?" Sapolsky illustrates how answering some questions about how the brain and psyche function just brings up other, deeper questions.

Sapolsky's illustrations of his points are fascinating and enlightening (and often funny!). In "The Genetic War Between Men and Women," he writes about how the genes from the father of a species have one goal ("greater, faster, more expensive growth") while genes from the mother have another ("countering that exuberance"). The success comes in nature's ability to balance these goals: "The placenta is ... the scene of a pitched battle, with paternally derived genes pushing [the placenta] to invade more aggressively while maternally derived genes try to hold it back." He lists other examples of this balance in humans and other species. This view of nature and how reproduction is nurtured fascinated me and helped me to see things in a new way.

Sapolsky's topics are wide ranging, and the book reminded me a bit of Freakonomics in its tendency to turn its problem-solving focus on whatever issue crossed its path. For example, in the final section, he writes about the differences between the
religions of desert peoples and the religions of tropical peoples -- the former tend to have a single god with miltaristic iterations and few rights for women while the latter tend toward pantheism and matrilocal marital residence. "Most evidence suggests that the rain-forest mind-set is more of a hothouse attribute, less hardy when uprooted." I guess that's evident, but Sapolsky's writings on the topic, again, gave me a new way to look at something I hadn't considered before. In this book, he addresses game theory, gene mapping, musical tastes, gender-communication issues and neurogenesis with wit, clarity and insight.

I recommend this book if you're the least bit curious about your brain, your body, the natural world and the society in which you live.

Fascinating reading, and learn stuff along the way........2006-06-05

This guy knocks my socks off. Read him just for pleasure and learn loads while your at it. I find this truly fascinating.

Opens many new doors [while closing a few].......2006-03-26

It's easy to tack the disparaging label "pop science" to this book. That would be misleading and counterproductive. What, after all, is "popular science" but science for non-scientists. From a broader perspective this book is informative, enlightening and ably suited for its intended task. Among other virtues, this book is a well-written account of what too many of us believe is valid science. It then discloses where we are mistaken in that belief and provides corrections. In his vividly rendered chapters, Sapolsky offers numerous challenges to "established" thinking. The challenges are often raw and forceful, but they must be understood fully.

A primate researcher, the author has spent many years studying baboon behaviour. Those who fear comparison with other primates may be uncomfortable with Sapolsky's conclusions. The material he draws upon for support, however, shows how universal many of our own behaviours are among our close relatives. In this book, he takes up three themes - why searching for "a gene for" any specific behaviour or illness is doomed to failure; what the body contributes to our personality; and what society contributes in determining our "selves". Each section is preceded by an introductory essay, explaining the significance of the topics discussed.

In the first section he severely condemns those who want to lock behaviour to genetics. That's an admirable end, but the selections weighed in his judgement are nearly all media accounts. Simplifying human behaviour issues sells magazines and newspapers, and his references to "those scientists" who appear to have advocated "nature over nurture" vapourise when you look for them in the text. Still, the elmination of "gene centrism" is an admirable ambition. That is what the public too often sees and the illusion needs expulsion from the collective public consciousness. He reminds us that many "genetic" drives are environmentally triggered. Whatever the rules are genes function under, they aren't rigid ones. Environment contributes, often in a major way.

In the second section, Sapolsky ranges over body-behaviour issues. From the "Twinky Defence" to definitions of dreaming, he explores how the body and brain relate to influence the mind. Emotions result from the cascades of hormones flowing through our bodies. The brain triggers many of these, but the body sends messages to the brain using that chemical medium. While all this may leave the impression that we are almost helpless observers of what these molecular signals drive us to do, the author reminds us that the "big" part of the brain, the frontal cortex, grants us a level of control denied most other animals.

Finally, we are treated to an overview of our relation to the departed. Why is there such an intense drive in humans to deal with the dead? That is most ardently expressed when the body is missing. There are bizarre cases noted here, not the least of which is story of the rituals imposed when the US Navy retrieved the bodies of drowned Japanese fishermen. Yet more intriguing are the cases of mothers finding ways to have their children hospitalised. Each time the mother visited a recovering child, there was a relapse.

That Sapolsky's style is brisk, even fervent at times, shouldn't obscure the fact that there's much in here most of us need to know. When you and your spouse argue, who concedes first? Why is this so? Daily life situations are biologically examined, without the rhetoric that might turn this into a campaign document. There is a message: that we need to learn more about what provides our emotional makeup, from domestic disputes to "over-mothering". Read this and find out what. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Nature VIA nurture - a concise, witty, irreverent explanation of how our genes really operate.......2006-03-16

This is another great book in the line of Matt Ridley, driving many coffin nails through genetic determinism, including practitioners of Evolutionary Psychology (with capital letters, as a philosophical mindset) who remain more genetic determinists than they let on while claiming to preach "nature via nurture."

Sapolsky is the real deal on "nature via nurture" - indeed, it should be noted that, with the exception of a totally genetically determined thing like Huntington's disease, he preaches "nature ONLY via nurture," or something along that general line.

Beyond that, he gets into the nuts and bolts of what we know today, and don't know, about non-coding areas of our DNA, which are NOT all simply "junk DNA." Rather, you have introns and exons for marking where a coding sequence of DNA starts and stops, and even more importantly, you have regulatory, or modulating, sections of DNA, which may tell a coding section only to switch on when there are more than 12 hours of daylight per day, which could be used to trigger mating behavior.

Here are some important page by page notes:
23 "More than 95 percent of DNA is non-coding. Sure, a lot of that is the junk-packing material DNA [a lot of which may be "quarantined" remnants of viral DNA, similar to what Norton Utilities does on your PC when necessary], but your average gene comes with a huge instruction manual about how to operate it, and the operator is often environmental."

23-24 "The startling second fact is that when you examine variability in DNA sequences among individuals, the non-coding regions of DNA are considerably more variable than are the regions that code for genes." Sapolsky admits much of this is due to junk DNA areas, but that much of the variability is attributable to regulatory area. Obviously, this has huge impacts on the nurture side of things.

42-44 Good discussion of imprinted genes, which differ from Mendelian biology in that only one is active, usually the one that comes from the parent of the same sex as a child. (Note: this does NOT mean these genes are limited in placement to our sex chromosomes.) The result? These imprinting genes battle for placental and fetal growth, as male and female genes have different "urges" for the placental and fetal rates of growth, due to male-vs-female differences in mammalian breeding strategy. Placental tumors can result if only the paternal gene is active, lack of placental implantation in the uterus when only the maternal gene is active.

61 Offspring of attractive males, in many species studies, survive less often than average.

63. In a study with ducks, with attractive males, it actually appears that the female invests more energy in the egg, laying a larger egg when impregnated by an attractive male. (The egg size is under female control.)
Both of these should put some question to old stereotypes about peacock tails being signs of fitness and so increasing mating, etc. At the least, they should caution us to look for more nuanced explanations.

83ff Limbic and autonomic nervous responses come on- and offline at different rates to one another. In relation to the frontal cortex, this may help explain why intermittent rewards can actually be more psychologically reinforcing than regular ones.

177. In many species, females in some way manipulate alpha-male type males into fighting over them, to go off and mate with more "nice guy" types.

184. Why our desire for revenge? It stems out of game theory, from games such as Prisoners' Dilemma, etc., which show the value of "tit for tat altruism" - if the game is played more than once, especially if one knows a "cheater" will be back in the mix again.
But, in a one-time game, especially where a competitor is informed he/she cannot inform players of future rounds about a cheater, including not being able to inform them through the action of punishing a cheater, then revenge as our self-appointed judge and executioner's pound of flesh seems a natural action, even if we the "cheated" have to expend yet more energy to make the cheater pay.
Hence our actions in today's civilized society, namely such as flipping people off for cutting us off in traffic, etc.

Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers (Evolution and Cognition Series)

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Classic paper, plus plus why, PLUS where too now
Essential reading for social scientists and others
Yippee!!!

Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers (Evolution and Cognition Series)
Robert Trivers
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195130626

Book Description

Robert Trivers is a pioneering figure in the field of sociobiology. For Natural Selection and Social Theory, he has selected eleven of his most influential papers, including several classic papers from the early 1970s on the evolution of reciprocal altruism, parent-offspring conflicts, and asymmetry in sexual selection, which helped to establish the centrality of sociobiology, as well as some of his later work on deceit in signalling, sex antagonistic genes, and imprinting. Trivers introduces each paper, setting them in their contemporary context, and critically evaluating them in the light of subsequent work and further developments. The result is a unique portrait of the intellectual development of sociobiology, with valuable insights for evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology.

Customer Reviews:

Classic paper, plus plus why, PLUS where too now.......2006-02-28

This book contains all of Robert Triver's best papers.

In addition, each is book-ended between a two short essays outlining the background to Professor Trivers' initial exploration and thinking behind the paper, often including quite intriguing sociological contexts. Then, which is extremely valuable, Triver's brings the reader up-to-date with the subsequent history of the idea in that paper: who did it influence? Does he still believe it? What is the current hot take on the area?

It is a magnificent tribute to a life-time of work, and valuable for anyone active in the area of evolution.

Essential reading for social scientists and others.......2004-02-11

This is a beautiful book. It combines seminal papers with anecdotes and a post-scripts which place the paper in their context and make it easier for those of us who have been consumers of socio-biology to better appreciate the significance of the ideas presented. Trivers is a compelling writer and this book is a true gift to anybody curious about human psyche and behaviour. Highly recommended.

Yippee!!!.......2002-11-30

Those of us who are interested in the stories behind just HOW major breakthroughs in evolutionary and ecological thought were made have been spoiled in recent years: First there was W.D. Hamilton's marvelous 2 volume NARROW ROADS OF GENE LAND, now we get Bob Triver's wonderful NATURAL SELECTION AND SOCIAL THEORY. Here, in one place, one can find most of Trivers' revolutionary work on the evolution of social behavior, and as an added bonus one also gets Trivers' unvarnished -and often highly entertaining- commentary on just how he came to put together the ideas that -love 'em or hate 'em- provided much of the driving force behind Sociobiology & ultimately lead to Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Psychology. Along the way we are introduced to a fascinating cast of characters, ranging from Ernst Mayr, the foremost living Darwinian, through the neo-Marxist wing of Harvard, to Huey Newton, ex-Minister of Defense for the Black Panthers. Trivers' thinking is as eclectic and far ranging as the list of his friends and enemies, and while many of his subjects (altruism, parent-offspring conflict, fluctuating asymmetry, etc.) are still at the cutting edge of evolutionary thought, his writing is sufficiently free of jargon that I think it will draw in even the non-specialist. You may not agree with everything that Trivers says here -and I suspect that some folks will be offended by his candor- but this is a really important book & I see it as essential reading for any of us interested in the question of why we may do so many of the things that we do. Bravo!

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature

Average customer rating:

Brilliant Collection of Essays
Brilliancies.
Jaded and slanted
Book Club 3
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women The Reinvention of Nature

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature
Donna J. Haraway
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415903874

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant Collection of Essays.......2004-10-26

Donna Haraway will be remembered historically, if she's remembered at all, as the most misunderstood theorist of the twentieth century. Appealing to individuals used to simplistic rhetoric and discourse, due to her subject matters of feminism and science studies, Haraway uses langugae more apt to the deconstructions of Jacques Derrida. This connection is elided but important in understanding Haraway's project.

The essay "Situated Knowledges" offers the clearest construction of her argument, which is, roughly and unjustly on my part, to trouble the subject-object distinction and provide potential postions for ethical research and study.

Her brilliance makes her important but also extremely difficult. Why it was used for a sophomore level university class I'm not sure. This book promotes and profits from rereadings--and why else buy a book?

Brilliancies........2004-09-10

Donna Haraway's work in this collection continues to amaze me. Her intense critical engagement with the history of science is resolutely brilliant: she takes common conceptions of the body, objectivity, power, and 'nature' and pulls the rug of patriarchal metaphysics out from under them. These essays are concerned with unravelling origins myths, pointing out the pitfalls of political innocence, deconstructing our conceptions of the natural and the artefactual--you know, the usual. Her project is immense, but the she hones her points in each essay very well with dazzlingly astute political analyses and characteristic poetic phrases. If you're interested in oppositional antiracist feminist consciousness, Haraway's yr philosopher.

Jaded and slanted.......2003-11-02

"Simians, Cyborgs, and Women" sounds as if it might be interesting to discuss the connections between the three conceps upon first glance. Feel free to read the opening portions of the book. They are representative of the majority of the book. If you are well-versed in fanatical feminist theories - and, more importantly, agree wholeheartedly with them - then you will enjoy the book immensely. On the other hand, if you are expecting a healthy discussion of the basis of, rationale for, and definitions of feminist theories, look elsewhere. The book is rife with shakey feminist theories which serve as premises to even still more outrageous conclusions, without any attempt to justify the premises themselves. As a result, it ends up a house of cards, without a strong foundation, puffed up far more than it ever should. I would have been more interested in seeing a well-structured analysis of the views underlying the arguments she makes. Alas, a search for such an analysis was in vain.

Book Club 3.......2003-04-08

Rur Soc 248
3/30/03
Book Club # 3

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women written by Donna J. Haraway is a compilation of ten essays from 1978 through 1989 that focus on the idea that nature is constructed, not discovered, and truth is made, not found. Donna J. Haraway is a science historian and Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She explains her ideas in this book through a strong feminist viewpoint.
Haraway divides her book into three sections, each section addressing different topics. The first section of the book discusses feminist struggles of developing knowledge and behavior in the social lives of monkeys and apes. The second part of the book discusses contests for the power to determine stories about nature and experience. The last part of the book discusses the cyborg embodiment and the fate of feminist concepts of gender, feminist ethics and even discusses the immune system as a biopolitical map of the chief system of difference in a postmodern world.
My opinions on this book are very one sided. I did not enjoy reading it at all. I thought that the book was very difficult to read. The book had a great deal of words in it that I have never seen before. I found myself constantly looking to a dictionary just so I could get the message behind what Haraway was trying to relay. One of the other reasons that the book was difficult to read was because it talked about many theories and ideas that I have never heard about before. This would have not been a big issue if the theories had explained more before they were used in proving Haraway's arguments. A direct example of this is when Haraway uses the theories that Zuckerman and Rowell have about reproduction. There was one part of the book that I thought was fairly interesting and that was Haraway's idea, that people in today's modern world are cyborgs because we incorporate so much technology into our lives. I thought that that idea was a very clever way to describe our highly technical world. I went into reading this book with an open mind and I left the book with an open mind. Even though I did not enjoy reading this book and I thought it was very boring after reading it I am now more aware about how different people think and their point of view and that is always a valuable thing to take away from an experience.

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women The Reinvention of Nature.......2003-03-28

Christine Kovac
Sociology 248
Book Review #3
March 26, 2003

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women The Reinvention of Nature

How did nature come about? Did it happen over night or was it a process that happened gradually over time? Donna Haraway, in a complex manner, addresses this issue in her book with a feminist perspective as she analyzes historical narratives, accounts, and stories about the creation of nature. She looks at several theories of famous theorists including Darwin's evolutionary theory, social constructionism, and Freud's body politic in order to justify her argument throughout the book.
Haraway believes and argues with insightful information that everything that exists is a form of construction in which one thing leads to the development of another and so on. She specifically targets women throughout her book when supporting her argument. For example,
"Teaching in women's studies classrooms is a historically specific activity. Such
teaching inherits, constructs, and transmits particular reading and writing practices that are politically complex. These material practices are part of the apparatus for producing what will count as `experience' on personal and collective levels in women's movement. It is crucial to be accountable for the politics of experience in the institution of women's studies. ......Women do not find `experience' ready to hand any more than they/we find `nature' or the `body' performed, always innocent and waiting outside the violations of language and culture" (Haraway, 109).

This particular situation is not an obvious feature when it comes to looking at the method of women's movement. It is the experience that women obtain which enables them to move forward in women's movement. It is constructed from one thing to the next, in which many different aspects such as experience are part of a process. It is humans that have constructed scientific evidence and then analyzed it and tested it over and over again. Haraway implicitly stresses that humans make what exists, things do not all of the sudden appear in front of us. She also talks about human bodies and how we make them, they do not pre-exist as many people believe. They are made through the process of intercourse between a man and a woman where a human organism inside a female comes to existence.
Haraway's book is ten complicated chapters full of many technical aspects about the evolution of nature through creation. While it is quite insightful, a lot of unfamiliar and technical language is used that can make the reading very frustrating. Identifying the specific argument Haraway is trying to make is not easy when digesting an incredible amount of complex information. It is a difficult book that addresses and investigates many theories critical to her argument that nature was constructed over time. If you have a lot of time on your hands, are interested in the development of nature, and are aroused by the enjoyment of intellectual challenges, I recommend this book.

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