Download or read book Populations Species and Evolution written by Ernst Mayr and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his extraordinary book, Mayr fully explored, synthesized, and evaluated man's knowledge about the nature of animal species and the part they play in the process of evolution. Now, in this long-awaited abridged edition, Mayr's definitive work is made available to the interested nonspecialist, the college student, and the general reader.
Download or read book The Next Species written by Michael Tennesen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delving into the history of the planet and based on reports and interviews with scientists, a science writer--traveling to rain forests, canyons, craters, and caves all over the world to explore the potential winners and losers of the next era of evolution--describes what life on earth could look like after the next mass extinction.
Download or read book Animal Species and Evolution written by Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology (Emeritus) Museum of Comparative Zoology Ernst Mayr and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 811 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of twenty chapters, Ernst Mayr presents a consecutive story, beginning with a description of evolutionary biology and ending with a discussion of man as a biological species. Calling attention to unsolved problems, and relating the evolutionary subject matter to appropriate material from other fields, such as physiology, genetics, and biochemistry, the author integrates and interprets existing data. Believing that an unequivocal stand is more likely to produce constructive criticism than evasion of an issue, he does not hesitate to choose that interpretation of a controversial matter which to him seems most consistent with the emerging picture of the evolutionary process.
Download or read book Species written by John S. Wilkins and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over time the complex idea of "species" has evolved, yet its meaning is far from resolved. This comprehensive work is a fresh look at an idea central to the field of biology by tracing its history from antiquity to today. Species is a benchmark exploration and clarification of a concept fundamental to the past, present, and future of the natural sciences. In this edition, a section is added on the debate over species since the time of the New Synthesis, and brings the book up to date. A section on recent philosophical debates over species has also been added. This edition is better suited non-specialists in philosophy, so that it will be of greater use for scientists wishing to understand how the notion came to be that living organisms form species. Key Selling Features: Covers the philosophical and historical development of the concept of "species" Documents that variation was recognized by pre-Darwinian scholars Includes a section on the debates since the time of the New Synthesis Better suited to non-philosophers
Download or read book Animal Species and Their Evolution written by A. J. Cain and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before Charles Darwin undertook his first voyage, animal taxonomists had begun the scientific classification of animals, plants, and minerals. In the mid-1950s, taxonomist A. J. Cain summarized the state of knowledge about the structure of the living world in his major book Animal Species and Their Evolution. His work remains remarkably current today. Here Cain explains each of the terms by which scientists now classify all animals--from species through genus, family, order, class, and phylum. The work of the modern taxonomist is dependent on the work of paleontologists, field biologists, ecologists, and other specialists who help piece together the puzzle of nature. This seminal text will interest students in each of these areas. It will also appeal to historians of science and to all amateur scientists with an interest in the animal kingdom. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book A Cooperative Species written by Samuel Bowles and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis--pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior--show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative.
Download or read book Species written by John S. Wilkins and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive work, John S. Wilkins traces the history of the idea of "species" from antiquity to today, providing a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches.--[book cover].
Download or read book Species Species Concepts and Primate Evolution written by William H. Kimbel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-18 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A world of categones devmd of spirit waits for life to return. Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift The stock-in-trade of communicating hypotheses about the historical path of evolution is a graphical representation called a phylogenetic tree. In most such graphics, pairs of branches diverge from other branches, successively marching across abstract time toward the present. To each branch is tied a tag with a name, a binominal symbol that functions as does the name given to an individual human being. On phylogenetic trees the names symbolize species. What exactly do these names signify? What kind of information is communicated when we claim to have knowledge of the following types? "Tetonius mathewzi was ancestral to Pseudotetonius ambiguus. " "The sample of fossils attributed to Homo habzlis is too variable to contain only one species. " "Interbreeding populations of savanna baboons all belong to Papio anubis. " "Hylobates lar and H. pileatus interbreed in zones of geographic overlap. " While there is nearly universal agreement that the notion of the speczes is fundamental to our understanding of how evolution works, there is a very wide range of opinion on the conceptual content and meaning of such particular statements regarding species. This is because, oddly enough, evolutionary biolo gists are quite far from agreement on what a species is, how it attains this status, and what role it plays in evolution over the long term.
Download or read book Relentless Evolution written by John N. Thompson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In Relentless Evolution, John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is natural selection? How do species co-opt the genomes of other species as they adapt? Why does adaptive evolution sometimes lead to more, rather than less, genetic variation within populations? How does the process of adaptation drive the evolution of new species? How does coevolution among species continually reshape the web of life? And, more generally, how are our views of adaptive evolution changing? Relentless Evolution draws on studies of all the major forms of life—from microbes that evolve in microcosms within a few weeks to plants and animals that sometimes evolve in detectable ways within a few decades. It shows evolution not as a slow and stately process, but rather as a continual and sometimes frenetic process that favors yet more evolutionary change.
Download or read book Mankind Evolving written by Theodosius Dobzhansky and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines both the biological and the cultural aspects of human evolution.
Download or read book The Symbolic Species The Co evolution of Language and the Brain written by Terrence W. Deacon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.
Download or read book The Intellectual Species written by John Rodden and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2022 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the prospects for survival of what we have come to know as â oethe intellectualâ in the post-Gutenberg age. It addresses the contemporary history of this â oespeciesâ spawned in the print age, meditating on the precarious future of international intellectual life in the digital era of nanosecond soundbites, fake news, smart phones, and clicks and scrolls in lieu of reading. The book ponders these issues as it addresses the examples of a diverse group of British, American, French, and German intellectuals of the post- World War II era. These â oecase historiesâ showcase concretely the â oestate of the cultureâ in the context of particular lives, offering diverse intellectual portraiture featuring a wide range of writers across the ideological spectrum. The key family resemblance of these figures is that most of them are contrarians, regardless of whether they were freelance writers or academic intellectuals, American or British or European, and chiefly imaginative writers or non-fiction writers and scholars. Among the intellectuals discussed are George Orwell, Dwight Macdonald, Irving Howe, Camille Paglia, Albert Camus, Robert Havemann, and others. Regardless of which intellectual domains occupied their energies, the histories of all of them yield insight into the transformation of cultural life in recent decades and the contrasting challenges faced by intellectuals of earlier eras versus our own. These issues are of paramount significance for all those who care about the life of the mind and the future of homo sapiens.
Download or read book Amazonia Landscape and Species Evolution written by Carina Hoorn and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-26 with total page 869 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book focuses on geological history as the critical factor in determining the present biodiversity and landscapes of Amazonia. The different driving mechanisms for landscape evolution are explored by reviewing the history of the Amazonian Craton, the associated sedimentary basins, and the role of mountain uplift and climate change. This book provdes an insight into the Meso- and Cenozoic record of Amazonia that was characterized by fluvial and long-lived lake systems and a highly diverse flora and fauna. This fauna includes giants such as the ca. 12 m long caiman Purussaurus, but also a varied fish fauna and fragile molluscs, whilst fossil pollen and spores form relics of ancestral swamps and rainforests. Finally, a review the molecular datasets of the modern Amazonian rainforest and aquatic ecosystem, discussing the possible relations between the origin of Amazonian species diversity and the palaeogeographic, palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental evolution of northern South America. The multidisciplinary approach in evaluating the history of Amazonia has resulted in a comprehensive volume that provides novel insights into the evolution of this region.
Download or read book Animal Species and Evolution written by Ernst Mayr and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 1963 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This masterly and long-awaited work is a full exposition, synthesis, summation, and critical evaluation of the present state of man's knowledge about the nature of animal species and of the part they play in the processes of evolution. In a series of twenty chapters, Mr. Mayr presents a consecutive story, beginning with a description of evolutionary biology and ending with a discussion of man as a biological species. Calling attention to unsolved problems, and relating the evolutionary subject matter to appropriate material from other fields, such as physiology, genetics, and biochemistry, the author integrates and interprets existing data. Believing that an unequivocal stand is more likely to produce constructive criticism than evasion of an issue, he does not hesitate to choose that interpretation of a controversial matter which to him seems most consistent with the emerging picture of the evolutionary process. Between the terminal points mentioned above, Mr. Mayr pursues the narrative through discussions of species concepts and their application, morphological species characters and sibling species, biological properties of species, isolating mechanisms, hybridization, the variation and genetics of populations, storage and protection of genetic variation, the unity of the genotype, geographic variation, the polytypic species of the taxonomist, the population structure of species, kinds of species, multiplication of species, geographic speciation, the genetics of speciation, the ecology of speciation, and species and transpecific evolution. The volume provides a valuable glossary; and an inclusive bibliography greatly extends its range for those who wish to investigate special aspects of the material. Animal Species and Evolution is presented as a permanent entity. In accordance with the author's feeling that the acquisition of new knowledge will require a new statement, rather than an emendation of a previous one, no substantive revisions of this volume are planned for future printings. Because of the impossibility of experimenting with man, and because an understanding of man's biology is indispensable for safeguarding his future, emphasis throughout this book is placed on those findings from the higher animals which are directly applicable to man. In his final chapter on hominids and the various forms of Homo, Mr. Mayr comes to the conclusion that, while modem man appears to be just as well adapted for survival purposes as were his ancestors, there is much evidence to suggest that he is threatened by the loss of his most typically human characteristics. It would be within his power to reverse this tendency.
Download or read book The Evolutionary Biology of Species written by Timothy G. Barraclough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Species' are central to understanding the origin and dynamics of biological diversity; explaining why lineages split into multiple distinct species is one of the main goals of evolutionary biology. However the existence of species is often taken for granted, and precisely what is meant by species and whether they really exist as a pattern of nature has rarely been modelled or critically tested. This novel book presents a synthetic overview of the evolutionary biology of species, describing what species are, how they form, the consequences of species boundaries and diversity for evolution, and patterns of species accumulation over time. The central thesis is that species represent more than just a unit of taxonomy; they are a model of how diversity is structured as well as how groups of related organisms evolve. The author adopts an intentionally broad approach, stepping back from the details to consider what species constitute, both theoretically and empirically, and how we detect them, drawing on a wealth of examples from microbes to multicellular organisms.
Download or read book Animal Evolution written by Claus Nielsen and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2012 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using modern phylogenetic reasoning based on an extensive review of morphology, including ultrastructure, and embryology, each phylum is analysed to ascertain its monophyly and hence its ancestral characters.
Download or read book Species written by John S. Wilkins and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-09-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complex idea of "species" has evolved over time, yet its meaning is far from resolved. This comprehensive work takes a fresh look at an idea central to the field of biology by tracing its history from antiquity to today. John S. Wilkins explores the essentialist view, a staple of logic from Plato and Aristotle through the Middle Ages to fairly recent times, and considers the idea of species in natural history—a concept often connected to reproduction. Tracing "generative conceptions" of species back through Darwin to Epicurus, Wilkins provides a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches to this concept. He also reviews the array of current definitions. Species is a benchmark exploration and clarification of a concept fundamental to the past, present, and future of the natural sciences.
