tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post5044935205365111184..comments2024-02-16T06:03:12.489-06:00Comments on BrummellBlog: Book Club: The Flamingo's SmileTheBrummellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08973380652057861796noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post-46673383728169394432008-11-10T09:18:00.000-06:002008-11-10T09:18:00.000-06:00Well said.Well said.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post-24150737900048899842007-01-22T09:27:00.000-06:002007-01-22T09:27:00.000-06:00Sorry, Gould briefly touches on TSG in Ever Since ...Sorry, Gould briefly touches on TSG in <i>Ever Since Darwin</i> (but doesn't comment). In <i>The Panda's Thumb</i>, he's got specific essays about it.Carlohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00153076425887492166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post-23314749770497761382007-01-22T09:12:00.000-06:002007-01-22T09:12:00.000-06:00You could write a Book Club post about Ever Since ...You could write a Book Club post about <I>Ever Since Darwin</I> and it wouldn't necessarily be redundant, particularly in light of the idea that these are discussions rather than static reviews. Also, I might have missed something.<br /><br />I didn't see any references to <I>The Selfish Gene</I> in either <I>Ever Since Darwin</I> or <I>The Flamingo's Smile</I>. Perhaps I just wasn't looking, given that you'd already described that interaction to me so as far as I'm concerned the issue of Gould vs. Dawkins is pretty settled.TheBrummellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08973380652057861796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post-40201455295561543692007-01-21T21:39:00.000-06:002007-01-21T21:39:00.000-06:00Sorry, that paper would be here.Sorry, that paper would be <A HREF="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17023657&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum">here</a>.Carlohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00153076425887492166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19216099.post-85605588266202815542007-01-21T21:24:00.000-06:002007-01-21T21:24:00.000-06:00Stephen Jay Gould is awesome. I'm so glad that my ...Stephen Jay Gould is awesome. I'm so glad that my supervisor gave me a bunch of his essays to read (for the class that I TA). I'd obviously heard of him before my Ph.D. but I'd never read any of his stuff.<br /><br />What I really enjoy about his books (I just finished <i>Ever Since Darwin</i> but will refrain from having redundant 'Book Clubs') is that, on top of being interesting, they're directly applicable to my work and studies. I mean, Gould's got a way of thinking that, to me anyways, seems very logical and self-consistent. <br /><br />I don't necessarily agree with every little thing Gould says. For instance, his treatment of the <i>Selfish Gene</i> is odd. I read both <i>TSG</i> and Gould's books recently, and it seems to me that Gould missed some of the points that Dawkins made about how Selfish Gene theory is fully compatible with apparent selection at the organismal level... Maybe the original version of <i>TSG</i> was different though...<br /><br />Regardless, it seems to me that Gould's biggest critics (Like John Maynard-Smith) were the very dogmatists that Gould cautioned against. I've heard so many times that 'Punctuational Equilibrium' is dead, but <A HREF="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed">here</A>'s a recent Science paper that would suggest otherwise...<br /><br />I know that Gould spoke at either Guelph or Waterloo a few years before his death. It's too bad that such a great mind passed away when he was only 60. Were he still around, I'm sure he would have continued writing for years to come. We'll miss you Steve...Carlohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00153076425887492166noreply@blogger.com