Jean-Louis Dessalles explores the co-evolutionary paths of biology, culture, and the great human edifice of language, linking the evolution of the language to the general evolutionary history of humankind. He provides searchingly original answers to such fundamental paradoxes as to whether we acquired our greatest gift in order to talk or so as to be able to think, and as to why human beings should, as experience constantly confirms, contribute information for the well-being of others at their own expense and for no apparent gain: which if this is one of language's main functions appears to make its possession, in Darwinian terms, a disadvantage.
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life — “One of Dawkins's best: a big, almost encyclopedic compendium bursting with information and ideas. Dawkins ... the consummate zoologist ... leads a grand tour of all surviving 'pilgrims' to a 'Canterbury' representing the very origin of life--and what a fantastic trip it is...The panorama is splendid but it's the details...that delight, and also exhibit some of Dawkins's best writing.”
Kirkus
“Dawkins's new book, which is fabulous in many more ways than one, is a picaresque account of evolution running in reverse as a series of wondrous tales of explanation.” John Cornwell, The Sunday Times “In The Ancestor’s Tale Dawkins traces back human ancestry 4bn years to the dawn of life on Earth. The result is one of the richest accounts of evolution ever written.
"Who should read this book? Everyone interested in the universe and their place in it." Jeffrey R. Baylis, Animal Behavior
"demonstrates a rare and welcome ability to make formidably technical findings come alive...highly articulate." New York Times Book Review "Popular books on evolution are common; good popular books are rare. Dawkins' book is excellent." Eric L. Charnov, Quarterly Review of Biology "This book should be read, can be read, by almost everyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution" W. D. Hamilton, Science
Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science
Added by: Maria | Karma: 3098.81 | Coursebooks | 21 July 2007
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Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science
It is an excellent, balanced presentation of evolution and how it should be taught in public schools.
It presents clearly what most people fail to understand.
This is a great book for teachers, and every teacher who cares about scientific truth should read it.
Human Evolution
The story of human evolution stretches back over six million years. It is not the story of one species but of several diverse species, some of whom walked the Earth at the same time. From the earliest hominids to the early Homo sapiens, there was nothing inevitable about the course of human evolution.
But what conditions created the opportunity for diverse human species to thrive? What environmental factors led to the survival of one human species, but contributed to the extinction of so many others? What can the fossil record and the science of genetics tell us about our ancestors? How does the brain make modern man so unique in the natural world?
