Oren Solomon Harman

NOTE: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my honest opinion of the book.

This book is exactly what it states on the cover - 15 myths that explain our world - but it is not a comparative mythology text or a book that refutes misconceptions of evolution. In this book, Oren Harman takes some of the current scientific knowledge (about the formation of the universe, Earth, and evolution of various organisms) and formulates it into 15 mythological "stories", usually from someone's perspective (e.g. Mother Earth, a trilobite). The writing style is fanciful and lyrical, occassionally overly verbose.

I'm really not sure who the target audience of this book is supposed to be. If you have knowledge of the topics the author covers, you might find this book amusing, though you won't find any new information. If your scientific knowledge is limited, then most of these 15 myths will probably be confusing to you. Personally I found the Chapter "Illuminations", which provides references and explains where the author got his information, more interesting than all the fuzzy mythological stories. In my opinion, this book is either very clever or very silly, depending on the readers mood and inclination for expecting something more substantial than wierd stories touted as myths. I really was hoping for more meat and less fluffiness.
… (mais)

I like biography and at some points while reading The Price of Altruism, I found it hard to put the book down. As the book progressed it became harder to continue following Price's path of self-destruction. The science in the book is fascinating but very challenging. I wish I had kept short notes from the beginning on the various scientist and their theories so I could map out the history of genetic research and cobble together a better understanding of progress in the field. While the author Harman is pretty good at explaining evolutionary theory and Price's contributions there were so many scientists working in both game theory, genetics and evolution discussed I had a hard time remembering them all.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested is both the history of science especially evolution or genetics who also enjoys biography. Harman includes several books on the history of evolutionary theory in his bibliography. I imagine it would be useful to have read those titles before tackling this one if you really want to understand the significants of Price's scientific contributions. However the book can also be read as a psychological biography of a tragic figure in science.… (mais)

This is an intriguing biography of George Price, a little-known population geneticist, interwoven with an intellectual history of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. While the story of Price's life is diverting and compelling in its own right, the real thrill of this book is that it unveils some very contemporary improvements in the science of group selection and, as the subtitle suggests, the origins of kindness. Oren Harmen does a great job picking through the advanced statistics and elements of game theory that led to Price's most substantial breakthrough, giving the reader a good commonsense understanding of how individual and group behaviors can both be perpetuated through evolutionarily stable strategies.

Yes, Price did end his life after a rather spectacular descent into homelessness and futile ministrations to a community of destitute alcoholics, but the attempts that Harmen makes to link the body of Price's professional work to his personal life are a bit of a stretch. While there is an appealing symmetry to the study of altruism and the surrendering of one's autonomy to the idea of Jesus Christ, there seems to be little indication that Price's late-life fundamentalism and erratic behavior correlated meaningfully with his relatively passionless theorizing. What make it a good story is that it comes together in meaningful ways in the imagination of the reader, rather than in the life of the subject.… (mais)

This biography of Cyril Darlington is of a renowned scientist who enjoyed a long career, first as a microscopist exploring the workings of the chromosome, then as a leader in the fight against Lamarckism, Lysenkoism, Marxism, and suppositions on the equality of men. His early career was built primarily on a book, "Recent Advances in Cytology" which brought together a coherent picture of the chromosomes and their role in evolution. Perhaps a key insight, new with him, was that though the chromosomes contained the hereditary information, they could be understood better by seeing how evolution affected them as well.

Darlington was a confirmed materialist, hard headed scientist, but was positively attracted by controversy, and a rather intolerant, arrogant character to boot. He had many enemies, but was a forceful and prominent public voice, who relished his role. This combination makes for a lively biography, and deserves serious consideration by anyone interested in the history of the development of the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary thought. He was a driving force for much of it.

Darlington was during the 1940's to the 1980's a sort of early version of Richard Dawkins, and was opposed for many years by JBS Haldane, who was a sort of early version of Stephen Jay Gould. Many of the controversies, being rooted in deep-seated views of human nature, have hardly changed. There is the Marxist version of a faith in the malleability of man by wishful thinking, opposed by hard lessons drawn from science, evolutionary theory and the observation that man is a creature acting in accordance with hereditary behaviors which have developed differently in different races. Not for Darlington the notion that race is a "social construct" or that IQ is a "reified" useless hypotheis, the same for all races. He was a sociobiologist well before the term was invented.

The first part of the book that deals with Darlingtons cytogenetics is not the easiest read, dealing as it does with a pretty arcane subject in perhaps a little too much detail, even for the informed reader. The old controversies about such things as parsynapsis vs telosynapsis, are enfolded in a vocabulary that will be intimidating to many readers. I wish, though, that he had covered in a little more detail the methods of cytogenetics, the stains used, the sample preparation methods, and so on. Just how hard was it to prepare an informative experiment? A little more about the influence of Darlington's cytological insights on the conventional modern practice of the art would have been welcome too.

No matter--skip on to the major part of the book where Harman covers the course of the debate over the nature of man and the insights brought by an evolutionary perspective. The meat of the book is here.

In his later years, as for all scientists who live a long time, the main developments in his science began to become too much for him--molecular biology, psychometrics, and a bevy of new techniques were to add much that he could appreciate, but could contribute very little. Exploring the big picture, speculating, theorizing and publicizing became his game, and we are better off for it.

Harman has done a splendid job in this biography--he writes clearly, and has a very good understanding of his subject. It is based on exhaustive research and interviews and will be the definitive work for a long time. The many pictures bring the story to life, and make for a lively read. I enjoyed the book a lot and even re-read much of it for a second time!… (mais)