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Old 01-08-2007, 01:57 PM
Rduke55 Rduke55 is offline
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Default Re: Non-Dawkins books

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Fine, Mr. Smartypants Evolution Expert, what books should I be reading?

I definitely fall into the category of someone who is overexposed to Dawkins and Dennett. I have two books by Gould that are unread but near the top of my list. What else should I buy?

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I think "What Evolution Is" by Mayr is required reading and if I had to recommend only one book that would be it. Mayr is arguably the greatest evolutionary scientist of the 20th century. I picked this book up expecting less - after all it was published when he was 97 (!) but it immediately jumped to my #1 recommended book.

For more specific stuff on evolution:

A book that had a huge impact on my development was Alcock's Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach. It's the standard for most graduate classes on animal behavior that I have seen. I used this text in grad school, it's used here at Vanderbilt, and other top grad schools in this field use it such as College Park Maryland and Cornell (correct me if I'm wrong CMI).
I really prefer the 6th edition and before for text. They added color figures starting with the 7th but changed the texts so it has more examples but less structure. It's still the best book in its field IMO. Also, get the companion book Exploring Animal Behavior: Readings from American Scientist, by Sherman and Alcock.

By Gould I really loved "Ontogeny and Phylogeny", "The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History", "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History", and I really liked "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" because I always thought his essays were stronger than his big books. Out of those I'd say Ontogeny would be a great one to read.

And Sociobiology by Wilson has to make any list like this.
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