Non-Dawkins books

[vhawk01]

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Consciousness Explained by Dennett has a nice bit on the evolution of consciousness

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I can't stand that book. Dennett's "explanation" is more or less to deny the existence of consciousness.

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Not to simply deny it. But to show convincingly that the dualist or Cartesian theater model of consciousness cannot possibly be correct.

And he really did do a lot of explaining. I think he made a good case for his Multiple Drafts model that answers as many or more of the questions and fits the data better than any other model for consciousness I've ever seen.

[Rduke55]

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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.

[Mickey Brausch]

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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.



[/ QUOTE ]Although far less read than you, I'd vote for Wonderful Life, because it demonstrates my personal favorite among the issues raised by palaeontological science, which is the extreme randomness in the history of life. Accompanied by Full House.

Mickey Brausch

[Rduke55]

Wonderful Life is definitely one of my favorites. And a great choice for the reason you mentioned.

[David Steele]

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

It is not exactly about evolution, it is about
human nature which is, in large part, a product of evolution
according to the author.

D.