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A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination is the title of a 2000 book by biologists Gerald Maurice Edelman and Giulio Tononi; published in UK as Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination. This book, written with Giulio Tononi, is the culmination of a series of works by Gerald Edelman on the workings of the brain which include Neural Darwinism and Bright Air, Brilliant Fire.
== Synopsis ==
It is divided into six sections: the first three cover existing work from philosophical, neurological and Darwinian perspectives. Part IV presents the novel thesis of the work: the Dynamic Core Hypothesis. The remaining two parts explore how it resolves various philosophical and practical issues.
=== The Background ===
Since Descartes, philosophers have been occupied with the concept of consciousness and its subjective nature has posed a special problem for science. Its nature arises from the neuronal structures in the brain and some understanding of these, together with the experimental tools needed to explore them, is given in the following chapters. They then recapitulate Edelman's still controversial theory of somatic selectionism during early development which controls the topology of a particular brain and enables restructuring in response to experience. They argue that memory is not a symbolic representation but a reflection of how the brain has changed its dynamics in order to achieve motor activity. This leads to a discussion of primary consciousness which integrates with perception into a means of directing immediate behavior and requires significant levels of reentrancy to achieve its effects.
=== The Dynamic Core Hypothesis ===
The problem of integrating, or binding, the activity of functionally segregated areas of the brain in order to concentrate attention on a particular activity in a short amount of time (typically 100-250 msecs) after the presentation of a stimulus is explored by means of large-scale simulations. It is shown that this can only happen if some elements interact more strongly among themselves than with the rest of the system including a large amount of reentrancy. These functional clusters are only slowly coming into the range of PET or fMRI scanning technology which commonly require much longer time scales.
At any given time, only a small subset of the neuronal groups in the brain are contributing directly to consciousness and this cluster is called a dynamic core. It represents a single point of view and each different state of consciousness corresponds to a different subset. Some dissociative disorders such as schizophrenia may result in the formation of multiple cores.
=== Implications of the hypothesis ===
One of the recurring issues in consciousness is the existence of qualia, such as redness, warmth and pain. It is not enough to identify each quale with a particular neuron or neuronal group; what is crucial is all the other groups which are highly influenced by the sensation and will fire at the same time. Thus each conscious state deserves to be called a quale. A small perturbation of a group of neurons can affect the whole in a very short space of time provided the system is kept in a state of readiness by the thalamus. Primary consciousness can build up a bodily based reference space even before language and higher-order consciousness appear.
There is a preliminary approach to the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, including sensors and motors, because so little is known. The evolution of language centres in the brain leads to higher order consciousness which enhances subjective experience and enables humans to describe qualia which are however experienced by a much wider range of animals. Thinking in humans has a range of representations—including pictorial. In contrast to computers which are Turing machines, brains are based on neuronal group selection.
== See also ==
Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness, a similar 2004 book by Edelman
== References ==

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Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military is the fifteenth book by American astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson which he co-wrote with researcher and writer Avis Lang. It was released on September 11, 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company. The book chronicles war and the use of space as a weapon going as far back as before the Ancient Greeks, and includes examples such as Christopher Columbus' use of his knowledge of a lunar eclipse and the use of satellite intelligence by the United States during the Gulf War. While speaking on the book, Tyson told National Geographic that he regards the collaboration between science and the military as a "two-way street."
Marcelo Gleiser wrote that the book "rings like a wake-up call, even if an uncomfortable one."
== References ==
== Further reading ==
The long entanglement of war and astrophysics - Sharon Weinberger, nature.com
Neil deGrasse Tyson on ‘Accessory to War’ and the ‘moon situation’ - Brian McElhiney, stripes.com
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Surprising Alliance Between Astrophysicists and the Military - John Ismay, The New York Times

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Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space is a 2020 non-fiction book by American writer and scientist Kevin Peter Hand. The book explores the possibility of life on planets and moons with subsurface oceans, and argues that the common understanding of the habitable zone should include natural satellites around gas giants. Satellites discussed in the book include Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and Ganymede.
Hand wrote the book to make the scientific information it discusses readily accessible to the public.
== References ==

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The Almagest ( AL-mə-jest) is a 2nd-century mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy (c. AD 100 – c. 170) in Koine Greek. One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it canonized a geocentric model of the Universe that was accepted for more than 1,200 years from its origin in ancient Greece, through to the medieval Byzantine and Islamic worlds, and in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance until the Scientific Revolution. It is also a key source of information about ancient Greek astronomy.
Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in 147 or 148. Norman T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemy's models set out in the Canopic Inscription was earlier than the version in the Almagest. Hence the Almagest could not have been completed before about 150, a quarter-century after Ptolemy began observing.
== Names ==
The name comes from Arabic اَلْمَجِسْطِيّ al-majisṭī, with اَلـ al- meaning 'the' and majisṭī being a corruption of Greek μεγίστη megístē 'greatest'. The Arabic name was popularized by a Latin translation known as Almagestum made in the 12th century from an Arabic translation, which would endure until original Greek copies resurfaced in the 15th century.
The work was originally called Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις (Mathēmatikḕ Sýntaxis) in Koine Greek, as also in Modern Greek (primarily), and was known as Syntaxis Mathematica in Latin. The treatise was later called Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις (Hē Megálē Sýntaxis), "The Great Treatise" (Latin: Magna Syntaxis), and the superlative form of this (Greek: μεγίστη megístē, 'greatest') lies behind the Arabic name from which the English name Almagest derives.
In the study of medieval Hebrew texts, the Almagest is sometimes referred to as "Ptolemy's Book of Elections", to emphasize parallelism with Abraham ibn Ezra's manuscript of the same name.
== History ==
Written possibly around 150 CE, the text survives as copies, the oldest being from the 9th century when Arabic scholars started to translate the text, which in turn have survived in copies from the 11th and 13th centuries.
== Contents ==
=== The Syntaxis Mathematica books ===
The Syntaxis Mathematica consists of thirteen sections, called books. As with many medieval manuscripts that were handcopied or, particularly, printed in the early years of printing, there were considerable differences between various editions of the same text, as the process of transcription was highly personal. An example illustrating how the Syntaxis was organized is given below; it is a Latin edition printed in 1515 at Venice by Petrus Lichtenstein.
Book I contains an outline of Aristotle's cosmology: on the spherical form of the heavens, with the spherical Earth lying motionless as the center, with the fixed stars and the various planets revolving around the Earth. Then follows an explanation of chords with table of chords; observations of the obliquity of the ecliptic (the apparent path of the Sun through the stars); and an introduction to spherical trigonometry.
Book II covers problems associated with the daily motion attributed to the heavens, namely risings and settings of celestial objects, the length of daylight, the determination of latitude, the points at which the Sun is vertical, the shadows of the gnomon at the equinoxes and solstices, and other observations that change with the observer's position. There is also a study of the angles made by the ecliptic with the vertical, with tables.
Book III covers the length of the year, and the motion of the Sun. Ptolemy explains Hipparchus' discovery of the precession of the equinoxes and begins explaining the theory of epicycles.
Books IV and V cover the motion of the Moon, lunar parallax, the motion of the lunar apogee, and the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon relative to the Earth.
Book VI covers solar and lunar eclipses.
Books VII and VIII cover the motions of the fixed stars, including precession of the equinoxes. They also contain a star catalogue of 1022 stars, described by their positions in the constellations, together with ecliptic longitude and latitude.
Book IX addresses general issues associated with creating models for the five naked eye planets, and the motion of Mercury.
Book X covers the motions of Venus and Mars.
Book XI covers the motions of Jupiter and Saturn.
Book XII covers stations and retrograde motion, which occurs when planets appear to pause, then briefly reverse their motion against the background of the zodiac. Ptolemy understood these terms to apply to Mercury and Venus as well as the outer planets.
Book XIII covers motion in latitude, that is, the deviation of planets from the ecliptic. The final topic of this chapter also covers how to determine when a planet first becomes visible after being hidden by the glare of the sun, as well as the last time it is seen before being hidden by the sun's glare.
=== Ptolemy's cosmos ===
The cosmology of the Syntaxis includes five main points, each of which is the subject of a chapter in Book I. What follows is a close paraphrase of Ptolemy's own words from Toomer's translation.
The celestial realm is spherical, and moves as a sphere.
The Earth is a sphere.
The Earth is at the center of the cosmos.
The Earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point.
The Earth does not move.
=== The star catalogue ===

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The layout of the catalogue has always been tabular. Ptolemy writes explicitly that the coordinates are given as (ecliptical) "longitudes" and "latitudes", which are given in columns, so this has probably always been the case. It is significant that Ptolemy chooses the ecliptical coordinate system because of his knowledge of precession, which distinguishes him from all his predecessors. Hipparchus' celestial globe had an ecliptic drawn in, but the coordinates were equatorial. Since Hipparchus' star catalogue has not survived in its original form, but was absorbed into the Almagest star catalogue (and heavily revised in the 265 years in between), the Almagest star catalogue is the oldest one in which complete tables of coordinates and magnitudes have come down to us.
As mentioned, Ptolemy includes a star catalog containing 1022 stars. He says that he "observed as many stars as it was possible to perceive, even to the sixth magnitude". The ecliptic longitudes are given in terms of a zodiac sign and a number of degrees and fractions of a degree. The zodiac signs each represent exactly 30°, starting with Aries representing longitude 0° to 30°. The degrees are added to the lower limit of the 30-degree range to obtain the longitude. Unlike the situation with the zodiac of modern-day astrology, most of the stars of a given zodiac constellation in the catalog fall in the 30-degree range designated by the same name (the so-called 'zodiac sign'). The ecliptic longitudes are about 26° lower than those of AD 2000 (the J2000 epoch). Ptolemy says that the ecliptic longitudes are for the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138 AD) and that he found that the longitudes had increased by 2° 40′ since the time of Hipparchus which was 265 years earlier (Alm. VII, 2). But calculations show that his ecliptic longitudes correspond more closely to around the middle of the first century CE (+48 to +58).
Since Tycho Brahe found this offset, astronomers and historians investigated this problem and suggested several causes:
that all coordinates were calculated from Hipparchus' observations, whereby the precession constant, which was known too inaccurately at the time, led to a summation error (Delambre 1817);
that the data had in fact been observed a century earlier by Menelaus of Alexandria (Björnbo 1901);
that the difference is a sum of individual errors of various kinds, including calibration with outdated solar data;
that Ptolemy's instrument was wrongly calibrated and had a systematic offset.
Subtracting the systematic error leaves other errors that cannot be explained by precession. Of these errors, about 18 to 20 are also found in Hipparchus' star catalogue (which can only be reconstructed incompletely). From this it can be concluded that a subset of star coordinates in the Almagest can indeed be traced back to Hipparchus, but not that the complete star catalogue was simply "copied". Rather, Hipparchus' major errors are no longer present in the Almagest and, on the other hand, Hipparchus' star catalogue had some stars that are entirely absent from the Almagest. It can be concluded that Hipparchus' star catalogue, while forming the basis, has been reobserved and revised.
==== Errors in the coordinates ====
The figure he used is based on Hipparchus' own estimate for precession, which was 1° in 100 years, instead of the correct 1° in 72 years. Dating attempts through proper motion of the stars also appear to date the actual observation to Hipparchus' time instead of Ptolemy.
Many of the longitudes and latitudes have been corrupted in the various manuscripts. Most of these errors can be explained by similarities in the symbols used for different numbers. For example, the Greek letters Α and Δ were used to mean 1 and 4 respectively, but because these look similar copyists sometimes wrote the wrong one. In Arabic manuscripts, there was confusion between for example 3 and 8 (ج and ح). (At least one translator also introduced errors. Gerard of Cremona, who translated an Arabic manuscript into Latin around 1175, put 300° for the latitude of several stars. He had apparently learned from Moors, who used the letter س (sin) for 300 (like the Hebrew ש (shin)), but the manuscript he was translating came from the East, where س was used for 60, like the Hebrew ס (samekh).)
Even without the errors introduced by copyists, and even accounting for the fact that the longitudes are more appropriate for 58 AD than for 137 AD, the latitudes and longitudes are not fully accurate, with errors as great as large fractions of a degree. Some errors may be due to atmospheric refraction causing stars that are low in the sky to appear higher than where they really are. A series of stars in Centaurus are off by a couple of degrees, including the star we call Alpha Centauri. These were probably measured by a different person or persons from the others, and in an inaccurate way.

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==== Constellations in the star catalogue ====
The star catalogue contains 48 constellations, which have different surface areas and numbers of stars. In Book VIII, Chapter 3, Ptolemy writes that the constellations should be outlined on a globe, but it is unclear exactly how he means this: should surrounding polygons be drawn or should the figures be sketched or even line figures be drawn? This is not stated.
Although no line figures have survived from antiquity, the figures can be reconstructed on the basis of the descriptions in the star catalogue: The exact celestial coordinates of the figures' heads, feet, arms, wings and other body parts are recorded. It is therefore possible to draw the stick figures in the modern sense so that they fit the description in the Almagest.
These constellations form the basis for the modern constellations that were formally adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, with official boundaries that were agreed in 1928.
Of the stars in the catalogue, 108 (just over 10%) were classified by Ptolemy as 'unformed', by which he meant lying outside the recognized constellation figures. These were later absorbed into their surrounding constellations or in some cases used to form new constellations.
=== Ptolemy's planetary model ===
In Almagest, Ptolemy assigned the following order to the planetary spheres, beginning with the innermost:
Later, in his "Planetary Hypothesis", he concludes that Mercury is the second closest planet. Other classical writers suggested different sequences. Plato (c. 427 – c. 347 BC) placed the Sun second in order after the Moon. Martianus Capella (5th century AD) put Mercury and Venus in motion around the Sun. Ptolemy's authority was preferred by most medieval Islamic and late medieval European astronomers.
Ptolemy inherited from his Greek predecessors a geometrical toolbox and a partial set of models for predicting where the planets would appear in the sky. Apollonius of Perga (c. 262 – c. 190 BC) had introduced the deferent and epicycle and the eccentric deferent to astronomy. Hipparchus (2nd century BC) had crafted mathematical models of the motion of the Sun and Moon. Hipparchus had some knowledge of Mesopotamian astronomy, and he felt that Greek models should match those of the Babylonians in accuracy. He was unable to create accurate models for the remaining five planets.
The Syntaxis adopted Hipparchus' solar model, which consisted of a simple eccentric deferent. For the Moon, Ptolemy began with Hipparchus' epicycle-on-deferent, then added a device that historians of astronomy refer to as a "crank mechanism": he succeeded in creating models for the other planets, where Hipparchus had failed, by introducing a third device called the equant.
Ptolemy wrote the Syntaxis as a textbook of mathematical astronomy. It explained geometrical models of the planets based on combinations of circles, which could be used to predict the motions of celestial objects. In a later book, the Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy explained how to transform his geometrical models into three-dimensional spheres or partial spheres. In contrast to the mathematical Syntaxis, the Planetary Hypotheses is sometimes described as a book of cosmology.
== Influence ==
Ptolemy's comprehensive treatise of mathematical astronomy superseded most older texts of Greek astronomy. Much of what we know about the work of astronomers like Hipparchus comes from references in the Syntaxis.
The book was circulated among astronomers, and also among philosophers who are interested in astronomy. The Almagest, however, was not translated into Latin in ancient times and had little influence on popular literature.
The first translations into Arabic were made in the 9th century, with two separate efforts, one sponsored by the caliph Al-Ma'mun, who received a copy as a condition of peace with the Byzantine emperor. Sahl ibn Bishr is thought to be the first Arabic translator.
No Latin translation was made before the 12th century. Henry Aristippus made the first Latin translation directly from a Greek copy, but it was not as influential as a later translation into Latin made in Spain by the Italian scholar Gerard of Cremona from the Arabic (finished in 1175). Gerard translated the Arabic text while working at the Toledo School of Translators, although he was unable to translate many technical terms such as the Arabic Abrachir for Hipparchus. In the 13th century a Spanish version was produced, which was later translated under the patronage of Alfonso X.
In the 15th century, a Greek version appeared in Western Europe. The German astronomer Johannes Müller (known as Regiomontanus, after his birthplace of Königsberg in Lower Frankonia) made an abridged Latin version at the instigation of the Greek churchman Cardinal Bessarion. Around the same time, George of Trebizond made a full translation accompanied by a commentary that was as long as the original text. George's translation, done under the patronage of Pope Nicholas V, was intended to supplant the old translation. The new translation was a great improvement; the new commentary was not, and aroused criticism. The Pope declined the dedication of George's work, and Regiomontanus's translation had the upper hand for over 100 years.
During the 16th century, Guillaume Postel, who had been on an embassy to the Ottoman Empire, brought back Arabic disputations of the Almagest, such as the works of al-Kharaqī, Muntahā al-idrāk fī taqāsīm al-aflāk ("The Ultimate Grasp of the Divisions of Spheres", 1138–39).
Commentaries on the Syntaxis were written by Theon of Alexandria (extant), Pappus of Alexandria (only fragments survive), and Ammonius Hermiae (lost).

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== Modern assessment ==
Under the scrutiny of modern scholarship, and the cross-checking of observations contained in the Almagest against figures produced through backwards extrapolation, various patterns of errors have emerged within the work. A prominent example is Ptolemy's use of measurements said to have been taken at noon, but which systematically produce readings that are off by half an hour, as if the observations were taken at 12:30pm. However, an explanation for this error was found in 1969.
The overall quality of Claudius Ptolemy's scholarship and place as "one of the most outstanding scientists of antiquity" has been challenged by several modern writers, most prominently by Robert R. Newton in the 1977 book The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, which asserted that the scholar fabricated his observations to fit his theories. Newton accused Ptolemy of systematically inventing data or doctoring the data of earlier astronomers, and labelled him "the most successful fraud in the history of science". One striking error noted by Newton was an autumn equinox said to have been observed by Ptolemy and "measured with the greatest care" at 2pm on 25 September 132, when the equinox should have been observed at 9:54am the day prior.
Herbert Lewis, who had reworked some of Ptolemy's calculations, agreed with Newton that "Ptolemy was an outrageous fraud", and that "all those results capable of statistical analysis point beyond question towards fraud and against accidental error".
Although some have described the charges laid by Newton as "erudite and imposing", others have disagreed with the findings. Bernard R. Goldstein wrote, "Unfortunately, Newton’s arguments in support of these charges are marred by all manner of distortions, misunderstandings, and excesses of rhetoric due to an intensely polemical style." Owen Gingerich, while agreeing that the Almagest contains "some remarkably fishy numbers", including in the matter of the 30-hour displaced equinox, which he noted aligned perfectly with predictions made by Hipparchus 278 years earlier, rejected the qualification of fraud.
John Phillips Britton, Visiting Fellow at Yale University, wrote of R.R. Newton, "I think that his main conclusion with respect to Ptolemy’s stature and achievements as an astronomer is simply wrong, and that the Almagest should be seen as a great, if not indeed the first, scientific treatise." He continued, "Newton’s work does focus critical attention on the many difficulties and inconsistencies apparent in the fine structure of the Almagest. In particular, his conclusion that the Almagest is not a historical account of how Ptolemy actually derived his models and parameters is essentially the same as mine, although our reasons for this conclusion and our inferences from it differ radically."
== Modern editions ==
The Almagest under the Latin title Syntaxis mathematica, was edited by J. L. Heiberg in Claudii Ptolemaei opera quae exstant omnia, vols. 1.1 and 1.2 (1898, 1903).
Three translations of the Almagest into English have been published. The first, by R. Catesby Taliaferro of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, was included in volume 16 of the Great Books of the Western World in 1952. The second, by G. J. Toomer, Ptolemy's Almagest in 1984, with a second edition in 1998. The third was a partial translation by Bruce M. Perry in The Almagest: Introduction to the Mathematics of the Heavens in 2014.
A direct French translation from the Greek text was published in two volumes in 1813 and 1816 by Nicholas Halma, including detailed historical comments in a 69-page preface. It has been described as "suffer[ing] from excessive literalness, particularly where the text is difficult" by Toomer, and as "very faulty" by Serge Jodra. The scanned books are available in full at the Gallica French National library.
A new French translation, with some interactive diagrams, was prepared in 2022 and is freely available on the web.
== Gallery ==
== See also ==
Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī (who also wrote an Almagest)
Book of Fixed Stars
Star cartography
Euclid's Elements
== References ==
=== Notes ===
=== Citations ===
=== Sources ===
==== Books ====
==== Journals and magazines ====
==== Websites ====
== Further reading ==
Evans, James (1998). The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509539-5.
Neugebauer, Otto (1948). "Mathematical Methods in Ancient Astronomy". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 54 (11): 1013–1041. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1948-09089-9.
Neugebauer, Otto (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Berlin: Springer. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. ISBN 3-540-06995-X.
Hanson, Norwood Russell (1960). "The Mathematical Power of Epicyclical Astronomy". Isis. 51 (2): 150–158. doi:10.1086/348869. JSTOR 226846.
Ridpath, Ian (2018) [1998]. Star Tales (Rev. ed.). Cambridge: Lutterworth Press. ISBN 978-0-7188-9478-8.
Pedersen, Olaf (1993) [1974]. Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-40899-8.
Pedersen, Olaf (2011) [1974]. A Survey of the Almagest (2nd ed.). Berlin: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4939-3922-0.
Ptolemaeus, Claudius. Syntaxis mathematica (in Greek). OCLC 767751182. Retrieved 10 April 2023 – via MDZ/München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Shank, Michael H. (2009). "Islamic Science and the Making of European Renaissance by George Saliba". Aestimatio (Book review). 6: 63–72.
== External links ==
Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest), original Greek, edited by Johan Ludvig Heiberg, 1898.
Syntaxis mathematica in J.L. Heiberg's edition (1898–1903)
Ptolemy's De Analemmate. PDF scans of Heiberg's Greek edition, now in the public domain (Koine Greek)
Toomer's English translation Duckworth, 1984.
Ptolemy. Almagest. Latin translation from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona. Digitized version of manuscript made in Northern Italy c. 1200–1225 held by the State Library of Victoria.
University of Vienna: Almagestum (1515) PDFs of different resolutions. Edition of Petrus Liechtenstein, Latin translation of Gerard of Cremona.
Almagest Ephemeris Calculator by Robert Van Gent. Positions for any date, translation of dates in calendars used by Ptolemy. Extensive list of references and articles.
Online luni-solar and planetary ephemeris calculator based on the Almagest
A podcast discussion by Prof. M Heath and Dr A. Chapman of a recent re-discovery of a 14th-century manuscript in the university of Leeds Library
Star catalog in ASCII (in Latin)
Animation of Ptolemy's model of the universe by Andre Rehak (YouTube)
(in French) French translation, with some diagrams animated, interactive, or random
(in Hebrew) Maimonides explaining why you need to learn Almagest first to understand science

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American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World is a non-fiction book by journalist David Baron, published by Liveright in 2017, about the popular impression of the 1878 solar eclipse as observed across the United States. It won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award in 2018.
== Background ==
Baron was inspired to write the book after viewing his first total solar eclipse in Aruba in 1998. He decided that he would publish it in 2017 in order to coincide with the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017.
== Synopsis ==
American Eclipse follows three scientists, James Craig Watson, Maria Mitchell, and Thomas Edison as they traveled to view the total solar eclipse on July 29, 1878.
== Reception ==
Kirkus Reviews described American Eclipse as a "compelling... timely, energetic combination of social and scientific history." Graham Ambrose, writing for The Denver Post, lauded Baron's social history of a scientific topic and that Baron "successfully swerves from the dry, impenetrable prose of science writing, grasping instead at something poetic, often funny."
== Publication ==
American Eclipse was released in hardcover in June 2017, paperback in 2018, and rereleased with a new afterword in 2024, to coincide with the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. The book was also adapted into a musical in and premiered at Baylor University on April 7, 2024.
== Further reading ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website

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Aryabhatiya (IAST: Āryabhaṭīya) or Aryabhatiyam (Āryabhaṭīyaṃ), a Sanskrit astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only known surviving work of the 5th century Indian mathematician Aryabhata. Historian of astronomy Roger Billard estimates that the book was composed around 510 CE based on historical references it mentions.
== Structure and style ==
Aryabhatiya is written in Sanskrit and divided into four sections; it covers a total of 121 verses describing different moralitus via a mnemonic writing style typical for such works in India (see definitions below):
Gitikapada (13 verses): large units of time—kalpa, manvantara, and yuga—which present a cosmology different from earlier texts such as Lagadha's Vedanga Jyotisha (ca. 1st century BCE). There is also a table of [sine]s (jya), given in a single verse. The duration of the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga is given as 4.32 million years, using the same method as in the Surya Siddhanta.
Ganitapada (33 verses): covering mensuration (kṣetra vyāvahāra); arithmetic and geometric progressions; gnomon/shadows (shanku-chhAyA); and simple, quadratic, simultaneous, and indeterminate equations (Kuṭṭaka).
Kalakriyapada (25 verses): different units of time and a method for determining the positions of planets for a given day, calculations concerning the intercalary month (adhikamAsa), kShaya-tithis, and a seven-day week with names for the days of week.
Golapada (50 verses): Geometric/trigonometric aspects of the celestial sphere, features of the ecliptic, celestial equator, node, shape of the Earth, cause of day and night, rising of zodiacal signs on horizon, etc. In addition, some versions cite a few colophons added at the end, extolling the virtues of the work, etc.
It is highly likely that the study of the Aryabhatiya was meant to be accompanied by the teachings of a well-versed tutor. While some of the verses have a logical flow, some do not, and its unintuitive structure can make it difficult for a casual reader to follow.
Indian mathematical works often use word numerals before Aryabhata, but the Aryabhatiya is the oldest extant Indian work with Devanagari numerals. That is, he used letters of the Devanagari alphabet to form number-words, with consonants giving digits and vowels denoting place value. This innovation allows for advanced arithmetical computations which would have been considerably more difficult without it. At the same time, this system of numeration allows for poetic license even in the author's choice of numbers. Cf. Aryabhata numeration, the Sanskrit numerals.
== Contents ==
The Aryabhatiya contains 4 sections, or Adhyāyās. The first section is called Gītīkāpāḍaṃ, containing 13 slokas. Aryabhatiya begins with an introduction called the "Dasageethika" or "Ten Stanzas." This begins by paying tribute to Brahman (not Brāhman), the "Cosmic spirit" in Hinduism. Next, Aryabhata lays out the numeration system used in the work. It includes a listing of astronomical constants and the sine table. He then gives an overview of his astronomical findings.
Most of the mathematics is contained in the next section, the "Ganitapada" or "Mathematics."
Following the Ganitapada, the next section is the "Kalakriya" or "The Reckoning of Time." In it, Aryabhata divides up days, months, and years according to the movement of celestial bodies. He divides up history astronomically; it is from this exposition that a date of AD 499 has been calculated for the compilation of the Aryabhatiya. The book also contains rules for computing the longitudes of planets using eccentrics and epicycles.
In the final section, the "Gola" or "The Sphere," Aryabhata goes into great detail describing the celestial relationship between the Earth and the cosmos. This section is noted for describing the rotation of the Earth on its axis. It further uses the armillary sphere and details rules relating to problems of trigonometry and the computation of eclipses.
== Significance ==
The treatise uses a geocentric model of the Solar System, in which the Sun and Moon are each carried by epicycles which in turn revolve around the Earth. In this model, which is also found in the Paitāmahasiddhānta (ca. AD 425), the motions of the planets are each governed by two epicycles, a smaller manda (slow) epicycle and a larger śīghra (fast) epicycle.
It has been suggested by some commentators, most notably B. L. van der Waerden, that certain aspects of Aryabhata's geocentric model suggest the influence of an underlying heliocentric model. This view has been contradicted by others and, in particular, strongly criticized by Noel Swerdlow, who characterized it as a direct contradiction of the text.
However, despite the work's geocentric approach, the Aryabhatiya presents many ideas that are foundational to modern astronomy and mathematics. Aryabhata asserted that the Moon, planets, and asterisms shine by reflected sunlight, correctly explained the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon, and calculated values for π and the length of the sidereal year that come very close to modern accepted values.
His value for the length of the sidereal year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds is only 3 minutes 20 seconds longer than the modern scientific value of 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes 10 seconds. A close approximation to π is given as: "Add four to one hundred, multiply by eight and then add sixty-two thousand. The result is approximately the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. By this rule the relation of the circumference to diameter is given." In other words, π ≈ 62832/20000 = 3.1416, correct to four rounded-off decimal places.
In this book, the day was reckoned from one sunrise to the next, whereas in his "Āryabhata-siddhānta" he took the day from one midnight to another. There was also difference in some astronomical parameters.
== Influence ==
The commentaries by the following 12 authors on Arya-bhatiya are known, beside some anonymous commentaries:

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Sanskrit language:
Prabhakara (c. 525)
Bhaskara I (c. 629)
Someshvara (c. 1040)
Surya-deva (born 1191), Bhata-prakasha
Parameshvara (c. 1380-1460), Bhata-dipika or Bhata-pradipika
Nila-kantha (c. 1444-1545)
Yallaya (c. 1482)
Raghu-natha (c. 1590)
Ghati-gopa
Bhuti-vishnu
Telugu language
Virupaksha Suri
Kodanda-rama (c. 1854)
The estimate of the diameter of the Earth in the Tarkīb al-aflāk of Yaqūb ibn Tāriq, of 2,100 farsakhs, appears to be derived from the estimate of the diameter of the Earth in the Aryabhatiya of 1,050 yojanas.
The work was translated into Arabic as Zij al-Arjabhar (c. 800) by an anonymous author. The work was translated into Arabic around 820 by Al-Khwarizmi, whose On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals was in turn influential in the adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europe from the 12th century.
Aryabhata's methods of astronomical calculations have been in continuous use for practical purposes of fixing the Panchangam (Hindu calendar).
== Apparent errors in Aryabhata's statements ==
O'Connor and Robertson state: "Aryabhata gives formulae for the areas of a triangle and of a circle which are correct, but the formulae for the volumes of a sphere and of a pyramid are claimed to be wrong by most historians". For example Ganitanand describes as "mathematical lapses" the fact that Aryabhata gives the incorrect formula V = Ah/2 (instead of V=Ah/3) for the volume of a pyramid with height h and triangular base of area A. He also appears to give an incorrect expression for the volume of a sphere. However, Elfering argues that this is not an error but rather the result of an incorrect translation. This relates to verses 6, 7, and 10 of the second section of the Aryabhatiya, with Elfering producing a translation which yields the correct answer for both the volume of a pyramid and for a sphere. However, in his translation Elfering translates two technical terms in a different way to the meaning which they usually have.
== See also ==
Aryabhata's sine table
Indian astronomy
== References ==
William J. Gongol. The Aryabhatiya: Foundations of Indian Mathematics. University of Northern Iowa.
Hugh Thurston, "The Astronomy of Āryabhata" in his Early Astronomy, New York: Springer, 1996, pp. 178–189. ISBN 0-387-94822-8
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Aryabhata", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews University of St Andrews.
== External links ==
The Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa at the Internet Archive (1930) translated into English by Walter Eugene Clark

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Astronomia nova (English: New Astronomy, full title in original Latin: Astronomia Nova ΑΙΤΙΟΛΟΓΗΤΟΣ seu physica coelestis, tradita commentariis de motibus stellae Martis ex observationibus G.V. Tychonis Brahe) is a book, published in 1609, that contains the results of the astronomer Johannes Kepler's ten-year-long investigation of the motion of Mars.
One of the most significant books in the history of astronomy, the Astronomia nova provided strong arguments for heliocentrism and contributed valuable insight into the movement of the planets. This included the first mention of the planets' elliptical paths and the change of their movement to the movement of free floating bodies as opposed to objects on rotating spheres. It is recognized as one of the most important works of the Scientific Revolution.
== Background ==
Prior to Kepler, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed in 1543 that the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun. The Copernican model of the Solar System was regarded as a device to explain the observed positions of the planets rather than a physical description.
Kepler sought for and proposed physical causes for planetary motion. His work is primarily based on the research of his mentor, Tycho Brahe. The two, though close in their work, had a tumultuous relationship. Regardless, in 1601 on his deathbed, Brahe asked Kepler to make sure that he did not "die in vain," and to continue the development of his model of the Solar System. Kepler would instead write the Astronomia nova, in which he rejects the Tychonic system, as well as the Ptolemaic system and the Copernican system. Some scholars have speculated that Kepler's dislike for Brahe may have had a hand in his rejection of the Tychonic system and formation of a new one.
By 1602, Kepler set to work on determining the orbit pattern of Mars, keeping David Fabricius informed of his progress. He suggested the possibility of an oval orbit to Fabricius by early 1604, though was not believed. Later in the year, Kepler wrote back with his discovery of Mars's elliptical orbit. The manuscript for Astronomia nova was completed by September 1607, and was in print by August 1609.
== Structure and summary ==
In English, the full title of his work is the New Astronomy, Based upon Causes, or Celestial Physics, Treated by Means of Commentaries on the Motions of the Star Mars, from the Observations of Tycho Brahe, Gent. For over 650 pages (in the English translation), Kepler walks his readers, step by step, through his process of discovery. The work is divided into 5 parts, and contains a total of 70 chapters.
=== Part 1 ===
In the first part, Kepler examines the relationship between the various astronomical hypotheses that were in use at the time.
In chapters 1-3, He shows that the heliocentric, geocentric and Tychonic models are all mathematically equivalent in that they predict the same angular positions of celestial object, and the variation in distance for any planet are also the same in all three models. This is so because the epicycle in the geocentric model plays the same role as the orbit of the Earth in heliocentric model and the orbit of the sun in Tycho's model. But the motion of the planets is observed to be non-uniform, even if we ignore the effects of the epicycle or the Earth's motion. Ptolemy and Copernicus had two different explanations for this. Ptolemy used an equant and eccentric circle, whereas Copernicus realized that he could combine two epicycles to explain the same effect. Kepler showed, however, that Copernicus' explanation is simply equivalent to an equant point with a non-circular orbit. The difference in the predictions between the two explanations were minor and are for practical purposes equivalent.
In chapters 4-6, Kepler considers a more physically plausible explanation for the non-uniform motion. He considers that the speed of the planet varies inversely with its distance from the sun. This explanation is shown, by calculation, to be consistent with the predictions of the equant or Copernicus' epicycles. But it requires Kepler to assume that the line of apsides for all planets intersect at the sun, whereas Ptolemy and Copernicus had assumed this point to be the center of the orbit of the earth/sun, which was referred to as the mean sun. The difference between the predictions is minor but is amplified if the effect of the Earth's orbit is accounted for, in which case the difference could get as high as
1
∘
{\textstyle 1\circ }
, which was certainly measurable.

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=== Part 2 ===
In part 2, Kepler introduces the vicarious Hypothesis, his first hypothesis to explain the motion of Mars.
In chapters 7-10, Kepler tells the story of how he was introduced to the problem of Mars' orbit. Tycho and his assistant had been working on a theory of Mars, but they had failed to accurately account for the observed position of Mars. Tycho's observational data included 12 oppositions of Mars, for which he had determined its position in ecliptic longitude and latitude. They had managed to fit a theory to the observed ecliptic longitudes accurate to within 2 minutes of arc, yet it failed completely to account for the ecliptic latitudes. Kepler was then tasked with determining a more accurate theory to match this observational data.
His first step was to establish a precise definition of opposition. Since planets do not orbit in the same plane, in general they never reach precisely
180
∘
{\textstyle 180\circ }
in angular separation. Ptolemy had assumed the planet reaches opposition when its ecliptic longitude is 180 degrees from the mean position of the sun. This definition ignores the ecliptic latitude, so when constructing the table of oppositions, Tycho's assistant suggested a correction to account for this, by instead measuring when the angle between the sun and one of the nodes along the ecliptic, was equal to the angle between planet and the opposite node measured along the path of the planet. But Kepler showed this correction to be erroneous for two reasons. First, the path of the planet as seen from the Earth is not the same as seen from the sun, and second, the ecliptic longitude of Mars as seen from the sun will not be the same as the ecliptic longitude of the Earth. The whole point of using oppositions is to eliminate the effect of the Earth's orbit, so that when we observe Mars from Earth, its position will be the same as if we observed it from the sun. So this error, which Kepler shows to be as high as 9 arcminutes, defeats the purpose of the correction.

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The sphere of the attractive virtue which is in the moon extends as far as the earth, and entices up the waters; but as the moon flies rapidly across the zenith, and the waters cannot follow so quickly, a flow of the ocean is occasioned in the torrid zone towards the westward. If the attractive virtue of the moon extends as far as the earth, it follows with greater reason that the attractive virtue of the earth extends as far as the moon and much farther; and, in short, nothing which consists of earthly substance anyhow constituted although thrown up to any height, can ever escape the powerful operation of this attractive virtue.
Kepler also clarifies the concept of lightness in terms of relative density, in opposition to the Aristotelian concept of the absolute nature or quality of lightness as follows. His argument could easily be applied today to something like the flight of a hot air balloon.
Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.
In reference to Kepler's discussion relating to gravitation, Walter William Bryant makes the following statement in his book Kepler (1920).
...the Introduction to Kepler's "Commentaries on the Motion of Mars," always regarded as his most valuable work, must have been known to Newton, so that no such incident as the fall of an apple was required to provide a necessary and sufficient explanation of the genesis of his Theory of Universal Gravitation. Kepler's glimpse at such a theory could have been no more than a glimpse, for he went no further with it. This seems a pity, as it is far less fanciful than many of his ideas, though not free from the "virtues" and "animal faculties," that correspond to Gilbert's "spirits and humours".
Kepler considered that this attraction was mutual and was proportional to the bulk of the bodies, but he considered it to have a limited range and he did not consider whether or how this force may have varied with distance. Furthermore, this attraction only acted between "kindred bodies"—bodies of a similar nature, a nature which he did not clearly define. Kepler's idea differed significantly from Newton's later concept of gravitation and it can be "better thought of as an episode in the struggle for heliocentrism than as a step toward Universal gravitation."
Kepler sent Galileo the book while the latter was working on his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (published in 1632, two years after Kepler's death). Galileo had been trying to determine the path of an object falling from rest towards the center of the Earth, but used a semicircular orbit in his calculation.
== Commemoration ==
The 2009 International Year of Astronomy commemorated the 400th anniversary of the publication of this work.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Johannes Kepler, New Astronomy, translated by William H. Donahue, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1992. ISBN 0-521-30131-9
Kepler's Astronomia Nova
cosmology & astronomy
== External links ==
Astronomia nova by Johannes Kepler, 1609, in Latin, full text scan
Astronomia nova by Johannes Kepler, 1609, in Latin, full text at archive.org
Origins of Modernity - Kepler: Astronomia nova

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The actual correction Kepler shows to be less than 1 minute of arc, which is smaller than the error in Tycho's observations, and for practical purposes can be ignored. So, opposition can be defined as the moment when the ecliptic longitude of the sun and Mars are
180
∘
{\textstyle 180\circ }
apart. Although the ecliptic longitude of Mars is the same from the Earth and sun at this point, the same is not true for the ecliptic latitude. In the diagram above
G
{\textstyle G}
is the sun,
H
{\textstyle H}
is the Earth and
I
{\textstyle I}
is Mars. The line
G
H
{\textstyle GH}
is in the plane of the ecliptic. The angle
β
{\textstyle \beta }
is the angle that Mars appears above the ecliptic when viewed from Earth; this is the ecliptic latitude. The angle
α
{\textstyle \alpha }
is the ecliptic latitude viewed from the sun, which is smaller than
β
{\textstyle \beta }
. The relation between these angles tells us something about the ratio of the Earth-sun distance
G
H
{\textstyle GH}
and the Mars-Sun distance
G
I
{\textstyle GI}
.
In chapter 11, Kepler attempts to determine the parallax of Mars. As Mars is close to the Earth, its position in the sky will appear to change slightly as the observer's position changes throughout the day, even if it is otherwise stationary. This effect, called parallax, would be greatest when Mars is at opposition, since at that time Mars is at its closest point to the Earth. The existing estimates of the distance to the sun, based largely on Aristarchus' method, suggested the parallax could be as high as 6 minutes of arc, but Kepler's own attempts to determine parallax gave values that were less than 2 arc minutes.
In chapters 12-14, Kepler determines the longitude of Mars' ascending and descending nodes and the orbital inclination of Mars. To find the nodes, Kepler looks for observations of Mars where its ecliptic latitude is close to
0
{\textstyle 0}
, then use interpolation to find the exact moment when it is zero and uses then use existing tables such as the Prutenic tables (which were based on Copernicus' theory) to compute the longitude of Mars at that time. Kepler located the ascending node at
225
∘
44
1
2
′
{\textstyle 225^{\circ }44{\frac {1}{2}}'}
and the descending node at
46
∘
1
8
′
{\displaystyle 46^{\circ }{\frac {1}{8}}'}
. These values are not precisely
180
∘
{\displaystyle 180^{\circ }}
apart. The longitudes in the Prutenic tables were measured from the mean sun. Kepler argues that if they were measured from the sun's actual position instead the values would be
180
∘
{\displaystyle 180^{\circ }}
apart.
The Prutenic tables also provided distances to the planets. This allows Kepler to solve the triangle in figure 1 above to compute heliocentric latitude from the observed geocentric latitude, from which he could deduce the orbital inclination of Mars by observing Mars when its latitude was greatest and computing its heliocentric latitude. He finds the orbital inclination to be
1
∘
50
′
{\displaystyle 1^{\circ }50'}
. This also allowed Kepler to demonstrate the important fact that plane of Mars orbit does not wobble in any way as many theories before him had suggested. Using observations from various points, he shows the orbital inclination is constant.
In chapter 15, Kepler recomputes Tycho's 12 oppositions, so as to determine the precise moment Mars's ecliptic longitude is
180
∘
{\textstyle 180^{\circ }}
from the sun. For each observation, he determines the ecliptic longitude and latitude of Mars as seen from the Earth, and the time when opposition occurs.
In chapter 16, Kepler constructs his first model, the vicarious hypothesis, to account for the observations. This is a modification of the equant model of Ptolemy. In this model, the planet is assumed to move on a circular orbit, and the speed on the orbit varies in such a way that it appears uniform from some point called the equant. The line connecting the equant and the center of the circle is called the line of apsides, and it intersect the circle at two points, one where the planet moves at its fastest speed called the aphelion and the other where the planet moves at its slowest speed called the perihelion.
For his model, Ptolemy had assumed that the center of the circle lies exactly halfway between the equant and the point from which opposition is measured (which for Kepler is the sun), this model is called bisected eccentricity. Kepler however considers the more general hypothesis that the center of the circle can be placed at any point along the line of apsides between the sun and the equant.

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In the diagram above, let
A
{\textstyle A}
be the sun,
B
{\textstyle B}
be the center of the circular orbit, and
C
{\textstyle C}
be the equant point. The points
I
{\textstyle I}
and
H
{\textstyle H}
are the perihelion and aphelion respectively. Let
G
{\textstyle G}
be the position of Mars at a particular observation. The angle
∠
G
A
H
{\textstyle \angle GAH}
Kepler refers to as the true anomaly, and the angle
∠
G
C
H
{\textstyle \angle GCH}
the mean anomaly. For any observation, the true anomaly could be deduced if we knew the longitude of aphelion, by finding the difference between this and the longitude of the observation. The mean anomaly could be deduced if we knew the time when Mars it at aphelion, and by using the fact the Mars, viewed from the equant, traverses equal angles in equal times. If the true anomaly and the mean anomaly were known, we could likewise determine the location of the point
G
{\textstyle G}
by finding where the lines drawn from
B
{\textstyle B}
and
A
{\textstyle A}
intersect. For the purposes of calculation, we can take the length of the line
C
A
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {CA}}}
to be
1
{\textstyle 1}
.
Kepler's procedure is to take for 4 observations of Mars at opposition. By taking an initial guess for the longitude of aphelion and the time of aphelion, values could be computed for the mean anomaly and true anomaly of each observation, from which the location of Mars at each observation could be determined by the intersection of the lines
A
G
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {AG}}}
and
C
G
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {CG}}}
. If the 4 points do not lie on a circle, then the line of apsides
H
I
{\textstyle HI}
is rotated about the point
A
{\textstyle A}
; this shifts the values for the true anomalies, until all 4 points lie on a circle. Then if the center of the circle
B
{\textstyle B}
is not on the line of apsides, the line
H
I
{\textstyle HI}
is rotated about the point
C
{\textstyle C}
until the point
B
{\textstyle B}
falls on the line of apsides; this shifts the values for the mean anomalies. But doing this also shifts the position of the points so that they no longer fall on a circle. This procedure is repeated again and again until all 4 points fall on a circle and the center of the circle
B
{\textstyle B}
falls on the line of apsides
H
I
{\textstyle HI}
. This iterative process takes a long time to converge. In describing the procedure, Kepler writes:
If thou art bored with this wearisome method of calculation, take pity on me, who had to go through with at least seventy repetitions of it, at a very great loss of time.
At the end of the procedure, Kepler calculates the parameters for the model. He determines the longitude of aphelion as
148
∘
9
{\textstyle 148^{\circ }9}
. The eccentricity of the circle is defined to be the distance from the center of the circle to the sun
A
B
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {AB}}}
, divided by the radius of the circle
H
B
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {HB}}}
, the value Kepler determines to be
0.11332
{\textstyle 0.11332}
. The eccentricity of the equant is defined as
C
B
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {CB}}}
divided by the radius of the circle, which he finds to be equal to
0.07232
{\textstyle 0.07232}
. The sum of these values is referred to as the total eccentricity.
In chapter 17, Kepler makes a small correction for the fact that the longitude of aphelion and nodes are not constant but shift slowly over time.

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In chapters 18-21, Kepler compares the theory to observations. First, he compares the longitude of the remaining 8 oppositions and finds that they all fit the predicted position of Mars to within Tycho's observational accuracy of two minutes of arc. This means that the vicarious hypothesis can be taken as an accurate theory for the true anomaly. Despite this remarkable accuracy, however, Kepler shows that the theory is false. He remarks:Who would have thought it possible? This hypothesis, so closely in agreement with the observations, is nevertheless false.
Using the latitudes of the opposition and the latitude triangle from figure 1, Kepler is able to find the ratio of the Earth and Mars distances from the sun. The Earth-Sun distances
G
H
{\textstyle GH}
are taken from an existing theory given by Tycho Brahe in his Progymnasmata, even though these values are not precisely correct, and the goal of the next part will be to determine a more accurate theory for the Earth's motion. The angles
∠
I
H
E
{\textstyle \angle IHE}
are determined by the latitude of the observations, and the angle
I
G
H
{\textstyle IGH}
is determined from the orbital inclination and the angle between Mars and the node. From this, the remaining sides can be determined, and the distances. By computing such distances, he obtained a lower and upper estimate for the eccentricity of Mars:
0.08
{\displaystyle 0.08}
–
0.09943
{\displaystyle 0.09943}
. The eccentricity found in the vicarious hypothesis is outside this range.
Kepler then examines another method for determining distances to Mars, by using observations of Mars when it is not at opposition and determining the longitude of Mars. The angle between the sun and Mars as viewed from Earth can be determined from observations. Tycho made many observations of Mars when it is not at opposition and determined the difference in ecliptic longitude between the sun and Mars in the sky. The angle between Mars and the Earth as viewed from the sun can be determined by calculating the heliocentric longitude of Mars from the vicarious hypothesis, and that of the Earth from Tycho's theory and taking the difference. And the distance from the Earth to the sun is given from Tycho's theory. Thus, the Earth, sun and Mars form a triangle, where two angles are known, and one side is given, the remaining sides and angles can be computed. In particular, we can determine the Earth-Mars distance. Computing these distances, Kepler once again finds an eccentricity closer to
0.09
{\displaystyle 0.09}
, half the value of the total eccentricity (sum of that of the equant plus that of the circle).
Kepler repeats the calculation where he substituted the mean sun in place of the true sun, to show that exactly the same thing arises in such case. So, the hypothesis of the true sun cannot be at fault. As a final recourse, Kepler considers what would happen if we substituted bisected eccentricity into the vicarious hypothesis (i.e. let the eccentricity of the circle be half the total eccentricity), which is
0.09282
{\textstyle 0.09282}
. When he compares this model to the observations of oppositions, he finds the error now increases to 8 minutes of arc, which is greater than Tycho's observational error. He writes:Now, because they could not be disregarded, these eight minutes alone will lead us along a path to the reform of the whole of Astronomy, and they are the matter for a great part of this work.The inconsistency in determining the eccentricity means that at least one of the assumptions that went into constructing the vicarious hypothesis must be false: either the orbit is not circular, or there is no equant point a fixed distance away from the center of the circle.

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=== Part 3 ===
In the third part, Kepler aims to determine an accurate theory for the motion of the Earth, which will be the steppingstone for determining a more accurate theory for Mars in the next section. In chapters 22-27, Kepler shows that the Earth does not move uniformly about the center of its orbit. The primary observations for determining the Earth's motion around the sun are direct observations of the sun; its ecliptic longitude as seen from the Earth is the opposite to that seen from the sun. Remarkably, uniform circular motion can match these observations to within an accuracy of one minute of arc, less than the accuracy of Tycho's observation. Tycho himself determined the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit based on his observations and the assumption of uniform circular motion to be
0.03584
{\textstyle 0.03584}
. Using the observations of Mars, Kepler finds several methods to show that the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit calculated, on the basis of uniform circular motion, cannot possibly be correct. One method that Kepler uses is based on the fact that after one complete orbit, Mars returns to exactly the same physical location. Since the orbital period of Mars is 687 days, we find observations of Mars that are spaced 687 days apart. If we assume the existence of a fixed point in space from which the motion of the Earth appears uniform, then the distance from Mars to that point is fixed (since the position of Mars is also fixed) . The angle between Earth and Mars as seen from the equant, can be computed from the Earth's mean anomaly and the fact that the observed angle from the equant changes at a uniform rate. The angle between the Mars and the equant as seen from Earth can be computed from the observed position of Mars, and the fact that this imaginary equant point would appear to move uniformly when viewed from Earth; we can therefore use the Earth's mean anomaly. For this purpose, Kepler makes use of Tycho's tables which are calculated from the sun's mean position. From a given distance, and two angles we can solve the triangle. From the observations Kepler shows that the distance from the Earth to the equant is not fixed. Therefore, if the Earth's orbit is circular, it cannot be centered on the point from which its motion is uniform. The equant is thus distinct from the center of the Earth's orbit. Kepler additionally uses various other constructions to show that the real eccentricity of the Earth's orbit is close to
0.018
{\textstyle 0.018}
, precisely half the value computed from the assumption of uniform circular motion. In chapter 28, Kepler shows a method to test the correctness of the hypothesis for the Earth's orbit. This is essentially the
687
{\textstyle 687}
days method in reverse. Compute the distance and angle to the Earth from our hypothesis. Use the observed angles of Mars, and the computed angles from our theory to make the same triangle, except this time the distance to the Earth is given, and we solve for the distance and the heliocentric longitude of Mars. If our hypothesis is correct, then for each observation, the calculated distance to Mars and heliocentric longitude must be exactly the same. This method also allows us to test the critical assumption that Mars really does return to the exact same position after one revolution in its orbit. In chapters 29-30, Kepler briefly mentions two other ways he had shown that the eccentricity of the Earth should be bisected. First he had measured the angular diameter of the sun in the winter (near perihelion) and summer (near aphelion) and computed the relative distances, which gives an eccentricity consistent with half of Tycho's value. He had also shown in his Mysterium Cosmographicum that the distances of his nested polyhedra hypothesis would match the observations better if he assumed the eccentricity is half what Tycho proposes. He then proceeds to construct the table for computing the Earth's position based on the eccentricity of 0.018. He admits, in constructing this table, the use of a non-circular orbit, but the theory for that is developed later on. In chapters 31-36, Kepler considers the reason for this bisection of the eccentricity. The bisection has been shown accurate for the Earth and Mars from the observations. The bisection is also used for the planets Jupiter and Saturn in all theories since Ptolemy. Likewise, Tycho Brahe had shown that this model works well for the moon too. When constructing a theory for Venus and Mercury, Copernicus had added a small epicycle to the orbit that had a period of revolution equal to the orbit of the Earth. Kepler shows that this epicycle can be removed if we bisect the eccentricities of Venus and Mercury as well. Thus the hypothesis of bisected eccentricity is valid for all planets and for the moon. Since this constitutes a universal law, valid for all planets, Kepler finds it necessary to seek the physical cause of this bisection. Kepler starts by computing the speed of the planet at aphelion and perihelion from this bisected eccentricity model; the result shows that the ratio of the speeds at these points is equal to the inverse ratio of the distances. From this, he introduces the hypothesis that the speed of the planet is inversely proportional to its distance from the sun. Kepler then argues this variation in speed must be the result of a force from the sun. To explain why each planet has a different speed than would otherwise be predicted from extending this inverse distance law to all the planets, Kepler postulates that each planet has its own resistance to the force generated by the sun (a concept similar to inertia). Finally, Kepler establishes magnetism as the likely cause for this force, because it has a similar property of a force weakening with distance. In addition to this, the existence of a magnetic field had recently been discovered for Earth. He therefore suggests the Earth's rotation causes the motion of the moon, and likewise, if the sun too rotates and has a magnetic field, this will be the cause of the planets motion. In chapter 37, Kepler briefly touches on the subject of Lunar theory. The orbit of the moon required two additional inequalities to explain its motion, these are evection and variation. Kepler argues that both these can be explained by the fact that the moon speeds up in its orbit when it forms a straight line with the Earth and sun. Thus, both the forces from the sun and Earth combine together to move the moon when it is aligned with them in this configuration. In chapters 38-39, Kepler gives an explanation for why the orbits of the planets are not concentric with the sun. He considers that each planet has its own magnetic force which pushes and pulls it away from the sun, depending on how its poles are oriented with respect to the sun. The physical line of reasoning given also hints at the possibility that the orbit is not circular.

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In chapter 40, Kepler gives a method for computing the orbit of the Earth based on these physical hypotheses. Kepler notes the extreme difficulty that arises when trying to compute the speed of the planet as the distance is constantly changing. For this reason, he introduces a shortcut, inspired by Archimedes' method of computing pi. If we break the orbit up into little triangles drawn from the sun, then the distance the planet travels is given by the base of the triangle, and the distance from the sun is given by the height of the triangle. If we choose triangles that divide the planet's motion into equal units of time, then the triangles are shown to have equal area, because as the height decreases, the base must increase by the same amount, as the planet moves faster, and vice versa. Kepler therefore introduces his law of areas, equal areas correspond to equal times. To calculate the orbit from this, we define the mean anomaly as the time since planet has last reached aphelion divided by the orbital period times 360 degrees. The true anomaly is defined as the angle between the planet and aphelion as viewed from the sun, and eccentric anomaly is the same angle viewed from the center of the orbit.

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In the diagram above,
A
{\textstyle A}
is the sun and
B
{\textstyle B}
is the center of the circle;
G
{\textstyle G}
is aphelion and
D
{\textstyle D}
is the planet. The area of the sector
G
A
D
{\textstyle GAD}
is the area swept by the line drawn from the planet to the sun. From the area law, this is proportional to the time that the planet has traversed the segment
G
D
{\textstyle GD}
in its orbit, and therefore also the mean anomaly. Thus the area
G
A
D
{\textstyle GAD}
gives the mean anomaly. The eccentric anomaly is defined by the angle
∠
G
B
D
{\textstyle \angle GBD}
. Since the angle of a sector, centered on a circle, is always proportional to its area, we can also express this by the area
G
B
D
{\textstyle GBD}
. The relation between these two areas gives the relation between the mean anomaly (and therefore time) and eccentric anomaly.
From the diagram, it is clear that the mean anomaly is simply the eccentric anomaly plus the area of the triangle
D
A
B
{\textstyle DAB}
. The base of this triangle
A
B
¯
{\textstyle {\overline {AB}}}
is the eccentricity of the circle, and the height of the triangle is proportional to sine of the eccentric anomaly. This is the Kepler equation. If we write
M
{\textstyle M}
for the mean anomaly,
E
{\textstyle E}
for the eccentric anomaly, and
e
{\textstyle e}
for the eccentricity, then this can be written as:
M
=
E
+
e
sin
⁡
(
E
)
{\displaystyle M=E+e\sin(E)}
Kepler further shows that the true anomaly is given by the eccentric anomaly plus the angle
∠
D
B
A
{\textstyle \angle DBA}
. Kepler refers to the angle
∠
D
B
A
{\textstyle \angle DBA}
as the optical equation. For low eccentricities, this angle is approximately twice the area of the triangle
D
B
A
{\textstyle DBA}
. If we write the true anomaly as
ϑ
{\textstyle \vartheta }
, this gives the formula:
ϑ
≈
E
+
2
e
sin
⁡
(
E
)
{\displaystyle \vartheta \approx E+2e\sin(E)}

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=== Part 4 ===
In part 4, Kepler develops an accurate theory to account for the motion of Mars based on the observations and the physical hypotheses that were laid out in the previous section.
In chapters 41-44, Kepler proves that the orbit of Mars is not a circle. The procedure once again uses the fact that the Earth, sun and Mars form a triangle. The Earth-sun distance can now be calculated accurately from the theory developed in the previous section, and the heliocentric longitude of Mars is determined from the vicarious hypothesis. For any given observation of Mars, the position of Mars can now be plotted accurately using the following procedure: plot the position of Earth using the theory developed in the previous section. Then, draw a line extending from the sun in the direction given by the vicarious hypothesis. Draw a line from the Earth in the direction corresponding to the heliocentric longitude that Mars is observed. The intersection between these two lines is the position of Mars. Finally, a correction is made for the fact that Mars is not in the plane of the ecliptic when observed, by using the latitude determined from the sun. By plotting several points of Mars on its orbit, Kepler shows the path of Mars is smaller at the sides than the best fit circle. thus, the path is an oval.
In chapters 45-50, Kepler attempts to find the physical cause of deviation of the planet from a perfect circular path. He considers the following model: the magnetic rays from the rotating sun move the planet in a circular path. But the planet's own internal magnetic force causes it to move on a circle of its own, creating an epicycle. The motion of the planet on this epicycle is uniform, while the motion of the planet around the sun is non-uniform, its speed being given by the law of area. This motion should create an oval path.
Constructing this oval is extremely difficult however, so Kepler settles on another idea: compute the distances of the planet from its epicycle and use the vicarious hypothesis to determine the direction of the planet from the sun. The oval path that is constructed by this method is slightly wider at the perihelion than at aphelion, so this orbit is properly an egg shape. In order to make use of his law of areas, Kepler needs to determine the area of this egg shape, which is not a trivial problem. Kepler approximates the oval as an ellipse, noting that the area should not differ significantly from the oval.
When Kepler compares this model to the observations, however, he finds an error of 8 minutes of arc in predicted longitudes. This is the same error which was found in the bisected eccentricity model. However, where the bisected eccentricity predicted the planet ahead of its true position, the oval would predict it behind, so the errors were in the opposite direction. After rejecting various possible sources of error in his calculations, Kepler comes to the conclusion that the real path of the planet must lay halfway between bisected eccentricity model and the oval path. This also brings into question physical principles on which this hypothesis is based.
In chapters 51-55, Kepler takes several pairs of observations of Mars that are symmetric along the line of apsides. These observations confirm that the distances to Mars are the same on either side and thus confirms that the line of apsides drawn through the sun is correct, which confirms his physical hypothesis. By taking several of these observations, spaced 687 days apart, Kepler is able to adjust the parameters of Mars orbit until the distances match. Doing this allows him to find more accurate distances for Mars. But the observations also force him to question the accuracy of the vicarious hypothesis outside of opposition observations. So, Kepler takes observations of Mars close to opposition, where the vicarious hypothesis could be trusted. After adjusting the parameters of the orbit until the distances line up, he finds that the distances at the sides are exactly halfway between what is predicted by the oval and the bisected eccentricity model.
In chapters 56-60, Kepler tells the story of how he finally arrived at the correct path for the orbit of Mars. He had noticed that the maximum deviation of the true anomaly and the eccentric anomaly was
5.3
∘
{\displaystyle 5.3^{\circ }}
; he refers to this as the optical equation. The secant of this is
1.00429
{\displaystyle 1.00429}
, which represented an accurate fit to the deviation of Mars' path from a circle, which he had earlier determined from the observations to be about
0.43
%
{\displaystyle 0.43\%}
. He considers the possibility that the distances might be given by the secant of optical equation at other points in its orbit. When computing the numbers, he realized that he had seen them before in an earlier calculation which involved projecting the orbit of Mars on the diameter of an epicycle.
Thus, Kepler declares that the Mars moves as if it is oscillating on the diameter of an epicycle. He examines a possible physical mechanism that could cause such a thing, and he finds that the same mechanism he outlined in Chapter 39 works: the planets' magnetic force pushes or pulls depending on the orientation of its poles. This oscillating motion is shown to be proportional to
cos
⁡
(
E
)
{\textstyle \cos(E)}
, so that the radial distance from the sun is given by
r
=
1
−
e
cos
⁡
(
E
)
{\textstyle r=1-e\cos(E)}
, where
E
{\textstyle E}
is the eccentric anomaly, and
e
{\textstyle e}
is the eccentricity. What Kepler had just described here is essentially the formula for an ellipse in polar coordinates. However, when he attempted the construction, he made an error, resulting in a completely different orbit which did not match the observations. After returning to his method from earlier, he once again stumbled on the ellipse, only then did he realize his error. He writes:

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I laid [the original equation] aside, and fell back on ellipses, believing that this was quite a different hypothesis, whereas the two, as I shall prove in the next chapter, are one in [sic] the same... Ah, what a foolish bird I have been!
=== Part 5 ===
In the final section, Kepler gives an accurate account of the ecliptic latitude of Mars. He also outlines a physical hypothesis to explain why the orbit of planets are not precisely in the same plane.
In chapters 61-62, Kepler determines the values for Mars' ascending and descending nodes. Using the distance to Earth and Mars computed from the previous section, and the observed geocentric latitude of Mars, Kepler is able to determine the heliocentric latitude of Mars at any point in its orbit. From this, Kepler determines each of the parameters using the same methods from chapters 11-14. For the ascending node he finds
46
∘
32
1
2
′
{\textstyle 46^{\circ }32{\frac {1}{2}}'}
and for the descending nodes
226
∘
32
1
2
′
{\displaystyle 226^{\circ }32{\frac {1}{2}}'}
. He also determines the orbital inclination to be
1
∘
49
′
{\displaystyle 1^{\circ }49'}
.
In chapter 63, Kepler gives a physical reason why the orbit of the planets are not in the same plane. He considers the idea that the rotation of the sun defines an invariable plane. All the planets are inclined at an angle to this plane, because the planets magnetic field are attracted to a fixed direction in space below this plane.
In chapter 64, Kepler shows that the parallax of Mars must be small. Had there been any noticeable parallax, it would have affected the apparent location of the ascending and descending nodes. But the measured values are exactly
180
∘
{\displaystyle 180^{\circ }}
apart.
In chapters 65-66, Kepler shows that the Mars does not reach closest to the Earth precisely at opposition, but the date of closest approach can be a few days before or after opposition.
In chapters 67-70, Kepler examines several questions relating to the long term behavior of the orbits of Earth and Mars, by comparing his observations with those from the time of Ptolemy. The imprecise nature of some of these observations, as well as the errors, makes it difficult to arrive at conclusive results at times. Some of these questions include: do the eccentricities of orbits change over time? or do the nodes precess at a non-uniform rate?
== Kepler's laws ==
The Astronomia nova records the discovery of the first two of the three principles known today as Kepler's laws of planetary motion, which are:
That the planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus.
That the speed of the planet changes at each moment such that the time between two positions is always proportional to the area swept out on the orbit between these positions.
Kepler discovered the "second law" before the first. He presented his second law in two different forms: In Chapter 32 he states that the speed of the planet varies inversely based upon its distance from the Sun, and therefore he could measure changes in position of the planet by adding up all the distance measures, or looking at the area along an orbital arc. This is his so-called "distance law". In Chapter 59, he states that a radius from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. This is his so-called "area law".
However, Kepler's "area-time principle" did not facilitate easy calculation of planetary positions. Kepler could divide up the orbit into an arbitrary number of parts, compute the planet's position for each one of these, and then refer all questions to a table, but he could not determine the position of the planet at each and every individual moment because the speed of the planet was always changing. This paradox, referred to as the "Kepler problem," prompted the development of calculus.
A decade after the publication of the Astronomia nova, Kepler discovered his "third law", published in his 1619 Harmonices Mundi (Harmonies of the world). He found that the ratio of the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of each planet's orbit, to the square of time of its orbital period, is the same for all planets.
== Kepler's knowledge of gravity ==
In his introductory discussion of a moving earth, Kepler addressed the question of how the Earth could hold its parts together if it moved away from the center of the universe which, according to Aristotelian physics, was the place toward which all heavy bodies naturally moved. Kepler proposed an attractive force similar to magnetism, which may have been known by Newton.
Gravity is a mutual corporeal disposition among kindred bodies to unite or join together; thus the earth attracts a stone much more than the stone seeks the earth. (The magnetic faculty is another example of this sort).... If two stones were set near one another in some place in the world outside the sphere of influence of a third kindred body, these stones, like two magnetic bodies, would come together in an intermediate place, each approaching the other by a space proportional to the bulk [moles] of the other.... For it follows that if the earth's power of attraction will be much more likely to extend to the moon and far beyond, and accordingly, that nothing that consists to any extent whatever of terrestrial material, carried up on high, ever escapes the grasp of this mighty power of attraction.
Kepler discusses the Moon's gravitational effect upon the tides as follows:

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Astronomicum Caesareum (Astronomy of the Caesars; also translated as The Emperor's Astronomy) is a book by Petrus Apianus first published in 1540.
Astronomicum was initially published in 1540. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his brother Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, both commissioned the work. It was printed at Apianus's press in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, and took eight years to produce. It expanded and changed when reprinted; the final version has 55 leaves. Apianus evidently changed his plans while producing a single edition. A volvelle in one version of Astronomicum has "an entirely irrelevant base of an astrolabe" underneath, suggesting that he considered creating one and then abandoned the idea.
Twenty-one of its 36 woodcuts are volvelles. Astronomicum's volvelles rely on a geocentric model of the universe. However, despite the false science on which they depended, knowledgeable readers could still use them to predict planetary movements. Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium shortly after Astronomicum appeared, which began a transition to heliocentrism as the standard astronomical model.
Although other 16th-century books used volvelles, Astronomicum's are distinctive because they take precedence over the book's text, as opposed to serving as illustrations. According to Ronald Brashear and Daniel Lewis, Astronomicum is "really a scientific calculating instrument as much as a book".
A 1997 study reported that 111 copies of the book existed. Tycho Brahe bought one copy in 1599 which is in the collection of a library in Gotha, likely Forschungsbibliothek Gotha.
== Notes ==
== Sources ==
Brashear, Ronald; Lewis, Daniel (2001). Star Struck: One Thousand Years of the Art and Science of Astronomy. Huntington Library; University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98097-4. OCLC 45393510.
Christianson, Scott (2012). 100 Diagrams that Changed the World: From the Earliest Cave Paintings to the Innovation of the iPod. Plume. ISBN 978-0-452-29877-4. OCLC 778419237.
Gingerich, Owen (1994). "Early Astronomical Books with Moving Parts". In Katz, William A. (ed.). A History of Book Illustration: 29 Points of View. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-2742-5. OCLC 29595405.
Helfand, Jessica (2002). Reinventing the Wheel. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-338-7. OCLC 48817585.
== External links ==
Media related to Astronomicum Caesareum at Wikimedia Commons

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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a 2017 popular science book by Neil deGrasse Tyson, centering around a number of basic questions about the universe. Published on May 2, 2017, by W. W. Norton & Company, the book is a collection of Tyson's essays that appeared in Natural History magazine at various times from 1997 to 2007.
== Contents ==
Neil deGrasse Tyson's Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a popular introduction to the main concepts and issues of modern astrophysics. The author explains the origin and structure of the Universe, the force of gravity, light, dark matter and dark energy, about our place in the Cosmos and how we try to understand its laws. The book is written in a simple and lively language, using vivid analogies. It is intended for a wide range of readers who want to get a general idea of astrophysics without complex formulas and details. The book consists of 12 short chapters, based on essays published in Natural History magazine.
== Sales ==
The book debuted at #1 on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list when it first appeared in May, 2017. It sold 48,416 copies in its first week, making it the second-most-purchased overall in the U.S. for that week (behind the children's fiction novel The Dark Prophecy). A year later, it remained in the top five and had sold in excess of one million copies.
== Reception ==
In Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer praised Tyson's "down-to-earth wit" and stated that the book "shows once again [Tyson's] masterly skills at explaining complex scientific concepts in a lucid, readable fashion."
The book's accessible language is noted in a review in BBC Sky at Night magazine. The reviewer suggests that the reader who spends their time on Tyson's work, will have a good understanding of "every part of our known Universe, how it came to be and what still keeps physicists up at night".
Tyson was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
== References ==

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The Atlas Coelestis is a star atlas published posthumously in 1729, based on observations made by the First Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed.
The Atlas – the largest that ever had been published and the first comprehensive telescopic star catalogue and companion celestial atlas – contains 26 maps of the major constellations visible from Greenwich, with drawings made in the Rococo style by James Thornhill. It also presents two planispheres designed by Abraham Sharp.
== History ==
The first stellar atlas based in telescopic observations, the Atlas Coelestis was published only ten years after the death of Flamsteed, by his widow, assisted by Joseph Crosthwait and Abraham Sharp. It was preceded by the opus "Stellarum inerrantium Catalogus Britannicus" (or simply "British Catalogue", published in 1725, with 2919 stars).
One of Flamsteed's main motivations to produce the Atlas, was to correct the representation of the figures of the constellations, as made by Bayer in his "Uranometria" (1603). Bayer represented the figures viewed from behind (not from the front, as was done since the time of Ptolemy), and these new positions contradicted the traditional star descriptions (i.e., Ptolemy's "star in the right shoulder" of Orion had become, in Bayer's rendering, the star in the left shoulder) and created unnecessary confusion.
The publication enjoyed immediate success, becoming the standard reference for professional astronomers for nearly a century. Even so, three objections have been raised regarding it: the high price, great size (making it difficult to handle) and low artistic quality (many criticisms were made to the drawings by James Thornhill, particularly regarding the representation of Aquarius).
This led John Bevis to try to improve the Atlas. In 1745, he produced the "Uranographia Britannica", with smaller dimensions, updated with observations and more artistic pictures. However, this atlas was never officially published and at the present, there are only 16 known copies.
== The Atlas Fortin-Flamsteed ==
Finally, the changes in the positions of stars (the original observations were made in the 1690s), led to an update made in 1776 by the French engineer Jean Nicolas Fortin, supervised by the astronomers Le Monnier and Messier, from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris.
The new version, called Atlas Fortin-Flamsteed, had 1/3 of the size of the original, but kept the same table structure. There is also some artistic retouching to some illustrations (mostly Andromeda, Virgo and Aquarius). Fortin called this the Second Edition because he regarded Flamsteed’s original as the First Edition.
The names of the constellations are in French (not in Latin) and the Atlas included some nebulae discovered after the death of Flamsteed.
In 1795, a third edition was published, produced by Pierre Méchain and Jérôme Lalande, with new constellations and many more nebulae. A Portuguese edition appeared in 1804, translated by the Portuguese astronomer and cartographer Francisco António Ciera (1763–1814).
== References ==
== External links ==
"Atlas Coelestis". RareMaps.com. - scan of the 1st edition (1729)
"Atlas coelestis". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 8 May 2010. - full scan of the 2nd edition (1753)
"Atlas Céleste de Flamstéed". Utrecht University. - scan of the 3rd edition (1776)
Giangi Caglieris. "Flamsteed - Fortin Atlas Coeleste" (in English and Italian). Retrieved 8 May 2010.

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Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" is a non-fiction book by the American astronomer Phil Plait, who is also known as "the Bad Astronomer". The book was published in 2002 and deals with various misunderstandings about space and astronomy, such as sounds being audible in space (a misconception because in the vacuum of space, sound has no medium in which to propagate).
Plait's first book received generally favorable reviews within the academic and astronomy communities and was the first volume in the Bad Science series by John Wiley & Sons Publishing
== Overview ==
Inspired by the author's web site, "Bad Astronomy", the book attempts to explore twenty-four common astronomical fallacies and explain the scientific consensus concerning these topics within the field of astronomy.
The book explains and corrects many ideas relating to space that, according to Plait, are mistaken but nevertheless often portrayed in popular movies. Plait also dedicates much of the book to debunking the idea of a Moon landing hoax and explains why astrology should not be taken seriously. A part of the book describes the Moon's tidal effects and explains the Coriolis effect, why the sky is blue, the Big Bang and other related topics.
Many of the book's topics and arguments also are found on Plait's page at the Slate magazine blog site, but Plait explores them in greater depth in the book. He states that the book is intended to debunk popular myths and also to describe science in an easily comprehensible way.
== Reception ==
Tormod Guldvog writes in his review that "It is indeed a gem when it comes to teaching things about common astronomical phenomena. Plait discusses common ways bad astronomy is communicated, in the media, in the classroom, and perhaps, most of all, in our own minds."
Reviewing Bad Astronomy for the National Science Teachers Association, Deborah Teuscher, Director of Pike Planetarium, praised the work as "interesting, accurate, and fun to read," recommending the book as a resource for science teachers, scientifically interested lay persons, and high school and college students as a supplement to an astronomy unit.
Publishers Weekly gave a generally favorable review, stating of the planned John Wiley & Sons "Bad Science" series that "[i]f every entry in the series is as entertaining as Plait's, good science may have a fighting chance with the American public."
An April 2002 review for UniSci's "Daily University Science News" also praised Bad Astronomy as the "ideal accompaniment for International Astronomy Day (April 20)" and quoted the author, stating that it is "dangerous to be ignorant about science. Our lives and our livelihoods depend on it."
In an October 2002 review for Sky & Telescope, Bud Sadler praised Bad Astronomy for its humor, "easily understood explanations" and "simple demonstrations" to explain what he called "the most egregious examples of ill-informed astronomy."
== Content ==
=== Bad Astronomy Begins at Home ===
Part I of Bad Astronomy, "Bad Astronomy Begins at Home", focuses on examples of astronomical misconceptions that are typically associated with the household or classroom, including the effect of the equinox on an egg's ability to balance upright without falling onto its side, the Coriolis effect's rumored effect on direction of whirlpools in household plumbing, and astronomical misunderstandings inherent in common English idioms, such as "meteoric rise" and "dark side of the Moon". "Idiom's Delight", the chapter dealing with scientific inaccuracies that appear in everyday expressions, such as the phrase "light years ahead".
=== From the Earth to the Moon ===
Part II of the book, "From the Earth to the Moon", focuses on Earth's orbit and atmosphere and the Moon, with particular emphasis on how photon scattering results in the sky appearing blue, the impact of axial tilt on seasons, the impact of the Moon's presence, and misconceptions regarding the "Moon Size Illusion", explaining why and how the Moon appears larger when closer to the horizon.
=== Skies at Night are Big and Bright ===
Part III, "Skies at Night are Big and Bright", concentrates on the viewing of objects farther away than the radius of the Moon's orbit around Earth, including the optical "twinkle" effect when viewing some stars, the brightness and color of stars, observation of meteors and asteroids, and using astronomical observations to study the beginning of the universe. Plait's chapter on meteors and asteroids delves into terms and distinctions and explains, for example, "why small meteors are cold, not hot, when they hit the ground."
=== Artificial Intelligence ===
Part IV, "Artificial Intelligence", attempts to tackle various conspiracy theories and alternate worldviews, including the so-called Moon Landing Hoax, Young-Earth Creationism, Immanuel Velikovsky's book Worlds in Collision (which asserts that a relatively young Venus was once a part of Jupiter), extraterrestrial claims regarding unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and astrology. In "Appalled at Apollo", the section devoted to Moon landing hoax conspiracy theories, Plait examines aspects of the hoax theory and compares its claims against basic laws of physics. Astronomical Society of the Pacific listed Chapter 17, "Appalled at Apollo", on a list of resources stating it was "good ammunition for debunking the notion that NASA never went to the Moon point by point." In the chapter "Misidentified Flying Objects", Plait discusses various ways that cameras sometimes distort images, which Plait writes are often responsible for examples of evidence presented by extraterrestrial UFO proponents. A chapter devoted to astrology explores the topic, explaining "why astrology doesn't work".
=== Beam Me Up ===
Part V, "Beam Me Up", explores additional topics, such as common misconceptions regarding the Hubble Space Telescope and its funding, star-naming companies, and astronomy myths and inaccuracies perpetuated by Hollywood, providing "The Top-Ten Examples of Bad Astronomy in Major Motion Pictures".
== Publications ==
Plait, Philip C. (1 March 2002). Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax". New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-40976-2. OCLC 48885221.
Bad Astronomy was the first volume in the planned series Bad Science published by John Wiley & Sons. A second volume, Bad Medicine, by Christopher Wanjek, was published in 2003 and was the most recent in the series.
In 2008, Plait published a second book on astronomy, Death from the Skies, which explored the various ways in which the human race could be rendered extinct by astronomical phenomena.
== See also ==
Death from the Skies
== References ==
== External links ==
Bad Astronomy at Open Library
Plait's Bad Astronomy blog at Slate.com
Sample chapter from publisher.

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Big Bang: The most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it is a book written by Simon Singh and published in 2004 by Fourth Estate.
Big Bang chronicles the history and development of the Big Bang model of the universe, from the ancient Greek scientists who first measured the distance to the Sun to the 20th century detection of the cosmic radiation still echoing the dawn of time.
The book discusses how different theories of the universe evolved, along with a personal look at the people involved.
== Before Big Bang theories ==
The book takes up how the inaccuracies of the theories of Copernicus and Galileo lead them to be dismissed. Copernicus and Galileo used false arguments to persuade people that the Earth went in circles around the Sun, and that the Sun was the center of the universe. Both these statements were alien to the public at the time, and are still alien to a modern public. Only the finally mathematically correct interpretation of Johannes Kepler made the theories accepted, within a single generation. As Singh points out, the old generation must die before a new theory can be accepted.
== The Big Bang theory evolves ==
In parallel to the evolution of the Big Bang theory, the book tells the personal stories of the people who played a part in advancing it, both by hypothesis and by experiment. These include Albert Einstein, for his General Relativity, Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman for first discovering that this theory led to an expanding universe, Georges Lemaître who independently of Friedman discovered an expanding universe, and then concluded the theory must lead to an initial event of creation, which is the Big Bang theory we know today, Edwin Hubble for observing that the universe expanded, thereby confirming Friedman and Lemaître, George Gamow, Ralph Asher Alpher, Robert Herman, Martin Ryle, Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, among many others.
Another theme of the book is the scientific method itself: how serendipity, curiosity, theory and observation come together to expand our understanding of the world.
Singh notes that Einstein initially dismissed the theory out of hand; such was his authority in the scientific community that none dared oppose him, thereby stifling research in this area for many years. However, when Hubble confirmed the theory, Einstein was quick to endorse both Lemaître and his theories.
== Reception ==
William Grimes of The New York Times praised Singh's ability to retain the reader's entertainment and comprehension even whilst explaining difficult scientific concepts, through use of diagrams, writing and illustrations. He wrote that, "[m]ore than the history of a single theory, [Big Bang] is an argument for the scientific method and for the illuminating power of human reason."
== References ==
== External links ==
"Big Bang" web page at Simon Singh's site
Big Bang at GoogleBooks

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Mélanges de Colbert 60 (Mel. Col. 60) is a medieval astronomical multiple-text manuscript preserved in the funds of Bibliothèque nationale de France. This manuscript was compiled, approximately, at the end of the 15th century, using different codicological units originating from the 14th and 15th century.
The main interest in the Mel. Col. 60 in the history of astronomy, are the different versions of the Oxford tables and John of Lignères' Tabule magne, which underlines the circulation of these famous alfonsine texts between continental Europe and the British Isles starting in the 14th century. Another peculiarity of this manuscript is that the canons and tables of the Tabule magne are conserved within the same codex, which is unusual for the transmission of this work
== History ==
Little is known about the composition and provenance of Mel. Col. 60. It was composed around the end of the 15th century. However, the codex consists of several quires, some of which might be from the 14th century, while the others are from the 15th century. The manuscript is made partly of parchment, and partly of paper, which makes it easier for scholars to distinguish the quires of different provenance.
The identity of the compilator of Mel. Col. 60 remains unknown. There are at least two scribal hands that can be observed throughout the manuscript. For instance, the handwriting that copied John of Lignères' canon (starting on folio 34r) is different from one found on folios 42v or 43r, or from the one that has copied John of Mur's canon on folio 175r.
== Content ==
Mel. Col. 60 is a type of astronomical manuscripts oriented towards practical use and containing various tables and canons that can assist in astronomical computations. The practical aim of Mel. Col. 60 is underlined by the high number of arithmetical tables, which show the compilator's interest in decimal numbers in particular.
The historical interest of the manuscript pertaining to alfonsine astronomy are different Oxford tables and John of Lignères' Tabule magne. However, Mel. Col. 60 contains other works, such as tables for mean motions of the luminaries and the planets (fol. 165r) or tables for conjunctions and oppositions from the year 1299 to 1525 (fol. 175r).
There are canons to the Tabulae permanentes by Firmin de Beauval and John of Murs that can be found on folio 175r.
=== Tabule magne ===
John of Lignères. was one of the key figures in the history of the Alfonsine astronomy, to be precise of its Parisian period. His work Tabule magne, consisting of tables accompanied by canons, was composed between 1320 and 1325. Later, John of Lignères integrated Tabule magne into a larger collection of his works, along with the treatises on Saphea and on Equatorium. In the 14th and 15th centuries the text had been circulating around Europe, but most important is its transmission to England, along with the other alfonsine material. The canons to the Tabule magne have been most likely composed by John of Lignères by combining different types of sources; some seem to be using original and alternative approaches to certain computations, while the others seem to follow a more traditional approach
=== Oxford tables ===
After flourishing in Paris during the 14th century, the Alfonsine tradition had made its way to the British Isles, which resulted, alongside other works, into the composition of so-called Oxford tables. Mel. Col. 60 begins with the Oxford tables: folios from 1v to 17r contain double argument tables for the Moon and the planets.
Further folios (63v–94r) contain Oxford tables (composed in 1348) attributed to William Batecombe, a 14th-century an English mathematician and astrologer, followed by the respective canons of the same authorship on folios 94v–96r.
== References ==

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The Canon of Eclipses (German: Canon der Finsternisse), published in 1887 at the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna by Theodor Ritter von Oppolzer, is a compilation of over 13000 (8000 solar and 5200 lunar) eclipses, including all solar and all umbral lunar eclipses between the years 1208 BC and 2161 CE. It was republished by Dover Books in 1962.
== References ==
== External links ==
1887 Original German edition at Internet Archive

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Comet is a 1985 popular-science book by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. The authors describe the scientific nature of comets, as well as their varying roles and perceptions throughout history. The evolution of human understanding of comets is also detailed, and thinkers and astronomers such as Edmond Halley, Immanuel Kant, and William Huggins are discussed.
The publication of the first edition was months ahead of the 1986 appearance of Halley's Comet. A 1997 edition includes additional material.
== References ==

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The Commentariolus (Little Commentary) is Nicolaus Copernicus's brief outline of an early version of his revolutionary heliocentric theory of the universe. After further long development of his theory, Copernicus published the mature version in 1543 in his landmark work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
Copernicus wrote the Commentariolus in Latin by 1514 and circulated copies to his friends and colleagues. It thus became known among Copernicus's contemporaries, though it was never printed during his lifetime. In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus' theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua and since the preceding year a cardinal, wrote to Copernicus from Rome and asked him for a copy of his writings "at the earliest possible moment".
Although copies of the Commentariolus circulated for a time after Copernicus's death, it subsequently lapsed into obscurity, and its previous existence remained known only indirectly, until a surviving manuscript copy was discovered and published in the second half of the nineteenth century.
== Summary ==
The Commentariolus is subdivided into eight sections (or chapters), of which all but the first bear brief descriptive titles. After a brief introduction, the first section states seven postulates from which Copernicus proposes to show that the apparent motion of the planets can be explained systematically.
=== The seven postulates ===
Celestial bodies do not all revolve around a single point.
The centre of the Earth is the centre of the lunar sphere—the orbit of the Moon around the Earth.
All the spheres rotate around the Sun, which is near the centre of the Universe.
The distance between the Earth and the Sun is an insignificant fraction of the distance from the Earth and the Sun to the stars.
The stars are immovable; their apparent daily motion is caused by the daily rotation of the Earth.
The Earth is moved in a sphere around the Sun, causing the apparent annual migration of the Sun; the Earth has more than one motion.
The Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun causes the seeming reverse in direction of the motions of the planets.
The remaining seven sections are titled, in order, De ordine orbium ("The order of the spheres"), De motibus qui circa solem apparent ("The apparent motions of the Sun"), Quod aequalitas motum non ad aequinoctia sed ad stellas fixas referatur ("Equal motion should be measured not by the equinoxes but by the fixed stars"), De Luna ("The Moon"), De tribus superioribus: Saturno, Jove et Marte ("The outer planets: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars"), De Venere ("Venus") and De Mercurio ("Mercury").
=== The order of the spheres ===
In this section, the heavenly spheres are given in order from outermost to innermost.
The outermost sphere is that of the fixed stars, which remains perfectly stationary. Then follow those of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury, which each revolve about the Sun from west to east with successively shorter periods of revolution, Saturn's being between 29 and 30 years, Jupiter's between 11 and 12, Mars's between 2 and 3, Earth's exactly one, Venus's between 8 and 9 months, and Mercury's between 2 and 3 months. The Moon's sphere, however, revolves around the Earth in a period of one month, and moves with it around the Sun like an epicycle.
=== The apparent motion of the Sun ===
This section explains how the apparent motion of the Sun could arise from three separate motions of the Earth. The first motion is a uniform revolution, with a period of one year, from west to east along a circular orbit whose centre is offset from the Sun by 1/25 of the orbit's radius.
The second motion is the daily rotation about an axis which passes through the Earth's centre and is inclined at an angle of about 231⁄2° to the perpendicular to the plane of its orbit.
The third motion is a precession of the Earth's axis of rotation about an axis perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. Copernicus specified the rate of this precession with respect to the radial line from the Earth to the centre of its orbit as being slightly less than a year, with an implied direction as being from west to east. With respect to the fixed stars, this precession is very slow, and in the opposite direction—from east to west—and explains the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes.
=== Equal motion should be measured not by the equinoxes but by the fixed stars ===
Here Copernicus asserts that the motion of the equinoxes and celestial poles has not been uniform, and argues that consequently they should not be used to define the reference frame with respect to which the motions of the planets are measured, and that the periods of the various planetary motions are more accurately determinable if those motions are measured with respect to the fixed stars. He maintains that he had found the length of the sidereal year to have always been 365 days 6 hours and 10 minutes.
=== The Moon ===

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Including the annual revolution around the Sun, which the Moon shares with the Earth in his system,
Copernicus explains the Moon's motion as composed of five independent motions. Its motion around the Earth lies in a plane which is inclined at an angle of 5° to the plane of the Earth's orbit, and which precesses from east to west around an axis perpendicular to that plane, with a period of between 18 and 19 years with respect to the fixed stars. The remaining three motions, which take place within this orbital plane, are depicted in the diagram to the right. The first of these is that of the first, and larger, of two epicycles, whose center (represented by the point e1 in the diagram) moves uniformly from west to east around the circumference of a deferent centred on the Earth (represented by point T in the diagram), with a period of one draconitic month. The centre of the second, smaller epicycle (represented by the point e2 in the diagram) moves uniformly from east to west around the circumference of the first so that the period of the angle β in the diagram is one anomalistic month.
The Moon itself, represented by the point M in the diagram, moves uniformly from west to east around the circumference of the second epicycle so that the period of the angle γ is half a synodic month. Copernicus states that whenever the point e1 lies on the line joining the Earth to the centre of its orbit (represented by the dotted line OTC in the diagram, of which only the point T here lies in the Moon's orbital plane), the Moon M will lie precisely between e1 and e2. However, this can occur only once every 19 years, when this line coincides with the line of nodes WTE. At other times it does not lie in the moon's orbital plane and the point e1 cannot therefore pass through it. In general, then, while the Moon will be close to conjunction or opposition to the Sun whenever it lies precisely between e1 and e2, these events will not be precisely simultaneous.
The ratio which Copernicus took as that for the relative lengths of the small epicycle, large epicycle and deferent is 4:19:180.
=== The outer planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars ===
The theories Copernicus gives in the Commentariolus for the motions of the outer planets all have the same general structure, and only differ in the values of the various parameters needed to specify their motions completely. Their orbits are not coplanar with that of the Earth, but do share its centre as their own common centre, and lie in planes that are only slightly inclined to the Earth's orbital plane. Unlike the Moon's orbital plane, those of the superior planets do not precess. Their inclinations to the Earth's orbital plane do oscillate, however, between the limits 0°10′ and 1°50′ for Mars, 1°15′ and 1°40′ for Jupiter, and 2°15′ and 2°40′ for Saturn. Although Copernicus supposes these oscillations to take place around the orbits' lines of nodes that he assumes to remain fixed, the mechanism he uses to model them does cause tiny oscillations in the lines of nodes as well. As Kepler later pointed out, the necessity for assuming oscillations in the inclinations of the outer planets' orbital planes is an artefact of Copernicus's having taken them as passing through the centre of the Earth's orbit. If he had taken them as passing through the Sun, he would not have needed to introduce these oscillations.

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Like the Moon's motion, that of the outer planets, represented in the diagram to the right, is produced by a combination of a deferent and two epicycles. The centre of the first, and larger of the two epicycles, represented by the point e1 in the diagram, revolves uniformly from west to east around the circumference of a deferent whose centre is the centre of the Earth's orbit, represented by the point S in the diagram, with a period relative to the fixed stars as given in the section The order of the spheres above.
The centre of the second epicycle, represented by the point e2 in the diagram, revolves uniformly from east to west around the circumference of the first, with the same period relative to the radial line joining S to e1. As a consequence, the direction of the radial line joining e1 to e2 remains fixed relative to the fixed stars, parallel to the planet's line of apses EW, and the point e2 describes an eccentric circle whose radius is equal to that of the deferent, and whose centre, represented by the point O in the diagram, is offset from that of the deferent by the radius of the first epicycle. In his later work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Copernicus uses this eccentric circle directly, rather than representing it as a combination of a deferent and an epicycle.
The planet itself, represented by the point P in the diagram, revolves uniformly from west to east around the circumference of the second epicycle, whose radius is exactly one third of that of the first, at twice the rate of revolution of e1 about S. This device enabled Copernicus to dispense with the equant, a much-criticised feature of Claudius Ptolemy's theories for the motions of the outer planets. In a heliocentric version of Ptolemy's models, his equant would lie at the point Q in the diagram, offset along the line of apses EW from the point S by a distance one and a third times the radius of Copernicus's first epicycle. The centre of the planet's deferent, with the same radius as Copernicus's, would lie at the point C, mid-way between S and Q. The planet itself would lie at the point of intersection of this deferent with the line QP. While this point only coincides exactly with P whenever they are both at an apsis, the difference between their positions is always negligible in comparison with the inaccuracies inherent to both theories.
For the ratios of the radii of the outer planets' deferents to radius of the Earth, the Commentariolus gives 113⁄25 for Mars, 513⁄60 for Jupiter, and 97⁄30 for Saturn. For the ratios of the radii of their deferents to the radii of the larger of their epicycles, it gives 6138⁄167 for Mars, 12553⁄606 for Jupiter, and 11859⁄1181 for Saturn.
=== Venus ===
In the last two sections Copernicus talks about Venus and Mercury. The first has a system of circles and takes 9 months to complete a revolution.
=== Mercury ===
Mercury's orbit is harder than any of the other planets' to study because it is visible for only a few days a year. Mercury, just like Venus, has two epicycles, one greater than another. It takes almost three months to complete a revolution.
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
Bardi, A. (2024). Copernicus and Axiomatics. In: Sriraman, B. (eds) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40846-5_110
Copernicus, Nicolaus (1992), Czartoryski, Pawel (ed.), The manuscripts of Nicholas Copernicus' minor works; facsimiles, Krakow: Polish Academy of Sciences, ISBN 83-01-10562-3
Dreyer, John Louis Emil (1890). Tycho Brahe; a picture of scientific life and work in the sixteenth century. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.
Gingerich, Owen (2004). The Book Nobody Read. London: William Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-01315-3.
Goddu, André (2010). Copernicus and the Aristotelian tradition. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-18107-6.
Koyré, Alexandre (1973). The Astronomical Revolution: Copernicus – Kepler – Borelli. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0504-1.
Rosen, Edward (2004) [1939]. Three Copernican Treatises: The Commentariolus of Copernicus; The Letter against Werner; The Narratio Prima of Rheticus (Second Edition, Revised ed.). New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc.
Swerdlow, Noel M. (December 1973), "The derivation and first draft of Copernicus's planetary theoryA translation of the Commentariolus with commentary.", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 117 (6): 423–512
Thoren, Victor E. (1990). The Lord of Uraniborg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35158-8.

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Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature (2001) is a book by Harvard astrophysicist Eric Chaisson. It examines cosmic evolution which includes the history of natural evolution from the Big Bang to the present from the perspective of the emerging multi-scientific discipline of Big History. It offers an explanation of why simple structures billions of years ago gave way to more complex structures, such as stars, planets, life, and human beings in complex civilizations. It is written for a general audience interested in science.
== Overview ==
Chaisson argues that cosmic history can be examined from the perspective of energy flows. He analyzes the flows of energy through various objects and argues that these flows are relevant to understanding the relative complexity of these objects. He suggests that a key measure for scientific analysis should be energy per second per gram, termed "energy rate density," and that analysis using this yardstick can be used to explain not only human evolution but cosmic evolution. He sees energy as "work per unit time" which he equates with power, and shows how energy rate density in some structures has increased over time. For example, in Chaisson's view, the human brain uses a much greater amount of energy, relative to its size, than a galaxy. He suggests that energy lets us make "order out of disorder"; for example, an air conditioner, which draws current from an electric outlet, can turn a less-complex zone of lukewarm air into two more-complex zones of hot air and cold air, and in so doing, it reverses the disorder in a room. According to his view, organisms do much the same thing with energy but in a more complex way, by taking in food instead of electrons, to keep themselves from disintegrating and becoming less complex; he analyzes energy flows in not just organisms and society but in inanimate structures such as stars, galaxies, planets.
Chaisson notes that increases in complexity are consistent with the second law of thermodynamics; according to one reviewer, the second law might suggest that complexity should decrease with the universe "slouching toward disorder." However, Chaisson argues that complexity can increase because complex structures such as a star can "generate and sustain complexity by exporting enough disorder to its surrounding environment to more than makeup for its internal gains." From this perspective, Chaisson offers a definition of life as an "open, coherent, space-time structure maintained far from thermodynamic equilibrium by a flow of energy through it."
Reactions to Chaisson's book are generally positive, although different reviewers took issue with some of his points and writing style. Biologist Daniel W. McShea originally noted that Chaisson is "prone to using inflated language," but a decade later in another review of his work notes that "Chaisson offers data showing a trend in what he calls energy rate density ... over the history of life (and even over the much longer history of the universe), that's really saying something." Critic Stuart Kauffman found the book to be a "wonderful discussion." Critic Hillel Braude wrote "Cosmic Evolution draws from a rich scientific palette to paint a colorful explanatory model of the ascending complexity in nature." Critic Charles Seife wrote highly about Chaisson's book although he criticized Chaisson's definition of life as being "such a broad definition" that it becomes meaningless while acknowledging that Chaisson's analysis "gives the theory some numerical muscle." Many more excerpts from reviews of this book are collected here
== Choice of units ==
Chaisson chose to use the obsolete cgs (centimeter, gram, second) system of measurement, rather than SI units as is standard current practice, for his calculations and numerical estimates - thus quoting energy in ergs (one ten-millionth of a Joule), also using calories, and sometimes kilocalories as alternative measures of energy.
== References ==
== External links ==
Arrow of time graphic
Cosmic evolution web site (containing text, images, animations, movies, and hyperlinked references of interest to both non-scientists {Introductory Track} and professional scientists {Advanced Track}).

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DNA Repair and Mutagenesis is a college-level textbook about DNA repair and mutagenesis written by Errol Friedberg, Graham Walker, Wolfram Siede, Richard D. Wood, and Roger Schultz. In its second edition as of 2009, DNA Repair and Mutagenesis contains over 1,000 pages, 10,000 references and 700 illustrations and has been described as "the most comprehensive book available in [the] field."
== References ==

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Ever Since Darwin is a 1977 book by the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould's first book of collected essays, it originated from his monthly column "This View of Life," published in Natural History magazine. Edwin Barber—who was then the editorial director for W. W. Norton & Company— encouraged Gould to produce a book. He soon commissioned Gould to write The Mismeasure of Man, but it was not until three years later, when Gould accumulated 33 columns, that it occurred to either of them that the Natural History columns should be published in a single volume. The collection of essays, written between 1973–1977, became a best-seller and propelled Gould to national prominence.
== Reviews ==
James Gorman, "The History of a Theory", The New York Times, 20 November 1977.
Richard Dawkins, "Rejoicing in Multifarious Nature. Review of Ever Since Darwin by S. J. Gould", reprinted in The Devil's Chaplain: Selected Essays, Phoenix, 2003 (ISBN 978-0-7538-1750-6).
== External links ==
W.W.Norton Promotional page
== References ==

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Evolution of Infectious Disease is a 1993 book by the evolutionary biologist Paul W. Ewald. In this book, Ewald contests the traditional view that parasites should evolve toward benign coexistence with their hosts. He draws on various studies that contradict this dogma and asserts his theory based on fundamental evolutionary principles. This book provides one of the first in-depth presentations of insights from evolutionary biology on various fields in health science, including epidemiology and medicine.
== Infectious diseases ==
Infectious disease are illnesses induced by another organism. Such diseases range from mild to severe cases. The onset of infectious disease can be induced by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Several examples of infectious diseases are as follows: tuberculosis, chickenpox, mumps, meningitis, measles, and malaria. Infectious diseases can be obtained through many routes of transmission such as inhalation, open wounds, sores, ingestion, sexual intercourse, and insect bites. Author, Paul Ewald used his book to expound upon infectious diseases in humans and animals, explain various routes of transmission as well as epidemiology as a whole. Epidemiology is defined as the study of the onset, distribution, and control of diseases. Evolutionary epidemiology focuses on the distribution of infectious diseases whereas Darwinian epidemiology focuses on human beings as hosts of infectious diseases. To fully comprehend both aspects of epidemiology, it is necessary to understand how organisms induce these diseases as well as how infected organisms counteract.
== Evolution ==
The extensive research about pathogens shows that they can evolve within a month, whereas animal hosts such as humans take centuries to make large evolutionary changes. Parasite virulence and host resistance are variables that strongly impact a pathogen's ability to replicate and be distributed to many hosts. Parasite virulence is the level of harm a host endures due to a virus, bacteria, or parasite. The way a host lives contributes heavily to how their body will react to pathogens. If an organism lives a moderately healthy lifestyle, including its diet, physical activity, and decreased stress, its chances of fighting off infectious diseases increase.
Host resistance pivots around how well a host's immune system can fight off a disease and rid their body of the pathogens. Although a healthy lifestyle can help a host, infectious diseases seem to evolve so quickly that a new generation of a disease may have emerged before scientists have the chance to make a vaccination for the first generation. Pathogens adapt to the medications and form a resistance to them which causes the new generations of pathogens to be more detrimental than the previous generations. After many generations have emerged, scientists must continuously form new vaccinations to combat the components of the disease that evolve every time a generation appears.
== Experimental data ==
Two sets of experiments were performed which tested the correlation of pathogens and declining organism populations as well as zoonotic pathogens being associated with emerging infectious diseases. The first experiment focused solely on a pathogen's ability to decrease or completely wipe out a whole population of organisms. In this experiment, researchers used Daphnia magna as the host and six microparasites were vertically transmitted to the host. Researchers Ebert, Lipsitch, and Mangin found that while pathogens and parasites do cause a change in a population, they do not have the ability to destroy an entire population. The pathogens did however have an impact on the host's fertility. Some females involved in the experiment were unable to reproduce after being infected with the microparasites.
The second experiment focused more on zoonotic pathogens being correlated with emerging infectious diseases in humans. The researchers comprised a database with separate infectious species, infectious pathogens that cause disease in patients with abnormal immune systems, and pathogens that have only been found in one case of human disease. The researchers broke this database down into five portions which were viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths. Direct contact, indirect contact, and vector borne were the routes of transmission used. They found that 1415 zoonotic pathogen diseases have been found in humans.
== See also ==
Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease - Ewald's follow-up book, in 2002
== References ==

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Evolutionary Biology is a college-level evolutionary biology textbook written by Eli C. Minkoff that is 627 pages long. It was published in 1983 by Addison-Wesley. This is Minkoff's first foray into the world of college-level textbook authorship. The book contains an index and various biographical references.
== About the book ==
The textbook Evolutionary Biology was written and published in 1983 during which Minkoff was the head of the Biology department at Bates College. The book is written in a format to which it could be used in an evolutionary biology 101 course. The book contains over 25 chapters, for example, "The Origin and Early Evolution of Life".
== Bibliography ==
Eli C. Minkoff (1983). Evolutionary Biology. 1st Edition. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-15890-6.

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Fertilisation of Orchids is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing. Darwin's previous book, On the Origin of Species, had briefly mentioned evolutionary interactions between insects and the plants they fertilised, and this new idea was explored in detail. Field studies and practical scientific investigations that were initially a recreation for Darwin—a relief from the drudgery of writing—developed into enjoyable and challenging experiments. Aided in his work by his family, friends, and a wide circle of correspondents across Britain and worldwide, Darwin tapped into the contemporary vogue for growing exotic orchids.
The book was his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection, and explained how complex ecological relationships resulted in the coevolution of orchids and insects. The view has been expressed that the book led directly or indirectly to all modern work on coevolution and the evolution of extreme specialisation. It influenced botanists, and revived interest in the neglected idea that insects played a part in pollinating flowers. It opened up the new study areas of pollination research and reproductive ecology, directly related to Darwin's ideas on evolution, and supported his view that natural selection led to a variety of forms through the important benefits achieved by cross-fertilisation. Although the general public showed less interest and sales of the book were low, it established Darwin as a leading botanist. Orchids was the first in a series of books on his innovative investigations into plants.
The book describes how the relationship between insects and plants resulted in the beautiful and complex forms which natural theology attributed to a grand designer. By showing how practical adaptations develop from cumulative minor variations of parts of the flowers to suit new purposes, Darwin countered the prevailing view that beautiful organisms were the handiwork of a Creator. Darwin's painstaking observations, experiments, and detailed dissection of the flowers explained previously unknown features such as the puzzle of Catasetum, which had been thought to have three completely different species of flowers on the same plant. In addition, they produced testable predictions including his then-controversial proposal that the long nectary of Angraecum sesquipedale meant that there must be a moth with an equally long proboscis. This was confirmed in 1903 when Xanthopan morganii praedicta was found in Madagascar.
== Background ==
Charles Darwin grew up with an interest in natural history, and as a student at the University of Cambridge he became a pupil and close friend of botany professor John Stevens Henslow. The year he graduated, Darwin was given a supernumerary position as a gentleman naturalist and geologist on the second voyage of HMS Beagle, a trip that lasted five years. By the time he returned in October 1836, he had doubts about the doctrine that species were fixed and unchanging. Within months, experts informed him that specimens he had collected were separate species, not just varieties, and the patterns he saw inspired the inception of his theory of natural selection in 1838. Darwin began editing and publishing the expert reports, collected in the Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, at the same time as writing a series of books on geology, the first of which was The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. His "species work" was his "prime hobby", a background to this writing, but it evolved into an extensive research programme during the twenty years before he published his theory.
=== Insect fertilisation of plants ===
Darwin's speculations on the origin of species convinced him that cross-fertilisation played an important role in keeping specific forms consistent. He rejected the doctrine that the characteristics of a species were static, and was aware from animal husbandry that inbreeding could lead to changes, often deleterious. He thought that natural outbreeding through cross-fertilisation would keep wild species homogenous yet vigorous. Cross-fertilisation would confer an evolutionary advantage by spreading favourable changes throughout a reproductive community. His ideas were contrary to the common supposition that plants were usually self-fertilising, and so every summer Darwin investigated the contribution of insect pollination to the cross-pollination of flowers.

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In the summer of 1841 Charles and Emma Darwin moved from the turmoil of London to the countryside, to Down House, a quiet former parsonage in the village of Downe. He wrote, "The flowers are here very beautiful". Darwin followed the recommendation of his friend, the leading botanist Robert Brown, and read Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen (The Secret of Nature in the Form and Fertilisation of Flowers Discovered). The little known book, published in 1793 by Christian Konrad Sprengel but never translated into English, introduced the idea that flowers were created by God to fulfill a teleological purpose: insects would act as "living brushes" to cross-fertilise plants in a symbiotic relationship. This functional view was rejected and mostly forgotten, as it contradicted the common belief that flowers had been created for beauty, and were generally self-fertilising. For Darwin, the concept of evolution gave new meaning to Sprengel's research into the mechanisms for cross-fertilisation. He welcomed its support for his supposition that cross-fertilisation in flowering plants tended to allow their offspring to avoid possible disadvantages resulting from self-fertilisation, and by 1845 he had verified many of Sprengel's observations.
A favourite walk took the Darwin family to a spot above the quiet Cudham valley, teeming with orchids including Cephalanthera, Neottia, fly orchids and musk orchids. They called this place "Orchis Bank", and the whole family became involved in Darwin's researches. Darwin observed orchids every summer, but in twenty years, only on two occasions (when he noticed butterflies "sucking O. pyramidalis and Gymnadenia") did he see insects visiting flowers.
In 1854, Darwin began to work full-time on the origin of species. He examined orchids and counted how often one or both pollinia (pollen masses) had been removed from their flowers, indicating that they had been visited by insects. He experimented with insect pollination to investigate whether, by cross-fertilising field crops such as Fabaceae, they would yield more vigorous offspring, and published letters about his inconclusive results in The Gardeners' Chronicle in 1857 and 1858. He next applied Sprengel's methods to empirical research on orchids. Despite delays caused by recurring illness, he made progress on writing his planned "Big Book" on evolution, but when Alfred Russel Wallace's letter prompted joint publication of both of their theories of natural selection in 1858, Darwin quickly wrote On the Origin of Species as an abstract of his theory, published on 22 November 1859. In this book, he gave credence to Sprengel's ideas on the advantages of "intercrossing", and noted: "Many of our orchidaceous plants absolutely require the visits of moths to remove their pollen masses and thus to fertilise them". He introduced his new concept, the process of coevolution, describing the co-adaptation of bumblebees and red clover, and speculating "how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted in the most perfect manner to each other, by the continued preservation of individuals presenting mutual and slightly favourable deviations of structure". This was a theme he developed in his orchid book.
== Botany as recreation ==
After On the Origin of Species was published, Darwin became involved in producing revised editions as well as working on Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication as the first part of his planned "Big Book". By the spring of 1860 he had tired of the grind of writing, and needed something fresh and interesting to study. During a family visit to relatives at Hartfield, he was searching for orchids when he noticed a sundew. He collected it and tried to feed it insects, thus beginning a long-term study of insectivorous plants. He investigated other botanical questions raised by his ideas of natural selection, including the advantages of sexual dimorphism in primulas, and the adaptive mechanisms that ensure cross-pollination in orchids. As an enthusiastic practical scientist, such investigations gave him a strong sense of personal enjoyment. He relished pitting his wits against nature, and following lucky hunches. His theory was a way of looking at the world, enabling him to find creative solutions to problems that traditional approaches could not solve. He later wrote, "I am like a gambler, & love a wild experiment."
Around the end of April 1860, Darwin discussed insect pollination with his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker, and mentioned the bee orchid. Darwin corresponded with Hooker's assistant Daniel Oliver, the senior curator at Kew Gardens, who became a follower of Darwin's ideas. At the start of June, Darwin wrote to The Gardeners' Chronicle asking for readers' observations on how bee or fly orchids were fertilised. His letter described the mechanisms for insect fertilisation he had discovered in common British orchids, and reported his experimental observations that pollen masses were removed from Orchis morio and Orchis mascula plants in the open, but left in their pouches in adjacent plants under a glass bell jar. He wrote to American botanist Asa Gray that he had been "so struck with admiration at the contrivances, that I have sent notice to Gardeners Chronicle", and made similar enquiries of other experts.
Darwin became engrossed in meticulous microscopic examination, tracing the complicated mechanisms of flowers that attracted insects by their nectar so that the insects transported pollen to cross-pollinate other plants, and on 19 July he told Hooker, "I am intensely interested on subject, just as at a game of chess." In September, he "dissected with the greatest interest" and wrote, "The contrivances for insect fertilisation in Orchids are multiform & truly wonderful & beautiful." By October, he had "a large mass of notes with many new facts", but set them aside "convinced that I ought to work on Variation & not amuse myself with interludes".
=== Research and draft ===

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During 1861, botany became a preoccupation for Darwin, and his projects became serious scientific pursuits. He continued his study of orchids throughout the summer, writing to anyone who might be able to supply specimens he had not yet examined. Field naturalists, botanists, and country gentry sent specimens from across the British Isles. Darwin also tramped around the countryside with tin cans and biscuit boxes, collecting specimens which his gardeners potted up for him. His family joined in, and neighbours contributed to the research. As he had only a cold greenhouse, a friend on the other side of the village who had a hot-house allowed him to use that, and offered the services of his gardener to look after the delicate specimens. Darwin's aim was to show how the complex structures and life cycles of the plants could be explained by natural selection rather than by the handiwork of God; he saw the huge variety of flowers as a collection of ad hoc evolutionary adaptations. In June he described his examination of bee orchids as a passion, and his findings on insect fertilisation of orchids as "beautiful facts".
There were several replies to Darwin's enquiry in The Gardeners' Chronicle seeking evidence to support his idea that pollen masses attached themselves to a convenient place on an insect's back or head, usually its proboscis, to transport the pollen to another flower. One envelope appeared to be empty when it arrived at Down House, but when he looked further before discarding it he found several insect mouthparts with pollen masses attached. To help their daughter Henrietta convalesce from illness, the Darwins arranged to spend two months in Torquay. Darwin wrote:
I have, owing to many interruptions, not been going on much with my regular work (though I have done the very heavy jobs of variation of Pigeons, Fowls, Ducks, Rabbits Dogs &c) but have been amusing myself with miscellaneous work.—I have been very lucky & have now examined almost every British Orchid fresh, & when at sea-side shall draw up rather long paper on the means of their fertilisation for Linn. Socy & I cannot fancy anything more perfect than the many curious contrivances.
He sought advice on obtaining the exotic South American Catasetum, to see it eject pollen masses, as "I am got intensely interested on subject & think I understand pretty well all the British species." They went to Torquay on 1 July, and Darwin began writing his orchid paper. By 10 August, he feared his paper would run "to 100 M.S. folio pages!!! The beauty of the adaptations of parts seems to me unparalleled ... I marvel often as I think over the diversity & perfection of the contrivances."
The family returned to Downe on 27 August, and Darwin again wrote to the Gardeners' Chronicle appealing for assistance as he was "very anxious to examine a few exotic forms". His requests to the wealthy enthusiasts who had taken up the fashionable pursuit of growing rare orchids brought large numbers of specimens. These would be a test of his theory: previously aspects such as coloration of plants and animals had often been regarded as having no adaptive function. For example, Thomas Henry Huxley was strongly influenced by German idealism and in 1856 had asked if it was "to be supposed for a moment that the beauty of colour and outline ... are any good to the animals? ... Who has ever dreamed of finding an utilitarian purpose in the forms and colours of flowers ... ?" Darwin had, and in the orchids he tackled the most difficult case. His ideas would transform the way naturalists thought about coloration.
The completed Orchis paper came to 140 folio pages, and Darwin decided against presenting it at the Linnean Society of London, thinking of publishing a pamphlet instead. He offered the draft to John Murray who agreed to publish it as a book. Although Darwin feared a lack of public interest, he hoped it would serve to "illustrate how Natural History may be worked under the belief of the modification of Species". In discussions with Asa Gray about natural theology, he wrote that "it really seems to me incredibly monstrous to look at an orchid as created as we now see it. Every part reveals modification on modification."
As a popular and acceptable activity, botany had been taken up by many middle class ladies, and Darwin included these botany enthusiasts in his correspondence. On the recommendation of John Lindley, Darwin wrote to Lady Dorothy Nevill, who responded generously by sending numerous exotic orchids, and requested a signed photograph of him to hang in her sitting room next to portraits of her other notable friends, including Hooker.
=== Linnean Society paper ===

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The orchid book was delayed because of illness, but Darwin continued to "look at it as a hobby-horse, which has given me great pleasure to ride". He was particularly astounded by the long spur of the Angraecum sesquipedale flowers, one of the orchids sent by the distinguished horticulturist James Bateman, and wrote to Hooker "Good Heavens what insect can suck it[?]"
By November, a specimen of the exotic South American Catasetum orchid Hooker had given to Darwin had shown its "truly marvellous" mechanism, by which it shot out a pollinium at any insect touching a part of the flower "with sticky gland always foremost". This plant had astonished botanists in 1836 when Robert Hermann Schomburgk stated that he had seen one plant growing three distinct flowers which usually grew separately and had wrongly been categorised as three distinct genera, namely Catasetum tridentatum, Monachanthus viridis, and Myanthus barbatus. John Lindley had remarked that "such cases shake to the foundation all our ideas of the stability of genera and species." One of Darwin's correspondents told of delight at growing a beautiful specimen of Myanthus barbatus imported from Demerara, then dismay when the plant flowered the next year as a simple Catasetum.
In view of this interest, Darwin prepared a paper on Catasetum as an extract from his forthcoming book, which was read to the Linnean Society of London on 3 April 1862. Darwin solved the puzzle by showing that the three flowers were the male, female, and hermaphrodite forms of a single species, but as they differed so much from each other, they had been classified as different genera.
=== Publication ===
Darwin sent the incomplete manuscript to his publisher John Murray on 9 February 1862, while he was still working on the last chapter. Although anxious that the book might not sell, he could "say with confidence that the M.S. contains many new & very curious facts & conclusions". When the book was printed, he sent out presentation copies to all the individuals and societies who had helped him with his investigations, and to eminent botanists in Britain and abroad for review.
On 15 May 1862 the book was published under the full title of On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing. In August, Darwin was "well contented with the sale of 768 copies; I shd. hope & expect that the remainder will ultimately be sold", but the book sold slowly and less than 2,000 copies of the first edition were printed. An expanded edition translated into French was published in Paris in 1870, and in 1877 Murray brought out a revised and expanded second edition, with the shortened title The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects. This was also published by D. Appleton & Company of New York in 1877, and a German translation was published in the same year. Despite being well praised by botanists, only about 6,000 copies of the English editions had been sold by 1900.
== Content ==
Darwin set out a detailed study of common descent with modifications by expanding on the theme of coevolution between local populations of insects and flowering plants that he had briefly discussed in On the Origin of Species. He examined numerous ways in which orchids vary, showing how they had diverged and developed specialised pollen-dispersal mechanisms. The intricate morphology and anatomy of each flower was carefully described. Apparently trivial details were examined in relation to natural selection to demonstrate how slight variations in similar structures of closely related flowers led to specialised modifications that provided various pollinators (insects) with different ways to cross-fertilise. The mass of descriptive detail was a great achievement, but the result is demanding to read.
In the introduction, Darwin explained his aim of meeting complaints that detailed support for his theory was lacking in On the Origin of Species. He chose orchids for his subject as "amongst the most singular and most modified forms in the vegetable kingdom" in the hope of inspiring work on other species, and felt that "the study of organic beings may be as interesting to an observer who is fully convinced that the structure of each is due to secondary laws, as to one who views every trifling detail of structure as the result of the direct interposition of the Creator." He gave due credit to previous authors who had described the agency of insects in fertilising orchids, and all who had helped him.
=== British orchids ===
In the first chapter Darwin described the British orchids he had studied, giving detailed explanations of their various mechanisms for transferring pollen to insects. The first mechanism described is that of Orchis mascula, which serves as an introduction to the explanation of other Orchidaceae. In the upper part of the flower a petal shelters the male organ which has two packages of pollen grains, held together by thin elastic threads. These pollen masses stand side by side and have stalks down to adhesive balls in a cup which keeps them moist and sticky. When an insect lands on the large projecting lower petal, the labellum, and pushes its head and proboscis into the centre of the flower and down to the nectary, it breaks the cup and the adhesive balls attach the pollen masses to the front of the insect. As the insect flies off, each stalk rotates the pollen mass downwards and forwards so that when the insect lands on another flower the pollen masses attached to the insect pass under the male organ and leave pollen on the female organ, achieving cross fertilisation. Darwin envisaged:

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A poet might imagine, that whilst the pollinia are borne from flower to flower through the air, adhering to a moth's body, they voluntarily and eagerly place themselves, in each case, in that exact position in which alone they can hope to gain their wish and perpetuate their race.
This is followed by descriptions of the differences in the mechanisms of several other orchids. In Orchis pyramidalis, the adhesive balls are combined into a strap or saddle shape, which curls round the thin proboscis of a moth or butterfly to attach to it the pair of pollen masses, illustrated in the book by figure 4 showing a moth's head with seven pairs of pollen masses attached to its proboscis.
While the bee orchid showed adaptation for self-fertilisation, its mechanism also enabled occasional cross-fertilisation, creating the biological diversity that Darwin felt was needed for vigorous survival, which could not be provided by self-fertilisation. As an example of "how beautifully everything is contrived", Darwin described how he had found that in Spiranthes flowers the pollen is ready for collection before access is open for the female organ to receive pollen. At Torquay he had watched bees visiting spires of these flowers, starting at the bottom of the spire and working their way up to the topmost flowers. He speculated that if bees moved from top to top of the spires, the pollen clusters they collected from the most recently opened flowers would be wasted as the topmost flowers on the next spike would not be ready to receive pollen. A bee starting at the lowest flowers on the first spire it visited would continue up until it reached flowers that still had their pollen masses to attach to the bee, then would fly to the mature lower flowers on another plant, and fertilise them. By this co-ordinated process, the bee would add "to her store of honey" while perpetuating the flowers "which will yield honey to future generations of bees".
=== Exotic orchids ===
The book moves on to the various foreign orchids Darwin had received from others. His experiments showed that the "astonishing length" of the 111⁄2 inch (290 mm) long nectary hanging from Angraecum sesquipedale flowers implied the need for an as yet unknown moth with a proboscis 10–11 inches (250–280 millimetres) long to pollinate these flowers in Madagascar. He viewed this as the outcome of a coevolutionary race, writing that "there has been a race in gaining length between the nectary of the Angræcum and the proboscis of certain moths". This wastefulness is familiar in modern terms as the idea of an evolutionary arms race, but was disturbing to biologists of the time who believed that adaptations were the outcome of benevolent divine purpose.
Darwin described "the most remarkable of all Orchids", Catasetum, and showed how in these flowers, "as throughout nature, pre-existing structures and capacities [had been] utilised for new purposes". He explained the mechanism in which the pollen masses of the pollinium were connected by a bent stalk or pedicel to a sticky disc kept moist at the back of the flower. When an insect touched an "antenna" projecting from the back of the flower, this released the bent pedicel which sprang straight and fired the pollinium, sticky disc first, at the insect. In experiments, Darwin had imitated this action using a whalebone spring. He vividly illustrated how the flower ejected the pollinium with considerable force: "I touched the antennæ of C. callosum whilst holding the flower at about a yard's distance from the window, and the pollinium hit the pane of glass, and adhered to the smooth vertical surface by its adhesive disc."

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=== Final chapter ===
Darwin noted that the essential nectar, secreted to attract insects, seemed also in some cases to act as an excretion: "It is in perfect accordance with the scheme of nature, as worked out by natural selection, that matter excreted to free the system from superfluous or injuring substances should be utilised for purposes of the highest importance." Homologies of the flowers of orchids showed them all to be based on "fifteen groups of vessels, arranged three within three, in alternating order". He disparaged the idea that this was an "ideal type" fixed by the Omnipotent Creator, but attributed it instead to its "descent from some monocotyledonous plant, which, like so many other plants of the same division, possessed fifteen organs, arranged alternately three within three in five whorls; and that the now wonderfully changed structure of the flower is due to a long course of slow modification,—each modification having been preserved which was useful to each plant, during the incessant changes to which the organic and the inorganic world has been exposed".
Describing the final end state of the whole flower cycle as the production of seed, he set out a simple experiment in which he took a ripe seed capsule and arranged the seeds in a line, then counted the seeds in one-tenth of an inch (2.5 mm). By multiplication he found that each plant produced enough seeds to plant 1-acre (4,000 m2) of ground, and the great-grandchildren of a single plant could "carpet the entire surface of the land throughout the globe" if unchecked.
In conclusion, he felt that the book had "shown that Orchids exhibit an almost endless diversity of beautiful adaptations. When this or that part has been spoken of as contrived for some special purpose, it must not be supposed that it was originally always formed for this sole purpose. The regular course of events seems to be, that a part which originally served for one purpose, by slow changes becomes adapted for widely different purposes."
He was almost exasperated by the inventiveness of forms in nature; "In my examination of Orchids, hardly any fact has so much struck me as the endless diversity of structure,—the prodigality of resources,—for gaining the very same end, namely, the fertilisation of one flower by the pollen of another." His focus on detail was justified, as "The use of each trifling detail of structure is far from a barren search to those who believe in natural selection." The "contrivances and beautiful adaptations" slowly acquired through slight variations, subjected to natural selection "under the complex and ever-varying conditions of life", far transcended the most fertile imagination. The mechanisms to transport the pollen of one flower or of one plant to another flower or plant underlined the importance of cross-fertilisation: "For may we not further infer as probable, in accordance with the belief of the vast majority of the breeders of our domestic productions, that marriage between near relatives is likewise in some way injurious,—that some unknown great good is derived from the union of individuals which have been kept distinct for many generations?"
== Reception ==
Botanists responded favourably to the book immediately on its publication. Hooker told Darwin that the book showed him to be "out of sight the best Physiological observer & experimenter that Botany ever saw", and was glad to note that two leading traditional botanists had accepted the concept of evolution; "Bentham & Oliver are quite struck up in a heap with your book & delighted beyond expression". Daniel Oliver thought it "very extraordinary", and even Darwin's old beetle-hunting rival Charles Babington, by then professor of botany at the University of Cambridge and inclined to oppose natural selection, called it "exceedingly interesting and valuable ... highly satisfactory in all respects. The results are most curious and the skill shown in discovering them equally so." George Bentham praised its value in opening "a new field for observing the wonderful provisions of Nature ... a new and unexpected track to guide us in the explanation of phenomena which had before that appeared so irreconcilable with the ordinary prevision and method shown in the organised world."
The book's success in botanical circles was enhanced following Bentham's public endorsement. In his presidential address to the Linnean Society on 24 May 1862, Bentham praised the book as exemplifying the biological method, and said that it had nearly overcome his opposition to the Origin. In his address in 1863 he stated that "Mr Darwin has shown how changes may take place", and described it as "an unimpeachable example of a legitimate hypothesis" in compliance with John Stuart Mill's scientific method. This endorsement favourably influenced Miles Joseph Berkeley, Charles Victor Naudin, Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle, Jean Louis Quatrefages, and Charles Daubeny.
In June 1862, Darwin welcomed favourable reviews in the press and wrote to Hooker; "Well my orchis-book is a success (but I do not know whether it sells) after cursing my folly in writing it". He told his publisher, "The Botanists praise my Orchid-book to the skies", and to Asa Gray he said, "I am fairly astonished at the success of my book with botanists." Darwin's geologist friend Charles Lyell gave it enthusiastic praise: "next to the Origin, as the most valuable of all Darwin's works." However, the book attracted little attention from the general public, and in September Darwin told his cousin Fox, "Hardly any one not a botanist, except yourself, as far as I know, has cared for it." The book baffled a general public more interested in controversy over gorillas and cavemen. There were some reviews in gardening magazines, but few natural philosophers or zoologists noticed the book, and hardly any learned appraisals appeared.
=== Theological responses ===

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Although the book contradicted the prevailing natural theology and its teleological approach to design in nature, the Saturday Review thought that it would avoid the angry polemics aroused by On the Origin of Species. The Literary Churchman welcomed "Mr. Darwin's expression of admiration at the contrivances in orchids", only complaining that it was too indirect a way of saying "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!" (Psalm 104:24) Darwin regarded these theological views as irritating misunderstandings, but wrote to Asa Gray describing his approach as a "flank movement on the enemy". By showing that the "wonderful contrivances" of the orchid have discoverable evolutionary histories, Darwin was countering claims by natural theologians that the organisms were examples of the perfect work of the Creator.
There was considerable controversy surrounding Darwin's prediction that a moth would be found in Madagascar with a long proboscis matching the nectary of Angraecum sesquipedale. An anonymous article in the Edinburgh Review of October 1862 by George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, argued that Darwin's wording implied purpose, and concluded that "We know, too, that these purposes and ideas are not our own, but the ideas and purposes of Another." He considered Darwin's explanations the "most unsatisfactory conjectures", and raised obscure metaphysical objections while supporting a kind of creative evolutionism. Emma Darwin thought that although Argyll was "quite opposed" to Darwin's views, "he praises the Orchids in such an enthusiastic way that he will do it a good turn". Darwin was delighted to find that a well written article "smashing" Argyll's review was by one of Darwin's own nephews.
Argyll went on in his 1867 book The Reign of Law to cleverly ridicule Darwin's ideas, particularly the prediction of a moth in Madagascar with a proboscis 10–11 inches (250–280 millimetres) long. He believed that adaptations showed divine purpose, not a mindless evolutionary arms race. In his response Creation by Law later that year, Alfred Russel Wallace produced a detailed explanation of how the nectary could have evolved through natural selection, and stated that he had carefully measured moths in the British Museum, finding that the proboscis of Macrosila cluentius from South America was 9+1⁄4 inches (230 mm) long, and the proboscis of Macrosila morganii from tropical Africa (since renamed Xanthopan morganii) was 7+1⁄2 inches (190 mm) long. An enquiry raised in 1873 was answered by Darwin's friend Hermann Müller, who stated that his brother Fritz Müller had caught a sphinx moth in Brazil with a proboscis nearly 10 inches (250 mm) long. Darwin's anticipation was fully met in 1903, when a subspecies of Xanthopan morganii was found in Madagascar with a proboscis about 12 inches (300 mm) long, and was named Xanthopan morganii praedicta to celebrate this verification of a testable prediction made by Darwin on the basis of his theory of natural selection.
== Influence ==
Michael Ghiselin has expressed the view that all studies of coevolution follow directly or indirectly from Darwin's orchid book, which was also the origin of all work on the evolution of extreme specialisation. Its publication led almost immediately to research by many other naturalists into specialisation and coevolution, in some cases analysing other taxa. In his autobiography, Darwin modestly recalled how this work had revived interest in Christian Konrad Sprengel's neglected ideas:

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For some years before 1862 I had specially attended to the fertilisation of our British orchids; and it seemed to me the best plan to prepare as complete a treatise on this group of plants as well as I could, rather than to utilise the great mass of matter which I had slowly collected with respect to other plants. My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a surprising number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of all kinds of flowers have appeared; and these are far better done than I could possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.
Among the many prominent biologists who began research on coevolution, Hermann Müller was particularly interested in the evolutionary sequence in which insects and flowers became adapted to each other. Like Darwin, he began with the premise that flowers were adapted to ensure cross-fertilisation, and added his own premise that most insects were not "limited by hereditary instinct to particular flowers". On this basis, he developed the view that specialisation develops from the need for flowers to attract pollinating insects (without making access too easy for non-pollinators), and from the evolution of pollinators to adapt to changes in the location of rewards such as nectar. He found that alpine flowers tended to be visited by bees at lower altitudes, and by butterflies at higher altitudes, beginning research on the idea that plants at different altitudes were specialised for different pollinators. By comparing related plant species that he thought had diverged in form from a common ancestor, and testing whether they were visited by butterflies or bees, he was the first to use a combination of morphological and ecological approaches to understand patterns in the evolution of interactions and specialisation. His brother Fritz Müller used similar methods when studying mimicry in Brazil. The early development of ideas on specialisation and coevolution became increasingly focused on the problem of mimicry; Henry Walter Bates had initially raised this issue in a paper read to the Linnean Society of London in December 1861 in Darwin's presence, and published in November 1862.
Others basing their studies of reproductive ecology on Darwin's evolutionary approach included Friedrich Hildebrand and Severin Axell in Europe, Asa Gray and Charles Robertson in North America. In Italy, Federigo Delpino adopted the theory of descent but like Sprengel had a teleological approach and explained the mechanisms of flowers by the intervention of a "psychovitalistic intelligence". Delpino classified flowers on the basis of the pollinators they attracted, and coined many of the terms still in use such as pollination syndrome and ornithophily. There was an enormous increase in knowledge during this period. In 1874, Asa Gray paid tribute to Darwin's work on orchids for explaining "all these and other extraordinary structures, as well as of the arrangement of blossoms in general, and even the very meaning and need of sexual propagation". He credited Darwin with establishing the understanding that "Nature abhors close fertilization".
By the end of the 19th century, there were so many uncritical and unproven speculations about floral mechanisms that floral ecology became discredited. In the 1920s, it was revived with further developments in detailed analyses of insects' senses, led by researchers Frederic Clements, Karl von Frisch and others. Their experiments resulted in new information, including the discovery that some insects have ultraviolet vision, and findings involving bee learning and communication. Modern floral ecology has been reinvigorated by its relevance for evolutionary studies.
== Further research by Darwin ==

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Darwin had "found the study of orchids eminently useful in showing me how nearly all parts of the flower are coadapted for fertilisation by insects, & therefore the result of n. selection,—even most trifling details of structure". His own interest in orchids and in fertilisation of plants by insects continued. Darwin had been given the use of a hot-house at The Rookery on the other side of the village, and at the end of 1862 he was persuaded by this neighbour's helpful gardener to have his own built at Down House as an extension to the existing cold lean-to greenhouse. The gardener drew up plans, and Darwin investigated stoves and ventilation devices. When it was completed in February 1863 he asked Hooker for some plants from Kew Gardens, writing "I long to stock it, just like a school-boy", and sent his butler with a cart. When over 160 different plants were delivered, Darwin made apologetic remarks about depleting the national collection. He told Hooker "You cannot imagine what pleasure your plants give me ... Henrietta & I go & gloat over them." Darwin's life was changed by having a warm hothouse to spend time in before his walk round the Sandwalk, and in the 1870s he had several more hothouses built. The children later remembered this routine and the gardeners attending to Darwin's experimental plants, as well as the way that Darwin used simple equipment for his experiments, dissecting and measuring plants and seeds.
A chance observation "thoroughly aroused" Darwin's attention to a surprising decrease in vigour of the offspring of Linaria vulgaris following only one instance of self-fertilisation, and after eleven years of experimental work he published The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom in 1876 as "a complement to the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' because it shows how important are the results of cross-fertilisation which are ensured by the mechanisms described in that book." He told a friend "I cannot endure doing nothing", and resumed his work on orchids, assisted in his research by his son Francis Darwin. He corresponded about orchids with Fritz Müller, and almost completely rewrote the book with a considerable amount of new material, much of which was contributed by Müller. The revised edition was published in 1877.
Francis Darwin described it as characteristic that his father delighted in the observations that preceded the publication of Fertilisation of Orchids, not the applause which followed it. He quoted one of his father's last letters about orchids, written in 1880:
They are wonderful creatures, these Orchids, and I sometimes think with a glow of pleasure, when I remember making out some little point in their method of fertilisation.
== Commemoration of Darwin's work on orchids ==
Kent Wildlife Trust manages Downe Bank, which is near Down House and was a favourite place of the Darwin family, who called it 'Orchis Bank' because of the many wild orchids which grew there. It is now part of the 'Downe Bank and High Elms' Site of Special Scientific Interest. Darwin's observations of local orchids and their insect pollinators gave him the evidence for co-evolution which provided the basis for the Fertilisation of Orchids." Experts have identified "Orchis Bank" as the species-rich setting encapsulated in the closing paragraph of On the Origin of Species, in which Darwin wrote:
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
Darwin's home and its surroundings, including specifically "Orchis Bank", have been called his landscape laboratory, and together were nominated in January 2009 for designation as a World Heritage Site. The bid was made by a partnership led by the London Borough of Bromley, which now includes Downe. It was included in the 39 proposed properties, but was not in the 21 new sites selected for the list.
The influence of Darwin's work was commemorated in the Smithsonian Institution's 15th Annual Orchid Show, Orchids Through Darwin's Eyes, 24 January to 26 April 2009.
== See also ==
Pollination of orchids
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online gives online access to Darwin's writings: see "Darwin Online: Fertilisation of Orchids". Retrieved 31 July 2009. for links to English, French and German editions of the book.
The Darwin Correspondence Project is the source used for letters, published online following their publication in print as explained in Darwin Correspondence Project » The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. See also Correspondence of Charles Darwin.

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Fields Virology is an English-language virology textbook, originally it was published in two volumes and edited by Bernard N. Fields. The first edition in 1985 was called Virology, but from the second edition, the book's title was changed to Fields Virology. The book is widely regarded as an influential work on the subject and is cited as the "bible of virology" by many virologists.
Fields was the senior editor for the first three editions of the textbook. After his death in 1995, subsequent editions have retained his name in the title. The sixth edition was published in 2013 by Wolters Kluwer under the Lippincott Williams & Wilkins imprint and it was edited by David M. Knipe and Peter M. Howley.
Volume 1 (of 4) of the seventh edition was published in 2020. The fourth volume including ebook was published in June 2023.
== References ==

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Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind (1997) is a book about the evolution of the intelligent and conscious human mind by biologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart.
== Overview ==
In this book Cohen and Stewart give their ideas on how the sentient human being evolved. Various chapters discuss scientific and
philosophical ideas such as emergence and chaos, free will, perception versus reality, objectivity versus subjectivity, self-awareness, the ego and id, groupthink, and extelligence. A theme is that the traditional reductionist approach of trying to understand things as interaction of simpler things can not alone explain such complex concepts as intelligence or culture. To better understand them one has to consider also the context in which they have evolved and the fact that the evolution is a recursive process, often changing the context so that previously unseen evolutionary paths became available. The authors claim that intelligence is an inevitable result of letting evolution progress for long enough.
Topics are illustrated with humorous science fiction snippets dealing with a hypothetical alien intelligence, the Zarathustrians, whom Cohen and Stewart use as metaphors of the human mind itself, an alternative evolution story, and various philosophical concepts.
== References ==
Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart: Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-57155-3

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God-Apes and Fossil Men is a book on paleoanthropology in the Indian subcontinent by Kenneth A.R. Kennedy (Ann Arbor, 2000). The book is a detailed study of the history of Indian paleoanthropology and of the fossil record of prehistoric people of the Indian Subcontinent.
== Contents ==
The fifth chapter is about the prehistoric God-Apes of the Siwalik hills. Other chapters describe the fossil hominids of the Pleistocene. The Mesolithic skeletal record is also described, and the last chapters treat the Harappan civilization and the Megalith builders.
== References ==
== External links ==
Publisher announcement
Review by Lynne A. Schepartz

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Good Natured is a book by primatologist Frans de Waal on animal behavior and the evolution of ethics.
== Publishing history ==
The book was published in 1996 by Harvard University Press under the full title Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Much of the book details observations of primate behavior, especially that of chimpanzees and bonobos. On the final page, he concludes:
We seem to be reaching a point at which science can wrest morality from the hands of philosophers. That this is already happening—albeit largely at a theoretical level—is evident from recent books by, among others, Richard D. Alexander, Robert Frank, James Q. Wilson, and Robert Wright (journalist). The occasional disagreements within this budding field are far outweighed by the shared belief that evolution needs to be part of any satisfactory explanation of morality. … It takes up space in our heads, it reaches out to fellow human beings, and it is as much a part of what we are as the tendencies that it holds in check.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Frans, de Waal (1996). Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-35660-8.
== External links ==
Good Natured at the Harvard University Press
Review by Elena Madison Archived 2006-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
Review by William C. McGrew

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Grossology (ISBN 0-201-40964-X) is a non-fiction children's book written by Sylvia Branzei and published by Price Stern Sloan in 1992. It is a frank, thorough, yet light-hearted examination of various unappealing bodily functions and medical conditions. The topics are organized into three categories: “Slimy Mushy Oozy Gross Things,” (vomit, diarrhea, urine, acne, blisters, etc.); “Crusty Scaly Gross Things,” (dandruff, tooth decay, etc.); and “Stinky Smelly Gross Things,” (halitosis, flatulence, etc.). The text is also accompanied by many humorous illustrations, which were provided by Jack Keely.
Grossology spawned several sequels, most notably Animal Grossology (ISBN 0-201-95994-1) and Grossology Begins at Home (ISBN 0-201-95993-3), both written and illustrated by Branzei and Keely. Animal Grossology, published in 1996, is an exploration of various organisms that either produce or consume unappealing substances. It is divided into four sections: “Vomit Munchers” (flies, starfish, etc.); “Blood Slurpers” (leeches, ticks, etc.); “Slime Makers” (hagfish, slime mold, sea cucumbers, etc.); and “Dookie Lovers” (tapeworms, dung beetles, etc.). Grossology Begins at Home, published in 1997, focuses on the hidden germs and unseen pests that thrive in a typical house. One of the highlights of this book is a chapter on Defect Action Levels, the acceptable amounts of animal contaminants and insect parts that can be found in foods. The book also teaches children how to grow their own bacteria.
Grossology has also inspired two CD-ROMs (Grossology: The Science of Really Gross Things (1997) and Virtual Grossology (1998)), a highly popular traveling exhibition, and a children's television series.
== See also ==
Barf-O-Rama
Slimeballs
== References ==
== External links ==
The Grossology Touring Edutainment Exhibit (archived)

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Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983) is Stephen Jay Gould's third volume of collected essays reprinted from his monthly columns for Natural History magazine titled "This View of Life".
Three essays appeared elsewhere. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" first appeared in Discover magazine in May 1981; "Phyletic size decrease in Hershey bars" appeared in C. J. Rubins's Junk Food, 1980; and his "Reply to Critics", was written specifically for this volume as a commentary upon criticism of essay 16, "The Piltdown Conspiracy".
== Awards ==
The book was awarded the 1983 Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
== References ==
== External links ==
Steven Rose, "And Zebra Stripes and Chocolate Bars", The New York Times, 8 May 1983, section 7, page 3.
Richard Dawkins, "The Art of the Developable. Review of Pluto's Republic by Peter Medawar and Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes by Stephen Jay Gould", reprinted in The Devil's Chaplain: Selected Essays, Phoenix, 2003 (ISBN 978-0-7538-1750-6).
W. W. Norton's promotional page

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How the Snake Lost Its Legs: Curious Tales from the Frontier of Evo-Devo is a 2014 book on evolutionary developmental biology by Lewis I. Held, Jr. The title pays homage to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, but the "tales" are strictly scientific, explaining how a wide range of animal features evolved, in molecular detail. The book has been admired by other biologists as both accurate and accessible.
== Context ==
Lewis Irving Held, Jr. is a professor of developmental genetics at Texas Tech University. His laboratory is known for its research on pattern formation in the fruit fly embryo. His books on evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) include Imaginal Discs: The Genetic and Cellular Logic of Pattern Formation (2002), Quirks of Human Anatomy: An Evo-Devo Look at the Human Body (2009), and Deep Homology? Uncanny Similarities of Humans and Flies Uncovered by Evo-Devo (2017). In Held's view, Quirks, Snake, and Deep Homology form a trilogy on evo-devo.
== Book ==
=== Contents ===
How the Snake Lost Its Legs is ostensibly organised into six chapters, but in effect into three parts. The first chapter serves as an introduction and overview. The next four chapters provide what Held calls "the meatier aspects of evo-devo" with "many gristly facts" to chew over and "many tough lessons" to digest. The sixth, he writes, offers "tastier treats".
The first chapter introduces "the first two-sided animal", the urbilaterian which lived some 600 million years ago. Held calls the discovery that every bilaterally symmetric animal's body is shaped by the same set of genes "evo-devo's greatest revelation". That group of animals includes nematodes, annelids, molluscs and echinoderms, among other phyla. He explains, with detailed diagrams of arthropod and chordate development and a brief, richly-cited but conversational text, how that symmetry is produced.
The next four chapters are on the fly, the butterfly, the snake, and the cheetah. Each consists of three to eight sections named in the style of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, with titles like "How the butterfly got its spots" or "How the snake elongated its body", though a couple of sections use "Why?" rather than "How?", as in "Why the fly twirls his penis" (it rotates during embryonic development under the control of different genes). In these chapters, Held explains the mechanics of evolutionary developmental biology, complete with accounts of what genes such as hox, hedgehog, and engrailed do to shape bodies.
The third part is a single chapter providing "An evo-devo bestiary," a long list of stories, such as "How the turtle got its shell", "How the vampire bat reinvented running", "How the quetzal got its crest", and "How the firefly got its flashlight". These are Just So only in name, since each one is reliably cited to recent research rather than an author's whimsy. Since by this point the reader has been introduced to the core elements of the evo-devo gene toolkit, Held makes each section brief, 50 stories in 32 pages, and minimally technical: he discusses what the evo-devo system achieves in terms of each animal's structures and organs, ecology and behaviour.
The main text is supported by an accurate glossary and thorough index. Glossary terms are printed in boldface in the text, a helpful feature, while the glossary, like the text, is cited to the key research papers on which the book is based. The book thus provides a wide overview of evo-devo, with guidance on how to read more deeply on any chosen aspect.
=== Publication ===
The book was published by Cambridge University Press as a paperback in 2014 (ISBN 978-1-107-62139-8). The main text is 148 pages, with an 8-page glossary of evo-devo, and over 2500 references taking up 122 pages.
It is illustrated with monochrome diagrams, drawings and photographs in the text, and 8 pages of colour photographs. Held created the diagrams and drawings.
== Reception ==
The taxonomist Marc Srour writes that Held must be commended for not oversimplifying evo-devo, since, "The need to combine precise genetic and developmental labwork with phylogenetic systematics and homology inference means that simplifying the whole ordeal for a lay audience is extremely tricky." Srour sets the book alongside those of Stephen Jay Gould and Sean B. Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful as a showcase of evo-devo. He writes that Held has "give[n] us a readable, in-depth look at evo-devo and all the questions it can answer, from the important, to the fascinating, to the weird/cool facts you can repeat whenever you're at the pub. It's accessible to non-biologists and laymen, useful for teachers and undergrads, and ... researcher[s]."
The evolutionary biologist Larry Flammer "warns" readers that when they look at the pictures or study Held's diagrams, they, "will be captivated by the full-page captions, and probably drawn into the effort to really understand what is happening. The graphics do, indeed, help immensely to do this." Flammer notes, too, that many of the "nuts and bolts of evolution, deeper than just natural selection" are on display in the book, revealing, "precisely what genetic/physiological mechanisms are being selected for".
The molecular biologist Arnaud Martin observes that, "As children, we have all wondered about 'the How and the Why' of animal features, and if you are reading this it is in fact quite possible that a similar inquisitiveness still burns within you. The tone of How the Snake Lost its Legs finds its roots in the famous Just So Stories of Rudyard Kipling by tickling this curiosity with the formulaic How the leopard/elephant/camel got its spots/trunk/hump. Held's ability to captivate the reader's imagination compares to the mischievousness of Kipling's pourquoi stories," but the reader, "is also encouraged to extrapolate from general principles by the constant reminder that animals use a conserved set of developmental genes to construct their bodies." Martin finds evo-devo fascinating, "inherently colorful and well placed to fulfill the dual goal of etiological myths: explaining origins and causes while also stirring imagination and awe. Overall, the latest opus by Lewis Held Jr. fits that niche nicely, and shines by its ability to span essential concepts and empirical work with enough rhetoric[al] punch. It is accessible to most readers with a light background in biology", though not as suitable for "the [university] classroom as Held's Quirks of Human Anatomy."
== See also ==
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (Sean B. Carroll, 2005)
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Sources ==
Held, Lewis Irving (2014). How the Snake Lost its Legs : Curious Tales from the Frontier of Evo-Devo. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-62139-8.

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Human Biology is a basic biology textbook published in 1993 by Jones & Bartlett Learning. It has been recognized as a "good introductory text" for students without a strong scientific background.
== References ==
== External links ==
Human Biology

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I Have Landed (2002) is the 10th and final volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "This View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense.
The series of consecutive essays began in 1974, ending in January 2001 with the title essay "I have landed." The title refers to the very first words his grandfather Papa Joe wrote as he arrived on Ellis Island, New York as a newly arrived Hungarian immigrant, September 11, 1901.
In I Have Landed, Gould examines Isabelle Duncan's writings in 1860, in which she tried to reconcile the Biblical creation story and geography. He also provides an analysis of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's classification of humans into five races.
== References ==
== External links ==
A Grand Finale - by Robin McKie, The Observer.
Review of I Have Landed
Book review - by Jim Walker

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Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998) is the eighth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. This collection focuses on what Gould calls "humanistic natural history".
The essays were culled from his monthly column "The View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense.
== References ==
== External links ==
Book Review: by Jacqueline Boone, New York Times
The Royal Road of Science: by Bryan Appleyard, Spectator
Book review: by Jim Sullivan, Humanist
Review by Graham Brack, Renaissance
Book Review by Jim Walker
Book summary: by Ryan Robinson
Profile Page (with introduction) - Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive

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Henri-Joseph Redouté (1766-1852) was a painter at the Muséum, then took part in the Commission des Sciences et des Arts during the "Expedition to Egypt", in the company of botanists such as Ernest Coquebert de Monbret, Hippolyte Nectoux and Raffeneau-Delile - the latter being responsible for the botanical plates in the Description de l'Égypte, illustrated with engravings taken from Redouté's watercolours on Bristol paper. [Pancrace Bessa (1772-1846) succeeded Henri Redouté as painter at the Natural History Museum in 1823. Ange-Louis-Guillaume Le Sourd de Beauregard (Paris, 17 April 1800 – 1886), a pupil of van Spaendonck and a painter of flowers, also became a professor of iconography in 1841. We can also mention Adèle Riché; Jean Saturnin Abeille de Fontaine (born in Paris in 1721, the son of Joseph Abeille); Édouard Maubert (1806-1879), who specialised in botanical and horticultural illustrations; Alfred Riocreux (1820-1912), a painter at the Manufacture Royale de Porcelaine at Sèvres, he drew for Gustave Thuret, algologist, whom he accompanied to Cherbourg (around 1844-45). He bequeathed many vellums to the Muséum from 1849 to 1857. Charles-Émile Cuisin was a pupil of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran: Atlas de la flore des environs de Paris by Ernest Cosson and Germain de Saint-Pierre, illustrations by Germain de Saint-Pierre, Riocreux and Cuisin; two African floras (one by Georges Révoil, the other by Émile Auguste Joseph De Wildeman and Théophile Alexis Durand). The vellum collection slowed down towards the middle of the 19th century and then stopped, only to resume a century later (Marie-Pierre Le Sellin is the latest contributor). See the digitised vellums on the Muséum's site: [7]. In the column on the left, look for "Collection d'images" and click on "Collection des vélins du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (54)"
In 2016 the firm of Citadelles & Mazenod published a 624-page volume depicting 800 of the plates from the collection.
== References ==

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This is a list of published books about mushrooms and mycology, including their history in relation to man, their identification, their usage as food and medicine, and their ecology.
== Identification guides ==
These are larger works that may be hard to take on a hike but help with in depth identification after mushroom hunting.
Kuo, Michael (2005). Morels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472030361.
Pacioni, Giovanni (1981). Simon and Schuster's Guide to Mushrooms. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0671428495.
Stamets, Paul (1978). Psilocybe Mushrooms & Their Allies. Seattle Berkeley, Calif: Homestead Book Co. Distributed nationally by And/Or Press. ISBN 0-930180-03-8.
Stamets, Paul (1996). Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World: An Identification Guide. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 0-89815-839-7.
=== Europe ===
These are identification guides relevant only to Europe.
Bondartsev, A.S. (1971). The Polyporaceae of the European USSR and Caucasia. Jerusalem, Israel: Program for Scientific Translations. OCLC 204648.
Breitenbach, J (1984). Fungi of Switzerland. Mad River Press. ISBN 978-0916422479.
Kavina, Karel (1934). Atlas des Champignons de l'Europe (in French). Praha: Chez les éditeurs. OCLC 3065296.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Lange, Jakob (1983). Guide des Champignons (in French). Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestle. ISBN 9782603004692.
Lange, Morten (1967). Notes on the Macromycetes of Northern Norway (Acta Borealia, A. Scientia No. 23). Tromsø, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Skirgiełło, Alina (1975). Fungi: Basidiomycetes, Boletales (Gryzyby). Warsaw, Poland: The Foreign Scientific Publications Dept. of the National Center for Scientific, Technical and Economic Information. OCLC 3073155.
Sterry, Paul (1991). Fungi of Britain and Northern Europe. London: Chancellor. ISBN 978-1851528103.
Buczacki, Stefan (2012). Collins Fungi Guide. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007466481.
Thompson, Peter (2013). Ascomycetes in Colour: Found and Photographed in Mainland Britain. Great Britain: Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1479747559.
=== North America ===
These are identification guides relevant only to North America. Below are sections detailing specific regions of North America, such as the Southeastern United States and the Pacific Northwest.
Bessette, Alan (2016). Boletes of Eastern North America. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815610748.
Bessette, Alan (2009). Milk Mushrooms of North America: A Field Identification Guide to the Genus Lactarius. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815632290.
Bessette, Alan (2010). North American Boletes: A Color Guide to the Fleshy Pored Mushrooms. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815632443.
Bessette, Alan (2013). Tricholomas of North America: A Mushroom Field Guide. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292742345.
Bessette, Alan (2012). Waxcap Mushrooms of Eastern North America. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815632689.
Beug, Michael (2014). Ascomycete Fungi of North America: A Mushroom Reference Guide. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292742338.
Kerrigan, Richard (2016). Agaricus of North America. Bronx, New York, USA: New York Botanical Garden. ISBN 978-0-89327-536-5.
Miller, Orson (2006). North American Mushrooms: A Field Guide to Edible and Inedible Fungi. Guilford, Conn: Falcon Guide. ISBN 9780762731091.
Phillips, Roger (2005). Mushrooms & Other Fungi of North America. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books. ISBN 9781554071159.
==== Alaska ====
Laursen, Gary (2009). Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams: Fungi, Lichenicolous Fungi, Lichenized Fungi, Slime Molds, Mosses, and Liverworts. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press. ISBN 978-1602230583.
==== Northeastern United States ====
These are identification guides relevant to the Northeastern United States.
Baroni, Timothy (2017). Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 978-1604696349.
Barron, George (2015). Mushrooms of Northeast North America. Vancouver, BC: Partners Publishing. ISBN 978-1772130003.
Bessette, Alan (2006). Common Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of New York. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815608486.
Bessette, Alan (1997). Mushrooms of Northeastern North America. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815603887.
Bessette, Arleen (2001). Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815606888.
Binion, Denise (2008). Macrofungi Associated With Oaks of Eastern North America. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press. ISBN 978-1933202365.
Russell, Bill (2006). Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0271028910.
==== Midwestern United States ====
These are identification guides relevant to the Midwestern United States.
Kauffman, C. H. (1971). The Gilled Mushrooms (Agaricaceae) of Michigan and the Great Lakes Region. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486223964.
Kuo, Michael (2014). Mushrooms of the Midwest. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252079764.
McFarland, Joe (2009). Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois & Surrounding States: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252076435.
Stone, Maxine (2010). Missouri's Wild Mushrooms: A Guide to Hunting, Identifying and Cooking the State's Most Common Mushrooms. Jefferson City, MO: Missouri Department of Conservation. ISBN 978-1887247740.
==== Pacific Northwest ====
These are identification guides focused on mushrooms found in the Pacific Northwest.
Arora, David (1986). Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 978-0898151695.
Desjardin, Dennis (2015). California Mushrooms: The Comprehensive Identification Guide. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. ISBN 978-1604693539.
McKenny, Margaret (1987). The New Savory Wild Mushroom. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0295964805.
Siegel, Noah (2016). Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 978-1607748175.
Trudell, Steve (2009). Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Or: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0881929355.
==== Southwestern United States ====
These are identification guides relevant to the Southwestern United States.
States, Jack (1990). Mushrooms and Truffles of the Southwest. Tucson, AZ.: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0816511921.
==== Southeastern United States ====
These are guides relevant to the Southeastern United States.
Bessette, Alan (2019). Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast States. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-4773-1815-7.
Bessette, Alan (2007). Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815631125.
Kimbrough, James (2000). Common Florida Mushrooms. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Extension Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. ISBN 978-0916287306.
Metzler, Susan (1992). Texas Mushrooms : A Field Guide. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292751262.
Roody, William (2003). Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813128139.
Weber, Nancy (1985). A Field Guide to Southern Mushrooms. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472856152.

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=== Field guides ===
These are identification guides small enough to take with you while mushroom hunting or on a hike.
Arora, David (1991). All That the Rain Promises and More...: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 978-0-89815-388-0.
Marrone, Teresa (2016). Mushrooms of the Northeast: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms. Cambridge, MN: Adventure Publications. ISBN 978-1591935919.
Marrone, Teresa (2014). Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms. Cambridge, Minnesota: Adventure Publications, Inc. ISBN 978-1591934172.
Lincoff, Gary (1981). National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. New York: Knopf Distributed by Random House. ISBN 978-0394519920.
Smith, Alexander and Weber, Nancy (1980). The Mushroom Hunter's Field Guide. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-85610-7.
Russel, Bill. (2006). Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. University Park, PA. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-271-02891-2.
== Cultivation ==
These are books about growing mushrooms and fungiculture.
Cotter, Tradd (2014). Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN 978-1603584555.
Oss, O. T. (1991). Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide: A Handbook for Psilocybin Enthusiasts. San Francisco, Calif: Quick American Pub. ISBN 978-0932551061.
Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms: Shokuyō Oyobi Yakuyō Kinoko No Saibai. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 1-58008-175-4.
Stamets, Paul (1983). The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home. Olympia, Wash. Seattle, Wa: Agarikon Press Western distribution by Homestead Book Co. ISBN 0-9610798-0-0.
== Fungal biology ==
These are books about mycology and fungal biology.
Deacon, J. W. (2006). Fungal Biology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. ISBN 978-1405130660.
Kendrick, Bryce (2000). The Fifth Kingdom. Newburyport MA: Focus Pub. ISBN 978-1585100224.
Petersen, Jens (2012). The Kingdom of Fungi. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691157542.
Webster, John (2007). Introduction to Fungi. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521014830.
== Ecology ==
These are books related to the intersection of fungi and ecology, such as mycoremediation.
Gulden, Gro (1992). Macromycetes and Air Pollution: Mycocoenological Studies in Three Oligotrophic Spruce Forests in Europe. Berlin: J. Cramer. ISBN 9783443590451.
McCoy, Peter (2016). Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing & Working With Fungi. Portland, Oregon: Chthaeus Press. ISBN 978-0986399602.
Sheldrake, Merlin (2020). Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780525510314.
Stamets, Paul (2005). Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 978-1-58008-579-3.
Varma, Ajit (2013). Symbiotic Fungi: Principles and Practice. Berlin: Springer Berlin. ISBN 978-3642260278.
== Food ==
These are books that explore mushrooms and fungi from the perspective of food and food science, e.g. books that explore the chemical and nutritional compositions of edible mushrooms, or books of recipes specializing in using wild mushrooms.
Fischer, David (1992). Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292720800.
Johnston, Ruth (2012). The Art of Cooking Morels. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11784-0.
Kalač, Pavel (2016). Edible Mushrooms: Chemical Composition and Nutritional Value. London Wall, UK: Elsevier, AP. ISBN 978-0128044551.
Kuo, Michael (2007). 100 Edible Mushrooms. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-03126-9.
Samson, Robert (2007). Food Mycology: A Multifaceted Approach to Fungi and Food. Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 9780849398186.
== Health ==
These are books concerned with the health benefits of medicinal mushrooms.
Stamets, Paul (2002). MycoMedicinals: An Informational Treatise on Mushrooms. Olympia: MycoMedia. ISBN 0-9637971-9-0.
== History ==
Allegro, John (2009). The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East. Place of publication not identified: Gnostic Media Research & Pub. ISBN 978-0982556276.
Letcher, Andy (2008). Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0060828295.
Money, Nicholas P. (2004). Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195171587.
== Catalogs ==
These are books that don't act primarily as an identification guides but rather as catalogs, e.g. as a book of images of mushrooms with brief descriptions, or as a book listing species for a specific area without identifying information, etc.
Roberts, Peter (2011). The Book of Fungi: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species From Around the World. Chicago London: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226721170.
== Dictionaries and glossaries ==
These are books that define some of the technical jargon used within the field of mycology.
Ainsworth, G. C. (2008). Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi. Wallingford, Oxon, UK: CABI. ISBN 9780851998268.
Snell, Walter (1971). A Glossary of Mycology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674354517.
== See also ==
List of mycologists
== References ==
== External links ==
Cumberland Mycological Society Book Reviews
Asheville Mushroom Club Book List
/r/mycology's list of books and resources

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Louis Heyns Du Preez (born 9 July 1962) is a South African professor of zoology who specialises in parasitology and herpetology at the North-West University. Du Preez is best known for his research on South African frog species, writing a widely used wildlife guide for the frogs of Southern Africa, and contributions to global parasitology with special focus studies on polystome worms. His contributions to polystome research have led to a recently discovered Malagasy frog species, Blommersia dupreezi, being named in his honour.
== Biography ==
Du Preez grew up in Ficksburg and started his tertiary education at the University of the Free State located in the same province he was brought up. In 1986 he obtained his Master of Science degree with the thesis titled 'Polystoma australis (Monogenea): aspekte van ontwikkeling en gedrag wat betrekking het op rekrutering en vestiging'.
From 1989 to 1990 he was a school teacher in Bloemfontein. From 1991 to 1993 he was Head of the Department of Herpetology at the National Museum in Bloemfontein. In 1994 he obtained a PhD degree from the University of the Free State with a thesis titled 'Study of factors influencing the nature and extent of host-specificity among polystomatids (Polystomatidae: Monogenoidea) parasitic in Anura of southern Africa' under the mentorship of Dawid Kok. Du Preez then progressed to being the Senior Lecturer of Zoology at the University of the Free State from 1996 to 2000. From 2001 to 2004 he was appointed associate professor. In 2002 he established the African Amphibian Research Conservation Group and was later promoted Full Professor of Zoology in 2005 at North-West University. In 2011 du Preez was elected Chair of the Zoology Department at North-West University.
Throughout his career he has conducted research in several countries across the world including France, United States, Nigeria, Brazil and China. He is a member of the Zoological Society of Southern Africa, the Herpetological Association of Africa, the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, the Parasitological Association of Southern Africa and the Microscopy Association of Africa.
== Publications ==
Louis du Preez published several books and over 100 scientific articles. In addition to several parasite, frog, and reptile species that are new to science, du Preez's species descriptions include the frog species Breviceps carruthersi and Breviceps passmorei from the Rain Frog family (Brevicipitidae), and Hyperolius howelli from the Reed Frog family (Hyperoliidae).
=== Books ===
Field guide and key to the frogs & toads of the Free State, 1996 (ISBN 978-0-86886-549-2)
Field Guide to the frogs and toads of the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site, 2006 (ISBN 978-1-86822-517-0)
Bios: an integrated approach to life sciences teaching and learning, 2007 (ISBN 978-1-920140-06-9)
A complete guide to the frogs of Southern Africa, 2009; 2015 (ISBN 978-1-77007-446-0)
Frogs and frogging in South Africa, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-77007-914-4)
Turtle Polystomes of the world: Neopolystoma, Polystomoidella & Polystomoides, 2011 (ISBN 978-3-639-36517-7)
A Bilingual Field Guide to the Frogs of Zululand (or Isiqondiso Sasefilidini Esindimimbili Ngamaxoxo AkwelaKwaZulu in IsiZulu), 2017 (ISBN 978-1-928224-19-8)
Frogs of Southern Africa: a complete guide, 2017 (ISBN 978-1-77584-636-9)
=== Scientific publications ===
Source:
Du Preez, Louis H., and Dawid J. Kok. "Syntopic occurrence of new species of Polystoma and Metapolystoma (Monogenea: Polystomatidae) in Ptychadena porosissima in South Africa." Systematic Parasitology 22.2 (1992): 141–150. doi:10.1007/BF00009606
Du Preez, Louis H., and Dawid J. Kok. "Supporting experimental evidence of host specificity among southern African polystomes (Polystomatidae: Monogenea)." Parasitology Research 83 (1997): 558–562. doi:10.1007/s004360050297
Du Preez, LH, and L. H. S. Lim. "Neopolystoma liewi sp. n.(Monogenea: Polystomatidae) from the eye of the Malayan box turtle (Cuora amboinensis)." Folia Parasitologica 47.1 (2000): 11–15. https://folia.paru.cas.cz/pdfs/fol/2000/01/03.pdf
Verneau, Olivier, et al. "A view of early vertebrate evolution inferred from the phylogeny of polystome parasites (Monogenea: Polystomatidae)." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 269.1490 (2002): 535–543. doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1899
Weldon, Ché, et al. "Origin of the amphibian chytrid fungus." Emerging Infectious Diseases 10.12 (2004): 2100. doi:10.3201/eid1012.030804
Du Preez, Louis H., and Milton F. Maritz. "Demonstrating morphometric protocols using polystome marginal hooklet measurements." Systematic Parasitology 63.1 (2006): 1–15. doi:10.1007/s11230-005-5496-5
Mendelson III, Joseph R., et al. "Confronting amphibian declines and extinctions." Science 313.5783 (2006): 48–48. doi:10.1126/science.1128396
Andreone, Franco, et al. "The challenge of conserving amphibian megadiversity in Madagascar." PLOS Biology 6.5 (2008): e118. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060118
Du Preez, Louis H., et al. "Reproduction, larval growth, and reproductive development in African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) exposed to atrazine." Chemosphere 71.3 (2008): 546–552. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2007.09.051
Petzold, Alice, et al. "A revision of African helmeted terrapins (Testudines: Pelomedusidae: Pelomedusa), with descriptions of six new species." Zootaxa 3795.5 (2014): 523–548. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3795.5.2
Meyer, Leon, et al. "Parasite host-switching from the invasive American red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, to the native Mediterranean pond turtle, Mauremys leprosa, in natural environments." Aquatic Invasions 10.1 (2015): 79–91. doi:10.3391/ai.2015.10.1.08
Du Preez, Louis H., and Michelle Van Rooyen. "A new polystomatid (Monogenea, Polystomatidae) from the mouth of the North American freshwater turtle Pseudemys nelsoni." ZooKeys 539 (2015): 1. doi:10.3897/zookeys.539.6108
Du Preez, Louis H., and Olivier Verneau. "Eye to eye: classification of conjunctival sac polystomes (Monogenea: Polystomatidae) revisited with the description of three new genera Apaloneotrema ng, Aussietrema ng and Fornixtrema ng." Parasitology Research 119.12 (2020): 4017–4031. doi:10.1007/s00436-020-06888-w
Du Preez, Louis Heyns, Marcus Vinícius Domingues, and Olivier Verneau. "Classification of pleurodire polystomes (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea, Polystomatidae) revisited with the description of two new genera from the Australian and Neotropical Realms." International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 19 (2022): 180–186. doi:10.1016/j.ijppaw.2022.09.004
Landman, Willem, et al. "Metapolystoma ohlerianum n. sp.(Monogenea: Polystomatidae) from Aglyptodactylus madagascariensis (Anura: Mantellidae)." Acta Parasitologica (2023): 1–15. doi:10.1007/s11686-023-00668-z
Verneau, Olivier, Gerald R. Johnston, and Louis Du Preez. "A quantum leap in the evolution of platyhelminths: Host-switching from turtles to hippopotamuses illustrated from a phylogenetic meta-analysis of polystomes (Monogenea, Polystomatidae)." International Journal for Parasitology 53.5–6 (2023): 317–325. doi:10.1016/j.ijpara.2023.03.001

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=== Species descriptions ===
Du Preez has described or contributed to the description of at least 24 polystome species, 8 polystome genera, and more than 10 other non-polystome parasite species that have frogs or reptiles as their hosts. In herpetology, du Preez has described or contributed to the description of at least 20 new frog species and 6 reptile species.
==== Amphibians ====
Breviceps carruthersi Du Preez, Netherlands, and Minter, 2017
Breviceps passmorei Minter, Netherlands, and Du Preez, 2017
Gephyromantis cornucopia Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Gephyromantis feomborona Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Gephyromantis fiharimpe Vences, Köhler, Crottini, Hofreiter, Hutter, Du Preez, Preick, Rakotoarison, Rancilhac, Raselimanana, Rosa, Scherz, and Glaw, 2022
Gephyromantis kremenae Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Gephyromantis mafifeo Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Gephyromantis matsilo Vences, Köhler, Crottini, Hofreiter, Hutter, Du Preez, Preick, Rakotoarison, Rancilhac, Raselimanana, Rosa, Scherz, and Glaw, 2022
Gephyromantis mitsinjo Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Gephyromantis oelkrugi Vences, Köhler, Crottini, Hofreiter, Hutter, Du Preez, Preick, Rakotoarison, Rancilhac, Raselimanana, Rosa, Scherz, and Glaw, 2022
Gephyromantis portonae Vences, Köhler, Crottini, Hofreiter, Hutter, Du Preez, Preick, Rakotoarison, Rancilhac, Raselimanana, Rosa, Scherz, and Glaw, 2022
Gephyromantis pedronoi Vences, Köhler, Andreone, Craul, Crottini, Du Preez, Preick, Rancilhac, Rödel, Scherz, Streicher, Hofreiter, and Glaw, 2021
Gephyromantis sergei Miralles, Köhler, Glaw, Wollenberg Valero, Crottini, Rosa, Du Preez, Gehring, Vieites, Ratsoavina, and Vences, 2023
Hyperolius friedemanni Mercurio and Rödel in Channing, Hillers, Lötters, Rödel, Schick, Conradie, Rödder, Mercurio, Wagner, Dehling, Du Preez, Kielgast, and Burger, 2013
Hyperolius howelli Du Preez and Channing, 2013
Hyperolius inyangae Channing in Channing, Hillers, Lötters, Rödel, Schick, Conradie, Rödder, Mercurio, Wagner, Dehling, Du Preez, Kielgast, and Burger, 2013
Hyperolius jacobseni Channing in Channing, Hillers, Lötters, Rödel, Schick, Conradie, Rödder, Mercurio, Wagner, Dehling, Du Preez, Kielgast, and Burger, 2013
Hyperolius lupiroensis Channing in Channing, Hillers, Lötters, Rödel, Schick, Conradie, Rödder, Mercurio, Wagner, Dehling, Du Preez, Kielgast, and Burger, 2013
Hyperolius rwandae Dehling, Sinsch, Rodel, and Channing in Channing, Hillers, Lötters, Rödel, Schick, Conradie, Rödder, Mercurio, Wagner, Dehling, Du Preez, Kielgast, and Burger, 2013
Tomopterna adiastola Channing and Du Preez, 2020
==== Reptiles ====
Pelomedusa barbata Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký, and Fritz, 2014
Pelomedusa kobe Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký & Fritz, 2014
Pelomedusa neumanni Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký & Fritz, 2014
Pelomedusa schweinfurthi Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký & Fritz, 2014
Pelomedusa somalica Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký & Fritz, 2014
Pelomedusa variabilis Petzold, Vargas-Ramírez, Kehlmaier, Vamberger, Branch, Du Preez, Hofmeyr, Meyer, Schleicher, Široký & Fritz, 2014
==== Nematodes ====
Amphibiophilus bialatus Svitin, Kuzmin, Harnoster & Du Preez, 2020
Amphibiophilus mooiensis Svitin & Du Preez, 2018
Camallanus sodwanaensis Svitin, Truter, Kudlai, Smit & Du Preez, 2019
Cosmocerca daly Harnoster, du Preez & Svitin, 2022
Cosmocerca monicae Harnoster, du Preez & Svitin, 2022
Cosmocerca makhadoensis Harnoster, du Preez & Svitin, 2022
Pseudocapillaria (Ichthyocapillaria) bumpi Svitin, Bullard, Dutton, Netherlands, Syrota, Verneau & du Preez, 2021
Serpinema cayennense Harmoster, Svitin & Du Preez, 2019
Rhabdias delangei Kuzmin, Svitin, Harnoster & du Preez, 2020
Rhabdias blommersiae Kuzmin, Junker, du Preez & Bain, 2013

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==== Flatworms ====
Aussietrema queenslandense (Pichelin, 1995) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Aussietrema spratti (Pichelin, 1995) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Emoleptalea mozambiquensis Curran, Dutton, Warren, du Preez & Bullard, 2021
Eupolystoma namibiense Du Preez, 2015
Fornixtrema elizabethae (Platt, 2000) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Fornixtrema guianense (Du Preez, Badets, Héritier & Verneau, 2017) Du Preez & Verneau, 1920
Fornixtrema liewi (Du Preez & Lim, 2000) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Fornixtrema grossi (Du Preez & Morrison, 2012) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Fornixtrema palpebrae (Strelkov, 1950) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Fornixtrema scorpioides (Du Preez, Badets, Héritier & Verneau, 2017) Du Preez & Verneau, 2020
Indopolystoma hakgalense (Crusz & Ching, 1975) Chaabane, Verneau & Du Preez, 2019
Indopolystoma indicum (Diengdoh & Tandon, 1991) Chaabane, Verneau & Du Preez, 2019
Indopolystoma parvum Chaabane, Verneau & Du Preez, 2019
Indopolystoma viridi Chaabane, Verneau & Du Preez, 2019
Indopolystoma zuoi (Shen, Wang & Fan, 2013) Chaabane, Verneau & Du Preez, 2019
Manotrema brasiliensis (Viera, Novelli, Sousa & SouzaLima, 2008) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Manotrema fuquesi (Mañe-Garzón & Gil, 1962) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Manotrema uruguayensis (Mañe-Garzón & Gil, 1961) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Metapolystoma ansuanum Landman, Verneau, Raharivololoniaina & Du Preez, 2021
Metapolystoma falcatum Landman, Verneau, Raharivololoniaina & Du Preez, 2021
Metapolystoma multiova Landman, Verneau, Raharivololoniaina & Du Preez, 2021
Metapolystoma ohlerianum Landman, Verneau, Vences & Du Preez, 2023
Metapolystoma porosissimae Du Preez & Kok, 1992
Metapolystoma theroni Landman, Verneau, Raharivololoniaina & Du Preez, 2021
Metapolystoma vencesi Landman, Verneau, Raharivololoniaina & Du Preez, 2021
Nanopolystoma brayi Du Preez, Wilkinson & Huyse, 2008
Nanopolystoma lynchi Du Preez, Wilkinson & Huyse, 2008
Nanopolystoma tinsleyi Du Preez, Badets & Verneau, 2014
Pleurodirotrema chelodinae (MacCallum, 1918) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Pleurodirotrema macleayi (Rohde, 1984) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Pleurodirotrema novaeguineae (Fairfax, 1990) du Preez, Domingues & Verneau, 2022
Polystoma goeldii Sales, Du Preez, Verneau & Domingues, 2022
Polystoma knoffi Du Preez & Domingues, 2019
Polystoma okomuensis Aisien, Du Preez & Imasuen, 2010
Polystoma testimagnum Du Preez & Kok, 1993
Polystoma travassosi Du Preez & Domingues, 2019
Polystomoides cayensis (Du Preez, Badets, Héritier & Verneau, 2017) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides aspidonectis (MacCallum, 1919) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides cayensis (Du Preez, Badets, Héritier & Verneau, 2017) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides cyclovitellum (Caballero, Zerecero & Grocott, 1957) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides domitilae (Caballero, 1938) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides euzeti (Combes & Ktari, 1976) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides orbiculare (Stunkard, 1916) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides rugosa (MacCallum, 1918) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Polystomoides scriptanus Héritier, Verneau, Smith, Coetzer & Du Preez, 2017
Polystomoides soredensis Héritier, Verneau, Smith, Coetzer & Du Preez, 2017
Polystomoides terrapenis (Harwood, 1932) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
Uteropolystomoides multifalx (Stunkard, 1924) Chaabane, Du Preez, Johnston & Verneau, 2022
== Awards ==
1994: W.O. Neitz medal for the best dissertation in parasitology by the Parasitological Association of Southern Africa.
== References ==
== External links ==
Profile on Namibiana
Publications by Louis du Preez at ResearchGate

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Mathematical Biology is a two-part monograph on mathematical biology first published in 1989 by the applied mathematician James D. Murray. It is considered to be a classic in the field and sweeping in scope.
== Part I: An Introduction ==
Part I of Mathematical Biology covers population dynamics, reaction kinetics, oscillating reactions, and reaction-diffusion equations.
Chapter 1: Continuous Population Models for Single Species
Chapter 2: Discrete Population Models for a Single Species
Chapter 3: Models for Interacting Populations
Chapter 4: Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination (TSD)
Chapter 5: Modelling the Dynamics of Marital Interaction: Divorce Prediction and Marriage Repair
Chapter 6: Reaction Kinetics
Chapter 7: Biological Oscillators and Switches
Chapter 8: BZ Oscillating Reactions
Chapter 9: Perturbed and Coupled Oscillators and Black Holes
Chapter 10: Dynamics of Infectious Diseases
Chapter 11: Reaction Diffusion, Chemotaxis, and Nonlocal Mechanisms
Chapter 12: Oscillator-Generated Wave Phenomena
Chapter 13: Biological Waves: Single-Species Models
Chapter 14: Use and Abuse of Fractals
== Part II: Spatial Models and Biomedical Applications ==
Part II of Mathematical Biology focuses on pattern formation and applications of reaction-diffusion equations. Topics include: predator-prey interactions, chemotaxis, wound healing, epidemic models, and morphogenesis.
Chapter 1: Multi-Species Waves and Practical Applications
Chapter 2: Spatial Pattern Formation with Reaction Diffusion Systems
Chapter 3: Animal Coat Patterns and Other Practical Applications of Reaction Diffusion Mechanisms
Chapter 4: Pattern Formation on Growing Domains: Alligators and Snakes
Chapter 5: Bacterial Patterns and Chemotaxis
Chapter 6: Mechanical Theory for Generating Pattern and Form in Development
Chapter 7: Evolution, Morphogenetic Laws, Developmental Constraints and Teratologies
Chapter 8: A Mechanical Theory of Vascular Network Formation
Chapter 9: Epidermal Wound Healing
Chapter 10: Dermal Wound Healing
Chapter 11: Growth and Control of Brain Tumours
Chapter 12: Neural Models of Pattern Formation
Chapter 13: Geographic Spread and Control of Epidemics
Chapter 14: Wolf Territoriality, Wolf-Deer Interaction and Survival
== Impact ==
Since its initial publication, the monograph has come to be seen as a highly influential work in the field of mathematical biology. It serves as the essential text for most high level mathematical biology courses around the world, and is credited with transforming the field from a niche subject into a standard research area of applied mathematics.
== References ==
== External links ==
Mathematical Biology I: An Introduction
Mathematical Biology II: Spatial Models and Biomedical Applications

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Men, Microscopes, and Living Things is a children's book written by the American author Katherine Shippen and illustrated by Anthony Ravielli. The book was first published in 1955 and is a 1956 Newbery Honor recipient.
== Overview ==
Shippen traces the history of biological thought beginning with Aristotle and followed by Pliny, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, and several others. The book is 190 pages including a 7-page index.
== References ==

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Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären, known in English as Metamorphosis of Plants, was published by German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1790. In this work, Goethe essentially discovered the (serially) homologous nature of leaf organs in plants, from cotyledons, to photosynthetic leaves, to the petals of a flower. Although Sir Richard Owen, the British vertebrate anatomist, is generally credited with first articulating a definition of the word "homology" (in 1843), it is clear that Goethe had already arrived at a sophisticated view of homology and transformation (within an idealist morphological perspective) more than fifty years earlier.
== See also ==
Goethean science
Phyllody
Teratology
== External links ==
Metamorphosis of Plants (poem) in English
Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu Erklären (Gotha, 1790)
The Metamorphosis of Plants, by Zemplén Gábor

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Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon is a historically significant book by Robert Hooke about his observations through various lenses. It was the first book to include illustrations of insects and plants as seen through microscopes.
Published in January 1665, the first major publication of the Royal Society, it became the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. The book originated the biological term "cell".
== Observations ==
Hooke most famously describes a fly's eye and a plant cell (where he coined that term because plant cells, which are walled, reminded him of the cells of a monastery). Known for its spectacular copperplate of the miniature world, particularly its fold-out plates of insects, the text itself reinforces the tremendous power of the new microscope. The plates of insects fold out to be larger than the large folio itself, the engraving of the louse in particular folding out to four times the size of the book. Although the book is best known for demonstrating the power of the microscope, Micrographia also describes distant planetary bodies, the wave theory of light, the organic origin of fossils, and other philosophical and scientific interests of its author.
Hooke also selected several objects of human origin; among these objects were the jagged edge of a honed razor and the point of a needle, seeming blunt under the microscope. His goal may well have been to contrast the flawed products of mankind with the perfection of nature (and hence, in the spirit of the times, of biblical creation).
== Reception ==
Published under the aegis of the Royal Society, the popularity of the book helped further the society's image and mission of being England's leading scientific organization. Micrographia's illustrations of the miniature world captured the public's imagination in a radically new way; Samuel Pepys called it "the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life".
== Methods ==
In 2007, Janice Neri, a professor of art history and visual culture, studied Hooke's artistic influences and processes with the help of some newly rediscovered notes and drawings that appear to show some of his work leading up to Micrographia. She observes, "Hooke's use of the term "schema" to identify his plates indicates that he approached his images in a diagrammatic manner and implies the study or visual dissection of the objects portrayed." Identifying Hooke's schema as 'organization tools', she emphasizes:
Hooke built up his images from numerous observations made from multiple vantage points, under varying lighting conditions, and with lenses of differing powers. Similarly, his specimens required a great deal of manipulation and preparation in order to make them visible through the microscope.
Additionally: "Hooke often enclosed the objects he presented within a round frame, thus offering viewers an evocation of the experience of looking through the lens of a microscope."
== Bibliography ==
Robert Hooke. Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. London: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1665. (first edition).
== References ==
== External links ==
Engraved copperplate illustrations from a first edition of Micrographia: or Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. With observations and inquiries thereupon (all images freely available for download in a variety of formats from the Science History Institute's Digital Collections)
Project Gutenberg Micrographia text
Turning the Pages - virtual copy of the book from the National Library of Medicine
Micrographia - full digital facsimile at Linda Hall Library
Transcribing the Hooke Folio Archived 23 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Micrographia at the Internet Archive
Micrographia public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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Microscopical researches into the accordance in the structure and growth of animals and plants is a famous treatise by Theodor Schwann published in 1839 which officially formulated the basis of the cell theory. The original title was Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen. The book has been called "a conspicuous milestone in nineteenth century biology" by Karl Sudhoff and "epoch making" By Francis Münzer.
The book, originally published in German, was translated to English in 1847 by Henry Spencer Smith in an edition that also contained the treatise Phytogenesis, by Matthias Schleiden.
Besides the theoretical work, that Schwann called a "philosophical" section of general anatomy, Schwann provided several plates with drawings of cells and tissues and discussions of observations of other microscopists.
== Cell theory ==
Schwann dedicated a chapter of the treatise to explicitly formulate the cell theory, stating that ("the elementary parts of all tissues are formed of cells” and that “there is one universal principle of development for the elementary parts of organisms... and this principle is in the formation of cells" (Henry Smith's translation, 1847). His book had the goal to prove via observations that the cell theory put forth for plants by Matthias Schleiden was equally valid for animals.
== Schwann cell ==
The book is credited with the first description of what would later be called Schwann cell, a type of glial cell. The description of the cells was evident from passages such as:
Some, however, appear to remain for a longer period; occasionally, although rarely, a cell-nucleui is here and there seen upon the side of a nerve (the white substance of which is completely developed), lying in the pale border, which surrounds the white substance. Fig. 9,c and d, exhibits them from the nervus vagus of a calf.
and
Pl. 4, fig. 6 represents a portion of the ischiatic, and fig.7, of the brachial nerve of such a foetus. We observe a palish, and very minutely-granulated cord, which, in consequence of certain longitudinal shadings, such as the delineation exhibits, presents the appearance of a coarse fibrous structure. Round or for the most part oval corpuscles, which are immediately recognized as cell-nuclei, and which sometimes also contain one or two nucleoli, are generally seen in the course of these shaded parts,throughout the entire thickness of the cord.
== Metabolism ==
The book is also credited with the introduction of the term "metabolism" for the following quote in the chapter "Theory of Cells":
The question, then, as to the fundamental power of organised bodies resolves itself into that of the fundamental powers of the individual cells.”… These phenomena may be arranged in two natural groups: first, those which relate to the combination of molecules to form a cell; secondly, those which result from chemical changes either in the component particles of the cell itself or in the surrounding cytoblastema, and may be called metabolic phenomena (implying that which is liable to occasion or suffer change)
== References ==

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Monad to Man: the concept of progress in evolutionary biology is a 1996 book about the longstanding idea that evolution is progressive by the philosopher of biology Michael Ruse. It analyses the connection between ideas of progress in culture generally and its application in evolutionary biology.
== Summary ==
Ruse surveys the attitude to progress throughout the history of biology, exploring the connections between the idea of progress and the belief that evolution is progressive (orthogenesis). He argues that from early nineteenth century speculation, Charles Darwin came to suggest that natural selection drove species to "a higher stage of perfection", jumping from relative to absolute progress. In this, Ruse argues, he was followed by many later biologists. Ruse interviews well-known evolutionary biologists such as Ernst Mayr, John Maynard Smith, Stephen Jay Gould, and E. O. Wilson, and both reports their views and gives his own opinion of how progressionist they were.
== Illustrations ==
The book is illustrated with photographs of the major figures, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn and Sewall Wright, and a few drawings such as of the titanothere, an animal used by Osborn to illustrate "orthogenetic evolution beyond the adaptive optimum" There are a few diagrams such as William Bateson's schematic "phylogeny", a proposed tree of life for some invertebrate animals.
== Publication history ==
Monad to Man was first published by Harvard University Press with cloth covers in 1996. They produced the first paperback edition in 2009.
== Reception ==
Makarand Paranjape, in an "introductory essay" for The International Society for Science and Religion, notes that Ruse was a "key witness" in the 1982 court case which decided that the attempt by Arkansas to ban the teaching of evolution in schools was unconstitutional. Paranjape writes that Ruse argues that evolutionary biology has been an immature science "for much of its 150 year history", because it has been tied to the Enlightenment's idea of progress. He suggests that Ruse is "unapologetically, even unreflexively Euro-centric", leaving out non-Western thinkers like Sri Aurobindo, and notes that Ruse ends by predicting that "Progress will continue to dog evolutionary theory" because as Ruse explains, the belief of evolutionists in scientific Progress [with a capital P] is so readily transferred into "a belief in organic progress".
The philosopher of science Ron Amundson, reviewing the book for The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, notes that Ruse thanks E. O. Wilson for urging him "to write a really big book", and quotes Peter J. Bowler as calling it "an important book on the status of evolutionism that will almost certainly become embroiled in controversy". Amundson observes that Ruse claims that evolutionary biology has nearly always been seen as only doubtfully a professional scientific discipline, and that Ruse's thesis is that this is because it has always been tied to "culturally biased concepts of progress". Whether this is actually "bad" is, suggests Amundson, almost irrelevant as long as biologists have thought it so, but since normative (value) judgements such as of progress cannot be derived from observation they are from a methodological point of view not part of science. All the same, he argues, Ruse is an analytic and empiricist philosopher, not at all social-constructivist. Amundson finds Ruse's handling of the morphological traditions "less satisfactory" than of the adaptationist, Darwinian traditions, and doubts whether Richard Owen was a social progressionist just because he was influenced by Naturphilosophie. He compares Ruse unfavourably with Betty Smocovitis's "obsessive concern with historiography", and calls Ruse's writing style "bluff, unselfconscious, and opinionated" and finds Ruse sarcastic, "scarcely a neutral observer". On the other hand, he notes, Ruse is completely open about when he is "sensing" (guessing) something. Amundson concludes that Ruse has certainly shown that evolution and progress "have been closely linked", and his narrative of the people and ideas "rich and compelling", but finds Ruse's claim that biology has been shaped by biologists's embarrassment at this connection debatable.
The biologist and philosopher Michael Ghiselin notes that biologists agree that there is progress in biology and in technology, and that anatomists "do not seem too unhappy with the idea" of something much like that sort of progress in evolution, but that biologists have had trouble finding a theory of progress that did not lead into problems with ideology and "bad metaphysics". He criticises Ruse for "politically correct" "academic bigotry", disagrees with Ruse's narrative about phylogenetics, and accuses him of "completely ignor[ing] recent work such as by Carl Woese, "neglect[ing] data" that contradict his thesis. Ironically, in Ghiselin's view, Ruse's own epistemological ideal for science relies on the idea of Progress.
== References ==

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Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals is a 2005 non-fiction book by Robert Sapolsky. It collects eighteen essays on biological topics previously published by Sapolsky in various magazines, with additional notes and three section introductions. It has been reviewed in The New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, and New Scientist.
== References ==

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Monographiae Biologicae (ISSN 0077-0639) is a scholarly scientific literature review series, consisting of monographs published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, an imprint of Springer Science+Business Media. The series subject area generally covers ecology, zoology, and biology. More specifically, the book series covers the biogeography of continental areas, including whole continents; differentiated stand-alone ecosystems such as islands, island groups, mountains or mountain chains; aquatic or marine ecosystems such as coastal systems, mangroves, coral reefs, and other related ecosystems. Fresh water environments are also included in this series such as major river basins, lakes, and groups of lakes.
Taxonomic studies include the main groups of animals, plants, fungi and the comparative ecology of major biomes.
The series continues Physiologia comparata et oecologia, (ISSN 0369-8637).
== Abstracting and indexing ==
This series is indexed by the following services:
Bibliography of agriculture (USDA)
Biological Abstracts
Chemical Abstracts Service
GeoRef
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website

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Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World is the sixth book written by American mycologist Paul Stamets.
In Mycelium Running (Ten Speed Press 2005), Stamets explores the use and applications of fungi in bioremediation—a practice called mycoremediation. Stamets details methods of termite and ant control using nontoxic mycelia, and describes how certain fungi may be able to neutralize anthrax, nerve gas, and smallpox. He includes the following with regard to the mycelium:
Is this the largest organism in the world? This 2,400-acre (9.7 km2) site in eastern Oregon had a contiguous growth of mycelium before logging roads cut through it. Estimated at 1,665 football fields in size and 2,200 years old, this one fungus has killed the forest above it several times over, and in so doing has built deeper soil layers that allow the growth of ever-larger stands of trees. Mushroom-forming forest fungi are unique in that their mycelial mats can achieve such massive proportions.
== See also ==
List of books about mushrooms
== References ==

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The Naples Dioscurides, in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples (MS Suppl. gr. 28), is an early 7th-century secular illuminated manuscript Greek herbal. The book has 172 folios and a page size of 29.7 x 14 cm (11 11/16 x 5 1/2 inches) and the text is a redaction of De Materia Medica by the 1st century Greek military physician Dioscorides, with descriptions of plants and their medicinal uses. Unlike De Materia Medica, the text is arranged alphabetically by plant.
The patron who commissioned it and the craftsmen who worked on the manuscript have not been identified. The style of Greek script used in the manuscript indicates that it was probably written in Byzantine-ruled southern Italy, where ancient Greek cultural traditions remained strong, although it is not known exactly where it was produced.
The codex derives independently from the same model as the Vienna Dioscurides, which was created ca. 512 for a Byzantine princess, but differs from it significantly. Additionally, in the Naples manuscript, the illustrations occupy the top half of each folio, rather than being full page miniatures as in the Vienna Dioscurides. The script is somewhat rough and uneven, and the painting style of the miniatures less precise and naturalistic than the Vienna manuscript, indicating a certain falling-off in standards.
== History ==
=== Origin ===
The Naples Dioscurides is derived from the first-century manuscript De Materia Medica, written by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army. De Materia Medica was an encyclopedia focused on medicines that could be derived from herbs, plants, minerals, and animals. It was widely distributed throughout the ancient Mediterranean, and remained in use for centuries. Despite the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its Eastern counterpart remained strong, keeping the traditions of Rome alive. By the time of the writing of the Naples Dioscurides, the manuscript had remained popular amongst the Byzantines and the newly powerful Islamic Empires. The secular subject of De Materia Medica kept the overall Christianization of Europe from significantly affecting the manuscript. Art historians can study the original De Materia Medica through medieval manuscripts (though the Naples Dioscurides is not an exact copy).
De Materia Medica was still a highly influential manuscript, and by the seventh century, was still being widely read by the Byzantine Empire and their satellite states. One of these states, the Duchy of Naples, retained a Greek-influenced culture. The population spoke and wrote in Greek, a reference to Naples's roots as an Ancient Greek colony.
=== Attribution ===
The scribe and the illuminator behind the Naples Dioscurides are lost to history. What is known is quite limited, though this is common with many manuscripts. Art historians believe the manuscript was manufactured in Italy, around the beginning of the early seventh century. However, its geographical origin in Italy is unclear, though likely an area of Italy strongly influenced by Byzantium. The manuscript is written in Ancient Greek, which was still a language spoken in the Duchy of Naples.
=== Provenance ===
For several centuries, the Naples Dioscurides was held at the Augustine monastery, San Giovanni a Carbonara in the Kingdom of Naples.
Marginal notes indicate that the manuscript had contact with the medical school at Salerno in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The manuscript was taken to Vienna in 1718 by the Holy Roman Empire, which controlled the Kingdom of Naples following the Treaty of Rastatt of 1714. The Naples Dioscurides was then housed in the Viennese Court Library, owned by the ruling Habsburg Dynasty.
The Naples Dioscurides was preserved at the Viennese Court Library for 200 years, and was returned to Naples in 1919. The manuscript was returned to the Kingdom of Italy by the Austro-Hungarian monarch following the peace talks of World War I. It was returned to the Biblioteca Nazionale, where it is kept today.
The Naples Dioscurides was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a show entitled, "Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition," from March 12, 2012- July 8, 2012.
A luxurious facsimile has been published by Salerno Editrice, Rome, in collaboration with Akademische Druck of Graz, Austria, publishers of a comparable facsimile of the Vienna Dioscurides.
== Description ==
The Naples Dioscurides comprises 172 folios with an approximate page size of 29.7 x 14 cm (11 11/16 x 5 1/2 inches). Not all folios are exactly the same size. The medium of the Naples Dioscurides is ink and parchment on vellum. The arrangement of the manuscript differs from the original De Materia Medica heavily. Whereas the De Materia Medica features plants, animals, and minerals, the Naples Dioscurides only features plants. It should also be noted that instead of five volumes, the Naples Dioscurides is only one. Unlike other Dioscurides, the Naples Dioscurides lists plants in alphabetical order, more in keeping with the format of a manual than the original. The plant descriptions are recorded below the illustration in two or three rather narrow columns, recalling the arrangement the earliest scroll version of the work would have had, before the codex form became near-universal.

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=== Composition ===
The composition of the Naples Dioscurides differs greatly from its predecessor, De Materia Medica, and its contemporary, the Vienna Dioscurides. The Vienna Dioscurides is closer to the original text than the Naples Dioscurides. It also predates the Naples Dioscurides by one hundred years. The Vienna Dioscurides retains descriptions of animal and mineral medicine. It also differs in that it includes references to Pedanius Dioscorides through two author portraits, which are absent on the Naples Dioscurides. In fact, other copies of the Dioscurides are all much closer to the original, with only the Naples example as the outlier. Another major difference between the manuscripts is the way they are illustrated. The Naples Dioscurides features illustrations that take up one-half to two-thirds of the page. The uses of the plants are written underneath. The illustrations of the Vienna Dioscurides are full page illustrations, in contrast.
A possible reason why the Naples Dioscurides only features plant information may lie with its intended use. Rather than focus on wonderfully illustrated pictures and artistic value, as the Vienna Dioscurides does, the Naples Dioscurides may have had a more practical purpose. A competing explanation for the manuscript states that it was intended as a manual rather than a gift or as part of a royal collection. This theory has some weight to it, given the fact that its sister manuscript, the Vienna Dioscurides, was manufactured for a Byzantine princess and was housed in a royal library. The Vienna Dioscurides is more richly illustrated and decorated compared to the Naples Dioscurides. The images of the Naples Dioscurides were painted naturalistically in contrast to the images of the Vienna Dioscurides. In contrast, the Naples Dioscurides was housed in a monastery, where it most likely would have served a practical purpose as a plant guide for monks. The manuscript may also have been used in the education of doctors, as marginal notes indicate that it was loaned to the Medical School of Salerno.Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, Sir Arthur Hill noted the fact that some copies of the Dioscurides held by monasteries were still actively used by the nineteenth century. With this in mind, it would appear that the Naples Dioscurides most likely served a practical purpose as a book to be read and used, rather than as a gift for royalty.
== Gallery ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
Crinelli, Lorenzo. Treasures from Italy's Great Libraries. New York, The Vendome Press, 1997.
Dioscorides, Pedanius. "Of Medical Substances". Library of Congress World Digital Library Collection. Retrieved 2023-05-19.
Hill, Arthur. "Preface" in Turrill, William Bertram. "A contribution to the botany of Athos Peninsula." Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) 1937.4 (1937): 197.
Janick, Jules and Kim E. Hummer. "The 1500th Anniversary (512-2012) of the Juliana Anicia Codex: An Illustrated Dioscoridean Recension. Chronica horticulturae. 52(3) 2012 pp. 9-15
Kiilerich, Bente (2001). "The Image of Anicia Juliana in the Vienna Dioscurides: Flattery or Appropriation of Imperial Imagery?". Symbolae Osloenses. 76 (1): 169–190. doi:10.1080/003976701753388012. ISSN 0039-7679. S2CID 161294966.
“The Naples Dioscurides, The Met.” Metmuseum.org, 2012, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/477160.
Scans of the manuscript: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667873/
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century, no. 180, 1979, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ISBN 9780870991790; full text available online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries

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Neural Darwinism is a biological, and more specifically Darwinian and selectionist, approach to understanding global brain function, originally proposed by American biologist, researcher and Nobel-Prize recipient Gerald Maurice Edelman (July 1, 1929 – May 17, 2014). Edelman's 1987 book Neural Darwinism introduced the public to the theory of neuronal group selection (TNGS), a theory that attempts to explain global brain function.
TNGS (also referred to as the theory of neural Darwinism) has roots going back to Edelman and Mountcastle's 1978 book, The Mindful Brain – Cortical Organization and the Group-selective Theory of Higher Brain Function, which describes the columnar structure of the cortical groups within the neocortex, and argues for selective processes operating among degenerate primary repertoires of neuronal groups. The development of neural Darwinism was deeply influenced by work in the fields of immunology, embryology, and neuroscience, as well as Edelman's methodological commitment to the idea of selection as the unifying foundation of the biological sciences.
== Introduction to neural Darwinism ==
Neural Darwinism is really the neural part of the natural philosophical and explanatory framework Edelman employs for much of his work – Somatic selective systems. Neural Darwinism is the backdrop for a comprehensive set of biological hypotheses and theories Edelman, and his team, devised that seek to reconcile vertebrate and mammalian neural morphology, the facts of developmental and evolutionary biology, and the theory of natural selection into a detailed model of real-time neural and cognitive function that is biological in its orientation. It is built from the bottom-up utilizing the variation that shows up in nature. This is in contrast to computational and algorithmic approaches that view variation as noise in a system of logic circuits with point-to-point connectivity.
The book, Neural Darwinism – The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (1987), is the first in a trilogy of books that Edelman wrote to delineate the scope and breadth of his ideas on how a biological theory of consciousness and animal body plan evolution could be developed in a bottom-up fashion. In accordance with principles of population biology and Darwin's theory of natural selection – as opposed to the top-down algorithmic and computational approaches that dominated a nascent cognitive psychology at the time.
The other two volumes are Topobiology – An Introduction to Molecular Embryology (1988) with its morpho-regulatory hypothesis of animal body plan development and evolutionary diversification via differential expression of cell surface molecules during development; and The Remembered Present – A Biological Theory of Consciousness (1989) – a novel biological approach to understanding the role and function of "consciousness" and its relation to cognition and behavioral physiology.
Edelman would write four more books for the general lay public, explaining his ideas surrounding how the brain works and consciousness arises from the physical organization of the brain and body – Bright Air, Brilliant Fire – On the Matter of the Mind (1992), A Universe of Consciousness – How Matter Becomes Imagination (2000) with Giulio Tononi, Wider Than The Sky – The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (2004), and Second Nature – Brain Science and Human Knowledge (2006).
Neural Darwinism is an exploration of biological thought and philosophy as well as fundamental science; Edelman being well-versed in the history of science, natural philosophy & medicine, as well as robotics, cybernetics, computing & artificial intelligence. In the course of laying out the case for neural Darwinism, or more properly TNGS, Edelman delineates a set of concepts for rethinking the problem of nervous system organization and function – all-the-while, demanding a rigorously scientific criteria for building the foundation of a properly Darwinian, and therefore biological, explanation of neural function, perception, cognition, and global brain function capable of supporting primary and higher-order consciousness.
== Population thinking – somatic selective systems ==
Edelman was inspired by the successes of fellow Nobel laureate Frank MacFarlane Burnet and his clonal selection theory (CST) of acquired antigen immunity by differential amplification of pre-existing variation within the finite pool of lymphocytes in the immune system. The population of variant lymphocytes within the body mirrored the variant populations of organisms in the ecology. Pre-existing diversity is the engine of adaption in the evolution of populations.
"It is clear from both evolutionary and immunological theory that in facing an unknown future, the fundamental requirement for successful adaption is preexisting diversity". – Gerald M. Edelman (1978)
Edelman recognizes the explanatory range of Burnet's utilization of Darwinian principles in describing the operations of the immune system - and, generalizes the process to all cell populations of the organism. He also comes to view the problem as one of recognition and memory from a biological perspective, where the distinction and preservation of self vs. non-self is vital to organismal integrity.
Neural Darwinism, as TNGS, is a theory of neuronal group selection that retools the fundamental concepts of Darwin and Burnet's theoretical approach. Neural Darwinism describes the development and evolution of the mammalian brain and its functioning by extending the Darwinian paradigm into the body and nervous system.

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=== Antibodies and NCAM – the emerging understanding of somatic selective systems ===
Edelman was a medical researcher, physical chemist, immunologist, and aspiring neuroscientist when he was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Rodney Porter of Great Britain). Edelman's part of the prize was for his work revealing the chemical structure of the vertebrate antibody by cleaving the covalent disulfide bridges that join the component chain fragments together, revealing a pair of two-domain light chains and four-domain heavy chains. Subsequent analysis revealed the terminal domains of both chains to be variable domains responsible for antigen recognition.
The work of Porter and Edelman revealed the molecular and genetic foundations underpinning how antibody diversity was generated within the immune system. Their work supported earlier ideas about pre-existing diversity in the immune system put forward by the pioneering Danish immunologist Niels K. Jerne (December 23, 1911 – October 7, 1994); as well as supporting the work of Frank MacFarlane Burnet describing how lymphocytes capable of binding to specific foreign antigens are differentially amplified by clonal multiplication of the selected preexisting variants following antigen discovery.
Edelman would draw inspiration from the mechano-chemical aspects of antigen/antibody/lymphocyte interaction in relation to recognition of self-nonself; the degenerate population of lymphocytes in their physiological context; and the bio-theoretical foundations of this work in Darwinian terms.
By 1974, Edelman felt that immunology was firmly established on solid theoretical grounds descriptively, was ready for quantitative experimentation, and could be an ideal model for exploring evolutionary selection processes within an observable time period.
His studies of immune system interactions developed in him an awareness of the importance of the cell surface and the membrane-embedded molecular mechanisms of interactions with other cells and substrates. Edelman would go on to develop his ideas of topobiology around these mechanisms – and, their genetic and epigenetic regulation under the environmental conditions.
During a foray into molecular embryology and neuroscience, in 1975, Edelman and his team went on to isolate the first neural cell-adhesion molecule (N-CAM), one of the many molecules that hold the animal nervous system together. N-CAM turned out to be an important molecule in guiding the development and differentiation of neuronal groups in the nervous system and brain during embryogenesis. To the amazement of Edelman, genetic sequencing revealed that N-CAM was the ancestor of the vertebrate antibody produced in the aftermath of a set of whole genome duplication events at the origin of vertebrates that gave rise to the entire super-family of immunoglobulin genes.
Edelman reasoned that the N-CAM molecule which is used for self-self recognition and adherence between neurons in the nervous system gave rise to their evolutionary descendants, the antibodies, who evolved self-nonself recognition via antigen-adherence at the origins of the vertebrate antibody-based immune system. If clonal selection was the way the immune system worked, perhaps it was ancestral and more general – and, operating in the embryo and nervous system.
=== Variation in biological systems – degeneracy, complexity, robustness, and evolvability ===
Degeneracy, and its relationship to variation, is a key concept in neural Darwinism. The more we deviate from an ideal form, the more we are tempted to describe the deviations as imperfections. Edelman, on the other hand, explicitly acknowledges the structural and dynamic variability of the nervous system. He likes to contrast the differences between redundancy in an engineered system and degeneracy in a biological system. He proceeds to demonstrate how the "noise" of the computational and algorithmic approach is actually beneficial to a somatic selective system by providing a wide, and degenerate, array of potential recognition elements.
Edelman's argument is that in an engineered system,
a known problem is confronted
a logical solution is devised
an artifice is constructed to implement the resolution to the problem
To insure the robustness of the solution, critical components are replicated as exact copies. Redundancy provides a fail-safe backup in the event of catastrophic failure of an essential component but it is the same response to the same problem once the substitution has been made.
If the problem is predictable and known ahead of time, redundancy works optimally. But biological systems face an open and unpredictable arena of spacetime events of which they have no foreknowledge of. In this arena, redundancy fails - a response might be designed to the wrong problem.
Variation fuels degeneracy; degeneracy provides somatic selective systems with more than one way to solve a problem and the propensity to reuse a solution on other problems. This property of degeneracy makes the system more adaptively robust in the face of unforeseen contingencies: When one particular solution fails unexpectedly, there are other unaffected pathways that can be engaged in pursuit of the same end. Early on, Edelman spends considerable time contrasting degeneracy vs. redundancy, bottom-up vs. top-down processes, and selectionist vs. instructionist explanations of biological phenomena.

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=== Rejection of computational models, codes, and point-to-point wiring ===
Edelman was well aware of the earlier debate in immunology between the instructionists, who believed the lymphocytes of the immune system learned or was instructed about the antigen and then devised a response; and the selectionists, who believed that the lymphocytes already contained the response to the antigen within the existing population that was differentially amplified within the population upon contact with the antigen. And, he was well aware that the selectionist had the evidence on their side.
Edelman's theoretical approach in Neural Darwinism was conceived of in opposition to top-down algorithmic, computational, and instructionist approaches to explaining neural function. Edelman seeks to turn the problems of that paradigm to advantage instead; thereby highlighting the difference between bottom-up processes like we see in biology vis a vis top-down processes like we see in engineering algorithms. He sees neurons as living organisms working in cooperative and competitive ways within their local ecology and rejects models that see the brain in terms of computer chips or logic gates in an algorithmically organized machine.
Edelman's commitment to the Darwinian underpinnings of biology, his emerging understanding of the evolutionary relationships between the two molecules he had worked with, and his background in immunology lead him to become increasingly critical and dissatisfied with attempts to describe the operation of the nervous system and brain in computational or algorithmic terms.
Edelman explicitly rejects computational approaches to explaining biology as non-biological. Edelman acknowledges that there is a conservation of phylogenetic organization and structure within the vertebrate nervous system, but also points out that locally natural diversity, variation and degeneracy abound. This variation within the nervous system is disruptive for theories based upon strict point-to-point connectivity, computation, or logical circuits based upon codes. Attempts to understand this noise present difficulties for top-down algorithmic approaches – and, deny the fundamental facts of the biological nature of the problem.
Edelman perceived that the problematic and annoying noise of the computational circuit-logic paradigm could be reinterpreted from a population biology perspective – where that variation in the signal or architecture was actually the engine of ingenuity and robustness from a selectionist perspective.
== Completing Darwin's program – the problems of evolutionary and developmental morphology ==
In Topobiology, Edelman reflects upon Darwin's search for the connections between morphology and embryology in his theory of natural selection. He identifies four unresolved problems in the development and evolution of morphology that Darwin thought important:
Explaining the finite number of body plans manifested since the Precambrian.
Explaining large-scale morphological changes over relatively short periods of geological time.
Understanding body size and the basis of allometry.
How adaptive fitness can explain selection that leads to emergence of complex body structures.
Later, In Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, Edelman describes what he calls Darwin's Program for obtaining a complete understanding of the rules of behavior and form in evolutionary biology. He identifies four necessary requirements:
An account of the effects of heredity on behavior – and behavior, on heredity.
An account of how selection influences behavior – and, how behavior influences selection.
An account of how behavior is enabled and constrained by morphology.
An account of how morphogenesis occurs in development and evolution.
It is important to notice that these requirements are not directly stated in terms of genes, but heredity instead. This is understandable considering that Darwin himself appears to not be directly aware of the importance Mendelian genetics. Things had changed by the early 1900s, the Neodarwinian synthesis had unified the population biology of Mendelian inheritance with Darwinian natural selection. By the 1940s, the theories had been shown to be mutually consistent and coherent with paleontology and comparative morphology. The theory came to be known as the modern synthesis on the basis of the title of the 1942 book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis by Julian Huxley.
The modern synthesis really took off with the discovery of the structural basis of heredity in the form of DNA. The modern synthesis was greatly accelerated and expanded with the rise of the genomic sciences, molecular biology, as well as, advances in computational techniques and the power to model population dynamics. But, for evolutionary-developmental biologists, there was something very important missing... – and, that was the incorporation of one of the founding branches of biology, embryology. A clear understanding of the pathway from germ to zygote to embryo to juvenile and adult was the missing component of the synthesis. Edelman, and his team, were positioned in time and space to fully capitalize on these technical developments and scientific challenges – as his research progressed deeper and deeper into the cellular and molecular underpinnings of the neurophysiological aspects of behavior and cognition from a Darwinian perspective.
Edelman reinterprets the goals of "Darwin's program" in terms of the modern understanding about genes, molecular biology, and other sciences that weren't available to Darwin. One of his goals is reconciling the relationships between genes in a population (genome) which lie in the germ line (sperm, egg, and fertilized egg); and the individuals in a population who develop degenerate phenotypes (soma) as they transform from an embryo into an adult who will eventually procreate if adaptive. Selection acts on phenotypes (soma), but evolution occurs within the species genome (germ).
Edelman follows the work of the highly influential American geneticist and evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin (March 29, 1929 – July 4, 2021), drawing particular inspiration from his 1974 book, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change. Edelman, like Lewontin, seeks a complete description of the transformations (T) that take us from:

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Genome-germ (zygotes) – the paternal and maternal gene contributions are recombined in the fertilized egg, along with the maternal endowment of proteins, and mRNAs, and other developmental components, but the individuals newly formed diploid genetic complement is not in control of the zygote yet; it needs to be activated, or bootstrapped, into the zygotes ongoing maternally-inherited metabolism and physiology. Shortly after recombination the zygote proceeds through transformation (T1) to the point where genetic control of the zygote has been handed off to the individual,
Phenotype-soma (embryo) – the embryo, which transforms (T2) according to the rules that govern the relationship between the genes, cellular behavior, and the epigenetic contingencies of nature, into
Phenotype-soma (adult) – an adult, who procreates (T3) with another individual to bring together a new genetic recombination by each introducing a gamete in the form of
Genome-germ (gametes) – sperm and egg, which contain the haploid genetic contribution of each parent which is transformed (T4)...
Genome-germ (zygotes) -into a diploid set genes in a fertilized egg, soon to be a newly individual zygote .
Lewontin's exploration of these transformations between genomic and phenotypic spaces was in terms of key selection pressures that sculpt the organism over geological evolutionary time scales; but, Edelmans approach is more mechanical, and in the here and now – focusing on the genetically constrained mechano-chemistry of the selection processes that guide epigenetic behaviors on the part of cells within the embryo and adult over developmental time.
== Mechano-chemistry, mesenchyme, and epithelia – CAMs & SAMs in morphoregulatory spacetime ==
Edelman's isolation of NCAM lead him to theorize on the role of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) and substrate adhesion molecules (SAMs) in the formation of the animal bodyplan in both realtime and over evolutionary time. Topobiology is primarily dedicated to this issue that is foundational to the understanding of neural Darwinism and the formation of the primary repertoire of TNGS.
In his regulator hypothesis, Edelman hypothesizes about the role of cell surface molecules in embryogenesis and how shifting expression of these molecules in time and place within the embryo can guide the development of pattern. Later, he will expand the hypothesis into the morpho-regulatory hypothesis. He describes the embryonic cell populations as either organized as mesenchyme or epetheilia.
Edelman characterizes the two population types as follows:
Epithelia – a population of cells that are organized into coherent tissues, that have well established CAM patterns; as well as a stable pattern of substrate adhesion between the cells and the extracellular matrix.
Mesenchyme – a population of cells that are loosely associated and migratory, that have retracted (or localized) their CAM and SAM molecules such that they can follow homophilic and heterophilic gradients within other cell populations of the embryo.
He envisages a CAM, and SAM, driven cycle where cell populations transform back and forth between mesenchyme and epithelia via epithelial-mesenchymal transformations, as the development of the embryo proceeds through to the fetal stage. The expression of the CAMs and SAMs is under genetic control, but the distribution of these molecules on the cell membrane and extracellular matrix is historically contingent upon epigenetic events, serving as one of the primary bases for generating pre-existing diversity within the nervous system and other tissues.
=== The developmental genetic question ===
There are many developmental questions to be considered, but Edelman is able to succinctly summarize the problem in a way that will show a clear explanatory path forward for him. The developmental genetic question defines the problem – and, the theoretical approach for him.
"How does a one-dimensional genetic code specify a three-dimensional animal?" – Gerald M. Edelman, from the glossary of Topobiology
By 1984, Edelman would be ready to answer this question and combine it with his earlier ideas on degeneracy and somatic selection in the nervous system. Edelman would revisit this issue in Topobiology and combine it with an evolutionary approach, seeking a comprehensive theory of body plan formation and evolution.
=== The regulator hypothesis ===
In 1984, Edelman published his regulator hypothesis of CAM and SAM action in the development and evolution of the animal body plan.
Edelman would reiterate this hypothesis in his Neural Darwinism book in support of the mechanisms for degenerate neuronal group formation in the primary repertoire. The regulator hypothesis was primarily concerned with the action of CAMs. He would later expand the hypothesis in Topobiology to include a much more diverse and inclusive set of morphoregulatory molecules.
=== The evolutionary question ===
Edelman realized that in order to truly complete Darwin's program, he would need to link the developmental question to the larger issues of evolutionary biology.
"How is an answer to the developmental genetic question (q.v.) reconciled with the relatively rapid changes in form occurring in relatively short evolutionary times?" – Gerald M. Edelman, from the glossary of Topobiology
=== The morphoregulator hypothesis ===
Shortly after publishing his regulator hypothesis, Edelman expanded his vision of pattern formation during embryogenesis - and, sought to link it to a broader evolutionary framework. His first and foremost goal is to answer the developmental genetic question followed by the evolutionary question in a clear, consistent, and coherent manner.

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== TNGS – the theory of neuronal group selection ==
Edelman's motivation for developing the theory of neuronal group selection (TNGS) was to resolve "a number of apparent inconsistencies in our knowledge of the development, anatomy, and physiological function of the central nervous system." A pressing issue for Edelman was explaining perceptual categorization without reference to a central observing homunculus or "assuming that the world is prearranged in an informational fashion."
To free himself of the demands, requirements, and contradictions of information processing model; Edelman proposes that perceptual categorization operates by the selection of neuronal groups organized into variant networks that are differentially amplified of their responses in conjunction with hedonic feedback over the course of experience, from within a massive population of neuronal groups being confronted by a chaotic array of sensory input of differing degrees of significance and relevance to the organism.
Edelman outright rejects the notion of a homunculus, describing it as a "close cousin of the developmental electrician and the neural decoder", artifacts of the observer-centralized top-down design logic of information processing approaches. Edelman properly points out that "it is probably a safe guess that most neurobiologists would view the homunculus as well as dualist solutions (Popper and Eccles 1981) to the problems of subjective report as being beyond scientific consideration."
=== Necessary criteria for a selectionist theory of higher brain function ===
Edelman's first theoretical contribution to neural Darwinism came in 1978, when he proposed his group selection and phasic reentrant signalling. Edelman lays out five necessary requirements that a biological theory of higher brain function must satisfy.
The theory should be consistent with the fields of embryology, neuroanatomy, and neurophysiology.
The theory should account for learning and memory, and temporal recall in a distributed system.
The theory should account how memory is updated on the basis of realtime experience.
The theory should account for how higher brain systems mediate experience and action.
The theory should account for the necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for the emergence of awareness.
=== Organization of the TNGS theory ===
Neural Darwinism organizes the explanation of TNGS into three parts – somatic selection, epigenetic mechanisms, and global functions. The first two parts are concerned with how variation emerges through the interaction of genetic and epigenetic events at the cellular level in response to events occurring at the level of the developing animal nervous system. The third part attempts to build a temporally coherent model of globally unitary cognitive function and behavior that emerges from the bottom up through the interactions of the neuronal groups in real-time.
Edelman organized key ideas of the TNGS theory into three main tenets:
Primary repertoire – developmental formation and selection of neuronal groups;
Secondary repertoire – behavioral and experiential selection leading to changes in the strength of connections between synaptic populations that bind together neuronal groups;
Reentrant signaling – the synchronous entrainment of reciprocally connected neuronal groups within sensorimotor maps into ensembles of coherent global activity.
The primary repertoire is formed during the period from the beginning of neurulation to the end of apoptosis. The secondary repertoire extends over the period synaptogenesis and myelination, but will continue to demonstrate developmental plasticity throughout life, albeit in a diminished fashion compared to early development.
The two repertoires deal with the issue of the relationship between genetic and epigenetic processes in determining the overall architecture of the neuroanatomy – seeking to reconcile nature, nurture, and variability in the forming the final phenotype of any individual nervous system.
There is no point-to-point wiring that carries a neural code through a computational logic circuit that delivers the result to the brain because
firstly, the evidence does not lend support to such notion in a manner that is not problematic,
secondly, the noise in the system is too great for a neural code to be coherent,
and third, the genes can only contribute to, and constrain, developmental processes; not determine them in all their details.
Variation is the inevitable outcome of developmental dynamics.
Reentrant signalling is an attempt to explain how "coherent temporal correlations of the responses of sensory receptor sheets, motor ensembles, and interacting neuronal groups in different brain regions occur".
==== Primary repertoire- developmental selection ====
The first tenet of TNGS concerns events that are embryonic and run up to the neonatal period. This part of the theory attempts to account for the unique anatomical diversification of the brain even between genetically identical individuals. The first tenet proposes the development of a primary repertoire of degenerate neuronal groups with diverse anatomical connections are established via the historical contingencies of the primary processes of development. It seeks to provide an explanation of how the diversity of neuronal group phenotypes emerge from the organism's genotype via genetic and epigenetic influences that manifest themselves mechano-chemically at the cell surface and determine connectivity.
Edelman list the following as vital to the formation of the primary repertoire of neuronal groups but, also contributing to their anatomical diversification and variation:
Cell division – there are repeated rounds of cell division in the formation of neuronal populations
Cell death – there is extensive amounts of pre-programmed cell death that occurs via apoptosis within the neuronal populations.
Process extension and elimination – the exploratory probing of the embryonic environment by developing neurons involve process extension and elimination as the neurons detect molecular gradients on neighboring cell surface membranes and the substrate of the extracellular matrix.
CAM & SAM action – the mechanochemistry of cell and surface adhesion molecules plays a key role in the migration and connectivity of neurons as they form neuronal groups within the overall distributed population.
Two key questions with respect to this issue that Edelman is seeking to answer "in terms of developmental genetic and epigenetic events" are:
"How does a one-dimensional genetic code specify a three-dimensional animal?"
"How is the answer to this question consistent with the possibility of relatively rapid morphological change in relatively short periods of evolutionary time?"

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==== Secondary repertoire – experiential selection ====
The second tenet of TNGS regards postnatal events that govern the development of a secondary repertoire of synaptic connectivity between higher-order populations of neuronal groups whose formation is driven by behavioral or experiential selection acting on synaptic populations within and between neuronal groups. Edelman's notion of the secondary repertoire heavily borrows from work of Jean-Pierre Changeux, and his associates Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin – and, their theory of selective stabilization of synapses.
===== Synaptic modification =====
Once the basic variegated anatomical structure of the primary repertoire of neuronal groups is laid down, it is more or less fixed. But given the numerous and diverse collection of neuronal group networks, there are bound to be functionally equivalent albeit anatomically non-isomorphic neuronal groups and networks capable of responding to certain sensory input. This creates a competitive environment where neuronal groups proficient in their responses to certain inputs are "differentially amplified" through the enhancement of the synaptic efficacies of the selected neuronal group network. This leads to an increased probability that the same network will respond to similar or identical signals at a future time. This occurs through the strengthening of neuron-to-neuron synapses. These adjustments allow for neural plasticity along a fairly quick timetable.
==== Reentry ====
The third, and final, tenet of TNGS is reentry. Reentrant signalling "is based on the existence of reciprocally connected neural maps." These topobiological maps maintain and coordinate the real-time responses of multiple responding secondary repertoire networks, both unimodal and multimodal – and their reciprocal reentrant connections allow them to "maintain and sustain the spatiotemporal continuity in response to real-world signals."
The last part of the theory attempts to explain how we experience spatiotemporal consistency in our interaction with environmental stimuli. Edelman called it "reentry" and proposes a model of reentrant signaling whereby a disjunctive, multimodal sampling of the same stimulus event correlated in time that make possible sustained physiological entrainment of distributed neuronal groups into temporally stable global behavioral units of action or perception. Put another way, multiple neuronal groups can be used to sample a given stimulus set in parallel and communicate between these disjunctive groups with incurred latency.
== The extended theory of neuronal group selection – the dynamic core hypothesis ==
In the aftermath of his publication of Neural Darwinism, Edelman continued to develop and extend his TNGS theory as well as his regulator hypothesis. Edelman would deal with the morphological issues in Topobiology and begin to extend the TNGS theory in The Remembered Present. Periodically over the intervening years, Edelman would release a new update on his theory and the progress made.
In The Remembered Present, Edelman would observe that the mammalian central nervous system seemed to have two distinct morphologically organized systems – one the limbic-brain stem system which is primarily dedicated to "appetitive, consumatory, and defensive behavior"; The other system is the highly reentrant thalamocortical system, consisting of the thalamus along with the "primary and secondary sensory areas and association cortex" which are "linked strongly to exteroceptors and is closely and extensively mapped in a polymodal fashion."
=== The limbic-brain stem system – the interior world of signals ===
The neural anatomy of the hedonic feedback system resides in the brain stem, autonomic, endocrine, and limbic systems. This system communicates its evaluation of the visceral state to the rest of the central nervous system. Edelman calls this system the limbic-brain stem system.
=== The thalamocortical system - the exterior world of signals ===
The thalamus is the gateway to the neocortex for all senses except olfactory. The spinothalamic tracts bring sensory information from the periphery to the thalamus, where multimodal sensory information is integrated and triggers the fast response subcortical reflexive motor responses via the amygdala, basal ganglia, hypothalamus and brainstem centers. Simultaneously, each sensory modality is also being sent to the cortex in parallel, for higher-order reflective analysis, multimodal sensorimotor association, and the engagement of the slow modulatory response that will fine-tune the subcortical reflexes.
=== The cortical appendages – the organs of succession ===
In The Remembered Present, Edelman acknowledges the limits of his TNGS theory to model the temporal succession dynamics of motor behavior and memory. His early attempts at replication automata proved inadequate to the task of explaining the realtime sequencing and integration of the neuronal group interactions with other systems of the organism. "Neither the original theory nor simulated recognition automata deal in satisfactory detail with the successive ordering of events in time mediated by the several major brain components that contribute to memory, particularly as it relates to consciousness." This problem lead him to focus on what he called the organs of succession; the cerebellum, basal ganglia, and hippocampus.

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== Reception ==
An early review of the book Neural Darwinism in The New York Review of Books by Israel Rosenfield invited a lively response on the part of the neurosciences community. Edelman's views would be seen as an attack on the dominant paradigm of computational algorithms in cognitive psychology and computational neuroscience – inviting criticism from many corners.
There would be copious complaints about the language difficulty. Some would see Edelman coming across as arrogant, or an interloper into the field of neuroscience, from neighboring molecular biology. There were legitimate arguments raised as to how much experimental and observational data had been gathered in support of the theory at that time. Or, if the theory was even original or not.
But more often, rather than dealing with Edelman's critique of computational approaches, the criticism would be centered around whether Edelman's system was a truly proper Darwinian explanation. Nonetheless, Neural Darwinism, both the book and the concept, received fairly broad critical acclaim.
One of the most famous critiques of Neural Darwinism would be the 1989 critical review by Francis Crick, Neural Edelmanism. Francis Crick based his criticism on the basis that neuronal groups are instructed by the environment rather than undergoing blind variation. In 1988, the neurophysiologist William Calvin had proposed true replication in the brain, whereas Edelman opposed the idea of true replicators in the brain. Stephen Smoliar published another review in 1989.
England, and its neuroscience community, would have to rely on bootleg copies of the book until 1990, but once the book arrived on English shores, the British social commentator and neuroscientist Steven Rose was quick to offer both praise and criticism of its ideas, writing style, presumptions and conclusions. The New York Times writer George Johnson published "Evolution Between the Ears", a critical review of Gerald Edelman's 1992 book Brilliant Air, Brilliant Fire. In 2014, John Horgan wrote to Gerald Edelman in Scientific American, highlighting both his arrogance, brilliance, and idiosyncratic approach to science.
It has been suggested by Chase Herrmann-Pillath that Friedrich Hayek had earlier proposed a similar idea in his book The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology, published in 1952. Other leading proponents of a selectionist proposals include Jean-Pierre Changeux (1973, 1985), Daniel Dennett, and Linda B. Smith. Reviews of Edelman's work would continue to be published as his ideas spread.
A recent review by Fernando, Szathmary and Husbands explains why Edelman's neural Darwinism is not Darwinian because it does not contain units of evolution as defined by John Maynard Smith. It is selectionist in that it satisfies the Price equation, but there is no mechanism in Edelman's theory that explains how information can be transferred between neuronal groups. A recent theory called evolutionary neurodynamics being developed by Eors Szathmary and Chrisantha Fernando has proposed several means by which true replication may take place in the brain.
These neuronal models have been extended by Fernando in a later paper. In the most recent model, three plasticity mechanisms i) multiplicative STDP, ii) LTD, and iii) Heterosynaptic competition, are responsible for copying of connectivity patterns from one part of the brain to another. Exactly the same plasticity rules can explain experimental data for how infants do causal learning in the experiments conducted by Alison Gopnik. It has also been shown that by adding Hebbian learning to neuronal replicators the power of neuronal evolutionary computation may actually be greater than natural selection in organisms.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== Citations ==
== References ==

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Burnet, Frank MacFarlane; Medawar, Peter Brian (1960). "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1960". NobelPrize.org.
Calvin, William (June 24, 1988). "Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection". Science.
Changeux, Jean-Pierre (1985). Neuronal Man – The Biology of Mind. Translated by Laurence Carey. Pantheon Books, New York. ISBN 0-394-53692-4.
Changeux, Jean-Pierre; Courrège, Philippe; Danchin, Antoine (1973). "A theory of the epigenesis of neural networks by selective stabilization of synapses". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 70 (10): 2974–2978. Bibcode:1973PNAS...70.2974C. doi:10.1073/pnas.70.10.2974. PMC 427150. PMID 4517949.
Crick, Francis (1989). "Neural Edelmanism". Trends Neurosci. 12 (7): 240–248. doi:10.1016/0166-2236(89)90019-2. PMID 2475933. S2CID 3947768.
Darwin, Charles (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1869.
Darwin, Charles (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals – with a preface by Konrad Lorentz. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1965. ISBN 0-226-13656-6. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Darwin, Charles (1887). The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With the Original Omissions Restored. Edited and with Appendix and Notes by his Granddaughter Nora Barlow. W.W. Norton & Company, 1969. ISBN 0-393-00487-2. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Dehal, Paramvir; Boore, Jeffrey L. (2005-09-06). "Two Rounds of Whole Genome Duplication in the Ancestral Vertebrate". PLOS Biology. 3 (10): e314. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030314. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 1197285. PMID 16128622.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1972). Jan Lindsten (ed.). Antibody Structure and Molecular Immunology (In: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980). World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore 1992. ISBN 978-9810207915.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1974). Gerald M. Edelman (ed.). Origins and Mechanisms of Specificity in Clonal Selection (In: Cellular Selection and Regulation in the Immune Response). Vol. 29. Raven Press, New York 1974. ISBN 0-911216-71-5. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
Edelman, Gerald M. (1992b). "Molecular Recognition in the Immune and Nervous Systems". In Worden, F.G.; Swazey, J.P.; Adelman, G. (eds.). The Neurosciences: Paths of Discovery, I. Boston: I. Birkhäuser (published 1990). pp. 65–74. doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-6817-5_4. ISBN 978-1-4684-6817-5.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1984). "Cell adhesion and morphogenesis: The regulator hypothesis" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. 81 (5): 1460–1464. Bibcode:1984PNAS...81.1460E. doi:10.1073/pnas.81.5.1460. PMC 344856. PMID 6584892.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1987a). "CAMs and Igs: cell adhesion and the evolutionary origins of immunity". Immunological Reviews. 100: 11–45. doi:10.1111/j.1600-065x.1987.tb00526.x. PMID 3326819. S2CID 24972419.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1987b). Neural Darwinism – The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. Basic Books, New York. ISBN 0-465-04934-6.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1988). Topobiology – An Introduction to Molecular Embryology. Basic Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-465-08653-5.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1989). The Remembered Present – A Biological Theory of Consciousness. Basic Books, New York. ISBN 0-465-06910-X.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1992). Bright Air, Brilliant Fire – On the Matter of the Mind. Basic Books, Inc. ISBN 0-465-05245-2.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1993). "Neural Darwinism: selection and reentrant signaling in higher brain function" (PDF). Neuron. 10 (2): 115–25. doi:10.1016/0896-6273(93)90304-a. PMID 8094962. S2CID 8001773.
Edelman, Gerald M. (1998). GM. Edelman; J-P Changuex (eds.). Building A Picture of the Brain (In: The Brain). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York 2000. ISBN 978-0-7658-0717-5.
Edelman, Gerald M. (2004). Wider Than The Sky – The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10761-6.
Edelman, Gerald M. (2006). Second Nature – Brain Science and Human Knowledge. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12594-8.
Edelman, Gerald M.; Gally, Joseph A. (2001). "Degeneracy and Complexity in Biological Systems". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. 98 (24): 13763–13768. Bibcode:2001PNAS...9813763E. doi:10.1073/pnas.231499798. PMC 61115. PMID 11698650.
Edelman, Gerald M.; Gally, Joseph A. (2013). "Reentry: a key mechanism for integration of brain function". Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. 7 (63): 63. doi:10.3389/fnint.2013.00063. PMC 3753453. PMID 23986665.
Edelman, Gerald M.; Porter, Rodney R. (1972). "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1972". NobelPrize.org.
Edelman, Gerald M.; Tononi, Giulio (2000). A Universe of Consciousness – How Matter Becomes Imagination. Basic Books, Inc. ISBN 978-0-465-01377-7.
Eriksson, Peter S.; et al. (1998). "Neurogenesis in the Adult Human Hippocampus". Nature Medicine. 4 (11): 1313–1317. Bibcode:1998NatMe...4.1313E. doi:10.1038/3305. PMID 9809557.
Fernando, C.; Karishma, K.K.; Szathmáry, E. (2008). "Copying and Evolution of Neuronal Topology". PLOS ONE. 3 (11): 3775. Bibcode:2008PLoSO...3.3775F. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003775. PMC 2582483. PMID 19020662.
Fernando, C.; Goldstein, R.; Szathmáry, E. (2010). "The Neuronal Replicator Hypothesis". Neural Computation. 22 (11): 2809–2857. doi:10.1162/NECO_a_00031. PMID 20804380. S2CID 17940175.
Fernando, C.; Szathmáry, E.; Husbands, P. (2012). "Selectionist and evolutionary approaches to brain function: a critical appraisal". Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. 6 (24): 24. doi:10.3389/fncom.2012.00024. PMC 3337445. PMID 22557963.
Fernando, C. (2013). "From Blickets to Synapses: Inferring Temporal Causal Networks by Observation". Cognitive Science. 37 (8): 1426–1470. doi:10.1111/cogs.12073. PMID 23957457.
Hayek, F.A. (1952). The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. ISBN 0-226-32094-4. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten (2006-12-10). "The Brain, Its Sensory Order and the Evolutionary Concept of Mind, On Hayek's Contribution to Evolutionary Epistemology". Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems. 15 (2): 145–187. doi:10.1016/1061-7361(92)90003-v. SSRN 950592.
Hill, Charlotte; Wang, YYihua (2020). "The importance of epithelial-mesenchymal transition and autophagy in cancer drug resistance". Cancer Drug Resistance. 3 (1): 38–47. doi:10.20517/cdr.2019.75. PMC 7100899. PMID 32226927.
Horgan, John (May 22, 2014). "My Testy Encounter with the Late, Great Gerald Edelman". Scientific American. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
Huttenlocher, P.R. (1990). "Morphometric study of human cerebral cortical development". Neuropsychologia. 28 (6): 517–527. doi:10.1016/0028-3932(90)90031-i. PMID 2203993. S2CID 45697561.
Huxley, Julian (1942). Evolution: The Modern Synthesis. London, G. Allen & Unwin ltd.
Johnson, George (April 19, 1992). "Evolution Between the Ears". New York Times.
Lewontin, Richard C. (1974). The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231033923.
Mountcastle, Vernon Benjamin; Edelman, Gerald M. (1978). The Mindful Brain – Cortical Organization and the Group-selective Theory of Higher Brain Function. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-55007-9.
Rose, Steven (June 9, 1990). "Review: Darwin on the brain". www.newscientist.com. New Scientist. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
Rosenfield, Israel (October 9, 1986). "Neural Darwinism: A New Approach to Memory and Perception". The New York Review of Books. 33 (15). Retrieved April 27, 2021.
Smoliar, Stephen W. (1989). "Review of G.M. Edelman (book review)". In William J. Clancey; Stephen W. Smoliar; Mark Stefik (eds.). Contemplating minds: a forum for artificial intelligence. MIT Press (published 1996). pp. 431–446. ISBN 978-0-262-53119-1. (originally published in Artificial Intelligence 39 (1989) 121–139.)
"In Memoriam: Gerald Edelman (1929–2014)". News & Views - Vol 14, Issue 17. The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI). June 2, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
Tononi, Giulio; Sporns, Olaf; Edelman, Gerald M. (1999). "Measures of degeneracy and redundancy in biological networks". PNAS. 96 (6): 3257–3262. Bibcode:1999PNAS...96.3257T. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.6.3257. PMC 15929. PMID 10077671.
Young, J.Z.; Ayala, Francisco J.; Szentagothai, J. (March 12, 1987). "Neural Darwinism: An Exchange (reply by Israel Rosenfield)". The New York Review of Books. 34 (4). Retrieved April 27, 2021.
== Further reading ==
How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now by William H. Calvin
Neurogenesis in the Adult Human Brain
== External links ==
The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
Wikiversity – Neuroscience
Wikiversity – Fundamentals of Neuroscience
Wikiversity – Introduction to Non-Genetic Darwinism
Webpage of William Calvin
Webpage of Daniel Dennett
Webpage of Chrisantha Fernando

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Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature is a 1984 book by the evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, the neurobiologist Steven Rose, and the psychologist Leon Kamin, in which the authors criticize sociobiology and genetic determinism and advocate a socialist society. Its themes include the relationship between biology and society, the nature versus nurture debate, and the intersection of science and ideology.
The book formed part of a larger campaign against sociobiology. Its authors were praised for their criticism of IQ testing and were complimented by some for their critique of sociobiology. However, they have been criticized for misrepresenting the views of scientists such as the biologist E. O. Wilson and the ethologist Richard Dawkins, for using “determinism” and “reductionism” simply as terms of abuse, and for the influence of Marxism on their views. Critics have seen its authors' conclusions as political rather than scientific.
== Summary ==
Lewontin, Rose and Kamin identify themselves as "respectively an evolutionary geneticist, a neurobiologist, and a psychologist." They criticize biological determinism and reductionism, and state that they share a commitment to the creation of a socialist society and a recognition that "a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that society". Their understanding of science draws on ideas suggested by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and developed by Marxist scholars in the 1930s. They also draw on the ideas of the Marxist philosopher György Lukács, as put forward in History and Class Consciousness (1923), as well as the ideas of the Marxist philosopher Ágnes Heller and the communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. They discuss and criticize the views of authors such as E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and Donald Symons. They criticize Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975). They maintain that, like some other sociobiologists, Symons maintains that "the manifest trait is not itself coded by genes, but that a potential is coded and the trait only arises when the appropriate environmental cue is given." In their view, "Despite its superficial appearance of dependence on environment, this model is completely genetically determined, independent of the environment." They write that Symons' arguments in The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1979) provide examples "of how sociobiological theory can explain anything, no matter how contradictory, by a little mental gymnastics".
== Publication history ==
Not in Our Genes was first published by Pantheon Books in 1984. Later that year it was published by Pelican Books. In 1990, it was published by Penguin Books.
== Reception ==

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=== Mainstream media ===
Not in Our Genes received positive reviews from the columnist Gene Lyons in Newsweek and the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in The New York Review of Books, a mixed review from the philosopher Philip Kitcher in The New York Times Book Review, and negative reviews from the anthropologist Melvin Konner in Natural History and the biologist Patrick Bateson and the ethologist Richard Dawkins (whom they criticized) in New Scientist. The editors of New Scientist noted that the book would "inevitably attract either extreme criticism or glowing praise" depending on the reviewer's stance on sociobiology, and that they published two reviews to help encourage debate, having approached Dawkins "for the opposition" and Bateson, "who feels that the attack on genetic determinism is justified." The book was reviewed by the psychologist Sandra Scarr in American Scientist, Nathaniel S. Lehrman in The Humanist, and in The Wilson Quarterly and Science News.
Lyons described the book as a "spirited, if often repetitive, demolition of sociobiology's pretensions", adding that its authors' arguments were "made doubly impressive" by their "analysis of how the economic determinism of what they call '“vulgar” Marxism' and the spinelessness of 'sociological relativism' have contributed to a climate in which the speculations of sociobiology have found a hearing."
Gould described the book as "important and timely". He credited the authors with exposing the fallacies of biological determinism, and presenting a view of human behavior beyond the nature versus nurture controversy. However, he believed that they failed to show the "fatal and debilitating flaws" in research on schizophrenia. He agreed that "interactionism is also based on deep fallacies and cultural biases that play into the hands of biological determinism", showing that it is guilty of "reductionism".
Kitcher described the book as "informative, entertaining, lucid, forceful, frequently witty, occasionally unfair, sometimes intemperate, never dull". He praised their discussion of intelligence, of sex differences and the use of drugs and surgery to modify behavior. He was less convinced by their discussion of schizophrenia, writing that in it their "policy of treating their opponents as patsies begins to seem unjustified".
Konner believed that the authors provided an "acceptable review of the dismal historical record of abuse of ideas in behavioral genetics" but that this history had received better discussions. He criticized them for ignoring similar abuses under left-wing systems. He accused them of falsely attributing a belief in "heredity privilege" to advocates of IQ testing, employing tactics such as guilt through association, providing misleading discussions of issues in psychiatry and neurology, and criticizing sociobiology on the basis of the weakest studies in the field and popular journalism. He considered Wilson's discussion of the development of behavior in Sociobiology more sophisticated than that of Lewontin et al. He called the book "unfortunate", writing that its authors "offer little, except for pious hand-wringing and 'dialectical' rhetoric, that might help us to grapple with the great unanswered questions of our behavior and experience, normal and abnormal."
Bateson accused the authors of making it easy for themselves to criticize the genetic analysis of behavior by focusing on its weakest advocates, though their "counter-rhetoric" was "brilliant" and sometimes "illuminating." He praised their discussion of measuring intelligence, writing that it was clear and "merciless" in its "exposure of poor method." He credited them with making a strong case against genetic explanations of both differences in IQ and schizophrenia, but thought their conclusions about both issues non-definitive and disputable. He found their criticism of ethology and sociobiology distorted by personal biases, writing that errors by some sociobiologists did not make it right to dismiss the field altogether. He noted that they ignored developments in the field that corrected some of Wilson's mistakes. He wrote that the belief that animals have a tendency not to mate with individuals familiar from early life is (contrary to earlier assertions) evidence-based. In Bateson's view, the value of their work was undermined by poor scholarship and bad arguments, and errors made in discussing his field forced him to wonder about the value of the rest of their work. Though agreeing with them about the interaction between the social and physical environment, he accused them of wrongly suggesting that this was novel, when it was doubtful whether anyone actually believed in the form of interactionism they criticized. He predicted that most scientists would simply disregard their book.
Dawkins accused the authors of promoting a "bizarre conspiracy theory of science" that suggested that sociobiology was a response to 1960s student activism, and of wrongly using quotations from non-sociobiologists such as the Conservative politician Patrick Jenkin and representatives of the British National Front and the French Nouvelle Droite as though they represented sociobiology. He described their claim that sociobiologists believed in genetic determinism as a "simple lie", and wrote that they employed the term "biological determinism" without having a clear idea of what they meant by it, and used "determinist" and "reductionist" simply as terms of abuse. He argued that biologists practice an appropriate form of "reductionism" that explains complex wholes in terms of their parts, and never practice the form of "reductionism" criticized by Lewontin et al., which supposes that "the properties of a complex whole are simply the sum of those same properties in the parts". He maintained that the anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Sherwood Washburn, praised by the authors for their criticism of sociobiology, were both guilty of elementary misunderstandings of kin selection; that Lewontin should have realized this; and that their "dialectical biology" involved ideas similar to those of Bateson and Dawkins himself. He attributed the positive reviews of the book from liberals to its authors' opposition to racism. Though he believed that its chapters on "IQ testing and similar topics" had some value, he concluded that the book was poorly written and "silly, pretentious, obscurantist and mendacious". One of the authors threatened to sue Dawkins for insinuating in his review that they were comparable to the discredited psychologist Cyril Burt for their dedication to ideology over facts.

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=== Academic journals ===
Not in Our Genes received positive reviews from the biologist Peter Medawar in Nature, the geneticist Alan Emery in Trends in Neurosciences, and T. Benton in The Sociological Review, the biologist Franz M. Wuketits in the Journal of Social and Biological Structures, and a mixed review from the anthropologist Vernon Reynolds in Ethnic and Racial Studies. The book was also reviewed by Howard L. Kaye in Society.
Medawar described the book as a well-written and "in the main convincing rebuttal of a variety of determinist ideologies that have come to acquire the status of a public nuisance in biology and sociology." He endorsed its authors' criticism of IQ testing and their argument that determinism is an expression of conservative ideology. However, he was less satisfied by their criticism of reductionism, writing that despite its shortcomings reductive analysis was "the most successful research stratagem ever devised in science." He argued that it was also the way of understanding the world that made it easiest to see how it could be changed, something left-wing writers such as the authors of Not in Our Genes should appreciate. Emery welcomed the book as a refreshing attempt to create a more balanced view of the relevance of genetics to human behavior.
Benton described the book as an "immense achievement", accessible to a large audience. He admired the historical survey of biological determinism and reductionism and the philosophical discussion of their dialectical alternative, and praised their discussions of IQ testing, biological determinist defences of patriarchy, psychiatry, schizophrenia, and sociobiology. He believed that they exposed the logical and conceptual problems of measuring intelligence and identifying schizophrenia as a unitary disorder, as well as problems in the methodologies of heritability studies, including the assumption that "the determinants of any characteristic can be analysed as of two, separable kinds, heredity and environment, and that it makes sense to ask what proportion of each went into the making of the particular characteristic." He wrote that they dealt "selectively (and probably appropriately) with the work of Wilson and Dawkins". However, he believed that they did not have a fully developed alternative to biological and cultural determinism, questioned whether they had a view different from cultural determinism, and noted that while they treated sociobiology as a form of genetic determinism, the main sociobiological writers had become "more sophisticated and qualified in their assumptions." He criticized them for using quotations selectively to argue that sociobiology is still an unqualified form of genetic determinism, and for equating "biological determinism and political reaction", noting that religious fundamentalists wanted to outlaw the teaching of evolutionary theory, and some progressive thinkers accepted that biological processes shape personality.
Wuketits described the book as "concise and well written", and "more provocative than anything else written in opposition to genetic determinism and its ideological interpretation" because of its identification of sociobiology with the New Right. He considered it mistaken to view sociobiology as only an "ideological program", writing that it was primarily a scientific discipline. He expressed regret that the book would give readers not familiar with the scientific background to sociobiology the impression that it is "nothing but a dangerous pseudoscientific ideology."
Reynolds argued that because the authors dismissed biological approaches to understanding human nature, they invalidated their own claims about human nature, reducing them from scientific to political statements. He maintained instead that a single "committed political position" cannot be used to criticize science, and that determining to what extent scientific claims are political requires consideration of all political positions. He wrote that the authors provided a dubious description of science, making it sound like a "right wing political movement", noting that their credentials as scientists suggested that their politicized view of science was incorrect. However, he considered them right to claim that the arguments of sociobiology were only "speculative suggestions" and that it was unfortunate if "the fascist right" adopted them as "scientific validation of its ideology", and that some scientific work, such as "IQ testing", is politicized science, and credited them with showing that "a good many branches of the science of human nature all revolve around the problem of inequality" and "mostly validate it."

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== Criticism ==
The psychologist David P. Barash criticized Lewontin et al. for unfairly linking sociobiology with "racist eugenics and misguided Social Darwinism." Dawkins accused the authors of misquoting his comment on genes, "they created us, body and mind", by altering "created" to "control". He maintained that genes do not control people in the way that "genetic determinism" suggests and accused Lewontin et al. of failing to understand that genes can "exert a statistical influence on human behavior" but that "this influence can be modified, overridden or reversed by other influences."
The biologist Dean Hamer described Not in Our Genes as "a political rather than a scientific book". He expressed his disagreement with its politics. Nevertheless, Hamer commented that it taught him that the genetics of behavior is an emotionally and politically charged topic, especially where it concerns sexuality, and helped motivate him to change fields from metallothionein research to the genetics of homosexuality. The philosopher Daniel Dennett criticized Lewontin et al.′s account of reductionism, calling it "idiosyncratic". He also criticized their claim that memes involve a Cartesian view of the mind, arguing that memes are "a key (central but optional) ingredient in the best alternatives to Cartesian models", and accused them of being willing to use unscrupulous tactics to criticize people they considered determinists.
The author Richard Webster considered Not in Our Genes, "more subtle and valuable than the Marxism which frequently informs it". Rose commented that he and his co-authors in the book presented a critique of reductionism that was "systematic and based upon a coherent philosophical and political analysis which sees modern science as the inheritor of nineteenth-century mechanical materialism, itself tightly linked ideologically to a particular phase of the development of industrial capitalism." Writing with the sociologist Hilary Rose, he noted that Not in Our Genes was one of a number of books that criticized sociobiology. Hilary Rose suggested that Not in Our Genes had been misread by critics, and credited its authors with offering "an alternative theory to biological determinism more robust than the rather weak concept of interaction between nature and nurture".
The historian of science Roger Smith described Not in Our Genes as an accessible critique of sociobiology. The psychologist Steven Pinker criticized Lewontin et al. for engaging in "innuendos about Donald Symons's sex life" and misquoting Dawkins.
The sociologist Ullica Segerstråle suggested that Not in Our Genes, along with Gould's anti-sociobiological essays in Natural History, represented the height of the "critical attack" on sociobiology from its opponents. She noted that the book admitted that some critics of sociobiology wanted a socialist society. According to Segerstråle, Rose threatened to sue Dawkins for libel for his review; the evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton and other scientists made efforts to protect Dawkins, including seeking help from Segerstråle. She suggested that Rose's reaction to Dawkins's review may have been influenced by the fact that New Scientist had expected Dawkins to write a negative and Bateson a positive review for the magazine, while both reviews were negative.
The behavioral ecologist John Alcock argued that while Lewontin et al. were correct to maintain that no genes for social behavior had been identified as of 1984, it was nevertheless clear that thousands of genes are expressed in human brain cells and must be relevant to human behavior. Pinker accused Lewontin et al. of using words such as "determinism" and "reductionism" as "vague terms of abuse", and of misrepresenting scientists such as Wilson and Dawkins, falsely ascribing ridiculous beliefs to them. He saw them and other critics of "determinism" as misusing the term by using it to refer to the idea that people simply have a tendency to behave in a certain fashion. Pinker endorsed Dawkins's review. He noted that Lewontin and Rose were both "reductionist biologists", and attributed their rejection of the idea of human nature to their Marxism.
== See also ==
Marxist philosophy
Socialism
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
Books
Journals
== External links ==
Critical review in New Scientist by Richard Dawkins.
Positive review in Nature by Sir Peter Medawar.

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Of Moths and Men is a book by journalist Judith Hooper about the Oxford University ecological genetics school led by E.B. Ford. The book specifically concerns Bernard Kettlewell's experiments on the peppered moth which were intended as experimental validation of evolution. She highlights supposed problems with the methodology of Kettlewell's experiments and suggests that these issues could invalidate the results obtained, ignoring or disparaging evidence supporting natural selection while repeatedly implying that Kettlewell and his colleagues committed fraud or made careless errors.
Subject matter experts have described the book as presenting a "conspiracy theory" with "errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods". The evolutionary biologist Michael Majerus spent the last 7 years of his life systematically repeating Kettlewell's experiments, demonstrating that Kettlewell had in fact been correct.
== Allegations of poor experimental practice ==
In the book, Hooper alleges multiple flaws in experimental methodology, including gluing the moths in place on parts of trees where they would not naturally settle, feeding birds heavily enough to condition them to expect feeding at that point, artificially boosting recapture rates, altering experiments (unconsciously) to favour the expected outcome, and errors in statistical analysis.
== Rebuttals by experts ==
The book was described as well-written in reviews in the mainstream press, but severely criticised in scientific publications.
The historian of biology David Rudge has carefully reexamined the records upon which Hooper's argument is based. He concluded that her historical research had been poor, and that she had shown fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of science.
Writing in Nature in 2002, the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne attacked Hooper's "flimsy conspiracy theory [of] ambitious scientists who will ignore the truth for the sake of fame and recognition [by which] she unfairly smears a brilliant naturalist".
In Science, Bruce S. Grant, also writing in 2002, critically summarised the book's content. In his view it had failed to distinguish evidence (showing that natural selection occurs) from mechanism (how it operates). He stated that there was an enormous amount of evidence for "changes in allele frequency in peppered moth populations" for which natural selection was the only explanation. He wrote that "What it delivers is a quasi-scientific assessment of the evidence for natural selection in the peppered moth (Biston betularia), much of which is cast in doubt by the author's relentless suspicion of fraud".
The geneticist Bryan Clarke, who had worked alongside Bernard Kettlewell at Oxford, described Hooper's book as "a treasury of insinuations worthy of an unscrupulous newspaper".
The entomologist and expert on peppered moth evolution Michael Majerus described the book as "littered with errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods". He spent the last 7 years of his life on research, systematically refuting Hooper's claims. Much of the work was published posthumously, the data being reviewed by a team of evolutionary biologists, leading to a vindication of Kettlewell's findings, the re-establishment of his reputation, and the restoration of the peppered moth as an exemplar of Darwinian evolution.
== References ==

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On Human Nature (1978; second edition 2004) is a book by the biologist E. O. Wilson, in which the author attempts to explain human nature and society through sociobiology. Wilson argues that evolution has left its traces on characteristics such as generosity, self-sacrifice, worship and the use of sex for pleasure, and proposes a sociobiological explanation of homosexuality.
He attempts to complete the Darwinian revolution by bringing biological thought into social sciences and humanities. Wilson describes On Human Nature as a sequel to his earlier books The Insect Societies (1971) and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).
The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979.
== Summary ==
=== 2004 Preface ===
The conundrum of human nature, as I and a few others saw it in 1978, can be solved only if scientific explanations embrace both the how (neurosciences) and why (evolutionary biology) of brain action, with the two axes of explanation fitted together. In The Insect Societies (1971), I proposed that a coherent branch of biology might be constructed from a synthesis of social behavior and population biology. In 1975 I expanded the conception of the discipline outlined to include vertebrate animals. The result was Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a double-column, 697-page account of theory based on an encyclopedic review of all known social organisms. In a 1989 poll the officers and fellows of the international Animal Behavior Society ranked it the most important book on animal behavior of all time. Many scientists and others believed it would have been better if I had stopped before the last chapter on Homo sapiens. There could not have been a worse time than the mid-1970s for the inauguration of human sociobiology. The Vietnam War had created a student protest movement of the revolutionary left. Race was a radioactive issue. Talk of the inheritance of IQ and human behavior were punishable offenses. The blank-slate interpretation of the brain sheltered the social sciences and humanities from the storms of biology and vouchsafed their independence as two of the three great branches of learning. In the popular media, sociobiology came to mean the theory that human behavior is determined by genes. The final chapter of Sociobiology should have been a book-length exposition.
=== Chapter 1. Dilemmas ===
As a species we have no particular place to go. Human emotional responses have been programmed to a substantial degree by natural selection over thousands of generations but which should be obeyed and which ones might be better curtailed? And how do the different disciplines that explore human nature interact? Those working at a lower level often assume that those at a higher level should eventually be reformulated in their own terms: they form an antidiscipline for the next level, but with the passage of time they become fully complementary. Reduction is only half the scientific process: the recognition of novel emergent phenomena is as important.
=== Chapter 2. Heredity ===
Sociobiology is a hybrid discipline that incorporates knowledge from ethology to derive the principles of the biological properties of entire societies. It attempts to view humanity simultaneously with an array of other social experiments. Societies are not infinitely malleable. We share certain traits with the majority of great apes and monkeys, however less with birds or rodents. And there are a huge number of social traits that occur in every human society. He examines the similarities and differences with chimpanzees in more detail. He then discusses the incest taboo (cultural) with possible underlying genetic explanations. There is no reason to suppose that all genetic variability for behavior has been exhausted. In fact the opposite is true. The chapter concludes with a discussion of identical twin studies and possible racial differences.
=== Chapter 3. Development ===
Is the wiring diagram of the brain of a newborn baby an all-purpose device, adaptable through learning to any mode of social existence as those who believe in a tabula rasa assume? Does sociobiology imply that development is deterministic, producing insect-like behavior? His view is that genetic factors act as a set of biases in development, nudging it one way or another with a potentially large cumulative change. He comments on Chomsky's view of grammar and Skinner's of learning, and prefers Piaget’s approach. The mind isn't a tabula rasa but rather an autonomous decision-making instrument.
=== Chapter 4. Emergence ===
The threat to our free will is that someone may be able to calculate exactly how our brain works. But the extraordinary complexity and difficulty of exact measurement may mean that that is never the case. The cardinal mystery of neurobiology is not self-love or dreams of immortality, but intentionality. The compromise between Russian dolls and vitalism lies in recognizing plans, or schemata. These can create patterns in the mind that aren't altogether present in reality and can form the physical basis of will. Yet our behavior is determined in a weaker sense: we can make broad predictions with confidence. Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and much faster than Darwinian. But culture cannot diverge too far from its biological base. For example, slavery has existed in much of history but humans ultimately refuse to act like slave ants. We need to bear in mind the typical behaviors of people in the last few million years. But with the emergence of Homo sapiens, brain size increase leveled off being replaced by cultural expansion.
=== Chapter 5. Aggression ===
Humans are innately aggressive. Even the most peaceful tribes have a more violent past and probably future. But the Freudian concept of an innate aggressive drive, adapted by Konrad Lorenz, is incorrect. Wilson identifies seven types of situation in which aggression occurs, such as territorialism. But people are also capable of learning from their mistakes and changing, as happened to the Maoris in New Zealand.

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