斯蒂芬·杰·古尔德(Stephen Jay Gould),当今世界上著名的进化论者,古生物学家、科学史学家和科学散文作家。1945年生于纽约,在安蒂奥克学院,哥伦比亚大学研读古生物并获博士学位。现任教于哈佛大学,并从事研究工作。主要著作有《自达尔文以来》、《熊猫的拇指》、《汉斯的牙与马的蹄》、《八头小猪》等。
Few would question the truism that humankind is the crowning achievement of evolution; that the defining thrust of life's history yields progress over time from the primitive and simple to the more advanced and complex; that the disappearance of .400 hitting in baseball is a fact to be bemoaned; or that identifying an existing trend can be helpful in making important life decisions. Few, that is, except Stephen Jay Gould who, in his new book Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, proves that all of these intuitive truths are, in fact, wrong.
"All of these mistaken beliefs arise out of the same analytical flaw in our reasoning, our Platonic tendency to reduce a broad spectrum to a single, pinpointed essence," says Gould. "This way of thinking allows us to confirm our most ingrained biases that humans are the supreme being on this planet; that all things are inherently driven to become more complex; and that almost any subject can be expressed and understood in terms of an average."
In Full House, Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world (and the history of life) is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation rather than as an isolated "thing" and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this "full house" of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing. When approached in such a way, the disappearance of .400 hitting becomes a cause for celebration, signaling not a decline in greatness but instead an improvement in the overall level of play in baseball; trends become subject to suspicion, and too often, only a tool of those seeking to advance a particular agenda; and the "Age of Man" (a claim rooted in hubris, not in fact) more accurately becomes the "Age of Bacteria."
"The traditional mode of thinking has led us to draw many conclusions that don't make satisfying sense," says Gould. "It tells us that .400 hitting has disappeared because batters have gotten worse, but how can that be true when record performances have improved in almost any athletic activity?" In a personal eureka!, Gould realized that we were looking at the picture backward, and that a simple conceptual inversion would resolve a number of the paradoxes of the conventional view.
While Full House deftly reveals the shortcomings of the popular reasoning we apply to everyday life situations, Gould also explores his beloved realm of natural history as well. Whether debunking the myth of the successful evolution of the horse (he grants that the story still deserves distinction, but as the icon of evolutionary failure); presenting evidence that the vaunted "progress of life" is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward complexity; or relegating the kingdoms of Animalai and Plantae to their proper positions on the genealogical chart for all of life (as mere twigs on one of the three bushes), Full House asks nothing less than that we reconceptualize our view of life in a fundamental way.
From the Hardcover edition.
生物学发展到今天,从技术上讲,微观上刚完成了对人类全部基因组的测序工作,而宏观上则可以运用计算机的辅助计算统计,用数字描绘出一个波澜壮阔的生命史。斯蒂芬•杰•古尔德就是这么一位热衷于用数字说话,用图形说理的生物学家。他的著作《生命的壮阔》则清楚地反映了...
评分还是看《伊甸园之河》就听说了古尔德和他的“激进进化论”,看完全书,不得不佩服他的敏锐视角和深刻洞察。 全书就我看来主要是对地球生命史的另一种解释,这种解释不同于传统的主流的“生命是从低级到高级、简单到复杂”生命进化论,而是认为“高等”生物的出现不过是物种的随...
评分科学把支撑人类自大的巨柱逐一推翻。哥白尼、伽利略否定了地心说;达尔文把我们贬成“动物出身的”,弗洛伊德的心理学研究说人类“无意识”。(P11) 自负的人类总以为自己是高高在上的。习惯的说法是,生命从简单的单细胞逐渐“进化”到最高级的物种——人类。这本书告诉我们...
评分一点评论,不一定准确,欢迎指正。 ------------------ 看完了《生命的壮阔》,后面部分看得比较快。书主旨还不错,内容表述得比较枯燥。 其实作者要表达的就是“进化是随机事件,既没有明显的‘进步’特点,也没有明显的退化特征。因为‘左墙’的存在,进化曲线右倾,即生命早...
评分数量级翻译成“规模次序”,也真有想象力…… 至于连居维叶都不认识之类的错误就不说了。 和《万物简史》的译者犯同样的错误。自己对该领域丝毫不懂,态度又不认真,学术名词滥译已然不能忍了,连好些非学术的普通句子都没读明白,真是糟蹋掉一本好书。古尔德一定会很伤心。
斯人已逝--您的签名还留在扉页上。????
评分evolution不是一个完全正面的概念。气场非常强的论说。
评分evolution不是一个完全正面的概念。气场非常强的论说。
评分斯人已逝--您的签名还留在扉页上。????
评分= =
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