The Panda's Thumb will introduce a new generation of readers to this unique writer, who has taken the art of the scientific essay to new heights.Were dinosaurs really dumber than lizards? Why, after all, are roughly the same number of men and women born into the world? What led the famous Dr. Down to his theory of mongolism, and its racist residue? What do the panda's magical "thumb" and the sea turtle's perilous migration tell us about imperfections that prove the evolutionary rule? The wonders and mysteries of evolutionary biology are elegantly explored in these and other essays by the celebrated natural history writer Stephen Jay Gould.

    He did not mean to rock the world. He meant only to know the truth. But before he was done, Charles Darwin would shake the faith of centuries...would be reviled as a fiend, denounced as a madman - and finally hailed as a genius. His life was a storm-swept voyage of discovery-from the moment when as a raw youth he set sail on a five-year journey around the entire globe to his final years and epochal explorations into the ultimate mystery of human origins. Now Charles Darwin is brought to life in a superlative novel that captures not only the man himself but the Victorian age that produced him. These pages reveal the drama and passion of a beset by the prejudices of his era and by guessed-at dangers.

    The contours of this paradigm emerge from the synthesis of a number of important, recently developed concepts, and provide a scientific foundation to a new world-view which emphasizes process over structure, nonequilibrium over equilibrium, evolution over permanency, and individual creativity over collective stabilization. The book, with its emphasis on the interaction of microstructures with the entire biosphere, ecosystems etc., and on how micro- and macrocosmos mutually create the conditions for their further evolution, provides a comprehensive framework for a deeper understanding of human creativity in a time of transition.

    The methods of evolutionary genetics are critically important for the analysis and interpretation of the massive datasets on DNA sequence variation and evolution that are becoming available, as well for our understanding of evolution in general. This book shows readers how models of the genetic processes involved in evolution are made (including natural selection, migration, mutation, and genetic drift in finite populations), and how the models are used to interpret classical and molecular genetic data. The material is intended for advanced level undergraduate courses in genetics and evolutionary biology, graduate students in evolutionary biology and human genetics, and researchers in related fields who wish to learn evolutionary genetics. The topics covered include genetic variation, DNA sequence variability and its measurement, the different types of natural selection and their effects (e.g. the maintenance of variation, directional selection, and adaptation), the interactions between selection and mutation or migration, the description and analysis of variation at multiple sites in the genome, genetic drift, and the effects of spatial structure. The final two chapters demonstrate how the theory illuminates our understanding of the evolution of breeding systems, sex ratios and life histories, and some aspects of genome evolution.

    In this volume the thinkers responsible for the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology and genetics come together to analyze that remarkable event. In a new Preface, Ernst Mayr calls attention to the fact that scientists in different biological disciplines differed considerably in their degree of acceptance of Darwin's theories. Mayr shows us that these differences were played out in four separate periods between 1859 and 1947 -- and thus enables us to understand fully why the synthesis was necessary and why Darwin's original theory -- that evolutionary change is due to the combination of variation and selection -- is as solid at the end of the twentieth century as it was in 1859.

    In every word she spoke or wrote, she tried to quicken that love in the hearts of others. In this revised and expanded edition of a Madonna House classic, we begin with the basics of our faith as Catherine communicated them — the Incarnation, the Mystical Body, the Eucharist, Our Lady, etc. — the School of Love. As she often proclaimed, “No part of the Gospel is abstract.”  In other words, without living our faith, putting flesh on the Gospel in daily life, those truths of faith lie fallow. With her unique charism of communicating how to “preach the Gospel with your life” she presents the Tools of Love, the ways to let the light of Christ shine through everyday life. Let her exhilarating words, her fire of love, light a flame in your heart and soul! Author Profile: Catherine Doherty Catherine Doherty used her heritage as a Russian Christian as a matrix for responding to the needs of Christian life and work in the modern world. Her own personal pilgrimage led her to be “poor with the poor Christ” in the slums of Toronto and in Harlem; and later to the establishing of the world-wide Madonna House Apostolate (in 1947). A dedicated wife and mother, Catherine was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, a best-selling author of dozens of books, a renowned national speaker, and a pioneer of social justice. After emigrating to the U.S., Catherine became a Catholic and was very active, along with her husband Eddie, in the Byzantine Catholic Church in the U.S. and Canada. Catherine died in 1985 and her cause for sainthood has been opened and is progressing.