Mysteries don't lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mysteries. With the wit, insight, and spellbinding prose that have made him a best-selling author, Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. This is the book Richard Dawkins was meant to write: a brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn't), a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting.

    Random genetic mutation, long believed to be the main source of variation, is only a marginal factor. As the authors demonstrate in this book, the more important source of speciation, by far, is the acquisition of new genomes by symbiotic merger. The result of thirty years of delving into a vast, mostly arcane literature, this is the first book to go beyond -- and reveal the severe limitations of -- the "Modern Synthesis" that has dominated evolutionary biology for almost three generations. Lynn Margulis, whom E. O. Wilson called "one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology," and her co-author Dorion Sagan have written a comprehensive and scientifically supported presentation of a theory that directly challenges the assumptions we hold about the variety of the living world.

    Both an intellectually thrilling journey into the nature of scientific discovery and the most personal book he has ever published, I Have Landed marks the end of a significant chapter in the career of one of the most acclaimed and widely read scientists of our time. Gould writes about the themes that have defined his career, which his readers have come to expect and celebrate, casting new light upon them and conveying the ideas that science professionals exchange among themselves (minus the technical jargon). Here, of course, is Charles Darwin, from his centrality to any sound scientific education to little-known facts about his life. Gould touches on subjects as far-reaching and disparate as feathered dinosaurs, the scourge of syphilis and the frustration of the man who identified it, and Freud's "evolutionary fantasy." He writes brilliantly of Nabokov's delicately crafted drawings of butterflies and the true meaning of biological diversity. And in the poignant title essay, he details his grandfather's journey from Hungary to America, where he arrived on September 11, 1901. It is from his grandfather's journal entry of that day, stating simply "I have landed," that the book's title was drawn. This landing occurred 100 years to the day before our greatest recent tragedy, also explored, but with optimism, in the concluding section of the book. Presented in eight parts, I Have Landed begins with a remembrance of a moment of wonder from childhood. In Part II, Gould explains that humanistic disciplines are not antithetical to theoretical or applied sciences. Rather, they often share a commonality of method and motivation, with great potential to enhance the achievements of each other, an assertion perfectly supported by essays on such notables as Nabokov and Frederic Church. Part III contains what no Gould collection would be complete without: his always compelling "mini intellectual biographies," which render each subject and his work deserving of reevaluation and renewed significance. In this collection of figures compelling and strange, Gould exercises one of his greatest strengths, the ability to reveal a significant scientific concept through a finely crafted and sympathetic portrait of the person behind the science. Turning his pen to three key figures--Sigmund Freud, Isabelle Duncan, and E. Ray Lankester, the latter an unlikely attendee of the funeral of Karl Marx--he highlights the effect of the Darwinian revolution and its resonance on their lives and work. Part IV encourages the reader--through what Gould calls "intellectual paleontology"--to consider scientific theories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in a new light and to recognize the limitations our own place in history may impose on our understanding of those ideas. Part V explores the op-ed genre and includes two essays with differing linguistic formats, which address the continual tug-of-war between the study of evolution and creationism. In subsequent essays, in true Gould fashion, we are treated to moments of good humor, especially when he leads us to topics that bring him obvious delight, such as Dorothy Sayers novels and his enduring love of baseball and all its dramas. There is an ardent admiration of the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert and Sullivan (wonderfully demonstrated in the jacket illustration), who are not above inclusion in all things evolutionary. This is truly Gould's most personal work to date. How fitting that this final collection should be his most revealing and, in content, the one that reflects most clearly the complexity, breadth of knowledge, and optimism that characterize Gould himself. I Have Landed succeeds in reinforcing Gould's underlying and constant theme from the series' commencement thirty years ago--the study of our own scientific, intellectual, and emotional evolution--bringing reader and author alike to what can only be described as a brilliantly written and very natural conclusion. "From the Hardcover edition."

    When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an 'Aqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the water, turning it brown, he thought he'd try the same at home. 'Like some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General', using his girlfriend's Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: 'before my very eyes, the world's first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend's immorality.' Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian. His book is about all the 'bad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own 'bad science' moments from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word 'visibly' in cosmetics ads.

    Charles Darwin's theory of evolution turned the Victorian world upside down, utterly rewrote our notions of life on earth, and is still attacked by religious creationists today.

    This hugely informative and wonderfully entertaining little book answers one hundred essential questions about existence. It unravels the knotty, clarifies the conundrums and sheds light into dark corners. From winning the lottery, placing bets at the races and escaping from bears to sports, Shakespeare, Google, game theory, drunks, divorce settlements and dodgy accounting; from chaos to infinity and everything in between, 100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know has all the answers!

    In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design," there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned—the "evidence," the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection. Even Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, while extolling the beauty of evolution and examining case studies, have not focused on the evidence itself. Yet the proof is vast, varied, and magnificent, drawn from many different fields of science. Scientists are observing species splitting into two and are finding more and more fossils capturing change in the past—dinosaurs that have sprouted feathers, fish that have grown limbs. Why Evolution Is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, paleontology, geology, molecular biology, and anatomy that demonstrate the "indelible stamp" of the processes first proposed by Darwin. In crisp, lucid prose accessible to a wide audience, Why Evolution Is True dispels common misunderstandings and fears about evolution and clearly confirms that this amazing process of change has been firmly established as a scientific truth.

    Nobody is perfect. And that includes five of the greatest scientists in history—Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein. But the mistakes that these great luminaries made helped advance science. Indeed, as Mario Livio explains, science thrives on error, advancing when erroneous ideas are disproven.As a young scientist, Einstein tried to conceive of a way to describe the evolution of the universe at large, based on General Relativity—his theory of space, time, and gravity. Unfortunately he fell victim to a misguided notion of aesthetic simplicity. Fred Hoyle was an eminent astrophysicist who ridiculed an emerging theory about the origin of the universe that he dismissively called “The Big Bang.” The name stuck, but Hoyle was dead wrong in his opposition.They, along with Darwin (a blunder in his theory of Natural Selection), Kelvin (a blunder in his calculation of the age of the earth), and Pauling (a blunder in his model for the structure of the DNA molecule), were brilliant men and fascinating human beings. Their blunders were a necessary part of the scientific process. Collectively they helped to dramatically further our knowledge of the evolution of life, the Earth, and the universe.

    Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as positive stress? Are we genetically programmed to be in conflict with each other? Those are just some of the 150 questions that the world's best scientific minds answer with elegant simplicity.With contributions from Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Nassim Taleb, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more, everything is explained in fun, uncomplicated terms that make the most complex concepts easy to comprehend.

    In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores & explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life & its consquences, & other provocative, fascinating quandries of the future we want to see today.

    Discusses the evolution of prehistoric ape-like creatures into human beings, theorizing that the key to this transformation was the ability to share & cooperate in a social context.

    A Fellow at Oxford and a leading chemist, he has won admiration for his precise, lucid, and yet rigorous explanations of science. Now he turns his forensic mind to the greatest--and most controversial--questions of human existence: birth, death, the origin of reality, and its end.In On Being, Atkins makes a provocative contribution to the great debate between religion and science. Atkins makes his position clear from the very first sentence: The scientific method can shed light on every and any concept, even those that have troubled humans since the earliest stirrings of consciousness, he writes. He takes a materialist approach to the great questions of being that have inspired myth and religion, seeking to dispel their mystery without diminishing their grandeur. In placing scientific knowledge in such cosmic perspective, he takes us on an often dizzying tour of existence. For example, he argues that the substrate of existence is nothing at all. The total electrical charge of the universe, among other things, must be nothing--zero--he writes, or else the universe would have blasted itself apart. Charge was not created at the creation: electrical Nothing separated into equal and opposite charges. He explores breathtaking questions--asking the purpose of the universe--with wit and learning, touching on Sanskrit scriptures and John Updike along the way.

    In this first anthology of its kind, Carey chooses accounts by scientists themselves--astronomers and physicists, biologists, chemists, psychologists--that are both arrestingly written and clear. Contributors include Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Lewis Thomas, Rachel Carson, Sigmund Freud, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and scores of others.

    Like you, the elements have lives: personalities and attitudes, talents and shortcomings, stories rich with meaning. You may think of them as the inscrutable letters of the periodic table but you know them much better than you realise. Welcome to a dazzling tour through history and literature, science and art. Here you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table. From ancient civilisations to contemporary culture, from the oxygen of publicity to the phosphorus in your pee, the elements are near and far and all around us. Unlocking their astonishing secrets and colourful pasts, Periodic Tales will take you on a voyage of wonder and discovery, excitement and novelty, beauty and truth. Along the way, you'll find that their stories are our stories, and their lives are inextricable from our own.

    These transitions include the origin of life itself, the first eukaryotic cells, reproduction by sexual means, the appearance ofmulticellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperation and of animal societies, and the unique language ability of humans. This ambitious book provides the first unified discussion of the full range of these transitions. The authors highlight the similarities between differenttransitions--between the union of replicating molecules to form chromosomes and of cells to form multicellular organisms, for example--and show how understanding one transition sheds light on others. They trace a common theme throughout the history of evolution: after a major transition someentities lose the ability to replicate independently, becoming able to reproduce only as part of a larger whole. The authors investigate this pattern and why selection between entities at a lower level does not disrupt selection at more complex levels. Their explanation encompasses a compellingtheory of the evolution of cooperation at all levels of complexity. Engagingly written and filled with numerous illustrations, this book can be read with enjoyment by anyone with an undergraduate training in biology. It is ideal for advanced discussion groups on evolution and includes accessiblediscussions of a wide range of topics, from molecular biology and linguistics to insect societies.