Science Nature Books

This book is a wonderful introduction to primate behavior, ecology and conservation. A collection of articles originally published in Natural History magazine, this book provides a perfect balance of the above topics in primatology. If you are just getting started in the field or you are simply curious about our primate cousins this book is great. If you are a seasoned primatologist, this is a fun weekend read!

Natural History magazine has published a wealth of information about primates, written by leading experts in field research. Students of primatology, and anyone interested in animal behavior and ecology, will find this anthology relevant and informative. These studies demonstrate the diversity of our closest animal relatives and the intricacies of their lives and relationships amongst themselves and with other species.

The writings of field scientists such asChristophe Boesch, Robert Harding, Dawn Starin, Thomas Struhsaker and Patricia Wright cover wide taxonomic and geographic ranges. The editors' glue that effectively binds these essays together is the excellent prefacing overview accompanying each section (Behavior, Community Ecology, Diet, Reproduction and Conservation). These writings demonstrate the skills of biologists in translating field observations into literate and eminently readable images of their primate subjects.

This anthology provides valuable testimony tothe contributions of field studies in understanding our primate kin-- their context in nature, and the strategies they employ for coping with daily life and the encroachments of mankind.

Phillip T. Robinson - Society for the Renewal of Nature Conservation in Liberia, West Africa

Be aware this book is "job practice manual" & not an actual text book. It is designed for actual workshop practices and does not get into actual howto, specifications, and code rules.

Clear and attractive. I used this book to teach the process, but it struck me that it has other potential uses.

This book may be useful in combination with Johnny Appleseed and A Packet of Seeds. Although this picture book is considered young juvenile, it could be used with higher levels, and worked well with some of my older English language learner students.

The book ends with a "From seed to plant" project planting beans, which may be appropriate for integrating science and math curricular concepts. The book simplifies a hard to understand process and may help prompt some experiments about growing plants under different conditions.

The class could talk about the kinds of crops grown during a particular historical time period and US location. When discussing pioneer history, for example, the students could plant sweet potatoes, which sprout easily in water, to talk about food availability during that historical period. The book may work well with other books--such as the cooking books--when teaching about food and farming.

Gail Gibbons has the best books for kids. I can see why educators use this books in the classroom. The concepts are broken down into easily understandable parts; great for little kids!

Great for primary introduction to plants and a must have nonfiction book for teachers ~ very informational.

This is an excellent book for younger students (K-3) about seeds and plants. I am using it as part of my summer school reading/writing program. First, I read the book to the students and we planted little radish seeds (they grow quickly) in see-through plastic cups. Later, the students read the book out loud to one another and we discussed the seed to plant concept. They also kept a journal to record their observations of their seeds with illustrations about every other day. This book presents a great opportunity to combine reading, writing and science.

This book's big, colorful illustrations and simple language do a superb job of explaining subjects such as plant reproduction, seed dispersal, pollen transference, and seed germination. Although intended for a younger audience, I read this book aloud to my fourth grade students to quickly build their background knowledge.

Did you know that there is shark that glows in the dark? I didn't until I read this very informative books on sharks. Lots of species of sharks are discussed and full color photos of sharks are shown! There is even a chart that shows the various body parts of the shark! Open this book and learn more about the shark!


The book does a great job of reporting interesting shark facts. I learned a lot form the book.



Yes we would. The words are simple enough for a primary student to read, and the illustrations justify the reading.

My [...] is learning so much so quick I thought this book would be perfect for her and it is. It has a lot of information that I would not have been able to explain on my own without some help and also has some activities in it that my daughter is able to do with me as well.

This is a good book to use during any study on air. It provides some easy hands-on experiments with good visual pictures to illustrate the properties of air. Good choice for any science class with Kindergarten or First Grade students.

First, go read Kevin Currie's review, because it is fairly insightful. Much of what I would say is written there, and there is nothing there that I disagree with enough to contradict it, except that there is a great deal of science, you just have to filter it out of the remainder of the book. To be fair, much of it is after page 307, where he apparently stopped.

My generalized comment about this book is that reading it is like looking through a microscope with the eyepieces too far apart: There is some region in the center that is viewable through both eyes, but the remainder of the field of view is only accessible by part of what should be seeing it. The two fields are science and the humanities. They are overlapping in part, but there are problems with the integration. For example, as in all carefully worded scientific statements, the author is careful to word things as "evidence of this was not found in the study", which means that it is not disproven, it is merely inconclusive. The humanities references are largely inappropriate, making little or no sense in the context that they are in. They seem to scream, "I'm not just a scientist! I am a renaissance man, and my interests are diverse!" The problem is that they are irrelevant at best, distracting at worst, and never tied into the flow of ideas, except perhaps as a joke would be in Family Guy.

More particular comments, as I am wont to do with science books, are as follows:

First, his mention, on pg. 10, of the evolution of distanced altruism being formerly impossible, is quite clever. I haven't ever seen this suggestion before, even if it is not unique, and it is quite useful.

Second, on pg. 136, amongst other places, Dr. Hauser refers to the unchanging status of human moral and psychological systems. This is, perhaps, the second greatest flaw with the book (the first comes shortly, rest assured). As at least one other reviewer has mentioned, the nature of mankind should never be assumed static.

Third, and the greatest weakness of the book, the acceptance of the "Rawlsian creature" is made fait accompli, as Kevin Currie alludes to. To see why this is a problem, greater details are necessary.

The premise of the book is that there is an underlying moral system that is universal to all humans, but that is largely inaccessible to our cognitive system. It just does its job, and then the conscious mind reationalizes whatever decision is made. Dr. Hauser then gives three different conceptions of moral creatures: a Kantian, which may or may not be accurate (see other reviews), a Humean (which has not been commented upon), and a Rawlsian (which seems to be lifted from the thesis of a graduate student, at least from the text).

In typical philosophical and scientific style, the three are presented, and then the alternatives are tested. This goes on for about two hundred pages, with little or no resolution. Then, somehow, the Rawlsian creature wins, without any explanation, on pg. 251. This is not only one of the last mentions of ANY of the moral systems, until the final page, but it marks the point where the other systems are no longer mentioned at all. This smacks of bad philosophy (which is understandable, since it appears Dr. Hauser's hobby, rather than his forte) AND bad science (which is inexcusable, since this is his career).

Fourth, and more minor, on pg. 313, Dr. Hauser suggests that a stable reciprocal system requires that: "individuals must recognize each other, recall what was given to whom, how much, when, and with what costs." This is inaccurate, at the least. He backs off of this, to a degree, later, never fully restating this entire list (although portions are continually mentioned). A stable reciprocal system merely requires that there is knowledge that one or more persons or entities owe other persons or entities something. How much, who, and costs are irrelevant. They are "tuning" if you will.

Other than these specific complaints, I will reiterate that the book tends to wander, as if the author decided that he only wanted six chapters in the body, and refused to consider additional ones. This makes them an awkward pastiche of multiple, seemingly unrelated subjects. The connections are somewhat mysterious, at least to me. Also, there is needless repetition of many experimental results and statements that elongates and muddies the book.

It is good subject matter, and it is a good effort at summarizing it. The best thing here is the synopsis of what remains to be discovered. Now if we can start answering those questions, we can decide how morality works and how it evolved. Until then, breeze through this and go back to Shermer for better writing.

C-

Harkius

In "Moral Minds", Marc Hauser makes a great case for the existence of an innate morality that exists within all humans, similar to Noam Chomsky's innate organ of language. Drawing on a vast field of research and history, the reader is led step by step to the understanding that morality is an evolved capability which exists not only in humans, but in various degrees in the other animals in the world. His expositions are clear, his thoughts lucid, and aside from a short and mostly pointless digression discussing Conway's Game of Life, the book is brilliant. Highly recommended to anyone, especially those who are tired of the old "atheists are amoral" arguments.

For the definitive review of this book, readers should consult Richard Rorty's piece in the New York Times (available online). Rorty points out the absurd mismatch between on the one hand the triumphalist rhetoric of the book (Hauser declares we are entering a new era when science will finally reveal the Truth about "The Nature of Right and Wrong" (the book's subtitle)), and on the other hand the almost total lack of actual concrete results. In the end, despite its excessive length this book tells us little about morality. It mostly deals with the debate between the role of emotion and reason in ethics, but giving us rather caricatured views of each side (especially of Kant's rationalist ethics, which Hauser badly misunderstands). Hauser's actual concrete claims about morality are mostly trivial or vacuous(my favorite is Hauser's "scientific" conclusion that people are partly selfish, partly altruistic). This book is largely an exercise in armchair speculation about how morality evolved to suit a hunter-gatherer lifestyle on the "savanna" many thousands of years ago (one might call this the Flintstones Theory of human nature). There is however no evidence for this claim, and lots of evidence against it (for example, most people recognize some sort of moral duties to animals, yet this would make no sense from an adaptive perspective). In fact, Hauser does not reveal the depths of the controversy even among biologists as to whether morality is even an adaptation at all, let alone an adaptation to the hunter-gatherer state. In the end, the only practical recommendation he offers us about morality is a deeply conservative one: you can't change human nature, our "moral instincts" are "immune" to the attempted changes mandated by religion, laws, and social rules. In fact, the advice is useless, since he doesn't say just what particular instincts can't be changed, or even what our moral instincts are in general. But there is little reason to take his advice anyway. In fact, even a basic knowledge of history shows the possibility of radical moral shifts in very short time periods: think of the rise of women's rights, or how after slavery was universally accepted for thousands of years, yet in the course of a century became morally forbidden. (One can imagine a 19th century Hauser declaiming against the abolitionists, warning that our moral "instincts" to oppress the "outgroup" are too strong for society to meddle with!). As Rorty points out, when society wants to change people's moral attitudes, it would be better off simply trying to see if the changes can be made, rather than listen to the unsupported speculations of biologists about how human nature is fixed and unchangeable. Indeed, there is an ironic reversal here. Usually, it is the religious & political leaders are usually portrayed as dogmatic and conservative, and the scientists who are supposed to be the experimentalists, calling for trial and error. Now it is the non-scientists who have become the open-minded experimentalists!

After about 300 pages, I decided to look at some amazon reviews for this book. I was wondering if others had as tough a time as I did following Hauser. I was curious to find out if others were as confused as I was about how this book could be called a work of science rather than an attempt of a scientist to delve into philosophy.

I am somewhat relieved that others came away with the same impression. Before I got this book, I was excited indeed to read it. I have read much both in moral philosophy and explorations of the intersection between it and biology (books by Shermer, Midgley, Ridley, Richard Posner, and works of evolutionary psychology.)

I don't want to risk exagerating, but this one is probably the worst of them. Hauser states his intent to show that morality is instinctual and innate in the sense that linguists have shown a "language instinct." That is, Hauser recognizes moral differences between cultures, but wants to show that morality has basic rules that are innately present, and that variation - like in language - is an acquired thing.

And on top of this, he wants to tie his findings to the conception of morality of John Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance" theory, rather than David Hume and Adam Smith's more emotive theory of morality. Where he does this exactly, I am not sure. I tried to decipher his argument, but the section of the book where he argues for a Rawlsian, rather than a Humean, conception of moral development seems actually to do the opposite. He succeeds only in showing that human moral judgments are first made on gut intuition and only after use reason either to justify or refine them. Humean indeed!

The other area where I was unclear was on how, exactly, Hauser showed that our moral sense is in any way objective across cultures. (I happen to believe this, but I have seen the argument made much better elsewhere!) In fact, this is a very hard case to make. Hauser says over and over that while the human moral sense is in some ways universal, variation is to be expected. Unfortunately, that is a very difficult statement to make in science. (It is like saying that while we are predicting that a certain law is universal, it manifests itself in so many different ways that appearance of universality should not be expected, enough that the law will not seem universal at all to our tests. In other words, "It is universal despite the fact of numerous exceptions to the rule." Science indeed!)

I also missed the part where Hauser goes into the possible explanations for how we may have acquired such moral instincts. (That is okay, I have heard and seen them elsewhere, and am convinced of many of them. I think particularly of Matt Ridley and Michael Shermer.) This may not be Hauser's fault, but my own. As I mentioned, I stopped at around page 300. But should it have taken him that long to get around to evolutionary explanations of moral development?

To conclude, the biggest problem with this book is that it meanders to a degree that writing a summary for each chapter would be almost impossible. Hauser goes in several directions during each chapter. Because of this, it seems that he doesn't make any real case for anything because he meanders too much.

Another big problem is that too much of this book is spent on moral philosphy such that a reader wanting discourse on science will be disappointed. There is some here, to be sure, but most of it is social science and speculative economics (games devised by economists to get a glimpse of our moral faculties at work).

But here are the seven words that sum up why I gave it two stars: this book falls flat on all counts.

I took this book on a vacation, and left it behind half-read in Italy. I hope some reader there enjoys it more or understands what Edelman is saying better than I did....perhaps reading it in English as a second language it will be more understandable. To aid this review I wish I had kept the copy with me so I could cite some of the more aggravating passages, but unfortunately all that is left for me is the feeling that Edelman deliberately writes unclearly because he has so little interesting to say.

I distinctly remember many of his arguments going something like this: if A were true, then B which follows from A must be true. Then he will say: since A is obviously true (he asserts without explaining why), then B is obviously true. I thought I was reading a book that would explain why B would follow from A and why A was true. Instead I got platitudes and non-explanations that more than once had me throwing the book on the floor in disgust.

Edelman may understand what he is trying to say, unfortunately he doesn't communicate this well at all. Perhaps there is meat here, but I sure couldn't find it.

Second Nature, suitable for most any reader with a dictionary, is a mind expanding look at the science of the structures and functions of the human brain and how the mysterious activity we call mind arises from the complex interconnectedness between innumerable neurons and our external conditioning and experience. His hypothesis, which puts an end to Descartes' numbing splitting of mind from the physical body, not only gives a convincing explanation of how the wonderful consciousness humans have evolved and developed has arisen, but you can feel it in your head.

If you take the naturalized epistemology of the philosopher Willard Quine and extend it beyond the role of sense perception, you might arrive at what the author of this book calls "brain-based epistemology." His opinions in this book are very sensible, especially if viewed from the standpoint of what is known in contemporary neuroscience. His expertise in this field is of course well known, but to apply cognitive neuroscience to the understanding of consciousness has only recently been attempted, with some experimental support. Due to its length, the reader will not find a detailed overview of this research in this book, but it will give an introduction to some of the author's essential ideas, which he like to encapsulate in the expression `Neural Darwinism.'

One interesting feature of the author's line of thinking, as in many systems of naturalized epistemology, is that it allows room for both scientific knowledge and knowledge derived from the "humanities". It would seem improbable that evolutionary pressures would not make poetry, art, and literature part of the human survival strategy, given the widespread occurrence of at least one of these areas in all human cultures throughout history. The author would view these areas as expressions of the "pattern recognition" capability of the brain, whereas science and mathematics are more in line with the ability of the brain to indulge itself in logical reasoning. But pattern recognition is the predominant mode for human thinking, with the immediate corollary that metaphors are the tool for which this is done. Scientific reasoning then is a highly specialized (and uncommon) mode of cognition, which is specific in scope and undetermined in justification. This would explain why scientific reasoning does not come as naturally to all as other modes of thought. However, the brain encompasses all of these modes, and so the sciences and the humanities could be viewed as facets of the same brain crystal. To separate them would be fallacious, and therefore the author spends an entire chapter "repairing the rift" between the natural sciences and the humanities.

The author's view of consciousness is one of an unabashed anti-Cartesianism, for he rejects dualism and views consciousness as a purely natural consequence of brain processes, these processes having the nature that they do because of evolutionary pressures. The author also rejects the notion of "brain as computer" but he does believe that it is possible to construct a conscious artifact, and spends a fair amount of time discussing on-going research devoted to this. In addition, and most interestingly, he views language as an "invention" and thus rejects the notion of an innate language mechanism that everyone is born with.

It remains to be seen whether the author's ideas on the origin and nature of consciousness will be justified in further research, but this book does have the virtue that it does not fall into the trap of pure philosophical speculation. This is not to say that such speculation is never of value, but one must know when to stop, when to put down the philosophical drink, lest one become lost in a maze of gigantic conceptual spaces that philosophers love to construct. Experimentation and observation should govern the investigation of consciousness, and artifacts or machines constructed that allow the testing of the more rudimentary ideas proposed. It is refreshing that cognitive neuroscientists have finally given the study of consciousness a genuine place in scientific investigation. No doubt there will be many surprises to come in this investigation in the decades ahead.

Daniel Dennett once characterized Darwin's theory of natural selection as the best single idea anyone ever had. I generally agree with that, so I am naturally well-disposed toward selectionist accounts, of which Edelman's Neural Darwinism is an example. I also have run out of patience with the clever word games that unfortunately constitute far too much of epistemology as it exists in academic philosophy, and that makes me a receptive audience for this kind of selection-based approach. I also agree with Edelman's rejection of computer-based models of human cognition and of Chomksky's mythical language organ. So, yes, I liked the book, found many insights in it, and I recommend it as a stimulating read. All that said, and given the extremely informative review provided below by L. Guzman, I will focus on what I found less than satisfactory.

When it comes to psychology, Edelman's view of the field seems to be bounded by Piaget and Freud. He gives the occasional, semi-perfunctory nod to the environment, but never in serious detail considers the importance for both brain and behavior of the history of interaction between organism and environment. Nor does he show any knowledge of the huge literature describing detailed analyses of environmental effects on behavior, analyses that specifically emphasize the selective effects of environmental consequences. Edelman's account reminds me of how the genome-phenome distinction is sometimes treated in relation to selection, as if genes themselves are directly selected for or against, and then go forth and do things in the world. In this case, it's always the brain doing this or that, with little or no acknowledgment that it is behavior that makes contact with the environment and is subject to selection, with resultant effects on the brain. We know from sensory deprivation experiments that, absent a reasonably normal environment, brain activity quickly drifts into disorder and incoherence. One suspects that the well-known behavior-specific effects of certain brain injuries, which Edelman describes in some detail, have been overgeneralized, resulting in an overly brain-centric view of behavior. What's needed here is an explicit input-output model, where the inputs are the initial state of the organism and the functional characteristics of the environment in which it operates; the fact that computer-based models have used input-output terminology should be considered of no relevance. At some points in Edelman's presentation, I found it difficult to decide just what constituted the output side -- and whether we were ever finally emerging from the neurological realm to the world outside.

A key notion for Edelman is the idea that the organism's inherited neurological structure incorporates biases that will determine something about the way certain stimuli are responded to. This "value system" is considered to be a product of evolutionary history, but it's not entirely clear exactly what the particular functions of this value system are supposed to be. Is it a kind of pre-wiring that makes certain stimuli more salient? For example, the visual appearance and smells associated with a particular species' preferred food might as a matter of inherited tendency trigger consumatory behavior, or at least make it more probable. Besides in-born sensitivity to releasor stimuli, would the value system include inherited behavior itself, ranging from reflexes to simple fixed-action patterns to very complex response sequences? One thinks of the elaborate behavior observed in courtship displays, nest-building, or nurturing the young. Is the notion of value system meant to stand as a neurological-level explanation for the ordinary behavioral effects of reinforcing and punishing consequences? Or is it meant specifically to account for some built-in extreme susceptibility of certain behavior to its consequences, thus amplifying normal reinforcement-punishment effects? Edelman includes the inherited value system as a hypothetical entity or process in his theoretical system, but it's not clear from this book exactly what its functions are, or how they interact with behavior or with the environmental events that precede, accompany, or follow behavior.

In Chapter 12, on Brain-Based Devices, we find, as is typical, that when it comes to actually making something happen the environment suddenly becomes important. Edelman makes much of this extremely interesting work using robotic devices with simulated brains that allow them to learn through trial and error, rather than being driven by pre-programed instructions. It is noteworthy, and completely predictable, that the descriptions of these experiments turn out to be descriptions of (1) the initial structure and behavioral capabilities of the simulated organism, and (2) operations involving the provision of specific environmental stimuli and environmental feedback. Results indicate that interaction with the environment produces changes in the device's behavior and in the organization of its simulated brain. If results didn't turn out that way, the researchers presumably would tinker with (1) and (2) above until they did. One long-term potential here seems to be the rediscovery of behaviorism, but with much better illumination of its neurological underpinnings. That would be an outcome devoutly to be wished, but getting there will require a broader, less brain-centric view than Edelman's alone.

Will knowing how the brain works--in particular, what consciousness is--transform our view of human knowledge itself? This is the question that looms large in Second Nature, Gerald Edelman's latest book. Though compact at 157 pages (excluding preface, footnotes, and index), this work represents Edelman's ambitious consideration of the implications of his view (likely the correct view) of the brain and mind for the broader world of human concern. Edelman seeks to understand the nature of knowledge as it is generated within a biological entity--the brain--that is shaped both by individual history and evolutionary forces. Astonishingly, in this little book, he succeeds in this quest marvelously. The result is no less than a new type of epistemology--what Edelman refers to as "brain-based epistemology."

Gerald Edelman is no mere dilettante or interloper in neuroscience. Since the publication of The Mindful Brain (a volume he co-edited and co-authored with Vernon Mountcastle) nearly thirty years ago, Edelman has diligently toiled in the theoretical vineyards to construct a comprehensive theory of higher brain function that is consistent with the latest available neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, and behavioral data. Perhaps the most significant fruit of these labors, the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, or Neural Darwinism, proposes that, during neurogenesis, a vast "primary repertoire" of physically connected populations of neurons arises. Later, in a process akin to Darwinian selection, a "secondary repertoire" of functionally defined neuronal groups emerges as the animal experiences its world, and that world in turn selects patterns of connectivity (the so-called neuronal groups) that provide a good enough fit in a given moment to engender some kind of positive outcome. Underlying this selection is a neural "value system," established over the course of evolution and believed to comprise small populations of neurons within deep brain structures, that assigns salience to particular stimuli encountered by the animal. When the response to a given stimulus leads to a positive outcome (i.e., eating satisfies hunger), the value system will reinforce, or strengthen, those synaptic connections between neurons that happened to be firing at that particular moment. There is now a greater likelihood that, when the animal encounters similar stimuli in the future, many of the same neurons that fired the first time will fire together again. When a stimulus is noxious, the value system will similarly strengthen the connections between neurons that happened to be firing at the time the stimulus was encountered, thus increasing the salience of that stimulus. When a stimulus has no salience, synaptic connections between neurons that fired upon first exposure to that stimulus will become weaker with successive exposures. Simply stated, neurons that fire together wire together. Keep in mind that the mapping of the world to neural substrate is degenerate; that is, no two neuronal groups or maps are the same, either structurally or functionally. Nor are the populations of neuronal groups that make up the neural mappings of the world exactly the same each time similar stimuli are encountered. These maps are dynamic, and their borders shift with experience. And finally, since each individual has a unique (and privileged) history, no two individuals will express the same neural mappings of the world. Indeed, from the establishment of the primary repertoire during development, no two brains are wired in exactly the same way, not even those of identical twins.

Notwithstanding any of the various attempts at historical revisionism that you may have encountered if you've read broadly across neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, the selectionist view of the nervous system begins with Edelman's highly original work. What follows from others making selectionist arguments is (whether they like it or not) purely derivative.

Although Edelman's theoretical framework has expanded to include the Dynamic Core hypothesis, a proposed mechanism for consciousness (See Edelman and Tononi's A Universe of Consciousness) that he discusses throughout Second Nature (and I will not unpack here), I believe that Neural Darwinism is his most fundamental contribution to modern neuroscience. To this day, it remains the most detailed and comprehensive theory of higher brain function ever proposed. Perhaps most importantly, and likely to the great consternation of those critics capable of lobbing only ad hominem attacks at Edelman himself, the theory is, in the best traditions of empirically grounded science, eminently testable. I have laid out a brief (and wholly inadequate) sketch of Neural Darwinism here because many of the critiques of Edelman's work are colored either by misapprehensions about this theory or the unrealistic expectation that its underlying mechanism can and should be easily described and readily digested. But unless you can appreciate the vast complexity of a biology shaped by evolutionary principles that are not well understood by the lay public (or even some scientists, for that matter), you will probably struggle to understand much of what Edelman has to say, even in this little book. The fault lies not in Edelman's prose, but rather in the nature of the subject matter he seeks to describe (contrary to the complaints of a few critics--see below). Persevere; if you love biology, are fascinated by the mysteries of the brain, and are curious about the implications of modern brain science for the nature of human knowledge and endeavors, then this book should be your touchstone.

I'm not going to give you a detailed rundown of the contents of Second Nature here; I'll simply recommend that you read it. In the remaining paragraphs, I hope to provide you with something I think will be of even greater value: a discussion of some of the most commonly raised criticisms of Edelman and his work. I hope that this will allow you to read the book--if not totally free of misconceptions--at least less encumbered by what I believe to be unfair attacks on one of the most constructive and distinguished bodies of work in modern theoretical neuroscience.

It is curious that Edelman's work engenders as much vitriolic reaction as it does. If you've read my review up to this point, you've certainly concluded that I'm firmly in Edelman's camp. That said, what follows are the most common claims about Edelman and his ideas from his most vocal critics. These can be clearly stated and quite easily dispensed with. In no particular order, here they are:

1) There is nothing original in his ideas.
2) Natural selection is not an apt analogy for what the brain does.
3) His models are instantiated on computers even though he claims that the brain is not a computer (look up the review by George Johnson).
4) He doesn't understand, or mischaracterizes, the views of modern philosophers.
5) He denigrates philosophers and their work.
6) He omits the work of others.
7) He doesn't communicate his ideas effectively, i.e., he does not write clearly or well.

Now, my rejoinders to the above claims:

Claim #1: Quite simply, those who make this claim need to practice better scholarship. Edelman first suggested the idea of neuronal group selection nearly thirty years ago. Back in the late 1970s, no one else in neuroscience ventured any such selectionist ideas. Moreover, early on, Edelman took quite a lot of heat for this notion. His transition from immunology to neuroscience, though logical from a theoretical perspective (moving from one selectional domain to another), may have offended stalwarts of the neuroscientific establishment. In any case, later, when the evidence suggested that Edelman was indeed correct about competition among groups of neurons (see, for example, the work of M. Merzenich), the attitude of many within and outside of neurobiology was something along the lines of, "oh yeah, but of course there are competitive interactions between functional neuronal assemblies; everybody knows that!" Well, clearly not everybody, and certainly not back in 1978. Over three decades, an original idea had thus been unfairly relegated to derivative status. It wasn't derivative; it was the source.

Claim #2: There is much evidence to suggest that neural representations of the world are dynamic and based on the competitive interactions between functionally defined and degenerate (e.g., non-identical) groups of neurons. Many alternative views of the central nervous system (CNS) have invoked formal computational principles. But everything we know about the CNS suggests that it functions nothing like a computer. If it were a sort of Turing machine, it would represent the only such example known to biology. Most modern biologists steeped in evolutionary principles (whether strictly Darwinian or of the Punctuated Equilibrium variety championed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge) would probably balk, first, at the notion of the emergence of organized populations of cells (or proteins or molecules, for that matter) capable of executing computations in the same manner as a digital computer, and second, at the idea that this sort of arrangement, if it had appeared at all, would have appeared only once over the course of evolutionary history. Finally, a challenge to those who too easily dismiss Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection and all that has followed from it: Go ahead and TRY to formulate a detailed, testable theory of brain function that takes account of the underlying biology of the central nervous system. Any takers? No? Enough said.

Claim #3: A number of Edelman's critics, such as the science writer George Johnson (Miss Leavitt's Stars), see little distinction between Edelman's characterization of the workings of the brain and computation-based information processing. But there is one profound difference. In selection-based systems such as the immune system or the CNS, meaning or "information" is imposed from within; in instruction-based systems such as digital computing, meaning is imposed from without; there is no internal meaning--a lot of lights may be on, but nobody's home. Often, traditional digital computers fail in tasks that involve discriminating novelty in a changing environment or generalizing across categories; brains excel in such tasks. But brains built like computers would be neither flexible nor adaptive. Moreover, a computer built like a brain, with little or no specific point-to-point wiring, would not be a functional computer. Precise instructions could not be implemented on such a machine in the absence of point-to-point wiring.
Some critics perceive something of a contradiction in the fact that, while Edelman has strongly rejected the notion of brain-as-computer, he and his colleagues have created simulations of the brain using massively powerful supercomputers. This point is either a red herring or simply represents a woeful ignorance of the nature of computer-based modeling and its applications in biology. When one models biological structures and their interactions on a computer--whether these are proteins folding a certain way, bones reacting to mechanical forces, or brains that can interact with, and adapt to, a world of novelty--one essentially uses software to approximate the analog and not infrequently stochastic behaviors of elements within the biological system being modeled. So, in the case of a biologically based brain simulation, the software instantiates on the computer a functional approximation of neurons with firing thresholds which shift in a circuit interaction- and context-driven fashion. The computer's overt behavior--or that of the device it controls--is not binary when this software is being run. The computer--or more properly, the simulation running on it--does not behave like a classical Turing machine. Why is this so hard to understand?

Claim #4: Actually, Edelman's descriptions and characterizations of various philosophical stances are generally detailed and accurate, and show a depth of understanding that could only have come from a thorough and voracious reading of much of philosophy, not just the philosophy of mind. Edelman has obviously taken in and "gets" the bulk of what philosophers have to say about the nature of knowledge.

Claim #5: In fact, I think Edelman has pulled his punches when it comes to taking on modern philosophical approaches to brain, mind, and the nature of knowledge. Although in his review of Second Nature, David Papineau clearly took offense at Edelman's characterization of philosophical approaches to epistemology as "armchair operations" (Nature, 2007, 446(5):614-615), it is not at all clear that Edelman actually meant this as an attack. When he makes this statement, though, I think he is clearly on the right track; he just doesn't follow that track far enough. Like it or not, these are armchair operations, and few philosophers have ventured beyond such musings to explore the actual neural substrate that generates knowledge in the first place. There are notable exceptions; the efforts of some philosophers, including most prominently John Searle, Hilary Putnam, Ned Block, and Thomas Metzinger, demonstrate a truly deliberative and concerted effort to incorporate what is known about the biology of the brain into thinking about the nature of cognition in general, consciousness in particular, and human knowledge. But many modern philosophers, I believe, are not merely armchair theoreticians; they are intellectually lazy. They think that, when considering the nature of mental processes, it is actually possible to do an "end-run" around neurobiology. Why bother actually relating organic structure and function to cognition? This stance is, quite simply, bizarre; it seems to be akin to a sort of a holdout syncretism of the ideas of Fodor and Skinner. Whatever the roots of this particular philosophical strain, it is wrong and intellectually dishonest. That Edelman has never actually expressed this in print I can only ascribe to some sense of old school propriety and intellectual fairplay. Would that his critics could exercise the same measure of propriety and fairplay.

Claim #6: Nothing obligates Edelman to give a précis of the state of the art of all of theoretical neuroscience (such as it is), particularly in such a compact book. In his review of Second Nature, David Papineau takes Edelman to task for the absence of "scientific comparisons" and suggests that "[a] naïve reader could easily form the impression that Edelman and his associates are the only people trying to use scientific information to cast light on the human mind." (p.615) Well, this is a rather silly point, as a book of this size is clearly not intended to serve as a reference text or primer. Moreover, had any other neuroscientists actually offered competing comprehensive and testable theories of higher brain function and/or consciousness, I have no doubt that Edelman would have felt obliged to take full account of these in Second Nature. So far, they haven't. David Papineau offers that the book presents a senior scientist's "potted cultural history." (p.615) For what it's worth, I eagerly await Prof. Papineau`s version of the cultural history of the science and philosophy of mind. What would such a [presumably] unexpurgated historical landscape actually look like, Prof. Papineau, and precisely who and what, in the way of deep theoreticians and theory, would populate this landscape? Offer some examples and I might even relent and recant my denigration of your odd and useless proclamation.

Claim #7: This is a very old criticism, dating way back to the publication of Neural Darwinism in 1987. In his thick body of work, Edelman has tried to explain nothing less than the workings of the most complicated object in the known universe. Moreover, early on, he attempted this at a time when there were no commonly accepted terms for the interactions he sought to describe ("reentry" and "degeneracy" are examples of terms Edelman coined more than twenty years ago to describe phenomena and properties not previously recognized by neuroscientists). There are many biological properties, principles, and concepts that, by their nature, don't lend themselves to simple descriptions or easy explanations. In Second Nature, Edelman's prose and its organization are clear and amazingly methodical for such a brief book. The book is densely packed, and the subject matter is obviously difficult. Unlike some philosophers, whose abstractions of cognitive properties resemble nothing more or less than a functionalist's "black-box," offering [biologically] context-free and meaningless thought experiments and little depth or intellectual satisfaction, Edelman has gone to great pains in previous works to describe very complex neural properties in the clearest possible manner. With Second Nature, he has taken on the additional task of reconciling his view of brain function--specifically consciousness, that most mysterious of all neural processes--with the nature of human knowledge itself. Edelman addresses the question of whether the highest expressions of human concern--creative pursuits such as art, poetry, and music, or the ethical and moral codes that glue human societies together--can ultimately be " . . . reduced to a series of epigenetic rules of brain action." (p. 156) Unlike Patricia Churchland, Edelman is not a reductionist, so his answer to this question is a resounding "no." (playing or listening to the Chaconne from Bach's Partita #2 cannot be boiled down to an orderly, reproducible code of neuronal firing; and, contrary to the view offered in Churchland's Neurophilosophy, the terms that refer to complex neural function will not simply fall away as neural mechanism reduces to the description of the electrochemical properties of firing neurons; nor, finally, will consciousness come down to the subatomic states of microtubules, as Penrose has suggested). But within the subtext of Second Nature is another, very provocative, question that few before have posed in earnest: Would knowing how the brain works down to the finest detail fundamentally alter the nature of human concern? Although he offers no explicit answer to this question, I suspect Edelman's answer would be "probably not."

So, in sum, don't be put off by the acerbic musings of Edelman's critics (or the length of this review); go ahead and read Second Nature. It may change profoundly your perspective on the nature of human knowledge and its ultimate creator and locus, the human brain.

I bought this as a Christmas gift for my son. He loves books full of fun and trivia-like info, so this was right up his alley. This book has been read over and over again already.

This book has nothing to do with the Popular Science magazine, but is a good "Almanac on the Science Facts and Principles All Kids Must Know." It's an easy-to-read book - better than any science textbooks I have seen. Newton Kid's Bookstore ([...]) had many kids' reviews on this book. I just wish Brainpop could produce an update from this 2004 edition.

I love this book! It has a lot of facts and information about
science, health, and technology. There are experiments, science fair projects, and photos. It's great to do a report like you do in school. And I hope enjoy reading this book.

I am a huge fan of BrainPop & BrainPop Jr.com. This book has three out of
seven sections in this book. There are seven categories in BrainPop,
Health,Science,Technology,Math,English,Social Studies,and Arts & Music.
Health,Science,and Technology are in this book. This book has so much
information about science! This book has wonderful illustrations and photos,great expirements,famous faces,and tons more! You can get a free
book if you subscribe to BrainPop. Children are going to have a blast out of this book because it will teach you how to think of science in a whole new way. If you buy this book you will have fun with Tim,Moby,Cassie,Rita,and Bob the Ex-Lab Rat.

Alot of cool facts and real useful information in this colorful little book. My 10 year old read it himself and even my 17 year old learned some things she didn't know while babysitting one night. A great book to have in the home library. Excellent!

This book offers detailed information about different critters that are "common" to a classroom in an interesting and "easy to read" way. It provides terrific experiements to conduct, and values following the chid's lead and interests- creating experiments from their questions! WONDERFUL!

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in science experiments and the scientific method. It is appropriate for any child grades k-12, with minor adaptations. The writing is clear, concise and accurate. Most of the experiments involve insects. Materials are inexpensive and easy to obtain. The book contains lists of suppliers and references. Data charts and tables are included and need only be copied by a teacher.