| ISCID Recommends... | |
ISCID will, from time to time, highlight five books that we think are worth reading. |
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Jesper Hoffmeyer is on to something significant. Whereas semiotics is often a dull analysis of formal symbols, Hoffmeyer's biosemiotics is a lively natural history of signs that interprets evolution as a continuous advance in semiotic freedom. All living things, according to Hoffmeyer, are constantly reacting to their environment by interpreting the signs in their own unwelt,, or interior representation of the surrounding world. Freedom and chaotic self-organization thus become the hallmarks of all life. Based on sound research and written in a delightfully accessible style, Signs of Meaning in the Universe should be interpreted as an advance in both philosophy and science. |
Acquiring
Genomes
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In this provocative volume, the distinguished scientist Lynne Margulis and her coauthor, Dorian Sagan, elaborate on Margulis's original theories to present a radical departure in evolutionary thinking. Challenging the neo-Darwinian dogma that change in evolution is effected by the slow drip of natural selection acting on minute mutational variations, Margulis proposes that new species arise when existing species unite, fusing their genomes. The claim is supported by Margulis's pathbreaking research on symbiogenesis, which, she proved, was the origin of the types of complex cells found in human bodies. Perhaps most persuasively, Acquiring Genomes opens our eyes to the mysteries of the microcosm and demonstrates that evolution cannot be understood without it. |
Beyond
Natural Selection
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The Privileged Planet
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- Owen Gingerich. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, author of The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolution of Nicolaus Copernicus |
Non-Zero
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