Sunday, July 27, 2008

Quote of the Week

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Christopher Hitchens

2 comments:

  1. StridentLobsterAugust 1, 2008 at 2:21 PM

    I saw your post on Pharyngula, about biology books targeted to a popular audience, and since I can't seem to find your email address, I'm hijacking your comment thread!

    Coming from my background as an anatomist and palaeozoologist, one of the greatest books I have to recommend is At The Water's Edge by Carl Zimmer.

    http://www.amazon.com/At-Waters-Edge-Fingers-Whales/dp/0684856239/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217625492&sr=8-1

    It's an absolutely fabulous case study of two of the most well-preserved and well-described evolutionary transitions in vertebrate history; when vertebrates first came ashore as tetrapods, and when they went back to sea as cetaceans. The book was critical to my understanding of macroevolutionary processes and the ways in which evolution acts on the structures present in an organism. There's even a satisfying discussion, when discussing the tetrapod limb, of Shh, as we saw from PZ today.

    That's the best one that comes to my head immediately; I'll see if I can come up with any others for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luke O'DellAugust 1, 2008 at 3:07 PM

    That sounds like a great book, I'm going to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.

    :)

    ReplyDelete

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