Saturday, 31 January 2009

Book Club

It seems a close run thing, but I will go with "The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution" by Sean B Carroll. I will plan to review the first chapter on the 12th of February (Darwin day). If anyone does not get a copy, please still feel free to contribute. I have also blogged on some of the topics in the book if some back ground reading is required. I will try and do a post roughly once a week on different chapters.
Dennet's Breaking the spell was also a popular choice. Perhaps that can be the next one. If someone else wants to host it too, then that would be OK by me.

7 comments:

Lee said...

yeah... Darwin day.

Reading the first chapter now... and what I've been thinking about is "I wonder what a bloodless fish taste like?"

Is that wrong?

Mark_W said...

Grooviness. And Darwin Day is a fine day to start....

My mate with Advanced Vehicle Knowledge today pronounced my car not nearly as damaged as I had thought, so I celebrated by striding miles to the nearest Waterstones and buying books. Marvellously, The Making of the Fittest was part of their "3 for 2" offer. I like the dedication to (presumably) Carroll's parents: "Thanks for the DNA - and all of my mutations."

Mark_W

(Grooviness? Grooviness?!!? Good grief...)

Billy said...

Hi Mark,

Glad the car is not so bad. That book thing was obviously a sign that the spaghetti monster has blessed this choice of book :-) (I cringe when I think of all the christians who really believe such things.

I think it is good to discuss the stuff Darwin was unaware of. So much could have been falsified since he suggested his theory, but instead, we now know the moecular mechanisms involved. I wonder what he would have made of it all?

Rian said...

Sounds like fun. If I can't manage to track down a copy, I'm sure I'll still manage to contribute some ignorant comments to the discussion :-)

Billy said...

Hi Rian,

All comments are welcome. I'm hoping we can start something going where different bloggers are willing to host a book in their areas of expertise so that we can learn from each other.

Lee said...

I'm hoping we can start something going where different bloggers are willing to host a book in their areas of expertise so that we can learn from each other.

Can I have the 'talking bollocks book for beginners'?

Lee

Jonathan said...

Lee-

"Can I have the 'talking bollocks book for beginners'?"

Not if I get there first.