Comments on: Book review – Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution?

By: Book review – Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 11:07:36 +0000

[…] the tape of life” and asking whether the outcome would be the same (an idea that has come up here in previous reviews). He answered “no” and in the process made a case for the […]

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By: Book review – From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution | The Inquisitive Biologist

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:22:55 +0000

[…] silent commander“, the concept of fitness landscapes is almost a century old, and I have repeatedly converged on the topic of convergent evolution. Even so, in the process of describing what we know, […]

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By: Book review – A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 13:05:02 +0000

[…] is the aftermath of chance” (p. 60). However, though his further reading list mentions Improbable Destinies, he sidesteps the whole contingency versus convergence debate, that is, the question of how […]

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By: Mel

Mel — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 19:42:37 +0000

I cannot believe I just found your website. This is like something I’ve needed for so long without knowing it existed. And my favorite science thing is evolutionary biology of course (+ microbiology and selfish genetic elements). I’m just so glad. I both want to read all your evolbio-related posts and to do te same thing, read tons of books and make summaries of them. Thank you so much. Yeah, i still haven’t read anything but I’m so so hyped and this website is such a great idea, for people like me who are passionate about these topics but don’t always have the time or motivation or opportunities to read books. Thank youuuu

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By: Book review – Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 09:52:24 +0000

[…] Conway Morris and George McGhee, have interpreted contingency as meaning non-repeatability, others (myself included) have equated it with unpredictability. Neither is correct, writes Powell. Gould’s argument […]

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By: Book review – Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 17:30:35 +0000

[…] There are some points of criticism that McGhee does not tackle here. Are we cherry-picking examples when arguing for convergent evolution? Are we even seeing patterns where there are none? To return to the example of the wings on the book’s cover: though all involve modification of forelimbs, the details differ. And is shared genetic ancestry predisposing organisms to converging on similar solutions? Losos tackled these questions in a very balanced manner in his brilliant book Improbable Destinies. […]

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By: Book review – Universe in Creation: A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life | The Inquisitive Biologist

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:33:21 +0000

[…] This touches on some of the hottest topics in evolutionary biology such as convergent evolution, the predictability of evolution, and the origin of evolutionary […]

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By: Book review – Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA | The Inquisitive Biologist

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:59:17 +0000

[…] life” and the question of how repeatable evolution is. (The answer: quite, see my review of Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution?.) Lynn Margulis’s idea of endosymbiosis (see One Plus One Equals One: Symbiosis and the […]

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By: Book review – The Cradle of Humanity: How the Changing Landscape of Africa Made Us So Smart | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 09:18:22 +0000

[…] Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. To the question posed by a book such as Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution?, Maslin’s answer is “not very”. If you could rewind and replay the proverbial […]

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By: Book review – The Equations of Life: The Hidden Rules Shaping Evolution | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 06 Aug 2018 08:09:36 +0000

[…] of evolution might sound familiar. Indeed, it was also explored in Losos’s book Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution?, the first book reviewed here. Cockell acknowledges this book several times in his chapter notes […]

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