Comments on: Book review – Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind

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

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 11:07:37 +0000

[…] 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 importance of contingencies […]

LikeLike

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 13:05:05 +0000

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

LikeLike

By: bormgans

bormgans — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 18:29:20 +0000

I’ve just finished and reviewed another book by Powell, The Evolution of Moral Progress, should you be interested. It’s more sociobiology, an excellent read, but the focus is more on sociology than on biology though. Review here: https://wp.me/p1tcLv-7G4

LikeLiked by 1 person

By: Book review – Life in the Cosmos: From Biosignatures to Technosignatures | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 12:23:06 +0000

[…] Lingam & Loeb have clustered ten long chapters into three parts, each logically following from the previous: life on Earth, biological signs of extraterrestrial life (biosignatures), and technological signs (technosignatures). Before turning their eyes towards the stars, the authors discuss origin-of-life research and the major hallmarks of life’s evolution. In the context of astrobiology, this is highly relevant material and I strongly agree with their reasoning that the “exploration of Earth’s rich biospheres […] is necessary […] from the standpoint of gaining a better understanding of the paths available for biological evolution on other worlds” (p. 223). If we understand how life evolved on Earth, we might hazard an educated guess where and how it might evolve elsewhere. Similarly, whether life could evolve along radically different paths or whether there are universal biological laws that constrain the possibilities is of particular interest to the matter of convergent evolution on Earth. […]

LikeLike

By: Book review – The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves | The Inquisitive Biologist

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 16:19:34 +0000

[…] in different organisms. Kershenbaum introduces it here with some examples and also touches on the contingency vs. convergence debate, of which Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris are the most prominent spokesmen. Convergent […]

LikeLike

By: CONTINGENCY AND CONVERGENCE : TOWARD A COSMIC BIOLOGY OF BODY AND MIND – Russell Powell (2020) | Weighing a pig doesn't fatten it.

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:20:45 +0000

[…] blog The Inquisitive Biologist has already written a splendid in-depth account of the book here, especially of the first part, so be sure to read that first if you have any inclination to read […]

LikeLiked by 1 person

By: Book review – Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life | The Inquisitive Biologist

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 15:25:27 +0000

[…] this impression. And lacking a true case of “first contact”, Russel Powell mentioned in Contingency and Convergence that coleoid cephalopod mollusks “are rightfully considered intelligent aliens on […]

LikeLike

By: Book review – Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution? | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:40:59 +0000

[…] years after writing this, my review of Contingency and Convergence taught me that this is a common misinterpretation of what Gould exactly had in […]

LikeLike

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

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 09:59:41 +0000

[…] to. MIT Press recently published two further books on it, Convergent Evolution on Earth in 2019 and Contingency and Convergence in 2020. I felt the time was ripe to finally read their 2011 book Convergent Evolution that I […]

LikeLike

By: Book review – Convergent Evolution on Earth: Lessons for the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 09:57:55 +0000

[…] to get to grips with this topic more in-depth, I end this three-part series with my review of Contingency and Convergence which revisits the question of their relative importance and applies this to astrobiology in a […]

LikeLike