Litsy

Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think : Reflections by Scientists, Writers, and Philosophers | Mark Ridley, Alan Grafen

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Stella line up of circa 20 writers discussing the impact of Dawkins‘s work. Really good.

2 likes

Gabe.DeCastro

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition | Richard Dawkins

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“The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins, discusses and explains the selfishness of genes in their goals of survival and repopulation. At the start of the book, Richard Dawkins brings up the theory of the primordial soup — the origin of life, where life forms were first able to rise by feeding on the organic material within the primordial soup. Despite being simple microscopic creatures, competition between them was still very imminent.

Gabe.DeCastro The basic creatures were explained to be different from each other, with some having longer longevity than others, some with faster reproduction speeds, etc. With these differences, these simple lifeforms competed with each other; with the goal of populating and dominating the primordial soup. Billions of years of evolution later, and with the help of drastic environmental changes. 1w

Gabe.DeCastro The simple lifeforms became much more complex, creating their own survival machines (as described by Richard Dawkins) that help assist them in their goal of survival and reproduction. 1w

Gabe.DeCastro Later on in the book, Richard Dawkins begins explaining the main topic of the book, the selfishness of genes. The competition between the primordial lifeforms are still very present and is constantly happening, but is much more now much more complex due to increased diversity in the world. 1w

Gabe.DeCastro Later on in the book, Richard Dawkins argues that behaviours of organisms— such as altruism, cooperation, and competition with other species, are strategies that help creatures survive and pass down the genes they carry. Another thing later brought up were “memes”, the spreading of culture, words, phrases, etc. Richard Dawkins discusses about the similarities between the two and also talks about the differences. 1w

Gabe.DeCastro The theme of the book is nonfiction science, and is present throughout the story through the theories and explanations of Richard Dawkins. If you enjoy nonfiction science/biology books, then this book is perfect for you. As it provides many theories from many biologists, provides a new perspective on evolution, and gives clear explanations of ideas. 1w

1 like5 comments

GingerAntics

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

The first day is 3 weeks, but 4 Sundays away. The epigraph looks like it‘s about 2 pages, so that shouldn‘t be too bad if someone can‘t get this book until the following week.

2 Feb - Epigraph
9 Feb - Meetings Across the Tree of Life
16 Feb - A History of Animals
23 Feb - Mischief and Craft
2 Mar - From White Noise to Consciousness
9 Mar - Making Colors
16 Mar - Our Minds and Others
23 Mar - Experience Compressed
30 Mar - Octopolis

GingerAntics #OtherMinds #PeterGodfreySmith #Philosophy #AdventuresInPhilosophy #DeadPhilosophersSociety
@TheBookHippie @ravenlee @JaclynW @RavenLovelyReads @AlaSkaat @Chrissyreadit @kspenmoll @bnp 1w

TheBookHippie Looks good! 1w

GingerAntics @TheBookHippie 1w

See All 8 Comments

GingerAntics @TheBookHippie how did you see that so fast?! 1w

TheBookHippie @GingerAntics just logged in 🤣 I just put it on hold hopefully it arrives soon. 1w

kspenmoll I will check this book out-see if library has it. 1w

ravenlee Ok, I‘ll give this a try. I was getting all confused because Litsy wasn‘t showing it as read but I thought I had…I did read this about five years ago. I liked it but don‘t remember it and still have it, so I guess it‘s time. 1w

AlaSkaat Looks good. I‘ll try getting the book by end of this month 1w

17 likes8 comments

GingerAntics

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

This also sounds fun. Let me know if you‘d rather read this (or something like it). This seems like it might be a bit more upbeat… which I feel like we need these days.
#Philosophy #AdventuresInPhilosophy #DeadPhilosophersSociety
@TheBookHippie @ravenlee @JaclynW @RavenLovelyReads @AlaSkaat @Chrissyreadit @kspenmoll @bnp

TheBookHippie Yes!!!!!! 2w

GingerAntics @TheBookHippie doesn‘t this sound fun? Plus the cover is gorgeous! 2w

TheBookHippie @GingerAntics yes!!!! It looks so good. 2w

See All 17 Comments

AlaSkaat This sounds a lot more interesting and less daunting! 2w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat that‘s what I thought! 2w

AlaSkaat When do you guys think of starting? 2w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat that‘s going to be my next question. Do we want to start later in January or wait for February? 2w

AlaSkaat @GingerAntics February would be ideal for me, but I‘m open to anything 2w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat February 2nd is the first Sunday, and that actually gives us 4 Sundays between now and then, so everyone would have time to get a copy and what not. 1w

AlaSkaat Works for me. How would we do it this time? I read one of your comments where you said questions were hard to come up with, we could try something easier ? 1w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat I‘m thinking either just open the discussion, maybe have one question to start things. I thought about opening it up so if anyone had something they wanted to discuss they could post it and we could all join in. In the Shakespeare group we just had a post and it was a discussion free for all. That wouldn‘t be so bad. 1w

AlaSkaat @GingerAntics yeah, we can try doing that 1w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat I feel like the conversations are more organic that way and they‘re easier to have. You just kind of jump in. If a topic gets a ton of traction or something, we could make a separate post for it just to keep things organised if we needed to. 🤷🏼‍♀️ 1w

AlaSkaat @GingerAntics That sounds good. We‘ll see how the discussions go next time 1w

GingerAntics @AlaSkaat if it doesn‘t work, we can always go back or try something else. I‘m always open to ideas. 1w

kspenmoll My son thinks he has this- now to find it in his extensive somewhat chaotic library!!!! 7d

GingerAntics @kspenmoll love that! Fingers crossed you can find it! 6d

18 likes17 comments

Pogue

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

so-so

Meh. This was published in 2016 and was written more like a text book. I was hoping it was more layman friendly, also having octopus in the title is a bit misleading. He spent more time on cuttlefish.

TheBookHippie Have you read tagged book I very much loved it!

Octopus, Seahorse, Jellyfish

Pogue @TheBookHippie no I have not, but I just stacked it! Thank you for telling me about this. 2w

SilversReviews Love the cover!! I haven‘t read the book. 2w

Pogue @SilversReviews if you do let me know what you think. 2w

41 likes4 comments

Pogue

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

On a spring morning in 2009, Matthew Lawrence dropped the anchor of his small boat at a random spot in the middle of a blue ocean bay on the east coast of Australia, and jumped over the side. #FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

28 likes

Gabe.DeCastro

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition | Richard Dawkins

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The book “The Selfish Gene”, created by Richard Dawkins, is an award winning book about the understanding of natural selection and evolution. Richard Dawkins explains and describes how genes could be both selfish and altruistic, while providing basic context behind the information to better help the reader understand. The book is packed with knowledge about evolution and natural selection, even going as far as explaining life from the start.

Gabe.DeCastro The book goes in depth about evolution, genes, relationships, and animals. Richard Dawkins describes animals, plants, and microorganisms to be machines. Machines for genes to ensure for their survival. To ensure the continuity of the gene, the machines (the animal, plant, microorganisms) must be selfish in their own way. This selfishness is thoroughly explained throughout the book while also bringing up how machines could also altruistic. 1mo

Gabe.DeCastro The book is perfect for those who are interested in the thought of evolution and natural selection, as it explains the process and other scientific information that back it up. 1mo

3 likes2 comments

bookwyrm7

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time | Jonathan Weiner

Speaking about Darwin's Finches (on my last post), if anyone is interested in the theory of evolution and Darwin's work, you might enjoy the tagged book.
Now, it's been almost two decades since I've read this (and it was a translation) so I was very young then and I'm hoping the writing isn't actually as dry as I remember 😅
Still, it's an interesting book and I'd love to read it again soon.
#Naturalitsy
#WinterGames2024 #XmasChaCha +5pts