The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human

by Ian Tattersall

Book Overview

Nothing fascinates us more than explorations of human origins,
and nobody tells the story better than Ian Tattersall.

What makes us so different? How did we get this way? How do we know? And what exactly are we? These questions are what make human evolution a subject of general fascination. Ian Tattersall, one of those rare scientists who is also a graceful writer, addresses them in this delightful book.

Writing in an informal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156027062
• ISBN13: 9780156027069
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Evolution? Read Just This One.

This book is a great summary of the past century's debates on Evolution. It is well and clearly presented by a master of the science. There is a small hidden agenda regarding the author's theory of "exaptation" (which BTW should probably be called "abaptation" as the opposite of "adaptation"). Anyway, for those of us not deeply interested in the creationist/evolutionist debates this book begins as a clear statement of the conflict and ends with an interesting and insightful prediction of our future. The book is short. If you only want to read one of these Human Evolution texts. . .read this one.

Excellent start

The Monkey in the Mirror is a collection of short essays on science and in particular on evolutionary science. Tattersall's discussion is clear and concise, and while I'm not entirely in accordance with all of his statements with regard to evolution, I feel that the work has much to say for itself. The very word "evolution" seems to bring a knee jerk response from many people, an almost "them or us" mentality of the besieged, and their oft made point that evolution is just an unproven "theory" and not law, makes the need for public education apparent. With recent attempts in several states to prevent educators from properly teaching these subjects or the insistence that philosophical or religious concepts be taught as equally valid explanations of natural phenomena, there is without doubt an urgent need to deliver a clearer message of what science is and is not. As Tattersall writes in his first chapter "In science it is no crime to be wrong, unless you are (inappropriately) laying claim to truth. What matters is that science as a whole is a self-correcting mechanism in which both new and old notions are constantly under scrutiny. In other words, the edifice of scientific knowledge consists simply of a body of observations and ideas that have (so far) proven resistant to attack, and that are thus accepted as working hypotheses about nature (p. 9)." Nor can one delete the study of evolution from the scientific curriculum and profitably substitute religious explanations. As the author points out, "The notion of evolution predicts the nested pattern of relationships we find in the living world; supernatural creation, on the other hand, predicts nothing. It is concepts of this latter kind that are truly untestable (p. 15)." Only when the public is better educated on the subject of science can school boards and education committees more properly design programs to meet the needs of young people. Least the intellectual mistakenly think that science in the schools is only important to those who have decided to dedicate themselves to scientific careers, one might point out that it is the average voter who decides the fate of wetlands, nuclear waste sites, conservation of ocean resources, etc. and who needs at least a basic understanding of how life as we know it came to be and how our decisions can change that life drastically. The average farmer needs to know what the impact of his decisions with respect to land use, plant and animal pest control, cultivation of natural, bioengineered or hybridize plants, etc have on the environment and on his own continued prosperity. The home owner who over fertilizes his lawn or who indiscreetly disposes of toxic substances in his garbage bin also needs to understand the problems these decisions can cause for the community in which he lives. Any fear that such a person might feel over learning the concepts of science and of evolution might be alleviated by one of the more important statements in the bo

Descents of the evolutionists from bone peddlers

It is one of the mysteries of the twentieth century that everyone thought they had a theory of evolution accounting for the descent of man, when in fact they didn't. And too many books on human evolution, attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole, start to beat around the bush and are are so confusing due to dogmatic reiterations of received theory you feel you have been had, if you can finish them. This short book of essays is an exception and cuts to the quick of the issues, and is really a 'must-read' for getting your bearings in this field, once ridiculed by a book called Bone Peddlers by William Fix. First, it makes clear how little we know about human evolution, in the paucity of fossils from which our understanding comes. That is essential, for we imagine that we are required to take on faith everything asserted in this field, when in fact, it is almost void of certainties. Next, it intelligently graduates from the disorderly punctuated equilibrium debate, in its several innings, to avail itself of new insights and proposals of the last generation, among them the idea of 'exaptation', non-adaptive innovations waiting on their realized use in a later context. The work of J. Schwarz in Sudden Origins with its considerations of developmental genes and the spread of recessive mutations comes to the aid of the overall perspective, whose novelty, correct or not, as a new form of evolutionary explanation is refreshing and intriguing. Rejecting the idea of natural selection as a creative force finetuning adaptations and distinguishing morphological change from speciation, the work proceeds briskly through the hominid sequence with a clarity not seen in most other works in this area, and makes clear the difference between anatomically modern and behaviorally modern man, and all this in relation to the issue of the Neandertals. There is still, in this reviewer's opinion, a void in the whole account, centering on the issues of consciousness and language, indeed Tattersall makes this clear, but at least the overall sequence begins to make sense with this ingenious new means to reconcile fast evolution and slow evolution, speciation, and much else. Although short, and at first apparently lightweight, this turned out to be one of the most useful books on human evolution I have read. I recommend not letting Darwinian armtwisters deflect your attention from some basic issues here.