Besides his excellent explanations of 'past evolutions' and the 'evolution at work', the author discusses some essential religious, moral and scientific items.

With bees and ants as examples, Prof. Williams explains clearly that the Darwinist evolution is about genes, not about living beings. He also discusses the advantage of sex and aging for a successful gene reproduction.
Other important remarks are, firstly, the fact that the brain erupted only to propel genetic success, not to investigate philosophical or other problems. Secondly, there is a probable discrepancy between adaptations dated from the Stone Age and our actual living conditions, which could be at the origin of actual defects (e. g. myopia) or inadaptations.

But the more important items lay on a different level.
On the religious front, Prof. Williams attacks righteously the God-is-good gospel. Living beings on earth have only one purpose: the success of their own genes. This brings us to a second very important point: natural selection, albeit stupid, is a story of 'unending arms races, slaughter and sufferings'. It is a law of nature and its immorality has to be accepted and, at least, to be thought about.

On the scientific front, the author castigates what he calls domain (field) confusion: the mingling of physics, morality, mind and data processing.
A frequent example is the mixing of the biological (the working of the brain) and the data processing fields.
But more important is the mix up of religion and biology. Prof. Williams declares courageously that it is biologically speaking untenable to declare that a human being exists from the moment of conception. Only a full-term baby is that.

This book attacks essential everyday problems and is a must read.

...shove you down onto the cement and make you say, "My god, that's concrete!"

In brief, Chris Conlon's book is five discrete stories, each one a tableaux of reality and each one more eye-opening than
the next. The first story, "Map of the World", is about a young black woman kidnapped by two thugs who pour gasoline on her and
set her afire. The title couldn't be a better one for the story,
but you'll have to read it to find out why.

Perhaps the most moving of the five pieces, "Margins", is about a young boy named Julian who stops talking and as a result, gets sent away to military boarding school by his boozing, caterwauling, abusive parents. It takes the form of a letter written by Julian to his sister. In it,
he recalls about the old "Choose your own adventure"
books they used to read as young kids...and thus, he
reveals that life is literally just such an adventure. He recalls the time they used to spend together at the local cemetary, sitting quietly under the trees sharing a cigarette between them, then venting frustration as they kick over headstones. Eventually, Julian comes full circle finds nirvana after committing suicide and joining the ranks of the entombed.

Also worth mentioning is the final story, "Whisper",
about a young girl whose father is guilty of the
incest taboo. Although she's able to put it
behind her and live a 'normal' life, no matter
how many hours in analysis she spends, the reality is

that it will never completely leave her. Only
after her father is dead and gone does she realize
he was the only man she's ever loved.

Each of the stories is wrought with a harsh, barren
quality and the word choice and core-of-the-note
detail is amazing. Conlon's characters are literally
so real you can touch them. Here and there are small spellbinding moments that are unforgettable.
And it is without a doubt that the characters of this group of "Secrets" are living out these same dramas every single day,
in some similar form or another.

This is a book that will make you step back a few paces.
Writing like this makes us appreciate what we've
got, however much or little. Foreword and afterword
by acclaimed writers William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (who co-authored the stories/screenplays "Logan's Run"
and "Ocean's Eleven") are excellent forerunning/
postrunning comments. The foreword reveals just why
Conlon has the rights to tell these tales.

Highly recommended.

Cichlid fishes have personality. Every home aquarist knows this. However, this book, long on fact and science is short on explaining why these fish do the things they do. In the last chapter, the author editorializes about how if bad things can happen to fishes then bad things can perhaps happen to mankind. But, I've always viewed cichlid fishes as one of the happy things about life and not as a metaphor for our doom. Perhaps the author would be better served with a tankful of guppies.

The first thing that needs to be said about this book is that it is NOT a book about keeping cichlids in aquariums. I think that is a misconception some people may get since cichlids are such popular aquarium subjects. If you're looking for information on cichlids in the aquarium, you need to hunt down books by Paul Loiselle or Ad Konings. This is a book about evolutionary science.

The cichlids are really the animal darlings of the evolution field in the same sense that the Galapagos Islands are the geographical Mecca. This book focuses on cichlids from the African Great Lakes: Malawi., Victoria, and Tanganyika. The populations in these lakes have been isolated and thus present a wonderful living experiment in evolution and speciation. The New World members of Cichlidae aren't forgotten - there's plenty of examples from them too.

The text doesn't delve too deeply into scientific theory. It's still a relatively easy read for the layperson. Its aim is to explain why the cichlids fascinate biologists and evolutionists - without getting overly technical. It achieves that goal admirably.

The bibliography is worth the cover price. There are 23 pages of small-print references and a numerical guide to citations by chapter.

If you're an aquarist with an interest in the science behind the fish, a scientist with little experience with fish or evolution, or a "normal" person wondering what all the fuss is about, this is a good choice.

Clear, understandable and enjoyable, Mr Barlow's book helped me gain much insight about the evolutionary aspects of cichlid behaviours. Some of the cited examples for behavioral patterns are really spectacular! Male C. nicaraguense cichlids protecting the young of a foreign species, C. dovi, a large predatory cichlid species in Lake Nicaragua... I have never heard of something like that among fish. And the reasoning behind this behavior in the evolutionary sense... Or catfish raising the babies of cichlids in Malawi lake... It is always a new surprise to me to see once again how inventive the evolution is.

This is the kind of book I like most; based on scientific facts but written in a reader friendly manner, fully understandable and enjoyable. Thanks to spectacular examples and their clear explanations, very interesting too...

This is a very readable book and an excellent introduction to a subject that has hitherto been sorely neglected. The main argument presented by Nesse and Williams is that disease must be understood from the perspective of evolutionary biology.

The authors begin by asking, "Why, in a body of such exquisite design, are there a thousand flaws and frailties that make us vulnerable to disease?" Through evidence and insights from evolutionary biology, the authors carefully give a detailed answer to this question, which might be summed up thus: The mechanism of evolution fits our bodies for reproduction, not for optimum health. Furthermore the mechanism is imperfect and subject to mutation. Additionally we are in competition with other organisms, e.g, viruses, bacteria, etc., that work toward their fitness, sometimes at our expensive (the parasite-prey "arms race"). Noteworthy is the idea that natural selection cares little for the maintenance of the organism after the age of reproduction, and that sexual reproduction actually fosters mechanisms that increase the fitness of youth while neglecting the aged, leading to the phenomena of senescence and death.

Seeing disease from the viewpoint of evolution, the authors argue, helps us to understand disease and the mechanisms involved, which in turn can help us to fight disease. Allergy, for example, is a disease characterized by an over active immune system. Copious amounts of histamine are produced to fight off a few molecules of pollen. Why? The authors make the point that our immune systems operate on the principle that better an overreaction to something harmless than an under reaction to a real threat. It's like jumping at the sight of a piece of rope lying on the ground. It's not a snake, but better this little harmless error than being too slow to get back from the real thing.

Some other interesting ideas: Fever has a purpose. It raises body temperature enough to interfere with the chemistry of some pathogens, thereby killing them. If we take medicines that reduce fever, are we prolonging our illness? In some cases, the authors answer, yes. If we take medicines that suppress coughs and sneezing can that also prolong our illness? Again the answer is in some cases, yes. The point is that in treating the symptoms of disease we need to make a distinction between which are defensive mechanism of our bodies and which are not. Some pathogens, for example, make us sneeze or cause diarrhea in order to better spread themselves to the next victim. The rabies virus makes a dog bite other animals in order to spread itself. But our bodies cause us to cough and sneeze primarily to expel pathogens.

The authors see some of our health problems as the result of genetic "quirks," or evolutionary hangovers. Dyslexia as an example. In the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation back in the Stone Age, dyslexia was no problem because there were no books to read. Indeed, it might be that the dyslexic approach to some perception problems, is better than the "normal" one, allowing a quicker, better understanding of the objects being viewed. Other genetic quirks include our predisposition to eat too much fat when available because in the EEA there was precious little fat to be had so it made sense to eat as much as possible when it was available. Something similar can be said of alcohol. Before agriculture, and especially before the process of distillation, a predisposition to alcoholism was no danger because there was very little alcohol to be had. These "quirks" are examples of disease caused by "novel environments," much of the modern world being a novel environment to our Stone Age bodies.

Nesse and Williams show that the modern environment, which requires a lot of close work from all of us, especially the reading of books, is the cause of the epidemic of myopia that modern humans experience. I would like to add that it is possible that myopia under some conditions could be adaptive. In the rainforest it would probably be better to see well close at hand than far away (the opposite of what would be valuable on the savannah). Also those people who concentrated on things small and up close might well identify and process food sources overlooked by others.

While this is an excellent book, gracefully written and full of valuable information and insight, it is now a little dated (copyright 1994), and some of the ideas need reworking in light of recent discoveries. For example, while the authors discuss the ill effects of too much fat and sugar in our diets, they say nothing about the carbohydrate intolerance that leads to obesity. This too can be seen as an evolutionary quirk since there were no cultivated fields of amber grain in the prehistory, and the grains that were available were small and required a lot of hand processing so that it was very difficult to overindulge. Consequently there was no need for natural selection to evolve a protection against eating too much. Also their discussion of heart disease and how it is the result of genetic factors and faulty diet fails to mention the idea that heart disease might be caused by a bacteria. (See for example, Plague Time: How Stealth Infections Cause Cancers, Heart Disease, and other Deadly Ailments (2000) by Paul W. Ewald.)

All things considered, though, this is a classic of evolutionary literature, nicely presented to a nonspecialist, but educated public. Now if we can only get the doctors to read it!

This book offers a stimulating challenge to medicine and a thoughtful discussion of how (Darwin) evolution theory applies to us. Mr. Nesse and Mr. Williams provide a careful survey about how evolutionary factors can shape and affect human health - the causes and effects are being discussed in a plain-language manner. Have you ever thought about how the sneezing, the fever, and the coughing are all front-line responses of our immune system? Why do you think the once-eradicated TB come back with a more potent strand? The book provides a refreshing yet convincing view that bacterial resistance to antibiotics is an everlasting arm race.

Slightly modifying an oft-quoted line by the famous biologist Dobzhansky, Nesse and Williams conclude, "After all, nothing in medicine makes sense except in the light of evolution." In this lucidly written book, the authors make this assertion throughout. They lay out principles for interpreting aspects of human health from an evolutionary perspective. For example, some of the body's responses can be viewed as adaptive defenses (e.g. fever), others the products of novel environments (e.g. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS). The authors raise intriguing examples, from adaptive withholding of the body's iron stores to pregnancy sickness, that put flesh on the bones of these principles. This book does a fine job of overviewing the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can contribute to a richer understanding of medicine than the more proximate (e.g. what are the chemical and genetic bases to schizophrenia?) focus alone can provide. For this reason, it may long be seen as a seminal contribution.

A brilliant book. But the dismissal of group selection, while at the time warrented, must be reevaluated in light of work done in the field. If you read Williams you also may want to look into David Sloan Willison.

You will find a very good book about the misinterpretation of Darwin's texts and ideas. This book is about being a careful reader, too.

The significance of George C. Williams analysis in "Adaptation and Natural Selection" lies in his detailed argument of why natural selection functions on the level of the individual and not the group. His defense of Darwinism rewrites the generally held assumption that adaptation characterizes species and populations, and emphasizes the role that natural selection plays in shaping the individual genotype. He thus makes possible the explanation of evolution without the use of terms such as 'group selection,' 'population adaptation,' or 'progress.' While Williams acknowledges that group selection plays a significant role in some of earth's biota, such as the eukaryotes, individual selection characterizes most organisms which reproduce sexually (xii). In the process of showing why individual selection vis a vis group selection is significant, Williams also, significantly, argues that the term adaptation cannot yet be understood in terms of any principles or procedures.

The significance of Williams' starting point - a clarification of what an adaptation is and isn't - is definitional. An evolutionary 'adaptation' has specific meanings: 1) Adaptations should only be called 'functions' when shaped by design and not chance (8); 2) the level of organization of an adaptation shouldn't be higher than that admitted by the evidence (19); 3) only natural selection could have given rise to adaptations (8). Thus the scientific study of an adaptation awaits more developments in biology.

Williams argues that natural selection operates and is effective only at levels measured statistically (22), for example, in terms of rates of random change, quantitative relationships among sampling errors, and selection coefficients (37). Mendelian populations selected for at the level of alleles exclusively meet these requirements (24). For Williams, natural selection of alternative alleles operates to choose between worse and better options at the level of individuals in a population (45).

Genetic, somatic and ecological factors, i.e. the environment, contribute to selecting for genes. Thus, environmental factors don't directly affect populations (58).

Williams identifies processes relating to the genetic system, such as sex-determining mechanisms (156), stability of genes (138), diploidy (126), introgressive hybridization (144), and the way sexual and asexual reproduction in the life cycles are distributed in the life-cycle (133) as short-term adaptations. Group survival, therefore, is a chance consequence of the these adaptations, as well as related errors such as mutation and introgression. In chapter 5, Williams also suggests that decent evidence does not exist for other mechanisms of evolutionary change or other genetic system adaptations, thus highlighting the exclusive role of natural selection in shaping life.

Reproductive physiological variations of organisms seem designed to maximize organisms' reproductive success. Instances such as unbridled fecundity (161) and sex differences in reproductive strategies all suggest that an individual organism's reproductive strategy is oriented to replicating its own genetic information and not the groups' or the populations'.

The significance of Williams' analysis of social adaptations (193) suggests that the benefits of cooperative social adaptations leading to cooperative relations among related individuals rest on a genetic basis; cooperation with individuals of alternative genetic information is less significant. For Williams, therefore, benefits to groups are consequences of incidental statistics; harmful group effects may accumulate in a similar way.

Williams concludes (251) by arguing that there are no established guidelines to answer the question "What is the function of an adaptation?" The approaches he outlines are significant because they lay the groundwork for further developments in biology to understand what an adaptation is in terms of individual selection.

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.