You can purchase this book clicking here.

If you wish to purchase further titles already reviewed here, please return each time to SBB. Using the direct links available at our site is easier than searching by title, author, or ISBN number.

EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Biology until recently has been the neglected stepchild of science, and many educated people have little grasp of how biology explains the natural world. Yet to address the major political and moral questions that face us today, we must acquire an understanding of their biological roots. This magisterial new book by Ernst Mayr will go far to remedy this situation. An eyewitness to this century's relentless biological advance and the creator of some of its more important concepts, Mayr is uniquely qualified to offer a vision of science that places biology firmly at the center, and a vision of biology that restores the primacy of holistic, evolutionary thinking.

(Extracted from the dust jacket).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Preface.

-1- What Is the Meaning of "Life"?

-2- What Is Science?

-3- How Does Science Explain the Natural World?

-4- How Does Biology Explain the Living World?

-5- Does Science Advance?

-6- How Are the Life Sciences Structured?

-7- "What?" Questions: The Study of Biodiversity.

-8- "How?" Questions: The Making of a New Individual.

-9- "Why?" Questions: The Evolution of Organisms.

-10- What Questions Does Ecology Ask?

-11- Where Do Humans Fit into Evolution?

-12- Can Evolution Account for Ethics?

-Notes.

-Bibliography.

-Glossary.

-Guide to Topics Covered.

-Acknowledgments.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

The work by Ernst Mayr intends to narrate us the history of the research on what we call "life", from Aristotle's proposals to Darwin to the current concepts that govern our vision of biology.

His style, pleasant and exempt from technicalities, takes us on a historical journey very rich in shades, one journey that clearly proves the enormous amount of knowledge that its veteran author has on this matter, not in vain this is one of the greatest personalities in the biology of our century. In this way, among the chapters in his book we will learn how to define what life is, what science is, how biology works to explain the living world, the role that the human beings have within evolution, etc.

This is Biology pays a great deal of attention to the science that studies the living world, yet the book does so from the personal viewpoint of the author, whose experience and contributions throughout his entire career give an optimal, rational vision on the matter. Life must be contemplated beyond what physics and chemistry tell us about it, and therefore biology becomes one of the most important, advanced sciences.