Reviews for Air Canada owls

The average rating for Air Canada owls based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-08 00:00:00 Allan Dwyer See below for my summary of the content. As for the book as a whole, I can say it is reasonably well written, but tough going. Indeed, part of the reason for me writing such a detailed summary was to get to grips with it all properly. I am not, of course, qualified to judge how good the science actually is, still less to plump for one side or the other (though I can say I agree with bits of each of them sometimes, and sometimes fall in the middle). It's worth noting, for the prospective reader, that it does concentrate far more on the actual points at issue than on the historical/biographical details that might make it more interesting for the layman. In particular, there is very little quotation from either party's prolific and eloquent writings. I do have a more general point to make about the subject, which might help clarify some of the difficulty: natural history is not a science. Since it is mostly studied by people who call themselves scientists, this needs a little explanation. By 'science' I here mean the study of repeatable phenomena. By this definition, (human) history is not 'science', since historians by definition do not study repeatable things. Needless to say, this does not mean that these things are not true, interesting, or worth studying. By the same token, natural history studies things that are not repeatable, which may still be true, interesting, and worth studying, but aren't necessarily 'science'. Since Gould was a palaeontologist, this may be pertinent. Part 1: Battle Joined Chapter 1: A Clash of Perspectives Dawkins is an ethologist (he studies patterns of behaviour and how these have been adapted by evolution); Gould was a palaeontologist. D is most interested in how evolution affects variations between entities; G was more interested in what they have in common. In particular, G thought the basic structure of an animal evolved all at once and is basically unchanged since then. Moreover, they have deeper philosophical differences: G gave more place to things other than science in finding meaning (while still being an atheist). Part 2: Dawkins' world Chapter 2: Genes and Gene Lineages The fundamental unit of life (according to D) is the 'replicator'. Some would dispute this in favour of the cell, claiming that the replicator came later. These replicators are then the means my which selection can work. Chapter 3: Gene Selection in a World of Organisms So what's the relationship between genes and the organisms that carry them? According to D, 'the gene remains the unit of selection', because selection is cumulative, and genes are copied between generations, rather than between the organisms themselves. But surely there are several environmental factors that go into building the next generation of organisms, not just the genes themselves? Yes, but the important thing is that they ensure the next generation is like the previous one, but with variation. But how do we know that genes cause the change? After all, change in genotype and phenotype are correlated, but correlation is not causation. (This is where things get interesting for me, because I've always taken it for granted that there was a causative link). The problem is that there is no 'genetic determinism' or 'a stable and simple relation between a particular gene and the characteristics of the organism it is in'. But D claims this is taking it too far The only important thing is that 'genes have phenotypic power', i.e. some sort of probabilistic effect. The result: 'so far, a stand-off' - no-one has proved anything. Chapter 4: Extended Phenotypes and Outlaws D has a vision of an organism's genome 'not as a harmonious whole but as a gene population. The genes in the population will have overlapping interests. But there is conflict as well' - even G would admit that this is compelling, and has truth to it. D seems to be winning at this point, in that selection is on the gene lineages here, not the organisms. Chapter 5: Selfishness and Selection Genes acting selfishly can lead to co-operative behaviour, as explained in one of D's most famous books. This is against the claims of 'group selection' wherein a group like a wolf-pack is a 'super-organism'. This is a stronger theory than D will give it credit for! G went down the group selection path as well, though the group in which he was most interested was the whole species. Chapter 6: Selection and Adaptation G railed against 'adaptationism'. This is the tendency in biology to see everything as a selective adaptation, and to be easily convinced that this is what a given phenomenon is, even without statistical evidence, when in fact many things are just accidental results of other things. D actually broadly agrees, but disagrees about why. But it seems that there is a great deal more room for research. Part 3: The View from Harvard Chapter 7: Local Process, Global Change? There are two connected views G took as particular targets. Firstly, he reckoned that microevolution - that is, within a species - is contemporaneous with, but not a consequence of, genetic change, and argued against those who assume otherwise (such as D). Secondly (and more importantly) he argued against 'extrapolationism', which is the view (accepted in evolutionary biology since the time of Darwin) that major changes are just aggregations of minor changes. Chapter 8: Punctuated Equilibrium In the fossil record, we find that types of fossils which resemble each other closely enough to be labelled a 'species' tend to appear suddenly, hang around for a few million years, and then disappear equally suddenly. G (along with a fellow palaeontologist by the name of Eldredge) argued that those intervals between speciation and extinction are when the species was in a state of ecological 'equilibrium' and these intervals are 'punctuated' by sudden change. D and other critics argue that this is nonsense, because evolution can only take place gradually, and this undermines the whole concept of the common descent of species. In any case, you can't stake too much on the patchy fossil record. But as G would point out, what appears instantaneous geologically may have taken tens of thousands of years in reality. D has little time for the theory, but the weight of the evidence is starting to point G's way. Chapter 9: Mass Extinction According to G, mass extinctions, not just small, gradual, localized ones, are a big driver behind evolution. Chapter 10: Life in the Cambrian About 543 million years ago, on the cusp of the Cambrian geological age, we find a dramatic increase in the number of observable animal forms, called the Cambrian explosion. On its own, this seems to be a point scored for G, but of course, it might be that there was a great deal of hidden evolution we simply don't have evidence for. G had something else in mind, though. He makes a distinction between 'diversity' and 'disparity'. 'Diversity' is simply a count of the number of species. 'Disparity' denotes the breadth of the differences in physiology between species. G maintained that there is a great deal more diversity now than during the Cambrian, but there is less disparity. But the cladists disagree. Cladists argue that the only way to classify life is by descent. Things are more closely related if they have a more recent common ancestor. This undermines the whole notion of disparity, which is in any case somewhat subjective and difficult to measure. G admitted that more work needed to be done to define it adequately, but tragically was never able to do it himself. (Incidentally, D gets referred to in this chapter as 'a true son of orthodoxy', a title which must suitably infuriate him but is entirely true). Chapter 11: The Evolutionary Escalator Although more complex forms of life have tended to emerge over time, G believed that this was only one aspect of the way evolution works, since less complex forms of life continue as well, and are more numerous. In fact, the increase in complexity is only an accident; if you started again with different parameters, it might not happen. D agrees that growth in complexity is not central, preferring the concept of genes continuously adapting, but he adopts a more deterministic stance about its occurrence, arguing that the phenomenon of convergent evolution shows that complexity was always inevitable. Part 4: The State of Play This part's title is somewhat misleading, as it does not give the reader any idea of how the fight is panning out within academic biology at the time of writing. This does have the advantage that the edition remains broadly accurate some eight years later. Chapter 12: A Candle in the Dark? We move now away from evolutionary biology to more general matters in science, ethics, and philosophy. D tends to view science as a catch-all for explaining everything, whereas G put strict boundaries on it, sometimes with little coherence. Sterelny seems somewhat uncomfortable in this area, and basically confesses to taking D's side of the argument. Although from what I know of G's views, I generally disagree with him, I would rather get them from the horse's mouth. Chapter 13: Stumps Summary It certainly does stump summary, as I have been discovering while trying to write this review!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-07-08 00:00:00 Rick Franks Despite the silly title and backcover copy, this is a serious and thoughtful book that sheds light on the bits of evolutionary theory that we don't yet know. The danger with any attempt to present evolutionary theory as incomplete is that you'll be mistaken for a creationist. Sterelny is no creationist, and this is not ammunition for that battle. He merely attempts to summarize the differences in position between Richard Dawkins ("The Selfish Gene") and Stephen J. Gould ("The Panda's Thumb"), two prominent evolutionary theorists. There are differences in emphasis (Dawkins feels adaptation to environment is what evolution must explain and so focuses on natural selection; Gould feels evolution's biggest question is why animal lineages change so little over time and so he focuses on variation more than natural selection) and outright different conjectures (can selection happen for a species as a whole or does it only happen for individuals). The most direct opposition is over "extrapolationism"--can you look at changes we see in our lifetimes and then extract to the many billions of years that life has been on our planet, through mass extinctions and ice ages and ... ? I've realized that "evolution" isn't a complete theory by any manner of means (though because each individual hypothesis is falsifiable, it's still preferable to religious explanations) and that there are many interesting areas in which new work is being done. The book isn't an easy read, although it's by no manner of means difficult. I had to keep flicking back to remind myself what a "gene lineage" was, what "progressive evolution" means, and so on. Sterelny does a very good job of explaining the commonalities in the men's thinking, and then going into useful detail with meaningful examples to highlight their differences. You don't need a background in biology to read this book.