8 records matched your query       

Author:

Dawkins, Richard, 1941-

Title:

Climbing mount improbable / Richard Dawkins ; original drawings by Lalla Ward.

Edition:

1st American ed.

Publisher:

Norton,

Copyright Date:

1996

Description:

xii, 340 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Subject:

Natural selection.
Evolutionary genetics.
Morphogenesis.
Ontwikkelingsbiologie.
Natuurlijke selectie.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-331) and index.

Contents:

Facing Mount Rushmore -- Silken fetters -- Message from the mountain -- Getting off the ground -- Forty-fold path to enlightenment -- Museum of all shells - Kaleidoscopic embryos -- Pollen grains and magic bullets -- Robot repeater -- 'A garden inclosed'.

Summary:

How do species evolve? Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most eminent zoologists, likens the process to scaling a huge, Himalaya-size peak, the Mount Improbable of his title. An alpinist does not leap from sea level to the summit; neither does a species utterly change forms overnight, but instead follows a course of "slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants"--a course that Charles Darwin, Dawkins's great hero, called natural selection. Illustrating his arguments with case studies from the natural world, such as the evolution of the eye and the lung, and the coevolution of certain kinds of figs and wasps, Dawkins provides a vigorous, entertaining defense of key Darwinian ideas.

ISBN:

9780393039306
0393039307

LCCN:

96019138

Locations:

USUX851 -- Iowa State University - Parks Library (Ames)

KSPG296 -- Burlington Public Library (Burlington)

UQAX771 -- Des Moines Area Community College Library - Ankeny (Carroll)

UNUX074 -- University of Northern Iowa - Rod Library (Cedar Falls)

PTAX572 -- Stewart Memorial Library (Cedar Rapids)

PLAX964 -- Luther College - Preus Library (Decorah)

ULAX314 -- Loras College Library (Dubuque)

OAAX516 -- Maharishi University of Management Library (Fairfield)

SOAX911 -- Simpson College - Dunn Library (Indianola)

OTAX626 -- Wilcox Library (Oskaloosa)

OMAX631 -- Geisler Learning Resource Cntr (Pella)

HWAX074 -- Hawkeye Community College Library (Waterloo)

PQAX094 -- Wartburg College - Vogel Library (Waverly)