The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Although somewhat repetative at times, this book is, overall, enlightening. Evidence from a broad range of scientific disciplines is displayed clearly, and the relationships and connections between subjects are elegantly exposed. This leaves the reader with a feeling that the basis for the ideas presented is solid and tangible, making the book all the more immersive. Exposition of some lesser-known studies which never the less have incited serious scientic revalations is perhaps this book's strongest point. This book serves as a jumping-off point for many avenues of thought, and is highly recommended to anyone who seeks to further their understanding of human intellegence, social behavior, and consciousness.

Rating:
Summary: "There is grandeur in this view of life,"
Review: as Darwin says, quoted in this book's introduction, and Mr. Konner succeeds well at demonstrating just that. Not that I don't have reservations: as a lay reader, the long descriptions of brain chemistry, the repeated attempts to salvage Freud, and the (not often) trite prose, were off-putting, but the wide range, the decency, the generosity of spirit, the insight and the beauty of this book make it well worth the 5-star rating. This is a book that you'll want to read in short snatches, and to savor, even though it is 500 pages long: it moves. Where E. O. Wilson, in "Consilience," sets out an agenda for a view of humanity based on Darwinian insights, this book actually gives Wilson's dream substance. It's hard to see how any critic of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, or behavior genetics--especially those who keep saying that it's all speculation, that there's little empirical basis--can come away from this book not only edified, but enthralled.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite science book ever
Review: Dr. Konner is just an awesome professor, with a great hilarious sense of humor and an intriguing way of wording things. Just like he told my NBB 201 class, you're going to learn very important things from him...wink wink. Not only does it cover a highly scientific array of information, it's also presented in a fun-to-read fashion. It won't put you to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Substance delievered...
Review: I also reccomend, even more highly, Darwinian Happiness by Bjorn Grinde to gain critical knowledge of understanding your genes and improving overall quality of ife.

Rating:
Summary: an tentative review...
Review: I've only just begun to read this book and I want to clear up a possible misunderstanding about it. This edition is a rewritten version of the earlier book by the same title published seventeen years ago. This new edition takes into account the vast new findings in biology since that time. These recent findings have served to provide added weight to the earlier edition's discussions and conclusions.

Since I have been misled in the past by books referring to the "human spirit," I will provide the author's definition of that term from page xiii here-- "mind, thought, feeling, love, dreams, hope, admiration, decency, faith, and in general everything that the religious person takes as evidence for the soul...without need of divine assistance. The human spirit IS made of the sticky, pulpy stuff [of brains] and, except to the extent that some echoes of its throbbing may continue in other sticky pulps [of offspring], becomes silent when that stuff stops throbbing."

I will cite further from page xvii-- "I wrote "The Tangled Wing" to show what an integration [of behavioral and social science] might look like... But in some form this integration is bearing down like a bulldozer on theology, philosophy, and much of psycholgoy, and it has undermined key theoretical pillars of social science. Yet the bulldozer is no set of simple neodarwinian ideas. Rather, it is behavioral sicence itself set in a biological context..."

An intriguing endeavor. I will update this review when I have delved further into it.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: If you read only one book about human behavior, this should be it. If you read many books about human behavior, this should be one of them. Prof. Konner is wise, he is erudite, he is literate, and he is humane. Rather than take one-sided positions or air only politically correct view, Konner synthesizes a huge amount of information and comes to sensible conclusions. I cannot recommend this book highly enough