This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World

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Summary: Biology explained by experience itself
Review: Ernst Mayr is one of my favorite natural science writers. He has the experience of a lifetime (to say the least, since he has over 70 active years in the field) in biology. Mayr has an exquisite writing style and lots of anecdotes to share, besides he surely is an intellectual though never makes you feel neophyte, on the contrary, he guides you with ease and a critic view on nature itself. "This is Biology" is enriched with personal opinions and, of course, reflects the authors' view modeled by only seven decades of experience among the best.

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Summary: Reflections from a working biologist
Review: Mayr's book is a superb reflection on the place biology deserves among the sciences and among all other intellectual disciplines. He clearly explains the accomplishments and uniqueness of biological science. As one would expect, his reflections on evolutionary biology are his strongest.

Rating:
Summary: Reflections from a working biologist
Review: Science necessitates focus. Surveys and summaries of a field by leading scientists are rare in part because so few have the tenure and perspective to take a global view. When such surveys are executed, they often suffer from the author thinking too much of the entry-level audience and not enough of the need for sweeping but accurate description of the trends and relationships that unite and shape the field. This book succeeds in formulating a portrait of biology, and an assessment of Biology's role in all science from perspectives rooted in philosophy, techniques, and most importantly its conclusions. There is a unique elegance in a great amalgamation of the sinews underlying the thousands of journal and research magazine pages of a massive and fundamental field. But such an summary is not easy reading, nor is it always filled with the drama some popular scientific books have attained. This book is not pop science. It is a science book for the educated person wanting to have a feel for where biology

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Summary: Excellent Science, Bad Philosophy
Review: This is an excellent and extremely accessible (but not in a dumbed down sense) introduction to biology. My only serious complaint is in Mayr's treatment of ethics, which is a good example of what bad can happen when a specialist doesn't stick to his specialty. His discussion of the possible biological origins of certain ethical behavior starts off fine, with an explication of how though individualistic selection can produce egoism, kinship selection and group selection can extend an organism's altruistic "interest" to other members of its kin or, larger, to its group. So far so good. But as Mayr notes what Darwin pointed out, altruistic behavior via kinship selection never extends to every member of a species. So by the end of the discussion of the biology of altruistic behavior, what we have are explanations for why someone might act altruistically towards their "in-group". Yet later, in discussing the proposition that moral inclinations are not innate, Mayr appears to endorse the proposition that reprehensible behavior towards minorities (including slavery) is, as Mayr put it, "amoral". But a group subordinating the interests of an outgroup for the benefit of the ingroup is precisely what one would expect from Mayr's biological account of altrusitic behavior directed solely towards one's ingroup! At the very least, Mayr gives a good account for why one would be biologically inclined to act altruistically towards one's ingroup, but provides zero biological reason for any transgroup universal altruism. From then on, Mayr only gets worse, delving into the murky fields of philosophy and moral theology. Aside from Mayr's wildly overstated implication that Darwin proved that God has nothing to do with the origin of morality (when did biology start coming up with transcendental proofs like that?), Mayr further sullies an otherwise excellent book by critiquing Judeo-Christian ethics' relevance in today's world. That has nothing to do with biology, and if someone wanted to read much better discussions on such a subject, there are much better treatments in the philosophy section of the bookstore. Furthermore, Mayr's broad brush overview of Judeo-Christian morality reeks of straw man superficiality. Perhaps Mayr didn't think it worth his time to study serious treatments on Judeo-Christian morality, but if he didn't, he shouldn't have broached the subject in a biology book. Finally, that Mayr can discuss the scientific bases of morality without mentioning the classic problem of the "naturalistic fallacy" (i.e. in this context, what IS the case biologically, does not entail what OUGHT to be the case morally), AKA the "fact-value gap", indicates how superficial (or unread) a discussion of ethics Mayr engages in. If creationists sound silly talking about biology, biologists should get a clue about how they must sound when they try to talk seriously about theology and moral philosophy.