Gould was both an incredibly prolific and lyrical writer of great erudition and a first class evolutionary biologist. Best known for his popular books such as Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, etc., which are collections of his essays, Gould is the main proponent of punctuated equilibrium (the idea that evolution proceeds by long period of stasis punctuated by shorter periods of rapid change) and his use of the term "spandrels" to identify biological adaptations that have seemingly fortuitous consequences. His magnum opus is The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) which runs to 1433 pages. I would like to say I have read it but I don't think I will ever get around to it.

Okay so I've seen "Elegant Universe" recommended twice. I am curious does anybody have a recommendation along these lines that isn't a discussion of string theory?

Only halfway done with it but I think it belongs in this list

What Is Thought?, Eric Baum

Here are some interesting books on our biological and cybor future that I've read:

Baldi, Pierre. The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution (2001)
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002)
Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999)
Naam, Ramez. More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (2005)

Fukuyama's arguments against biotechnology are very well presented (although I disagree with his gloomy conclusions). Kurzweil, who has also written at least one other book on the subject, is quite a cheerleader for the post human future. He is fun to read. Baldi is also very positive about our post human future. He sees humans as presently constituted just a place on the way to something grandly beyond what we are now. Naam is also enthusiastic, seeing biological enhancements leading to many new human-like species.

Primo Levi - If this is a man(might be called Survival in Auschwitz in the US).

A staggering work of incredible nobility and poise. I've recommended this countless times and it stands as a tragic and poignant tombstone.

I know Dawkins is a polarizing figure, but if you were to recommend 1 book on evolution/biology, would you start with something from him?

Not knowing other writers on evolution ex Darwin, Dawkins' the Selfish Gene is very good, Extended Phenotype I found less good, havent read his other books on evolution. I take it we are disqualifying the Origin of Species for not discussing genes/DNA?
Also, that book(SG), as far as I know, is not polarizing in the evolution/biology world, although it apparantly was a bit at the time, it is accepted now as the right way to think about these things.

Some of you may be interested in these books:

The Trouble With Physics Smolin

The Life of The Cosmos Smolin

The Black whole War Susskind

The Cosmic Landscape Susskind

The idea is to explore the debates about string theory,
what is science, the anthropic principle, cosmology theories in general and other topics as well.

You might want to look over Smolin-Suskind debate and many of the papers on this stuff are surprising accessible and available for download.

I kind of went back and forth, Smolin makes some great points but Susskind is a very interesting writer.

If you don't want to explore this whole landscape of books I highly recommend The Black Hole war by itself, it is worth it just to sense the craziness of black hole complementarity and the holographic principal, also Susskind's writing is at his best here.

I should note that I didn't actually read The Life of The Cosmos, couldn't find it yet but I read most of the papers on this theory.

Dave

Baby Rudin (aka Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin)
R+C Analysis by Walter Rudin
Algebra by Serge Lang

These books are a absolutely required of anyone who wants a firm understanding in mathematics. There are, of course, others. However, these are a great start. Do every exercise in Baby Rudin and you will be a much stronger mathematician for it.

I had an essay to write today but to avoid that I went through this thread and wrote down all the books to make a start on a reading list for next year. When this didn't take up enough time I went ahead and sorted them by subject. If anyone wants the list either PM me or explain how I can load it onto the interweb so I can link to it here.

I may have missed a few that were either listed as alternatives to a book containing the same stuff (as in the case of one Bertrand Russell example) or because it was listed without an author or in vague terms without a title. I also guessed for some of the categories as I don't know what every book in existence is about despite what everyone says. Flawed it may be but then again the only payment I received was the satisfaction of a thoroughly retained anus.

Satisfaction indeed.

I'm currently reading The Big Questions by Steven Landsburg. Its really interesting, and I wanted some of you guys to read it and tell me what you think. The guy is a mathemetician by profession, and a physicist/philosopher/economist by hobby, or at least it appears that way. His book is sort of a rapid-fire, scatter-shot approach to a bunch of "big" philisophical, sociological and economic questions like "why is there something" and "does free will exist" and "do people ACTUALLY believe in God?" He brings his somewhat mixed past experience to bear on these issues.

My take is this: the guy seems to be genuinely insightful and clever. But his approach is so....SLOPPY. So lazy. It appears to me like he is a very bright guy who has spent a lot of time thinking about important questions, but has spent very LITTLE time arguing about them with intelligent opponents. Or at least, he has somehow miraculously managed to avoid arguing with intelligent NITS. His arguments lack any real sort of rigor, which is of course something you would expect in a pop philosophy book like this, but he makes the sort of extreme, bold claims that most authors like this refrain from. He spends like two paragraphs "proving" that of course we all have free will, we all KNOW we have free will, and the people who claim they dont believe in it are just lying. He does all this while, imo, focusing entirely on "will" and ignoring completely "free." And then moves on as if the problem has been solved. Now, I dont much care for the "debate" about free will since I think its sort of trivial and uninteresting, but this is a bit of a warning sign for some of his bigger issues. I've spent a fair amount of time arguing about free will, so I think I'm pretty comfortable with most of the arguments, and it seems like he is way off base, intentionally so. So what does that mean for my reading of topics that I am NOT very familiar with? How can I be confident at all that he is giving an honest review of the relevant arguments? Makes me a little nervous.

Anyhow, I'm about 2/3 through the book, and have had 3-4 genuine insights, like "LDO thats awesome, how have I never viewed it like that before?" so obv the book has been easily worth it.

www.popularscience.co.uk is a good site that serves much the same purpose as this thread. A bit like when I first found this thread one read through it just about doubled my amazon wish list.

This one is amazing but very technical.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roa...f_the_Universe

Agreed.