Excuse me? Are you implying that there are not other primates, quadripeds, and sea slugs that have advanced further on the evolutionary scale than the misbegotten malfeasants who appear on Jerry Springer? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Unfortunatly not, but is it good, informative and would you recommend it?

It is actually pretty good, though more from a historical perspective. There are several places where he does not quite get it right, but considering the knowledge of genetics was extremely limited at the time, it shows a high degree of insight.

Once you finish, I would suggest you pick up somthing from Dawkins to correct the weaknesses inherent in classical Darwinism, and Behe for some good criticisms, and some massive cases of unclear on the concept...

[EDIT]Oh, BTW, make sure you are reading the revised edition of Origin of Species, since in it, Darwin made a lot of corrections, and answered a lot of the criticisms of his theory. To read just the original will probably leave a modern student of science with an uneasy feeling, since it is not quite as rigorous as one would like.
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[ 04-28-2003, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: Thorfinn ]

<font color=lime>Thanks for the input. I just got done reading, Evolution, The Triumph of an Idea , by Carl Zimmer. Excellent book! It is written as a companion for the PBS series on the same subject. Good read. I haven't seen the show, but plan to. I wanted to read the book first. </font>

(Writes on his notepad...The Origin of Species by C. Darwin...something with Dawkins and something with Behe...) Thanks, I´ll sure to check them out next time I´m going to the library. (*Mumble* Maybe I can find that darn book about nomads then *Mumble*)

Origin of Species, classic. Darwin was still trapped in the ideaologies of his time, thats why things are so scewed in places, and as someone already said knowledge of genetics was limited. For anything more up-to-date with todays line of thought I highly suggest anything written by Stephen J. Gould, he is (or was I should say) the foremost man on the subject for our time. And I know, being a primatology student all I ever read are his works. Not always fun.

<font color=lime> I am about half way through now. Very interesting. The main reason I wanted to read it before diving headlong into Gould or Sagon etc., was to get it from the mouth of Darwin himself. Get a foundation so to speek. If nothing else, out of respect. Gould did the forward in "Evolution, The Triumph of an Idea". I look forward to reading everything I can get a hold of.
Primatology sounds interesting! What U do you go to? Its kinda late for me to get involved in the field I am, so far, most interested, as far as a career. I have my 4th child coming in a month. I dont think it would be wise to go trailing around some forest studying fossils with a young family. Maybe later in life and several years of collage I will. ;) Anyway, thanks for the input. :D </font>

Yes Darwin is the reason why Cloning shouldn't happen... If we evoulve then it would be harmfull to the species for us to just keep making tiny versions of ourselves and never pass the DNA on properly...

<font color=lime>That is a good observation DK, but, my opinion is we have already surpassed natural evolution having any part in humanity when we started manipulating medicines to fight disease, for example. We sealed our fate with the industrial age. Its to late to sit back and let natural selection take its course in our case, becouse we now set the natural suroundings for everything. I think human evolution will be courseing in a new direction, AI. We need to advance scientificully at this point if we are going to survive this new inviroment we created. </font>