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List Price: £47.50
Our Price: £42.08
By OUP Oxford
Author:
Stephen Budiansky
By The Free Press
What is your cat thinking when she scratches at the door? What goes through Koko the gorilla's mind when she signs? For that matter, what goes through our minds when we think about animals and intelligence? Science writer Stephen Budiansky explores the difficulties of comparing intelligence between species in If a Lion Could Talk and takes a strong stance against measuring other animals using human standards. (The title is part of a Wittgenstein quote that ends "...we would not understand him.") The book shows how the most basic principle of evolution--that all living things are related--has been misconstrued by well-meaning scientists to imply that all animals possess intelligence that differs from ours only in quantity. This leads to comparisons of near equivalence between such intuitively likely pairs as adult gorillas and human children, comparisons that Budiansky suggests are misleading and more descriptive of our own minds than those of our distant cousins. What evolution should be telling us, he says, is that each species is equally well suited to its niche and should be examined for what it is, not how similar or different it is from us. How is it...
 ralphjohnsonunderhill@hotmail.com, 2001-04-12
I am concerned that many of the reviewers have missed the point of this book, and are therefore putting people off it. I feel that Budiansky is suggesting (rightly so) that studying animal cognition and 'intellegence' is extremely difficult. At no point does he say animals don't feel things, he is just addressing the problems with this type of research. Can no-one else see the irony of imposing our language and modes of thought on other species that have evolved independently to oursleves. This book is great!!
List Price: £64.50
Our Price: £60.60
Author:
J. M. Haile
By WileyBlackwell
A great book for begginers., 1999-05-17
As it's name implies this book covers only elementary methods, and this makes it extremely useful for beginners. Particularly higher undergraduate and graduate students with no previous knowledge of computer simulation methods. It is very kind with the reader, being very explicit on many topics other books take for granted. The sections on hard sphere simulation are particularly long compared with other books on the subject. The code included is very well organized and helpful, every book should have it documented this way!. If you program in fortran it's very useful, but if you program in C I recommend Rapaport's book instead, altough it's a little more difficult. I particularly liked the introduction about simulation and some phylosophical aspects of it.
List Price: £6.99
Our Price: £5.59
Author:
Tony Page
By Jon Carpenter
Thorough and rigid - enlightening and readable, 2006-05-30
Page is an intelligent and stuctured writer. His research is methodical and he presents it in an academically acceptable way.
He had managed to keep it interesting despite this, and adopts a very easy style of communication. His obviouis passion to unearth the truth comes out, but he avoids the rant.
The book looks at seperate areas such as specific diseases, periods in history and consequences. In each he delves in to medical journals and news stories to unearth striking information. He also manages to include a cultural interlude: Shakespeare and Wagner are included.
I would suggest this book to people beginning to find out about it. It's accessable and can be read without delving into technical details.
It's also idea for people who want to explain why we don't need animal experiments, as it includes helpful servings of evidence in understandable form. As a medical magazine said of this book, it deserves a wider audience.
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