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The towering cliffs of Mount Improbable can never, it seems, be climbed. In Richard Dawkins's remarkable new book the heights of Mount Improbable represent the combination of perfection and improbability that is epitomized in the seemingly "designed" perfection of living things. From the combination of strength and sensitivity of an elephant's trunk to the life-saving camouflage of an ant-mimicking beetle, the living world is populated by creatures that seem miraculously designed for the lives they lead.
But these complex and brilliantly effective features cannot have come about by undirected chance. That would be equivalent to scaling the sheer face of the mountain in a single leap. The only way to explain seemingly designed objects is by slow, gradual evolution - inching cumulatively, almost infinitely slowly by the standards of human history, up the gentle paths on the far side of Mount Improbable. Dawkins guides the reader through the spectacular mountain passes of the natural world.
We are led through the silken world of spiders; we are shown how wings gradually sprouted on the bodies of flightless animals; we see how the fig is a garden for its own teeming population of insects; and we learn that the eye has evolved no less than forty times independently. And through it all runs the thread of DNA, the molecule of life, responsible for its own destiny on an unending pilgrimage through geological time.
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Previews available in: Polish English
Subjects
Evolutionary genetics, Morphogenesis, Natural selection, Business, Management, Бизнес, Менеджмент, Adaptation (biology), Human evolution, Evolution (Biology), Genetics, Genetic Selection, Biological Evolution, Evolution, Ontwikkelingsbiologie, Natuurlijke selectie, Selection (Genetics) [MESH], Morphogenesis [MESH], Selection (Genetics), Biologie, Evolutionsbiologie, Soziobiologie, Science, Selekcja naturalna, Morfogeneza, Ewolucja, Biology, ZoologyShowing 7 featured editions. View all 15 editions?
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Wspinaczka na szczyt nieprawdopodobieństwa
2008, Prószyński i S-ka
in Polish
837469632X 9788374696326
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6
Climbing mount improbable
September 1, 1996, W. W. Norton & Company, Norton
Hardcover
- 1st American ed.
0393039307 9780393039306
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-331) and index.
6
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Work Description
In this book, Richard Dawkins urges us to put aside superstitions and wake up to a universe far more wondrous than those in any myths, by describing the difference between accident and design in evolution.
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- Created November 3, 2008
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August 4, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
March 8, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
January 17, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 5, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
November 3, 2008 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from The Laurentian Library MARC record |