Customer Reviews:
a great introduction to science for an adult without the mat.......1999-08-25
the concepts are clearly,step by step,explained. as an adult who has no background in science , this book has taught me the laws of motion;from newton to quantom. the basics of physics were well done. if an understanding of the ideas behind the science is what you seek then this is your book.
Book Description
In this sweeping narrative of the past 150,000 years of human history, Steve Olson draws on new understandings in genetics to reveal how the people of the world came to be. Traveling across four continents, Olson describes the African origins of modern humans and the migration of our ancestors throughout the world. He offers a genealogy of all of humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as their forebears and how the history of the Jewish people jibes with, and diverges from, biblical accounts. He shows how groups of people differ and yet are the same, exploding the myth that human races are a biological reality while demonstrating how the accidents of history have resulted in the rich diversity of people today. Celebrating both our commonality and our variety, MAPPING HUMAN HISTORY is a masterful synthesis of the human past and present that will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others.
Customer Reviews:
science versus political correctness.......2007-10-14
On the science front, this book is very superficial. There are many other ones that are much better and more detailed. About 80% of the book is a political correctness diatribe. If this book represents what passes for scholarship in today's academic environment, our society is in deep trouble.
very good.......2007-06-18
Some critics below carp about political correctness, but the author makes as good a case as any layman's book I've read. He is merely pointing out that human populations converge before they can evolve any important divergent phenotypes, and that all the phenotypes that separate people, which are commonly defined as "race", are pretty much insignificant. He also describes well how the biology works behind the differences in physiognomy that we perceive between the "races".
Human population on this planet is soaring, and we all have to live together more harmoniously, because there's no room left for malcontents to go off and start their own societies anymore. Just like in the remote past, when glaciers and desertification pushed different populations together and compelled their interaction by necessity, all the nations and ethnicities of the world are again bumping up against each other. The realization that we have a common genetic past, and future, is the first step to achieving more international harmony.
Where did we come from.......2007-03-27
Mapping Human History discusses how the use of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA can be used to trace the common origins of humans. Steve builds a case for how humans appeared as a distinct group about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago based on genetic variation we see in people today. By using genetics and the study of haplotypes and haplogroups, it believed that one can trace our ancestry back to a common "Mitochondrial Eve" or an "Adam" neither of which may have lived at the same time. He covers the encounters with other species such as Neanterthal, emergence of agriculture and the development of ethnicity.
Steve covers most of the globe in this quest for common origins: Africa, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Europe and finally the Americas. The evidence tends to support an African origin. I found the discussion of the settlement of the Americas interesting. The ultimate conclusion of all of this is the commonality of the human species. A case is made for the irrelevance of race; this seems to be a prominent theme throughout the book.
One thing that I found interesting was the fact that written language goes back only to about 3400 BCE. This tends to support the Bible chronology of humans being created only about 6000 years ago (you can't have written history that predates humans), but then this would be in conflict with the genetic findings.
I also read the book The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells which also discusses the genetic history of man. Neither book really discussed, to my satisfaction, exactly how one gets from the genetic variations to the time periods for the existence of humans being promulgated. It would be of value to have more input in this regard.
Too politically correct to be correct.......2006-09-01
Some evidences, but rarely relevant; many deductions, yet mostly illogical; big conclusions, consequently, you know what they can be. This is what Olson's book showed me on and between the lines.
Olson obviously tried to give a final verdict on this otherwise interesting topic `No more arguments and that is it!' I am surprised to realize that this is what he really tried to do. This book has nothing to do with science, because it shows no respect to science and no spirit of science.
Here we see political purposes overrule science and political correctness suffocates science. I will tackle 2 of Olson's main claims.
1) `No significant difference was found in genes belong to different races, thus races do not exist.' Actually the studies on human genes has just started and in its very beginning period. There are too many unknowns to conclude. Let us see a big mistake in our history. When Copernicus and Galileo suggested the Earth be moving around the Sun rather than the other way around, one of their criticisms was that if that was true then we should be able to see the difference on view angles when we observe stars in different seasons. Since no such difference was found, Copernicus and Galileo must be wrong. The argument was as strong and logical as Olson's, but it was completely wrong. No difference on view angles was only because the stars were too far from us and the precision of the observation was too low then. 2 hundred years later, the differences were indeed found and Copernicus and Galileo were proven right. Roman Catholic Inquisition Court used the seemingly credible criticism to incriminate the Copernicus theory supporters; the court even burned Bruno, a fearless supporter of the Copernicus theory, to death in Roman Flower square. 500 hundred years later, not long ago, Roman Catholic apologized for what they did then. Do we need to repeat such mistake today? That no significant difference was found does not mean no significant difference exist. According to the recent study, the difference between human and ape is only 3%. If 3% can make such big difference, what some `insignificant difference' can do?
2) `All the people in the world are descendents of one woman.' This claim is less absurd than the logic from which Olson deducted to his claim. This can only be true if all human were all related. This is the conclusion that Olson tried to prove, but he used it as condition from which he `proved' it as conclusion. Let us see an example. We sometimes see a spam e-mail that asks, with seduction or threaten, you to send, say, 5 people whom you know. Which such original e-mail reached every one on the Earth? If isolation and independency cannot be ruled out, such claim cannot stand. Only from limited results of the gene researches cannot reach such claim. This is why Olson needed to use the conclusion as condition to `prove' the conclusion. According to Olson, the evolution in Africa suddenly popped out one common mother and another common father, thus formed a race, human, then such evolution suddenly stopped.
The hasty with which Olson jumped to his verdict is strikingly obvious. Only with other motivation other than science could explain the behavior. No truth can be revealed if political purposes over rule science conscience. Jumping to the conclusion from such little evidences with such hasty is the recipe to mistake.
Olson also made many contradicting arguments. While he claims no difference between races, he enthusiastically wrote new races were formed from different environment for lions and other animals. I often scratch my head to try to understand where his logic was. He seemed to write with the Bible stories in mind, but in a much faster and in greater scale. When there was a pass of Red Sea, Olson made human pass Red Sea and Berlin Straight. In a very short time, 20,000 years (that is 7,200,000 days), certain human beings out from Africa changed their physique and look. But Olson made sure, even with such a great speed, no more new races formed.
A weak imitation.......2006-08-12
It is conventional wisdom that good books are written by good writers, and that understanding of the subject is of secondary importance. This book is a disproof of that conventional wisdom.
Mr. Olson is a fine writer, but he is not a scientist. Within the first 50 pages he has spent 2 pages on an incorrect explanation of an important genetic concept.
Give me instead the real McCoy: Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is a scientist with true insight. His book, "Genes, Peoples, and Languages" is beautifully inspired. He truly understands what he is writing about; and the most interesting elements of Mr. Olson's book are better handled in (if not derived from) Dr. Cavalli-Sforza's book.
Mr. Olson, by contrast, is a layman who doesn't quite comprehend that about which he writes. He is the blind leading the blind; and most of his readers don't know the difference, apparently including the nominating committee for the National Book Award.
Book Description
Bones—the remains of ancient New World natives now lying in museums and university laboratories across the Americas—are at the center of the scientific and cultural battles described in this provocative book. These bones, award-winning investigative journalist Elaine Dewar asserts, challenge the accepted theory that the first Americans descend from a Mongoloid people who migrated across the Bering land bridge to Alaska at the end of the Ice Age 11,000 years ago. With Native American activists, white supremacists, DNA experts, and physical anthropologists—all vying for control of ancient bones like those of the Caucasoid Kennewick Man—Dewar explores the politics of archaeology, history, law, native spirituality, and race relations at work in this scientific battlefield. She reports, too, on the contention among the experts over alternative theories that suggest the New World may have been populated as early as 60,000 years ago, perhaps by Polynesian voyagers who sailed to South America. “Bound to shake archaeologists out of their complacency.”—Canadian Geographic “Provocative ... likely to rattle the old bones of orthodoxy.”—Calgary Herald
Customer Reviews:
Needed: A Good Editor .......2005-11-10
A good editor would have tossed this manuscript back to Ms. Dewar and told her to cut it by one-half while adding an introduction and conclusion rather than leaving the reader confused about what the purpose of the book is.
The subtitle of the book is "Discovering the First Americans," and the book jacket says that the author "confronts the experts with alternative theories which suggest the New World may have been populated as early as 60,000 years ago, and that the New World and the Old World have always been one world." Now that sounds interesting and exciting! -- but I looked in vain for her to "confront" the experts and present any coherent evaluation of those "alternative theories." Rather, the author describes (at great length!) her travels around the hemisphere to talk to archaeologists whose views mostly differ from the conventional wisdom that the ancestors of modern Indians arrived in this hemisphere about 12,000 years ago.
The author begins and ends the book with a discussion of the issues concerning Kennewick man -- although the politics this 8,000 year old skeleton has engendered don't have much to do with any theory that man got to the Americas 60,000 years ago. Ms. Dewar seeems more interested in the gossip of archaelogy, scientific corruption and malfeasance, and the ongoing argument between archaeologists and Indians concerning the proper disposal of old bones than she does in just when and how the first Indians got to the Americas.
The book might have succeeded had the author marshalled her evidence and come up with some arguments and conclusions, but one looks in vain for summing up and evaluation of the evidence. I'll give this book two stars because the author has done a lot of legwork and research -- but the book doesn't deliver what it promises.
Smallchief
Is Luzia recorded in the myth of the Jigüe, Güije, Wijili, Jakuí .......2005-07-11
There is wide spread myth in the Caribbean, and the countries of Amazonia of a dark, small human who resides by rivers. This mythical "being" is called variously Jigüe, Güije, Wijili, Jakuí.
In Cuba a number of places bear the name Jigue including some in the Sierra Maestra. One of which is the site of an important military action in the War Against Batista.
Knowing that the remains of Luzia indicated low stature and African features I sought information in the scientific literature with some success. However, when I read this excellent book things seemed to begin to make a certain sense.
Dewar is a journalist; however, the way anthropologists fight (they seem even worse in this respect than some I know in my own field) this might not be a disadvantage.
I have my own copy which I treasure. However, if one goes to details section here, clicks on cover image and searches under Luzia for all entries, one finds a wealth of information.
It appears that Luzia, carbon 14 dated at about 11,500 years, could well be within mythic memory (e.g. indigenous South American mythic accounts of the flood and the end of the last "ice age").
Luzia was relatively small, and "negroid," and resided in this continent in a time when "the" or one of the Asian migrations, that gave rise to present day Native Americans reached the Americas.
Thus, it does not seem excessive to speculate that the encounters between the then newly arrived Asian populations with the Luzia's relative, could have left legendary memories of such small darky humans could given rise to the myth of the Jigüe (Cuba), Güije (Cuba_, Wijili (Cuba), Jakuí (Brazil) etc.
Of course this is speculation, still one recalls that once Troy was once thus.
Important Book that has been ignored in the United States.......2005-05-20
This is a fantastic read. Written by a Canadian journalist, this book is not written with the approach used by anthropologists in the scientific community. Others have noted the editing could use some work but I think this is somewhat due to the fact that Elaine Dewar is a journalist. A fantastic journalist for that matter. This is written as a personal account of her investigation as she travels from one part of the country to another interviewing experts in a chronological manner. Ms.(?) Dewar is not an anthropologist or archaeologist and the book is not about a theory she has of the peopling of the Americas but a factual account of the evidence from an investigative journalist point of view. I'm sure she made some high-pocketed anthropologists a bit perturbed.
Unfortunately, this book has been ignored. I happened to stumble upon it only because I was living in Canada for a short time and was in a Mississauga bookstore about the time it was released. As a trained archaeologist (University of Arizona) who has lived and worked for almost 20 years in the American Southwest, I was pleased to find this book. I read the book and was delighted to read something new about the discovery of America with some of the new evidence (i.e. Monte Verde, Spirit Cave, Luzia, hookworm parasitology, the geomorphology of glaciation, and haplotype "X") that shows that humans were here much earlier than previously thought and may have arrived here in other ways and from other parts of the world than previously thought. Back home in the States I looked for a paperback edition to send to a friend living in Tucson and could not find a copy (hardcover or paperback) not even at Borders Books. I noticed this to be the case when traveling around the country. Is this because the book was written by a Canadian? Or a Canadian journalist for that matter? Could it be the huge controversy right now over the evidence which support one theory over another. There is a threat to the upper eschelon of the archaeological community, some of whom have built their career on the Clovis first theory. This involves lots of money. Universities and Museums will be affected. NAGPRA has caused an unforseen quagmire of native people fighting over which bones are their descendants and some tribes religious customs make it impossible for scientists to study these bones. This complex matter is very political and economic involving the government, Native Americans and their legal rights, their religion, history and culture, not to mention land and water rights. We have arguments over carbon dates that are thousands of years older than previously thought possible. The Kennewick Man dilemma alone has caused an uproar. Then there is the DNA factor and the discovery of the "X" lineage from Europe.
Dewar brings up these issues in her book and they are important ones. This is a must read for anyone interested in Anthropology and the indigenous North Americans. Native American friends of mine believe they have been here for 40,000 years or longer. I personally agree with my friends but it will take science to prove the truth. Dewar's book takes a great leap forward in bringing light to this subject. It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't want the truth and it's unfortunate that "Bones: Discovering the First Americans" by Elaine Dewar has not received the recognition it deserves. Maybe an unbiased entity like Amazon.com can help shine that light.
Digging the dirt.......2004-10-22
Like many others, I have something of an interest in the origins of people, and take some notice of the findings of the scientists whose job it is to gather and interpret hard data. The peopling of the Americas has some special interest, of course, not the least because it is so controversial. The central dogma, found in all the textbooks and encyclopedias of our day, is that the earliest Americans arrived at about 11,000 BC or so ago, and the route was over the Beringian land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.
This book, written by a very well informed journalist, is an honest effort at an examination of the data, pro and con, for the dogma, told in a most delightful way. Her method is to read everything, visit every museum involved, and interview everybody involved in the controversy that she can. It is not a dry tome that merely relates the findings, but a sort of personal journey through it, a travelogue to some of the important sites, and a reflection on the meaning of it all.
What she finds is at times quite eye-opening and even sometimes pretty distressing. It seems that the dogma is so strong that some investigators suppress evidence against it for fear of losing standing and funding, which is controlled by a tyranical old guard, charged with a righteous fervor to protect it.
I found the story quite fascinating. Was it possible for people to traverse the land at the time required? Apparently not, according to the latest findings. Are there sites older than 11,000 BC? It seems there were! A most persuasive argument to me was the finding that the migrants brought the hookworm with them. Because the hookworm must reside for part of its life-cycle in warm soil, it could not have come by the Beringian route. Pretty persuasive to me!
The style of writing is lively and immediate and the book is hard to put down, once started. I only regret that there are no illustrations at all.
Dewar has done quite an outstanding job in bring this story together, and it will reward your time spent with it.
A non-scientist examination of pre-history.......2003-08-07
First, I think that comments concerning the length of this book are valid. There are extraneous elements that could be removed in order to streamline it (such as the mini-autobiography at the beginning and throughout the text). However, unlike some of the other reviewers, I don't mind the asides that occur, nor am I bothered by her descriptions of the characters involved, the locations, and the mundane aspects of daily life (i.e. getting coffee at Starbucks). I think people have to remember that Dewar is trained as a journalist, not an archaeologist or forensic anthropologist. As such, she continues to write in a journalistic style and, given the subject of her book, this style is not inappropriate. It is this style that makes the book readable. While more informative, I'm not sure there would be a market for a purely descriptive examination of New World pre-history. Hell, I'm an archaeologist who would understand what is being discussed and I'm sure I'd be bored to tears.
The one problem I do have with the book is that Dewar seems to have believed that archaeology should be treated as a hard science and cannot understand the ambiguities that exist (though she does touch on some of the reasons, perhaps by accident, such as the relative newness of the science, a rather disreputable history - archaeology as treasure hunting and looting, and the lack of funding that exists). Still, I enjoyed the book for what it is.
Book Description
Accessible, mind-stretching introduction to theories, experiments underlying classical laws of motion and gravitation, conservation of energy, electrodynamics, relativity, other important concepts. Also discussion of antigravity, time travel, other science fiction ideas in light of laws of physics. New epilogue.
Customer Reviews:
A look at the deepest level of Physics.......2007-03-27
It is amazing how a book written in such simple style, with almost no equations, can give such a deep insight about Physics. Instead of starting from some well established equations and move on to their applications, like almost every other book of Physics, Rothman starts by describing some basic observations and experiments and proceeds to deduce the basic laws of nature. This book teaches us how we know what we know. I would strongly recommend it to every student of Physics, and everyone interested in natural Philosophy.
Physical experiments and verification of theories.......2001-09-10
The book is in general about various constants of physics their values and how they arew measured. the ides is that nothing is proven unless it is verified with the experiment and precision of the experiment is a mojor factor in the reliability of the theories. Various constants of Nature such as gravity, speed of light, charge are all explained and major tests are explained with the problems encountered while doing the test. It is a narrative book, no calculations no formulas are given, you just get the concept of the test and underlyingm problems with them.
It is something that is worthy of reading.
Book Description
Alan Arbogast's new text brings the physical world into your classroom, and lets you share your passion with your students like no other book/media package you've seen before!
Discovering Physical Geography presents all the basic geographic concepts and skills students need in order to view the world through the eyes of a physical geographer. Its carefully integrated media package sets this text apart. Vivid images, animations, videos, simulations, assessments and virtual field trips all support the narrative material and enable students to interact with key processes and actively participate in visualizations.
With the Discovering Physical Geography Media Package you get all the resources you need in one place, all organized around the chapters of the textbook. You can choose any combination of resources, or add your own to create highly personal class presentations that truly reflect your passion for physical geography.
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Discovering Landscape in England and Wales
A.S. Goudie , and
R. Gardner
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 0412478501 |
Book Description
Here is a guide to the most beautiful and important sites of geological interest in England and Wales. Grouped by region, with clear topographical and geological maps, it may be used as a field-guide by students of geology and geography, as well as by interested walkers and ramblers.
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Discovering Physical Science
Manufacturer: Frank Schaffer Publications
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ASIN: 0867345616 |
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Green Collar Jobs: Working in the New Northwest (New Report, 8)
Alan Thein Durning
Manufacturer: Northwest Environment Watch
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ASIN: 1886093083 |
Book Description
Green-Collar Jobs, the latest book by Alan Durning, is an investigation into how the Northwest jobs climate is changing. Job growth in the Northwest- the high tech boom, software and other business services, health care, tourism, and a rocketing stock market- has spurred a strong economy that is gentler to the environment. But the Northwest's urban consumers are now a serious threat to the region's quality of life. Find out what the challenges are for a Northwest struggling to adapt.
Books:
- Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Science and Literature Series)
- Six Einstein Cards (Small-Format Card Books)
- Society Of Cells: Cancer and Control of Cell Proliferation
- Species Diversity in Ecological Communities
- Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
- Techniques for Wildlife Investigation and Management
- The "All" Series (17 Volumes, ALL THE - Last Words of Saints and Sinners, Apostles, Kings and Queens, Parables Prayers, Women, Men, Trades & Occupation, Doctrines, Children, Messianic Prophecies, Miracles, Teachings, Books and Chapters, Holy Days and Holidays, Divine Names and Titles Promises of the Bible.)
- The Case Against Darwin: Why the Evidence Should Be Examined
- The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise
- The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence
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