Titles That May Interest You

treatment. Sometimes competing hypotheses are rejected with very little justification, and some arejust ignored. Of course, a comprehensive review and critique of the primate literature would have created a book twice as long, and one with a diluted effect. AU institutional libraries should carry a copy of this book. It will appeal not only to primatologists and evolutionary biologists but also to all anatomists who have a desire to learn about the historical basis for the peculiarities of human limb construction. Michael K. Diamond Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois 60637 TITLES THAT MAY INTEREST YOU As a service to our readers whose specific interests span the full spectrum of the fields of biology and medicine, we are providing the titles of and relevant information about some of the books sent to us by the publishers that will not receive full review treatment. Whenever possible we will add a short description of each book.—Ronald Singer Toward a New Philosophy ofBiology: Observations ofan Evolutionist. By Ernst Mayr. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press, 1988. "Living systems, Mayr forcefully points out, have complex properties that are simply not found in inanimate nature—properties representing more than three billion years of evolutionary history recorded in the genetic blueprint. Such historically acquired complexity requires a set of concepts and methods different from those used in the traditional models of science. In his book, Mayr attempts to refine the tools of analysis that biologists working in genetics, paleontology, taxonomy, embryology, and molecular biology rely on to communicate with one another. But equally important, he strives to arrive at a common language that will bridge the gap between biologists and scholars from such diverse fields as anthropology, history, and philosophy. "With the keen eye of a naturalist and the analytical powers of a logician, Mayr guides his readers through the maze of controversies surrounding the viability of Darwinism, the impact of molecular biology on evolutionary theory, gradual evolution versus the theory of punctuated equilibria, and even the probability of extraterrestrial life, from an evolutionist's point of view. Five major and hitherto unpublished essays probe such questions as: is biology a truly autonomous science ? Is there an evolutionary basis for human ethics? To what extent does natural selection dictate the course of evolution? What processes explain drastic evolutionary innovations and the diversity of the major life forms? And finally, do we need a new evolutionary synthesis?" 154 Book Reviews Statistics for Biologists. 3d ed. By R. C. Campbell. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1989. In this third edition, "the main object of the new material is to illustrate the potential usefulness ofcomputers to the biologist—using several different statistical languages." Biological Aspects of Human Migrations. Edited by C. G. N. Mascie-Taylor and A. W. Lasker. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1988. "The focus of this book is not so much on why people choose or are forced to move but on the biological implications of that movement to both recipient and donor populations." Contributed papers include "Peopling of the Continents: Australia and America" (W. S. Laughlin and A. B. Harper); "Migration in the Recent Past: Societies with Records" (D. F. Roberts); Models of Human Migration : An Inter-Island Example" (P. D. Raspe); "Rural-to-Urban Migration" (B. Bogin); "In Search of Times Past: Gene Flow and Invasion in the Generation of Human Diversity" (K. M. Weiss); "Migration and Adaptation" (M. A. Little and P. T. Baker); "Migration and Disease" (B. A. Kaplan); and "The Framework of Migration Studies" by the editors. Experimental Approaches to Mammalian Embryonic Development. Edited by J. Rossant and R. A. Pedersen. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Paperback. There are three general sections: "Cellular aspects, including studies of potency , allocation, differentiation, and fate in the preimplantation and early postimplantation embryos; molecular and biochemical aspects, including gene expression during gametogenesis and early development, the physiology of the embryo, cell surface and cytoskeletal differentiation and X-chromosome inactivation ; and a section dealing with new approaches toward a genetic understanding of development, including nuclear transfer, analysis of genetic mutations, and introduction of new genetic material into the embryo via...