|  | Author: Martin A. Nowak
Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
List Price: $45.00
Buy New: $32.83
as of 11/23/2009 10:41 CST details
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New (24) Used (15) from $24.95
Seller: pbshopus
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 17844
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0674023382
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8015118
EAN: 9780674023383
ASIN: 0674023382
Publication Date: September 29, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New print-on-demand book. Shipped within the US in 10-14 days.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-8 of 8
The Marriage of Mathematics and Evolution January 9, 2007
G. Serjak (Tyler, TX)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Excellent book for the mathematically and evolutionarily minded. However, not for general reading unless you are doing graduate work in either mathematics or evolutionary biology. Just excellent survey.
A dazzling book November 22, 2006
N. Beale (London, England)
29 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is, quite simply, a dazzling book. Nowak manages to take very deep mathematical ideas that are on the cutting edge of science and make them fun and pretty rigorous at the same time. The review in Nature said "It should be on the shelf of anyone who has, or thinks they might have, an interest in theoretical biology" and I completely agree. The section on HIV, explaining mathematically why there is a long delay between infection and the disease, and how this proposal in 1990 correctly predicted several biolgical facts which were subseqently discovered (but not mentioning execpt in the notes, that this was his work) is truly exceptional. We are moving beyond the "Just So stories" phase of evolution (such as wooly rhetoric about "Selfish Genes") to real, mathematically rigorous, science.
wonderful life October 13, 2006
Dr. Karl Sigmund
79 out of 84 found this review helpful
This is a remarkable book, absolutely original, containing a lot of material which has never before appeared in book form. It is written in a very accessible style, and leads almost effortlessly from first principles to state-of-the-art research.
The book takes an eagle's view on evolution, covering an vast range of topics from molecules to man. It emphasises analytical methods and presents a large canvas of superbly elegant mathematical models.
The author has chosen a very personal, highly idiosyncratic sample of subjects of amazing diversity, basically because he feels excited about them: and this excitement shows through, and makes the book very engaging, a positively bracing experience. On all of the topics, the author has contributed substantially, and the feel to get it `straight from the horse's mouth' is one of the great assets of the book. I believe that it will be a splendid hit with students, and regret that I did not have anything like that when I was young.
The style of the book is lucid and vigorous, with short, clear sentences, occasionally in staccato style. The mathematics is reduced to the bare minimum. It is incredible how much mileage the author can get out of it. The illustrations play an important role, and are well devised.
The chapters are short, and they address an amazing array of topics, ranging from molecular evolution to evolutionary games, from HIV to cancer, and from cooperation to language. In spite of their different subjects, they are homogenous: first comes a breezy introduction to the biological (or chemical, or linguistic) facts, then a simple model, then an analysis, without heavy machinery, usually leading up to some remarkable results which could not be obtained without mathematics, then a summary in a few short statements and finally an extensive list of references, including both the classics and the very newest results in the field. The fact that in each case, a few pages suffice to start from scratch and lead to the cutting edge of present-day research is quite remarkable.
The book will certainly have a big impact, and raise a lot of follow-up work. There is hardly a better recipe for young PhDs than to pick one of the chapters and start doing their own research. But in addition, `the whole is more than the sum of its parts'. I usually hate this slogan but here it holds in a spectacular way. By simply putting together the different applications of simple models in so spectacularly diverse fields, Nowak's book promotes a radical `hands-on'-approach to evolution which, I am sure, will have seminal repercussions.
Showing reviews 6-8 of 8
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