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xoskelet's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
solanpolarn's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book for a science book club; unlike some of the books we have read it can't be accused of being light on the science. This is one of the good points of the book: it provides numerous examples of its main point that evolutionary variation appears due to symbiogenesis, and these examples come with references. The main bad point of the book is that it is too defensive; I don't work in the field of evolutionary biology, so don't knoe if the defensiveness is understandable from a science historical point-of-view, but I found it grating. It was as if the authors weren't confident enough that their thesis would stand on its own merit, but had to resort to smearing the 'opposition'. In the less polemic parts of the book, the authors acknowledge that random mutation occurs, and can have benefitial effects. However, in the main they tut-tut the idea; from my experience of the much cleaner science of physics, the true explanation of any effect is usually not as simple as just one cause. I imagine this is even more prevalent in something as complex as biology.
rlse's review against another edition
3.0
I don't buy all the theory Margulis is selling, but it's an interesting take.
kikoleon's review against another edition
4.0
A Lynn Margulis deberían haberle dado el Nobel por su teoría simbiogenética tan bien explicada en este libro. Aquí trata el fenómeno de la especiación y propone una teoría elegante y bella para el enigma del origen de las especies. Describe procesos fascinantes, muy curiosos, que abrirán la mente del lector al fenómeno de la vida.
Estoy de acuerdo con lo que advierte Adriático en otra de las reseñas a este libro en castellano: plantear a Gaia como a un metaser del que nosotros somos orgánulos contiene un peligro de todo organicismo de convertir a un ente real -nosotros- en una pieza sacrificable para bien de un ser hipotético y, al fin y al cabo, abstracto: Gaia. Pero da igual cuál sea nuestra postura sobre esa controversia, es justo decir que éste no es un libro sobre la Hipótesis Gaia sino sobre la simbiogénesis en la especiación de los seres vivos.
Margulis repudia al neodarwinismo y si no nos dejamos arrastrar por el, en mi opinión, diálogo de besugos ideológico que se ciñe en torno al darwinismo, este es un gran libro de ciencia. Para mí un hito en la biología.
Estoy de acuerdo con lo que advierte Adriático en otra de las reseñas a este libro en castellano: plantear a Gaia como a un metaser del que nosotros somos orgánulos contiene un peligro de todo organicismo de convertir a un ente real -nosotros- en una pieza sacrificable para bien de un ser hipotético y, al fin y al cabo, abstracto: Gaia. Pero da igual cuál sea nuestra postura sobre esa controversia, es justo decir que éste no es un libro sobre la Hipótesis Gaia sino sobre la simbiogénesis en la especiación de los seres vivos.
Margulis repudia al neodarwinismo y si no nos dejamos arrastrar por el, en mi opinión, diálogo de besugos ideológico que se ciñe en torno al darwinismo, este es un gran libro de ciencia. Para mí un hito en la biología.
fleece's review
"I'm finished" as in I'm finished with this book. Got to page ninety and had to ditch it because it was terrible; not the idea, we've been taught symbiogenesis was how chloroplasts and and mitochondria were acquired in plant and animal cells, but i feel like they didn't really connect symbiosis and symbiogenesis- explanations were skimpy and examples didn't go as in depth as I'd like.
Other stuff that annoyed me: defining terms after the fact, 'breathe' used instead of 'uses as electron acceptor' because they didn't bother explaining redox reactions, a weak presentation of thermodynamics, and so on. Most of it was presentation of ideas that weren't backed up or explained.
Other stuff that annoyed me: defining terms after the fact, 'breathe' used instead of 'uses as electron acceptor' because they didn't bother explaining redox reactions, a weak presentation of thermodynamics, and so on. Most of it was presentation of ideas that weren't backed up or explained.
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