Experimental Blog #8

Comments on the book "The Bird - A Natural History of Who Birds Are, Where They Came From, and How They Live" by Colin Tudge


This British science writer, who I have to say was born the same year that I was, has written a very impressive number of many highly praised books, at least 16, of which I have now read 4, 3 of which, including this one, are first rate. The author, Colin Tudge, seems to be a living, continuously updated encyclopedia of natural history and all the other biological sciences as well.
Of course, his discussion of Charles Darwin, and "Darwinism" in general, is of very great interest. He seems so thorough in his understanding that he can go beyond simply defending Darwin and write very informatively about the imperfections of Darwin and "Darwinism," which in very distorted form lead to so much abuse and suffering in the world for many decades. He seems to ask all of the right questions, and he answers them just as well.
He also writes about Darwin's ideas on "sexual selection," which he wrote about 12 years after his much more famous book on evolution. However, these ideas were then very unpopular with most of his other supporters.
The authors philosophical discussions are very educational, and involve references, sometimes many, to people such as, Rene Descartes, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, J B Watson, B F Skinner, Alfred Russel Wallace, and others. Colin Tudge also writes about the great "paradigm shift" in the biosciences that occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s, and how this was brought about by the research and ideas of Nikolaas Timbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and perhaps most supremely, by Jane Goodall, and, of course, others.

However, the book might also be interesting for some very influential people that it does not mention. Perhaps it is because they didn't have anything to do with birds, which is what the book is specifically about, of course.