Full house : the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin / Stephen Jay Gould.
1996
QH366.2 .G6593 1996 (Mapit)
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Details
Title
Full house : the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin / Stephen Jay Gould.
Author
Gould, Stephen Jay.
Edition
1st ed.
ISBN
9780517703946 (pbk.)
0517703947 (pbk.)
0517703947 (pbk.)
Imprint
New York : Harmony Books, c1996.
Language
English
Description
244 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Call Number
QH366.2 .G6593 1996
Dewey Decimal Classification
576.8
Summary
Full House presents the truth about progress, evolution and excellence, and a different way to look at the phenomenon of trends. We tend to see the world in terms of bad trends--why this nation going to pot vis-à-vis increasing criminal behavior and loosening moral fiber--and good trends better ethnic in urban areas, better transportation. We have always interpreted trends as things or entities moving in a definite direction-up or down-but Gould identifies this mode of interpretation as a bias that needs correcting. The focus here is on the nature of excellence and the misperception that progress is inevitable. In Full House, Stephen Jay Gould examines how the misinterpretation of data and trends results in bad science and bad social policy.
Note
Includes index.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Bibliography: p. [231]-237.
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Table of Contents
pt. 1. How shall we read and spot a trend?
pt. 2. Death and horses : two cases for the primacy of variation
pt. 3. The model batter : extinction of 0.400 hitting and the improvement of baseball
pt. 4. The modal bacter : why progress does not rule the history of life.
pt. 2. Death and horses : two cases for the primacy of variation
pt. 3. The model batter : extinction of 0.400 hitting and the improvement of baseball
pt. 4. The modal bacter : why progress does not rule the history of life.