CPSCI 307-01: Evolutionary Computation

Further Readings on
the Theory of Evolution

The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary theory in philosophical focus

Elliott Sober

University of Chicago Press, 1993 (reprint edition)

If you're interested in the philosophy of science (i.e., the study of what exactly science is and how it works epistemologically), this is an excellent introduction to philosophical questions which arise from evolutionary theory, in addition to giving a very thorough treatment of natural selection.

The Young Darwin and His Cultural Circle

Edward Manier

Reidel, 1978

If you're interested in the sociology of science (i.e., the study of the sociological phenomena surrounding science and how science affects/is affected by culture), this is the book for you. Its subtitle is, “A study of influences which helped shape the language and logic of the first drafts of the theory of natural selection”.

Darwin’s ghost: The Origin of Species updated

Steve Jones

Random House, 2000

This book is written for a popular audience, and updates Darwin’s discussion in the Origin by supplementing the evidence Darwin presented in light of what we've discovered since 1859.

The Mismeasure of Man

Stephen Jay Gould

Norton, 1996 (revised and expanded edition)

This book is related to “social Darwinism’, the attempt to apply evolutionary theory to deciding social policy. Gould gives a clear treatment of the misuse of scientific evidence, both through misunderstanding evolutionary theory, and through the bad use of statistics. It's well worth reading.

The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of language and the brain

Terrence Deacon

Norton, 1997

Even more difficult than understanding how the human eye could evolve is the question of how humans evolved the ability to use language. This book offers a hypothesis, but along the way gives an updated treatment and explanation of “Baldwinian’ evolution and an analysis of human use of language as compared to non-human animal communication systems. If you only have time to read one book on this list, this would be my suggestion.

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the meanings of life

Daniel Dennett

Simon & Schuster, 1995

This book explores connections between philosophy, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. If you haven't read anything by Daniel Dennett, you should. Either this book or Consciousness Explained are good places to start.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote an interesting essay about Dennett's book in the New York Review of Books for June 12, 1997.

A River Out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life

Richard Dawkins

Basic Books, 1995

This is an explanation of Dawkins’ view of evolutionary theory. He says, “My ‘river’ is a river of DNA, flowing and branching through geological time, and the metaphor of steep banks confining each species’ genetic games turns out to be a surprisingly powerful and helpful explanatory device.” Computer scientists should find the first chapter, ‘The Digital River,’ of particular interest.

The Meme Machine

Susan Blackmore

Oxford University Press, 1999

In 1976, Richard Dawkins proposed the notion of the meme as a cultural analog to the gene. Roughly, a meme is a a unit of imitable behavior (e.g., an idea, a habit, a song, a story, etc.); since it's imitable, it's replicable, and stories, for example, seem to vary as they are reproduced. Blackmore investigates whether the analogy between memes and genes is superficial, or whether it can do explanatory work in a theory of human evolution.

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