Check out these books by Richard Dawkins (you may have seen some on Logans Desk):
The Selfish Gene
River out of Eden
The Ancestors Tale
I prefer audiobooks myself and listened to these while working on my Truck/ATV. So good.
'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' by Dawkins is another good one.
He talks about how in his previous books he tends to just assume most people know what he's talking about and jumps into the heavy stuff. This is more geared towards those of us who never studied biology, or your young-earth creationist parents.
I've never liked Richard Dawkins books, I read the god delusion and found it as interlectually stimulating as watch the australian lower house discussing legislation. You're much better to read nietzsche's the antichrist.
Also it comes accross when I've seen him in debate, he has no understanding of chaos theory (or fails to apply its properties), which is sort of fundamental to the darwin model.
I have seen many video presentations and lectures by Dawkins.
What surprises me is that discussion about genes fails to mention that in many cases existence of a gene by itself does not mean anything. Many genes require some trigger (usually environmental factors) to influence human behavior. Gene is like a bunch of code encapsulated inside a function, does not do anything unless the function is triggered by an outside call. The potential implications is that environmental factors are as important (if not more important) as genes in shaping who you are. Basically, your parents, friends and everything else happening around you is defining your personality at genetic level.
That is why you should not listen to lady gaga, it might trigger your "dumb gene".
I never read the God Delusion. Looked boring as fuck despite being an athiest myself.
The things I found interesting was how he explained how genes, evolution and natural selection work by describing actual examples.
#232323 ; line-height: 24px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; background-color: #f9f9f9 ;">He talks about how in his previous books he tends to just assume most people know what he's talking about and jumps into the heavy stuff
Wow I never knew that... thats probably why some of the stuff he talked about I couldn't understand.
Carl Sagan's Cosmos has an entire chapter dedicated to evolution which is really in-depth.
This is an old thread but I can not go without sharing 'The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature' by Matt Ridley. It is pretty thick in discussing genetics, but that's a good thing! right?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Queen-Evolution-Nature/dp/0060556579/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1388957190&sr=8-3&keywords=the+red+queen
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' by Richard Dawkins
i second that.
Dawkin's books on religion are somewhat muddled when ever he leaves the evolution vs creationism "conflict", it shows that Dawkins isn't a philosopher by trade.
Danniel Dennett & Christopher Hitchen have done better in this regard.
I just realized this thread is a year old, MaestroP thou shall be denied salvation
oh what the hell ;) necromancers for the win