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5 out of 5 stars
By
Dr. Amen-Ra
on
03-25-18
The fundamental philosophy of biology writ large
An encapsulation of the pervasive pain, waste, greed and death extant in the natural world and an intelligent admonishment to defy the dumb domination of our genes. Dr. Riskin convincingly counsels Mankind to become essentially Aristotelian, accentuating what is quintessentially human in our nature and subordonating the naturalness of being brute beasts. Adhering to this unnatural ethic extracted from both evolutionary biology and ironclad logic will mitigate the misery that is the measure of all mortals.
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5 out of 5 stars
By
Marsha L. Woerner
on
06-12-16
"All-natural" is NOT synonymous with "good for you"
Would you consider the audio edition of Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You to be better than the print version?
No idea
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This is a great book –
It fills in the picture of "All Natural", the catchphrase that retailers use to encourage certain kinds of purchases. It's underlying theme is that the phrase "all-natural" is not synonymous with "good for you". "Natural" may actually be good for something, but that something is not necessarily human!
Survival of the fittest encourages "nature" to adapt to all – and I do mean ALL – organisms, not just humans. I personally was always suspicious of the phrase "all-natural" because I could always use deadly nightshade as an example of something "all-natural" that I was NOT interested in having in my breakfast! This book expands on that.
Mr. Riskin makes a humorous and somewhat touching essay about nature in general and what ALL organisms are doing – and how they're adapting – to survive and grow their species. Most of it has nothing to do with keeping humans healthy. The book has the added plus of answering the question "is my love of my son solely because of DNA?"
The book is well thought out and comprehensive. It's an excellent choice!
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