principles" that he feels form the groundwork for a comparative ethnobiology. He also talks about the three main levels of classification; generic, specific, and higher-order. He wants to stress the importance of prototypes and the fact that "perceptual motivation" underpins not only genera, but also intermediate and life form categories, although he points out that he understands that the life form categories does not neatly reflect biological taxa. In another part of the book, he explores the patterned variations in ethnobiological knowledge. He brings up an interesting suggestion that ethnobiological nomenclature is not necessarily arbitrary, but often reflects some aspect of the inherent quality of the organism. "Brent Berlin maintains that these patterns can best be explained by the similarity of human beings' largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and animals: people recognize and name a grouping of organisms quite independently of its actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance in human society" (2009). This implies that the ability and want to categorize is nearly innate in humans. This claim challenged some anthropologists’ beliefs that one’s sense of reality is determined by culture; that the subjective and unique view one has of their surroundings is controlled little by the world around the individual. He argues throughout the book against his colleagues that only natural species that have "evident utility for man have been named." He constantly argues against a neo-malinowskian functionalism. He makes humans out to seem as simply contemplative materialists unknowingly seeking out only the things that will ensure our happiness and survival and leaving everything else to be on its own for its own survival. He also focused on the structure of ethnobiological classification based on individual nomenclature systems he has researched or seen at work firsthand. He addressed the processes at work to affect the evolution of ethnobiology and the systems involved. Berlin has received a lot of praise on this book. In reference to the book, Terence Hays says, "Here, Berlin deals straightforwardly and systematically with his major critics, acknowledging that ‘the patterns recognized nearly two decades ago must now be restated in light of new evidence and new theoretical insights that have emerged since that time’" (1994:3). Medical Ethnobiology of the Highland Maya (1996) Some of Berlin’s more recent work is focused on medical ethnobiology and modern Mayan populations. In 1996, in collaboration with his wife, Elois Ann Berlin, he