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Title: Unpleasant and Unconvincing
Review: I'm usually pretty forgiving when it comes to evolutionary ideas but I simply found this book unpleasant and unconvincing. The authors derided many scientists who don't seem to agree with them. That's pretty arrogant since the idea of evolutionary symbiosis seems overstated and many related arguments weak. For example, the authors assert that many terms such as "group selection" are pseudoscientific. That's code for "I don't agree with it" which only means the authors don't really understand it. Another sentence, for example, refers to a "student-infested house". Why pounce on students? Do the authors think that's cute or funny? To assert their own ideas, they also denigrate Darwin and present him as some muddy thinker. Oh please! Even though Acquiring Genomes has a 150 year head-start on Darwin's Origin of the Species, the latter is still a much more convincing read.
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