Berkeley Book List: Biology (eclectic)

Richard Steinhardt, professor, Cell and Developmental Biology The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating, David M. Buss, Basic Books, 2003 100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor, Pablo Neruda (translated by Stephen Tapscott), Univ. of Texas Press, 1986 The Psychology of Superstition, Gustav Jahoda, Viking Press, 1971 Molecular Cell Biology fifth edition, Harvey Lodish et al, W. H. Freeman Company, 2003

It might seem non-academic for a cell biologist to be reading about desire, love, and superstition. Yet it is all very biological and very relevant to a curious person who is having the most fun while trying to figure things out.

David Buss is certainly not the last word in efforts to understand the mating behavior of the human species, but certainly the best short book about it is The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. Some of you will be offended by his unblinking eye and his utilitarian analysis of what people do and the stages by which they often progress unwittingly. I, for one, am grateful for any degree of understanding because not understanding the forces that underlie our behavior leaves us at the tender mercies of these forces, and not by choice. I especially recommend this book to the students of the novel: Jane Austen will never be seen again in the same way.

If you feel that David Buss has made you immune to infatuation and all those things that sometimes lead even old men into a pile of diapers, the perfect antidote is Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor. This compilation from the University of Texas is the mature Neruda, and amply proves that human love can rise far above its simplest biological functions and limitations. Here I quote one translation by Stephen Tapscott (slightly modified by myself):

Amen, and thank you, Pablo.

Now to my final selection, a treatise on superstition. Science, itself has its origins in the same drives that lead to superstition. Faced with uncertainties and many perils, we make hypotheses, about what happens next and how to influence the outcome. What makes science different is the speed with which we discard or modify what we think in the light of the results we get. Gustav Jahoda is a very interesting person, who came to England with an African background and rose to the top of the scientific establishment. He was very annoyed by the condescension with which Africa was viewed. His treatise on superstition, The Psychology of Superstition, was the result and is a classic of insight that applies to all populations. Jahoda shows convincingly that superstition serves several essential functions and humans cannot really do without it. His descriptions of the jobs of a magic man in an African village can be found to be matched by a similar description of the role of chaplains on a modern aircraft carrier. And if you are truly modern and reject all the old authoritarian institutionalized superstitions, I bet that you nonetheless will find inside yourself any number of very personal superstitions, ones that you manufactured yourself.

For those who really wanted a cell biology recommendation from me: the fifth edition of Molecular Cell Biology by Harvey Lodish et al is the best, most balanced treatment, in my opinion.

About Richard Steinhardt
Richard Steinhardt was born in Washington, D.C and raised in suburban Maryland, from which he fled as soon as he was old enough to buy a train ticket. He spent his summers doing odd jobs at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods

Hole on Cape Cod and the rest of the time in Manhattan getting an education, including a couple of degrees from Columbia University. While there he decided to be a professor at UC Berkeley, about the same time he decided to major in Biology. After a year of postdoctoral research at Cambridge University, he came to California and started to grow his hair long. Both his daughters, of whom he is very proud, graduated from the UC system. You can learn about his research at http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/CDB/steinhardtr.html