A zoologist looks at humankind

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Portmann, a Swiss zoologist, argues against investigating human nature only through biological comparison to other animals, and suggests concentration on our uniqueness as a species. He describes two concepts of evolution the biological and the historical and argues that we must go beyond the mechanism of mutation in order to understand our origins. Beautifully conceived and executed, but Portmann, in his desire to define the particularly "human", implicitly and unjustly diminishes the uniqueness and complexity of other animal species. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.