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Asks what 'survival of the fittest' refers to. Survival of the fittest what? Individual? Group? Species? The author argues that the unit of darwinian selection is the gene. Genes are replicators and have created organisms as 'survival machines' to aid in their replication. He argues that the 'replicator' (in our case, the gene) is the basic unit of life. The author continues by exploring Evolutionarily Stable Strategies. He examines the Prisoner's Dilemma game, or what is the best strategy of aggression or peace to promote the replication of the gene, with interesting results. Discusses the 'Tit-for-Tat' strategy with occasionally offering the olive branch.
Small book that accompanied a 2010 exhibit at the Seaport Museum in NYC. A short 30-page essay discussing Stieglitz's inspiration and lifelong project of photographic the city he was born and died in and approximately 40 plates of works. My primary view of Stieglitz is as the foremost proponent of moving European modern art into America and also conceptualizing American Modern Art as a movement within itself. In the world of photography, I usually feel that he lacks an intuitive ability for composition and feeling in his photographs, although i fully feel that his motivation to be a photographer was to convey what was to him the expression of soul into an image he could share with others. However, his place in the history of photography and American art can never be disputed. He brought to the forefront so many other photographers who were able to make the connection that I feel he never truly was able to make. This was a brief enjoyable book, especially to someone unfamiliar with any of Stieglitz's NYC photographs, most of which I have seen before. Admittedly, I find his "window view" photographs most intriguing for their time. His experimentation with form, allaying with the Cubist movement in Europe at the time, and the feeling of emotional detachment and severity that these photographs convey are finally what Stieglitz was looking for in all his professional years as an artist: a conveyance of his state of being at that point in his life.