Thursday, July 14, 2011

Starting on the Gnoll Credo

Just to keep posting, I've been fairly busy this summer working on coursework, lab work, and also getting ready to apply to grad school, something that I'm getting more comfortable the closer I get to it.

Anyway, I recently decided to get The Gnoll Credo by J. Stanton, and I'm enjoying that it's a fairly short read. I decided to get the book after reading a couple blog posts on his site, and thinking that he's making some good points.

As I'm reading the book, he's developing some of the same philosophies about western civilization that I've been thinking about recently. I'm planning on fleshing these ideas out a bit more, so I'll be writing about them later. I think I'll also analyze more of the book, because the writing style reminds of what Daniel Quinn did in Ishmael, in that to convey an idea, they tell a story. I find this method of idea conveyance quite effective, since it's putting an idea in context, so it can be easily conceptualized. Along these lines I also think Stanton puts a little too much added flesh into the story, but I guess that's me reading it knowing that there's underlying concepts that I should be finding. I'll work this up with more detail later.

Edit: As kind of an afterthought, I'm starting to think about ways to increase my understanding of evolutionary concepts (and how I could possible blend that into what I'l be studying in grad school). There's a lot of evolutionary thought flowing through the Gnoll Credo, and I'd say that if you're approaching paleo right, then you're dealing with a whole lot of evolutionary thought and conjecture. I'd pay not to screw it up.

I'll just add Modern Evolutionary Theory to the list of things I need to read about and learn. Yikes.

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