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The sum of all the parts of Such – Of each laboratory scene – Is such. While science means this much And means no more, why, let it mean! But were the science-men to find Some animating principle Which gave synthetic Such a mind Vital, though metaphysical – To Such, such an event, I think, Would cause unscientific pain: Science, appalled by thought, would shrink To its component parts again. The first nineteen chapters of this book were written in the third person, with the author assuming the role of the proverbial fly on the wall. This was appropriate because the things described in those chapters are accessible to any observer, directly or indirectly, through his or her senses. In that respect, they exemplify what John Ziman said of science in general – they are public knowledge. The human mind has long been regarded as basically different because of its subjective dimension. We take a third-person stance when considering the workings of minds, admittedly, but our own thoughts are perforce first person and private. In this last chapter, therefore, I shall feel justified in making occasional first-person excursions, and there will even be expressions of my own subjective beliefs about such issues as consciousness and intelligence. But that doesn't imply acceptance of the view that the mind is fundamentally different from anything else in Nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study described in this chapter aimed to elucidate the historical biogeography of howler monkeys in Central America. We expected to find evidence supporting an invasion from a common ancestor of the three species proceding northward from South America into Central America, with mantled howlers and black howlers being sister species that diverged after the northward invasion of a common source population. We examined patterns of variation at eight microsatellite loci across three populations of mantled howler monkeys ranging from Southern Mexico to Panama, and one population each of black howlers (Belize) and red howlers (Venezuela). The data reveal a broad pattern of declining genetic variation from south to north in mantled howlers, and a closest relationship between the two most northerly sampling sites, consistent with the hypothesis of an historical invasion from the south. These populations are also genetically distinctive, indicating limited gene flow among them. Another result that matched our a priori expectations was that the red howler population exhibited the greatest genetic diversity in our comparisons. We were surprised, however, to find that black howlers were the most genetically distinctive population in our data set, suggesting that they are not the sister species of mantled howlers. We suggest to hypotheses that could explain this result. First, black howlers may have decended from a different invasion of Central America that predated the one leading to mantled howlers. Second, black howlers may have arrived in Central America via a different route than that taken by the ancestors of matled howlers. Specifically, they may have used the islands of the Caribbean archipelago as stepping stones to reach their current location without moving up the Isthmus of Panama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a tropical rain forest in Costa Rica. The roar of a howler monkey boomed through the treetops. Down below, four kids stopped walking and looked up. But the jungle was too dark and thick with leaves for them to see anything. Henri, Cynthia, Kevin, and Evelyn were exploring a tropical rain forest. They were in the mountains of Costa Rica, a small country in Central America. The four kids were glad to live in a place so full of incredible plants and animals. But they were looking especially for a famous creature called the golden toad.