Ever since Darwin : reflections in natural history

Format:

Book

Title:

Ever since Darwin : reflections in natural history

Author:

Gould, Stephen Jay.

ISBN:

9780393064254

9780393308181

9780393009170

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

New York : Norton, [1977]

Physical Description:

285 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Contents:

Darwiniana : Darwin's delay -- Darwin's sea change, or five years at the captain's table -- Darwin's dilemma: the odyssey of evolution -- Darwin's untimely burial -- Human evolution : A matter of degree -- Bushes and ladders in human evolution -- The child as man's real father -- Human babies as embryos -- Odd organisms and evolutionary exemplars : The misnamed, mistreated, and misunderstood Irish elk -- Organic wisdom, or why should a fly eat its mother from inside -- Of bamboos, cicadas, and the economy of Adam Smith -- The problem of perfection, or how can a clam mount a fish on its rear end? -- Patterns and punctuations in the history of life : The pentagon of life -- An unsung single-celled hero -- Is the Cambrian explosion a sigmoid fraud? -- The great dying -- Theories of the earth : The Reverend Thomas' dirty little planet -- Uniformity and catastrophe -- Velikovsky in collision -- The validation of continental drift -- Size and shape, from churches to brains to planets : Size and shape -- Sizing up human intelligence -- History of the vertebrate brain -- Planetary sizes and surfaces -- Science in society-a historical view : On heroes and fools in science -- Posture maketh the man -- Racism and recapitulation -- The criminal as nature's mistake, or the ape in some of us -- The science and politics of human nature : Race, sex, and violence : Why we should not name human races-a biological view -- The nonscience of human nature -- Racist arguments and IQ -- Sociobiology : Biological potentiality vs. biological determinism -- So cleverly kind an animal.

Summary:

Provides information on developments in evolutionary theory, discussing such topics as the Cambrian population explosion, Velikovsky's theories, and others.

Subject(s):

Evolution (Biology) -- History.

Natural selection -- History.

Evolution (Biology)

Natural selection.

Evolution -- History.

Genre:

History

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	576.8 Gould 1977	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	576.8 GOULD	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Reissued in a larger format, this popular anthology offers an introduction to the wonders and depths of evolutionary biology. "A remarkable achievement by any measure . . . One is hard pressed to single out past writers who could wear the sobriquet of natural history essayist with such distinction".--Chicago Tribune. Illustrations.

Author Notes

Born in New York City in 1941, Stephen Jay Gould received his B.A. from Antioch College in New York in 1963 and a Ph.D. in paleontology from Columbia University in 1967. Gould spent most of his career as a professor at Harvard University and curator of invertebrate paleontology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His research was mainly in the evolution and speciation of land snails.

Gould was a leading proponent of the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This theory holds that few evolutionary changes occur among organisms over long periods of time, and then a brief period of rapid changes occurs before another long, stable period of equilibrium sets in. Gould also made significant contributions to the field of evolutionary developmental biology, most notably in his work, Ontogeny and Phylogeny.

An outspoken advocate of the scientific outlook, Gould had been a vigorous defender of evolution against its creation-science opponents in popular magazines focusing on science. He wrote a column for Natural History and has produced a remarkable series of books that display the excitement of science for the layperson. Among his many awards and honors, Gould won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His titles include; Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory and Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin.

Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20, 2002, following his second bout with cancer. (Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

What pleasure there is in following Stephen Gould's short essays on Darwin, evolution, odd creatures great and small, foibles and fashions in science. These pieces, all culled from the Harvard paleontologist's monthly column in Natural History, make fine introductions to ongoing controversies in biology as well as preferring personal interpretations, science history, and the kind of fascinating minutiae that appeals to minds that like fascinating minutiae. (Why did the Irish elk--neither Irish nor elk--develop twelve-foot spreads of antlers? Why do certain gall midges devour their mothers from inside?) The common theme running through the essays concerns the origins of all living things and centers on the many interpretations of earth history and evolution that persist today. Against the molecular evolutionists who argue for the random yet regular evolutionary change in genes and the contrary views of sociobiologists who see the firm hand of selection determining that all major patterns of behavior are adaptive, Gould takes a pluralistic stand, as Darwin himself did. ""Really big questions succumb to the richness of nature--change can be directed or aimless, gradual or cataclysmic, selective or neutral. I will rejoice in the multifariousness of nature and leave the chimera of certainty to politicians and preachers."" Readers will rejoice, too. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.