Stephen Jay Gould was our finest popularizer of science and among natural history's most eloquent essayists. His untimely demise at the relatively young age of 60 is a tragic loss not only to paleobiology and evolutionary biology, but to all of humanity. "I Have Landed" is a fitting epitaph to Gould's glorious careers in science and the art of letters.

According to the book, the hebrew language has
no exact present tense?? The infinitely brief, the
very essense of the present, is not to be found - it
can be neither fixed, nor measured. It is therefore
completely justifiable, grammaticale speaking,
to leave out the present?

Yet, obviously, it is from the present we look at the
past and towards the future.
Stephen Jay Gould is always a pleasure to listen to -
and the right one to put time into perspective.
For a palaeontologist, like Gould, 7000 years
(timespand of human culture) is really no more than
the twinkling of an eye. So all we know is really in
the present - which hardly exist!

From this position we look out into concepts like
the eternity - which we obviously really can't grasp.
And into ourselfes were e.g. DNA was discovered as recently
as 1953. Mystery upon mystery.
So, we struggle to discover instances of regularity and
to fit them together with the help of stories. We throw
in a little religion "were religions do not
ask questions, they answer them". Still we are far
removed from any real "understanding".

And that is what these conversations are about.
With Umberto Eco and Stephen Jay Gould - it is
of course an ok read. But only an appetizer.

-Simon

Just think of a coffee table discussion, of a one on one discussion and you get to read the answers on questions of import. Each answering these questions with their respective insights and down-to-earth style. Each having their respective life experiences to draw from to unravel perplexing questions.

With fascination you read the thought-provoking answers. The answers will suprise some, others may be right inline with what you'd expect, but nerver boring... challenging, educational, lucid and erudite are more what you'd expect and you are not dissapointed.

This book reads fast and the questions are cogent with the general topic. Each respective thinker answers in a style of their own and the reader does not feel irrelevant. This is an interesting book in that questions asked make the reader think as well.

I found the book to be highly interesting and it has a fascination woven throughout the text captivating the reader.

I'm talking about that Darwinian theory of Natural Selection you keep telling as if it were true. It is "differential reproductive success". So then that means I need at least 2 different things to call some event NS. So then I ask myself what do these 2 different things have to do with each other? So then I say well either they influence each other's reproduction some way, or they could as well be in different environments. So they must influence each other's reproduction some way. So then I ask, what ways can the one influence the reproduction of the other?

+/- increase reproduction at cost of the other +/+ mutual increase of each other's reproduction -/- mutual decrease of each other's reproduction +/0 and so on -/0 0/0

but what you do, is pretend like there are only +/- relationships. You ignore all other type of relationships with NS. Your natural selection theory is false, for being unsystematic in describing the relationships between living beings. You make teachers into liars by it.

Gould is unparalled when it comes to taking complicated theory and having the ability to evoke enlightenment to the general mass public as he brings a passion to his explanations and an understanding par excellence. Reading Gould's rather convesational tone in this book brings a wealth of information to the reader in a painless fashion.

Gould is truly a natural philosopher when it comes to spinning a story as he brings to the table a wealth of information as you read and the conclusion comes to you in a rather lively and fascinating manor. Gould has hit his stride with these essays.

This book was a joy to read and educational, bringing the reader witty learned sense making you follow till you see his conclusion. The prose flows well and you will feel that you are in capable hands as you are guided throughout the book.

There are 33 essays in the tome that are unparalleled and are far beyond any of his contemporaries, but brought to us by his unmatched ability, so the common man can understand his intrinsic intuitive profundity.

Gould brings us essays on Darwiniana, Human Evoution, Odd Organisms and Evolutionary Exemplars, Patterns and Punctuation in the History of Life, Theories of the Earth, Size and Shape, from Churches to Brains to Planets, Science in Society-- a Historical View, The Scince and Politics of Human Nature. All of these are thought provoking with a sophistication unmatched in the realm of science today.

As we read on in the book, we see the knowledge brought to us. Can we who read this comprehend both the lessons and the limits of scientific understanding here? Gould brings us his thoughts, as we read, I can only wonder and learn. This is a remarkable achievement.

One can argue that no scientific theory has caused more controversies than Darwin's theory. Not to mention the history of the conflicts between religious beliefs and the evolutionary theory, many people today still have trouble accepting it, no matter how all the evidences appear to favor the theory.

Ever Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould, however, is not a mere collection of praise songs for the triumph of science. In his essays, Darwinian interpretations of evolutionary biology are illuminated in light of the (enjoyable, at least for us) struggles of those thinkers of conflicting theories. Through citing rich evidences in the history of evolutionary biology, Gould emphasizes the inevitability of having human bias in scientific process.

This is a kind of book that I strongly recommend to students who tend to develop a misconception that science exists only to make their academic experience at school painful. Textbooks do not teach science as much as Gould's essays do. Why?

Science often tends to be seen as the culmination of the infallible facts and evidences deriving from perfectly logical thinking by a few great minds. Gould provides numerous examples to show this is not really the case. In fact, you learn that scientists, who are supposed to thrive for objectivity, suffer quite often from their own agenda and intellectual bias. It is as much a creative, human activity as art and literature, and Gould's excellent essays illuminate that endeavor, not just the bits of accepted facts to regurgitate. All this is done via the discussions of various interesting topics from a baby fly eating its own mother to the dubious attempts to link biological findings to justify racial inequality.

The only thing I fear about this great work is that it will inevitably be dated, having written during 1970s. Nevertheless, the essence of Gould's writing should not be tarnished by newer discoveries. After all, Gould's point is to illuminate science as a dynamic activity.

While some new information has come to light in the last thirty-five years, it has only supplemented what Asinof learned--to my knowledge none of it has been refuted. Considering the number of basements and old offices likely cleared out in the intervening time, and at least one definitely pertinent discovery that I'm aware of (the Grabiner notes), this is quite an accomplishment. Recommended both as baseball history and as a portrait of a lusty, turbulent time.

What he doesn't do is take sides and seems to write the book as a distant observer. But at the end you seem to feel somewhat sorry for some of the players involved, especially the ones among the eight (Buck Weaver, Joe Jackson) who didn't necessarily throw their games but were banned for life anyway because of their knowledge of the conspiracy. What would you have done in their position?

Overall, it's most likely the best summary of one of the most incredible and darkest events in sports history. It's must read for all sports fans.

Nonetheless, they are well-researched and written in Gould's loving detail for the accurate story, in contrast to the historical myth. You might find yourself skimming the details of animal classifications to find the gems that remind us of major shifts in scientific thinking.

The second three sections are written to a broader audience and start with obituaries of Carl Sagan, Mel Allen and Joe DiMaggio. These essays are more readable (though Gould continues his love for parenthetical additions at least twice on every page). In this latter half of the book, Gould covers subjects such as social Darwinism; Dolly (the cloned sheep) and the nurture vs. nature argument; ways in which evolution is visible among living species; and competitive equilibrium in nature. Here Gould ensures that his essays are relevant to current social issues.

However, some of his essays really needed editing, and one piece on some geological minutae once again proves how dull a topic geology can be. His liberal POV matches mine, but he's yet another scientist sho can't find one nice thing to say about religion. And we don't need any essays from him on baseball. I love baseball too, but I don't read science books to read about Joe DiMaggio any more than I read Mike Lupica to learn about Einstein. I guess it's nice to be so famous that you can be self-indulgent every time.

Still, this book has a lot going for it if you like your science hard and your approach to weighty matters light. Just don't expect the same kind of breeziness that Arthur C. Clarke's essay tend to have.

Two factors make Gould's essays stand out from most science writing--the depth of his ideas and his unmatched ability to peel back layers of approximate understanding and convenient storytelling to get to what actually happened. Whether he's detailing the founding moments of palentology and geology or excavating Alfred Russel Wallace's forays into predicting the future, you know that you're going to get the real story, impeccably told, straight from the primary sources. As a science writer, I'm awed as much by Gould's impeccable scholarship as by the quality and originality of his thinking. Gould is absolutely clear-eyed about the progress of science. The tales he tells reflect it as a richly human enterprise, groping its way forward despite misconceptions, hoaxes, and the personal quirks of its protagonists.

This book is not a light or easy read, but it is a richly rewarding one.

Robert E. Adler
Science Journalist
Author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation

The Burgess Shale is a rock formation in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of the most valuable fossil repositories in the world because of the presence of many soft body fossils from about 570 million years ago - the time of the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion was when most multicellular life first made it's appearance, all in a relatively short period of time. Soft body fossils are very rare and occur only under very unusual conditions, making them invaluable when found.

In the early part of this century Charles Doolittle Walcott ( a fascinating man whose life story is quite a tale and is partially given in this book) worked in the Burgess Shale and collected thousands of fossils. Most of these were classified as ancestors of modern groups of animals and while interesting, not earth shaking discoveries. In the Seventies Harry Whittington of Cambridge University and two of his talented students revisited the fossils of the Burgess shale and came to a radical and entirely different conclusion. The creatures from this one quarry may well exceed, in anatomical variation, the entire spectrum of invertebrate life in the ocean today. For example, today among the almost one million described arthropod species there are only four major groups. The fossils in the Burgess Shale have representatives from all four groups. But it also holds more than twenty other arthropod groups that are unknown today! The conventional notion that life starts with a few basic types that eventually diversify into many types of animals and plants is turned on it's head. The contention here is that life's story is one of maximal diversity early and a continuing reduction of basic types of life.

Mr. Gould goes into fairly explicit details of some of the animals from the Burgess Shale. There is the five-eyed Opabinia, the two foot long Sidneyia, and the aptly named, strange and wonderful specimen, Hallucigenia. These animals fit into no modern group. For some readers the detail and jargon used to describe these animals may be discouraging. It is somewhat difficult for the layman but not to the point of making the book unreadable. Most of the information can be readily understood and what can't is not important for understanding and enjoying the book as a whole.

For Mr. Gould, it is indeed a wonderful life. In fact he marvels that we are here at all to contemplate this subject. His main thrust is that if the tape of life's history was played again it is almost inconceivable that things would turn out anything like they are now, including the existence of man. Why do the arthropods of today include the present four groups and not four of the other twenty or so present in the Burgess Shale? Mr. Gould 's answer is chance, pure chance. He contends that the groups that survived were not inherently better or more likely to survive than the groups that didn't. In Mr. Gould's view, no present day scientist could go back the days of the Cambrian explosion, survey the existing forms of life and predict which types would survive to the present day and which types would perish. He concludes the book with a short discussion of Pikaia, a Burgess Shale fossil now classified as a Chordate, a member of our phylum and the first recorded member of man's immediate ancestry. Pikaia was a rather limited and inconspicuous member of the Burgess community. Why did it survive to perhaps eventually lead to humankind? Pure and utter chance is Mr. Gould's answer. Our existence today is entirely contingent on the survival of this one strange animal among many that did not survive.

Mr. Gould's interpretation may be upsetting to some. It certainly flies in the face of much conventional wisdom and religious belief. However, I find his case compelling. Like George Bailey, if we were able to replay life's tape with small changes we would likely view a very unfamiliar world.

Mr. Gould is the author of numerous books on evolution and the history of life. Most of these are collections of essays. I recommend any of these to the reader. All are interesting and enlightening reading

The book's title has a meaning to it, not only about life in the Burgess Shale, but also one of Gould's favorite movies. So, with all of Gould's writings, you have to read, understand, and follow the author's intent. Gould brings a wealth of history to his writings, so the reader can understand the footing and basis for Gould's conclusions.

As with this stand alone book, about an area no greater than a city block and ten feet deep yeilds a look into the past some six hundred millions years ago. Now, under the watchfull eye of Gould we see how that long ago life functioned and how those dozens of creatures lived. Gould makes these creatures come to a Wonderful Life.

We see Gould review what Dr. Charles D. Walcott had. There is still some controversy as to whom is correct... Walcott vs. Gould, but as more people review this empirical data, we shall see the truth emerge, emphaticly emprised as it may be. Gould writes about Professor H.B. Whittington's reinterpretation of these fossils after forty years in the drawers of the Smithsonian.

Throughout the book Gould moves methodically, bringing the reader ever closer to his interpretation of the data, as to how these perfectly preserved creatures tell their stories to those who will listen. Gould does a good job bringing this story to the masses in a way that is comprehesible and understandable.

Also, you'll find Gould's highly inquisitive mind working the possibilities of natures struggle, intensely debating the outcome of vastly different scenarios had things and events changed the Burgess Shale's outcome. Gould ponders the importance of the diversity of the Burgess Shale and why it is important.

All in all, this book is thought-provoking, well written and displays Gould's depth in writing. Reading this book will educate the reader and helps in the understanding of life and it tenuousness.

But first, I must register amazement that he does not mention Lynn Margulis. To write a definitive analysis of evolution, but not include Margulis seems incredible! Why? He knows of Margulis; he even wrote a forward to one of her books. But not one reference, naja. He references practically everybody else, even Dawkins. Something is rotten in Denmark.

But, other than that flaw, Gould as usual, provides a cogent analysis of the good and bad points of evolutionary thinkers, such as D'arcy Thompson, Lamarck, Weismann giving them the benefit of the doubt and their due. I agree with Gould in trying to understand the reasoning behind each scientist's ideas and the social context behind the ideas at the time, because it helps you see when and how much the facts support the current thinking, and how, maybe one's own time biases the metaphors and perspectives.

Of course, Gould does push his own ideas, and luckily he admits that he has been wrong several times and that there will be developments in the area of molecular genetics that will undoubtly invalidate some of his facts (there aren't many authors do admit their mistakes). He finally admits to liking levels of selection and does a creditable job explaining some of the basic ideas, including credit to at least one researcher, Leo Buss. Not bad for a paleontologist, as Gould is.

His understanding of the mainstream biological evolutionary thinking will serve as a good reference point. This will serve as a reasonable textbook for the standard zoological evolutionary perspective. He carefully examines all issues from that perspective. It is quite an accomplishment. Punctuated Equilibrium, Exaptation, Drift, etc. he explains it all and well, and as always in detail (yes +1400 pages).

But unfortunately his perspective and work is limited by what he knew best, so despite it being a momentual and valuable work, its important to pick up some other books that show that the Structure of Evolutionary Theory is not done by a long shot. For Lynn Margulis' Acquiring Genomes, coming out just month later makes neo-darwinian thinking (including Gould, despite his conversion to levels of selection) look rather zoological and eucaryotic centric, and somewhat parochical in its perspective.

As long as you realize that Gould presents only part of the puzzle of evolution, I think you will realize its a magnificent piece, nevertheless.

However, the book is extremely long, and it didn't have to be. For one thing, the first introductory chapter is really rambling and kind of pointless, with lots of incredibly abstract ideas about the nature of theories in general, etc. I almost stopped reading it early on, thinking "this is a just bunch of philosophy B.S., not real science" but I kept going and I'm glad I did. Once you get past the introduction, and get to the meat of the book, its much much better. Although I have to say, the whole book could have benefited from a little selective cutting. I'm sure we're all very impressed that Gould knows how to use phrases like "ceteris paribus" and "sensu latu" but for those of us who don't go around speaking dead languages, this is just a silly distraction. But on the other hand Gould's style of writing is interesting to read and a little bit different, so even if it is extra verbose and confusing, the effect is artistic, like a Pynchon novel, and once one gets used to it, it's quite enjoyable. Another reason the book is so long is a huge section on history of evolutionary theory, similar to the historical part of "ontogeny and phylogeny", but in both cases there is a point to the history, it isn't just for the sake of history, but for the sake of understanding the modern debate, that these old debates are discussed. Do not skip this part!

I absolutely recommend this book to anyone with a basic background in biology. It would help to read it in conjunction with one or more books on evo-devo. Ontogeny and Phylogeny is also required reading before you start this book. Also, one needs a big block of time. It is dense enough that it has to be read fairly continuously, if one were to read a little, then put it down for a while, it would be easy to lose the thread of the discussion.

Don't try to read this book straight through. I found I did much better skipping ahead when the going got slow and then coming back later. Gould facilitiates this approach by clearly noting where related material has been covered earlier in the book. One more thing--at its price, this book is one of the biggest bargains around.