Book Description
Gould's seventh collection of essays covers a wide range of subjects in natural history, literature, and popular culture--from the wisdom of Charles Darwin to that of the Old Testament Psalms, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to the dinosaurs of the latest scientific theories, from the thwarted humanity of the Frankenstein monster to the inhuman fallacies of eugenics and other pseudoscience. With black and white illustrations.
"Here is a new collection of Gould's unexpected connections between evolution and all manner of subjects, literature high among them. Gathered from his monthly column in Natural History magazine, these articles should delight, surprise, and inform his vast readership, as have his six prior volumes of essays. Somehow the light bulb pops on every month as his deadline approaches, some glowing fact pulled out of memory--often a line from Shakespeare or Tennyson--that illumines a generality Gould wishes to discuss. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" (Lord Alfred's line) induces dilations on the extent science can inform moral matters (not much, Gould believes); a remembrance of the infamous Wansee protocol prompts Gould's denunciation of the genocidal looting of evolutionary theory and, by extension, its vulnerability to ignoramuses in general. These two examples of the Gouldian essay method, fortunately, don't foreshadow a gloomy parade of topics: Gould can as easily alight at the fun house where mass culture absorbs ideas about evolution through movies of monsters run amok from Frankenstein to Jurassic Park. In other essays, he plunges directly into matters of evolutionary interpretation but customarily employs a literary twist: who else but Gould could link Edgar Allan Poe with his own area of professional eminence, the paleontology of snails? A discovery awaits in every essay--in every haystack--which solidifies Gould as one of the most eloquent science popularizers writing today."
--Booklist
Customer Reviews:
Neither Gould Nor Sagan Will Be Replaced In Our Era.......2005-08-28
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, by Stephen Jay Gould, is one of the twentieth-century's great, approachable thinkers presenting what turned out to be among his final projects. Consisting of a collection of his articles as well as additional thoughts written strictly for this book, Dr. Gould herein tackles topics that range from Poe to the environment, dinosaurs to nautical lore, modern museum architecture, to, yes, of course, his favorite subject, one he rightly or wrongly unfailingly championed to the too-soon end of his days, evolution. These easily-readable and quotable essays are invaluable in this time after this great and good man has left us, and I have re-read this book several times since I first got it as a birthday present in 1995. To be able to make people laugh, think and debate, even after your life has physically ended is not a bad legacy for anyone. Don't let Stephen Jay Gould rest in peace, read this book and stir things up a bit in his name.
Elegant and erudite.......2004-06-10
Gould's 1996 collection of essays for "Natural History" magazine ranges over the broad and varied terrain of his intellect and curiosity, educating and satisfying the reader with elegance, wit and powerful reasoning.
Gould delights in juxtaposing literature and science, the familiar and the unexpected. He chooses "Cordelia's dilemma" - her refusal to compete with her sisters in making loud protestations of love for their father, King Lear - as an analogy for "publication bias" - the reluctance of journals to publish boring negative results in favor of more interesting successful experiments. A positive result in a study of AIDS or cancer treatments wins headlines while later failures to duplicate those results are read by few. And most negative results never see publication at all. "Lear cannot conceptualize the proposition that Cordelia's silence might signify her greater love - that nothing can be the biggest something."
In this collection, Gould divides his essays into eight sections. "Heaven and Earth" includes his marvelous experience of the effect of a solar eclipse on the citizens of New York City, and in "Literature and Science," he ruminates on the moral lesson of Frankenstein and Hollywood's subversion of it.
"Origin, Stability, and Extinction" argues that the Cambrian explosion is even more the "key event" in the history of multicellular animals than previously believed, "Stability" includes "Cordelia's Dilemma," "Extinction" includes the title essay on Darwin's view that "all observation must be for or against some view."
"Writing About Snails" delves into women's Victorian writings (I'm reminded of the value of negative results), "The Glory of Museums" explores "Dinomania" and "The Disparate Faces of Eugenics" revisits the hilarious arguments of an eminent scientist who argued that cancer causes smoking.
"Evolutionary Theory, Evolutionary Stories," explores the arguments of Creationism and the origin of evolutionary science's best one liner (in answer to a question on the nature of the Creator) "an inordinate fondness for beetles," and "Linnaeus and Darwin's Grandfather" uses the whimsical observation of the "curious conjunction" of Linnaeus and Gustav III on a Swedish banknote to explore the scientist's classification theories (still used today) and his adherence to a religious Creationism.
Certain themes recur in these essays. Gould is a staunch evolutionist and defends Darwin's theories vigorously, even when pointing out mistakes and misconceptions. He takes Creationism seriously - as a threat to scientific reasoning. His interest in natural history extends to the history of human thinking about nature and science.
His essays are beautifully crafted, full of literary allusions, anecdotes and turns of wit but always to the point. He loves tracking down the precise source and context of oft-used quotes as much as he enjoys tracing the origin of flatworms, and manages to arouse his reader's interest in both. He is not a writer of wasted words. Best of all, Gould's essays are always as thought provoking as they are entertaining.
Storytelling Dinosaurs.......2003-04-16
Evolution is probably the most exciting natural
truth that science has ever discovered.
And Stephen Jay Goulds essays tells about it
with an infectious enthusiasm. On the way everything
from flat earth myths to ancient Greece and
men like Diogenes the Cynic gets their say.
Rigorous and numerous historical details makes it
a serious, but fun read.
All in all, it is all about the nature and essence
of humanity.
How sad that Stephen Jay Gould is no more.
But at least we have his books!
-Simon
Filling the Gaps.......2002-12-08
This is a review by a non-paleontologist and non-biologist, just by someone interested in science since he was a child in the 60's. All my life I have followed the marvels of Space science, the moon shots and Aviation in general, since subscribing to the Eyring e-mail list, I have found I lack basic knowledge in the fields required to discuss Evolution. Now I have finally done something about it, although some of you may have given recommendations as to what to read, my local library limits me, so I am starting with Stephen Jay Gould, whose recent passing was noted on this very list.
Dinosaur in a Haystack, Reflections in Natural History, (Stephen Jay Gould: 1996 Random House and various issues of Nature magazine).
This is a review of a collection of Essays published in Nature Magazine before 1996 I should imagine. I would have liked the editors to include the original publication dates in Nature with each essay. The essays themselves revolve, sometimes loosely, on the topic of evolution; he always relates it back to that somewhere in the essay.
For someone like myself, a complete novice in the fields discussed by Gould, his style of writing is informative without the jargon that sometimes cloud the specialties us humans undertake from the mere mortals in the lower classes. Gould explains:
"I will, of course, clarify language, mainly to remove the jargon that does impede public access... I will not make concepts either more simple or more unambiguous than nature's own complexity dictates."
I am happy he has done just that, in his 7th in this series of essay collections, the first one published in 1977 (Ever Since Darwin).
All the essays revolve around that topic I am trying to understand, "Evolution." I decided to start with Gould, because of his readily available material at my local library and his prominence in his field. The continuing argument between theology and science on "the origin of man" and hence the oxymoronic term "creation science" was coined by the proponents, or at least, the more prominent proponents of the biblical literal view of the world. Being a Christian, I felt I should find out the truth!
Now, back to Gould, two essays gained my interest for clearly pointing out two points of discussion between Old School and New School on the one hand and between Evolution and Creationists (a better word, don't you think?).
The first is "Dinosaur in a Haystack," the second, "Hooking Leviathan by its Past".
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Observation follows theory or is it theory follows observation? Gould explains how at the time of Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather of Charles Darwin), the Geological Society banned theoretical discussion. It was felt that observation was essential, when sufficient data was collected, and then theories could be entertained. When Charles Darwin came to the discussion some 30 years later, he then indicated the necessity for theory before observation. After all, how we look at the world is based on a theory, what we go out in search of is based on theory, etc. The two are dependant on each other and cannot be separated without making each meaningless.
Thus we come to Gould's paleontology field and the theory of The Late Permian Debacle, and how an asteroid hitting the Earth caused it. The great extinction at this time was a matter of how extant it was amongst the fossil species and, of course, what contradicted it.
The evidence pointed to a gradual extinction of the animals over geologic times. The new theory required additional evidence. Gould tells us about the ammonites ( a name which sounded like a Biblical tribe) and how they had appeared, given the current evidence and how a more thorough look, in the field, at the fossil record (needle in the haystack) might bring up ammonites closer to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (225 million years ago).
The problem is described as this, the rarer animals in the virtual slice of time take at a geological cut, cliff face, or whatever, may be distributed randomly and infrequently through it. Thus, it is conceivable that they did expire at the KT event, indicated by a layer of mud, literally dividing two epochs of time, rather than at the latest recorded disposition in the strata. If the above is true, then a more detailed look, excavation, needs to be made. The end result was the finding of the ammonites near the boundary, and thus dispelling the gradualism of the neo-Darwinists amongst the palaeontological world.
We know the fossil record is incomplete and sparse, so some logical; indeed, rational analysis is needed to flesh out theories. This means, sometimes, hard work, which makes the armchair theorists obsolete in a heartbeat.
Hooking Leviathan by its Past.
Or, another case of filling in the gaps!!!
He starts the essay with a serious error by Darwin himself, who speculated that the North American Black Bear, swimming with its mouth wide open catching insects, could easily, over a serious long time, evolve to something approaching a whale. The origin of the whale thus is introduced.
This is case where the creationists insisted that evolution was inadequate to explaining life; in this case it was the origins of the leviathan of the deep, the mammalian whales that confused these poor people.
"Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found, and continuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence."
Are you a "creationist incubi"?
Gould takes us through the discovery of the very intermediate fossils that prove the evolution of whales, where it had been inferred, now it is established beyond a doubt. With Gould's now famous explanatory skills we are taken for a journey of exploration in Pakistan (Science knows no national boundaries) where 1983 produced Pakicetus, a discovery by paleontologists Phil Gingerich (University of Michigan) and N. A. Wells, D. E. Russel, and S. M. Ibrahim Shah, found it buried in ancient river sediments, where one would expect to find it. The find was only the skull, but further field work produced the remaining body 10 years later. An excellent essay, and one that will remain embedded in my cranium for sometime.
I am currently furthering my reading in this field of paleontology with a taxonomic dalliance into Eugenics, lead by the 3 essays under the heading "Disparate Faces of Eugenics" in this same book to Gould's 1981 book "The Mismeasure of Man".
I highly recommend Dinosaur in a Haystack, and if that is any guide to the style of Gould's work, his other writing should be quite enlightening.
Clifford M Dubery
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History.......2002-03-07
Stephen Jay Gould has a way of bringing out our minds and making us think... Dinosaur in a Haystack is just such a work. These thirty-four essays are what exemplifies Gould's infectiously brilliant and playful intelligence. This book is about evolution and other natural phenomena, but with Gould's trademark twist.
Some of the essays are short stories in their own right with a mystery central to the theme, others are alluring with detail only a professor might want to instill. Thought provoking, unpredictable trajectories, theoretical arguments all fit into the realm of Gould, who can be described as a cunning polemicist, self-indulgent or one of America's Living Legends, but never boring... maybe verbose, but I'll give him that for the detail he brings to his writing.
Dinosaur in a Haystack gives us a book written for the layperson, but a person with a proclivity toward a scientific bent would be of help. There are rigorous and numerous historical details, but Gould has a propensity to contextualize thoroughly, thus imparting the receptive reader, an intrinsic but intuitive knowledge.
If you want to be educated about natural history or phenomena, Gould's musing are right up your alley. Gould is one of todays leading evolutionary thinkers. This book is the product of one of the most fertile minds of our time.
I highly recommend reading this book... not that it is just accessible or stimulating... it is enlightening.
Book Description
Violinist and educator Efrem Zimbalist (1890-1985) led a legendary life in music in an age of violin legends. Of the dazzling stars to emerge from the Russian School at the beginning of the 20th century, Zimbalist earned a special place. David Oistrakh compared him to Heifetz: "While Heifetz conquered by sheer brilliance, Zimbalist captivated people by appealing to profound mysteries of heart and soul." Zimbalist was also one of the century's great teachers, for 40 years devoting himself to the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, serving as its director from 1941 to 1968. His was a remarkable journey, fortunately recounted in hundreds of hours of taped interviews with author and Curtis Institute student Roy Malan, longtime concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Malan then waited nearly a decade after Zimbalist's death before seeking publication, so that the story could be told in its entirety. This definitive biography of the world's first globe-trotting virtuoso also includes a discography and a list of Zimbalist's students.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful.......2007-08-10
Lovingly crafted, Mr. Malan graces us with by far the best biography I have read in recent years. He is able to shed light on so much of Zimbalist's life due to his long-time friendship with the legendary performer, not only the important chronology but every nuance of growing up in the company of Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Elman, Kreisler, Auer, just to name a few. One leaves the book as if he knew Zimbalist and his family personally, with all of their quirks and kindness. Truly a joy to experience.
Engaging.......2006-03-29
I loved this book and could not put it down. This is the best
violin bio since the one on Kreisler which came out 56 years ago. There are great anecdotes here about almost every famous musician of Zimbalist's time. It's too bad it wasn't written years ago when people still remembered who Zimbalist was. I fear that you will miss out on a great book if you don't get it right away. A special-interest book like this usually never comes back into print unless the artist is in recent memory. Even Zimbalist Jr. is 87 this year! This book is so late on the scene that it is nearly the centenary of Zimbalist's debut at Carnegie Hall! Get it now; you won't be sorry --- great pics in it, too.
Covers all the nuances of his life and times.......2004-09-09
Roy Malan is himself a famed concertmaster and solo violinist who studied under Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute, so is the perfect critic to provide biographical embellishment to the life of violinist Efrem Zimbalist, one of the directors of the Curtis Institute of Music. Zimbalist began his professional career at the age of nine, became a celebrity at 17 in a debut in Berlin, and became one of the century's greatest teachers of the instrument: Efrem Zimbalist: A Life covers all the nuances of his life and times.
Fascinating inside look at the life of a concert violinist.......2004-07-29
Roy Malan has written a charming and continuously interesting book that not only tells the life story of the great Russian-born violinist Efram Zimbalist, who eventually headed one of America's most important music schools, but also introduces the reader to a tradition of violin pedagogy and virtuoso performance reaching back to the time of Brahms and involving such fascinating characters as Joseph Joachim, Leopold Auer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mischa Elman, Eugene Ysaye, Jascha Heifetz, and Fritz Kreisler.
Malan is a fabulous raconteur and an excellent writer. Himself a concert violinist, he gives us generous helpings of delectable musical gossip, and does not fail to confront such difficult issues as Zimbalist's desire to sever his Jewish roots, the sometimes painful rivalries between concert stars, and the decline of a musicians' technical powers with age. No specialized musical knowledge is required to understand and enjoy this fascinating book.
Amazon.com
From high school biology classes to natural history specials on the Discovery Channel, we've been lead to believe that through the process of natural selection, life progresses toward increasing complexity. Stephen Jay Gould, a professor of geology and zoology at Harvard University and curator for invertebrate paleontology at the university's museum of comparative zoology disagrees. In Full House, he suggests that new species are just as likely to be more simple as more complex than their parents. He argues that if complexity had the upper hand, bacteria wouldn't be so pervasive, and that some species evolve simply because characteristics for growth and survival concentrate on a group or individual by pure chance.
Book Description
Popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould debunks the idea that evolution is progressive. He shows how the misinterpretation of data results in bad science and bad social policy.
Customer Reviews:
No bias in evolution towards greater complexity - explained.......2007-04-11
Does evolution have a tendency to make more and more complex organisms? Most of us would give a confident yes answer to this question; however this book convinces its readers that no such tendency exists. Gould sets out to prove that since evolution works by local adaptation, organisms can evolve to be less or more complex, according to the environment's needs. This is also recognized by Darwin; however Darwin contemplates a drive towards greater complexity which would arise as a result of biotic competition: When one organism evolves to be more complex, the other should be even more complex in order to displace the former. This is famously illustrated in the wedge metaphor in the Origin of Species. The argument of Darwin makes rational sense. What I liked about this book is that Gould does not argue against this notion, but instead makes a number of predictions that would allow him to differentiate between driven (towards more complexity) and passive evolution. Using empirical data, and a number of definitions of complexity (such as size, nervous system, or fractal dimensions of ammonites) he shows that scientific data supports passive evolution.
However, this book is way too long to tell this story. Gould intentionally builds his case very slowly, which by the way makes a very amusing read, maybe except the parts which are almost a eulogy for the bacterial kingdoms. I believe one could easily understand the whole idea of the book by just reading chapter 12 and looking at figure 29. This idea, albeit simple to grasp in hindsight, is not straightforward to imagine (like all real good ideas), and since it gives a way to think of evolution in broader terms.
Idea is as follows:
There is a left wall of complexity for being alive.
Organisms evolve to higher or lower complexity with no inherent bias toward neither. Since there is a left wall, they can't be simpler than a certain level, however the right wall is open, so the highest complexity attained by organisms increases.
The overall shape and mode of complexity distribution doesn't change.
Another Superb Offering .......2006-12-25
I have been rereading several books in my library on natural selection and came across this one sandwiched between "wonderful Life" and "Eight Little Piggies". The late Stephen Gould was near the top of my "best science writer" list. This was not due to only his literary quality (very high) but to both the always intriguing subject matter and his gentle exposition of natural selection. Unlike some scientists (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) he feels no need to bash, ridicule, insult or fight those who disagree with his view.
His own theories on species creation have been debated extensively but this book is all about contrast. On the one hand he stresses over and over that evolution is without guidance, meaningless to the change that is occurring. The story of the "evolution" of the horse is a good example with the point being that it is a FAILED end-product of evolution. In the huge bush of horse ancestors only one remains. Again, he points out that evolutionary changes were not done for the purpose of a future species. We, as human beings, naturally see current organisms as the final state of a long, continuously evolving pathway. This is absolutely wrong - we are simply at our current state and that's it
A good portion of the book was give over to the question, "Why are there no .400 hitters in baseball?" Paradoxically, he demonstrates that the extinction of this breed is a sign of overall general increase in excellence. This is the paradox - although natural selection is not directed by purpose our own actions are. Of the 50 million species only ours is aware that we are only one of 50 million. ALong the way we get acquainted with a variety of mathematical models, particularly the infamous bell curve that says so much depending on which way it is slanted. Overall - A
Yes and No.......2006-10-27
Having finished Stephen Gould's book Full House let me opine. An excellent book by all accounts, however, to quibble, he does not convince that there is no innate driving mechanism to greater orders of complexity in the universe. For instance, his argument that if you were to replay the tape of human evolution you would get a different result every time begs the question of yes, but how comes it turned out the way that it did....
In other words, he takes an assumption as fact, that everything happens by accident is evidence for him that everything happens by accident. I guess I don't really understand this....it seems to me hard to explain how sub-atomic particles became you and me. Yes, you can say it was all by accident, but it is just a little more than curious that at every stage of evolution, things took a quantum jump to a higher level of complexity and freedom (which goes with it). I've long since stopped disputing the facts of evolution which at this point are overwhelming, billions of bits of data from every field of science all converge on the same conclusion. However, whether it all just happened to be so for no paricular reason, with no outcome in view can't be proven.....
I occurs to me that we should stop thinking in terms of creation vs. evolution and think in terms of "emergence." You and I are what God is doing right now, what God was doing with dinosaurs is about what God was doing then....Now Gould is taking pains to get humans to stop thinking of themselves as some special example at the top of an apex, or that horses today are necessarily an advance over horses yesterday. As he points out, bacteria is much more successful biologically than humans, they're more numerous, they've been around much longer, they can survive miles underground and in water at temperatures of several hundreds....on and on. "Progress" simply defined, as leading to us because we're so special, doesn't exist.
However, however, however, he overdoes it. Because one can truly have it both ways. We can easily envision another quantum jump from homo sapien sapiens to another level. Yes, we might not be the apex, but that doesn't mean that the general trend of to higher orders of complexity is invalidated. He thinks trends, largely speaking, are greatly exaggerated. We see trends where they don't exist.
He says that the path from bacteria to you and me doesn't represent a "trend" but simply a movement away from a left wall of development. It's a very complex argument, but to use his example, imagine a drunk is walking along a path between a wall and a ditch, which way can he go? Into the ditch everytime. In other words, bacteria represent a left wall, a so simple you can't get lots simpler....the ditch toward complexity is where all the change is going to occur. And he uses many examples from baseball and such to prove his point.
There is, also, he says a right wall....in other words, you can only so far in the rightward direction before you max out. No baseball player CAN throw a ball at 140 miles an hour, world records in sports are becoming less frequent, the faster and faster greats are less and less common, not because they no longer exist, but because they're at the tether ends of the right wall....
But....here is exactly where I find him to be unconvincing. In a universe which went from subatomic particles to you and me, where does he get the confidence to put limits on what baseball players may yet achieve?? Even if it's all by accident, you can't rule out further accidents which may yet produce the baseball player who throws at 140 mph.
Second, he begs the question of why the left wall exists in the first place. You can say the left wall just so happens to be there in the nature of things, it just so happens to be the case that.....you can take things for granted. But that doesn't prove a daggone thing. To be intellectually humble, all you can say is, this is the way it is, if there's a "why" to it we haven't discovered that......
Since I'm going on and on, let me go on even further, many theistic evolutionists have made a human-centered error of defining what God is doing in the universe in terms of "progress." Everything mounts up to a higher and higher level of complexity which becomes defined as progress. That's a political imposition on the idea of evolution, as Gould makes clear, Darwin mostly only said of natural selection that it was a local adaption to environmental pressures. The notion of progress was a Victorian political doctrine based on manifest destiny of white colonialists. In the course of time, these two notions became fused....human-centrically. Social-darwinism being a case pre-eminent...
Progress does not necessarily imply evolution upwards and onwards to greater complexity leading to me and thee, evolution is not necessarily progressive. Granted.
But is it the case that simply because something isn't quantifiable it doesn't exist. Let's use one of Gould's own examples from sports. He says "hot hands" don't exist in sports because all of the statistical research shows that just because a basketball player (he used the example of a baseball player, but I'm switching over) makes a shot, doesn't mean he'll make another shot.
Statistically this doesn't appear. But in reality, anyone who has ever watched basketball knows, players get on a roll....we even have terms to describe it "when you're hot your hot" or "he's in the zone" or "he's unstoppable tonight." Mathematically there's no such thing as "when you're hot your hot" but does that then mean it doesn't exist? Harvard biologist extraordinaire Stephen Gould says yes, humble me, lawn tech extraordinaire says no.
Here's a perfect example of ruling something out simply because it isn't quantifiable. He's a great biologist but a poor psychologist. What is happening when a basketball player has "hot hands?" Statistically, apparently, nothing. Psychologically, the player has lost self-consciousness. A player (and often the audience) who is in the zone, that space where everything starts to click, is lost in the moment. The crowd and the player merge, one seething body making slam dunk after slam dunk.....Sit ringside and get caught up in the moment, it's a thing of beauty....mathematically beauty doesn't appear, but subjectively who can't get lost in wonder when it all starts to come together and the team is on a roll.....looking back you can say that was all just sports talk, but I demure....
There is a bridge between science and God and that is through the psyche, what's happening inside of people that can't be quantified....there is a pattern in the universe which maybe cannot be defined so simply as progress defined as higher orders of complexity leading to me and thee.....but however defined, it seems to me to be beyond the powers of linear thinking to simply rule it out because it can't be quantified....if it doesn't exist in math it doesn't exist at all seems to me to be a poor science indeed.....
As Shakespeare said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." -JL
We're Surrounded.......2006-05-23
Having been buried by statistics courses in college, it has always amazed me how people build entire empires out of the slimmest of statistical information. Making judgments based purely on an 'mean' response is an invitation to the error of thinking that a change in average means a trend is developing, or that you are even likely to get an average response in any particular case. To be able to make an even educated guess one has to look at the mode, the median, and various statistical distributions. Even then, it's possible to be wrong, but at least you will have an excuse.
This book by the late Stephen Gould is one of the best discussions of statistical fallacy I've ever seen. Gould starts out with the story of is confrontation with a form of cancer that is almost invariably fatal within a very short time period. Or rather, the modal life span after diagnosis is very short. Gould was a survivor, and his discussion of how the mode has very little to do with individual cases, and how that the studies are skewed by being left limited (there are no negative life expectancies) is enlightening.
Having made his initial point, Gould elaborates it by turning to the disappearance of the .400 batting average. Because there is a lot more information about baseball than there is about a rare form of cancer, Gould is able to look at another form of statistical skew, where there may very well be an upper physical limit, and the field involves multiple variables (pitching, hitting, etc.). By the time he is done the reader will be confident that batting is doing fine, and ready for the real reason Gould wrote Full House - just who really is the boss of earth.
From Victorian times onward one of the 'myths' we humans tell each other is that we are somehow the apex of evolution. That not only is progress (as expressed by intelligence and complexity) inevitable, but that it actually is progress. Using the same statistics that analyzed the .400 average, Gould explodes many of the misunderstandings about what evolution actually is. We are reminded that humans, in fact, all of the 'animal kingdom' are the tiniest part of life on the earth. The creatures with the most species, best ability to survive, and sheer numbers and weight, are the lowly bacteria. For some 3.4 billion years they have ruled the earth, and everything else has been their food.
On top of finding out that we may very well be the last representatives of a dying genera, we must suffer with the fact that we have been beaten out by the most elementary of life forms. Gould reminds us that 'It is a gift to be simple,' writing in a style that is both entertaining and easily accessible. You may start out statistically disadvantaged, but by the end of 'Full House' you will have a much clearer picture of statistics and evolution. While Gould does not break any new territory in this book, he does take us on a wonderful tour of the real world.
Marching forward? backward? . . . or just "diversifying"?.......2004-08-05
After seeing that there were already some 40 or so reviews of this wonderful book, and having read it some years ago I was reluctant to add another. But, being a fan of Gould's magnificent "Wonderful Life" (1989) and seeing some negative, and misleading reviews of this particular book, I had to chime in. To begin with, Gould's books are highly readable and enjoyable as he has a great capacity to relate objective science to the subjective world. "Full House" will be challenging to you if you do not already understand or buy into Darwinism. If not, you'll definitely take issue with his seemingly harsh conclusions (i.e. "Humans are here by the luck of the draw, not the inevitability of life's direction or evolution's mechanism" p.175). The book is about diversity and "the spread of excellence" on earth. Consequently, it puts man in his place (just another organism amongst many, and quite minor compared to bacteria) amongst greater geologic history; and this can be a bit difficult to swallow at first. But read on!
Utilizing baseball and the disappearance of .400 ave. hitting as one major example to illustrate the nature of evolution, Gould shows through statistics how one aspect of the game (hitting) has declined over time, while the rest (pitching & fielding) have increased in skill level. It all makes perfect sense. That's not to say one can't argue with him (although he's now dead), but Gould's contributions to evolutionary theory can be controversial to the unconverted - especially the religious (namely, Catholics & those with firmly held, comfortable beliefs in Manifest Desitiny). Gould (and most science) is directly opposed to this type of anthropocentric thinking; but not, however, traditional Deist beliefs in which God does not interfere with human evolution. In many regards, "Wonderful Life" and "Full House" comfortably fit into an older, more original Christianity - that of Gnosticism, in which the earth is a sort of abandoned proving ground. Gould conjectures: "...perhaps we are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never rise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions" p.18.
The premiss of "Full House" is that "progress is, nonetheless, a delusion based on social prejudice and psychological hope engendered by our unwillingness to accept the plain (and true) meaning of the fourth Freudian revolution" p.20. Later on, Gould reiterates: "The vaunted progress of life is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward inherently advantageous complexity" p.173. He could be wrong. He could be right. He does however back up his ideas with plenty of observable proofs, experience (he was a paleontologist), and statistics - all in Gould's entertaining and thought-provoking signature style. The fact is, neither Gould nor Darwin nor Freud is saying a person ought to stop striving for excellence - in fact, they're encouraging it! Reading a book like "Full House", or "Wonderful Life" is challenging to many commonly held assumptions about human life, and thus, potentially upsetting, but ultimately uplifting in my view. One optimistic conclusion that may be drawn from this seemingly dismal and dry evolutionary theory is that our life is a unique, wonderful opportunity unparalleled, and definitely not the norm of things.
If the above quotes from the book sound intriguing to you, and you're craving more information, then I highly recommend you try both "Full House" and it's paradigm shifting predecessor, "Wonderful Life". I guarantee that you'll come away with a mind more open, and thoughtful about evolution and life than ever before. Happy reading!
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Catholic Digest: People Are Like That (Catholic Digest)
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ASIN: 0787111937 |
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Catholic Digest: Words for Quiet Moments
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ASIN: 0787111945 |
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Confucius in the Boardroom: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Lessons for Business
Stefan Rudnicki , and
Jr., Efrem Zimbalist
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ASIN: 157453310X |
Book Description
Turning to the ancient wisdom of China for insight into conducting business humanely and effectively, the topics in this program include leadership, strategy, selling, personnel, and ethics. Newly adapted selections from the writings of Confucius, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu, and others present a practical vision for the executive.
Customer Reviews:
A Surrealist Masterpiece.......2006-12-02
I have just ordered my third copy of this book for .58
The other to got loaned out and never returned. That's
how great this book is. The passage on Tammy Faye dealing
with her dog Chi Chi could be the basis for an Indie Cult Film.
Run To The Roar has valuable Wisdom for the Believer.......2006-05-08
I read this book years ago. It still sticks in my mind how much good I got out of it.
In life we have to go through many storms, not weather related, but tests and trials of the enemy. Instead of trying to get out of it, she tells about how she conquered her fears by not running away from them, but running right into them.
When you do that they disperse. It reminds me of geese. They are very aggressive and if you allow them they will try to back you down, but if you run through them and swing your arms they will move out of your way and instead of you bring intimidated, they will disperse and move out of the way. You are in control and not them.
Something most of us need to know when we are facing the storms of life.
God tells us in James 1:2-4 Amplified Version
2 Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. 3 Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.
4 But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.
This is what the book is about. I loved the book when I read it, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who has fears of any kind because she points you in the right direction to Jesus who showed her what to do about her fears.
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- Stories of Compassion and Volunteerism for a better world
- x-mas in april, may, june, july......
- ....growing nationally.....the call to service!!!
- a collaboration of voices celebrating service
- Wonderful motivations of the "goodness" in the human spirit.
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Stone Soup for the World
Marianne Lamed
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Stone Soup for the World: Life-Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes
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Sony WMFX479 Walkman
ASIN: 0787117293 |
Customer Reviews:
Stories of Compassion and Volunteerism for a better world.......2000-07-27
Stone Soup for the World is a set of 100 stories about compassion and volunteerism. From the intro by Colin Powell to the story of Ms.Larned's young brother, the whole book was a joy to read. I especially loved the Nelson Mandela and Paul Newman stories. This book has stirred me to be a better person and to help others. I recently walked in honor of my aunt who passed away from cancer and raised money doing it. It felt good just as these stories felt good. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to people from 9 to 99.
x-mas in april, may, june, july.............1998-10-02
service throughout the day, throughout the month, throughout the year....100 stories of giving...the notes at the end of each story to jump into service in your community are a link to giving. .My favorite story was Christmas in April---I must admit I cheered for Frances as she conquered the steps--I read later that she and the writer are enthusiastic pen pals...what inspiration. Thank you to the 100 stone soup writers. You gave me a taste of who inspires you.
....growing nationally.....the call to service!!!.......1998-08-30
......one of the chapters in this book, these stories reflect movements that we should let sweep the nation!!!! Read and be inspired...told simply, the 90+ writers for this book brought these community heroes home....
a collaboration of voices celebrating service.......1998-08-29
such a pleasure to read these stories... such an opportunity for all involved with the project to share their words...you never know, maybe someone was inspired to do something today...by simply reading...as long as Stone Soup for the World is available to America's youth we know we have a bright future ahead... My favorites: The Forgiveness Party, Table for 6 Billion Please, and Peace for Their Grandchildren....and there are 97 more to read and pass on....
Wonderful motivations of the "goodness" in the human spirit........1998-08-26
On occasion one of those books comes along that I can't put down. This collection of short (3 - 5 pages each) true stories are of people about whom, after I have read the story, I consistently say, "Why didn't I know that before reading this?" This book is truly an insight into past and current history through the prism of what stirs the heart and spirit.
Books:
- Drawing From The Modern
- Einstein: His Life and Universe
- Facts and Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery: 8 Projects, 20 Blocks, First-Person Accounts
- Film Directing: Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)
- Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
- Flotsam (Caldecott Medal Book)
- Fortune's Fool (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 3)
- God of the Rodeo: The Quest for Redemption in Louisiana's Angola Prison
- Grandma and Me
- Guitar Player Repair Guide
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- History: Fiction or Science
- The Nature of Consciousness : The Structure of Reality: Theory of Everything Equation Revealed : Sci
- Shadow Over Kiriath
- Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology
- Professional Practice for Interior Designers, 3rd Edition
- The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms
- The Book of Texas County Comparisons
- Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, And Sargent
- Karl Ernst Von Baer {1792-1876} Anton Dohrn {1840-1909}: Correspondence
- Becoming Financially Sound in an Unsound World
The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History
Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History (Norton Paperback)
Ever Since Darwin: Reflections on Natural History
