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Summary: Engaging!
Review: A great collection of essays! Brilliantly written and presented scientific thought. Gould cuts through years of misinformation by taking the time to research original reference materials and leaving nothing for granted. I found his approach to issues involving science and religion to be most direct, honest and refreshing. Highly recommended for all readers, and a must have for historians and scientists alike.
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Summary: Terrific Essays - A must for S.J. Gould fans
Review: As always, Gould throws his best at you in this collection of essays from Natural History.If you've liked his collections, you'll love this. It has been a joy to watch his development as an essayist over the years.
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Summary: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms
Review: As Stephen Jay Gould's writes another book of thought provoking essays, here he toys with us with the title to this book. The title is about two seperate essays and they are well written. Understanding nature itself is what Gould is doing here... making a point in his customary brillance. There are short biographies, puzzles and paradoxes, all the time Gould is leading us through his thought prossess and reasoning. This is a very good collection of essays and well worth the time to read. Read and enjoy.
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Summary: Gould succeeds in making da Vinci human.
Review: Can you imagine what it must be like to take an essay test in one of Stephen Jay Gould's classes? He's not only a better scholar, he's also a better writer. He demonstrates this admirably once again in Leonardo's Mountain of Clams. The title essay, which opens the collection, explores da Vinci's motivations in exploring fossil history. Gould stands in awe of da Vinci's genius, but he also shows how the scientist/artist was also clearly a figure of his own time -- and a bit of a celebrity to boot. The other essays are solid, but they lack some of the whimsy that made his earlier books so enjoyable. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is a solid narrator and doesn't intrude on the listening, the way some "name" celebrity readers have been known to do.
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Summary: Fun and interesting stuff
Review: Common themes aside, each essay in this collection stands alone well, establishing an interesting point, developing it, and wrapping it up. The issues range all over the place and have their fair share of digressions...But I found that entertaining: Each essay is like a slightly more structured version of a really good conversation with a very intelligent, interesting person over an afterdinner drink (albeit a very one-sided conversation...although I have been known to interject at times). It's all very well written, and readable to the layperson. The jumping around from subject matter to subject matter also keeps it interesting if you're not too hard core about any particular one of them...And I walked away after the 20 or so essays with enough new trivia to make me appear way more well-read than I actually am!
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Summary: As usual, a nice collection of essays by Gould
Review: I have greatly admired Stephen J. Gould's essays over the years because I generally find them clear and humane. I tend to agree with most of his evolutionary views, although I think that he pushes too much the roles of contingency and natural selection in the history of life. Certainly, there are other biological mechanisms acting on evolutionary change, some of which have been brilliantly discussed by Stuart Kauffman in his book "At Home in the Universe." In any case, in "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms," Gould again presents us with some food for thought. I found the essay on the separation of the scientific and religious realms of thought ("Non-Overlapping Magisteria") quite appropriate for people in the United States in particular, but my favorites were "A Lesson from the Old Masters," "Brotherhood by Inversion (or, As the Worm Turns)" and "Triumph of the Root-Heads," not only because Gould is at the top of his writing skills explaining difficult biological or paleontological ideas, but because the phenomena themselves are so incredible. Other essays were somewhat trivial (I really didn't see much in "Can We Truly Know Sloth and Rapacity?") and even forced (despite its undeniable humane message, "The Diet of Worms and the Defenestration of Prague" comes to my mind). I would imagine that, despite Gould's impressive intellectual talents, meeting a monthly schedule for "Natural History" magazine for such a long time in some instances must result in repetition and lack of interesting subjects to write about. If you are an avid Gould reader, however, this book will not dissapoint you.
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Summary: As usual, a nice collection of essays by Gould
Review: I have greatly admired Stephen J. Gould's essays over the years because I generally find them clear and humane. I tend to agree with most of his evolutionary views, although I think that he pushes too much the roles of contingency and natural selection in the history of life. Certainly, there are other biological mechanisms acting on evolutionary change, some of which have been brilliantly discussed by Stuart Kauffman in his book "At Home in the Universe." In any case, in "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms," Gould again presents us with some food for thought. I found the essay on the separation of the scientific and religious realms of thought ("Non-Overlapping Magisteria") quite appropriate for people in the United States in particular, but my favorites were "A Lesson from the Old Masters," "Brotherhood by Inversion (or, As the Worm Turns)" and "Triumph of the Root-Heads," not only because Gould is at the top of his writing skills explaining difficult biological or paleontological ideas, but because the phenomena themselves are so incredible. Other essays were somewhat trivial (I really didn't see much in "Can We Truly Know Sloth and Rapacity?") and even forced (despite its undeniable humane message, "The Diet of Worms and the Defenestration of Prague" comes to my mind). I would imagine that, despite Gould's impressive intellectual talents, meeting a monthly schedule for "Natural History" magazine for such a long time in some instances must result in repetition and lack of interesting subjects to write about. If you are an avid Gould reader, however, this book will not dissapoint you.
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Summary: What happened to my review of this book?
Review: I spent a considerable time and efforts writing a review of this book last week - it has not yet been posted. Please let me know when or if it will be posted.
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Summary: NOMA
Review: Non-Overlapping MAgisteria. Say what? Sorry, let me back up. I'm anxious to get to the crux of the book, but let's slow down. Stephen Jay Gould was born to immigrant Jewish parents in New York City and spent his childhood there. I do not recall any mention of brothers or sisters, nor later, of wife and children. He is listed on the dust jacket as Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology and professor of geology at Harvard and the Vincent Astor visiting professor of biology at New York University. For years, he wrote essays and now collects several of them into this book. He might be called a zoologist, geologist, paleontologist, and evolutionist. I think of him mainly as the latter. Who you going to call when you meet a creationist? Why, Dr. Gould, that's who. Stephen Gould spreads before us such a feast of information - ideas, thoughts, and insights - that not everyone will be interested in every topic he discusses. For myself, I can do without root-heads, but I am very interested in his comments on science, religion, and human evolution. Science is hinted at in the title by "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams," religion by "The Diet of Worms," but one must look inside the book to find evolution. Science and religion have competed for centuries for the minds and souls(?) of humans. At one time, religion was so dominant that it could make the most renowned scientists bow down and recant everything they believed. About this, Will Durant wrote in The Reformation, "A supreme and unchallengeable faith is a deadly enemy to the human mind." Religion is implied by the word "faith," but "science" could be substituted and the statement would remain true. Science successfully challenged religion, but now science itself needs to be challenged. The only realistic contender at this time is religion. Which brings us back to Non-Overlapping MAgisteria. Magisterium means Teaching Authority of the (Catholic) Church. Dr. Gould maintains that the Church's Magisterium extends over questions of moral meaning and value. Science's Magisterium extends over the empirical realm - what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). He claims that these do not overlap, hence NOMA. But evolution, particularly human evolution, presents a problem to this division of the world of knowledge. Science generally considers humans as an extension of the biological world. The Church considers humans as special creations outside the hurly-burly of the biological world. What to do? The Church will accept human evolution if Science will accept that souls are immediately created by God. Stephen Jay Gould, self-styled Jewish agnostic, believes that evolution is true and entirely compatible with Christian belief. This seems too self-congratulatory to me. We as humans are part of the biological world, but we as humans get a soul breathed into us. What about animals? What about creatures that sacrifice their lives for us? Are they to be left out in the evolutionary rat race while we stand above it? NOMA is a pact entered into without the consent of the vast numbers of non-humans in the biological world. Who needs their consent? Well, I guess that is what we say about slaves, too, isn't it? I'm afraid that if gorillas want a place at the conference table, they had better learn to communicate, and do so quickly. Animal rightists? Be patient and persistent - your friends are going to need your help for a very long time.
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Summary: A basket of jewels
Review: Readers of Gould's other collections of science essays will be delighted with most of the material he presents here. With his usual scope and fine prose, he presents us with carefully researched and captivating subjects. All his essays are stimulating exercises in challenging traditional ways of thinking on a wide spectrum of subjects. The opening essay on Leonardo da Vinci provides a picture of a thinker challenged by mysterious evidence, expertly addressed. Da Vinci displays more humanity here than revealed by viewing his works. Fossil seashells at mountain peaks were puzzled over for centuries. Leonardo's vivid analysis might have enhanced scientific inquiry greatly if his ideas had not ran counter to church dogmas. The remaining essays span the usual gamut of resurrecting the reputations of scientists now often lost to view. While restoring some scientists in our estimation, he manages to erode that of others just a bit. Huxley, having been knocked off a high pedestal by an earlier essay of Gould's is subtly chided here once more for racist opinions. Richard Owen, who used some truly underhanded tactics in responding to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, is given more leniency. Racism is a durable commodity, as Gould himself readily admits in describing his own feelings about taxing pedal-powered vehicles in Africa. It behooves him to grant Huxley a bit of leeway. Huxley, 'Darwin's Bulldog' in his unqualified support for natural selection, must necessarily be besmirched a bit in keeping with Gould's own efforts in evolutionary revisionism. Having addressed NOMA in comments about Gould's bizarre work ROCKS OF AGES, dwelling on the essay here would be inappropriate. Suffice to say, the concept verges on the irrational, a rare circumstance in Gould's otherwise fine collection. Far more impressive are the two essays, As the Worm Turns and Triumph of the Root-heads are among his best work. Every new discovery in biology raises our consciousness of our place in Nature. The description of the bizarre parasites inhabiting the body's of crabs is a superb challenge to rigid thinking about evolution's methods. We're frequently reminded that evolution never works 'backwards', but this essay confirms again how unpredictable life can be in adapting to new environments. Keep this book where the children can reach it. It will provide hours of delightful reading - not just one reading, but many.
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