Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History - Softcover

Gould, Stephen Jay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0517888246 ISBN 13: 9780517888247

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1996

Synopsis

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

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Jay Gould is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard and the Curator for Invertebrate Paleontology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

From AudioFile

These tapes bring together Stephen Jay Gould's most recent essays on topics as diverse as evolution, Edgar Allen Poe and the meaning of the millennium. The presentation alternates between readings by MacRae and Zimbalist. The former presents with a reedy lyricism befitting the author's lighter moments, and the latter provides the raspy, stentorian baritone of the distinguished professor. Simply packaged and powered by dense prose, this volume teaches us that great scholarship can delight and instruct. J.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0517888246
• ISBN 13: 9780517888247
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496