Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life - Hardcover

Vermeij, Geerat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0716729547 ISBN 13: 9780716729549

Publisher: W H Freeman & Co, 1996

Synopsis

The autobiography of this evolutionary biologist and paleontologist (blind since the age of four), reveals how he overcame his presumed handicap and profited from it, developing an awareness of details completely apart from a reliance on vision. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Geerat Vermeij is a professor at the University of California, Davis.

Reviews

This gets off to a slow start: the beginning section is weighted down with labored accounts of each teacher, class and playmate of the author's childhood. However, readers should persevere: this is an absolutely delightful memoir, tracing the intellectual development and career of a distinguished and consummately likable evolutionary biologist. Vermeij was born in Holland; his parents emigrated to America in 1955, when he was nine, in part because they wanted the best possible education for their son, who was bright, gifted?and blind. Propelled by his sharp intellect, will and bountiful curiosity, Vermeij turned his childhood fascination with shells into a rewarding career. A critic of affirmative action, he maintains that he never wanted to be held to different standards than his classmates or colleagues, and has often battled prejudice about the abilities of the blind. He here recounts a rich life, filled with teaching, researching, writing books and papers and editing scientific journals. But it is clearly fieldwork that impassions him the most. He is in his element wading through tidal pools in his sneakers, accompanied by his wife or daughter or a research assistant, identifying by touch the species that inhabit the intertidal zone. Vermeij, who teaches at UC-Davis, offers an interesting exploration of the "cold war" between crabs and snails, a classic example of parallel evolution: the claws of the former become more massive and powerful as the shells of their prey thicken to repel predators. He makes evolution accessible, reminding us that we are caught up in its sweep no less than the fossilized brachiopods in his collection. Vermeij occasionally indulges in atrocious puns, but on the whole his prose is clean and direct, even lyrical at times, as when he writes of shell-seeking expeditions on tropical shores. His autobiography will offer untold encouragement to those facing the challenge of a physical disability.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

There are multiple stories, both personal and scientific, in this remarkable life of a blind scientist. A MacArthur awardee, editor of the journal Evolution, and a professor at the Univ. Calif., Davis, Vermeij is a Dutch-born scientist whose childhood glaucoma and multiple surgeries lead to the removal of his eyes at age three. Needless to say, his is a creative intelligence based on tactile skills and an undaunted spirit, bravura even. Vermeij has skimmed the shores of the Indian, Pacific, Caribbean, and Atlantic oceans, analyzing snails, clams, and other shell life, particularly in the intertidal zones where shells are alternately bathed by the waves or exposed to sunlight. In turn he has pored over museum collections and fossils to develop theories on species adaptation over the long and short hauls. He is in agreement with the punctuated equilibria theory of Gould and Eldridge and he has stressed the importance of predators in pushing species in particular locales toward thicker shells and smaller apertures--the better to avoid crushing and prying movements of crabs and the like. But that's just the science part. The tale spans the life from early segregation in schools for the blind to undergraduate Princeton days to graduate school at Yale (which admitted him only after a skeptical department chair discovered that Vermeij had no problem identifying specimens by touch alone). The role of readers, the importance of reading Braille and taking Braille notes are underscored with the strong stance on not isolating the blind and condemning them to sheltered workshop lives. And, while he has some caustic remarks on the ascendancy of molecular biology today, what really will endear him to the reader is his generosity and fair-mindedness in relation to critics and colleagues alike. ``Uplifting'' may smack of sentimentality, but Vermeij's life story surely is uplifting--and it contributes importantly to evolutionary science. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Biology is perhaps the most visual of the sciences. That Vermeij, who has been totally blind since birth, became a renowned expert in malacology?the study of mollusks?is therefore a remarkable achievement. From his youth in the Netherlands he possessed an ardent fascination with the natural world. In this insightful and very personal autobiography, Vermeij focuses not upon his disability but rather upon the extraordinary sensory tools at his disposal. Relying upon his senses of smell, hearing, and especially touch, he convinces readers that he can "see" his specimens as well as any sighted person. Still, he has had to overcome many obstacles and prejudices throughout his honored career. An engaging work, this belongs in any general science collection.?Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables, Fla.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W H Freeman & Co
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0716729547
• ISBN 13: 9780716729549
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 297