| Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History | |
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| Author | Stephen Jay Gould |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company Incorporated |
| Publication date | 1977 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 285 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0393064255 |
| OCLC Number | 3090189 |
| Dewey Decimal | 575.01/62 |
| LC Classification | QH361 .G65 1977 |
Ever Since Darwin was the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould's first book of collected essays. Published in 1977, the collection originated from his monthly column "This View of Life," published in Natural History magazine. Edwin Barber—who was then the editorial director for W. W. Norton & Company—took note of the quality of Gould's essays and asked Gould "What's a smart fellow like you doing with no books in print?" He soon commissioned Gould to write The Mismeasure of Man. It wasn't until three years later, when Gould accumulated 33 columns, did it occur to either of them that the columns should be published in a single volume. The collection of essays, written between 1973-1977, became a best-seller and propelled Stephen Jay Gould to national prominence.
Contents |
Contents
- Prologue
- Darwinia
- Darwin's delay
- Darwin's Sea Change, or Five Years at the Captain's Table
- Darwin's Dilemma: The Odyssey of Evolution
- Darwin's Untimely Burial
- Human Evolution
- A Matter of Degree
- Bushes and Ladders in Human Evolution
- The Child as Man's Real Father
- Human Babies as Embryos
- Odd Organisms and Evolutionary Exemplars
- The Misnamed, Mistreated and Misunderstood Irish Elk
- Organic Wisdom, or Why Should a Fly Eat Its Mother from Inside
- Of Bamboos, Cicadas and the Economy of Adam Smith
- The Problem of Perfection, or How can a Clam Mount a Fish on Its Rear End?
- Patterns and Punctuations in the History of Life
- The Pentagon of Life
- An Unsung Single-Celled Hero
- Is the Cambrian Explosion a Sigmoid Fraud?
- The Great Dying
- Theories of the Earth
- The Reverend Thomas' Dirty Little Planet
- Uniformity and Catastrophe
- Velikovsky in Collision
- The Validation of Continental Drift
- Size and Shape, from Churches to Brains to Planets
- Size and Shape
- Sizing Up Human Intelligence
- History of the Vertebrate Brain
- Planetary Sizes and Surfaces
- Science in Society - A Historical View
- On Heroes and Fools in Science
- Posture Maketh the Man
- Racism and Recapitulation
- The Criminal as Nature's Mistake, or the Ape in Some of Us
- The Science and Politics of Human Nature
- Why We Should Not Name Human Races - A Biological View
- The Nonscience of Human Nature
- Racist Arguments and IQ
- Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determinism
- So Cleverly Kind an Animal
- Darwinia
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Blurbs
| “ | In lively prose, the author explains such difficult biological concepts as r- and K-selection, allometric growth, the role of ontogeny in phylogeny, biological clocks, plate tectonics and biogeography, the cropping principle, the symbiotic origin of eucaryotic cells, and many more in easily understood and almost anecdotal style. His opinions on Whiggish history of science, sociobiology, race, and I.Q. have a decidedly personal and provocative perspective. Gould also shares with us his own research on the Irish elk and human evolution. The volume under review is a superb selection for undergraduate as well as public libraries. | „ |
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—Choice 15 (May 1978): 424 |
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| “ | Throughout the essays Gould's logical and scientific analysis is nicely laced with humor and a warm humanism that makes them a pleasure to read, but the book is not light reading; it is for the serious student and for the informed general reader prepared to make the effort to follow Gould's arguments. | „ |
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—J. B. Hamlin, Library Journal, 102 (Oct. 1 1977): 2072. |
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| “ | [Gould] not only explains scientific theory, but comments on science itself with clarity and wit, simultaneously entertaining and teaching. His examples are delights. [The work] is the best sort of popularization. Gould never mystifies science: he shows both its power and its weaknesses. In one of his essays, Gould asks how nonscientists are to judge the rival claims of experts. There seems to be no clear answer, but it does help immeasurably to know how science works. How to penetrate science? Start with Stephen Jay Gould.'' | „ |
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—James Gorman, New York Times Book Review, 20 November 1977, p. 7. |
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Reviews
- The History of a Theory - by James Gorman, The New York Times
External links
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