Dinosaur in a Haystack : Reflections in Natural History

by Gould, Stephen Jay

• ISBN13: 9780517703939
• ISBN10: 0517703939
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-01-01
• Publisher: Harmony

Summary

Award-winning, bestselling author, evolutionary biologist, and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould takes the art of the essay to an unprecedented height of excellence in this vibrant new collection of writings on science and natural history. From fads to fungus, baseball to beeswax, Gould always circles back to the great themes of time, change, and history, carrying readers home to the centering theme of evolution. Illustrations.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Come Seven
Happy Thoughts on a Sunny Day in New York City	p. 3
Dousing Diminutive Dennis's Debate (or DDDD = 2000)	p. 11
The Celestial Mechanic and the Earthly Naturalist	p. 24
The Late Birth of a Flat Earth	p. 38
The Monster's Human Nature	p. 53
The Tooth and Claw Centennial	p. 63
Sweetness and Light	p. 76
In the Mind of the Beholder	p. 93
Of Tongue Worms, Velvet Worms, and Water Bears	p. 108
Cordelia's Dilemma	p. 123
Lucy on the Earth in Stasis	p. 133
Dinosaur in a Haystack	p. 147
Jove's Thunderbolts	p. 159
Poe's Greatest Hit	p. 173
The Invisible Woman	p. 187
Left Snails and Right Minds	p. 202
Dinomania	p. 221
Cabinet Museums: Alive, Alive, O!	p. 238
Evolution by Walking	p. 248
The Razumovsky Duet	p. 260
Four Antelopes of the Apocalypse	p. 272
Does the Stoneless Plum Instruct the Thinking Reed?	p. 285
The Smoking Gun of Eugenics	p. 296
The Most Unkindest Cut of All	p. 309
Can We Complete Darwin's Revolution?	p. 325
A Humongous Fungus Among Us	p. 335
Speaking of Snails and Scales	p. 344
Hooking Leviathan by Its Past	p. 359
A Special Fondness for Beetles	p. 377
If Kings Can Be Hermits, Then We Are All Monkeys' Uncles	p. 388
Magnolias from Moscow	p. 401
The First Unmasking of Nature	p. 415
Ordering Nature by Budding and Full-Breasted Sexuality	p. 427
Four Metaphors in Three Generations	p. 442
Bibliography	p. 459
Index	p. 469
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.