The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould"Nature is so wondrously complex and varied that almost anything possible does happen....I rejoice in its] multifariousness and leave the chimera of certainty to politicians and preachers."--from Ever Since Darwin Upon his death in 2002, Stephen Jay Gould stood at the pinnacle among observers of the natural world, recognized by Congress as a "living legend." His prodigious legacy--sixteen best-selling and prize-winning books, dozens of scientific papers, an unbroken series of three hundred essays in Natural History--combined to make Gould the most widely read science writer of our time. This indispensable collection of forty-eight pieces from his brilliant oeuvre includes selections from classics such as Ever Since Darwin and The Mismeasure of Man, plus articles and speeches never before published in book form. This volume, the last that will bear his name, spotlights his elegance, depth, and sheer pleasure in our world--a true celebration of an extraordinary mind. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 85
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... Darwinian and a defender of evolutionary theory who made major revisions to the existing scholarship , notably with the concept of punctuated equi- librium and his insistence on the role of chance in the development of life . Beyond his ...
... Darwinian and a defender of evolutionary theory who made major revisions to the existing scholarship , notably with the concept of punctuated equi- librium and his insistence on the role of chance in the development of life . Beyond his ...
Page vi
... Darwinian Logic 238 The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change 261 Betting on Chance - and No Fair Peeking 267 The Power of the Modal Bacter , or Why the Tail Can't Wag the Dog 278 The Great Dying 286 The Validation of Continental Drift ...
... Darwinian Logic 238 The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change 261 Betting on Chance - and No Fair Peeking 267 The Power of the Modal Bacter , or Why the Tail Can't Wag the Dog 278 The Great Dying 286 The Validation of Continental Drift ...
Page 2
... Darwinian revisionism , but he would have regarded as extending evolu- tionary theory in a direction that the great pluralist Darwin himself would have approved of , earned him obloquy amongst more orthodox ultra - Darwinists . Leading ...
... Darwinian revisionism , but he would have regarded as extending evolu- tionary theory in a direction that the great pluralist Darwin himself would have approved of , earned him obloquy amongst more orthodox ultra - Darwinists . Leading ...
Page 6
... Darwinian revisionism - or the pleasures of pluralism , as he referred to it . This revisionism began in graduate school , when he and fellow student Niles Eldredge developed their critique of one of Darwin's central theses , that of ...
... Darwinian revisionism - or the pleasures of pluralism , as he referred to it . This revisionism began in graduate school , when he and fellow student Niles Eldredge developed their critique of one of Darwin's central theses , that of ...
Page 7
... Darwinian pluralism . Evolution , he argues , is not à la carte but structurally constrained ; not all phenotypic features are adaptive but they may instead be spandrels or exaptations — or even contingent accidents , like the asteroid ...
... Darwinian pluralism . Evolution , he argues , is not à la carte but structurally constrained ; not all phenotypic features are adaptive but they may instead be spandrels or exaptations — or even contingent accidents , like the asteroid ...
Contents
I Have Landed | 15 |
The Median Isnt the Message | 26 |
The Streak of Streaks | 32 |
Baseball Father and Me | 41 |
A Brief Legal Survey from Scopes to Scalia | 49 |
Of Two Minds and One Nature | 59 |
Biographies | 65 |
Thomas Burnets Battleground of Time | 71 |
Opus 100 | 307 |
Size and Shape | 319 |
How the Zebra Gets Its Stripes | 324 |
Size and Scaling in Human Evolution | 333 |
Stages and Sequences | 359 |
Iconographies of Progress | 362 |
Up Against a Wall | 376 |
Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology | 391 |
The Lying Stones of Marrakech | 85 |
The Stinkstones of Oeningen | 103 |
The Razumovsky Duet | 114 |
The Power of Narrative | 127 |
Not Necessarily a Wing | 143 |
Worm for a Century and All Seasons | 155 |
Resolving Evolution Oddest Coupling | 166 |
The Piltdown Conspiracy | 182 |
Evolutionary Theory | 205 |
The Evolution of Life on Earth | 209 |
Challenges to NeoDarwinism and Their Meaning for a Revised View of Human Consciousness | 222 |
Revising the Three Central Features of Darwinian Logic | 238 |
The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change | 261 |
Betting on Chanceand No Fair Peeking | 267 |
The Power of the Modal Bacter or Why the Tail Cant Wag the Dog | 278 |
The Great Dying | 286 |
The Validation of Continental Drift | 290 |
Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars | 297 |
Size Form and Shape | 303 |
Pervasive Influence | 395 |
A Critique of the Adaptationist Program | 423 |
More Things in Heaven and Earth | 444 |
Posture Maketh the Man | 467 |
Freuds Evolutionary Fantasy | 473 |
Racism Scientific and Otherwise | 487 |
Paul Broca and the Heyday of Craniology | 490 |
The Most Unkindest Cut of All | 534 |
A Tale of Two Work Sites | 546 |
Carrie Bucks Daughter | 564 |
Just in the Middle | 574 |
Religion | 587 |
Nonoverlapping Magisteria | 590 |
The Diet of Worms and the Defenestration of Prague | 604 |
Darwin and the Munchkins of Kansas | 616 |
Hooking Leviathan by Its Past | 619 |
Sources and Acknowledgments | 636 |
641 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adaptationist adaptive adult africanus allometry Ambulocetus American ancestors animals Anthropology argued argument australopithecines baseball basic Beringer biological biologists body brain Broca Burnet Carrie Buck central Cerion claim complex cranial criminal cultural Cuvier Darwin Darwinian Dawson Devonian earth essay evolution evolutionary change evolutionary psychology evolutionary theory evolved example exaptation famous fossil Freud functional genes genetic geological groups hominids Homo human Huxley important increasing intellectual Lankester later life's lineages living major mammals Marx modern Natural History natural selection never nonadaptive Norton & Company organisms origin paedomorphosis Pakicetus paleontology pattern phyletic physical Piltdown pongids primary principle punctuated equilibrium races random Razumovsky reasons recapitulation relative rocks role S. J. Gould scientific scientists sequence skull social spandrels species Stephen Jay Gould stripes structure surface Teilhard theme tion tooth area University variation vertebrates W. W. Norton whales worms wrote York zebra