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Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History

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Gould's 1996 collection of essays for "Natural History" magazine ranges over the broad and varied terrain of his intellect and curiosity, educating and satisfying the reader with elegance, wit and powerful reasoning.

Gould delights in juxtaposing literature and science, the familiar and the unexpected. He chooses "Cordelia's dilemma" - her refusal to compete with her sisters in making loud protestations of love for their father, King Lear - as an analogy for "publication bias" - the reluctance of journals to publish boring negative results in favor of more interesting successful experiments. A positive result in a study of AIDS or cancer treatments wins headlines while later failures to duplicate those results are read by few. And most negative results never see publication at all. "Lear cannot conceptualize the proposition that Cordelia's silence might signify her greater love - that nothing can be the biggest something."

In this collection, Gould divides his essays into eight sections. "Heaven and Earth" includes his marvelous experience of the effect of a solar eclipse on the citizens of New York City, and in "Literature and Science," he ruminates on the moral lesson of Frankenstein and Hollywood's subversion of it.

"Origin, Stability, and Extinction" argues that the Cambrian explosion is even more the "key event" in the history of multicellular animals than previously believed, "Stability" includes "Cordelia's Dilemma," "Extinction" includes the title essay on Darwin's view that "all observation must be for or against some view."

"Writing About Snails" delves into women's Victorian writings (I'm reminded of the value of negative results), "The Glory of Museums" explores "Dinomania" and "The Disparate Faces of Eugenics" revisits the hilarious arguments of an eminent scientist who argued that cancer causes smoking.

"Evolutionary Theory, Evolutionary Stories," explores the arguments of Creationism and the origin of evolutionary science's best one liner (in answer to a question on the nature of the Creator) "an inordinate fondness for beetles," and "Linnaeus and Darwin's Grandfather" uses the whimsical observation of the "curious conjunction" of Linnaeus and Gustav III on a Swedish banknote to explore the scientist's classification theories (still used today) and his adherence to a religious Creationism.

Certain themes recur in these essays. Gould is a staunch evolutionist and defends Darwin's theories vigorously, even when pointing out mistakes and misconceptions. He takes Creationism seriously - as a threat to scientific reasoning. His interest in natural history extends to the history of human thinking about nature and science.

His essays are beautifully crafted, full of literary allusions, anecdotes and turns of wit but always to the point. He loves tracking down the precise source and context of oft-used quotes as much as he enjoys tracing the origin of flatworms, and manages to arouse his reader's interest in both. He is not a writer of wasted words. Best of all, Gould's essays are always as thought provoking as they are entertaining.

Stephen Jay Gould has a way of bringing out our minds and making us think... Dinosaur in a Haystack is just such a work. These thirty-four essays are what exemplifies Gould's infectiously brilliant and playful intelligence. This book is about evolution and other natural phenomena, but with Gould's trademark twist.

Some of the essays are short stories in their own right with a mystery central to the theme, others are alluring with detail only a professor might want to instill. Thought provoking, unpredictable trajectories, theoretical arguments all fit into the realm of Gould, who can be described as a cunning polemicist, self-indulgent or one of America's Living Legends, but never boring... maybe verbose, but I'll give him that for the detail he brings to his writing.

Dinosaur in a Haystack gives us a book written for the layperson, but a person with a proclivity toward a scientific bent would be of help. There are rigorous and numerous historical details, but Gould has a propensity to contextualize thoroughly, thus imparting the receptive reader, an intrinsic but intuitive knowledge.

If you want to be educated about natural history or phenomena, Gould's musing are right up your alley. Gould is one of todays leading evolutionary thinkers. This book is the product of one of the most fertile minds of our time.

I highly recommend reading this book... not that it is just accessible or stimulating... it is enlightening.

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, by Stephen Jay Gould, is one of the twentieth-century's great, approachable thinkers presenting what turned out to be among his final projects. Consisting of a collection of his articles as well as additional thoughts written strictly for this book, Dr. Gould herein tackles topics that range from Poe to the environment, dinosaurs to nautical lore, modern museum architecture, to, yes, of course, his favorite subject, one he rightly or wrongly unfailingly championed to the too-soon end of his days, evolution. These easily-readable and quotable essays are invaluable in this time after this great and good man has left us, and I have re-read this book several times since I first got it as a birthday present in 1995. To be able to make people laugh, think and debate, even after your life has physically ended is not a bad legacy for anyone. Don't let Stephen Jay Gould rest in peace, read this book and stir things up a bit in his name.

Gould is an avid writer. He is able to bring science withinn the reach of pop culture. He is able to lure his reader through anecdotes in the begining, keep them involved by using metaphors that explain difficult scientific issues, and he gives the common reader a reason to care about science in general and palentology in particular.

A unique blend of science and erudition! Reading this book is (for a non-specialist) highly informative, and enforces one's belief that Reason has its place in the world. Gould offers a sweeping image of science touching all of reality. A "must read".

Dinosaur in a Haystack Stephen Jay Gould Penguin. RRP $24.95 Reviewed by Simon Gibson I have to admit to not normally reading books of scientific essays, its not something that I usually consider doing, so I was necessarily hesitant when I picked up Dinosaur in a Haystack. I think it fair to say that I was pleasantly surprised by its readability - Gould manages to communicate without straying into the obtuse diction so often the stock of technical treatises. This collection of 32 essays is, and this makes them interesting to read, diverse in subject. It reminded me of the emporium at the end of Peter Carey's Illywhacker -there is that perfect sense of baroque eclecticism. The subjects it touches on are too many to be discussed here. Probably my favourite piece was his discussion "A special fondness for beetles" where Gould writes about "the most widely quoted one-liner in evolutionary biology" - the quip by "the distinguished British biologist J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked as to what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, "An inordinate fondness for beetles." " There is much ammunition here if one enjoys arguing with christians; that is if they have not evolved, as we speak, into more coherently intelligent beings. Also of interest was Gould's discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's The Conchologist's First Book, which was, during his lifetime, his most successful published work. There are also pieces on Greek road signs, the year 2000/2001 millennial discussion, evolving whales, the misconceptions of Jurassic Park (and now I am even less inclined to see the film) and even pandas. If you want to liven up your café conversations then this book should provide an interesting starting point.

Evolution is probably the most exciting natural
truth that science has ever discovered.
And Stephen Jay Goulds essays tells about it
with an infectious enthusiasm. On the way everything
from flat earth myths to ancient Greece and
men like Diogenes the Cynic gets their say.
Rigorous and numerous historical details makes it
a serious, but fun read.
All in all, it is all about the nature and essence
of humanity.
How sad that Stephen Jay Gould is no more.
But at least we have his books!

-Simon

Since January 1974, Gould has been writing monthly essays, which are published in the above and other books. In the above essay, Gould discusses how the entire Cambrian explosion must fit into five to ten million years, how to reconcile the fact that the fossil record shows that insects arose hundreds of millions of years before flowering angiosperms which the latter common scientific wisdom ties to insect diversity and prosperity, and the misguided astonishment that Homo sapiens did indeed originate in one place and then come out of Africa, rather than the previous multiregional mechanisms believed.

A Must reading for anyone interested in any form of evolution!Venki Uddameri, Orono, ME

Gould as always is a fountain of interesting ideas and keen insights. This tape version, however, will leave you frustrated. In the final essay, Gould tells us that "there are two recent examples" of new theories leading to the search for, and discovery of, new facts and data. The tape reaches the middle (?) of the exposition of the first of these; then "end of side 8". But, that's all the sides there are! UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD ANYONE BUY THIS VERSION OF THIS WORK!