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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 560.9 EAN: 9780393307009 ISBN: 039330700X Label: W. W. Norton Manufacturer: W. W. Norton Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 352 Publication Date: September 01, 1990 Publisher: W. W. Norton Studio: W. W. Norton Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: The Burgess Shale of British Columbia "is the most precious and important of all fossil localities," writes Stephen Jay Gould. These 600-million-year-old rocks preserve the soft parts of a collection of animals unlike any other. Just how unlike is the subject of Gould's book. Gould describes how the Burgess Shale fauna was discovered, reassembled, and analyzed in detail so clear that the reader actually gets some feeling for what paleobiologists do, in the field and in the lab. The many line drawings are unusually beautiful, and now can be compared to a wonderful collection of photographs in Fossils of the Burgess Shale by Derek Briggs, one of Gould's students. Burgess Shale animals have been called a "paleontological Rorschach test," and not every geologist by any means agrees with Gould's thesis that they represent a "road not taken" in the history of life. Simon Conway Morris, one of the subjects of Wonderful Life, has expressed his disagreement in Crucible of Creation. Wonderful Life was published in 1989, and there has been an explosion of scientific interest in the pre-Cambrian and Cambrian periods, with radical new ideas fighting for dominance. But even though many scientists disagree with Gould about the radical oddity of the Burgess Shale animals, his argument that the history of life is profoundly contingent--as in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, from which this book takes its title--has become more accepted, in theories such as Ward and Brownlee's Rare Earth hypothesis. And Gould's loving, detailed exposition of the labor it took to understand the Burgess Shale remains one of the best explanations of scientific work around. --Mary Ellen Curtin Product Description: "Luminous. . .Filled with profound and upsetting ideas like the Burgess Shale itself and just as solid. It is surely one of nature's best stories, told with a light touce by a master of the field."--Lewis Thomas, M.D. Average Rating:
 Rating: - "What had that flower to do with being white?"In the beginning of Wonderful Life, Gould writes: "Words, of course, must be varied, if only to eliminate any jargon and phraseology that would mystify anyone outside the priesthood, but conceptual depth should not vary at all between professional publications and general exposition. I hope that this book can be read with profit both in seminars for graduate students and-- if the movie stinks and you forgot your sleeping pills-- on the businessman's special to Tokyo." I ... Read More Rating:  - Mysteries of the ComplexI am a fan of science and have enjoyed reading many recent books by great authors like Carl Sagan, Richard Leakey, Tim Flannery, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond. For some reason I hadn't had the chance to get around to reading a book by the legendary Stephen Jay Gould. Therefore, when I purchased my copy of his book entitled Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, I was very excited and couldn't wait to read it. I was aware that before Gould's passing he was a promoter of science ... Read More Rating:  - Not GoodThis book is quoted so often in the literature that I thought I was going to read something profound. It isn't. Conway Morris and others were right to criticize it. Not sure what all the fuss is about. As a well reasoned argument Gould missed the mark. Rating:  - LIFE 101I READ THIS BOOK WHEN CAME OUT YEARS AGO. NOW YOU CAN GET IT AT AMAZON AS A BARGAIN BOOK. THIS WONDERFUL STORY TELLS ABOUT AN ALTERNATE EARTH THAT NEVER MADE IT. SOMETHING DESTROYED IT UTTERLY. AND WONDERFUL LIFE FOUGHT BACK AND WITH TIME BECAME GIANT ANIMALS ROAMING THE LANDS OF THE EARTH. THE K-T EVENT. WACKED AGAIN! BUT LIFE ENDURED AND BECAME US... READING THIS BEATS WATCHING THE FLUFF ON SATELLITE AND CABLE. AND IT MAKES YOU THINK. IT HELPS YOU PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER TO ARRIVE AT ... Read More Rating: - Revolution in thinking about evolutionBurgess Shale is the most important find ever of remains of early animal life on earth. Stephen Jay Gould explains why, and also why it took almost seventy years before the true significance of this treasure trove began to dawn upon the scientific world. In Gould's view, the 1970's reappraisal of the Burgess Shale fossils represents no less than a Copernical revolution in thinking about the way life on earth has evolved. While this may be, or may not be the case, the tale of how this reappraisal came about ... Read More |
