One of the twentieth century’s great paleontologists and science writers, Stephen Jay Gould was, for Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, also a close colleague and friend. In Macroevolutionaries, they take up the tradition of Gould’s acclaimed essays on natural history, offering a series of wry and insightful reflections on the fields to which they have devoted their careers.
Lieberman and Eldredge explore the major features of evolution, or “macroevolution, ” examining key issues in paleontology and their links to popular culture, philosophy, music, and the history of science. They focus on topics such as punctuated equilibria, mass extinctions, and the history of life—with detours including trilobites, Hollywood stuntmen, coywolves, birdwatching, and New Haven-style pizza. Lieberman and Eldredge’s essays showcase their deep knowledge of the fossil record and keen appreciation of the arts and culture while touching on different aspects of Gould’s life and work. Ultimately, they show why Gould’s writings and perspective are still relevant today, following his lead in using the natural history essay to articulate their view of evolutionary theory and its place in contemporary life. At once thought-provoking and entertaining, Macroevolutionaries is for all readers interested in paleontology, evolutionary biology, and Gould’s literary and scientific legacy.
Innehållsförteckning
Preface
1. The Three Musketeers of Macroevolution: Does Anyone Get to Be D’Artagnan?
2. Asleep at the Switch: Paleontological Life Lessons, Stasis, and the Genius of Yogi Berra
3. Survival of the Laziest: Does Evolution Permit Naps?
4. Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle, Times Square: Gould, Kant, and Super Dave
5. Expanding Evolution: Organisms and Species, the Soma, and the Technosphere
6. Declining Volatility: A General Evolutionary Principle and Its Relevance to Fossils, Stocks, and Stars
7. Paleo Personas: Musings on a Soviet Cephalopod, Norman Newell, and Mass Extinctions
8. Stardust Memories: Reading Evolution and Extinction in the Stars
9. Is Eternal Sex Necessary? Or, What Are These Coywolves Doing in My Backyard?
10. Darwin in the Galápagos: Running the Beagle Tape Backward
11. Of Cultural Nationalism, Hamlet, and the Cloaca Universalis: Why Citation Is the Best Policy
12. When Is a Raptor a Parrot? The Curious Case of the American Kestrel
13. What’s Your Favorite Trilobite? Walter Winchell Wouldn’t Have Cared
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
Om författaren
Niles Eldredge has been a paleontologist on the curatorial staff of the American Museum of Natural History since 1969. A specialist in mid-Paleozoic phacopid trilobites, Dr. Eldredge, along with Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, formulated a theory challenging Darwin’s premise that evolution occurs gradually. Their theory, known as Punctuated Equilibria, asserts that evolution occurs in dramatic spurts interspersed with long periods of stasis.
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