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Dinosaur in a Haystack

Reflections in Natural History

by Stephen Jay Gould

Summary

In this new collection of essays, Gould talks about such things as the wisdom of Charles Darwin and Old Testament Psalms; the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and the dynamic new theories about, and reconstructions of, these giant fossils; the thwarted human nature of Frankenstein's monster; and the moral imperatives that thinking people have to confront in the fallacies of eugenics, creationism, and other ethical challenges.

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Media Reviews

"Age has not withered nor custom staled the sharp pen and opinions of our man in Cambridge. Indeed...one sees familiar themes emerge with renewed vigor and new evidence...As always, there is homage to and defense of Darwin, as well as essays that honor lesser-known figures...or little known facts about the famous...Gould's essays on...literary figures are particularly well done. He provides a correction on the movie version of 'Frankenstein' in a wonderful piece on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. And two essays, on Tennyson...and on Swift, are gems. Since Gould's includes autobiographical pieces as well, we are treated to essays on his beloved snails and to the wonderful world of taxonomy and systematics..."

   -- Kirkus

"[A] rich and varied collection...Few [scientists] are equal to Gould as a master of the essay form, and none to my knowledge is so polymathically fearless, sublimely curious or quite so fully entranced with what he has found in the past, present and potential future of life's long journey."    -- T.H. Watkins

   -- Washington Post

Beginning with Ever Since Darwin, a new collection of Gould's essays from Natural History magazine has appeared every two to three years, and each almost invariably becomes a best seller. Nobody since Lewis Thomas has more successfully worked the genre of the scientific essay to humanize science and promote its understanding than Gould. Fans will seize this book enthusiastically. Gould's explorations of the natural world cover subjects arranged in eight sections, from 'Origin, Stability, and Extinctions,' to 'The Glory of Museums,' and even 'Writing About Snails.' In most pieces, he relates anecdotes from the history of science and demonstrates their relevance to contemporary scientific disputes and social trends. His essays on the fallacies of eugenics, for example, are timely and powerful. Every public and academic library should have broad representation of Gould's works.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.    -- Gregg Sapp

   -- Library Journal

[Mr. Gould] writes in a consistently graceful, approachable style, with easy elegance and clarity, and he is an incomparable explainer of difficult ideas. I learned many fascinating things about the Cambrian explosion, the extinct blaauwbock (a blue antelope), new theories of taxonomy, catastrophism versus uniformitarianism-most of which I suspect I will forget in a month, but maybe not. I found his perspective on fads in science museums incisive and eloquent, and his excursions into literary matters (like Edgar Allan Poe's conchology book) enlightening. Other essays, I must admit, were hard going; I could not make myself care about hermit crabs in spite of the author's cajolings that they made for 'a wonderful story . . . to which you simply cannot be indifferent.' I was. But whether delighted or bored, I deepened my acquaintance with that singular literary character, Stephen Jay Gould.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.    -- Phillip Lopate

   -- New York Times Book Review

A collection of 34 essays, most originally published in Natural History magazine, in which the renowned evolutionary biologist and paleontologist muses on evolution, time, change, and history. Some intriguing topics addressed include why images of snails were printed backward in 17th century treatises on conchology and why schoolchildren are falsely taught that in the Middle Ages people thought the earth was flat. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

   -- SciTech Book News

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Random House Inc
Published date: 1996
Edition: 1th edition
Size: 6.5 x 9.5 inches
Weight: 1.85 pounds
Pages: 480

Publisher's Notes

Evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has perfected the art of the essay in this brilliant new collection. These thirty-four essays, most originally published in Natural History magazine, exemplify the keen insight with which Dr. Gould observes the natural world and convey the infectious enthusiasm for fossils and evolutionary theory that has made his books award-winning, national best-sellers. In his latest musings on evolution and other natural phenomena, Gould reveals the uncanny interconnections among distinctly human creations - museums, literature, music, politics, and culture - encompassing a delightfully, wide range of topics, from giant fossils, fads, and fungus to baseball, beeswax, and blaauwbocks, from a humanistic look at Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Erasmus Darwin's poetry to the fallacies of eugenics and creationism and the moral imperatives of thinking people to meet the ethical challenges that pseudo-science presents.

Other Editions

• Hardcover - Random House Inc (1996) - from $1.00
• Paperback Reprint - Random House Inc (1997) - from $1.74

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