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Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

Essays on Natural History

by Stephen Jay Gould

ISBN: 0609601415
ISBN-13: 9780609601419
Format: Hardcover

Summary

A collection of essays about the variety of ways in which humans have come to study and understand natural history.

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Media Reviews

"...here again Gould artfully transports readers through the complex and enchanting realms of the natural world."

-- Publishers Weekly

"...Gould's immense respect for nature's biodiversity, combined with the humbling recognition that "all life on earth...shares an astonishing range of detailed biochemical similarities," renders these remarkable essays both entertaining and inspirational."

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Random House Inc
Published date: 1998
Edition: 1th edition
Size: 6.5 x 9.75 inches
Weight: 1.7 pounds
Pages: 422

Publisher's Notes

Leonardos Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms is the newest collection of best-selling scientist Stephen Jay Goulds popular essays from Natural History magazine (the longest-running series of scientific essays in history). It is also the first of the final three such collections, since Dr. Gould has announced that the series will end with the turn of the millennium. In this collection, Gould consciously and unconventionally formulates a humanistic natural history, a consideration of how humans have learned to study and understand nature, rather than a history of nature itself. With his customary brilliance, Gould examines the puzzles and paradoxes great and small that build natures and humanity's diversity and order. In affecting short biographies, he depicts how scholars grapple with problems of science and philosophy as he illuminates the interaction of the outer world with the unique human ability to struggle to understand the whys and wherefores of existence.

Other Editions

Hardcover - Random House Inc (1998) - from $1.05
Paperback - Random House Inc (1999) - from $1.41

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Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History

Stephen Jay Gould

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