Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History Export

@book{citeulike:2287032, abstract = {{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 <I>how</I> unlike is the subject of Gould's book.<p> 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 <I>Fossils of the Burgess Shale</I> by Derek Briggs, one of Gould's students.<p> 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 <I>Wonderful Life</I>, has expressed his disagreement in <I>Crucible of Creation</I>. <I>Wonderful Life</I> 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 <I>It's a Wonderful Life</I>, from which this book takes its title--has become more accepted, in theories such as Ward and Brownlee's <I>Rare Earth</I> 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. <I>--Mary Ellen Curtin</I> } {<B>"Gould has brought to light one of the least known but most spectacular paleontological discoveries of all time\&\#133;.a brilliant tapestry."\&\#151;Martin Gardner</B><BR><BR>The Burgess Shale is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago. In it are the remains of an ancient sea that nurtured more varieties of life than can be found in all of our modern oceans. Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale reveals about evolution and the nature of history. 116 illustrations.}}, author = {Gould, Stephen J.}, citeulike-article-id = {2287032}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike09-20&amp;path=ASIN/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike01-21&amp;path=ASIN/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike06-21&amp;path=ASIN/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.amazon.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/039330700X/citeulike00-21}, citeulike-linkout-5 = {http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike07-20&path=ASIN/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-6 = {http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-7 = {http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN039330700X}, citeulike-linkout-8 = {http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?keywords=039330700X&index=books&linkCode=qs}, citeulike-linkout-9 = {http://www.librarything.com/isbn/039330700X}, day = {01}, howpublished = {Paperback}, isbn = {039330700X}, keywords = {amg, evolution, library}, month = {September}, posted-at = {2008-01-25 04:42:01}, priority = {4}, publisher = {{W. W. Norton}}, title = {Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History}, url = {http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike07-20&path=ASIN/039330700X}, year = {1990} }

TY - BOOK ID - citeulike:2287032 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2287032 N2 - {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 <I>how</I> unlike is the subject of Gould's book.<p> 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 <I>Fossils of the Burgess Shale</I> by Derek Briggs, one of Gould's students.<p> 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 <I>Wonderful Life</I>, has expressed his disagreement in <I>Crucible of Creation</I>. <I>Wonderful Life</I> 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 <I>It's a Wonderful Life</I>, from which this book takes its title--has become more accepted, in theories such as Ward and Brownlee's <I>Rare Earth</I> 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. <I>--Mary Ellen Curtin</I> } {<B>"Gould has brought to light one of the least known but most spectacular paleontological discoveries of all time&#133;.a brilliant tapestry."&#151;Martin Gardner</B><BR><BR>The Burgess Shale is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago. In it are the remains of an ancient sea that nurtured more varieties of life than can be found in all of our modern oceans. Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale reveals about evolution and the nature of history. 116 illustrations.} SN - 039330700X TI - Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History PB - {W. W. Norton} KW - amg KW - evolution KW - library AU - Gould, Stephen PY - 1990/09/01/ UR - http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike09-20&amp;path=ASIN/039330700X ER -