I highly recommended this book. The book contains Gould's beliefs on evolution and the nature of history - which are told through a case study of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia (a small limestone quarry which formed 530 million years ago) and its discovery. Gould is an absolutely fascinating scientific thinker, and should be read by anyone with an interest in evolutionary theory. Gould demonstrates how evolution cannot be a progressive process, and is merely contingent on the happenings of history; he also demonstrates how "objective" scientific discoveries can be completely based on subjective biases. Gould's writing is also very accessible, and avoids use of heavy scientific jargon. ( )

Not Good: This 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.

Great book by Gould. One of his best. ( )

Ok a few scene setting comments; I have read most things Dawkins has written and the book I read before this one was Dawkins versus Gould - I even did a quick review if you want to have a look for it.

This book is both far more and far less than I expected.

Far less in the sense that I had built up my expectations for the writing style and narrative quality which simply were not met. Of course these expectations were very high indeed and on reflection If I had simply picked up the book and read it cold, then I would be saying that this is well written, simple but not simplified, clear without seeming to skim and allows the author's contagious enthusiasm for his field to shine through.

Far less in the sense that this book really is about just one fossil bed and a small proportion of the fossils found there when the title might have lead you to expect a tour of life on earth.

Far more in that you do get a glimpse into the detailed workings of scientists in one tiny corner of the world and we realise just how this whole science thing hangs together.

Far more in that you see something of the personalities and human motivation behind some pretty distinctive characters and how they knuckle down to the facts and the evidence before them.

Far more in that whilst the general hype and indeed the book itself most the way through, labels this as a story of how one scientist's mistakes and his blind following of convention is overturned by three brilliant minds re-examining the evidence, that is not, in fact, what we are given at all. With apologies to other LT reviews who have read this very differently from me (ironic or what?) Gould explores more of the mind and personal history of Walcott (the guy who got it wrong) and concludes that he did not in fact spend very much time looking at these fossils as he was a very busy administrator, and a good one to boot.

Far more in that we can glimpse the life of a scientist 100 years ago, and the life of people everywhere at that time, when personal tragedies through family illness would make the kind of medical advances science has made since then, and which we seem to take for granted all too often, appear to the people of that time as truly magical.

Far more in that this one small fossil bed can give us clues which do start to give some hints that there are more patterns in the history of life than we at first thought.

Much is made of the dispute between Dawkins and Gould. A careful reading of the actual bones of both of their arguments, and not the rhetorical flourishes they employ, or their publishers copy for that matter, reveals an awful lot of agreement combined with some humbly offered thoughts on possible alternative/additional considerations in a complex field. Then again I haven't read the exchange of book reviews which apparently encapsulates the essence of the dispute - it is on my to do list.

Overall an excellent book for anyone interested in the topic. For anyone who thinks they are interested but has yet to read around evolution and natural history then I would not recommend it as a first introduction to the topic - get some wool on your back reading more general works first. Blind Watchmaker, Selfish Gene, Ancestor's Tale, that kind of thing. ( )

This is what the jaundiced Gould reader has come to expect: lively writing about interesting bits of natural history combined with dubious science, a clutter of pet hobbyhorses and the deconstruction & ridicule of a scientist whom Gould considers to be politically/socially incorrect. The subject this time is Charles Dolittle Walcott, the discoverer of the Burgess Shale. One may argue that Gould says some nice things about him, but some of them are by way of arguing that Walcott couldn't have made an honest mistake and must have been deluded. On the whole, I am reminded of the experienced Senator's advice to call a foolish opponent "My learned and distinguished colleague."

I find Gould tiresome, but since I keep coming across criticisms of him in other sources, I feel that I should read his original words before judging him. I have yet to think that any of his critics was being unfair. I recommend reading Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, especially the chapter "Bully for Brontosaurus" in which he reviews Gould's body of work.

It is easier to ask this now that the classifications done by Harry Whittington, Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris (hereafter W, B & CM) have been revised to something more like Walcott's, but why does Gould so readily assume that Walcott was wrong, and was wrong because of his psychology? Given that Walcott apparently labelled his work as preliminary, and W, B & CM have the advantage of more specimans, and well as decades of improved techniques and further research, why assume that Walcott's family life affected his classifications? And if Gould wants to maintain that one's political/social/psychological traits affect one's work, why doesn't he feel the need to vet W, B & CM? Many of Gould's critics would agree that those traits can affect one's thinking, and would hold up one Stephen Jay Gould as a prime example. Did Gould take his own biases into consideration in writing this book?

I ask the reader's indulgence if this paragraph is dull, but I am following Gould's lead, and this is something that he does a lot. Gould spends pages fretting over insignificant inconsistencies between Charles Schuchert's 1928 obituary of Walcott and Walcott's diary. For example, Schuchert says that it was beginning to snow at the end of the Walcotts' 1909 field season, whereas Walcott's diary says that the weather was beautiful. I think that it is a bit unreasonable to expect Walcott to rise up out of his grave to contradict Schuchert, especially since it makes no difference whether it was raining, snowing, or the sun was shining. Further, Schuchert could be considered accurate if it had begun to snow in the Canadian Rockies, whether or not it was actually snowing on the Walcotts, or because he was being somewhat metaphorical, and meant only to indicate that it was the time of year when it begins to snow there, and therefore the season has to come to an end for safety's sake, even if exciting discoveries are being made.

Unfortunately, this sort of one-track literalism or failure to consider alternate and sometimes more obvious meanings pervades Gould's work. Looking backward, for example, one may speak of an evolutionary path, even if there was no path in prospect. Gould is not satisfied to make sure his readers understand the distinction, no, he sees a wicked failing that he and only he can save us from. He carries on about right and wrong evolutionary graphics, without considering that what is appropriate depends upon what one wants to show. Wouldn't a chart exhaustively illustrating evolution have to be painted on the side of a block-long skyscraper? Isn't describing the Burgess fauna as separate phyla kind of like calling someone a great-grandparent at birth? In this society, fourth cousins would be considered to be only distantly related, but their great-great-grandparents were siblings. I find it hard to believe that these specimans are actually more diverse than, say, a whale, a mosquito, blue-green algae, a salmon and a vulture. Gould keeps saying that they are, but he doesn't produce much evidence.

I recommend that the reader see Derek E. G. Briggs' book Fossils of the Burgess Shale and Simon Conway Morris' The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals (also on the Burgess Shale) as well as his Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. In the latter, Conway Morris disagrees sharply with the conclusions that Gould reaches in his last chapter "Possible Worlds".

In The Evolution Revolution (1997), Ken McNamara and John Long also address the issue of evolutionary charts of horses. While they make a similar point to Gould's, They manage to be civil and don't seem to be suggesting that most other scientists are evil-minded dunderheads. I would have the same answer to them that I have to Gould, Huxley's charts were the more appropriate for what he was trying to demonstrate. The points made by McNamara/Long and Gould provide valuable context that corrects some possible misapprehensions. ( )