Bully For Brontosaurus: Reflections In Natural History (1992) - Plot & Excerpts
Stephen Jay Gould was adept at reviewing scientific missteps and errors and building telling lessons from them. His essays are highly discursive, often taking twists and turns through little known bits of history and popular culture, as a means of explicating complex concepts. He was a brilliant man and one of those writers--like neurologist Oliver Sacks, say, or biologist E.O. Wilson--who could take abstruse subject matter and make it intelligible to the general reader. Though, it should be noted, no one's style was quite so freewheeling and idiosyncratic as Gould's. A few favorite essays include: "The Panda's Thumb of Technology" In which Gould illustrates the evolutionary principles of contingency and incumbency by way of a history of the QWERTY keyboard. This is certainly among the volume's quirkiest and most brilliant essays.In "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples" he discusses how male nipples are homologues of female nipples and remnants of embryology, just as the female clitoris is a homologue of the male penis. Dr. Freud's absurd theory of vaginal orgasm and the unfortunate suffering it caused countless women during the mid-20th century is discussed."To Be A Platypus" reviews the immense puzzle this monotreme presented to 20th-century scientists because of its melange of seemingly contradictory characteristics: large brain and inner ear like mammals, egg laying like reptiles, duckbill like the eponymous wildfowl, etc. Because of its paradoxical nature, the platypus was viewed for a long time as a primitive outlier that had never really caught up with the high and mighty mammals. Gould shows not only why this isn't so, but why the creature is, as he puts it, "one honey of an adaptation."The section titled Intellectual Biography I found especially interesting. In "Kropotkin Was No Crackpot" Gould rehabilitates that fin de siècle Russian anarchist's much maligned reputation. Petr Kropotkin (see Mutual Aid) believed cooperation was more responsible for the perpetuation of species than violent struggle, a concept far more popular in the West. Many Russian evolutionists tended to agree. Why? Was it just their collectivist, socialist culture? In part, yes, but it also turns out that the concept of exploding populations, which Darwin learned in the teeming tropics (see Voyage of the Beagle), was conceptually almost impossible for Russians to grasp, living as they did in a harsh and underpopulated land. At the center of the essay is the question of cultural biases in science, an area in which Gould excelled as a writer and a teacher. Fascinating.Feed your inner nerd . . . read this book.
This book was a joy to read. Stephen Jay Gould combines interesting scientific anecdotes with strong doses of philosophy and perspective. The book collects 35 of Gould's monthly essays from Natural History magazine, and there aren't more than a few duds among them. Most of the essays are engaging, entertaining and thoughtful. The point of most of the essays is not to impart facts (though there are plenty of those), but to inform our ways of thinking about science. He addresses many of the biases and errors common among both laypeople and scientists.The only real fault I can find lies not with the book but with the act of reading it in 2013: these essays are from the mid-to-late-eighties, and a number of them are quite outdated. Particularly jarring was a string of three consecutive essays (they're arranged by topic, not chronology) dealing with creationism, each of which depicted a 1987 Supreme Court decision as having dealt a crushing, final blow to those who would have us teach creationism is science class. I felt embarrassed for him while reading his assured obituary for "creationism science." But anyway, it's a small nit to pick. It was a great book and I look forward to reading more of his work; I'm not sure how chronologically far back into his catalog I want to reach, though.
What do You think about Bully For Brontosaurus: Reflections In Natural History (1992)?
This book is a collection of essays by Gould which are written in an attempt to make his area of scientific study approachable by the general public. I have a strong background in biology and evolution, so I enjoyed many of his essays on those topics, but I would think that some would be challenging to grasp without a good foundation in the sciences. Because the book is a collection, some of the works are more interesting than others, and I found myself thrilled with most pieces but trudging through others. I would recommend this for anyone with an interest in science and looking for discussions of concepts beyond the basics of the fields.
—Brad
Un interesante conjunto de ensayos científicos centrados en la comprensión y la defensa de la teoría de la evolución, que nos lleva desde para qué sirven los pezones masculinos (bueno, no sirven para nada, por eso la pregunta es por qué están ahí), hasta curiosidades sobre especies animales extrañas o costumbres de la sociedad norteamericana.El autor suele partir de una anécdota, o de un debate científico del siglo pasado, para llegar a una reflexión y explicación sobre el punto de que se trate. Aunque sin duda nos hace percibir nuevos matices y aspectos sobre la evolución sumamente enriquecedores, quizá la única pega del libro es que llega a resultar un tanto previsible, por la repetición del planteamiento y del desenlace pro evolucionista.Muchos de los juegos de palabras del autor (en ingles, por lo que no existen en español) son debidamente aclarados por el traductor en notas al pie, de modo que podemos disfrutar tanto del humor de Stephen Jay Gould como de sus profundos conocimientos y de su compleja labor de investigación y documentación.
—Juan Hidalgo
Always a delight to read in this case re-read. So what if some of the material is slightly dated - after all the essays appeared back in the 1980's - a lot has changed - what hasn't changed is Gould's writing - his knack for bending and twisting what would seem unlikely pairings or concepts into intriguing realizations. His manner with mindful humor and references puts me in awe of his knowledge and his researching capabilities - especially when one remembers that access to such info required real research and tenacity. All of his works have been a delight and a real pleasure to return to this book after many years.
—Chris Laskey
