Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
New York ; London : Norton, 1980
Description
For better science students, this is a collection of 31 essays on natural history.
User reviews
LibraryThing member NielsenGW
Stephen Jay Gould’s Panda’s Thumb is a collection of thirty-one essays all looking at how the natural world has adapted to its circumstances and how we as humans perceive, interpret, and understand those adaptations. Gould’s work on evolution helps to show that sometimes scientists get it
While Gould can be at times caustic, his passion for science and scientific thought is clearly evident. He understands that science has made major mistakes in the past, but that should keep people from searching for answers. Everything can be questioned, even science itself. By refining our observations and theories, we come to deeper, more nuanced explanations of the natural world. If you stick with Gould long enough, you will become enamored with science and not frightened by it. These essays are all at once delightful, educational, prophetic, and brilliant. A diverse and enlightening read.
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wrong, and other times, scientists get it very wrong. Even the science of evolution is evolving, which is the overall premise of this collection. We see how the early investigations of those with Down Syndrome changed the way people viewed doctors and men of science, how Mickey Mouse’s changes over the years mirror the growth of human beings, and how history of organisms on this planet is not a steady affair.While Gould can be at times caustic, his passion for science and scientific thought is clearly evident. He understands that science has made major mistakes in the past, but that should keep people from searching for answers. Everything can be questioned, even science itself. By refining our observations and theories, we come to deeper, more nuanced explanations of the natural world. If you stick with Gould long enough, you will become enamored with science and not frightened by it. These essays are all at once delightful, educational, prophetic, and brilliant. A diverse and enlightening read.
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LibraryThing member keebrook
a conglomeration of Gould’s articles and essays about various scientific troubles, anomalies, and paradigm shift resistance specifically aimed at creationist and other anti-science movements, if one can call such things movements. Many times, Gould speaks to the biased human minds that make up
from Haekel’s insistence on evolutionary recapitulation and Kirkpatrick's insistence that all rocks were made of fossils to Agassiz’s overt racism to the fall of gradualism and dinosaurs’ coldblooded nature, this book is a great panorama of the history of science. the picture it creates is an honest one even if it’s not very pleasant to our egos sometimes. but that’s what science is all about, i think.
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the scientific community and the sociological and cultural pressures operating within and upon it. it holds up remarkably well since its publication over 30 years ago.from Haekel’s insistence on evolutionary recapitulation and Kirkpatrick's insistence that all rocks were made of fossils to Agassiz’s overt racism to the fall of gradualism and dinosaurs’ coldblooded nature, this book is a great panorama of the history of science. the picture it creates is an honest one even if it’s not very pleasant to our egos sometimes. but that’s what science is all about, i think.
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LibraryThing member JBD1
As with Ever Since Darwin, some of these essays have dated a bit over the years, and I don't always agree with what Gould says. But these short pieces do always make for a good read, and there are the typical gems here: Mickey Mouse's neoteny, the Piltdown hoax, the fate of South American
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marsupials, and "Nature's Odd Couples" stand out for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member monado
Gould's book is full of well-written, elegant essays full of interesting facts that illuminate the principles and insights of evolution.
LibraryThing member Kisners42
The Panda's Thumb is a collection of Stephen Jay Gould's essays. These relate on a variety of topics but tend to focus on biology, covering various aspects including the history of it's study, anatomy, evolution, hoaxes, curiosities, and analogies.
I found his style is generally very approachable
Those who enjoyed this book might also want to check another book of his essays: Ever Since Darwin.
- Peter K.
I found his style is generally very approachable
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and, in contrast to the articles in many scientific journals, approachable by the lay-reader.Those who enjoyed this book might also want to check another book of his essays: Ever Since Darwin.
- Peter K.
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LibraryThing member iayork
Two Panda's Thumbs up!!: The "argument from design" traces back at least to the medieval theology as a favorite proof for the existence of God. The argument runs that the exquisite design and interrelation of earthly organisms can be explained only by the existence of an Intelligent Designer.
I
In essay after essay, Gould describes nature's mistakes and improvisations, seeming proof against the work of an intelligent designer. For instance, the "thumb" of pandas -- a specialized appendage to strip leaves from bamboo shoots -- is not a true thumb, but a weirdly-designed extension of a wrist bone. Gould demonstrates many other animal adaptations, from orchids to hermit crabs, that use unlikely body parts to perform survival tasks required by later generations of organisms.
Gould's explanation of neoteny - the tendency of organisms to retain anatomical features from childhood - is one of his most fascinating chapters. With a simple mutation, the basis for much uniquely human behavior and anatomy comes in to focus. We humans don't develop elongated snouts like other mammals; we retain our capacity to play throughout our lives rather than abandoning it at puberty; our brains continue to grow after birth; we are helpless and dependent on our parents far longer than other mammals. And in a typically Gouldian play of ideas, he charts the changing facial features of Mickey Mouse over the years to show him being drawn with more infant -like (and therefore human-like) features - rounder head, bigger eyes, shorter snout.
Though Gould is not a theist, "Panda's Thumb" is not an argument against God, but *for* the appropriate use of science to describe the natural world. We theists are well-served by books like this, which give us the ammunition needed to battle cultural forces that seek to blind us to the truth that lies right in front of us in the natural world and of which we are a part.
I
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continue to believe in God, but Stephen Jay Gould's essays in "The Panda's Thumb" is a rather large nail in the coffin of this argument. In essay after essay, Gould describes nature's mistakes and improvisations, seeming proof against the work of an intelligent designer. For instance, the "thumb" of pandas -- a specialized appendage to strip leaves from bamboo shoots -- is not a true thumb, but a weirdly-designed extension of a wrist bone. Gould demonstrates many other animal adaptations, from orchids to hermit crabs, that use unlikely body parts to perform survival tasks required by later generations of organisms.
Gould's explanation of neoteny - the tendency of organisms to retain anatomical features from childhood - is one of his most fascinating chapters. With a simple mutation, the basis for much uniquely human behavior and anatomy comes in to focus. We humans don't develop elongated snouts like other mammals; we retain our capacity to play throughout our lives rather than abandoning it at puberty; our brains continue to grow after birth; we are helpless and dependent on our parents far longer than other mammals. And in a typically Gouldian play of ideas, he charts the changing facial features of Mickey Mouse over the years to show him being drawn with more infant -like (and therefore human-like) features - rounder head, bigger eyes, shorter snout.
Though Gould is not a theist, "Panda's Thumb" is not an argument against God, but *for* the appropriate use of science to describe the natural world. We theists are well-served by books like this, which give us the ammunition needed to battle cultural forces that seek to blind us to the truth that lies right in front of us in the natural world and of which we are a part.
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LibraryThing member bherner
Few writers can make such complicated subjects so compelling.
LibraryThing member Darrol
Another set of very interesting essays about, primarily, evolution. Some essays on humanity's retention of juvenile features. One on Down's syndrome, its former name, Mongoloid, being a feature of an early classification of the races. Some essays briefly outlining Gould's conviction that evolution
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has periods of acceleration between vast periods of little change. An essay on the relationship between dinosaurs and birds. (I do wish every creationist would read Gould.) Many indications of his essentially Kuhnian view of how science works, but still some places where he needs correction by Richard Rorty (and one essay on the status of species that might be an interesting test of Rorty). Show Less
LibraryThing member mldavis2
This is another collection of essays written in 1980 as reflections on natural history. In this book, Gould addresses human evolution, scientific errors, punctuated evolution and other sometimes controversial topics revolving around the legacy of Charles Darwin. It is classic writing, but relevant
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nevertheless to modern discussion which is renewed with the advent of DNA analysis and our increasing understanding of relationships between living and historical life forms. Show Less
LibraryThing member themulhern
Collected Essays:
Section 1: Perfections and Imperfections: A Trilogy on Panda's Thumb
The general point of these essays is that it's the obviously odd and approximate solutions that are the most convincing for the case of evolution,
rather than the impressive. Also, Darwin's enthusiasm for orchids
Section 1: Perfections and Imperfections: A Trilogy on Panda's Thumb
The general point of these essays is that it's the obviously odd and approximate solutions that are the most convincing for the case of evolution,
rather than the impressive. Also, Darwin's enthusiasm for orchids
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makes sense considered this way, since the orchids' contrivances for consuming insects are all adaptations of the structures of normal flowers. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — 1981)
Notable Books List (1980)
Language
Original publication date
1980
Physical description
343 p.; 18 cm
ISBN
0393300234 / 9780393300239