BOOK REVIEW: Ankylosaur Attack and Pterosaur Trouble

In a previous post today, I shared a new book that is described as instilling in the reader a “childlike sense of wonder” about dinosaurs. While My Beloved Brontosaurus is for older readers, there is a new series of children’s books about those ancient creatures. Written by Daniel Loxton (Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be) and illustrated by Loxton and W.W. Smith, the Tales of Prehistoric Life series is sure to delight young dinosaur fans and, a more hopeful goal, to create new ones. The first in the series, Ankylosaur Attack (Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press, 2011, 32 pp.), follows an Ankylosaurus (the iconic “armored” dinosaur of North America) one morning as he searches for food in his habitat, experiences a grumpy older individual of his own species, watches pterosaurs in the sky, and defends himself – with a little help – against a fierce Tyrannosaurus rex.

The narrative is simple, yet through it comes out a lot of what it must have been like to live millions of years ago. On the final page, Loxton gives extra information about the dinosaur species highlighted in the story. Subtle but right there at the beginning just might be the most important sentence in the book: “It was a morning long, long ago – millions of years before humans walked the Earth.” The illustrations in the book are beautiful, looking almost like photographs. Of course, they are not, since Loxton tells us this story is happening long before humans appeared on Earth. They are digital illustrations superimposed on landscape photography.

Photo-realistic images perhaps serve to reinforce to readers that these animals did in fact exist and live on our planet. They are not fictional and simply an artist’s imagination, although some guess work has to be made to flesh out dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs were real, and the illustrations show kids what paleontologists thought they looked like and how they behaved. Loxton had expert advice from paleontologists Kenneth Carpenter and Donald Prothero, so the information is accurate and up-to-date.

The second in the Tales of Prehistoric Life series was just published. Pterosaur Trouble (Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press, 2013, 32 pp.) likewise follows an individual animal.

This time, it is not a dinosaur, but another critter from the Mesozoic Era, Quetzalcoatlus. This is another “day in the life” story, also featuring Triceratops and a pack of Saurornitholestes hell bent on having some pterosaur meat for breakfast.

Loxton got paleontologist Darren Naish, an authority on pterosaur fossils, to provide advice for Pterosaur Trouble. And the book includes the same, if not better, digital illustrations as Ankylosaur Attack. I certainly hope Loxton and his publisher continue this series. I came to be interested in Darwin, evolution, and the history of science through a love of paleontology (sparked by Jurassic Park). Keeping my young son engaged in thinking about the history of life on earth not only occurs through visiting museums, providing him with scientifically-accurate dinosaur toys, and watching a variety of science programming online, but through reading books. And anyone familiar with children’s books about dinosaurs knows, some shine and others lack with regard to keeping up to date with dinosaur paleontology. The Tales of Prehistoric Life series shines brightly. All images, except the one below, are from Kids Can Press website.

BOOK: Primates (graphic novel)

Yesterday, March 30, was the publication date for the paperback edition of Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick’s acclaimed graphic novel about the life and science of theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, simply titled Feynman. Ottaviani has written other graphic novel about scientists (such as Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology and T-Minus: The Race to the Moon). His latest profiles the lives of three women who changed the way the public viewed scientists, and opened windows into the lives of our closest relatives.

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas, by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Maris Wicks (New York: First Second, 2013), 144 pp.

This is the true story of three scientists who risked their lives for research that forever changed the way we think of primates… including ourselves. Jane Goodall discovered chimpanzees using tools – a trait once thought to be unique to humans – and is now one of the world’s foremost animal rights advocates. Dian Fossey fiercely protected the mountain gorillas she studied, bringing the plight of these gentle apes to public view. Birute Galdikas moved to the Indonesian jungle to observe the elusive animal native people called “wild person in the woods.” She stayed to rehabilitate orphaned orangutans and revolutionize rainforest conservancy.

Recruited by the great anthropologist Louis Leakey, these remarkable women are responsible for some of the biggest advances in both primatology and our understanding of what it means to be human. Written by Jim Ottaviani, with art by rising comics star Maris Wicks, Primates is an inviting, immersive, and often funny look at the lives of three of the most important scientists of the twentieth century.

Primates will be published in June, but you can get a sneak peek from the publisher’s blog, here, and an exclusive excerpt from Boing Boing, here.

BOOK: My Beloved Brontosaurus

Two and a half years ago I posted a review of a new book – his first – from science blogger Brian Switek (Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature). While his blog Laelaps has moved around a bit (now at National Geographic), he’s still my go to source for analysis for new studies in paleontology. I am happy to share that Brian has published a second book:

My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs, by Brian Switek (New York: Scientific American, 2013), 272 pp.

Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic Brian Switek enriches the childlike sense of wonder these amazing creatures instill in us. Investigating the latest discoveries in paleontology, he breathes new life into old bones.

Switek reunites us with these mysterious creatures as he visits desolate excavation sites and hallowed museum vaults, exploring everything from the sex life of Apatosaurus and T. rex’s feather-laden body to just why dinosaurs vanished. (And of course, on his journey, he celebrates the book’s titular hero, “Brontosaurus”—who suffered a second extinction when we learned he never existed at all—as a symbol of scientific progress.)

With infectious enthusiasm, Switek questions what we’ve long held to be true about these beasts, weaving in stories from his obsession with dinosaurs, which started when he was just knee-high to a Stegosaurus. Endearing, surprising, and essential to our understanding of our own evolution and our place on Earth, My Beloved Brontosaurus is a book that dinosaur fans and anyone interested in scientific progress will cherish for years to come.

Read can read some reviews from Chad Orzel and scicurious, read pieces by Brian about the book at Slate and io9, read chapter 7 “Birds with Feathers” in a free excerpt from the NCSE, or listen to Brian read an excerpt:

Brian will be at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR on May 22, 7:30pm (info). I look forward to attending his book talk with my son, who, like Brian and myself, loves dinosaurs.

BOOK: Darwin’s Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution

Darwin’s Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution, by Iain McCalman (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2009), 432 pp.

Award-winning cultural historian Iain McCalman tells the stories of Charles Darwin and his most vocal supporters and colleagues: Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace. Beginning with the somber morning of April 26, 1882—the day of Darwin’s funeral—Darwin’s Armada steps back in time and recounts the lives and scientific discoveries of each of these explorers. The four amateur naturalists voyaged separately from Britain to the southern hemisphere in search of adventure and scientific fame. From Darwin’s inaugural trip on the Beagle in 1835 through Wallace’s exploits in the Amazon and, later, Malaysia in the 1840s and 1850s, each man independently made discoveries that led him to embrace Darwin’s groundbreaking theory of evolution. This book reveals the untold story of Darwin’s greatest supporters who, during his life, campaigned passionately in the war of ideas over evolution and who lived on to extend and advance the scope of his work.

The National Center for Science Education has a free preview of Darwin’s Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution, here.

BOOK: Journey by Starlight: A Time Traveler’s Guide to the Universe and Everything

Journey By Starlight: A Time Traveler’s Guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything, by Ian Flitcroft; illustrated by Britt Spencer (Long Island City, NY: One Peace Books, 2013), 204 pp.

Albert Einstein said his first ideas about relativity came from looking in the mirror as a teenager and wondering what it would be like to travel on a beam of light. This is the story of that journey… Journey by Starlight follows Albert Einstein 2.0, an artificial intelligence (AI) recreation of Albert Einstein, and his traveling companion through space and time as they travel on a beam of light from a star over 3,000 light years away to Earth. Along the way, Einstein explains the science behind everything from the origins of the universe to the meaning of life, relativity, black holes, quantum mechanics (for beginners), climate change, evolution vs. intelligent design, and how the brain works, all delivered in fun, easy-to-understand, bite-sized chunks. Based on the popular blog of the same name, Journey By Starlight has been given the graphic novel treatment, pairing the narrative with fantastic, whimsical artwork to assist in simplifying what can be difficult-to-understand ideas.

You can view sample pages from Journey By Starlight: A Time Traveler’s Guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything at the book’s website, here.

BOOK: Randomness in Evolution

Randomness in Evolution, by John Tyler Bonner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 148 pp.

John Tyler Bonner, one of our most distinguished and insightful biologists, here challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. In this concise, elegantly written book, he makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection.

With his customary wit and accessible style, Bonner makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness–or chance–plays in evolution. Due to the tremendous and enduring influence of Darwin’s natural selection, the importance of randomness has been to some extent overshadowed. Bonner shows how the effects of randomness differ for organisms of different sizes, and how the smaller an organism is, the more likely it is that morphological differences will be random and selection may not be involved to any degree. He traces the increase in size and complexity of organisms over geological time, and looks at the varying significance of randomness at different size levels, from microorganisms to large mammals. Bonner also discusses how sexual cycles vary depending on size and complexity, and how the trend away from randomness in higher forms has even been reversed in some social organisms.

Certain to provoke lively discussion, Randomness in Evolution is a book that may fundamentally change our understanding of evolution and the history of life.

You can read Chapter 1 of Randomness in Evolution on the publisher’s website, here.

BOOK: The Darwin Archipelago: The Naturalist’s Career Beyond Origin of Species

The Darwin Archipelago: The Naturalist’s Career Beyond Origin of Species, by Steve Jones (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 248 pp.

Charles Darwin is of course best known for The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origin of Species. But he produced many other books over his long career, exploring specific aspects of the theory of evolution by natural selection in greater depth. The eminent evolutionary biologist Steve Jones uses these lesser-known works as springboards to examine how their essential ideas have generated whole fields of modern biology.

Earthworms helped found modern soil science, Expression of the Emotions helped found comparative psychology, and Self-Fertilization and Forms of Flowers were important early works on the origin of sex. Through this delightful introduction to Darwin’s oeuvre, one begins to see Darwin’s role in biology as resembling Einstein’s in physics: he didn’t have one brilliant idea but many and in fact made some seminal contribution to practically every field of evolutionary study. Though these lesser-known works may seem disconnected, Jones points out that they all share a common theme: the power of small means over time to produce gigantic ends. Called a “world of wonders” by the Times of London, The Darwin Archipelago will expand any reader’s view of Darwin’s genius and will demonstrate how all of biology, like life itself, descends from a common ancestor.

The National Center for Science Education has a free preview of The Darwin Archipelago: The Naturalist’s Career Beyond Origin of Species, here.

BOOK: Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything

Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything, by Philip Ball (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 465 pp.

With the recent landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, it seems safe to assume that the idea of being curious is alive and well in modern science—that it’s not merely encouraged but is seen as an essential component of the scientific mission. Yet there was a time when curiosity was condemned. Neither Pandora nor Eve could resist the dangerous allure of unanswered questions, and all knowledge wasn’t equal—for millennia it was believed that there were some things we should not try to know. In the late sixteenth century this attitude began to change dramatically, and in Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything, Philip Ball investigates how curiosity first became sanctioned—when it changed from a vice to a virtue and how it became permissible to ask any and every question about the world.

Looking closely at the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, Ball vividly brings to life the age when modern science began, a time that spans the lives of Galileo and Isaac Newton. In this entertaining and illuminating account of the rise of science as we know it, Ball tells of scientists both legendary and lesser known, from Copernicus and Kepler to Robert Boyle, as well as the inventions and technologies that were inspired by curiosity itself, such as the telescope and the microscope. The so-called Scientific Revolution is often told as a story of great geniuses illuminating the world with flashes of inspiration. But Curiosity reveals a more complex story, in which the liberation—and subsequent taming—of curiosity was linked to magic, religion, literature, travel, trade, and empire. Ball also asks what has become of curiosity today: how it functions in science, how it is spun and packaged for consumption, how well it is being sustained, and how the changing shape of science influences the kinds of questions it may continue to ask.

Though proverbial wisdom tell us that it was through curiosity that our innocence was lost, that has not deterred us. Instead, it has been completely the contrary: today we spend vast sums trying to reconstruct the first instants of creation in particle accelerators, out of a pure desire to know. Ball refuses to let us take this desire for granted, and this book is a perfect homage to such an inquisitive attitude.

The author gave a talk based on his book for Big Ideas:

BOOK: Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions about Evolution

Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions about Evolution, by Francisco Ayala (Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 83 pp.

Despite the ongoing cultural controversy in America, evolution remains a cornerstone of science. In this book, Francisco J. Ayala—an evolutionary biologist, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and winner of the National Medal of Science and the Templeton Prize—cuts to the chase in a daring attempt to address, in nontechnical language, six perennial questions about evolution:

• Am I a Monkey?• Why Is Evolution a Theory?• What Is DNA?• Do All Scientists Accept Evolution?• How Did Life Begin?• Can One Believe in Evolution and God?

This to-the-point book answers each of these questions with force. Ayala’s occasionally biting essays refuse to lend credence to disingenuous ideas and arguments. He lays out the basic science that underlies evolutionary theory, explains how the process works, and soundly makes the case for why evolution is not a threat to religion.

Brief, incisive, topical, authoritative, Am I a Monkey? will take you a day to read and a lifetime to ponder.

The National Center for Science Education has a free preview of Am I a Monkey?, here.

BOOK: Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures, by Virgina Morrell (New York: Crown, 2013), 291 pp.

Did you know that ants teach, earthworms make decisions, rats love to be tickled, and chimps grieve? Did you know that some dogs have thousand-word vocabularies and that birds practice songs in their sleep? That crows improvise tools, blue jays plan ahead, and moths remember living as caterpillars?

Animal Wise takes us on a dazzling odyssey into the inner world of animals, from ants to elephants to wolves, and from sharp-shooting archerfish to pods of dolphins that rumble like rival street gangs. With 30 years of experience covering the sciences, Morell uses her formidable gifts as a story-teller to transport us to field sites and laboratories around the world, introducing us to pioneering animal-cognition researchers and their surprisingly intelligent and sensitive subjects. She explores how this rapidly evolving, controversial field has only recently overturned old notions about why animals behave as they do. She probes the moral and ethical dilemmas of recognizing that even “lesser animals” have cognitive abilities such as memory, feelings, personality, and self-awareness–traits that many in the twentieth century felt were unique to human beings.

By standing behaviorism on its head, Morell brings the world of nature brilliantly alive in a nuanced, deeply felt appreciation of the human-animal bond, and she shares her admiration for the men and women who have simultaneously chipped away at what we think makes us distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities come from.

BOOK: Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006

Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006, by Edward O. Wilson (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 719 pp.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson is one of the leading biologists and philosophical thinkers of our time. In this compelling collection, Wilson’s observations range from the tiny glands of ants to the nature of the living universe. Many of the pieces are considered landmarks in evolutionary biology, ecology, and behavioral biology. Wilson explores topics as diverse as slavery in ants, the genetic basis of societal structure, the discovery of the taxon cycle, the original formulation of the theory of island biogeography, a critique of subspecies as a unit of classification, and the conservation of life’s diversity. Each article is presented in its original form, dating from Wilson’s first published article in 1949 to his most recent exploration of the natural world. Preceding each piece is a brief essay by Wilson that explains the context in which the article was written and provides insights into the scientist himself and the debates of the time.

This collection enables us to share Wilson’s various vantage points and to view the complexities of nature through his eyes. Wilson aficionados, along with readers discovering his work for the first time, will find in this collection a world of beauty, complexity, and challenge.

E.O. Wilson was scheduled to give a book talk in Portland in May 2013 (for his new book Letters to a Young Scientist), but the event had to be canceled due to an illness with Wilson. As I have had the opportunity to meet him twice before, I wish him the best!

BOOK: The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe

The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe, by Michael D. Gordin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 304 pp.

Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor.

Sound implausible? Well, from 1950 until the late 1970s, a huge number of people begged to differ, as they devoured Immanuel Velikovsky’s major best-seller, Worlds in Collision, insisting that perhaps this polymathic thinker held the key to a new science and a new history. Scientists, on the other hand, assaulted Velikovsky’s book, his followers, and his press mercilessly from the get-go. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital this question remains to us today. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material from Velikovsky’s personal archives, Gordin presents a behind-the-scenes history of the writer’s career, from his initial burst of success through his growing influence on the counterculture, heated public battles with such luminaries as Carl Sagan, and eventual eclipse. Along the way, he offers fascinating glimpses into the histories and effects of other fringe doctrines, including creationism, Lysenkoism, parapsychology, and more—all of which have surprising connections to Velikovsky’s theories.

Science today is hardly universally secure, and scientists seem themselves beset by critics, denialists, and those they label “pseudoscientists”—as seen all too clearly in battles over evolution and climate change. The Pseudoscience Wars simultaneously reveals the surprising Cold War roots of our contemporary dilemma and points readers to a different approach to drawing the line between knowledge and nonsense.

There is a great interview with the author at New Books in Science, Technology, and Society.

BOOK: Science in the 20th Century and Beyond

Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, by Jon Agar (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012), 614 pp.

A compelling history of science from 1900 to the present day, this is the first book to survey modern developments in science during a century of unprecedented change, conflict and uncertainty. The scope is global.

Science’s claim to access universal truths about the natural world made it an irresistible resource for industrial empires, ideological programs, and environmental campaigners during this period. Science has been at the heart of twentieth century history – from Einstein’s new physics to the Manhattan Project, from eugenics to the Human Genome Project, or from the wonders of penicillin to the promises of biotechnology. For some science would only thrive if autonomous and kept separate from the political world, while for others science was the best guide to a planned and better future. Science was both a routine, if essential, part of an orderly society, and the disruptive source of bewildering transformation.

Jon Agar draws on a wave of recent scholarship that explores science from interdisciplinary perspectives to offer a readable synthesis that will be ideal for anyone curious about the profound place of science in the modern world.

BOOK: Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline

Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline, by David Sepkoski (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 432 pp.

Although fossils have provided some of the most important evidence for evolution, the discipline of paleontology has not always had a central place in evolutionary biology. Beginning in Darwin’s day, and for much of the twentieth century, paleontologists were often regarded as mere fossil collectors by many evolutionary biologists, their attempts to contribute to evolutionary theory ignored or regarded with scorn. In the 1950s, however, paleontologists began mounting a counter-movement that insisted on the valid, important, and original contribution of paleontology to evolutionary theory. This movement, called “paleobiology” by its proponents, advocated for an approach to the fossil record that was theoretical, quantitative, and oriented towards explaining the broad patterns of evolution and extinction in the history of life.

Rereading the Fossil Record provides, as never before, a historical account of the origin, rise, and importance of paleobiology, from the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1980s. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, David Sepkoski shows how the movement was conceived and promoted by a small but influential group of paleontologists—including Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, among others—and examines the intellectual, disciplinary, and political dynamics involved in the ascendency of paleobiology. By emphasizing the close relationship between paleobiology and other evolutionary disciplines, this book writes a new chapter in the history of evolutionary biology, while also offering insights into the dynamics of disciplinary change in modern science.

BOOK: Ordering Life: Karl Jordan and the Naturalist Tradition

Ordering Life: Karl Jordan and the Naturalist Tradition, by Kristin Johnson (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 376 pp.

For centuries naturalists have endeavored to name, order, and explain biological diversity. Karl Jordan (1861–1959) dedicated his long life to this effort, describing thousands of new species in the process. Ordering Life explores the career of this prominent figure as he worked to ensure a continued role for natural history museums and the field of taxonomy in the rapidly changing world of twentieth-century science.

Jordan made an effort to both practice good taxonomy and secure status and patronage in a world that would soon be transformed by wars and economic and political upheaval. Kristin Johnson traces his response to these changes and shows that creating scientific knowledge about the natural world depends on much more than just good method or robust theory. The broader social context in which scientists work is just as important to the project of naming, describing, classifying, and, ultimately, explaining life.

BOOK: Charles Darwin’s Notebooks from the Voyage of the ‘Beagle’

Charles Darwin’s Notebooks from the Voyage of the Beagle, edited by Gordon Chancellor and John van Wyhe (Cambridge: Cambirdge University Press, 2009), 650 pp.

This is the first full edition of the notebooks used by Darwin during his epic voyage in the Beagle. It contains transcriptions of all fifteen notebooks, which now survive as some of the most precious documents in the history of science. The notebooks record the entire range of Darwin’s interests and activities during the Beagle journey, with observations on geology, zoology, botany, ecology, barometer and thermometer readings, ethnography, anthropology, archaeology and linguistics, along with maps, drawings, financial records, shopping lists, reading notes, essays and personal diary entries. Some of Darwin’s critical discoveries and experiences, made famous through his own publications, are recorded in their most immediate form in the notebooks, and published here for the first time. The notebook texts are accompanied by full editorial apparatus and introductions explaining Darwin’s actions at each stage, focusing on discoveries that were pivotal to convincing him that life on Earth had evolved.

BOOK: Charles Darwin’s Shorter Publications, 1829–1883

Charles Darwin’s Shorter Publications, 1829-1883, edited by John van Wyhe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 556 pp.

Charles Darwin’s words first appeared in print as a student at Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1829, and in almost every subsequent year of his life he published essays, articles, letters to editors, or other brief works. These shorter publications contain a wealth of valuable material. They represent an important part of the Darwin visible to the Victorian public, alongside his ever present sense of humour, and reveal an even wider variety of his scientific interests and abilities, which continued to his final days. This book brings together all known shorter publications and printed items Darwin wrote during his lifetime, including his first and his last publications, and the first publication, with A. R. Wallace, of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. With over seventy newly discovered items, the book is fully edited and annotated, and contains original illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography.

BOOK: Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age

Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age, by Sherrie Lynne Lyons (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2010), 245 pp.

Science permeates nearly every aspect of our lives, and yet, as current debates over intelligent design, the causes of global warming, and alternative health practices indicate, the question of how to distinguish science from pseudoscience remains a difficult one. To address this question, Sherrie Lynne Lyons draws on four examples from the nineteenth century—sea serpent investigations, spiritualism, phrenology, and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Each attracted the interest of prominent scientists as well as the general public, yet three remained at the edges of scientific respectability while the fourth, evolutionary theory, although initially regarded as scientific heresy, ultimately became the new scientific orthodoxy. Taking a serious look at the science behind these examples, Lyons argues that distinguishing between science and pseudoscience, particularly in the midst of discovery, is not as easy as the popular image of science tends to suggest. Two examples of present-day controversies surrounding evolutionary psychology and the meaning of fossils confirm this assertion. She concludes that although the boundaries of what constitutes science are not always clear-cut, the very intimate relationship between science and society, rather than being a hindrance, contributes to the richness and diversity of scientific ideas. Taken together, these entertaining and accessible examples illuminate important issues concerning the theory, practice, and content of science.

BOOK: Once We Had Gills: Growing Up Evolutionist in an Evolving World

Last year biologist Rudolf A. Raff published Once We All Had Gills: Growing Up Evolutionist in an Evolving World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012):

In this book, Rudolf A. Raff reaches out to the scientifically queasy, using his life story and his growth as a scientist to illustrate why science matters, especially at a time when many Americans are both suspicious of science and hostile to scientific ways of thinking. Noting that science has too often been the object of controversy in school curriculums and debates on public policy issues ranging from energy and conservation to stem-cell research and climate change, Raff argues that when the public is confused or ill-informed, these issues tend to be decided on religious, economic, and political grounds that disregard the realities of the natural world. Speaking up for science and scientific literacy, Raff tells how and why he became an evolutionary biologist and describes some of the vibrant and living science of evolution. Once We All Had Gills is also the story of evolution writ large: its history, how it is studied, what it means, and why it has become a useful target in a cultural war against rational thought and the idea of a secular, religiously tolerant nation.

The National Center for Science Education has an excerpt from the book, chapter 19 on creationism, here.

BOOK: What About Darwin?

Historian Thomas F. Glick, author/editor of many books on the reception of Darwinism (The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, Darwin on Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection, The Reception of Darwinism in the Iberian World: Spain, Spanish America and Brazil (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science), Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Confronts Evolution, 1877-1902 (Medicine, Science, and Religion in Historical Context), and The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe (Reception of British & Irish Authors Europe)), has recently published What about Darwin?: All Species of Opinion from Scientists, Sages, Friends, and Enemies Who Met, Read, and Discussed the Naturalist Who Changed the World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010):

Charles Darwin and his revolutionary ideas inspired pundits the world over to put pen to paper. In this unique dictionary of quotations, Darwin scholar Thomas Glick presents fascinating observations about Darwin and his ideas from such notable figures as P. T. Barnum, Anton Chekhov, Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Mao Tse-tung, Pius IX, Jules Verne, and Virginia Woolf.

What was it about Darwin that generated such widespread interest? His Origin of Species changed the world. Naturalists, clerics, politicians, novelists, poets, musicians, economists, and philosophers alike could not help but engage his theory of evolution. Whatever their view of his theory, however, those who met Darwin were unfailingly charmed by his modesty, kindness, honesty, and seriousness of purpose.

This diverse collection drawn from essays, letters, novels, short stories, plays, poetry, speeches, and parodies demonstrates how Darwin’s ideas permeated all areas of thought. The quotations trace a broad conversation about Darwin across great distances of time and space, revealing his profound influence on the great thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

BOOK: The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People

Paleontologist Neil Shubin, author of the bestseller Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (2008) has published his second book, The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People (New York: Pantheon Books, 2013):

From one of our finest and most popular science writers, and the best-selling author of Your Inner Fish, comes the answer to a scientific mystery as big as the world itself: How are the events that formed our solar system billions of years ago embedded inside each of us?

In Your Inner Fish, Neil Shubin delved into the amazing connections between human bodies—our hands, heads, and jaws—and the structures in fish and worms that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. In The Universe Within, with his trademark clarity and exuberance, Shubin takes an even more expansive approach to the question of why we look the way we do. Starting once again with fossils, he turns his gaze skyward, showing us how the entirety of the universe’s fourteen-billion-year history can be seen in our bodies. As he moves from our very molecular composition (a result of stellar events at the origin of our solar system) through the workings of our eyes, Shubin makes clear how the evolution of the cosmos has profoundly marked our own bodies.

Donald Prothero reviewed The Universe Within for Skeptic, here.

BOOK: Philosophy after Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings

Philosophy after Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, edited my Michael Ruse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 580 pp.

Wittgenstein famously remarked in 1923, “Darwin’s theory has no more relevance for philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science.” Yet today we are witnessing a major revival of interest in applying evolutionary approaches to philosophical problems. Philosophy after Darwin is an anthology of essential writings covering the most influential ideas about the philosophical implications of Darwinism, from the publication of On the Origin of Species to today’s cutting-edge research.

Michael Ruse presents writings by leading modern thinkers and researchers–including some writings never before published–together with the most important historical documents on Darwinism and philosophy, starting with Darwin himself. Included here are Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Henry Huxley, G. E. Moore, John Dewey, Konrad Lorenz, Stephen Toulmin, Karl Popper, Edward O. Wilson, Hilary Putnam, Philip Kitcher, Elliott Sober, and Peter Singer. Readers will encounter some of the staunchest critics of the evolutionary approach, such as Alvin Plantinga, as well as revealing excerpts from works like Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. Ruse’s comprehensive general introduction and insightful section introductions put these writings in context and explain how they relate to such fields as epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and ethics.

An invaluable anthology and sourcebook, Philosophy after Darwin traces philosophy’s complicated relationship with Darwin’s dangerous idea, and shows how this relationship reflects a broad movement toward a secular, more naturalistic understanding of the human experience.

BOOK: Darwin in Galapagos: Footsteps to a New World

Darwin in Galápagos: Footsteps to a New World, K. Thalia Grant and Gregory B. Estes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 362 pp.

In 1835, during his voyage on HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin spent several weeks in Galápagos exploring the islands and making extensive notes on their natural history. Darwin in Galápagos is the first book to recreate Darwin’s historic visit to the islands, following in his footsteps day by day and island by island as he records all that he observes around him.

Thalia Grant and Gregory Estes meticulously retrace Darwin’s island expeditions, taking you on an unforgettable guided tour. Drawing from Darwin’s original notebooks and logs from the Beagle, the latest findings by Darwin scholars and modern science, and their own intimate knowledge of the archipelago, Grant and Estes offer rare insights into Darwin’s thinking about evolution in the context of the actual locales that inspired him. They introduce Darwin as a young naturalist in England and onboard the Beagle and then put you in his shoes as he explores remote places in the islands. They identify the unique animals and plants he observed and collected, and describe dramatic changes to the islands since Darwin’s time. They also explore the importance of Darwin’s observations and collections to the development of his thinking after the voyage.

Ideal for visitors to Galápagos and a delight for armchair travelers, Darwin in Galápagos is generously illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs and line drawings, as well as detailed maps of Darwin’s island itinerary and informative box features on the archipelago’s natural history.

BOOKS: Three-part series on our cosmic, earth, and evolution stories

Dawn Publications specializes in science and nature books for kids. Their series of evolution books by Jennifer Morgan and beautifully illustrated by Dana Lynne Anderson capture for young curious minds the wonder of our connection to the natural world. They tell, from the perspective of the Universe, our cosmic, earth, and evolution stories. Each book contains at the end a section with further detail of topics featured in the story, a glossary, and suggested readings and other resources.

Born With a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story, by Jennifer Morgan and illustrated by Dana Lynne Anderson (Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications, 2002), 48 pp.

Get ready to hear the Universe tell its own life story of chaos and creativity. Time after time the Universe nearly perishes, then bravely triumphs and turns itself into new and even more spectacular forms—like the Sun and Earth. It even turns itself into Earthling scientists who help the Universe discover more about itself. This is a science story from the inside. It’s a story about you, from the time you were really born—about 13 billion years ago. First in a trilogy, this illustrated book ends as the Universe forms a young Earth.

From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story, by Jennifer Morgan and illustrated by Dana Lynne Anderson (Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications, 2003), 48 pp.

Settle in with your favorite pillow while the Universe tells the thrilling story of Earth. It’s a story about the beginning of life, and how Earth triumphs over crisis to become bacteria… jellyfish… flowers… dinosaurs! It’s a science story that is your story, too, the story of your living Earth and the unbroken chain that connects you to the very first life that began to twitch in the sea four billion years ago.

Mammals Who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story, by Jennifer Morgan and illustrated by Dana Lynne Anderson (Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications, 2006), 48 pp.

This remarkable illustrated evolution series, narrated by the Universe itself, concludes with Book Three, the amazing story of mammals. It picks up with the extinction of dinosaurs, and tells how tiny mammals survived and morphed into lots of new Earthlings… horses, whales and a kind of mammal with a powerful imagination—you! It’s a story of chaos, creativity and heroes—the greatest adventure on Earth! And it’s a personal story… about our bodies, our minds, our spirits. It’s our story.

Some seem to think these books, through personification of the Universe as storyteller, are masquerading as creationism/intelligent design. I don’t think so. The intention here is to provide a grand story of sorts for children about the origins of our universe, earth, and life. Some call this the Epic of Evolution or The Great Story. If you’re religious, you can take these books as you will. If you’re secular, you can read these books in a wholly secular tone. As the author notes in the third book, in response to queries about where God is in these books, “The word ‘God’ is purposefully not in the story so that it can be embraced by people of all religious traditions, or of none at all.” What is important is that children are being offered good science through the stories, and that is the case with Born with a Bang, From Lava to Life, and Mammals Who Morph.

BOOK: Darwin: A Graphic Biography

For Darwin’s bicentenary in 2009, Simon Gurr and Eugene Byrne put together a graphic novel. It was distributed throughout the UK, and I was happy to have been sent a copy:

It has now been published in the United States through Smithsonian Books:

Darwin: A Graphic Biography is an inspiring expedition into the physical and intellectual adventures of Charles Darwin. Presenting Darwin’s life in a smart and entertaining graphic novel, Darwin: A Graphic Biography attempts to not only educate the reader about Darwin but also the scientific world of the 1800s. The graphic medium is ideal for recreating a very specific time frame, succeeding in placing the reader right next to a young Darwin on a “beetling” expedition. With specimens in both hands, and anxious to get another, Darwin ends up stuffing the third beetle into his mouth. Darwin’s life presented in this form is an inspirational tale for kids of all ages. They’ll be sure to identify with a curious young Darwin finding his way on youthful adventures in the fields near his house. The ups, downs, and near-misses of Darwin’s youth are portrayed honestly and without foreshadowing of his later fame. This is a key point for younger readers: that Darwin wasn’t somehow predestined to greatness. He was curious, patient, and meticulous. He persevered–a great lesson about what science is all about.

It is available on Amazon today, one week before Darwin Day: Darwin: A Graphic Biography. And the National Center for Science Education has a preview, here.

For some images from inside, see: On the origin of Darwin: A Graphic Biography and Happy Birthday, Darwin: A Graphic Biography.