The panda's thumb :

By: Gould, Stephen JayMaterial type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Norton, 1992Copyright date: ©1980Description: 343 pages : illustrations ; 21 cmContent type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 0393308197 (pbk.); 9780393308198 (pbk.)Subject(s): Evolution (Biology) -- History | Natural selection -- HistoryDDC classification: 575.016 LOC classification: QH361 | .G66 1992
Contents:
Prologue -- [pt]. 1. Perfection and imperfection : a trilogy on a panda's thumb -- 1. The panda's thumb -- 2. Senseless signs of history -- 3. Double trouble -- [pt. 2]. Darwiniana -- 4. Natural selection and the human brain : Darwin vs. Wallace -- 5. Darwin's middle road -- 6. Death before birth, or a mite's nunc dimittis -- 7. Shades of Lamarck -- 8. Caring groups and selfish genes -- [pt]. 3. Human evolution -- 9. A biological homage to Mickey Mouse -- 10. Piltdown revisited -- 11. Our greatest evolutionary step -- 12. In the midst of life -- [pt]. 4. Science and politics of human differences -- 13. Wide hats and narrow minds -- 14. Women's brains -- 15. Dr. Down's syndrome -- 16. Flaws in a Victorian veil --
[pt. 5]. The pace of change -- 17. The episodic nature of evolutionary change -- 18. Return of the hopeful monster -- 19. The Great Scablands debate -- 20. A quahog is a quahog -- [pt]. 6. Early life -- 21. An early start -- 22. Crazy old Randolph Kirkpatrick -- 23. Bathybius and Eozoon -- 24. Might we fit inside a sponge's cell -- [pt]. 7. They were despised and rejected -- 25. Were dinosaurs dumb? -- 26. The telltale wishbone -- 27. Nature's odd couples -- 28. Sticking up for marsupials -- [pt]. 8. Size and time -- 29. Our allotted lifetimes -- 30. Natural attraction : bacteria, the birds and the bees -- 31. Time's vastness -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: A collection of essays by reknown scientist Jay Stephen Gould drawn from his columns in Natural History. The essays deal with topics such as: evolutionary opportunism (nature is a tinkerer, making the most of what's available in the course of adapting to the environment); new information on Darwin and his contemporaries; racism and cultural relativism; the evolutionary pattern of sudden rapid change; the origin of birds or the warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs; and, Teilhard de Chardin as a co-conspirator in the Piltdown hoax
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"First published as a Norton pbk. 1980; reissued 1992."--Verso title page

Includes index

Bibliography: pages 324-330

Prologue -- [pt]. 1. Perfection and imperfection : a trilogy on a panda's thumb -- 1. The panda's thumb -- 2. Senseless signs of history -- 3. Double trouble -- [pt. 2]. Darwiniana -- 4. Natural selection and the human brain : Darwin vs. Wallace -- 5. Darwin's middle road -- 6. Death before birth, or a mite's nunc dimittis -- 7. Shades of Lamarck -- 8. Caring groups and selfish genes -- [pt]. 3. Human evolution -- 9. A biological homage to Mickey Mouse -- 10. Piltdown revisited -- 11. Our greatest evolutionary step -- 12. In the midst of life -- [pt]. 4. Science and politics of human differences -- 13. Wide hats and narrow minds -- 14. Women's brains -- 15. Dr. Down's syndrome -- 16. Flaws in a Victorian veil --

[pt. 5]. The pace of change -- 17. The episodic nature of evolutionary change -- 18. Return of the hopeful monster -- 19. The Great Scablands debate -- 20. A quahog is a quahog -- [pt]. 6. Early life -- 21. An early start -- 22. Crazy old Randolph Kirkpatrick -- 23. Bathybius and Eozoon -- 24. Might we fit inside a sponge's cell -- [pt]. 7. They were despised and rejected -- 25. Were dinosaurs dumb? -- 26. The telltale wishbone -- 27. Nature's odd couples -- 28. Sticking up for marsupials -- [pt]. 8. Size and time -- 29. Our allotted lifetimes -- 30. Natural attraction : bacteria, the birds and the bees -- 31. Time's vastness -- Bibliography -- Index

A collection of essays by reknown scientist Jay Stephen Gould drawn from his columns in Natural History. The essays deal with topics such as: evolutionary opportunism (nature is a tinkerer, making the most of what's available in the course of adapting to the environment); new information on Darwin and his contemporaries; racism and cultural relativism; the evolutionary pattern of sudden rapid change; the origin of birds or the warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs; and, Teilhard de Chardin as a co-conspirator in the Piltdown hoax