Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History

by Stephen Jay Gould

Book Overview

"Provocative and delightfully discursive essays on natural history. . . . Gould is the Stan Musial of essay writing. He can work himself into a corkscrew of ideas and improbable allusions paragraph after paragraph and then, uncoiling, hit it with such power that his fans know they are experiencing the game of essay writing at its best."--John Noble Wilford, New York Times Book Review

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039330857X
• ISBN13: 9780393308570
• Release Date: April 1992
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

extraodinary range, intellectual but in laymans terms - wonderful

I have really enjoyed Stephen Jay Gould. His range of essays and the scope of topics he discusses has always interested me, as has in ability to draw from what is clearly a profoundly wide range of material which covers literature, history, religion as well as natural history. This is I think the thing that most interests me and it is something which we don't often find in intellectual writing now, that ability to draw parallels, or discuss in depth issues outside of a certain subject matter. It reminds me a bit of the late Alistair Cook and his letters from America and these essays are mostly of about the same length. This collection is 35 essays and collected into 10 loose sections. These include some interesting groupings which you would normally not expect from a natural scientist including Intellectual biography. His biography of Antoine Lavoisier is a case in point. Lavoissier, a renowned scientist of his time, was condemned to death at the guillotine during the French Revolution, and indeed was beheaded. Gould's biography manages to touch on the aspects of his life and death including the myths which remain on his last words and days, the attempted scientific restructuring of France by the revolutionaries (including new measurements and renaming of the months etc) and the revolution's final downfall, it turned out the revolution did need scientists after all. There are essays on "kiwi eggs and the liberty Bell" or one of my favourites on Glow worms which uses the life of this insect to discuss our understanding of life processes of all insects - is the adult form the ultimate, or, like glowworms which are pupa, should we be reconsidering our adult-centric view of the natural world? I really enjoy Gould's style, it is easy flowing prose and fairly straightforward to understand. There are a few concepts which I have to re-read to get the actual meaning as some of these issues are complex - the issue of probability in evolution vs creation for instance is complex and takes a bit of consideration from a non-mathematician. I would certainly recommend this book for those who hold a creationist or intelligent design belief. This provides some fascinating points of discussion which may provide some counterpoint to the Intelligent Design assertions. Gould's letter to President Jimmy Carter and Carter's own respect for Gould would be of interest if nothing else. This is not an easy thing to sit down and read at once, but it is wonderful to browse in and out of and skip back and forth through.

Bully for Brontosaurus

Stephen Jay Gould writes another volume of essays that are profound in scope. Trying to review essays in book form is difficult, but taking the task at hand, here is what I have to say.These collected essays are enlightening and thought provoking. They vary in scope and content, but are always stimulating. The author has a knack for making the reader think, as I suppose all good professors should, a task well taken here. The writing is easily followed and straight forward with a smattering of Gould's wit thrown in for spice. The authou's sense of humor is also apparent. The essays are educational, even as the author brings two apparently different articles and ties them together with a common thread.I found a cornucopia of disparate objects that fueled my intellectual pleasure, as I read through the book. Anyone interested in Natural History or just curious about life should read this book.The author's flowing writing style is evident, his teaching skills are there to enjoy and learn from.Read and enjoy good writing.

Practice Makes (More Nearly) Perfect

This is the sixth of the collections of Gould's essays from the magazine Natural History. Gould has commented that, as he got better at essay writing, he found the earlier volumes less pleasing. Certainly, as he went along, he improved both in literary quality and in the depth of his treatment of issues. Gould is amusing, but always with a serious purpose: to educate the public about how science works, and how, often, it doesn't. In particular, the section of three essays gathered under the heading "Numbers and Probability" is very good at making one think about the real nature of "the odds."

Just plain good reading!

Stephen Jay Gould once again proves his amazing skill at presenting difficult scientific concepts in a clear, concise way. Eclectic, humorous, and always a chance to learn something new, Mr Gould's book is a refreshing look at everything around us. His insight into evolutionary concepts is profound, and it is a pleasure to read the work of someone who presents evolution as a fact -- something that most other authors (apparently including every science textbook writer in America) are too cowardly to do. Mr. Gould deserves a score of 10 for this book, but I'm beginning to suspect that he's a Yankees fan, so I held one point back on principle. I look forward to hearing clarification from him on that sticky point.

Gooey Globs of the Great God Gould

The 20th century has produced 3 truly great science writers, professional scientists who are able to not only write well, and not only in their own particular fields, but in virtually all fields of science and culture. Two of those great writers, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan, are no longer among us. The third, Stephen Jay Gould, is. Gould is an eclectic writer and a true scholar, able to make virtually any subject not only accessible to the "average" reader, if there is any such animal, but also fascinating- if you have no interest in the subject of an essay when you begin reading, you will have an interest by the time you finish. Gould's essays wander far and wide across many fields of science, religion, literature, history and human nature, but all revolve around his one central passion- evolution, and how it effects EVERYTHING (earning for Gould the eternal contempt of Creationists.) If I could recommend the works of only two writers from whom you would be allowed to gain an understanding of the world, Stephen Jay Gould would be one of them (and Joseph Campbell the other