The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History

I am just getting around to several works that have rested on my shelves, unreviewed since first read. I just completed "I Have Landed", Gould's last compilation of essays and it is indeed one of the best. But that's always been the "problem" with attempting to classify Gould's writing. First of all, the essay must be two levels - the first (the "catch") is the particular story, moral, fact or tale that serves as the germ of the essay. The second level is how it relates to natural history. The elusive nature of his writing (at least the essays) and their wide breadth of human knowledge make it difficult to choose "favorites" much less "the best". Gould was an iconoclast who reveled in his deviltry. His fights with the deterministic brand of Evolutionists is legendary and yet he emerged in a stronger position politically if not scientifically. Therefore I loved the section on the French scientists, particularly his take on Lamarckism. Throughout he stresses excellence, the non-progressivity of Evolution, the idea that morality was NOT simply a biological outcome and that choices are what drives human society. For sheer bravura, nothing could beat "Of Embryos and Ancestors" where he ranges from early life on Earth to the nature of fossils to the unbroken lineage of life on Earth while keeping us entertained with tales of Scientific infighting and pure chance resulting in spectacular discoveries. My Grade = A

Collections of previously published essays are often disappointing. Not so with Gould's "penultimate reflections in Natural History," published in 2000, just two years before his death. I found them entrancing (despite Gould's trademark parenthetical comments). Two factors make Gould's essays stand out from most science writing--the depth of his ideas and his unmatched ability to peel back layers of approximate understanding and convenient storytelling to get to what actually happened. Whether he's detailing the founding moments of palentology and geology or excavating Alfred Russel Wallace's forays into predicting the future, you know that you're going to get the real story, impeccably told, straight from the primary sources. As a science writer, I'm awed as much by Gould's impeccable scholarship as by the quality and originality of his thinking. Gould is absolutely clear-eyed about the progress of science. The tales he tells reflect it as a richly human enterprise, groping its way forward despite misconceptions, hoaxes, and the personal quirks of its protagonists.This book is not a light or easy read, but it is a richly rewarding one.Robert E. AdlerScience JournalistAuthor of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation

I am fairly new to the writings of Mr. Gould; happily his writings are extensive, as this book will have newcomers searching for more. Several of the 23 essays threatened at times to go over the head of this reader, this was neatly solved by Mr. Gould as he writes for those who are not equipped with a heavily science-based background, but he never demeans his topics by bringing them down to what some reviewers call "readable". This book made me work a bit, it may require no effort on your behalf, and either way the reader wins."How the Vulva Stone became a Brachiopod" stands at one end of the spectrum of the book, and his tributes to Carl Sagan and Joe DiMmaggio at the other. That Mr. Gould can collect essays seemingly so disparate is a tribute to his genius, and to his writing.The introductions to various essays are wonderful as well. He mentions the famous note once written in a margin; Fermat's Enigma, and ultimately brings you to his topic of Geology, but he starts with a memory of a teacher who he muses might have kept a box marked "pieces of string not worth saving". At other places it might be Mark McGwire's exploits in a sport the Author clearly loves, or a poem by Robert Frost that beautifully ushers in his message.He gives "Political Correctness" a sharp notation with the paragraph ending "the first time a tragedy, the second as farce". Even the notes he makes in his own margins are stand-alone bits for the reader. His comment on the "illogic and hypocrisy of public attitudes to drugs" starts and ends as a note, the essay hopefully will follow. This is not his last collection of essays but the penultimate, so we have one more to look forward to.One of his introductions refers to Christopher Wren who was laid to rest in what Mr. Gould feels is his finest architectural achievement, the reconstructed St. Paul's Cathedral. Mr. Wren's Son arranged for no great monument rather an inscription that read, "If you are searching for his monument look around". Mr. Gould suggested it was a tad grandiose; someday it may be inscribed for another genius that the person "read around"A great collection from a great mind. Easy, not always, worthwhile, every bit.

Stephen Jay Gould certainly doesn't need any introduction as one of the leading and most convincing voices in evolutionary thinking. However, I'm often surprised that many well-read people haven't heard about him. Not that everybody is obliged to read Gould, but if one wants to round up one's culture, paying attention to some of his ideas, even if one doesn't agree with him, won't do any harm. He always provides good food for thought--and that, at least in my books, marks him as a good writer.'The lying stones of Marrakech' is no exception to Gould's excellent writing--and it should serve as a good introduction to his world to those that still haven't read him. What strikes the most about this new volume of essays is the humanistic and incisive way in which he debunks some of our most cherished myths, especially those about our perception of science and evolutionary thinking in particular. To be sure, he has done that before--but in this volume he does it with more force.To me, the best essays in this volume are the last three, in the section he calls 'Evolution at all scales'. I was particularly surprised with the one entitled 'Of embryos and ancestors', where he writes about the incredible discovery of fossilized triploblastic embryos that antedate the famous Cambrian explosion of animal morphology and even the so-called Ediacaran fauna that comes before that explosion. That essay, in my estimation, opens up a new world of interpration on the history of life, where the succesion of animal groups seems to follow a more general pattern than previously thought from almost the very inception of life close to 3.5-3.6 billion years ago. Also, the essay 'The paradox of the visibly irrelevant', in the same section, puts the dots on the i's as far as our perception of evolutionary trends is concerned. Certainly, Gould writes in that essay, animals adapt to environments in a few generations visible to our human eyes, but do those adaptations have any ultimate meaning in broad evolutionary trends? I won't spoil it to the readers of this short note by saying what Gould's answer is--but I must say that his anwer is cleverly counterintuitive and very cogent.There are six short pieces about personalities in the world of sport, music, and science. I found this rather uncommon in Gould's collections of essays, but at the same time I found them thoroughly delightful. I was deeply moved by Gould's piece on the death of Carl Sagan, who did so much in popularizing science but who was so scorned by his colleagues because of that. Certainly the 'immortals' of science can deign to talk to plain people about their enterprise; how else can they hope to garner public support for what they do? Carl Sagan took the job--and he did it excellently. Gould's piece is a tribute to a great, humanistic scientist.In short, I recommend Gould's penultimate collection of essays (23 in total). And I'm sure that those who haven't re

I've been a fan of Stephen J. Gould for a long time, and this book is no exception. The essay about the phoney fossils available in Marrakech, Morocco and by Beringer were especially fascinating and thought provoking. To what extent does the fact that fossils are viewed as "collectables" inevitably lead to people creating faux-fossils? Also interesting were the essays on unintended (misclassification) of fossils. Sometimes even first-rate scientists were mislead.I also enjoyed the essay on how fleeting fame can be. It's interesting to think about which of today's newsmakers will our grandchildren remember.