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Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Stephen Jay Gould

Paperback | Pages: 352 pages

Rating: 4.13 | 8780 Users | 238 Reviews

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Title	:	Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
Author	:	Stephen Jay Gould
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 352 pages
Published	:	September 17th 1990 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published October 1st 1989)
Categories	:	Science. Nonfiction. Biology. Evolution. History. Natural History. Environment. Nature

Narration As Books Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Point Books Supposing Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Original Title:	Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
ISBN:	039330700X (ISBN13: 9780393307009)
Edition Language:	English
Literary Awards:	Royal Society Science Book Prize for General Prize (1991), Pulitzer Prize Nominee for General Nonfiction (1990), Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science (1990)

Rating Epithetical Books Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Ratings: 4.13 From 8780 Users | 238 Reviews

Judgment Epithetical Books Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

A decent, but certainly out of date book. The most interesting section is that regarding the anatomy of the Burgess biota, and the historical narrative of Whittington, Conway Morris, and Briggs is also a highlight. The more technical details of chapter three might throw some readers off, but I found them to be fascinating.Unfortunately, most of the book is out of date. Most of the "weird wonders" that Gould describes have been taxonomically re-evaluated in the previous two decades, and technical

As someone who has studied paleontology their entire life strictly as a hobby- mostly through children's books and, later, Wikipedia articles- I chose Wonderful Life as my first foray into palaeontological literature, and I was stunned. Gould is an excellent writer, and, although I was absolutely ready to read 380 pages about worms and tiny arthropods, his words breathed unspeakable excitement into the subject. He analyzes the Burgess Shale and its implications for the evolutionary process in

Wonderful Life is pretty, well, wonderful. If your curiosity about the Burgess Shale or the weird and wonderful beings of the Cambrian period needs sating, this book should more than do it. It is quite dense Gould may have been a popular science writer, but he didnt dumb it down but its worth the time investment.Its true that some of the reconstructions of these beings have been challenged since Gould wrote, but its still worth reading for his overall theory about the development of life, and

There's a trap that a lot of science writing falls into: when the author finds the subject matter beautiful and awe-inspiring, they tell you "this is beautiful and awe-inspiring!". To give you context for some fact, they'll tell you numbers of Olympic swimming pools or football stadiums or Earth masses or lightyears. This is not interesting! You can't make me feel awe by telling me how much awe I should be feeling, and you have to do more than just say a very large or very small number.Gould is

Wonderful book.Some of the science has been overtaken in the quarter century since it was written, but mainly in the details, not in the main thrust of the arguments. (And it is very much a long argument, if mostly with someone other than me.) I could have stood to be a bit less tired and distracted when I chugged through it, but then, I don't have a quiz next period, so.If one were actually studying the creatures and evolutionary periods, I'd think one would want something more recent, but all

One of my favourite books. Whenever I read these types of books, or books on history, I feel as though I am in a time machine going back to these places and time periods. Reading this book, I imagined myself wading through a shallow beach discovering and examining all these weird and wonderful creatures. Wow!

Great overview on the Cambrian period and how honestly weird life was at that time. Also gives a nice biography of Walcott, the man who discovered the Burgess Shale. The Burgess shale has many examples of phylums of invertebrates that flat out do not exist anymore. Most arthropods now only have about 4 different body types. At this time there were more. Even known arthropod phylums such as trilobites give forms that became lost after this geologic time period.Gould gives his biography on