Bully for Brontosaurus

Infobox Book


name =Bully for Brontosaurus
author =Stephen Jay Gould
genre =Non-fiction, Science
publisher =W. W. Norton & Co.
release_date =1991
pages =540
isbn =ISBN 0-09-989350-9
preceded_by =The Flamingo's Smile
followed_by =Eight Little Piggies

"Bully for Brontosaurus" (1991) is the fifth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "The View of Life" in "Natural History" magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense.

The title essay, "Bully for Brontosaurus," discusses the theory and history of taxonomy by examining the debate over whether "Brontosaurus" should be labelled "Apatosaurus". In [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_justice-scalia.html "Justice Scalia's Misunderstanding,"] Gould dissects and decisively rejects Antonin Scalia's dissent in the United States Supreme Court case "Edwards v. Aguillard" that overturned the last creationist statute in the country. Gould claimed his favourite essay to be "In a Jumbled Drawer" which discusses the debate between Nathaniel Shaler and William James over whether the improbability of our having evolved necessitates divine intervention (Gould, like James, argues no); the essay includes a letter from former President Jimmy Carter as a postscript, which discusses the issue.

External links

Reviews

* [http://www.darwiniana.tripod.com/maynard-smith_nyrb_may92_34-36.html Taking a Chance on Evolution] — by John Maynard Smith, "NYRB"
* [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/09/home/gould-bronto.html The Stan Musial of Essay Writing] — by John Noble Wilford, "The New York Times"
* [http://dannyreviews.com/h/Bully_for_Brontosaurus.html Book review] — Danny Yee