Eight Little Piggies

Infobox Book


name =Eight Little Piggies
author =Stephen Jay Gould
genre =Non-fiction, Science
publisher =W. W. Norton & Co.
release_date =1993
pages =479
isbn =ISBN 0-393-03416-X
preceded_by =Bully for Brontosaurus
followed_by =Dinosaur in a Haystack

"Eight Little Piggies" (1993) is the sixth 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, [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_eight-piggies.html "Eight Little Piggies"] , explores concepts such as archetypes and polydactyly via the anatomy of early tetrapods. Other essays discuss themes such as the scale of extinction, vertebrate anatomy, grand patterns of evolution, and human nature.

Contents

• "A Reflective Prologue"
  1. The Scale of Extinction
     1. [http://boston.k12.ma.us/Snowden/howard/Evolution%20of%20Life/Evolution%20at%20a%20snails%20pace.doc Unenchanted Evening]
     2. [http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/philosophy/Gould.htm The Golden Rule: A Proper Scale for Our Environmental Crisis]
     3. Losing a Limpet
  2. Odd Bits of Vertebrate Anatomy
     4. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_eight-piggies.html Eight Little Piggies]
     5. Bent Out of Shape
     6. An Earful of Jaw
     7. Full of Hot Air
  3. Vox Populi
     "Evolving Visions "
     8. Men of the Thirty-Third Division: An Essay on Integrity
     9. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_darwin-paley.html Darwin and Paley meet the Invisible Hand]
     10. More Light on Leaves
         
     "Time in Newton's Century"
     11. On Rereading Edmund Halley
     12. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_house-ussher.html Fall in the House of Ussher]
  4. Musings
     "Clouds of Memory"
     13. Muller Bros. Moving and Storage
     14. Shoemaker and Morning Star
         
     "Authenticity"
     15. In Touch with Walcott
     16. Counters and Cable Cars
  5. Human Nature
     17. Mozart and Modularity
     18. The Moral State of Tahitiand of Darwin
     19. Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
     20. The Declining Empire of Apes
  6. Grand Patterns of Evolution
     "Two Steps Towards a General Theory of Life's Complexity "
     21. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_wheel-progress.html The Wheel of Fortune and the Wedge of Progress]
     22. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_tires-sandals.html Tires to Sandals]
         
     "New Discoveries in the Earliest History of Multicellular Life"
     23. Defending the Heretical and the Superfluous
     24. [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_reversal-hallucigenia.html The Reversal of "Hallucigenia"]
  7. Revising and Extending Darwin
     25. What the Immaculate Pigeon Teaches the Burdened Mind
     26. The Great Seal Principle
     27. A Dog's Life in Galton's Polyhedron
     28. Betting on ChanceAnd No Fair Peeking
  8. Reversals-Fragments of a Book not Written
     29. Shields of ExpectationAnd Actuality
     30. A Tale of Three Pictures
     31. A Foot Soldier for Evolution

Bibliography

Index

From "Publishers Weekly"

Reviews

* [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/09/home/gould-piggies.html The Snail Wars] - by Derek Bickerton, "The New York Times"
* [http://www.senecac.on.ca/quarterly/1993-vol01-num02-winter/reviews/doughty1.html Book review] - by Howard A. Doughty, "College Quarterly"
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n12_v45/ai_13952974/print Book review] - John Farrell, "National Review"
* [http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_04.15.93/ARTS/bo0415c.php Book review] - Edward Kay, "Eye Weekly"

External links

* [http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/backlist/031139.htm W. W. Norton promotional page]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=_kOoVw0SIhUC&dq Google Books] - contains book excerpts and jacket description
* [http://www.questia.com/reader/action/readchecked?docId=105296211 Link to Questia's "Eight Little Piggies" online]