Explore the Incredible Wonders of the Burgess Shale and Uncover the Secrets of History

Jen D.: This book is very detailed and informative (very thorough). It does have pictures (a few) but is written such that a young teen can enjoy it. The kid's feedback is that it is extremely interesting! A more obscure subject (interest peeked after a Nature of Things with David Suzuki episode) - it's been well received and enjoyed.

Canada on Jan 08, 2021

De Vos John: Comment transformer un sujet scientifique pointu en histoire palpitante? C'est tout l'art de Jay-Gould. Témoignages des découvreurs du site fossilifère de Burguess, explications sur les différentes interpretations qui ont successivement été faites de ces fossiles étranges. Et de conclure que cet épisode illustre le fait que l'émergence de l'Homme est contingente et non nécessaire! Très intelligent et "entertaining".

France on Jul 29, 2019

Natália Ranauro: Assim como o título esse livro é maravilhoso! Gould escreve de forma poética sobre bichos incríveis e alucinantes que viverem num passado muito distante. Assim como os dinossauros esses animais já não existem no presente, surgiram muito antes dos dinossauros e são muito mais interessantes, apesar de se serem muito menos conhecidos. Recomendo esse livro para todos que tem curiosidade em conhecer um mundo totalmente diferente do que vivemos nos dias atuais. Essa história se passa na Terra mas ao ver as descrições dos animais desse livro vc vai achar que está lendo sobre animais de outro planeta. Boa leitura! A vida é maravilhosa !

Brazil on May 21, 2018

plinio_1959: Un classico che ogni paleontologo dovrebbe avere nella sua libreria. Lo stile di Gould, come al solito, non delude, presentando teorie scientifiche e concetti complessi senza perder la leggerezza tipica di un libro divulgativo. Sebbene alcuni dei concetti esposti siano ad oggi stati aggiornati da studi scientifici più approfonditi, Wonderful Life rimane una delle più dettagliate raccolte di informazioni sulla straordinaria fauna cambriana degli Scisti di Burgess. Un argomento del genere, che potrebbe sembrare destinato a un pubblico di specialisti, in realtà ha un’importanza enorme dal punto di vista del significato che la fauna cambriana ha per tutta la storia successiva del regno animale. Uno dei concetti che Gould fa comprendere meglio è il fatto che mai prima e dopo, nella storia evolutiva dei phyla animali, ci sia stata una tale innovazione in termini di differenti tipologie di piani anatomici. Insomma, un libro da non perdere.

Italy on Jan 07, 2017

Quaesitrix: Un livre très intéressant sur la faune du cambrien. Gould en profite aussi pour exposer et combattre autant qu'il peut les préjugés et divers a priori concernant la biologie, l'évolution et la vie en général dont nous n'avons souvent pas conscience. Notamment, l'impression très répandue que l'évolution est synonyme d'amélioration, les êtres vivants les plus anciens étant primitifs, moins complexes et moins adaptés que leurs successeurs. Il consacre un chapitre à la manière donc l'iconographie scientifique promulgue cette impression avec, par exemple, l'échelle de l'évolution du singe à l'homme, et l'image classique de l'arbre de la vie qui commence par quelques branches puis se diversifie de plus en plus au fil du temps, ce qui en fait une sorte de cône avec le passé côté pointe et le présent côté large, ce qui donne l'impression que la faune du présent est plus diversifiée que celle du passé. Gould explique les erreurs de ces images qui font qu'elles ne sont pas représentatives de la réalité (dans l'arbre, par exemple, souvent seules les branches qui ont des descendants modernes sont représentés), corrige leurs leçons (une très forte diversité...

France on Mar 15, 2016

florent boico: Amazing.

Such a fascinating subject and told in such a great way. A lot of wisdom about the scientific method, our place in the universe and great window into a primitive and mysterious world.

That is pretty much it.

I think the author pushes a bit on the notion of complete randomness in evolution at the very end of the book, walks a fine line and maybe crosses it at time when he argues that the animals consisting the extinct phylums appears very adapted to their environment. Truth is you can't know for sure how well their are adapted by just looking at their shape. Behavior (neural composition and connection in other words) and finer micro-biology are unknown so how can we know for sure.

As for the argument that replaying the tape might yield other result, it is again not obvious. Assuming asteroids fall at the same moments and solar activity follows the same exact pattern, assuming all the atoms in the world have their electrons aligned with the same spin as they had in the first "play" from the moment the universe was created etc... wouldn't everything happen exactly in the same way? Like the laws of physics (would we be here to discuss why they are...

United States on Aug 15, 2014

LastRanger: In British Columbia, Canada paleontologist Charles D Walcott made the discovery of a lifetime. The year was 1909 and Walcott's field season was just winding down when he and his team began finding fossils in the Burgess Shale formation of the Rocky Mountains. Over the next 15 years Walcott collected thousands of strange and unusual fossils that he considered to be ancestral to all of our modern day phyla. In Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould traces the history of this incredible find and comes to some controversial conclusions of his own. The book, published in 1989, was a best seller and won the Aventis prize for science books in 1991 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in that same year. Some of Gould's colleagues agreed with his conclusions, some did not. The resulting debates went on for years and, on some points, continues to this day. Although some of his original examples were later invalidated by newer research, his main theme is still a matter of some contention. Anyone who has read Gould's monthly essays in Natural History magazine knows that he is an accomplished writer for the interested layperson and Wonderful Life is no exception to that rule. Some 50 years...

United States on May 15, 2013

Patrick L. Norby: In Wonderful Life, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould relates the impact of the scientific revision of the fossil specimens collected by Charles Walcott from the famous locality known as the Burgess Shale. The work describes how new discoveries from a reexamination of the specimens literally forced a re-vision of the way we look at the march of life. Gould exposes our preconceptions, describes how the Burgess fauna refutes them, and then offers alternatives to fill the holes those preconceptions left behind.

After describing the history of the discovery and fauna of the Burgess Shale, Gould explains why it is revolutionary in science. He argues that the Burgess Shale shows the fallacy in our deeply-rooted paradigm regarding the march of life's progress from the few and simple to the diverse and complex. Rather than the disparity seen among modern life being the inevitable result of a few ancestral creatures, extant organisms are the leftovers from a much more diverse stock which has been whittled away by decimation. Life today is the result of a thousand "happy accidents" that were contingent upon luck as much as evolutionary fitness. Life as we know it did not have to be...

United States on Mar 28, 2009