Dinosaur in a Haystack by Stephen Jay Gould

Dinosaur in a Haystack Reviews

• 
  William2

  Of the four Stephen Jay Gould collections I've read, this may be the best one. The essays on
  positive publication bias (#10) and evolutionary stasis and
  punctuated equilibrium (#11) may be the best in the book.
  
  The title essay "Dinosaur in a Haystack" (#12) is a very interesting tale about how loathed Luis Alvarez's 1980 meteoric impact theory--with its link to the Cretaceous-Palogene extinction event that killed off all the dinosaurs and made way for the expansion of mammal life--was by paleontologists generally when it was first published. The reason for this stubbornness was a long standing belief in geologic gradualism first espoused by the great Lyell. Gould counts himself among the sceptics and its intriguing to get his account of the fall of this well established theory. He then moves onto a discussion of the
  Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter in July 1995 and how this hammered home the Alvarez extinction theory, by then already confirmed by much earthly evidence. The thing about Gould is the way he can make the most recondite material not only understandable, but cogent.
  
  In "Left Snails and Right Minds" (#16) he runs down why pre-1700 conchologists printed their snail illustrations in mirror image. This seems abstruce at first but ultimately provides insight into how conventions among 16th century conchologists have changed over time. For science, as Gould tells us, is as much bound by cultural preconceptions and personal worldview now as it was then.
  "Dinomania" (#17) is fun because it's a real palentologist's review of what Steven Spielberg got wrong and right in his film version of Michael Crichton's
  Jurassic Park. For example:

  An amalgamated code of, say, 80 percent dinosaur DNA and 20 percent of frog DNA could never direct the embryological development of a functioning organism. This form of reductionism is simply silly . . . Moreover, frogs and dinosaurs are not even close evolutionary relatives, for their lines diverged in the Carboniferous period, more than 100 million years before the origin of dinosaurs. Jurassic Park's scientists should have used modern birds, the closest living kin to dinosaurs.

  
  
  Another favorite essay is "The Most Unkindest Cut of All" (#24) in which Gould discusses his reading of the
  Wannsee Protocol which was inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of that document's promulgation by Adolph Eichmann in 1942. The perspective of a modern-day evolutionary biologist of conspicuous intellectual gifts who happened to be Jewish on the oft overlooked Part 2 of the protocol--with its horrible requirements for the treatment of so called half-Jews and quarter-Jews (Mischlinge)--I found riveting and fresh.
  
  A few of these essays, I can see now, will require a second reading. "Speaking of Snails and Scales" (#27), for example, combines observations from linguistics (with regard to Creole languages), multivariate statistical analysis of the snail genus
  Cerion, narrative conventions, and fractal geometry. Such wild discursiveness is what I've always found so thrilling in Gould, but this bucking bronco has left me a bit discombobulated. Oh well, it's late.
• 
  aPriL does feral sometimes

  Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, author of the thirty-four natural science essays collected in 'Dinosaur in a Haystack' (most of them originally published in Natural History magazine) was a genius in my opinion!
  
  Many subjects interested him: history of science, literature, biology, plants, zoology, geology, paleontology, religion. Despite the depth and density of his knowledge, he was able to explain scientific and philosophical theories, ideas, concepts, inventions, research, and history in a plainspoken manner. He connected seemingly disparate topics into a cogent historical timeline, often with a playful tone and a wide-ranging intellectual walkabout. He often reprints the poetry and literature written shortly after historical science discoveries were being publicized which incorporated those new science concepts as topics for their literary imaginations.
  
  I enjoyed reading these essays very much. I am a retired secretary, but I was able to follow Dr. Gould's discussions and explanations perfectly. He discusses fossils, eugenics, fungus, ancient leaf DNA and flower sex, and extinct animals. There be examinations of snails and snail illustrations, banknotes and Kings, and of course, Evolution. He discusses ears and hooves, dinosaur skulls and whale legs. The movie 'Jurassic Park' is taken apart with affection.
  
  These essays are a delight! However, gentle reader, they are meant to be savored and gradually absorbed. Each essay is dense with information. Read them slowly. Take your time. It is worth it.
  
  There is an extensive Bibliography.
  
  
  From Wikipedia:
  
  "Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation.
  
  Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996, Gould was hired as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University, where he divided his time teaching there and at Harvard.
  
  Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is infrequently punctuated by swift periods of branching speciation. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in the fossil record.
  
  Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snail genera Poecilozonites and Cerion. He also made important contributions to evolutionary developmental biology, receiving broad professional recognition for his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In evolutionary theory he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two distinct fields (or "non-overlapping magisteria") whose authorities do not overlap.
  Gould was known by the general public mainly for his 300 popular essays in Natural History magazine, and his numerous books written for both the specialist and non-specialist. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend"."
  
• 
  J.M. Hushour

  I place Gould in the company of the finest essayists, along with George Orwell, Walter Benjamin, and Lu Xun. He has a fine sense of place and humor and was probably the last gasp of the interconnected, "rabbit-hole" essay before the Internet ruined our brains. Rabbit-hole here was by Gould's own design, not by advertisers or the monolithic Wikipedia hyperlinking, brain-devourers, because as a scientist who specialized in evolution in his writing, random happenstance and puncturings of punctuated equilibriums were his forte. The essays here cover a wide range of subjects, all eventually circling back to the said theme: evolution. Standouts include a study of Poe's forgotten work on conchology; the addiction to all things dinosaurian, errors made in taxonomy and classification, extinctions, Beethoven, eugenics, women in science, and pornographic flower poetry.
• 
  Jonathan

  Just wonderful. Intelligence, curiosity, enthusiasm, and a low tolerance for bullshit and intellectual short-cuts. A joy to read from page one to the end.
• 
  M. D. Hudson

  Stephen Jay Gould is a shameless over-writer -- I swear his books could be half the length if you cut out the ponderously funny asides and unconvincing self-deprecations...still, I keep reading his essays for the really smart scientist back there. I learn stuff.
• 
  Jim

  I have long enjoyed the essays on natural history ( emphasizing the workings of evolution ) written by Stephen Jay Gould. My goal is to read all the books that are collections of his essays. This one is from 1995 and so covers his essays from the early 90s. As with other books, Gould covers a wide range of topics--dinosaurs (of course!), whales, and "water bears," hermit crabs, and a humongous fungus, Comet Shoemaker-Levy, "Lucy," Papiamentu, the poetry of Erasmus Darwin,and Edgar Allan Poe's book on conchology, Linnaeus's "unmasking" of nature, eugenics,and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And blaauwbocks--in his essay "Four Antelopes of the Apocalypse" which I think is my particular favorite of the thirty-four essays in the book. This essay is about a South African antelope-its Afrikaans name means "blue buck"-which became extinct in 1799. Gould describes the animal-and what happened to it- and his visit to the Leiden University Natural History Museum (in Holland) where he was permitted to view a rare treasure of the museum-one of only four mounted specimens of the blaauwbock remaining in the world. His conclusion is a powerful one: "But we knew this species for a few years during part of a century, and we did save a few scraps and records....as the only witness to a first loss in an accelerating series. They are watching us from Leiden, Paris, Vienna, and Stockholm. Four antelopes of the apocalypse, silently watching to see how many we will bring to their sorry fate."
• 
  Heman

  “Dinosaur in the hay stack” is a busy book, but one that imparts knowledge and insight while remains entertaining. This seems to me one of Gould’s more varied collections of essays on science with an attempt at mixing science, history, and literature; a thorough geek-out.
  The first essay, for example, delves into the details of the anomaly of how millennium years are not truly marking the millennia. This is all apparently due to the negligence of a sixth century Monk, Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the shorty), who did not set the year of Christ’s birth as year zero. In his ecclesiastically commissioned calendar, year 1AD followed 1BC with no zeros in between! So, the year 2001 is the beginning of the 21st century.
  Another delightful essay is ‘the late birth of a flat earth.’ Here it is shown that a lot of "shade" that is literally thrown on the Dark Ages is bunk. One such claim is that they thought the earth is flat. This is shown to be a fabrication of historians of the late 19th century. Then, as now, there were a bunch of crazy people who made such claims, but nobody really paid them any attention or respect in the scholarly and scientific circles.
  In particular, the story of Columbus and the fear of falling off the edge of the earth is totally apocryphal. When Columbus proposed the journey to the Indies through a western route, the commission that reviewed his proposal (including the clergy) mostly opposed him because they (correctly) interjected that Columbus is underestimating the size of the globe. He thought Japan was roughly 2000 miles from the coast of Spain, the correct figure is more like 12000 miles! The rest is history; Columbus, getting lucky in several respects, landed on the wrong continent because of poor math.
  I briefly mention some of my other favorites in this series:
  The right-handed vs. left-handed seashells.
  The excellent critique of Hollywood’s one-trick-pony scripts when it comes to depictions of science and scientists (Jurassic Park as the main example here, but perhaps if Gould were alive he would have written on the fear and loathing of AI in our time)
  Edgar A. Poe’s unfairly derided "conchologists hand book".
• 
  Andy

  One of Stephen Jay Gould's books that collect popular science essays he's written over the years. I find his writing to be an alternation between highly fascinating passages and tedious stretches. Some of his essays cover great topics - the huge slime mold out in Michigan, the history of eugenics thinkers, etc. - and some are on minutiae that I just found incredibly dull. On a more detailed level you see the very same alternation: paragraphs of great insight interspersed with distracting and meandering tangents that Gould's editor should really have insisted on cutting. And on an even more micro level you see the same thing: measured and eloquent diction mixed with a Dickensian propensity towards verbosity. So this book gets three stars, although you can really decompose that into half of one and half of five. Best essays are the first (which is a wonderful ode to the natural human love of science), one on fossilized magnolia leaves, and one on eugenics and the Nazis. Be warned that some topics appear repetitively, as this is a collection of essays written at separate points in times by the same person.
• 
  Samuel

  A stunning collection of essays. Even the least of them are consistently engaging, and several of them are true masterworks, moving seamlessly between seemingly disparate subjects, highlighting the previously unseen thread that connects them.
  
  And then there's what I consider to be the centerpiece of the volume, "Four Antelopes of the Apocalypse." Simultaneously a fascinating detective story, a heartbreaking elegy for every lost thing destroyed by humanity, and a hymn for curators, archivists, librarians, and everyone else whose job is remembering, it's one of the most brilliant essays of any kind that I've ever read. The volume would be worthwhile if there was nothing else good in it.
  
  But there's so much that's beautiful here. I felt educated, entertained, and even inspired reading it.
• 
  Bernie4444

  Punctuated evolution
  
  I had read some of the earlier works and was planning to read disassociated unique ideas. "Oranges" by John A. McPhee is just that way (a little history, a little myth, and maybe some economics.) or a continuing string of thought like "The Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski.
  
  What I found was surprisingly unique. I never realized how coherent reflections could be. Like the columnist, Dave Berry, Stephen Jay Gould would start with the most innocent of statements and parlay that into an earth-shattering reflection. And just as you think he is going way out in the left field, he ties it all together. And each chapter is summed up and is tied to one whole reflection on natural history.
  You will never look at snails with the same twist again.
  
• 
  Jason Adams

  Another great example of Natural Science writing for popular audiences. Reading through this series has been a journey through the evolution of scientific theory. Essays in this volume discuss the excitement of Shoemaker-Levy, the growing consensus around extraterrestrial origin for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, and the rise of claddism as a way of describing biological life.
  As always, Gould uses metaphor and analogy to open complex concepts to a general audience. A diverting read, 4 stars.
• 
  Jason Moderzinsky

  Gould taught me many things with this collection of his essays.
  
  That just because there is a dinosaur on the cover, doesn't mean it's about dinosaurs. And that's okay.
  
  That you can be at once a working scientist, extremely literate, competent at higher mathematics, and a humanist, all at the same time.
  
  That I didn't really 'get' evolution. Not really. Not until I read "Can We Complete Darwin's Revolution?"
  
  And, it forced me to get out the dictionary and look up 'opprobrium'. I hadn't looked up a word since grade school...
  
  Thank you Gould.
• 
  Evan Kostelka

  This is my first Stephen Jay Gould book to read and I really enjoyed it. He is a little wordy but has some fascinating essays. Among my favorites were: The Late Birth of a Flat Earth, The Monster's Human Nature, Poe's Greatest Hit, Dinomania, and Hooking Leviathan by its Past.
  All of his essays are well researched and usually bring together multiple perspectives on the topic.
  A few of the essays were a little too verbose for me, but most of them are well worth the read.
• 
  Henry DeForest

  This book was a slam dunk; through his essays, Gould manages to expertly amalgamate vastly differing subjects to some of the more interesting facets of evolutionary thinking. In particular, I was especially drawn to his essay on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the several essays about eugenics, and the essay from which this book derives its name. All around, this book was highly engaging, and I would eagerly recommend it to anybody interested in a polymath's view of evolution.
• 
  Robert

  A collection of thought provoking essays that really made one think about things. Too bad you Trumpers couldn't understand 5% of what this guy was talking about. Evolution? Compromising? Understanding that science changes as knowledge is gained? Wow...stick to OAN, Newsmax, Fox, Gab and Parler...they are easier for you to understand. Just leave us out of your world...
• 
  Behizain

  Otro maravilloso libro de ensayos de Gould con todo lo que siempre suele haber en ellos: curiosidades sobre la evolución, cosas que no sabíamos sobre naturalistas de siglos pasados, referencias a Shakespeare, Gilbert y Sullivan, al béisbol... Nunca me aburro de leer estos libros.
• 
  Liedzeit Liedzeit

  Wissenschaftliche Essays. Sehr kurzweilig. Nett beispielsweise wie er ausführt, dass die Legende, Menschen, aber eigentlich nur Wissenschaftler, hätten früher an eine flache Erde geglaubt, erst im 19. Jahrhundert entstanden ist.
• 
  M.A. Stern

  There are many interesting essays in this book, though they are not all about paleontology like the cover may make you expect. There are some more dense and niche essays as well but it is overall a solid read.
• 
  Jenny

  These science articles are wonderful to read and very insightful. Also I love museums and paleontology and quirky people
• 
  Natalie Cornwall

  DNF
  
  More lyrical/philosophical than informative. (My fault? The cover does say "REFLECTIONS in Natural History...") Anyway, read one essay, skimmed a few more, didn't find any that interesting.
• 
  Bob Fitz

  Put this book next to your TV Chair, Bedside table (to start pleasant thoughts & dreams), or toilet. Great for light, easy, short, informative, thought provoking reads.
• 
  Dollie

  This is a book of essays on Natural History which covers everything from snails to whales – the sexuality of plants, variety in nature, creationism vs evolution, number of years in a millennia, literature (with lots of poetry), personal bias in science, social conditioning, prejudice, importance of evidence in science, conservation, racism, sexism, the personification of animals, proper use of metaphors and even Frankenstein’s Monster! Gould makes all these subjects so interesting that I was really glad I read this book. I never thought reading about parasites, fossils (LOTS about fossils) coral or even truffles could hold my attention. Every essay made me feel like I was taking a college course where I learned about things I’d never heard of before, so I learned A LOT from this book and will continue to read more of Gould’s books. This one made me very grateful for my high school Biology teacher, Dr. Shirley Jordan, to whom I (mostly) always paid attention, so that I learned to love the subject (unlike Chemistry) and my mom (also a teacher) who taught me a love of life-long learning. I’m only sorry I didn’t discover this author thirty years ago.
• 
  Tomomi Landsman

  I purchased this book at The Word Secondhand Books in Montreal.
  
  Immediately upon starting the book, I remarked to my husband because of the dedication in this book. Gould dedicates this book to his brother, who had apparently passed away the year prior to this book being published. "May we someday, somewhere and somehow live together in that two-family house of our lifelong dreams." This was incredibly touching to me because though I have no siblings of my own, I know my husband feels a lot of affection for his brother and often remarks about how he wishes we could all live in a duplex together.
  
  His first essay, "Happy Thoughts on a Sunny Day in New York City," was also personally relevant. I visited my husband at work on August 21, 2017, the day of a total solar eclipse, though it was only a partial eclipse in New York City. People at his workplace made pinprick devices and went out to the park (they work for the NYC Parks Department) to view the eclipse, just like Gould describes. I love how he appreciates these human moments of people connecting to scientific phenomena.
• 
  Alex Jeffries

  Is there a reading list yet based solely on influential scientists and thinkers who've been featured in The Simpsons? There needs to be. I grabbed this collection from a used book store going out of business because I had just seen 'Lisa the Skeptic', which has a great cameo with Gould in it. What a cogent thinker and incredible synthesizer of information. The connections Gould makes to popular culture, history and current events makes the deep science he describes understandable, and his undeniable passion for the subjects makes each essay a joy. Before I finished Dinosaur, I got another of Gould's books, and in combination with a few Diane Ackerman works, I think this could be the beginning of a rampage through important natural history writings.
• 
  Jess

  I still dip into this book. There's an incredible chapter on eclipses that includes his reflection on walking down the street in New York City while one occurs. Little holes in store awnings are casting eclipse shadows on the perfectly smooth pavement... kids are holding up those plastic fasteners on the back of baseball caps, whose industrially made holds cause the same effect. The whole, vivid city halts in awe for the moments of light shift. Just beautiful.
• 
  Emma

  So... Gould is a good writer, clearly very intelligent and one of the great thinkers which is why I gave this book an extra star but this book wasn't really for me. I found my mind wondering and many of his essays did not engage with me. There were a few that held my attention which were those that were less philosophical or literature based but all in all I was reading this book to just get through it and pick up another