Title: Great Material, Terrible Treatment
Product review: Few stories are more remarkable than that of the Cambrian explosion, and few things are more unlikely than a paleontologist with a philosophical-political axe to grind. Here, somehow, we have both. Poor Dr. Walcott gets kicked while down, being dead, old, white and otherwise unable to defend himself, because this gives Gould the chance to graft his unremarkable ideas onto the story of the deciphering of the Burgess Shale. Aggravating matters is Gould's mannered writing style; part pseudo-literary, part popular and perky, it's like reading something William Morris wrote for TV Guide.Anyone who has any respect for the history of science, with all its wrong turns and dead ends, and for the integrity of paleontology as a apolitical discipline -- and anyone who cares about good science writing -- will trade this book in on a book by Simon Conway Morris, who writes clearly and intelligently on this fascinating topic.
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