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In this collection of essays, Stephen Jay
Gould proves once again why he has been called the finest
science essayist of our time.
Ranging as far as the fox and as deep as
the hedgehog (the urchin of his title), Gould fashions for
the reader a coherent and rational world view, the view
of an evolutionist committed to understanding the curious
pathways of history.
Here are the great ideas of biology, and
of humanity:
- A feeling for the whole organism whether
panda or corn or human being. We are more than the sum
of our parts and no part can be understood in isolation
from its neighbors.
- The diversity of life is the glory of
nature, and the uniqueness of humanity is but a part --
albeit the greatest part -- of that diversity. Life's
history is not a ladder to human wisdom. It is a tree
whose each branch and bud is a product of history, of
contingency, unrepeatable, unpredictable, deepening and
growing with the passage of time.
- Life is open, in ceaseless motion and
full of promise.
- We must beware of oppressive theories
and false prophets that would limit human potential to
the material of our genes, consigning intelligence to
a single measurable thing rather than the interaction
of culture and biology that it is.
An Urchin in the Storm is a collection
of reviews written over time for the New York Review
of Books, about these principles of life. But it is
not an abstract book. Rather, as always, Gould brightens
and personalizes each idea with a great range of references
from rocks and snails to baseball, from "The Song of
Songs" to Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as informing
the whole book with the wisdom of Charles Darwin.
But most of all, Gould's special gift lies
in his ability to answer the question "Why?,"
a question given only to human beings and without which
there would not be dreams of a better world.
Stephen Jay Gould, who teaches biology,
geology, and the history of science at Harvard University,
has received many awards -- among them the National Book
Award, the National Book Critic's Circle Award, and a MacArthur
Foundation Prize -- and was recently honored by the American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His previous
books include Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's
Thumb, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, The Flamingo's
Smile, and The Mismeasure of Man.
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