Life, don't talk to him about life...
Darwin's Lost World: the Hidden History of Animal Life by Martin Brasier.
Sometimes a book picked out at random surprises you. This is one of them. I chose it because its subject is the pre-Cambrian biota, about which I don't know enough, and the so-called Cambrian explosion, about which I now know a lot more.
Also, I wish, wish, wish that I could have studied under Brasier. If his lectures are anything like as racy and anecdotal as his writing, they must be very well attended at 9am, even though he implies otherwise, in one of his many inspired similes. Even the endnotes are a riot - in particular 103, which details the ritual of 'Screeching-in', something that definitely should not happen to a sober scientist.
He also has a talent for writing what are almost-poems to help you commit particular points to memory.
Braiser takes us all over the world, from Scotland to Mongolia to Siberia, from China to Newfoundland to Australia. He has a great talent for description, for metaphor and for detail. Even if you are not interested in the pre-Cambrian, you cannot fail to be charmed by his stories of academic and cold war rivalry, and the eccentricities of various historical (and contemporary) luminaries.
During this romp, you learn a lot about micro-fossils, and biology, and the theories about the pre-Cambrian and whether it was a Snowball Earth or a Slushball Earth - and while I am not totally convinced that Brasier's theory of what led to the Cambrian explosion is the One True Theory, it certainly deserves consideration. The man who invents the 'Mofaotyof Principle' (My Oldest Fossils Are Older Than Your Oldest Fossils)and admit to his own occasional use of it is well aware of how often a hypothesis that seems convincing at the time is proved wrong.
I commend this book to anyone interested in evolution, geology, geography, history, academia and good writing. I suspect that the academic squabbling will be of particular interest to my Primeval writing friends. Yes, this is what Cutter would be doing...
Sometimes a book picked out at random surprises you. This is one of them. I chose it because its subject is the pre-Cambrian biota, about which I don't know enough, and the so-called Cambrian explosion, about which I now know a lot more.
Also, I wish, wish, wish that I could have studied under Brasier. If his lectures are anything like as racy and anecdotal as his writing, they must be very well attended at 9am, even though he implies otherwise, in one of his many inspired similes. Even the endnotes are a riot - in particular 103, which details the ritual of 'Screeching-in', something that definitely should not happen to a sober scientist.
He also has a talent for writing what are almost-poems to help you commit particular points to memory.
Braiser takes us all over the world, from Scotland to Mongolia to Siberia, from China to Newfoundland to Australia. He has a great talent for description, for metaphor and for detail. Even if you are not interested in the pre-Cambrian, you cannot fail to be charmed by his stories of academic and cold war rivalry, and the eccentricities of various historical (and contemporary) luminaries.
During this romp, you learn a lot about micro-fossils, and biology, and the theories about the pre-Cambrian and whether it was a Snowball Earth or a Slushball Earth - and while I am not totally convinced that Brasier's theory of what led to the Cambrian explosion is the One True Theory, it certainly deserves consideration. The man who invents the 'Mofaotyof Principle' (My Oldest Fossils Are Older Than Your Oldest Fossils)and admit to his own occasional use of it is well aware of how often a hypothesis that seems convincing at the time is proved wrong.
I commend this book to anyone interested in evolution, geology, geography, history, academia and good writing. I suspect that the academic squabbling will be of particular interest to my Primeval writing friends. Yes, this is what Cutter would be doing...