September 2004

Image of 'Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

This month's choice for book of the month is "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms" by Stephen Jay Gould. Gould was probably the most prolific authors of the modern age, having a regular column in the magazine Natural History (NH). Many of Gould's books are collections of essays that he originally published in NH, and this book is one of them. Gould's intent with this book, as each one tends to have some kind of theme, is to discuss humanistic natural history. There are six sections, and 21 chapters, ranging from art and science, to human prehistory.

Art and Science

The Upwardly Mobile Fossils of Leonardo's Living Earth

Gould discusses Leonardo da Vinci in this chapter. Da Vinci is widely recognized for his imagination, from his drawings of helicopters and other modern day inventions, to his sketches of anatomy. He was very much a man of keen observation and a devout student of nature. These lead da Vinci into noting many concepts of modern day paleontology, much of which is still valid. He spent much of his time trying to explain things in natural terms, and one of those things was the presence of clams on mountaintops. The conventional view in Europe in his day was explained by Noah's flood in the Bible, but that didn't seem to work with what da Vinci knew about the world. Gould discusses what da Vinci came up with, and how he went about testing his ideas.

The Great Western and the Fighting Temeraire

This chapter was a bit difficult for me, as it seemed more of an art history lesson than anything. Both the Great Western and the Temeraire were British ships during the early 1800's. The latter was a wooden fighting ship, the former a steamship, and both were featured in a painting by J. M. W. Turner. Gould is very good at telling an interesting story, and this is a case of just that. While I sat reading this, I couldn't really figure what this was about. In a book I thought was about science, here was a story about British ships, their captains, and their builders. But, in Gould's style, he beautifully makes his point in the last few paragraphs, which I will leave for the reader to discover.

Seeing Eye to Eye Through a Glass Clearly

This essay discusses how the introduction of the aquarium helped change our perception of the aquatic world. Not only did it effect artistic rendering of the seas, but it helped us gain an understanding of how balanced ecosystems can be. Gould takes us through the history of the aquarium, starting with the water ponds used by Romans, until about the mid-1860's, when aquariums had really become somewhat developed features in public places and private homes.

Biographies in Evolution

The Clam Stripped Bare By Her Naturalists, Even

Gould discusses Linnaeus's classification, but spends most of his time discussing a lesser-known natural historian of about the same time, named Emmanuel Mendes da Costa. Mendes da Costa was a British Jew, who worked on a classification system for rocks, and was both a critic and supporter of Linnaeus's classification scheme. Linnaeus had a rather vulgar way of describing the parts to bivalves, naming them after parts of the female anatomy. Mendes da Costa did criticize this practice, which Gould builds up to in the final few paragraphs of this informative essay.

Darwin's American Soulmate: A Bird's-Eye View

If Darwin were to have any kind of soulmate, Gould suggests, it would have been American scientist James Dwight Dana. Dana had quite a few credentials, teaching biology and geology at Yale, and one of America's first natural historians. As Gould points out many times, Dana's life had many parallels with Darwin's own life. There was one major difference between the two, however: evolution. Darwin's position on evolution hardly needs mention, as he is probably one of the most popular 'evolutionists' ever. Dana's position on evolution seems a bit out of place, but we have the advantage of time and progression since Darwin's and Dana's day. Gould writes about Dana's different positions concerning what he thought was the real explanation for what evolution tried to describe.

A Seahorse For All Races

In these early years of the 21st Century, our main means of entertainment seems to be in reality television. We get chills when Survivors are asked to eat grubs, use catch-phrases like "You're fired," and make weekly rituals in order to see which roommate gets evicted. Back in the mid-1800's, another kind of reality-based entertainment existed: that of the highly publicized intellectual debate between opposing heavyweight scientists. One of the more famous (or infamous) was the debate between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen, and their discussion of the Ape brain and the Human Brain. Gould discusses some of the arguments and misconceptions of this debate with this essay.

Mr. Sophia's Pony

Often times, women's contributions to our society can be overshadowed by their husbands prestigious positions. In some rare cases, the opposite has been the case, and that is the topic of this essay. Enter Sophia and Vladimir Kovalevsky. Sophia Kovalevsky was a prominent mathematician, but the society she was part of made it so that studying on her own was impossible. As a result, she married Vladimir, who was a popular paleontologist of his day. gould describes their relationship to some detail, and then gets to the meat of Kovalevsky's contribution to paleontology: the ancestry of the modern horse. His view was wrong, but at the time, it was the best explanation available, and Gould discusses the evolution of the horse in some further detail in the remainder of this essay.

Human Prehistory

Up Against A Wall

This essay discusses the views early Paleolithic cave art scholars, and their thoughts concerning the comparison between our modern forms of art and their "primitive" art. Both scholars he discusses are French, and many of the caves they talked about were in France. I think Gould's point with this essay is to show that it isn't always the best course of action to rely on old ideas, that sometimes using evidence to form a more accurate view of something is better.

A Lesson From the Old Masters

The Irish Elk (a misnomer, it turns out) has been a mysterious animal since the first remains had been found in Europe long ago. Gould discusses how they've been reconstructed by anatomists, and how cave paintings have helped uncover the mysteries of what this elusive creature looked like in life. He ends this essay discussing the presence of a prominent hump on its shoulders, and what it can tell us about evolution.

Our Unusual Unity

In this last essay of the section, Gould discusses human ancestry, and despite all of the ways we can find to separate ourselves from each other, there is still a strong sense of unity between us all. He discusses the different views of how anthropologists figure the human family tree (or ladder in some instances) relates us to other hominids. It seems that some have allowed their personal feelings to dictate what they see in our lineage. Gould urges the reader to look for things that can help unite us as a species, instead of things that separate us as people.

Of History and Toleration

A Cerion For Christopher

There is a bit of a mystery concerning where Columbus landed in the New World, and at least three sites on San Salvador claim to be the spot of his landfall. Gould discusses a bit of the history of the first Western exposure to the New World in this chapter, and suggests that the mystery could possibly have been solved if Columbus had only picked up a single shell. This is, of course, because Gould's specific expertise was in snails, and he could identify an exact location by shell color and size.

The Dodo in the Caucus Race

Gould discusses man's way of trivializing the ineptitude of things in this essay, and uses the dodo as the basis for this behavior. Naturalists have had a tendency in the past to declare the extinction of species as being the fault of the now-extinct. The dodo, whose scientific name is Didus ineptus, whose very name implies its unworthiness, has often been used as a metaphor of failure. Sure, sailors would hunt and kill them for food, and introduced animals to the islands they and their kin lived on, which decimated their population, but the dodos were clearly failures. Gould finishes this chapter stating that we should look away from making comparisons of each other, and other parts of nature, as superior over any others, but equals in their own right.

The Diet of Worms and the Defenestration of Prague

Despite what the title suggests, this essay has nothing to do with eating anything, let alone worms. It discusses Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation, and some of the things that have resulted as a part of it. Gould discusses genocide, and other misdeeds done by the church, as well.

Evolutionary Facts and Theories

Non-Overlapping Magisteria

This is where Gould gets philosophical. Non-Overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA, is what Gould and many others, including other scientists, philosophers, even theologians, use to discuss the relationship of man with science and religion. Essentially, the idea here is that religion and science don't need to be at odds with each other, since they don't really look at things the same way. Because of this difference in perception, they might even be compatible, and the Catholics, especially the Jesuits, seem to recognize this practice. Gould explains it in much more detail with this essay, and its worth taking the time to read, maybe even more than once.

Boyle's Law and Darwin's Details

Robert Boyle was a famous scientist in his day, and no doubt still highly regarded in the annals of science circles. Gould uses this essay regarding Boyle and Darwin as analogous to Aristotelian views of the universe, contrasted with the changes Galileo made to our views which shattered geocentrism.

The Tallest Tale

This essay discusses how traditions can come from trivial events. Gould points out that in a large majority of biology textbooks, a side story is almost always mentioned with regard to Lamarck, Darwin, and the giraffe. The giraffe is very often used with reference to evolution, mostly because it was something Lamarck, one of the first modern authorities on evolution, used to support his view on evolution. Unfortunately, Lamarck's views weren't based on observation, but the characteristics of the giraffe are very well explained by Darwin's theory of natural selection. Darwin never used the giraffe to explain natural selection. and for some strange reason, as Gould writes, it is still favored by biology textbook authors.

Brotherhood by Inversion (Or, As the Worm Turns)

The ancestry of vertebrates is a difficult topic for some, and Gould discusses it in this essay. One notable figure in determining lineage is Walter H. Gaskell, who proposed vertebrate ancestry lie with arthropods. This idea was not accepted within the scientific community, and Gould points out some of the problem areas.

Different Perceptions of Common Truths

War of the Worldviews

The title of this essay is somewhat of a play on words. It discusses the different interpretations of the "canals" on Mars, between Percival Lowell, convinced that they were signs of intelligent life, and Alfred Russell Wallace, who wasn't so convinced. Although both had problems with their arguments, its interesting to see what they did argue about.

Triumph of the Root-Heads

Here, Gould combats the mistaken notion of evolution being the same as progress. This notion of progress leads some to think that evolution is also about ever-increasing complexity, but Gould points out parasitism (at least some forms of it) seems to counteract this notion. Many successful parasites exhibit simplification, where being simple seems to be the way to go. He makes this point with Sacculina (also mentioned in "Parasite Rex" by Carl Zimmer).

Can We Really Know Sloth and Rapacity?

The sloth has been unfortunately named, in English, Spanish, and many other languages. Since their discovery, very little has been said positively about them and their existence, and Gould discusses this, and what it might be like to actually be something, rather than trying to describe it.

Reversing Established Orders

This last chapter examines cases of where the unexpected happens. In our general view, it's a dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, bigger is better type of world. Gould introduces several examples of interesting examples where just the opposite occurs, especially when prey turns to predator. It's interesting to read some of the examples.

Summary

This book has taken longer to review than the usual book has, and part of that is because of how in depth, and in detail Gould takes his writing. As with just about any of his books, this one proves to be very good food for thought, but I don't recommend this for the casual reader. Yes, these are thought-provoking essays (which is why I think Gould wrote them to begin with) and sometimes thinking on them hurts. Bad. Like him or not (yes, there are people out there that don't like Gould for some reason) you can't really fault a guy for making you use your gray matter. Read this book if you have enough spare time to take breaks between chapters.