Review: Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History

Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ever since I read The Panda's Thumb some years ago, I've considered Stephen Jay Gould as one of my person heroes. Every time I go to a second-hand bookstore, I look in the Science section for some of his books. I picked this one up at Second Story Books near Dupont Circle along with The Lying Stones of Marrakech, which is next on my list to read.

One of the aspects of Gould's writing that I absolutely love is how he uncovers "the other side" of stories that most people don't contemplate. Of course, I don't know what he was like as a person, but the impression I get from his writing is that when he finds that he disagrees with someone, he would truly listen to the other person and try to understand where the disagreement comes from. I feel like this characteristic is something that we should all be trying to cultivate these days.

This paragraph from Essay 29 "Shields of Expectation--and Actuality" is a great representation of what I love about Gould's essays:

"These extreme positions [extreme realism vs. extreme relativism], of course, are embraced by very few thinkers. They are caricatures constructed by the opposition to enhance the rhetorical advantages of dichotomy. They are not really held by anyone, but partisans think that their opponents are this foolish, thus fanning the zealousness of their own advocacy. The possibility for consensus drowns in a sea of changes."

Though Gould is talking about scientific realism and relativism, I feel this applies to any highly divisive topic, and I try to keep this in mind any time I am thinking about these topics.

A small complaint: I feel like there is an error in Essay 30 "A Tale of Three Pictures." Gould writes:

"Agassiz placed Cephalaspis as the first side branch from his central stock of the most "primitive" group--the ganoids (sharks and their relatives)."

I appreciate Gould placing the word "primitive" in quotes as that is another often misunderstood and misapplied adjective in the context of evolution - that's not my concern. I did a double-take at the parenthetical. Ganoids are definitely NOT sharks and their relatives. The figure Gould refers to looks to be in French, but I can tell that the sharks and relatives are in a completely different group from (the right-most, if you have a copy) labeled "Ordre des Placoides" with subgroups like Chimerides (chimeras), rayes (rays), squalides (dogfish), and ...cyclostomes? That last definitely doesn't belong, but makes sense in the historical context.

The group labeled "Order des Ganoides" contains acipenserides (sturgeon), but that's really the only subgroup I recognize as a ganoid. The group names suggest that Agassiz classified the fishes into four groups using the type of scales they have, but I guess there wasn't as much close study on the scales of some of these other subgroups he considers to be ganoids.

I wonder if it was actually Gould who put that in or some editor who felt an explanation was necessary? I'm sure he would have received plenty of letters pointing out this error before the compilation of his essays into a book. Or maybe I am missing something?

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