Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay GouldMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I purchased this book at Chapter Two Books in Williamstown, MA.
I was really looking forward to reading this book because I think this is probably his most well-known popular science book. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I actually like many of his others much better. I found his first few chapters a little dull, but things got exciting once he got to the chapter that he sets up as a play.
I'm also not entirely happy with his epilogue. Yes, Pikaia and its proper classification is important. And he had just spent a paragraph saying that he's not claiming that it's the ancestor of all chordates...but then the last two paragraphs talk about how no chordates would be alive today if Pikaia hadn't survived the decimation. I know that Gould realized this is a symbolic simplification, but I think it would be easy to get the wrong impression, especially since it is the last thing you read.
I love that Gould references a Stephen King book! I actually haven't read The Tommyknockers, but now I'm interested.
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