Product Description
Europe has changed greatly in terms of climate and environment in the past twenty million years. Once there were subtropical forests, but by the end of the Miocene, five million years ago, these had all gone. This unique book provides evidence for the past climatic history of Europe and the Mediterranean in relation to hominoid evolution. Many different lines of evidence are brought together including studies specifically on past climates and the application of climate modeling, the reconstruction of past geographical events, and the effects they had on European environments and the plants and animals living in them. Together these form a coherent and consistent image of environmental and climatic change in Europe from 18 to 1.6 million years ago, for all those interested in mammalian and human evolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

HECCE
Although the cover looks interesting, the book is definitely over-priced. There are only a few photos or illustrations, and most of the book is devoted to generalized information on localities. I can't recommend it unless you really, really want it. ... Read more

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Evolution and Reason is three books in one volume: aperceptive survey of evolution theory with new concepts, a sequence ofthe evolution of reason and an intriguing account of the fossil andanthropological record of the 3.8 billion year development oflifeforms, with magnificent illustrations. ... Read more

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This volume 2 and its companion volume 1 present the results of new investigations into the geology, paleontology and paleoecology of the early hominin site of Laetoli in northern Tanzania. The site is one of the most important paleontological and paleoanthropological sites in Africa, worldrenowned for the discovery of fossils of the early hominin Australopithecus afarensis, as well as remarkable trails of its footprints. The first volume provides new evidence on the geology, geochronology, ecology, ecomorphology and taphonomy of the site. The second volume describes newly discovered fossil hominins from Laetoli, belonging to Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus aethiopicus, and presents detailed information on the systematics and paleobiology of the diverse associated fauna. Together, these contributions provide one of the most comprehensive accounts of a fossil hominin site, and they offer important new insights into the early stages of human evolution and its context. ... Read more

Product Description
In this fascinating exploration of the fossil record, Niles Eldredge overturns the traditional view of evolution as a slow and inevitable process, and he shows that lifeforms generally do not evolve to any significant degree until after massive extinction. This rhythm of life--a concept developed by Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould known as punctuated equilibria in evolution-- is revealed by the fossilized remains of the earth's ancient flora and fauna. Distinguished photographer Murray Alcosser augments Eldredge's text with 160 luminous color plates illustrating more than 250 different fossil specimens. In this new paperback edition, Fossils becomes an accessible text with appeal to a broad audience, including natural history readers and students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great customer servic
The seller promised fast delivery and thats exactly what I got. I ordered it on Saturday afternoon(my assignment was due the next Thursday) and I had it by Tuesday which gave me two full days with the book. It's very rare to find sellers that are that dependable and I lucked out. Definitely recommend.

A Book for the Rest of Us
Scientists love to write books for other scientists, and overall deplore having to explain their science to the public.Universities work overtime to close their walls to the general public, even going as far as removing their funding from the general scrutiny of the public by catagorizing themselves as "non-constitutional" and in effect keeping themselves out of the public eye.While the general rule for professors is "publish or perish" they tend to attempt to publish in a university press, which is usually a black hole that sucks out lots of money from the university, and is usually funded by grants and endowments and hardly ever from sales - unless those sales are done by making those books "required reading" for University or College students, who can hardly afford another expensive item in their life.

In the introduction to thisbook Steven Jay Gould laments this problem by saying "In one particularly distressing example... scholars often look down their noses at large format books filled with attractive photographs "coffee table books" in the dismissive jargon."Mr. Gould goes on to say, however "I love this book because it embodies such a fine marriage of these tow m odes of our central vision - palpable photographs of matrials things with a distinctive text of life's history."

I couldn't say it better.Frankly, most books like this aren't very good, this one is perfect for someone with my background:a high school eduction, no chance of ever going back to college, and a overbearing curiosity for all things ancient.

Since starting to collect fossils in the Nebraska road side a year ago, my curiosity of fossils has grown tremendously.Thanks to an effort by a few scientists willling to speak of these things in lay terms, I am able to learn more about the collecting and the science of fossils every day.Books like this are useful to maintain the support scholars need to keep their science alive, and I for one am very happy to see this inexpensive effort from a scientist published and available to the general pubic.

A true "coffee table book"
The book indeed has some splendid photographs but the text moves from general to very very specific.A poor attempt to condense all fields of paleontology into a coffee table book.Buy it for the pictures not the text.

A new and exciting look at Earth's earliest hisory.
Fossils are a window into time, revealing unexpected insights into the evolution of the staggering variety of forms that life has taken on our planet. This fascinating exploration of fossils overturns the traditional view of evolution as a slow and inevitable process and shows that lifeforms gernerally do not evolve to any significant degree until massive extinction clears the way for new species. This rhythm of life--stability punctuated by burst of change--is revealed by the fossilized remains of Earth's ancient flora and fauna protrayed in 160 luminous cdolor plates and described in in a vivid style that puts the reader in touch with the most current thinking about the evolution of life and the forces that drive it. ... Read more

Product Description
This expanded and updated second edition offers a comprehensive look at macroevolution and its underpinnings, with a primary emphasis on animal evolution. From a Neodarwinian point of view, the book integrates evolutionary processes at all levels to explain the diversity of animal life. It examines a wide range of topics including genetics, speciation, development, evolution, constructional and functional aspects of form, fossil lineages, and systematics, and --in a major new chapter--takes a hard look at the Cambrian explosion. The author delves into the age of molecular science and integrates important recent contributions made to our understanding of evolution. ... Read more

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In plain speech"the author has endeavoured to shownot merely howbut whyscene succeeds scene in the chronicle of the earthand life slowly climbs from level to level " states the preface. ... Read more

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"At last, I found a trilobite. The rock simply parted around the animal, like some sort of revelation. I was left holding two pieces of rock--surely what I held was the textbook come alive. The long thin eyes of the trilobite regarded me and I returned the gaze. More compelling than any pair of blue eyes, there was a shiver of recognition across 500 million years."

From the author of Life comes the fascinating story of the beginnings of life on our planet as seen by its very first creatures, trilobites--the exotic, crustacean-like animals that dominated the seas for 300 million years.
Richard Fortey fell in love with trilobites as a fourteen-year-old when he held his first fossil in his hand. In Trilobite!, he draws on a lifetime of study of these creatures to unravel the history of life on earth from their point of view. Trilobites saw continents move, mountain chains grow and erode; they survived ice ages and volcanic eruptions, constantly evolving and exquisitely adapting to their environment--their own evolution calibrated to geological time itself.
With Fortey's expert guidance, we begin to understand how trilobites reveal the pattern and mechanism of evolution through their fossil legacy in the rocks. Through the eyes of trilobites, he allows us glimpses of former worlds as foreign in their geography as in their life forms. Altogether, he provides a unique picture of our geological past, which in turn provides us--scientist and layperson alike--with a new grasp of the wonders of scientific discovery.Amazon.com Review
With his new book Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution,Richard Fortey confirms his status as one of the best communicators ofscience around today. His hugely enjoyable previous book, Life: A Natural History ofthe First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, was shortlistedfor the 1998 Rhone-Poulenc science book prize, but Trilobite!is sure to receive even greater acclaim. Whereas Life took thereader on a whistle-stop tour of evolution from start to present--ahuge undertaking that necessarily granted little space to each timeperiod or taxonomic group--Trilobite! sees Fortey indulging ina whole book about his overriding paleontological passion, the longextinct and enigmatic creatures of the title. The result is a joy.

Trilobites--woodlicelike creatures that dominated the world's oceans longbefore the time of the dinosaurs--are, arguably, the most beautiful animalsthat have ever been chipped out of the fossil record. Fortey certainlyseems to think so. His enthusiastic, almost loving explanations of theanatomy, ecology, and long evolutionary history of these fascinatingvanished creatures carry the reader on an inspirational journey into theEarth's distant past. But the book is much more than a technical treatiseon trilobites. We learn about Fortey himself, his formative years as anamateur then professional paleontologist, about hismuch-loved teachers and colleagues, and above all, about that strange butaddictive pastime known as science. You may not find arthropods as charmingas Fortey does, but you will not fail to be charmed by the author. Adelightful read. --Chris Lavers, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

Grabs Your Attention, Educates, and also Entertains
Provides scientific details on the subject of trilobites in a very readable and sound presentation. Provides many snippets of British humor to engage the reader in anecdotes from his career at the British Museum and his numerous field trips around the globe (like when prospecting for trilobites in China and bitten by a huge Asian hornet, after medical treatment at a local hospital, his Chinese colleague remarked that he had never seen anyone so attacked by the insect, excepting 'peasants'). Fortey also discusses historical people and places in trilobite paleontology.

Provides an overall picture of his research on the Paleozoic and how trilobites fit in to the reconstruction of past continents, oceans and environments. A more comprehensive and historically complete picture of the field than the book by Riccardo Levi-SettiTrilobites which is replete with dozens of detailed trilobite photographs and scientific technical information.

Trilobite
This is a superb book well worth the reading for novice and informed alike. Fortey has a knack of expressing himself in a clear unambiguous manner that puts together all manner of facts into a whole. Would that more technical writers could do fractionally as well.

Life among the Trilobites
Fortey's wonderful book is a little gem - one of the best books on a paleontological topic in recent memory. His enthusiasm for his scientific quarry shines through on every page. Fortey manages to convey a lot of information of these fascinating denizens of the Paleozoic seas while we join his rambles in such places as Svalbard and Oman or his 'gourmet moment' involving horseshoe crab in Thailand. He is a superb science communicator, and, to my mind, this book is one of his best (along with his recent book about the Natural History Museum in London).

Very entertaining and enjoyable book
Trilobite is a really perfect example of a paleontology book for an educated layman.It is very informative, surprisingly detailed and a fun read.In many books of this type long digressions tell the biographies and anecdotes of discoverers etc...But Fortey keeps nicely on focus, and while he will discuss Thomas Hardy and some personal anecdotes they are brief and always entertaining and illuminating.

Also I have to love a book where the author talks of eating limulus (Horseshoe crab) in Thailand, not a particularly successful meal.Fortey truly loves Trilobites and his affection is infectious, I still find them creepy but I can see the fascination.

The dead come to life
On the face of it, trilobites seem a very dead subject (pun intended). That which lived such a long time ago cannot tell us a great deal about how life existed then, or indeed now, can it? If you prejudge a book by its title, cover or subject matter, you risk missing something, or disappointing yourself, depending upon whether you are pessimistic, or optimistic.

Richard Fortey is a very enthusiastic narrator, and he starts by describing the anatomy of a "standard" or typical trilobite (tri-lob-ite: three lobes, or parts). As the book progresses, you become aware that these creatures have incredible variety, just as individual humans are different, but more so. If palaeontological evidence is to be believed, these "beetles of the Palaeozoic" lived over hundreds of millions of years, and were spread over the whole earth. Their habitat was not uniform, but a whole variety. Fortey is a passionate advocate and a champion for his cause, and clearly knows his subject.

For me, I would have benefited from more diagrams. Periods of geological time, and the neo-classical names of individual trilobite species or genus are hard to put into perspective as just NAMES. Others reading this book could be very familiar with the subject matter. However, a diagram of geological time and another of rock formations, perhaps, or basic geology would have helped me. It would have perhaps been controversial, but also a tree diagram of how one species is thought to have been a successor of another. That would have helped this reader, for the subject matter, rather than being confined to the trilobites encased in stone, covers lots of other areas

I don't agree with all the inferences drawn, but if I only read what I agreed with, my diet of books would be pretty poor. What I did find is a book well written, with very good use of English prose. Read the book with a pen and paper handy, and you may find some good one-liners - certainly ones that I had not come across before, and ones that spark the imagination. Here are some: "If you wish to snare a butterfly, it is no use using a blunderbuss and a suitcase" page 48; "There is no final truth in palaeontology" page 63 and "All questions in real science are journeys towards the right answer" page 149.

The book introduces some interesting areas of current thought on how species develop, and demise. As Fortey rightly indicates, life is changing, and you cannot study life without contemplating how individual life begins and ends, and how species begin and end. Dinosaurs have fed the imagination of generations of children, but were not around for very long in comparison to the over 300 millions years of the trilobites. In talking of time, Fortey points out that it is only approximate: "In time, precision is relative" page 232. So we are introduced to Punctuated Equilibrium as a way of bridging some of the evolutionary missing links that seem evident, and the ideas for the unification of knowledge - consilience.

Fortey examines a dead subject, and brings plenty of life from it. The end chapter is rather speculative, and is not to my choice, but that said, the overall impression is very favourable. I will look more closely at remains of these tri-partite creatures that I may un-earth, or more likely see in an exhibition. However, my passion would not extent to distinguishing one genus from another, or name the body parts.

Peter Morgan, Bath, UK [...]
... Read more

Product Description
Biogeography relates the evolution of the Earth's biota tomajor episodes in the Earth's history such as climatic changes andplate tectonic events. Furthermore, biogeographic patterns have playeda prominent role in the development of the theory of evolution. Thusbiogeography has the potential to make important contributions to thefield of geobiology. Paleobiogeography emphasizes how analytical techniques fromphylogenetic biogeography can be applied to the study of patterns inthe fossil record. In doing this, it considers the strengths andweaknesses of paleobiogeographic data, the effects of plate tectonicprocesses (specifically continental rifting and collision) and changesin relative sea levels in terms of how they influence the evolutionand distribution of organisms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Mark of Paleobiogeography
Just as the past has left its mark on our present, this book will surely leave its mark on the fields of paleontology and biogeography.With awareness for biodiversity and global change rating a top prioity in current research, study, and politics, it is more important than ever to be aware of the facts.This book addresses those issues from the dawn of life to the current situation. Lieberman's elucidation and writing abilities far out-pace either Gell-Mann or Steinbeck in quality.He is able to synthesize more than one field into a working theory that is understandable and resonable. "Paleobiogeography," is a must read for any amateur or professional interested in the fields of evironmental science, geography, biology, or paleontology. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Always a controversial and compelling topic, the origin of life on Earth was considered taboo as an area of inquiry for science as recently as the 1950s. Since then, however, scientists working in this area have made remarkable progress, and an overall picture of how life emerged is coming more clearly into focus. We now know, for example, that the story of life's origin begins not on Earth, but in the interiors of distant stars. This book brings a summary of current research and ideas on life's origin to a wide audience. The contributors, all of whom received the Oparin/Urey Gold Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, are luminaries in the fields of chemistry, paleobiology, and astrobiology, and in these chapters they discuss their life's work: understanding the what, when, and how of the early evolution of life on Earth. Presented in nontechnical language and including a useful glossary of scientific terms, Life's Origin gives a state-of-the-art encapsulation of the fascinating work now being done by scientists as they begin to characterize life as a natural outcome of the evolution of cosmic matter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

In a word: disappointing. Should be better
In a word: disappointed. I came to this book expecting to see more of the excellent work displayed in Dr. Schopf's previous book, Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils (1999). Instead I found a rehashing of some of the standard, and in my view time-worn theories about the origin of life -- all of which end up rather indefinite, speculative and unsatisfying.

Some of the stuff isn't even accurate: it is not true that "Miller's experiment showed for the first time that amino acids can be produced under simulated 'primitive Earth conditions'." (p18) Never mind the fact that Miller's simulated conditions are a far cry from primitive conditions (see the discussion, pp67-68). Miller wasn't even the first to do these experiments: See Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and The Origin of Life, page 125ff; Miller's was a repeat of "experiments of Walther Löb et al in 1922."

Incidentally, I would think that the composition of the early earth environment would naturally come from a study of planet formation by accretion - a natural topic of astrophysics. I think the answer is: NOT an ammonia/methane environment!! for reasons that have to do with the chemistry that results from the cooling of a molten inner planet. One of my favorite books on this subject is Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. See also Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada, The Spark Of Life: Darwin And The Primeval Soup and Wallace S. Broecker, How to Build a Habitable Planet.

I assume that this book is a compilation of papers that he uses in his college courses. Nothing wrong with that, but I had anticipated something much better. I have great respect for his work in Cradle of Life, and his participation in the 1998 NRC Symposium, Size Limits of Very Small Microorganisms: Proceedings of a Workshop (Compass Series (Washington, D.C.).). I had hoped for some further insights that follow on from the implications of that symposium, in particular.

The most interesting chapter concerns the "Tree of Life" written by Dr. Schopf himself. Genetic research has constructed its own tree based on the recurrence of similar gene packages. Widely different animal species share the same "hox" gene packages for appendages (legs, antennae, etc.), eyes, etc. Some packages appear to have been in place and largely unchanged since (at least) the Cambrian Era, some 500 million years ago. Barely noted in his book is the ultimate "package" that is essentially the same for all plants and animals: the so-called "central dogma" that determines the genetic coding in the DNA, and the elaborate process by which this is transformed into the useful life chemicals.

If one insists on evolution by purely natural processes, this recurrence of similar gene packages is a powerful "proof" that these diverse species share a common ancestor, and in particular that all of life evolved from an original first living cell "[s]ince any complete biochemical system is far too elaborate to have evolved more than once in the history of life...." (p.163). This is of course no explanation of how the packages came to be in the first place -- and the book's probes into this issue (which is after all the subject of the entire book) come to singularly weak and unconvincing conclusions.

There will always, I think, be a chasm between Creationists and Naturalists, regarding life's origins. The Creationist sees natural descent as a possible but not necessary conclusion of the genetic tree of life: similar gene packages may just show that the Creator re-used them. Proof of a natural process is not just asserting "it must be so" but in showing such relatedness in the laboratory or in mathematical simulation based on demonstrable assumptions about physical or chemical processes. Otherwise, the claim is metaphysics or religion, but certainly not science.

In my view, the theory of evolution has made great advances exactly in proportion to the effort it has given to such experimentation.I love to discover (with the help of great authors) new things about the power of natural processes through laboratory experimentation, for example in Sean B. Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo - a book that I recommend highly. I would similarly look forward to a demonstration of relatedness by simulation (at one time I conjectured that evolution of the trilobite phacops eye can be explained by simulation on the basis of a combination of arrested development and environmental pressure).

I look forward to another book by Schopf that will similarly expand my understanding of Life's Origins -- but without the tired "just so" stories found in this book.

HMSChallenger

My favorite part: RNA World
The articles in this book are by scientists, well respected researchers in their fields, the real guys. They were not written by journalists, science writers... this book is a primary source.

Other reviewers have described the immense scope of this book from the lifecycle of stars to, finally, biochemistry.

I want to focus on the article by Leslie Orgel, "The Origin of Biological Information" (Chapter 5). RNA is critically important for ribosomes which are the builders of proteins. Proteins are the central theme of biochemistry. The phrase "RNA World" is found in several parts of the book, but Orgel's article explains why that concept is, to me, the central answer to the origin of life, the interface between inorganic and organic.

Vastly simplified, RNA is able to catalyze replication, on its own. It offers a 'solution' to the 'paradox' of replication first or metabolism first. It is the foundation for the incredibly hopeful, fabulously rich and fascinating research on ribozymes.

In addition to reading this book, I strongly suggest readers watch the 90-minute Science Channel program (Science Channel Specials) that covers roughly the same material with narration and commentary by many of the same authors and some others. William Schopf is prominently featured; maybe this book was the basis for the TV program? The video presentation makes some of the concepts easier to grasp (and more simplified) and is more entertaining.

For those who want to know more but find the copious scientific references too dense or out of reach due to subscription fees for research journals, I suggest you read
- the article in Wikipedia about ribozymes
- the Nobel lectures (nobelprize.org) by Cech and Altman
- Lynn Margulis' book "Early Life." Several hypotheses are equivocal, such as symbiosis for the intra-cellular organelles mitochondria and the role of cyanobacteria, but that's what makes it interesting.

Well worth your effort
I have had this on my shelf for a while, and then in the stacks of good books to review for Amazon. J. William Schopf is not only a skilled scientist, but this book shows his skills as an editor and author. He assembled a distinguished group of origin of life researchers and each chapter takes on a key issue they were significant contributors to over decades. This can have some negatives. The most obvious is that the authors do tend to favor their contributions over those of others, and certainly not every important researcher is represented.

One example of the first problem is chapter 3, "Formation of the Building Blocks of Life" by Stanley Miller, and Antonio Lazcano. These long time collaborators are major proponents of an atmospheric origin of prebiotic organic molecules, Miller being the first ever to publish experimental results on this in 1953. However, their discussion of hydrothermal vent, and cosmogenic sources to early earth's environment is barely more than their objections to these ideas. The major papers by the senior proponents of these substantial hypotheses are barely mentioned.

The level of some chapters is about that of a college undergraduate with at least some course work in chemistry. This is a bit higher than a general reader's comfort zone. There is a very helpful glossary, and the finer details of chemical reactions can be skipped by most people.

A Great Tool!
The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of five is simply because it is a little rough around the edges as far as a "page turner." I suppose it's all in the way you look at it but none the less, this book is packed with facts about research. It's the presentation of the research, I suppose, that I found to be a little anticlimactic.

Onto the book. Wow! Page after page of research and facts! For a guy like me, I couldn't appreciate it more. One thing I loved about this book is how honest it is. First, it will lay down all of the research done in a certain area, then, only to go back and raise the issues with its plausibiliby regarding the present theory on the actual process it must undergo.

I believe that we were created. I really enjoy reading books of this caliber due to the fact that it only further strengthens my belief. On the chapter pertaining to the origin of biological information, this book is completely silent. Only giving current theories on how it is possible that information could have begun to be "stored," not the origin of information. The sectionregarding The RNA World, it reads "The idea that there was once a protein-independent biological world, the so-called RNA World, has now come to be widely excepted (although it remains unproven)." (Life's Origin pg142)

In regards to natural affinities that molecules have for one another. This is quite true. But to examine this issue further one must look at its role on the origin and/or expanding of information. In digital information, like we see in RNA and DNA, natural affinities of molecules would be completely detrimental to its production. When a programmer writes a program, if he/she were restrained to only writing code in a certain order using only predetermined texts, there is no way that they could produce new information via evolution.

Racemic mixtures. This book hints at a few ways to get around it but again, the odds are insurmountable.

Actually, this book shows many techniques and procedures that have contrived many organic molecules independently. The astronomical task is having all of these perfect conditions present at one period in time to bring them all together. It's not that I'm pessimistic. I know my biochemistry.

This book is a great tool to have if you want to further your knowledge in using biochemistry to try and explain the origin of life through natural, undirected processes.

Of course I HAVE to promote "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Dr. Michael Behe. To all you biochemists, read this book, it will change your lives, promise.

Breathtaking
This book just slayed me. A series of beautifully-written and well-supported essays covers, very quickly, the turn-of-the-millennium status of research on the subject of how life got started at the very, very beginning. How did 'pre-biotic' molecules ever get started replicating themselves, eventually turning into 'biotic' molecules? The answers aren't all in, but there's some really exciting work going on; scientists are relentlessly chipping away at the problem and they have made a surprising amoutn of progress. You know, these days the creationists are getting a lot of press. And they keeep hammering on the idea that the pre-biotic genesis of life is simply impossible; it had to require some sort of divine intervention. This is a lie. Take astronomer Fred Hoyle's famous simile -- that the accidental genesis of life would be like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and assembling a 747. While I read 'Life's Origin', I thought often of Hoyle and how much I'd like to throttle him. The origin of life requires NOTHING like the accidental assembly of a jet aircraft. It requires something much more like the lifting of two magnets into the air, so they can snap together, each magnet's noth pole snapping to the other's south. Molecules have natural affinities. They were 'born' to snap together. 99.9% of all the matter in the universe is either carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen: the stuff of life. Once the Earth had cooled down from its fiery birth, life couldn't wait to get started. And once it got started, it was by its very nature almost unstoppable. This is not an easy book. It's written for a lay audience (and there's a helpful glossary at the back), but there's a ton of orgo in it, so if you're not a chemist you had best be a quick study: the kind of layperson who, having once heard (for example) the word 'racemic' defined, can use it in a coherent sentence the following day. If you're that kind of smart, you will get a real kick out of this book. This crazy world is more beautiful -- life is more strange and fantastic and marvelous, than we ever suspected. Read and enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
The gorgons ruled the world of animals long before there was any age of dinosaurs.They were the T. Rex of their day until an environmental cataclysm 250 million years ago annihilated them—along with 90 percent of all plant and animal species on the planet—in an event so terrible even the extinction of the dinosaurs pales in comparison. For more than a decade, Peter Ward and his colleagues have been searching in South Africa’s Karoo Desert for clues to this world: What were these animals like? How did they live and, more important, how did they die?

In Gorgon, Ward examines the strange fate of this little known prehistoric animal and its contemporaries, the ancestors of the turtle, the crocodile, the lizard, and eventually dinosaurs. He offers provocative theories on these mass extinctions and confronts the startling implications they hold for us. Are we vulnerable to a similar catastrophe? Are we nearing the end of human domination in the earth’s cycle of destruction and rebirth? Gorgon is also a thrilling travelogue of Ward’s long, remarkable journey of discovery and a real-life adventure deep into Earth’s history.Amazon.com Review
In Gorgon, geologist Peter Ward turns his attention reluctantly away from the asteroid collision that killed all the dinosaurs and instead focuses on a much older extinction event. As it turns out, the Permian extinction of 250 million years ago dwarfs the dino's 65-million-year-old Cretaceous-Tertiary armageddon. Ward's book is not a dry accounting of the fossil discoveries leading to this conclusion, but rather an intimate, first-person account of some of his triumphs and disappointments as a scientist. He draws a nice parallel between the Permian extinction and his own rather abrupt in research focus, revealing the agonizing steps he had to take to educate himself about a set of prehistoric creatures about which he knew almost nothing. These were the Gorgons, carnivorous reptiles whose ecological dominance preceded that of the more pop-culture-ready dinosaurs.

They would have had huge heads with very large, saberlike teeth, large lizard eyes, no visible ears, and perhaps a mixture of reptilian scales and tufts of mammalian hair.... The Gorgons ruled a world of animals that were but one short evolutionary step away from being mammals.

With characteristic enthusiasm, Ward transports readers with him to South Africa's Karoo desert, where he participated in field expeditions seeking fossils of these fearsome creatures. He suffers routine tick patrols, puff-adder avoidance lessons, stultifying thirst, and the everyday humiliations of being the new guy on a field team. Besides telling a fascinating paleological story, Gorgon lets readers feel a bone-hunter's passion and pain. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Nice and easy reading
Nice account of the hunt for fossils in the Karoo desert in south africa in the search of an explanation for the Permian/Triassic extinction. Combining down to earth paleontology, some explanations on the Permian/Triassic extinction, a description of the political transition in south Africa and a humble account of personal experience as a paleontolog the books makes an easy and nice reading.

So-so
Science books are pretty much susceptible to their times, and the early 2006 discovery of a huge crater in Antarctic Wilkes Land, which may have been four to five times the size of the K-T Impactor, seems to have given great credence to the belief that it was the primary, if not sole, cause of the P-T extinction event. Furthermore, unlike the K-T Impactor, there is growing evidence that the P-T Impactor may have actually broken the continent of Australia off from Antarctica, and led to the breakup of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland. Given this turn of events, it might seem that Ward's book should be simply tossed on the heap of outdated science books, for he is not a great essayist in the manner of a Stephen Jay Gould, whose often wrong posits on evolution did not kybosh his ability to effectively communicate ideas, nor is Ward anywhere in a class with the magisterial Loren Eiseley, whose `hidden personal essay' format preceded Gould's, and whose work is one of the great English language prose corpuses of the last century, even if his decades old ideas on evolution are several generations removed from relevance.

Yet, here is where idiot luck comes in. While Ward is no prose stylist, and one almost feels he is a primitivist or idiot savant banging away at keyboards, he made one very smart decision in writing this book, or, at least, a fortuitous one, which was to make this book less about `hard science', and more about the soft stuff in between. Gorgon focuses far more on the personalities of scientists, the desires for relevance, the politics of the South African lands where the Karoo Desert digs that constitute this book's Ground Zero take place, and his own personal family ups and downs. Thus, what was a squooshy weakness before the Antarctic discovery, becomes the book's saving grace after it....Last year, I read a much more well written book called Snowball Earth, by Gabrielle Walker, which was everything this book wanted to be. It provided a provocative theory of an almost wholly glaciated earth a half billion years before this ancient impact, and it did so in a lively, engaging style that presented both its theory and personalities in an engaging, well-written style. This book, unfortunately, barely touches upon its own titular subject, which is really the reason most layfolk would buy it. We get too little of the gorgonopsians and too much of filler. This book won't be of much use in a decade or two, and Ward does not have a great future in science writing the way Walker does, but this book did give more than a few moments of pleasure in its slow meandering, which again recapitulated its ideas about drying Permian rivers, and will leave at least a few dried beds within that will occasionally urge me to rethink its lost waters. If this goes against my usual criteria for recommending a book, so be it. If a man can't be willfully dissonant, on rare occasions, does his usual consistency have any virtue? As for Mr. Ward, he can thank me at a later date.

Barely readable
The age of the creatures that predated the dinosaurs--the protomammals and their ilk--is a fascinating and little-known chapter in the history of life on earth, and I was interested in learning more about these creatures. So I bought this book.

I shouldn't have.

Not only did I learn nothing, the book is truly painful to read. Ward's style swings from jaw-poppingly boring "what I did on my summer vacation" accounts rendered in grindingly banal prose to incomprehensible science jargon, sometimes in the same paragraph.

Along the way, he manages to get in some cheap shots at colleagues, congratulate himself for having solved the mystery of the dinosaurs' extinction--and, oh, by the way, having figured out what killed the Gorgons and their kin, too--and indulge in a bit of handwringing over apartheid in South Africa, where he did his digging.

Which is laudable, certainly, but what it has to do with paleontology is beyond me.

But most perturbing is that at no point does the reader learn anything of substance about the creatures themselves. Nope, nothing. Zip. Nada. Bubkes. Don't believe me? Take a look at the index. The actual Gorgons--the gorgonopsids--the creatures for whom the book is named--appear on--wait for it--11 pages. Out of 288 pages, they merit mention on 11.

The interested layperson would do a heck of a lot better to read Robert Bakker's "The Dinosaur Heresies," which is far more accessible, far better written, far more significant, and far less smug. And by the way, you'll also learn more about the protomammals in Bakker's book than you will in "Gorgon."

If I want badly written and indulgent memoirs, I'll read the New Yorker. Since I'm still interested in learning more about the Gorgons, I guess I'll keep looking.

Now I want to be a geologist
I ordered this book used but it came in perfect condition. I had been reading a library copy but it was two weeks overdue. This book has captured my intrest like no other non-fiction book ever has. I want to be a geologist or a paleontolgist now!

Monsters of the Permian
By now, almost everyone must be familiar with the discovery of the iridium concentrations at the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary, and the Chicxulub impact crater, first reported in 1981, that appears to exactly the right age and the right size to have terminated most of the life on Earth, sixty-five million years ago.The author of "Gorgon" began his career with field work on the proof of the quick and terrible extinction at the K-T boundary--the death knell of the dinosaurs.

However, Dr. Ward found himself more and more intrigued by an even great extinction event that occurred 250 million years ago at the boundary of the Permian and the Triassic (P/T).Was it caused by another comet or meteor strike?Did the elimination of 95 % of Earth's marine life and 70% of all land species proceed as quickly as at the K-T termination, or did it take place in pulses over a much longer period of time?

According to the author (and others), there is no credible, unambiguous evidence for an impact as is the case for the K-T extinction.What is more likely is that massive greenhouse gas emissions reduced oxygen availability, ultimately resulting in the collapse of marine ecosystems, and most of the land-based systems as well.This was possibly caused by volcanic eruptions on the supercontinent of Pangea, in what is now Siberia (the Siberian Traps).

In the final chapter of his book, "Resolution," the author puts forth two interesting observation-based theories:(1) the abundance of oxidized, reddish rock in the Triassic beds above the P/T boundary (about 50 million years worth) implies "...the oxygen in our atmosphere plunged to very low levels as it became tied up in the rocks...so low, in fact, that any poor human...would very quickly suffer from altitude sickness, even at sea level."; (2) on land at least, the near extinction of animals that didn't use oxygen efficiently, including most but not all of the mammal-like reptiles that dominated the Permian."Heat [greenhouse effect] and asphyxiation [were] the two agents of the long mysterious mass extinction."

Except for the last chapter, "Gorgon" is light on theory and heavy on field work and proof-of-concept.Here is how geologists, paleontologists, and other scientists interact in the field, braving the heat of South Africa's Karoo Desert, the omnipresent ticks, flies, and puff adders, and the digestive challenges of bad water and mystery-meat pizza.Dr. Ward takes his readers not only on a trip through the lost world of the Permian, but also through an African culture that seems to be on the brink of chaos.He is a sensitive and at times acerbic observer of both present and deep past."Gorgon" is a compelling, thoroughly readable story.
... Read more

Product Description
Vertebrate evolution is studied through comparative anatomy and functional morphology of existing vertebrates as well as fossil records. Since the publication of the previous edition of Colbert’s Evolution of the Vertebrates: A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time, there have been significant advances in the knowledge surrounding backboned animals. This latest edition of the classic text is completely revised to offer the most recent discoveries in this continually evolving field of science.Covering the various aspects of vertebrate life, from skeletal system to ecology, behavior, and physiology, the Fifth Edition includes new sections on conodonts, dinosaurs, primates, and the origin of birds, and discusses:

• Analysis of morphological and molecular data
• Early diversification of vertebrates
• The evolution of dinosaurs
• The origin of mammals
• Early ruling reptiles
• Basic adaptation of ungulates

Colbert’s Evolution of the Vertebrates, Fifth Edition carries on its legacy as an invaluable reference for professionals in evolutionary biology and paleontology, as well as an ideal textbook for students in those fields. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Obsolete!
I agree with Protero that this book is out-of-date.While I am not a paleontologist or even a biologist, I've noticed several glaring errors, such as the continued use of the phylogenetically incorrect term "mammal-like reptiles" for basal synapsids and therapsids and the inexplicable lumping together of Nimravidae and Felidae (the author speaks as if the nimravids and true saber-toothed cats such as Smilodon were the same lineage).The book seems to have a lot of good information, but I'm not sure what content I can trust.Perhaps it would be helpful in combination with a couple other solid vertebrate paleontology books for cross-reference, but I cannot recommend it alone.

Badly dated--should not have been published
I knew and liked Ned Colbert, and loved the early editions of this once-classic book. He passed away on November 15, 2001, shortly after this edition appeared, so it makes it even more difficult to be honest and frank. But it is necessary, since this is a clear case of a publisher trying to push an outdated, badly conceived project on the market, and few but professional vertebrate paleontologists will realize how problematic this book has become.
In its first edition (written in 1955), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates was an excellent non-technical review of vertebrate evolution as it was known almost 50 years ago. The second (1969) edition and third (1980) edition began to become more and more outdated, since Colbert retired in the 1960s, and became less and less connected to the latest developments (both in discoveries and in philosophy) that had occurred in vertebrate paleontology. By the time of the fourth edition (published in 1991), the publisher brought in Mike Morales as a younger co-author, but it made no difference-the book was badly out of date in both its approach and its facts. Most of us hoped that this would be its last edition, since there was little that could be done to salvage it. But in this edition, they have added a third author, Eli Minkoff, a biologist who is not a vertebrate paleontologist and who clearly has not kept up with the important developments that have occurred in the past decades. Consequently, the book is full of errors of both omission and commission in every chapter, and should not have been published, let alone used by anyone to teach a modern course in fossil vertebrates.
The problems are so numerous that I cannot list them all in a brief review, but I will mention a few of the more important ones here. It starts with the authors' ambivalence toward the cladistic revolution, which in the past 20 years has completely transformed the way we think about fossil vertebrates. In places, they attempt to be current by paying lip-service to cladograms, but their fundamentally old-fashioned philosophy is unchanged everywhere else. On page 16, they mention (but never explain) cladistics in one brief paragraph, and then throughout the book they place Colbert's 50-year-old diagrams (with no resolution of phylogenetic relationships) side-by-side with a cladogram of some of the same taxa-or use one of the outdated diagrams with no attempt to show more recent hypotheses at all. Again and again, they make anachronistic statements suggesting that we can't know anything about phylogeny because of a lack of a suitable ancestor, or statements like "no clear indication of relationships among gnathostomous fishes can be determined from their stratigraphic order of occurrence in the rocks" (p. 48)-as if it ever could in a group with such a poor fossil record!
Certainly, they have a right to disagree with the prevailing philosophy in their profession if they so choose, although they end up painting a very unrepresentative and inaccurate picture of what we have learned as a consequence. Even more disturbing is the clear evidence that none of the authors keep up with the new discoveries made in past 20 years. Certainly, I haven't seen any of them at the meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology during that time, and apparently they don't read the journals, either. It is jarring to read, page after page, statements, ideas, or taxonomic concepts that have become grossly outdated, and should have disappeared long ago. Among the numerous examples are: the discredited notion that jaws are derived from gill arches (p. 38); Romer's idea that tetrapods left the water to escape drying pools, or chase prey, when all the recent discoveries of Acanthostega show that the tetrapod limb appeared in fully aquatic animals long before there was any need to crawl out on land (p. 85); the idea that anthracosaurs like Seymouria had anything to do with amniote origins, when recent discoveries like Westlothiana (not even mentioned in this book) have shifted the focus elsewhere (p. 105); the failure to note (p. 154) that the latest fossils show that snakes are descended from mosasaurs; a grossly antiquated approach to Mesozoic mammals and their relationships in Chapter 19, with almost no mention of the last decade of amazing discoveries; a carnivore "phylogeny" (p. 379) that treats "Fissipedia" as a natural group, and fails to show that pinnipeds are clearly descended from bears, not from the carnivoran stem; no mention (p. 394) of Ambulocetus and all the other recent spectacular transitional whale discoveries (all published long before this book went to press); the outdated notion (p. 428) that protoceratids are related to tragulids, rather than camels; the idea that perissodactyls have anything to do with phenacodonts (p. 452), instead of the recent discoveries of Chinese taxa like Radinskya, which point in a whole new direction; the outdated idea (p. 467) that brontotheres survived the Eocene (thanks to revisions of the time scale completed a decade ago), or that chalicotheres dug up roots (p. 469) with their peculiar claws (debunked by Coombs 20 years ago); the complete failure to mention (p. 480) all the new primitive elephants like Numidotherium and Phosphatherium, which push proboscideans back to the Paleocene of North Africa. The list could go on and on, but these are among the more glaring examples of a failure to recognize or incorporate any of the past 20 years of discoveries.
Equally jarring is the repeated use of taxa that were manifestly unnatural even in 1955, and have not been used by vertebrate paleontologists in many years. The examples are too numerous to mention, but it feels like going through a time warp to read about "chondrosteans," "holosteans," "labyrinthodonts," "thecodonts," "Prototheria," "eupantotheres," "condylarths," "palaeodonts," as if anyone still practicing vertebrate paleontology took those taxa seriously. Symptomatic of this problem is the use of the archaic term "mammal-like reptiles," a misnomer that reflects several serious misconceptions. Synapsids (the "mammal-like reptiles") and the true reptiles are two distinct lineages that originated separately and simultaneously in the mid-Carboniferous, so synapsids have never been members of, or descended from reptiles (in even the broadest sense of the word). Call them "protomammals" if you will-but they are not, and have never been, reptiles!
These problems might not matter if this were just a trade book intended for the popular audience, who might not care if it is accurate or up-to-date in every detail. But I know of several institutions where paleontologists (not vertebrate paleontologists) still use this book to teach classes in vertebrate evolution, completely unaware of how grossly outdated this book had become. Nor is it the only choice on the market written at this level. Michael Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2nd edition, 2000, Blackwell) is fully up-to-date and much more affordable [...]. Clearly, the editors at Wiley-Liss are trying to extend their franchise long beyond its useful life, and instead of consulting with qualified vertebrate paleontologists who could have made the book up-to-date, they foisted this sad shadow of a former classic on the unsuspecting profession.

Donald R. Prothero
Department of Geology
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA 90041
[....]

Badly dated--should not have been published
I knew and liked Ned Colbert, and loved the early editions of this once-classic book. He passed away on November 15, 2001, shortly after this edition appeared, so it makes it even more difficult to be honest and frank. But it is necessary, since this is a clear case of a publisher trying to push an outdated, badly conceived project on the market, and few but professional vertebrate paleontologists will realize how problematic this book has become.
In its first edition (written in 1955), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates was an excellent non-technical review of vertebrate evolution as it was known almost 50 years ago. The second (1969) edition and third (1980) edition began to become more and more outdated, since Colbert retired in the 1960s, and became less and less connected to the latest developments (both in discoveries and in philosophy) that had occurred in vertebrate paleontology. By the time of the fourth edition (published in 1991), the publisher brought in Mike Morales as a younger co-author, but it made no difference-the book was badly out of date in both its approach and its facts. Most of us hoped that this would be its last edition, since there was little that could be done to salvage it. But in this edition, they have added a third author, Eli Minkoff, a biologist who is not a vertebrate paleontologist and who clearly has not kept up with the important developments that have occurred in the past decades. Consequently, the book is full of errors of both omission and commission in every chapter, and should not have been published, let alone used by anyone to teach a modern course in fossil vertebrates.
The problems are so numerous that I cannot list them all in a brief review, but I will mention a few of the more important ones here. It starts with the authors' ambivalence toward the cladistic revolution, which in the past 20 years has completely transformed the way we think about fossil vertebrates. In places, they attempt to be current by paying lip-service to cladograms, but their fundamentally old-fashioned philosophy is unchanged everywhere else. On page 16, they mention (but never explain) cladistics in one brief paragraph, and then throughout the book they place Colbert's 50-year-old diagrams (with no resolution of phylogenetic relationships) side-by-side with a cladogram of some of the same taxa-or use one of the outdated diagrams with no attempt to show more recent hypotheses at all. Again and again, they make anachronistic statements suggesting that we can't know anything about phylogeny because of a lack of a suitable ancestor, or statements like "no clear indication of relationships among gnathostomous fishes can be determined from their stratigraphic order of occurrence in the rocks" (p. 48)-as if it ever could in a group with such a poor fossil record!
Certainly, they have a right to disagree with the prevailing philosophy in their profession if they so choose, although they end up painting a very unrepresentative and inaccurate picture of what we have learned as a consequence. Even more disturbing is the clear evidence that none of the authors keep up with the new discoveries made in past 20 years. Certainly, I haven't seen any of them at the meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology during that time, and apparently they don't read the journals, either. It is jarring to read, page after page, statements, ideas, or taxonomic concepts that have become grossly outdated, and should have disappeared long ago. Among the numerous examples are: the discredited notion that jaws are derived from gill arches (p. 38); Romer's idea that tetrapods left the water to escape drying pools, or chase prey, when all the recent discoveries of Acanthostega show that the tetrapod limb appeared in fully aquatic animals long before there was any need to crawl out on land (p. 85); the idea that anthracosaurs like Seymouria had anything to do with amniote origins, when recent discoveries like Westlothiana (not even mentioned in this book) have shifted the focus elsewhere (p. 105); the failure to note (p. 154) that the latest fossils show that snakes are descended from mosasaurs; a grossly antiquated approach to Mesozoic mammals and their relationships in Chapter 19, with almost no mention of the last decade of amazing discoveries; a carnivore "phylogeny" (p. 379) that treats "Fissipedia" as a natural group, and fails to show that pinnipeds are clearly descended from bears, not from the carnivoran stem; no mention (p. 394) of Ambulocetus and all the other recent spectacular transitional whale discoveries (all published long before this book went to press); the outdated notion (p. 428) that protoceratids are related to tragulids, rather than camels; the idea that perissodactyls have anything to do with phenacodonts (p. 452), instead of the recent discoveries of Chinese taxa like Radinskya, which point in a whole new direction; the outdated idea (p. 467) that brontotheres survived the Eocene (thanks to revisions of the time scale completed a decade ago), or that chalicotheres dug up roots (p. 469) with their peculiar claws (debunked by Coombs 20 years ago); the complete failure to mention (p. 480) all the new primitive elephants like Numidotherium and Phosphatherium, which push proboscideans back to the Paleocene of North Africa. The list could go on and on, but these are among the more glaring examples of a failure to recognize or incorporate any of the past 20 years of discoveries.
Equally jarring is the repeated use of taxa that were manifestly unnatural even in 1955, and have not been used by vertebrate paleontologists in many years. The examples are too numerous to mention, but it feels like going through a time warp to read about "chondrosteans," "holosteans," "labyrinthodonts," "thecodonts," "Prototheria," "eupantotheres," "condylarths," "palaeodonts," as if anyone still practicing vertebrate paleontology took those taxa seriously. Symptomatic of this problem is the use of the archaic term "mammal-like reptiles," a misnomer that reflects several serious misconceptions. Synapsids (the "mammal-like reptiles") and the true reptiles are two distinct lineages that originated separately and simultaneously in the mid-Carboniferous, so synapsids have never been members of, or descended from reptiles (in even the broadest sense of the word). Call them "protomammals" if you will-but they are not, and have never been, reptiles!
These problems might not matter if this were just a trade book intended for the popular audience, who might not care if it is accurate or up-to-date in every detail. But I know of several institutions where paleontologists (not vertebrate paleontologists) still use this book to teach classes in vertebrate evolution, completely unaware of how grossly outdated this book had become. Nor is it the only choice on the market written at this level. Michael Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2nd edition, 2000, Blackwell) is fully up-to-date and much more affordable (especially since Wiley is charging $145 for this book!). Clearly, the editors at Wiley-Liss are trying to extend their franchise long beyond its useful life, and instead of consulting with qualified vertebrate paleontologists who could have made the book up-to-date, they foisted this sad shadow of a former classic on the unsuspecting profession ...

Clear and Insightful
"The book points out very cleary the climatic and geological conditions, and environment that allowed the various taxa of vertebrates to evolve and thrive.The clarity and insightfulness of the authors are highly recommended." --W.H. Tam, University of Western Ontario

Great Book!
"Eminently readable and lavishly illustrated (with Lois Darling's classic drawings of reconstructed species plus up-to-date cladograms), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates is the perfect book for students of vertebrate paleontology. Unlike encyclopedic reference texts which are full of confusing jargon, this is a book that can be read by the non-specialist.Colbert tells--and shows--the fascinating story of vertebrate evolution and diversity, with all of the major groups represented. With thorough yet uncluttered text and well-chosen figures, with complete coverage of paleoecology, stratigraphy, and taphonomy, this book is perfect for anyone who wishes to learn more about our "extended" family tree." --Alexander J. Werth, Ph.D., Hampden-Sydney College ... Read more