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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 2705 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Addresses the interactions, contradictions, and tensions between science and religion, both historically and in contemporary life. The set examines technologies like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and continuing developments in neurophysiology against the backdrop of deeply-held religious beliefs. In addition, phenomena such as the Church of Scientology are also studied, along with more traditional issues, such as the origins of life, the nature of sin, and the philosophy of science and religion. ... Read more

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This addition to the successful series of Elsevier wall charts will be especially welcomed by students and palaeontologists needing an authoritative overview of invertebrate fossils. The attractive and logical presentation of information makes the chart an excellent teaching and study aid, as well as a colourful wall decoration.

Superbly detailed line drawings are a valuable feature of the chart. The most important fossil invertebrate phyla are illustrated and the distinguishing features of 700 major genera are clearly shown for ease of identification. Phyla represented in the chart include: Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria (jellyfishes, corals), Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Mollusca (snails, clams, ammonites), Arthropoda (insects, crustaceans) and Echinodermata (starfishes, urchins).

The stratigraphical distributions of the phyla become immediately clear from the organisation of the chart. The brightly coloured age-ranges of the phyla and their subdivisions are printed over the stratigraphic periods, which form horizontal bands spanning the chart from left to right. The taxonomy follows the most current classification.

In addition to students of palaeontology and academics requiring a handy visual overview of the subject, this chart will be much in demand by natural history museums, oil companies, evolutionary biologists and amateur collectors. ... Read more

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"Carroll has to his credit an immense amount of useful labour in writing the book and will probably corner the market for a vertebrate paleontology text for the rest of this century."Nature ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The book for bones!
I had Romer's Vertebrate Paleontology, which is an excellent book, until a paleontologist friend directed me to Carroll's book. He acknowledges Romer's work in the field but this is an updated version (for the time of publication).
It gives all the basic elements needed for a thorough understanding of this very important field of study. One caution: know your anatomy! The detailed information can be a bit overwhelming for the amateur (like me).
However, if you want to chart the course of evolution up to the present - read this book!

One of the few college texybooks I kept.
This book was my textbook for Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution at the University of Rochester back in 1992.The book is very daunting to look at if you just flip through it.However, it does a nice job of introducing concepts and terms to the reader.Its organization is straightforward, starting with the simplest vertebrates and eventually finishing with mammals.Most groups are covered well, considering that the author's cover every group of vertebrates known.The biggest problem I had with the book was the section on dinosaurs, the biggest reason why I took the class. The information on them was limited to a few pages and much of the information was out-dated even in 1992.However, if you are looking for a good book on vertebrates, this is a must have.Just realize that some of the information may not reflect our current understanding since the book is over 10 years old and many new finds have come to light, new ideas have been introduced, and old ideas reexamined.

I spent 2 weeks chewing on this book...

...the only easily available work that goes to any depth on this intensely interesting subject.A large book of medium thickness with an average of about two drawings per page, including familial relationship diagrams.

Since the late Paleozoic, there have been two significantbranches of terrestrial vertebrates: the diapsids (crocs, dinosaurs, birds)and synapsids (pelycosaurs, theraspids, mammals).Sharing a commonancestry and evolving at times in parallel, nevertheless distinctivefeatures appear early that, though not of immediately apparentsignificance, in fact consign the lines to their separate fates.

Thepelycosaur Dimetrodon, the familiar lizard-like reptile with a sail on itsback that is often reproduced as a toy, and which I have always associatedwith the dinosaurs, is in fact a member of the synapsid line.The bookpoints out how the process on the mandible that reaches up toward thetemporal lobe is the beginning of a shift away from the ancestralquadrate-angular jaw articulation maintained by the diapsids through thebirds.With the additional points of leverage provided, mammals weredestined to become better chewers, able to move their jaws sideways inaddition to up and down.The angular bone and one other bone in themandible, incidentally, become modified to help pick up soundwaves, andeventually migrate to become one of the three bones in the middle ear. (Birds only have one bone in their middle ear, though interestingly, theirhearing appears to be just as acute.)

Mammals continued to refine theirchewing mechanism, introducing improvements to their teeth.Instead ofthe saw of teeth possessed by dinosaurs and early reptiles, the mammalsdeveloped closely occluding teeth that allowed them to grind food moreefficiently.Apparently the price for this matching of the upper and lowerteeth is that mammals cannot replace their adult teeth once lost.

Ifyou are a specialist in one of the larger groups of vertebrates, such asthe dinosaurs or the mammals, the coverage of this book will beunsatisfying.Sometimes I had difficulty determining what the definingcharacteristics that distinguished groups were, so I still can't look at askeleton and know whether it's a pelycosaur or an early theraspid.On arelated note, the relationship diagrams are not cladograms, butold-fashioned family tree type drawings, indicating not only relationshipbut the time period in which the group lived, with a thickening of thelines to show abundance. ... Read more

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In this updated and expanded version of his 1982 book Fossils of New Mexico, Kues offers a detailed overview of the fauna and flora of New Mexico through the past 500 million years, from Cambrian through Pleistocene time. An explosion in our knowledge of the state's fossil record has occurred in the past twenty-five years, and in this comprehensive examination Kues thoroughly discusses new discoveries and interpretations as well as the classic New Mexico fossil assemblages that are known worldwide.

After an introductory section covering basic paleontological concepts and a survey of the major groups of animals, plants, and protozoans, each chapter focuses on the state's fossil record for an individual geological period or epoch. These chapters include a summary of important paleontological and evolutionary events, an outline of the stratigraphy of the state, maps, and commentary on the vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants that lived in New Mexico during each time interval. Numerous illustrations portray the important fossils known from the state. This book demonstrates not only how rich and diverse New Mexico's record of past life is, but also documents ongoing studies that will lead to new discoveries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Diverse Ancient Life of a Geologically Complex State
New Mexico is a very complex state, geologically speaking.It has from relatively young Pleistocene alluvial deposits all the way back to ancient Proterozoic (Pre-Cambrian) rock.From the Cambrian to the recent, New Mexico has a huge fossil fauna and flora.This ancient biota has been only treated to my knowledge in scattered technical publications and one or two booklets before Barry S. Kues of the University of New Mexico produced this volume entitled "The Paleontology of New Mexico".

This is an impressive undertaking, but Kues seems to have lived up to it from what I saw.He covers each fossil-occurring period with many examples, most well illustrated.These include fossil organisms from the little late Triassic dinosaurs of Ghost Ranch to the Permian pelycosaurs of the Abo sandstone and from trilobites to mammoths.The book is fairly large in format and quite detailed, much more so than anything published earlier.Among many other details the author includes a fascinating series of maps showing the extent of the last marine deposits in New Mexico in the middle to late Cretaceous, as the sea coast disappeared to the northeast.This book is certainly going to be a major reference for anyone interested in the paleontology and geology of the state. ... Read more

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Designed for use in conjunction with a variety of textbooks, but particularly with Boardman's "Fossil Invertebrates" , the manual provides exercises, tying palaeobiological concepts to an examination of fossil specimens. So that its use can be tailored to the fossil material available, the manual includes more exercises than will be required by most laboratory courses. Some exercises or their components may be omitted. The author's prime intention is to familiarize students with fossil taxonomy and morphology and to incorporate principles of paleobiology to demonstrate problems in historical geology and evolution for which fossils are useful. ... Read more

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More than ten years ago, when I first read Mario Gandelsonas’ book The Urban Context, the beautiful abstract diagrams that the book presented -the street network of Chicago- fascinated me with the profound historical and cultural background that they suggested. Without knowing how this would direct me, I started to draw something related with the street network of Beijing. That is the beginning of this book. Among tons of the diagrams that I have created, most of them have not been incorporated into this book, while they have directed me into this fascinating research area which focuses on the "mineralized skeleton," rather than the "soft tissue" of urban forms.It was not until the recent five years when Yang and I came across some theories and approaches in paleontology that we started to integrate them into the street network study in Beijing and Savannah. Paleontology methods lay the foundation and provide a systematic and scientific platform for our research. Then urban paleontology, as a new framework for urban form study, unfolds itself more and more apparently in front of us. It explores the evolution of "urban species" based on their remains- "urban fossils," which describe distinct urban forms with imprints of their street networks. Just as how a biological fossil serves as a factual documentation of certain life forms, an urban fossil provides clues of the existence and transformation of urban forms.The study of urban paleontology inevitably directs us to further exploration in the fields of biology, anatomy, archeology, geology, and the application of computer aided design in the excavation of urban sites. Upon finishing this book, we realize that our work is too inadequate to possibly incorporate all the influence that other disciplines may have on architecture and urban design. What it has suggested is that architecture presents such a wide array of connections with other disciplines and becomes more and more towards an interdisciplinary study. We hope this book has illustrated the diversity of problems that invite further study and can serve as a start point for architects to conceive the total spectrum.-Ming Tang ... Read more

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This book contains nine selected reviews and case studies on palaeopedology, including the geological history of soils, time resolution in alluvial stratigraphy, and Quaternary pedogenesis. Case studies illustrating the various approaches to paleosols and their uses in archaeology, stratigraphy, sedimentology and basin analysis are also included. ... Read more

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Paleontology of Vertebrates is an introductory text for students in Earth Sciences. It offers the basic knowledge and describes the evolution of vertebrate groups, successfully applying the cladistic approach. The reader will learn how vertebrate paleontology can contribute to solve problems in various fields of geosciences, such as biostratigraphy, paleoenvironmental reconstructions and geophysical modes. ... Read more

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Since George Gaylord Simpson published Tempo and Mode in Evolution in 1944, discoveries in paleontology and genetics have abounded. This volume brings together the findings and insights of today's leading experts in the study of evolution, including Francisco J. Ayala, W. Ford Doolittle, and Stephen Jay Gould. It covers morphological and genetic changes in human populations, contradicting the popular claim that modern humans descend from a single woman. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The "Bible" of Trilobite information, a 1959 classic.
If you are interested in Trilobites, ancient arthropods that are the signature of the Paleozoic, then this classic work, written by the world experts of the time is a must for your collection. Not only is there an illustrated catalogue of the families and genera of trilobites known at the time (10,000 species vs today's 15,000+), but such hidden treasures as a review of many of the Burgess Shale arthropods (then considered Trilobitomorpha and therefore included in the work), and detailed discussions and descritpions of the major features of trilobites, their biology and ecology and their evolution over time are presented. While many of the conjectures are different from today's (more enlightened?) considerations, they provide tantalizing insight on the difficulties of paleontological science: deducing the nature of a world that has not existed for hundreds of millions of years.

Such classical trilobite workers as H.B. Whittington, R.C. Moore, and F. Rasetti to name a few, had a hand in this: the still-standing single definitive source for trilobitophiles.

A revision of the treatise on trilobites is beginning to emerge (Kaesler 1997), and two of the most primitive orders (Agnostida and Redlichiida) were revised in Volume One of the revision. We won't see a completed revision of the 1959 Treatise (in two more volumes) until sometime in the first decade of this new millenium.

In conclusion, for its current value as a trilobite information source, for its historical value as the world view on trilobites at the dawn of the 1960s, and for its >1000 individual drawings and figures of trilobites and their kin, this is a must for the trilobite-lover's library.

respectfully submitted, Dr. Sam Gon III ... Read more

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The author describes forty-two fossil taxa recovered during a study of the San Timoteo Badlands that used magnetobiostratigraphy to develop a temporal framework for addressing the tectonic evolution of southern California over the last 6 million years. For the Pliocene, small mammals are an effective means of correlating a magnetostratigraphy to the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale when radioisotopic dates are unobtainable. ... Read more