Synopses & Reviews
Following the discovery in Europe in the late 1850s that humanity had roots predating known history and reaching deep into the Pleistocene era, scientists wondered whether North American prehistory might be just as ancient. And why not? The geological strata seemed exactly analogous between America and Europe, which would lead one to believe that North American humanity ought to be as old as the European variety. This idea set off an eager race for evidence of the people who might have occupied North America during the Ice Ageandmdash;a long, and, as it turned out, bitter and controversial search.
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In The Great Paleolithic War, David J. Meltzer tells the story of a scientific quest that set off one of the longest-running feuds in the history of American anthropology, one so vicious at times that anthropologists were deliberately frightened away from investigating potential sites. Through his book, we come to understand how and why this controversy developed and stubbornly persisted for as long as it did; and how, in the process, it revolutionized American archaeology.
Review
and#8220;Tom Schopf elevated the term
paleobiology to new heights when he assembled his 1972 book
Models in Paleobiology and spearheaded the founding of the journal
Paleobiologyand#8212;a journal, I am happy to say, that is read by many who do not work directly with fossils. If there is still some distance to go before paleobiology is fully integrated with evolutionary theory, the importance of the fossil record in understandingand#8212;not only the course of evolution, but also its pulse and pace, and even some of its mechanicsand#8212;is nonetheless undeniable. The twenty-six papers in this volume probe the early days of this resurgence, and capture some of the excitement rippling through the field as paleontologists rediscovered the powerful evolutionary implications of their data.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The utter transformation of paleontology over the past forty years is too often viewed as either obvious and inevitable (by its enthusiasts), or misguided and unimportant (by its critics). Both of these extreme views could be avoided by a greater familiarity with the history of this revolution, which is unfortunately viewed by most professionals as of merely antiquarian interest, and this sense has been passed on to our students. The varied chapters in this fine volume provide an excellent antidote to this situation. Every paleontologist, and especially every graduate student, should read this book!"
Review
and#8220;Sepkoski and Ruse have assembled a wonderfully rich collection of essays that looks at diverse aspects of current science and provides sophisticated reflection on leading actors, probing historical and philosophical analyses, and important interpretations by the contributors. This is an important contribution to our understanding of scientific change generally as well as paleobiology and evolution specifically.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Paleontologists are indeed back at the high table of evolutionary theorists, as this splendid book vividly demonstrates. With its mix of retrospective reviews and analyses of recent developments, the book gives us rich materials for evaluating what surely deserves to be called a scientific revolution. As a paleontologist, back in the 1960s I was excited by the first stirrings of the new paleobiology; now, as a historian, I'm delighted to see such a fine volume on what it has since become, and how it got there.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Sepkoski and Ruseand#8217;s volume opens up the door to a long-neglected area in the history of evolutionary biology, one that began with Darwin and after a long period of eclipse has come back to illuminate a wide variety of macro- and microevolutionary processes.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The twenty-six scholarly essays in
The Paleobiological Revolution document and celebrate the rise of paleobiologyand#8212;paleontology as a biological scienceand#8212;which established the study of the fossil record as a unique contributor to evolutionary biology. Fossils became considered as once-living organisms with real physiologies and ecologies, populating ancient environments and forming ecosystems that may have no close modern analogs. . . . In this volume we find the scientific bones of the paleobiology revolution carefully examined both by historians of science and as personal accounts from many of those who played a part in shaping the transformation. Together they tell the tale, heralded by John Maynard Smith, of the return of paleontologists to the and#8216;high tableand#8217; of evolutionary biology.and#8221;
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Review
"This invaluable volume and#8211; a must read for anyone interested in evolutionary theory or twentieth century biology and paleontology and#8211; may be the first word on the history of the paleobiological revolution, but it is certainly not the last."
Review
and#8220;A stimulating and eminently readable, historical account of the revolution in paleontology and the emergence of the field that became known as paleobiology.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This insightful volume should serve as a foundation for future work in the largely unexplored realm of history and philosophy of paleontology.and#8221;
Review
andquot;Meltzerandrsquo;s book is the first detailed and comprehensive historical examination of the scientific debate over whether humans were present in the Americas during the Pleistocene, and the only history that fully recognizes and adequately treats the extent to which this debate played out not only among archaeologists, but involved complex interactions between archeologists, glacial geologists, Pleistocene paleontologists, and anthropologists. This is an important and much-needed contribution that fills a notable gap in the history of anthropology and archeology.andquot;
Review
andquot;Meltzer has given us the most detailed historical interpretation of the tumultuous, half-century search for Paleolithic man in America that we are ever likely to receive. Through patient archival digging and first-hand field knowledge, archaeologist and historian Meltzer weighs and balances the evidence--archaeological, paleontological, geological, and most importantly psychological--to reveal finally his critical conclusion: status matters. Controversy in science is settled chiefly when those most competent to judge, and in position to do so, decide it is time to settle it. A superb achievement, with implications far beyond the arcanae of archaeology.andquot;
Review
andquot;Readers clinging to the notion that science is a peaceful pursuit of the truth will be shocked by the story told in David J. Meltzerandrsquo;s The Great Paleolithic War, which depicts science and#39;red in tooth and claw.and#39; Denouncing one another as fakers, frauds, and charlatans, American archaeologists, anthropologists, glacial geologists, and vertebrate paleontologists fought to ascertain when humans first appeared in North America. Focusing on the controversies between the 1870s, when the debate erupted, and the late 1920s, when discoveries in New Mexico resolved it in favor of a Pleistocene antiquity of humans in the New World, the distinguished archaeologist Meltzer provides a riveting account of this momentous episode in the history of American science.andquot;
Synopsis
The Paleobiological Revolution chronicles the incredible ascendance of the once-maligned science of paleontology to the vanguard of a field. With the establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. Pairing contributions from some of the leading actors of the transformation with overviews from historians and philosophers of science, the essays here capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline. In so doing, David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse harness the energy of the past to call for further study of the conceptual development of modern paleobiology.
Synopsis
Only a few years after the discovery in Europe in the late 1850s that humanity had roots predating history and the Biblical chronicles, and reaching deep into the Pleistocene, came the suggestion that North American prehistory might be just as old. And why not? There seemed to be an and#147;exact synchronism [of geological strata] between Europe and America,and#8221; and so by extension there ought to be a and#147;parallelism as to the antiquity of man.and#8221; That triggered an eager search for traces of the people who may have occupied North America in the recesses of the Ice Age.
The Great Paleolithic War is the history of the longstanding and bitter dispute in North America over whether people had arrived here in Ice Age times.
About the Author
David Sepkoski is a senior research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. He is the author of Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Michael Ruse is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University. He is the author or editor of nearly thirty books, including The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Paleontology at the High Table
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Michael Ruse and David Sepkoski
Part I: Major Innovations in Paleobiology
1.and#160; The Emergence of Paleobiology
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; David Sepkoski
2. The Fossil Record: Biological or Geological Signal?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Michael J. Benton
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
3. Biogeography and Evolution in the Early Paleozoic
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Richard A. Fortey
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
4. The Discovery of Conodont Anatomy and Its Importance for Understanding the Early History of Vertebrates
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Richard J. Aldridge and Derek E. J. Briggs
5. Emergence of Precambrian Paleobiology: A New Field of Science
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160; J. William Schopf
6. Dinosaurs at the Table
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; John R. Horner
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
7. Ladders, Bushes, Punctuations, and Clades: Hominid Paleobiology in the Late Twentieth Century
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Tim White
8.and#160; Punctuated Equilibria and Speciation: What Does It Mean to Be a Darwinian?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Patricia Princehouse
9.and#160; Molecular Evolution vis-and#224;-vis Paleontology
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Francisco J. Ayala
Part II: The Historical and Conceptual Significance of Recent Paleontology
10.and#160; Beyond Detective Work: Empirical Testing in Paleontology
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Derek Turner
11. Taxic Paleobiology and the Pursuit of a Unified Evolutionary Theory
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Todd A. Grantham
12. Ideas in Dinosaur Paleontology:and#160; Resonating to Social, Political, and Popular Context
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; David E. Fastovsky
13. Reg Sprigg and the Discovery of the Ediacara Fauna in South Australia: Its Approach to the High Table
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Susan Turner and David Oldroyd
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
14. The Morphological Tradition in German Paleontology: Otto Schindewolf, Walter Zimmermann, and Adolf Seilacher
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160; Manfred D. Laubichler and Karl J. Niklas
15.and#160; and#8220;Radicaland#8221; or and#8220;Conservativeand#8221;? The Origin and Early Reception of Punctuated Equilibrium
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; David Sepkoski
16.and#160; The Shape of Evolution: The MBL Model and Clade Shape
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;John Huss
17.and#160; Ritual Patricide: Why Stephen Jay Gould assassinated George Gaylord Simpson
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Joe Cain
18.and#160; The Consensus That Changed the Paleobiological World
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Arnold I. Miller
Part III: Reflections on Recent Paleobiology
19.and#160; The Infusion of Biology into Paleontological Research
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; James W. Valentine
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
20. From Empirical Paleoecology to Evolutionary Paleobiology: A Personal Journey
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Richard Bambach
21.and#160; Intellectual Evolution Across an Academic Landscape
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;Rebecca Z. German
22. The Problem of Punctuational Speciation and Trends in the Fossil Record
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Anthony Hallam
23. Punctuated Equilibrium versus Community Evolution
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Arthur J. Boucot
24. An Interview with David M. Raup
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Edited by David Sepkoski and David M. Raup
25.and#160; Paleontology in the Twenty-First Century
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; David Jablonski
26. Punctuations and Paradigms: Has Paleobiology Been through a Paradigm Shift?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Michael Ruse
List of Contributors
Index