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The Flamingo's Smile
''The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History'', published in 1985, is the fourth volume of collected essays from evolutionary biologist and well-known science writer Stephen Jay Gould; the essays were culled from his monthly column ''The View of Life'' in '' Natural History'' magazine, to which Gould contributed for more than two decades. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense. The title essay, "The Flamingo's Smile", discusses changes in morphology arising as a consequence of behavior, as illustrated by the beak and tongue of the flamingo. Topics discussed in other essays include SETI, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Omphalos hypothesis The Omphalos hypothesis is one attempt to reconcile the scientific evidence that the Earth is billions of years old with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative, which implies that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hen's Teeth And Horse's Toes
''Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes'' (1983) is Stephen Jay Gould's third volume of collected essays reprinted from his monthly columns for ''Natural History'' magazine titled "This view of life". Three essays appeared elsewhere. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" first appeared in ''Discover'' magazine in May 1981; "Phyletic size decrease in Hershey bars" appeared in C. J. Rubins's ''Junk Food'', 1980; and his "Reply to critics", was written specifically for this volume as a commentary upon criticism of essay 16, "The Piltdown Conspiracy". Reviews * Steven Rose"And Zebra Stripes and Chocolate Bars" '' The New York Times'', 8 May 1983, section 7, page 3. * Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ..., "The Art of the Developable. Review of '' Pluto's Republic'' by Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bully For Brontosaurus
''Bully for Brontosaurus'' (1991) is the fifth volume of collected essays by the Harvard University, Harvard paleontology, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "This View of Life" in ''Natural History (magazine), Natural History'' magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, and probabilities. The title essay, "Bully for Brontosaurus", discusses the theory and history of taxonomy by examining the debate over whether ''Brontosaurus'' should be labelled ''Apatosaurus''. In "Justice Scalia's Misunderstanding", Gould dissects and decisively rejects Antonin Scalia's dissent in the United States Supreme Court case ''Edwards v. Aguillard'' that overturned the last creationist statute in the country. Gould claimed his favourite essay to be "In a Jumbled Drawer" which discusses the debate between Nathaniel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Biologist
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution is based on the theory that all species are related and they gradually change over time. In a population, the genetic variations affect the physical characteristics i.e. phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed onto their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the Peppered Moth and Flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology. The importance of studying Evolutionary biology is ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996, Gould was hired as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University, after which he divided his time teaching between there and Harvard. Gould's most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972.Eldredge, Niles, and S. J. Gould (1972)"Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism."In T.J.M. Schopf, ed., ''Models in Paleobiology''. San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company, pp. 82–115. The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History (magazine)
''Natural History'' is a natural history magazine published in the United States. The stated mission of the magazine is to promote public understanding and appreciation of nature and science. History Founded in 1900 by the American Museum of Natural History, ''Natural History'' was first titled ''The American Museum Journal''. In 2002, the magazine was purchased from the Museum by a new company, headed at the time by Charles Harris. As of 2013 the magazine is published in North Carolina by Howard Richman. There are 10 issues published annually. Since its founding, ''Natural History'' has chronicled the major expeditions and research findings by curators at the American Museum of Natural History and at other natural history museums and science centers. Stephen Jay Gould's column, "This View of Life," was a regular feature of the magazine from 1974 until he retired the column in 2001. Other regular columnists and contributing authors include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jared Diamond, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flamingo
Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbean), and two species native to Afro-Eurasia. A group of flamingoes is called a "flamboyance." Etymology The name ''flamingo'' comes from Portuguese language, Portuguese or Spanish language, Spanish ("flame-colored"), which in turn comes from Old Occitan, Provençal – a combination of ("flame") and a Germanic-like suffix ''wikt:-ing#Etymology 3, -ing''. The word may also have been influenced by the Spanish ethnonym ("Fleming" or "Flemish"). The name of the genus, ''Phoenicopterus'', is from the Greek , ); other genera names include ''Lesser flamingo, Phoeniconaias,'' which means "crimson/red Naiad, water nymph (or naiad)", and ''Phoenicoparrus,'' which means "crimson/red bird (though, an unknown bird of om ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets. Scientific investigation began shortly after the advent of radio in the early 1900s, and focused international efforts have been ongoing since the 1980s. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner announced a project called Breakthrough Listen. History Early work There have been many earlier searches for extraterrestrial intelligence within the Solar System. In 1896, Nikola Tesla suggested that an extreme version of his wireless electrical transmission system could be used to contact beings on Mars. In 1899, while conducting experiments at his Colorado Springs experimental station, he thought he had detected a signal from Mars since an odd repetitive static signal seemed to cut off when Mars set in the night ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omphalos Hypothesis
The Omphalos hypothesis is one attempt to reconcile the scientific evidence that the Earth is billions of years old with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative, which implies that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. It is based on the religious belief that the universe was created by a divine being, within the past six to ten thousand years (in keeping with flood geology), and that the presence of objective, verifiable evidence that the universe is older than approximately ten millennia is due to the creator introducing false evidence that makes the universe appear significantly older. The idea was named after the title of an 1857 book, '' Omphalos'' by Philip Henry Gosse, in which Gosse argued that for the world to be "functional", God must have created the Earth with mountains and canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with fully grown hair, fingernails, and navels (ὀμφαλός '' omphalos'' is Greek for "navel"), and all living creature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1985 Non-fiction Books
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a new agreement on fishing rights. * January 7 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches ''Sakigake'', Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union. * January 15 – Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending the 21-year military rule. * January 20 – Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. * January 27 – The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is formed, in Tehran. * January 28 – The charity single record "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa. February * February 4 – The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Essay Collections
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Essays
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English-language Books
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots language, Scots, and then closest related to the Low German, Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is Genetic relationship (linguistics), genealogically West Germanic language, West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by Langues d'oïl, dialects of France (about List of English words of French origin, 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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