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>> The Crucible of Creation |
Updated: 2 Oct 2003 |
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ISBN 0-1985-0256-7
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This book is straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Conway Morris was one of the original team involved in the massive effort of re-examining and re-interpreting the Burgess Shale collections from Walcott’s Quarry and nearby.
The book begins with a rather strange discussion about evolution – presumably motivated by a desire to bury the tosh that Stephen J. Gould tossed up in his book, Wonderful Life (read more) – before moving on to setting the scene; both in terms of the history of life (there is a page or two about the Ediacaran biota) and of the locality itself.
Next the author describes some of the organisms in more detail, beginning with Hallucinigenia which he originally misinterpreted. The main taxonomic section of the book is organised into chapters corresponding to ecological, rather than phylogenetic groupings: mud-dwellers, mud-stickers, walkers and crawlers, and swimmers.
The next chapters compare the Burgess Shale Lagerstätten with similar faunas elsewhere in the world, including the Sirius Passet locality which Conway Morris was instrumental in bringing to world attention. The author then essays a synthesis of these faunas and an interpretation their evolutionary significance. This provides him with another opportunity to debunk Gould and offer less dramatic explanations on the Cambrian "explosion," the genetic underpinning of evolution, animal architecture, and more.
This book, as a whole, is rather idiosyncratic – though amusingly so – combining quirky metaphors with hard science. It is an easy read for anyone who knows a bit about geology and I would guess that anybody who had a mind to could get through it and understand everything.
Personaly, I was rather put off by the gratutious I-have-a-Cambridge-education scholarship, though your own mileage may vary.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Look and Feel: Hardback; good quality paper with high resolution b&w photographs and some colour plates, extensive reading lists, and a good index, but by no means a text book.
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