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Remarkable Creatures [With Earbuds] (2006)

by Sean B. Carroll(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1441803947 (ISBN13: 9781441803948)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Playaway

review 1: This book was a fascinating window into the history of the scientists behind our current understanding of evolution. I teach high school biology, so I'll admit that the topic is pretty well-suited to my personal interests, but Carroll's writing is familiar enough and his treatment of the personal stories of the scientists and history surrounding the development of their ideas is so well crafted, the book becomes a page-turner. This is a wonderful book for anyone learning about or interested in evolution as it helps to flesh out the real lives of the people on the front lines of discovery and it's an easy enough read for a high school biology student (would make a great required summer read!). I do think it's more about the people behind the ideas that the ideas themselv... morees (a lot of science is covered, but not always exhaustively) and I especially appreciated how vibrant and complex Carroll showed the nature of peer review to be. He doesn't make much of a big deal about it beyond expertly telling the story of scientific debates and developments, but considering that we live in a time when many people are science skeptics, the rigor of the process is something that we all should understand.
review 2: Surprisingly engaging read (my track record with nonfiction is not that good -- I tend to pick up books that I read about / heard about somewhere else that has engaging summaries and find them incredibly dull and long winded once I actually start reading them). It's kind of a...dramatized serial biography of people who are involved in studies of evolution. FAST read, which I definitely appreciate. Note that it IS written by a male Caucasian professor though and so the stories are, with very few exceptions, centered around male Caucasian scientists. There are a few lines where it seems like the author was going the lines of "oh those silly natives don't know what TREASURES they have", while discussing paleontology that makes me uncomfortable. It is however, a much lesser degree of problematic than Darwin's depiction of natives. So that's good. Shows we've come somewhere since 1800s.Would recommend for people interested in evolution. Note I didn't say scientists because one thing this book does really well is making the research accessible to a generalized audience (I think so, anyway, but I'm a scientist so I'm obviously biased) (but I really do think the author did this particularly well.). less

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