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Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould
One of the twentieth century’s great paleontologists and science writers, Stephen Jay Gould was, for Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, also a close colleague, mentor, and friend. In Macroevolutionaries, they take up the tradition of Gould’s acclaimed essays on natural history, offering a series of wry and insightful reflections on the fields to which they have devoted their careers.
Lieberman and Eldredge explore the major features of evolution, or “macroevolution,” examining key issues in paleontology and their links to popular culture, philosophy, music, and the history of science. They focus on topics such as punctuated equilibria, mass extinctions, and the history of life—with detours including trilobites, Hollywood stuntmen, coywolves, birdwatching, and New Haven-style pizza. Lieberman and Eldredge’s essays showcase their deep knowledge of the fossil record and keen appreciation of the arts and culture while touching on different aspects of Gould’s life and work. Ultimately, they show why Gould’s writings and perspective are still relevant today, following his lead in using the natural history essay to articulate their view of evolutionary theory and its place in contemporary life. At once thought-provoking and entertaining, Macroevolutionaries is for all readers interested in paleontology, evolutionary biology, and Gould’s literary and scientific legacy.
Lieberman and Eldredge explore the major features of evolution, or “macroevolution,” examining key issues in paleontology and their links to popular culture, philosophy, music, and the history of science. They focus on topics such as punctuated equilibria, mass extinctions, and the history of life—with detours including trilobites, Hollywood stuntmen, coywolves, birdwatching, and New Haven-style pizza. Lieberman and Eldredge’s essays showcase their deep knowledge of the fossil record and keen appreciation of the arts and culture while touching on different aspects of Gould’s life and work. Ultimately, they show why Gould’s writings and perspective are still relevant today, following his lead in using the natural history essay to articulate their view of evolutionary theory and its place in contemporary life. At once thought-provoking and entertaining, Macroevolutionaries is for all readers interested in paleontology, evolutionary biology, and Gould’s literary and scientific legacy.
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220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 3, 2024
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May 3, 2024
Macroevolutionaries is a book of essays on topics in macroevolution. It is not a survey but focused on the work of the authors, or more specifically the theories that, along with Steven J. Gould and Elisabeth Vrba, they authored or supported. In particular, this is Gould and Eldredge's Punctuated Equilibrium hypothesis, (or "punk eek" in the book, customarily, establishing once and for all that not all words ought to be written down), which interprets the evolutionary process as one that alternates between periods of stability and periods of change, and Vrba's turnover-pulse hypothesis, which is sort of like Punctuated Equilibrium but on an ecological instead of species level.
Gould comes up frequently. Outside of his research and teaching, he wrote a column for Natural History magazine, and wrote popular science books on top of that. Gould wrote in a digressionary style that made use of non-scientific topics or analogies, or looked at the way that science was digested by the public. He had a legendary feud with Richard Dawkins on scientific grounds that mirrored small-p political divisions between them (i.e. calling one right and the other left would be wrong, but the rift had philosophical elements that pair up with other differences between them).
The writing styles itself in the manner of Gould's writing (though Eldredge has enough of his own career that I do not mean to damn with faint praise there). In the best essays in the collection, such as "Expanding Evolution," or "Of Cultural Nationalism, Hamlet and the Cloaca Universalis" the book lands a triple by providing an interesting new topic, in manner that reads like Gould, and provides light on Gould's own life.
Something that I personally liked was how the book makes a point of not going along with the conventional wisdom or popular perception of scientists, particularly Lamarck, (which I also know is the topic of more extensive books by one of the authors) but also Cuvier and Lyle. There is interesting speculation about what historical figures would have thought about different developments, and "Asleep at the Switch" and the notion of the importance of observing null results was interesting to juxtapose with having just read The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World] and his theory about non-radiation of culture.
The collection is in need of a stronger editorial hand. There is times where it feels in competition with Gould, and having learned the wrong sorts of lessons. Reading Gould in compilation can make it look like he was a more discursive writer than he was. He usually was not so broad within the context of a particular essay as the essays here are, or included as many puns. He just knew how to tie horse evolution to Nick and Nora Charles. In this book, the lily is gilded, to the point of obscuring meaning. At some points, a section only makes sense in hindsight, in the context of a later section out of a different essay.
The strangest thing about the book is Vrba, who gets invoked often but in a manner that suggests that she either quit science to code or died. As far as I know, she retired in 2014 and is still talking with the authors.
Something that works in its favor is that it ends strongly. And with the weaker chapters, there is always that One Good Idea in them, choked by weeds. And I confess that my expectations were high for this, in a way that I feel conflicted about any rating.
My thanks to the authors, Bruce Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Columbia University Press, for making the ARC available to me.
Gould comes up frequently. Outside of his research and teaching, he wrote a column for Natural History magazine, and wrote popular science books on top of that. Gould wrote in a digressionary style that made use of non-scientific topics or analogies, or looked at the way that science was digested by the public. He had a legendary feud with Richard Dawkins on scientific grounds that mirrored small-p political divisions between them (i.e. calling one right and the other left would be wrong, but the rift had philosophical elements that pair up with other differences between them).
The writing styles itself in the manner of Gould's writing (though Eldredge has enough of his own career that I do not mean to damn with faint praise there). In the best essays in the collection, such as "Expanding Evolution," or "Of Cultural Nationalism, Hamlet and the Cloaca Universalis" the book lands a triple by providing an interesting new topic, in manner that reads like Gould, and provides light on Gould's own life.
Something that I personally liked was how the book makes a point of not going along with the conventional wisdom or popular perception of scientists, particularly Lamarck, (which I also know is the topic of more extensive books by one of the authors) but also Cuvier and Lyle. There is interesting speculation about what historical figures would have thought about different developments, and "Asleep at the Switch" and the notion of the importance of observing null results was interesting to juxtapose with having just read The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World] and his theory about non-radiation of culture.
The collection is in need of a stronger editorial hand. There is times where it feels in competition with Gould, and having learned the wrong sorts of lessons. Reading Gould in compilation can make it look like he was a more discursive writer than he was. He usually was not so broad within the context of a particular essay as the essays here are, or included as many puns. He just knew how to tie horse evolution to Nick and Nora Charles. In this book, the lily is gilded, to the point of obscuring meaning. At some points, a section only makes sense in hindsight, in the context of a later section out of a different essay.
The strangest thing about the book is Vrba, who gets invoked often but in a manner that suggests that she either quit science to code or died. As far as I know, she retired in 2014 and is still talking with the authors.
Something that works in its favor is that it ends strongly. And with the weaker chapters, there is always that One Good Idea in them, choked by weeds. And I confess that my expectations were high for this, in a way that I feel conflicted about any rating.
My thanks to the authors, Bruce Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Columbia University Press, for making the ARC available to me.
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November 25, 2024dnf
September 1, 2024
An Eloquent Tribute That Is One of Our Best Science Books in Recent Years
"Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould” is one of the finest books about science I have read in recent years. It is a surprisingly terse, quite compelling, overview of the importance of invertebrate paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould’s impacts on evolutionary biology and fostering greater public understanding of science and why his ideas remain relevant nearly a quarter-century after his death, courtesy of two friends of his who are notable researchers in their own right in invertebrate paleontology; Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, with Eldredge regarded as among the great evolutionary biologists of our time. This remarkably thin tome is a perfect homage to Gould’s many years of exceptional essays, collected into a series of books that many regard still as among the most important works of science writing published in the last half century and one which will intrigue and delight many who remain fans of Gould’s writing, which earned him recognition for being one of the great essayists writing in English during the latter half of the 20th Century. Like Gould, they do an admirable job drawing from art, music and popular culture in making persuasive, often eloquent, points as to why Gould’s thinking and writing remain relevant today. The book’s title, “Macroevolutionaries”, refers to what Gould dubbed as the “Three Musketeers” making notable contributions in explaining why paleontology – or perhaps more precisely, paleobiology – remains relevant to evolutionary biology and stressing its importance to it; Gould, Eldredge, and Elisabeth Vrba, the South African vertebrate paleontologist who would spend most of her career at Yale University; the word itself was coined by Gould. I have no doubt it will be seen as an instant classic in its own right, as a superlative, often insightful, exploration of contemporary theoretical paleobiology and its relevance to evolutionary biology.
“Macroevolutionaries” starts with a compellingly readable opening chapter “The Three Musketeers of Macroevolution” that discusses how the authors – Bruce and Niles – met Stephen Jay Gould, hereafter shortened to “Steve” – and his admirable gifts for logic and eloquent prose that made him almost unique amongst his contemporaries in the geological sciences. That led to ample resentment – and though they don’t mention it, I suspect too, jealousy - considering how Steve was attracting a substantial public audience via his monthly essays in Natural History magazine and books, especially those consisting of these essays. They mention how Steve met Elisabeth Vrba, which led to their writing of their classic paper on Exaptation. Bruce recounts how he met Elisabeth at Yale at the start of his postdoctoral fellowship with her.
“Asleep at the Switch", the book’s second chapter, is an impressive, concise summary of what stasis is and its importance in studying fossil lineages from the fossil record. Bruce and Niles argue persuasively how important it is as both a pattern and process, especially as the key component of punctuated equilibria, which Niles recognized originally in a 1971 paper that led to his celebrated Punctuated Equilibrium paper coauthored with Steve published the following year. Without question, this is one of the most important – if not the most important – statements on the nature of stasis that I have seen either in scientific literature or in those writings for a popular nonscientific audience. I can easily see this – as well as several other chapters – as the source for a graduate school seminar, in this case in understanding the nature of stasis and evaluating the ample evidence supporting it.
“Survival of the Laziest: Does Evolution Permit Naps?”, the third chapter, emphasizes what Bruce and Niles regard as the differences between ecology and evolution. There is an extensive discussion of Elisabeth’s work on bovids – mammals which include domesticated cows – showing that ecological and evolutionary patterns aren’t equivalent at a macroevolutionary scale. They note how paleoecologists have recognized that paleoecology isn’t simply the application of ecology to the fossil record. We’re also introduced to Niles’ longstanding interest in using hierarchy theory from both an ecological and macroevolutionary perspective, as well as the importance of coordinated stasis, that is seeing stasis within an entire biota over an extended period of geological time.
Chapter Three is followed by two that some may wonder are relevant in a book discussing Steve’s legacy in evolutionary biology. “Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle Times Square: Gould, Kant and Super Dave” (Chapter 4) is an important discussion on the difference between idiographic and nomothetic – that is, discovery of scientific facts (idiographic) versus scientific laws (nomothetic) – views of science and their relative importance to science as discussed in Steve’s superb book on this issue, “Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle”, and how Steve’s thinking on the relative importance of each to science “evolved” during the course of his lifetime. They discuss briefly the importance of the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) study group of the early 1970s – consisting of noted invertebrate paleontologists Steve, Tom Schopf, David Raup and Jack Sepkoski (then Steve’s Ph. D. student) in seeking an experimental, theoretical approach to paleontology, inspired by Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson’s Theory of Island Biogeography (which surprisingly isn’t mentioned in Bruce and Niles’ discussion), that led to several papers that remain important as the first serious effort in using mathematical modeling in seeking a nomothetic view of paleontology. “Expanding Evolution: Organisms and Species, the Soma and the Technosphere” (Chapter 5) focuses on Niles’ interest in using the history of cornet design and “evolution” in exploring patterns and processes of evolution from the perspective of the technosphere; a discussion that I suspect will greatly delight and intrigue readers.
The next two chapters discuss the nature of volatility in fossil lineages (Chapter 6) and how mass extinctions were recognized in the fossil record (Chapter 7). “Declining Volatility: A General Evolutionary Principle and Its Relevance to Fossils, Stocks and Stars” (Chapter 6) is drawn from Bruce’s research and argues persuasively as to how over the course of geological time, lineages show repeatedly a tendency for major reductions in speciation and extinction, or, in plain English, volatility. This is a pattern which they argue occurs within stocks and stellar evolution. This is another chapter that could be suitable as the starting point for a graduate seminar in paleobiology. “Palaeo Personas: Musings on a Soviet Cephalopod, Norman Newell and Mass Extinctions” (Chapter 7), focuses primarily on the career of invertebrate paleontologist Norman Newell – an American Museum of Natural History curator of invertebrate paleontology and Columbia University professor – who was Steve and Niles’ Ph. D. dissertation advisor – and how he became the first notable paleontologist to recognize the existence and importance of mass extinctions in the fossil record.
The rest of “Macroevolutionaries” consists of fascinating explorations into the potential impact of stellar events on the extinction of species within the fossil record (Chapter 8), with an excellent discussion of Elisabeth’s turnover-pulse hypothesis, noting the significance of climatic change in driving evolution, the importance of sex in studying speciation and hybridization in evolutionary biology (Chapter 9), reconsidering the importance of Darwin’s field research in the Galapagos Islands (Chapter 10), cultural nationalism and intellectual theft by 19th Century British and American paleontologists (Chapter 11), excellent discussions of Steve and Richard Lewontin’s seminal “Spandrels of San Marco” paper (Chapter 12) that remains important as a critique of what they described as the “Adaptationist Programme” in evolutionary biology that led directly to Elisabeth’s conception of Exaptation, the subject of another noteworthy paper that she wrote with Steve several years later. (Their discussion of the “Spandrels of San Marco” paper is substantially better and more insightful than what I read in Columbia University physicist Brian Greene’s “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”.) Appropriately enough, the book concludes with a discussion of Bruce and Niles’ favorite fossil invertebrates, trilobites (Chapter 13).
“Macroevolutionaries” succeeds as both an homage and as a sequel to Steve’s memorable, often outstanding, Natural History essays and other writings. Ample references to art, popular culture, and especially, music, will remind those familiar with Steve’s writings of his vast oeuvre. Where they might differ is in emphasizing jazz music – and I note that when Niles had his American Museum of Natural History office, one could spot it from the sound of jazz music emanating from it – and all too often, they conclude chapters with recommendations to readers of appropriate jazz music worthy of listening, in stark contrast with Steve’s references to classical music. Much to their credit, Bruce and Niles also note where they might disagree with some aspects of Steve’s thinking on various aspects of paleobiology and other relevant aspects of evolutionary biology. For those unfamiliar with Steve’s or their work, “Macroevolutionaries” will still be quite rewarding. Not surprisingly, I suspect “Macroevolutionaries” will be quite popular with both its intended audience as well as those unfamiliar with Stephen Jay Gould.
"Macroevolutionaries: Reflections on Natural History, Paleontology, and Stephen Jay Gould” is one of the finest books about science I have read in recent years. It is a surprisingly terse, quite compelling, overview of the importance of invertebrate paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould’s impacts on evolutionary biology and fostering greater public understanding of science and why his ideas remain relevant nearly a quarter-century after his death, courtesy of two friends of his who are notable researchers in their own right in invertebrate paleontology; Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, with Eldredge regarded as among the great evolutionary biologists of our time. This remarkably thin tome is a perfect homage to Gould’s many years of exceptional essays, collected into a series of books that many regard still as among the most important works of science writing published in the last half century and one which will intrigue and delight many who remain fans of Gould’s writing, which earned him recognition for being one of the great essayists writing in English during the latter half of the 20th Century. Like Gould, they do an admirable job drawing from art, music and popular culture in making persuasive, often eloquent, points as to why Gould’s thinking and writing remain relevant today. The book’s title, “Macroevolutionaries”, refers to what Gould dubbed as the “Three Musketeers” making notable contributions in explaining why paleontology – or perhaps more precisely, paleobiology – remains relevant to evolutionary biology and stressing its importance to it; Gould, Eldredge, and Elisabeth Vrba, the South African vertebrate paleontologist who would spend most of her career at Yale University; the word itself was coined by Gould. I have no doubt it will be seen as an instant classic in its own right, as a superlative, often insightful, exploration of contemporary theoretical paleobiology and its relevance to evolutionary biology.
“Macroevolutionaries” starts with a compellingly readable opening chapter “The Three Musketeers of Macroevolution” that discusses how the authors – Bruce and Niles – met Stephen Jay Gould, hereafter shortened to “Steve” – and his admirable gifts for logic and eloquent prose that made him almost unique amongst his contemporaries in the geological sciences. That led to ample resentment – and though they don’t mention it, I suspect too, jealousy - considering how Steve was attracting a substantial public audience via his monthly essays in Natural History magazine and books, especially those consisting of these essays. They mention how Steve met Elisabeth Vrba, which led to their writing of their classic paper on Exaptation. Bruce recounts how he met Elisabeth at Yale at the start of his postdoctoral fellowship with her.
“Asleep at the Switch", the book’s second chapter, is an impressive, concise summary of what stasis is and its importance in studying fossil lineages from the fossil record. Bruce and Niles argue persuasively how important it is as both a pattern and process, especially as the key component of punctuated equilibria, which Niles recognized originally in a 1971 paper that led to his celebrated Punctuated Equilibrium paper coauthored with Steve published the following year. Without question, this is one of the most important – if not the most important – statements on the nature of stasis that I have seen either in scientific literature or in those writings for a popular nonscientific audience. I can easily see this – as well as several other chapters – as the source for a graduate school seminar, in this case in understanding the nature of stasis and evaluating the ample evidence supporting it.
“Survival of the Laziest: Does Evolution Permit Naps?”, the third chapter, emphasizes what Bruce and Niles regard as the differences between ecology and evolution. There is an extensive discussion of Elisabeth’s work on bovids – mammals which include domesticated cows – showing that ecological and evolutionary patterns aren’t equivalent at a macroevolutionary scale. They note how paleoecologists have recognized that paleoecology isn’t simply the application of ecology to the fossil record. We’re also introduced to Niles’ longstanding interest in using hierarchy theory from both an ecological and macroevolutionary perspective, as well as the importance of coordinated stasis, that is seeing stasis within an entire biota over an extended period of geological time.
Chapter Three is followed by two that some may wonder are relevant in a book discussing Steve’s legacy in evolutionary biology. “Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle Times Square: Gould, Kant and Super Dave” (Chapter 4) is an important discussion on the difference between idiographic and nomothetic – that is, discovery of scientific facts (idiographic) versus scientific laws (nomothetic) – views of science and their relative importance to science as discussed in Steve’s superb book on this issue, “Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle”, and how Steve’s thinking on the relative importance of each to science “evolved” during the course of his lifetime. They discuss briefly the importance of the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) study group of the early 1970s – consisting of noted invertebrate paleontologists Steve, Tom Schopf, David Raup and Jack Sepkoski (then Steve’s Ph. D. student) in seeking an experimental, theoretical approach to paleontology, inspired by Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson’s Theory of Island Biogeography (which surprisingly isn’t mentioned in Bruce and Niles’ discussion), that led to several papers that remain important as the first serious effort in using mathematical modeling in seeking a nomothetic view of paleontology. “Expanding Evolution: Organisms and Species, the Soma and the Technosphere” (Chapter 5) focuses on Niles’ interest in using the history of cornet design and “evolution” in exploring patterns and processes of evolution from the perspective of the technosphere; a discussion that I suspect will greatly delight and intrigue readers.
The next two chapters discuss the nature of volatility in fossil lineages (Chapter 6) and how mass extinctions were recognized in the fossil record (Chapter 7). “Declining Volatility: A General Evolutionary Principle and Its Relevance to Fossils, Stocks and Stars” (Chapter 6) is drawn from Bruce’s research and argues persuasively as to how over the course of geological time, lineages show repeatedly a tendency for major reductions in speciation and extinction, or, in plain English, volatility. This is a pattern which they argue occurs within stocks and stellar evolution. This is another chapter that could be suitable as the starting point for a graduate seminar in paleobiology. “Palaeo Personas: Musings on a Soviet Cephalopod, Norman Newell and Mass Extinctions” (Chapter 7), focuses primarily on the career of invertebrate paleontologist Norman Newell – an American Museum of Natural History curator of invertebrate paleontology and Columbia University professor – who was Steve and Niles’ Ph. D. dissertation advisor – and how he became the first notable paleontologist to recognize the existence and importance of mass extinctions in the fossil record.
The rest of “Macroevolutionaries” consists of fascinating explorations into the potential impact of stellar events on the extinction of species within the fossil record (Chapter 8), with an excellent discussion of Elisabeth’s turnover-pulse hypothesis, noting the significance of climatic change in driving evolution, the importance of sex in studying speciation and hybridization in evolutionary biology (Chapter 9), reconsidering the importance of Darwin’s field research in the Galapagos Islands (Chapter 10), cultural nationalism and intellectual theft by 19th Century British and American paleontologists (Chapter 11), excellent discussions of Steve and Richard Lewontin’s seminal “Spandrels of San Marco” paper (Chapter 12) that remains important as a critique of what they described as the “Adaptationist Programme” in evolutionary biology that led directly to Elisabeth’s conception of Exaptation, the subject of another noteworthy paper that she wrote with Steve several years later. (Their discussion of the “Spandrels of San Marco” paper is substantially better and more insightful than what I read in Columbia University physicist Brian Greene’s “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”.) Appropriately enough, the book concludes with a discussion of Bruce and Niles’ favorite fossil invertebrates, trilobites (Chapter 13).
“Macroevolutionaries” succeeds as both an homage and as a sequel to Steve’s memorable, often outstanding, Natural History essays and other writings. Ample references to art, popular culture, and especially, music, will remind those familiar with Steve’s writings of his vast oeuvre. Where they might differ is in emphasizing jazz music – and I note that when Niles had his American Museum of Natural History office, one could spot it from the sound of jazz music emanating from it – and all too often, they conclude chapters with recommendations to readers of appropriate jazz music worthy of listening, in stark contrast with Steve’s references to classical music. Much to their credit, Bruce and Niles also note where they might disagree with some aspects of Steve’s thinking on various aspects of paleobiology and other relevant aspects of evolutionary biology. For those unfamiliar with Steve’s or their work, “Macroevolutionaries” will still be quite rewarding. Not surprisingly, I suspect “Macroevolutionaries” will be quite popular with both its intended audience as well as those unfamiliar with Stephen Jay Gould.
April 25, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an early access copy in exchange for an honest review.
Part science, part exploration of human culture, and part trip down memory lane, Macroevolutionaries was simultaneously entertaining, educational, and funny. It's composed of a bunch of different essays, and each is full of heart and character. Occassionally there will be a diagram or photo to explain or give a little bit more relevant context, which I VERY much appreciated. I had a really good afternoon with this book and will probably read it again sometime in the next year or two. I'll never look at a Three Musketeers the same way.
Part science, part exploration of human culture, and part trip down memory lane, Macroevolutionaries was simultaneously entertaining, educational, and funny. It's composed of a bunch of different essays, and each is full of heart and character. Occassionally there will be a diagram or photo to explain or give a little bit more relevant context, which I VERY much appreciated. I had a really good afternoon with this book and will probably read it again sometime in the next year or two. I'll never look at a Three Musketeers the same way.
September 17, 2024
Engaging enough but there wasn’t one point where I didn’t wish Stephen Jay Gould had written this instead.
May 5, 2025
I read science because I am interested and so impressed with these kinds of scientists. I love how it started talking about how these scientists hung out together, because I always picture them as so unique, but of course they would have enjoyed each other's company. The essays are hilarious -- I love the idea of laziness in evolution. These really are essays, not lectures, with interesting takes on complex topics.
September 4, 2024
I'm fascinated by paleontology and this was an informative and engrossing read that made me learn so much.
Great read, highly recommended
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine
Great read, highly recommended
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine
August 1, 2024
This was a fun read, and very informative without being too complicated to understand. I loved the biographical parts just as much as the educational parts.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews