Wonderful Life,9780735100312

Wonderful Life

by
ISBN13: 9780735100312
ISBN10: 0735100314
Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 1989-09-01
Publisher(s): Replica Books
List Price: $32.00

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Summary

"Luminous. . .Filled with profound and upsetting ideas like the Burgess Shale itself and just as solid. It is surely one of nature's best stories, told with a light touce by a master of the field".--Lewis Thomas, M.D.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments 13(10)
The Iconography of an Expectation
23(30)
A Prologue in Pictures
23(4)
The Ladder and the Cone: Iconographies of Progress
27(18)
Replaying Life's Tape: The Crucial Experiment
45(4)
Inset: The Meanings of Diversity and Disparity
49(4)
A Background for the Burgess Shale
53(26)
Life Before the Burgess: The Cambrian Explosion and the Origin of Animals
53(7)
Life After the Burgess: Soft-Bodied Faunas as Windows into the Past
60(4)
The Setting of the Burgess Shale
64(15)
Where
64(5)
Why: The Means of Preservation
69(1)
Who, When: The History of Discovery
70(9)
Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale: Toward a New View of Life
79(28)
A Quiet Revolution
79(5)
A Methodology of Research
84(13)
The Chronology of a Transformation
97(1)
Inset: Taxonomy and the Status of Phyla
98(4)
Inset: The Classification and Anatomy of Arthropods
102(5)
The Burgess Drama 107(218)
Marrella and Yohoia: The Dawning and Consolidation of Suspicion, 1971--1974
107(17)
The Conceptual World That Whittington Faced
107(6)
Marrella: First Doubts
113(8)
Yohoia: A Suspicion Grows
121(3)
A New View Takes Hold: Homage to Opabinia, 1975
124(12)
The Revision Expands: The Success of a Research Team, 1975--1978
136(28)
Setting a Strategy for a Generalization
136(3)
Mentors and Students
139(2)
Conway Morris's Field Season in Walcott's Cabinets: A Hint Becomes a Generality, and the Transformation Solidifies
141(16)
Derek Briggs and Bivalved Arthropods: The Not-So-Flashy but Just-As-Necessary Final Piece
157(7)
Completion and Codification of an Argument: Naraoia and Aysheaia, 1977--1978
164(8)
The Maturation of a Research Program: Life after Aysheaia, 1979-Doomsday (There Are No Final Answers)
172(34)
The Ongoing Saga of Burgess Arthropods
173(1)
Orphans and Specialists
173(12)
A Present from Santa Claws
185(3)
Continuing the March of Weird Wonders
188(1)
Wiwaxia
189(5)
Anomalocaris
194(12)
Coda
206(1)
Summary Statement on the Bestiary of the Burgess Shale
207(11)
Disparity Followed by Decimation: A General Statement
207(5)
Assessment of Genealogical Relationships for Burgess Organisms
212(6)
The Burgess Shale as a Cambrian Generality
218(9)
Predators and Prey: The Functional World of Burgess Arthropods
219(3)
The Ecology of the Burgess Fauna
222(2)
The Burgess as an Early World-Wide Fauna
224(3)
The Two Great Problems of the Burgess Shale
227(13)
The Origin of the Burgess Fauna
228(5)
The Decimation of the Burgess Fauna
233(7)
Walcott's Vision and the Nature of History
240(52)
The Basis for Walcott's Allegiance to the Cone of Diversity
240(37)
A Biographical Note
240(3)
The Mundane Reason for Walcott's Failure
243(10)
The Deeper Rationale for Walcott's Shoehorn
253(1)
Walcott's Persona
253(4)
Walcott's General View of Life's History and Evolution
257(6)
The Burgess Shoehorn and Walcott's Struggle with the Cambrian Explosion
263(14)
The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
277(3)
Inset: A Plea for the High Status of Natural History
280(12)
Possible Worlds: The Power of ``Just History''
292(33)
A Story of Alternatives
292(7)
General Patterns That Illustrate Contingency
299(10)
The Burgess Pattern of Maximal Initial Proliferation
301(4)
Mass Extinction
305(4)
Seven Possible Worlds
309(12)
Evolution of the Eukaryotic Cell
309(2)
The First Fauna of Multicellular Animals
311(3)
The First Fauna of the Cambrian Explosion
314(2)
The Subsequent Cambrian Origin of the Modern Fauna
316(1)
The Origin of Terrestrial Vertebrates
317(1)
Passing the Torch to Mammals
318(1)
The Origin of Homo sapiens
319(2)
An Epilogue on PIKAIA
321(4)
Bibliography 325(8)
Credits 333(4)
Index 337

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