All organisms and species are transitory, yet life endures. The origin,
extinction, and evolution of species--interconnected in the web of life
as "eternal ephemera"--are the concern of evolutionary biology. In this
riveting work, renowned paleontologist Niles Eldredge follows leading
thinkers as they have wrestled for more than two hundred years with the
eternal skein of life composed of ephemeral beings, revitalizing
evolutionary science with their own, more resilient findings.
Eldredge begins in France with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who
in 1801 first framed the overarching question about the emergence of new
species. The Italian geologist Giambattista Brocchi followed, bringing
in geology and paleontology to expand the question. In 1825, at the
University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduced the
astounding ideas formulated by Lamarck and Brocchi to a young medical
student named Charles Darwin. Who can doubt that Darwin left for his
voyage on the Beagle in 1831 filled with thoughts about these daring new
explanations for the "transmutation" of species.
Eldredge revisits Darwin's early insights into evolution in South
America and his later synthesis of knowledge into a theory of the origin
of species. He then considers the ideas of more recent evolutionary
thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius
Dobzhansky, as well as the young and brash Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay
Gould, who set science afire with their concept of punctuated
equilibria. Filled with insights into evolutionary biology and told with
a rich affection for the scientific arena, this book celebrates the
organic, vital relationship between scientific thinking and its
subjects.
