A fascinating and well-written account of scientists at work in an often neglected discipline.
New Scientist editor Walker looks at the hottest issue in geology: whether or not the Earth of some 700 million years ago was covered in ice.
The prime mover in this debate is Paul Hoffman, a Harvard geologist here depicted as a driven man unafraid of making enemies. Trained in the Canadian Arctic, Hoffman discovered evidence that pre-Cambrian rocks in Africa had been formed by glaciers. When he learned of pre-Cambrian glacial deposits found in other areas believed to have been near the equator at the time, Hoffman adopted a theory originally proposed by Joe Kirschvink of Caltech: Earth was covered with ice from pole to pole for millions of years. The theory quickly polarized the geological community, divided as much by Hoffman's prickly personality as by disagreements about the evidence. The breakup of the ice, brought about by the accumulation of greenhouse gasses spewed forth by volcanoes, was accompanied by a sudden explosion of life. The primitive organisms that evolved in the long ages before worldwide glaciation had attained nothing more complex than colonies of bacteria; once the seas were again open to the sun, multi-cellular life almost immediately began to flourish. The inference strongly urged by Hoffman and his supporters is that the breakup of the snowball was in large part responsible for the evolution of modern complex life. Walker summarizes the evidence from chemical and magnetic analyses of the rocks, describes the various geological sites that provide evidence for the snowball theory, and gives warts-and-all portraits of the scientists involved. She offers viewpoints and opinions on both sides of the still unsettled issue, although her summary perhaps prematurely implies that Hoffman's viewpoint has prevailed.
A fascinating and well-written account of scientists at work in an often neglected discipline.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-609-60973-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
An attempt to bridge the gap between spiritual and scientific inquiries into the nature and origins of the universe, from a physics professor at Dartmouth. Actually, Gleiser believes that the studies of cosmologists such as himself are spiritual; it's just that scientists seek to prove their intuitions, rather than to rely on faith. He finds the notion that scientists are cold and objective, rather than passionate, to be ludicrous and even offensive, and his accounts of the work of Einstein, Copernicus, and Newton wonderfully personalize the essentially spiritual quests these men made on their paths to discoveries with reproducible results. Einstein spoke of a ``cosmic religious feeling,'' for instance. To go back a long way indeed, the Pythagoreans were a monastic order of sorts, their mathematical discoveries a way of proving order in the universe and, to their minds, a divine intelligence. Sometimes, Gleiser is hard pressed to find much spirituality at work—in the endeavors of Niels Bohr, for instance. Nonetheless, the spirituality that is evident in the groundbreaking work of many great scientists is convincingly illuminated by Gleiser in this rather unique overview. He begins with a survey of various creation myths, from Hopi to Zoroastrian to Christian, and shows their links to the early astronomy of the Babylonians and Greeks. He devotes a great deal of attention to the Greeks, then moves on to the ideas of the ``pious heretic,'' Galileo; the origins and intent of Newton's laws of motion; the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics; and the turbulent discoveries of the modern age, beginning with Einstein and progressing through quantum physics and on to the ramifications of the uncertainty principle. Even if one cares little for Gleiser's spiritual asides, this is an exceptionally clear summary of 2,500 years of science and a fascinating account of the ways in which it often does intersect with spiritual beliefs. (30 b&w drawings, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-94112-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One of the founders of population genetics describes his life's work and its scientific context in this clear and accessible book, cowritten with his son Francesco. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza (Genetics/Stanford Univ. Medical School), a true polymath, combines the insights of anthropological fieldwork, historical linguistics, and molecular biology to create a history of human evolution, both biological and cultural. Having visited African pygmies in their villages and joined them on their hunting expeditions, he can present the essence of hunter-gatherer societies in a way no theoretician can match. But his field trips also provided him with blood samples for laboratory analysis, which reveals the complex relationships of the human species over its worldwide range. After a quick lesson in the basics of inheritance and genetics, Cavalli-Sforza gives the evidence for the African origin of modern human beings (including the often misinterpreted ``African Eve'' theory) and for the spread of humankind out of our ancestral home. The author was instrumental in reversing prevailing anthropological dogma during the postWW II era; the spread of agriculture, he showed, was a mass population movement, not simply the transmission of the new technology to new users. The story told here is often complex: Several mappings of the distribution of blood types across Europe reveal different patterns of migration. (A particularly fascinating correlation between the Rh- blood type and the Basque language implies that the Basques were among the earliest settlers of Europe.) At the same time, the author points out the genetic triviality of superficial racial distinctions on which bigots and demagogues place such importance. The translation occasionally misfires in rendering scientific terms, but is generally smooth and clear. An excellent book on human origins and modern genetics, as well as an entertaining self-portrait by a leading figure in the study of both. (56 b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-201-40755-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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