Trilobite, Eyewitness to Evolution

I recently read Trilobite, Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey, 2001. I found it to be a delightful read and I learned all sorts of new things about these fascinating fossil creatures and the worlds they inhabited for 300 million years. Many thousands of species have been described and more are being discovered every year.Trilobites have played a major role in paleontology and have been used as index fossils correlating the ages of geological layers around the globe.They range in size from larger than lobsters to only a couple millimeters in length. As would be expected in a group that lasted that long the amount of variation is staggering; all the way from blind to calcium carbonate crystal for lenses in the faceted eyes, from plain and unadorned to covered with all sorts and shapes of spines.Fortey writes as much about the world they live in as about the trilobites themselves, the other sorts of life they shared the seas with. He uses his own experiences on expeditions of discovery around the world to tell the stories of the fossils and the types and locations of geological formations they are found in today and what those habitats were like when these creatures lived.He was a contemporary with Gould and Eldredge and describes how Eldredge's study of trilobites led him to the concept of Punctuated Equilibrium. He also explains Gould's errors in Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History in a way I had never understood before.Fortey tells an engrossing tale and describes the same excitement of discovery that I have experienced and observed in my colleagues in the study of dragonflies.I can recommend this book to anyone looking for an interesting read this winter.

Thanks for the review. I just looked and my public library has a copy of this book and so I'll mosey on down there today and check it out.

good one.Libraries ... another socialist ploy designed to undermine capitalism and educate poor people ...Enjoy

Often funded by notable socialists like George Peabody, Enoch Pratt and Andrew Carnegie.

Thank you for recommending this book! I actually have a trilobite fossil that I bought years ago as well and I kept pulling it out as I read this book.What cool creatures they are with crystal eyes (calcite). I was absolutely amazed that they had found trilobite larvae fossils and enough of them to actually map their development to adulthood and also use the larval stage to show how some trilobites were closely related even though their adult bodies were markedly different.It was a very interesting walk back in time.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world

Well well well...hello Alex. I agree with you that humans can be vain at times...they want to try and do everything themselves and think they will succeed without God...which I agree is vain. In science, however, they must have a go of it alone. It is not as if they can simply pray before conducting each experiment now is it?

I've tried many times to get you to understand things from an atheist's veiwpoint, but it seems that you simply can't. I'm not trying to change your mind about what you believe, just understand things from a non-believer's point of view.For atheists this god thing of yours is a pure invention; like fairies. Exactly like fairies. It's not vain to think you can manage without fairies now is it?

Thanks for the warning. I will never let you spoil me through your philosophy or your vain deceit. Now piss off.

The pathetic cry of the Christian Cult of Ignorance.

Why not? There is no success without God, what a strange idea. God rules science just as He rules the whole universe and every thing science studies. He knows the answers to all the questions, and if fallen humanity comes up with answers that disagree with Him, He's not the one who is wrong. Prayer for understanding of whatever science project you are engaged in would save you a lot of mistakes.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I’ll bet that studying the actual science connected to yout science project will lead to a much better understanding than prayer will. I’ll go so far as to propose that you could pray until October for understanding of anti-Markanikov additions to cyclic alkenes, and that if you never cracked a book on it, you would still be looking through the weeds for understanding in November.

Oh come on. Of course you study, the prayer simply guides and refines your study. I'm not talking about prayer for some kind of arcane knowledge out of the blue, I'm talking about studying with God's guidance.

Science does study with God's guidance unlike the Biblical worshipers. Science uses what God created not the Bible that fallen man made up and wrote.

Since God created everything, by your reasoning nobody should ever get any of it wrong, but we get things wrong all the time and the history of science certainly shows that. No, I'm talking about literally asking God to guide our understanding. In my experience it makes a big difference.