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Author Topic:   "Extinction", by Douglas Erwin
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 1 of 2 (333959)
07-21-2006 11:44 AM


I've just finished reading "Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago", by Douglas Erwin (Princeton Uni Press, 2006). It is an exceptionally well-written, very detailed look at the end-Permian mass extinction that nearly cancelled the entire experiment of life on Earth (95%+ of all extant species went out like a candle). For anyone interested in the topic, this book provides in sometimes tedious (albeit engagingly well-written) detail the evidence for and against the various hypotheses.
I honestly don't recommend the book for anyone who isn't interested in the topic - I personally found it fascinating, but extinctions are one of my areas of interest (although my focus is at the local and modern, rather than global and ancient, scale). It IS quite, erm, comprehensive.
However, I wanted to nominate the book in Book Nook because it is simply the single best pop-sci description of how scientists do what scientists do that I have ever read: how they come to conclusions, how they research, what kinds of data and experiments they perform, how they test hypotheses, etc. Erwin spends one chapter discussing the event itself (to put it in context), another outlining the four front-running causal hypotheses for the event, four chapters discussing in detail the actual evidence supporting each (in their best light), another chapter evaluating the hypotheses in light of the evidence (and which one he thinks is most likely - I won't spoil the surprise), a chapter discussing the aftermath in evolutionary terms, and a final chapter discussing what still needs to be done/researched/discovered/observed to determine a final "winner" in the "whodunnit" contest.
All in all, I found Erwin to be not only a damn fine scientist who's spent the majority of his career focused on this extremely narrow speciality (he's a paleobiologist with the Smithsonian NMNH, and a professor at Santa Fe Institute), but a damn fine writer as well. I think I've discovered another writer like Knoll, Sagan, Ehrlich and Diamond, etc, who's pop-sci writing ability and impeccable scientific credentials restore my faith in the ability of science and scientists to "talk" to the intelligent layman.
If you read the book for no other reasons than to a) learn about a topic outside your areas of specialization, or b) learn about what science is a does, then you will have gotten an excellent view of science. I cannot recommend the book more highly.
As RAZD says, "Enjoy".
Edited by Quetzal, : clarity

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Coragyps, posted 07-21-2006 12:27 PM Quetzal has not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 2 of 2 (333976)
07-21-2006 12:27 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Quetzal
07-21-2006 11:44 AM


I read it a couple of weeks ago, and I second your recommendation. Good reading!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Quetzal, posted 07-21-2006 11:44 AM Quetzal has not replied

  
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