An excellent paleontological overview of our planet’s past
Although this book is aimed at a popular audience, Fortey doesn’t just jump right into the crowd-pleasing dinosaurs, mammoths, and cavemen. Much like history itself, the majority of the book is populated by microbes and invertebrates. Fortey, an expert on trilobites, has no problem giving the Precambrian and Paleozoic species their due for having ruled the Earth far longer than we have. His ability to make these earlier, slimier periods of our planet’s history compelling and engaging is quite remarkable. He has a knack for drawing scenes of long-past environments that make the reader feel immersed in a live-action diorama of biological activity. Fortey manages to make Ordovician molluscs every bit as exciting as a museum display of robotic dinosaurs.
I wouldn’t say there were many surprising revelations in this book. Don’t expect a definitive answer to the origin of life, for example. Fortey seems disposed towards the cosmic seeding theory, in which organic molecules were deposited on Earth by comets or meteors. That may very well be possible, but whenever I hear that theory it just seems like a cop out to me, a theoretical passing of the buck. Even if life did came from space, somewhere in the universe, at some time, there had to have been a primordial soup, yet we still can’t come up with a viable explanation of how physics and chemistry created biology.
The cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs, as explained here, is no surprise either. Fortey does, however, provide some very interesting background on how the meteor theory was formulated and the history of resistance against it. That’s pretty indicative of the book as a whole. Most of us already know much about the history of life on Earth from school or science magazines or educational TV programs. Fortey makes the subject more exciting by fleshing out the basics with fascinating details and intriguing examples. He also frequently delves into the history of paleontology as a discipline, highlighting key figures, their momentous discoveries, and the major debates in the field. In addition, Fortey includes anecdotes of his own paleontological field work. The result of all this is like sitting in the study of a distinguished professor as he regales you with his encyclopedic knowledge of nature and evolution in a casual, conversational manner. I not only learned a great deal about natural history from this book, I also gained a much better idea of what exactly paleontologists do and how they work.
I had previously read Richard Dawkins’s The Ancestor’s Tale, which is a book with a similar scope and purpose as this one. Dawkins covers the history of life on Earth by moving backward in time, while Fortey starts at the beginning and moves forward. Of the two, Fortey’s writing is far better. His prose is more engaging, his asides more relevant, and his overall delivery of information more educational. If I had to choose one book to refer to on matters pertaining to paleontology and natural history, Life would be it. It is really an impressive achievement.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment