The Paleobiological Revolution
Essays on the Growth of Modern Paleontology
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Paleontology at the High Table
Michael Ruse and David Sepkoski
Part I: Major Innovations in Paleobiology
1. The Emergence of Paleobiology
David Sepkoski
2. The Fossil Record: Biological or Geological Signal?
Michael J. Benton
3. Biogeography and Evolution in the Early Paleozoic
Richard A. Fortey
4. The Discovery of Conodont Anatomy and Its Importance for Understanding the Early History of Vertebrates
Richard J. Aldridge and Derek E. J. Briggs
5. Emergence of Precambrian Paleobiology: A New Field of Science
J. William Schopf
6. Dinosaurs at the Table
John R. Horner
7. Ladders, Bushes, Punctuations, and Clades: Hominid Paleobiology in the Late Twentieth Century
Tim White
8. Punctuated Equilibria and Speciation: What Does It Mean to Be a Darwinian?
Patricia Princehouse
9. Molecular Evolution vis-à-vis Paleontology
Francisco J. Ayala
Part II: The Historical and Conceptual Significance of Recent Paleontology
10. Beyond Detective Work: Empirical Testing in Paleontology
Derek Turner
11. Taxic Paleobiology and the Pursuit of a Unified Evolutionary Theory
Todd A. Grantham
12. Ideas in Dinosaur Paleontology: Resonating to Social, Political, and Popular Context
David E. Fastovsky
13. Reg Sprigg and the Discovery of the Ediacara Fauna in South Australia: Its Approach to the High Table
Susan Turner and David Oldroyd
14. The Morphological Tradition in German Paleontology: Otto Schindewolf, Walter Zimmermann, and Adolf Seilacher
Manfred D. Laubichler and Karl J. Niklas
15. “Radical” or “Conservative”? The Origin and Early Reception of Punctuated Equilibrium
David Sepkoski
16. The Shape of Evolution: The MBL Model and Clade Shape
John Huss
17. Ritual Patricide: Why Stephen Jay Gould assassinated George Gaylord Simpson
Joe Cain
18. The Consensus That Changed the Paleobiological World
Arnold I. Miller
Part III: Reflections on Recent Paleobiology
19. The Infusion of Biology into Paleontological Research
James W. Valentine
20. From Empirical Paleoecology to Evolutionary Paleobiology: A Personal Journey
Richard Bambach
21. Intellectual Evolution Across an Academic Landscape
Rebecca Z. German
22. The Problem of Punctuational Speciation and Trends in the Fossil Record
Anthony Hallam
23. Punctuated Equilibrium versus Community Evolution
Arthur J. Boucot
24. An Interview with David M. Raup
Edited by David Sepkoski and David M. Raup
25. Paleontology in the Twenty-First Century
David Jablonski
26. Punctuations and Paradigms: Has Paleobiology Been through a Paradigm Shift?
Michael Ruse
List of Contributors
Index
“The utter transformation of paleontology over the past forty years is too often viewed as either obvious and inevitable (by its enthusiasts), or misguided and unimportant (by its critics). Both of these extreme views could be avoided by a greater familiarity with the history of this revolution, which is unfortunately viewed by most professionals as of merely antiquarian interest, and this sense has been passed on to our students. The varied chapters in this fine volume provide an excellent antidote to this situation. Every paleontologist, and especially every graduate student, should read this book!"
“Sepkoski and Ruse have assembled a wonderfully rich collection of essays that looks at diverse aspects of current science and provides sophisticated reflection on leading actors, probing historical and philosophical analyses, and important interpretations by the contributors. This is an important contribution to our understanding of scientific change generally as well as paleobiology and evolution specifically.”
“Paleontologists are indeed back at the high table of evolutionary theorists, as this splendid book vividly demonstrates. With its mix of retrospective reviews and analyses of recent developments, the book gives us rich materials for evaluating what surely deserves to be called a scientific revolution. As a paleontologist, back in the 1960s I was excited by the first stirrings of the new paleobiology; now, as a historian, I’m delighted to see such a fine volume on what it has since become, and how it got there.”
“Tom Schopf elevated the term paleobiology to new heights when he assembled his 1972 book Models in Paleobiology and spearheaded the founding of the journal Paleobiology—a journal, I am happy to say, that is read by many who do not work directly with fossils. If there is still some distance to go before paleobiology is fully integrated with evolutionary theory, the importance of the fossil record in understanding—not only the course of evolution, but also its pulse and pace, and even some of its mechanics—is nonetheless undeniable. The twenty-six papers in this volume probe the early days of this resurgence, and capture some of the excitement rippling through the field as paleontologists rediscovered the powerful evolutionary implications of their data.”
“Sepkoski and Ruse’s volume opens up the door to a long-neglected area in the history of evolutionary biology, one that began with Darwin and after a long period of eclipse has come back to illuminate a wide variety of macro- and microevolutionary processes.”
Biological Sciences: Paleobiology, Geology, and Paleontology
Earth Sciences: Geology | History of Earth Sciences | Paleontology
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