Hen's teeth and horse's toes

This is the third volume of Gould's collections of essays originally written for the magazine "Natural History." Gould liked to bring to a popular audience current findings in evolution and the history of science. He had a liberal/left political sensibility that came through in his essays, and made them more palatible for a large section of the thinking public, many of whom are wary of evolution as a potential tool for right wing social darwinism.This particular volume was the first of the series that I read, and I am very fond of it. I reread parts in order to write this review, and it has not lost its charm. Gould has several topics that he returns to in his thinking, and this volume is well represented with them. They include: curiosities of natural history that help to illustrate evolutionary theory, the history of evolutionary thought, and the history of social abuses that have used biology and evolution as a justification for racism, discrimination.The title essay discusses the genetics of animal development from an embryo to a mature adult. That essay and the one following report on the early findings of a discipline that has only flowered after Gould's death: evolutionary development, or Evo Devo. Even the early results suggested that major morphological changes can be controlled during development by very few genes. Now that the mechanism has been more fully studied, we know that major morphology can be controlled by very short DNA tags that switch genes on and off during sequences of development. For a good, much more recent discussion of Evo Devo, see Sean Carroll's "Endless forms most beautiful."In the history of science, there are essays on Steno, Hutton, Cuvier (he was better than his reputation suggests), Agassiz, Vavilov (a victim of Lysenko), and Teilhard de Chardin (further evidence that he may have commited the Pithdown fraud). Gould has several essays about the creationist Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. His analysis of the trial is a bit flawed, and I recommend Edward Larson's "Summer of the Gods" for a more accurate account. Gould brings Scopes to the present because the Arkansas trial of anti-evolution laws had just been completed.Gould's social concerns focus in this volume on the use of fraudulent statistics in the 1840s to discriminate against blacks and the efforts of early 20th century statisticians to denigrate jewish immigrants. He applies scientific methods to the study of the shrinking of Hershey's candy bars. He celebrates the early findings of Walter Alvarez on the impact theory of the K-T extinction. There is an essay that foreshadows his book "Full House."As always, her writes with skill and humor. All in all, a good collection.