Paperback ( )

Having finished this penultimate collection of Gould's essays, I realised I had inadvertently skipped a volume and should have read 'Dinosaur in a Haystack ' first. This was a slight relief after 'Eight Little Piggies ' which I found tedious as the essays were more readable and on more interesting topics. Most concern the history of science and how various theories on the development of life were abandoned, overtaken by events and new information though sometimes because the last holdouts against adoption of the newer theories died.

A few veer off into short pieces on Mozart and baseball and I admit to skipping the latter and a long essay in the first half which I found totally tedious. One I enjoyed most was about Galileo - I hadn't known that he was one of a group of early scientific pioneers, though I was aware of his persecution by the Inquisition. But it was the death of the wealthy and powerful nobleman, leader of the group, struck down by a fever, that removed Galileo's protection from the Inquisition.

Quite a few essays deal with the distortions of history whereby a 'heroic' version is preferred rather than the more low-key reality. At times, someone or something is popularly known about in a version completely opposite to what really happened. A case in point is the title essay, where a university professor was the victim of a hoax: contrary to the story published in many accounts over the centuries since, the hoax wasn't perpetrated by his students and he didn't die soon afterwards with his reputation in tatters. Gould unearthed the court papers from the professor's case against two of his colleagues who, fed up with his pomposity and his outmoded views, arranged for intricately carved stones to be planted where he would find them. They wanted him to make a fool of himself over the 'lying stones' but the joke went too far and their accomplice turned witness against them. It was they who were ruined, lost their posts and, in one case, died soon afterwards. He carried on at the university and lived for, I think, another fourteen years.

One of Gould's heroes was Lavoisier and he returns again to him, this time Lavoisier's pioneering work in geology, cut short by his execution in revolutionary France.

Altogether a much better read than the volume I read previously, although I did have to dip into it over an extended period and couldn't get on with all of it, so it's a respectable 3 stars from me. ( )

Gould's later volumes of essays continue to improve and impress, particularly the longer pieces in the first two sections of this volume. ( )

Good in places, but surprisingly hard work for Gould. ( )

Good in places, but surprisingly hard work for Gould.