Bully for Brontosaurus
by Stephen Jay Gould · first published 1991
5mentions
3recommended by
3HN commenters
2012–2024first – last mentioned
100% recommend
Essays from the author's column This view of life, published in Natural history.
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I enjoyed Stephen Jay Gould's books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_for_Brontosaurus
on “Forget Extinct: The Brontosaurus Never Even Existed” ↗I recommend the book "Bully For Brontosaurus" by Stephen Jay Gould. It is a fun book from the early 90s or so, I got it as a random present, and enjoy reading it. It talks a bit about popularisation of science and what it means. Has some interesting…
on “Brontosaurus dino name is revived” ↗…dynamics in the textbook industry that reward looking like other textbooks more than accuracy and usefulness. A classic essay showing this is "The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone" in Gould's book Bully for Brontosaurus" that traces the history of textbooks comparing Hyracotherium* to a fox terrier. This, despite the fact that most students and authors have absolutely no real idea how big a fox terrier is. And it wouldn't…
on “The Ultraviolet Myth” ↗I like your No Caucus vs the Yes Caucus idea. Interesting to think about. Had to look up Gould's punctuated equilibrium to understand it better. I read "Bully for Brontosaurus" by Gould, that's where I heard the term first but then forgotten its meaning. Leaving a link here for others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
You would be astonished at how long phrases can last, with little sense behind it at all! My favorite example is documented in Bully for Brontosaurus (see https://www.amazon.com/Bully-Brontosaurus-Reflections-Natura... if you want to buy it) in the essay, "The case of the creeping fox terrier clone." For close to a century, the first thing that everyone…
on “Fields Medal was never meant for ‘the greatest mathematical genius' (2018)” ↗