Thursday, March 11, 2010

Paleo and Geo must reads

I am trying to come up with a seminar type class for sometime in the future and I was wondering something. If you had to pick a set of books or journal articles that you felt all paleontologists should read, what would you include?

So far what I have is:
1) The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
2) Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Steven J Gould
3)The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme by Gould and Lewontin
4)Voorhies, M. 1969. Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an Early Pliocene Vertebrate Fauna, Knox County, Nebraska. Contributions to Geology Special Paper, no. 1. University of Wyoming, Laramie
5) End section of Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs by Donald Prothero
6) Basic Questions in Paleontology by Otto Schindewolf
7) Something by Lamark, possibly Philosophie zoologique
8) Something by Cuvier
9) Something by St. Hillaire

Also, say this were a class on geology, what geological books/articles do you think all geologists should read?

So far what I have is:
1) Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell
2) Basin and Range by John McPhee
3) Something by Hutton maybe, just not sure what?
4) Something about plate tectonics?


Please post a reply with a book or journal article, author, (maybe approximate year if vague) and perhaps a reason. Also if you want to comment on books/articles already listed, please feel free to.

5 comments:

  1. "Basin and Range" by John McPhee introduced me to geopoetry and gave me a peek into the workings of the geological mind. This book is part of a compliation of five books about U.S. geology, "Annals of a Former World". Written for a popular audience. My favorite non-fiction author.

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  2. "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme", by Gould and Lewontin. This is particularly important for those who have a focus on functional morphology in paleontology.

    Voorhies, M. 1969. Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an Early Pliocene Vertebrate Fauna, Knox County, Nebraska. Contributions to Geology Special Paper, no. 1. University of Wyoming, Laramie. [probably one of the most cited papers in vertebrate taphonomy]

    For popular books, Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin is a new classic.

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  3. Added them in, thanks for the suggestions. I had just heard of "Basin and Range" today actually.

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  4. BTW, its Donald Prothero who wrote Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs

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