Blinded By (Strange) Science
I've always been fascinated by the twisted way in which human knowledge advances, and Strange Science examines some of the odder ideas that preceded our modern-day understanding of paleontology and biology.
Sometimes, however, reality is even weirder than the fanciful creatures dreamed up by medieval zoologists. The discovery of the Burgess Shale fossils in 1909 uncovered bizarre lifeforms that seem better suited to some alien world than to our own, like the hallucigenia, for example. Definitely the stuff of nightmares.
Comments
As time has gone on, the Burgess shale fossils have proved less extraordinary than Stephen Jay Gould presented them as being, but most of this improved understanding came about after Wonderful Life was published, so I suppose we should give him credit for lighting a fire under the taxonomists.
Posted by: Smarasderagd | October 11, 2004 3:03 AM
By "less extraordinary" do you mean they were more common and widely dispersed than first perceived? In either case, they're still very odd lifeforms...
..and extremely dangerous, given the presence of embedded trilobite agents.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | October 11, 2004 8:34 AM