The common but less frequent loon and other essays / Keith Stewart Thomson ; illustrated by Linda Price Thomson.

New Haven : Yale University Press, [1993], ©1993.

pxi, 186 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

The uses of diversity -- The common but less frequent loon -- Benjamin Franklin's lost tree -- Derelict toward the land -- How to sit on a horse -- The shape of a shark's tail -- Reflections on the neural crest -- Becoming a scientist -- The literature of science -- Sine scientia ars nihil est? -- Anatomy of the extinction debate -- Piltdown man, the great English mystery story -- Reductionism and other isms in biology -- The sense of discovery and vice versa -- The future of evolution -- The meanings of evolution -- Natural science in the 1830s : the link between Newton and Darwin -- Fisher's microscope, or the gradualist's dilemma -- Where did tetrapods come from? -- Ontogeny and phylogeny recapitulated -- The puzzle of Palaeospondylus -- Is paleontolgy becoming extinct? -- A light in the attic.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-182) and index