Stephen Jay Gould

This book was immediately hailed as a masterwork when first published in 1981, the answer to those who would rank people according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits--of biology as destiny--dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to "The Bell Curve," whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by biologist Gould. In this revised edition, Dr. Gould traces the subsequent...

Stephen Jay Gould offers a surprising and nuanced study of the complex relationship between our two great ways of knowing: science and the humanities, twin realms of knowledge that have been divided against each other for far too long. To establish his two protagonists, Gould draws from a seventh century b.c. proverb attributed to the Greek soldier-poet Archilochus that said roughly, "The fox devises many strategies; the hedgehog knows one great...

The co-founder of "Skeptic" magazine explains why people are so willing to believe in mind reading, alien abductions, ghosts, and other manifestations of pseudoscience, and discusses how such wrong thinking can lead to very real danger.