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Cover of The Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould

The Panda's Thumb

Stephen Jay Gould

  • 343 pages · about 6 hours
  • First published 1980
  • 19 editions
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1 About this book

The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (1980) is a collection of 31 essays by the Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. It is the second volume culled from his 27-year monthly column "This View of Life" in Natural History magazine.

Recurring themes of the essays are evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense. The title essay (of 1978, originally titled "The panda's peculiar thumb") presents the paradox that poor design is a better argument for evolution than good design, as illustrated by the anatomy of the panda's "thumb"—which is not an actual thumb at all, but an extension of the radial sesamoid bone.

Topics addressed in other essays include the female brain, the Piltdown Man hoax, Down syndrome, and the relationship between dinosaurs and birds. The Panda's Thumb won the 1981 U.S. National Book Award in Science.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: history, evolution, and nature.

  • History
  • Evolution
  • Biological Evolution
  • Biology
  • Natural history
  • Human evolution
  • Natural selection
  • Genetic Selection

2 About Stephen Jay Gould

1941–2002

Stephen Jay Gould ( GOOLD; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and one of the most widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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