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4 comments about The Sea's Enthrall: Memoirs of an Oceanographer.

1. I enjoyed The Sea's Enthrall very much. The book reads smoothly and is easy to understand. His personal life includes tragedy and hardship. His career is current with today's environmental issues and he presents an insightful and balanced view. He includes humour in his writing and I found myself chuckling out loud a few times while reading the book on the bus.



2. The author has certainly had an exciting life!World travel,important achievements and international recognition.And all from a background made difficult by family situations and life at what sounds the equivalent of boot camp.For an oceanographer this book has key insights and information from someone who has explored the ocean by 'going down to the sea in ships', not sitting behind a desk. But the average reader who likes things to do with the sea (me) can enter into the human, sometimes tragic experiences told in a frank and engaging manner. He strikes a chord with all who have had difficulties in life but have managed to make the most of their opportunities anyway. And for a scientist, Parsons has a flair for description that departs from the formality of academic reporting.



3. Easy to read-- the life of a man who has had enormous success but not without his share of pain and regret. Ideas about the way the oceans work will interest those in the field and anyone involved with environmental issues. And everyone can gain from the story of someone who achieved beyond the norm in spite of early difficulties. Parsons dispels the stereotype of the faceless, impassive and fact oriented scientist by a frank description of his personal life and interest in the things for which science alone cannot provide the answers.



4. Tim parsons is the winner of the Japan Prize for Marine Biology. The Sea's Enthrall: Memoirs Of An Oceanographer is the fascinating story of Parsons life as a marine biologist beginning with his growing up in Ceylon and England, his professional training and international experiences; his audience with the Emperor of Japan; and his retirement contemplations. The Sea's Enthrall is "must read" for anyone contemplating a professional career as a marine biologist -- and is wonderfully informative and entertaining reading for anyone else who appreciations a well-written memoir hallmarked with philosophy, humor, and a cosmopolitan outlook on life.

1 comments about A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza.

1. In recent years it has becomm possible to use DNA to trace human development. For instance the people of iceland believed themselves to be of Viking descent. DNA testing has shown that yes, the men of Iceland are of Viking descent. But the women came from England and Scotland. Apparently the Vikings stopped off to capture a few women on their way west.
   
   This little tidbit of knowledge is a mixture of multiple sciences and fields of study. The beliefs of the Icelanders has to come from a humanities perspective. The DNA evidence has to come from the hard science in the laboratory. (The supposition at the end is my own.)
   
   Dr. Cavalli-Sforza, as the title of this book says, has spent a lifetime of study spanning across many fields of study in the hard sciences and in many different areas of the humanities. This is a book that spans the globe from his offices in California and Italy to field studies in Africa and elsewhere.
   
   Written by an anthropologist and a geneticist, this book is also a good combination of crossing the fields of science and humanity.

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5 comments about The Man Who Found the Missing Link: Eugine Dubois and His Lifelong Quest to Prove Darwin Right.

1. The sentences in this book have been so elegantly crafted that they flowed like a smooth running brook. Since my wife and I like to alternate reading chapters from anthropology adventure stories out loud to each other, we were captivated by the editorial polishing that allowed us to pick up speed with nary a fumble (except for the occasional technical, Dutch or Indonesian words). While we had expected rough and tumble science, we were pleasantly surprised by how much this one was about Eugene Dubois's human relationships and the ups and downs of his feelings. (Perhaps there is a sex difference among biographers that accounts for this.)

   The first half of the book describes Dubois's family and friends to the exclusion of much of his science, with somewhat of an opposite imbalance in the second half. For example, early on we gleaned from the occasional aside and bibliography (annoyingly given mostly in Dutch without an English translation) that he wrote several papers and a book on the evolution of the sun as discerned from studying the earth's geology. Unfortunately, the author does not tell her readers how or why he did this, or how much of his time this took up, or even what he hoped these efforts would accomplish for him, though we are told that he was achingly ambitious. Instead we find excruciating details of his relations with his family and friends, and how he traversed the flora and geography of Java. Eventually, he discovered Pithecanthropus erectus, the "missing link" between man and ape.

   Later, after Dubois and his family return to the Netherlands, we do get excellent blow-by- blow accounts of the scientific in-fighting as other fossils like Peking Man and other Java men are discovered that cause reinterpretation of his finds and provoke controversy about them (later they are relabeled Homo erectus). By then, despite ourselves, we were hooked on his family relations and so frustrated to suddenly be left hanging about what happened on that front. Shipman tells us how and why Dubois separated from his wife, but not explicitly why they got back together or how they get along after they did. While his children tragically die, or wander off, or or make bad marriages, we get little information about how he does end up with descendants.

   Even the scientific story has some inexplicable gaps. The big debate rages over the status of Java Man and Peking Man along with Neanderthal and other finds. Even Piltdown Man takes center stage at one point. But the debates over Taung Child and other discoveries in Africa are never mentioned. Did I miss something? We both came away feeling that the book got too long and instead of editing it down, section by section, a production decision was made to simply delete some of the chapters!

   Despite these glitches I learned a lot from this book. Dubois did more than find a great fossil. He wrote a great deal on encephalization quotients (i.e., the ratios of brain size to expected body size) anticipating much current work in the evolution of the brain. He also put forward daring alternatives to Darwinian gradualism, like saltations that occur in brain size and so create new species. He has major triumphs and tribulations, and then triumphs again. And most of all, The Man Who Found the Missing Link illustrates the old adage that a man's greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses. The independent, bold, ambitious tenacity of the younger Dubois that enabled him to abandon an early professorship to seek his fortune in Java, renders him a needlessly arrogant, stubborn, recalcitrant scientist and lonely man in his later age.




2. I recommend this book to anyone regardless of her or his interest in human anthropology. Shipman's portal to the science is well written and tinted with full details of family life. A three dimensional portrait of Eugene Dubois that Shipman has deftly produced in the manner of a Masterpiece Theatre episode. This flavors the science so it goes down like dutch chocolate. Now that I'm hooked on the science, I'm tackling her co-authored "Neandertals".



3. Many thanks to Pat Shipman for bringing alive this strange man who lurks around the edges of the story of evolution, jealously hiding his treasure trove of bones. He is one of those characters who always shows up, but you never had a chance to meet.

   Just as skilled paleontologists reconstruct long-dead animals from a bone here, a tooth there, Shipman resurrects Dubois from a note here, a letter there. Of course much of this we have to accept on faith: we have no more solid proof that Dubois's behavior in many cases was just as Shipman has recreated it. But without her leaps of judgment, this book would be very dull, very scanty reading. Parts of the book are slow as we examine the ins and outs of old controversies and theories, but this detail is important for us to understand Duboi's character and work. Slog on through, but remember that Dubois was kicking and screaming into his eighties, so the book does go on. Maybe just as well we did not digress into the Taung baby and other contemporary discoveries.

   I have read other books by Shipman, so it came as no surprise to me that the book was meticulously researched, informative, and enjoyable to read. However, I hope I never again have to read a book written almost entirely in the present tense. Shipman is a good enough author that she does not have to resort to such a tiresome gimmick to bring immediacy to her scenes.

   Professor Shipman, if you are out there in front of the computer screen, please keep typing, I am looking forward to your next book. But please do remember how interesting the tenses of the English language are.




4. I confess I ended up first skimming the last half of this book, then several weeks later going back and reading the last chapter and dipping in various other places, so I possibily have not read the whole book, which is extremely unusual for me. But like some other reviewers, I found the style - especially the present tense - awfully annoying and tedious. It also seemed halfway between historical fiction and scientific biography, with all the reconstructed (or imagained?) conversations and thoughts; and you can't which are which. The extensive documentation endnotes indicate that some of these reconstructions are based on letters, etc., but there's no way to tell, and much of it seems just too far over the edge into historical fiction. I enjoy historic fiction very much, but that's not what I was looking for here, and felt I'd been drawn in under false pretenses. Overall, interesting but a tough slog of a read, even if you're really interested in the subject.



5. Shipman has done a spectactular job of chronicling the life of the man who many acclaim the father of modern paleoanthropology. This intrigiung man, Eugene Dubois, dedicated his life to a cause (elucidation of the link between humans and primates) with a passion not often found in scientific circles.
   
   I found the details regarding ED's personal interactions and relationships crucial to gaining insight into the persona and character of the man. He worked with a stern presence and perserverance that I found unbelievable. His dedication to his work really amazed me. In a sense you feel that he was destined to make such an earth-shattering discovery, but at the same time you can help but feel that he was also lucky. That is, many devote lifetimes to an investigative cause and come up empty handed or never live to see the fruits of his or her labor.
   
   I really enjoyed the book. As a scientist in another field (a paleoanthropology layperson at best), I found the book very informative and digestible. I did have to research some of the details to develop an understanding of some of the anthropologic principles and moreover the history of the discipline. It was a great learning experience.
   
   I like other books by Johanson and Leakey, but this one has a historical third person perspective that adds intrigue to the topic.
   
   Again, A great book.

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