{"id":8402,"date":"2010-07-27T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2010\/07\/27\/evolutionary-biology-geeks-thr\/"},"modified":"2010-07-27T11:51:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T11:51:00","slug":"evolutionary-biology-geeks-thr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/27\/evolutionary-biology-geeks-thr\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolutionary Biology Geeks: Three must read books for you!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can you imagine Stephen Jay Gould recast as a tall and lanky Jesuit priest who has an interest in evolution? Can you imagine someone actually attempting the famous experiment of getting a large number of chimpanzees at keyboards to see if you can get any Shakespeare? Eventually? (The experiment is enhanced with the use of carefully dispensed M&M’s.) Did you ever wonder, if a chimpanzee did make the switch to human levels of intelligence (by training, drugs, surgery, whatever) what kind of scotch if would prefer?
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Normand de Ratour is the main character of three novels written by my former colleague Alfie Alcorn. I worked with Alfie when I guided tours in Africa for the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. When his first novel came out, it caused quite a stir among the Harvard Intelliganci. What Alphie did, roughly, and in my opinion, was this: He took several Harvard Museums’ (MZC, Peabody, etc) people, such as Stephen Jay Gould, David Pilbeam (then director of the Peabody), Wally the security guard, and so on. Then, he made a three column list: Profession\/job, Physical appearance, and Personality. Then he hit “random” and ended up with things like a Lanky Stephen Jay Gould-like person who studies evolution.<\/p>\n

I loved the book.<\/p>\n

And, the reason I mention it today is this: Alphie’s third volume has recently come out. And now, it is time for you to dissect, excavate, and devour in a cannibalistic manner all three:<\/p>\n