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Dinosaur in a Haystack  By  cover art

Dinosaur in a Haystack

By: Stephen Jay Gould
Narrated by: Meredith MacRae, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
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Publisher's summary

Award-winning, best-selling author, evolutionary biologist, and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould takes the art of the essay to an unprecedented height of excellence in this vibrant collection of writings on science and natural history. From fads to fungus, baseball to beeswax, Gould always circles back to the great themes of time, change, and history, carrying listeners home to the centering theme of evolution. These unabridged selections were originally published in Natural History magazine. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named Gould a "Living Legend". He died of cancer two years later at the age of 60. In 2008 he was posthumously awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal along with 12 other recipients. Until 2008 this medal had been awarded only every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London.

©1995 Stephen Jay Gould (P)2017 Dove Audio / Phoenix Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Dinosaur in a Haystack

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Boring

This was hard to listen to. I hated the fact that there where two different narrators. it seemed disjointed, sounded like the ramblings of an old man.

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Well written, engaging thoughts

Even before I took in the dual major of Biology and English, I couldn’t understand why so many took issue with Gould’s supposed wordiness. The way Gould writes, in this case in essay form, makes his thoughts accessible to the average reader and can help to convey scientific ideas to those not versed in them.

Then again, the same community that bemoans Gould’s “wordiness” is probably that which bemoaned Sagan bringing science to the people.

As I stated, Gould writes these essays so anyone can read and understand and, hopefully, have their curiosity piqued, thereby engendering more study. That’s really what a science book or essay should do should do regardless the subject.

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7 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars

This is trivial pursuit training

The audio stinks, it's like listening to a damaged CD inside a tunnel.

The essay's were probably interesting in the 1990's and probably prepared many people for Trivia contests, but that's not why I read books.

Worse than being scattered, the essays are boring and generally pure-opinion.

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6 people found this helpful