Wonderful Life

For anyone in the dark, the Burgess Shale is one of the greatest fossil discoveries in palaeontological history. Uncovered in British Columbia by Charles Doolittle Walcott, one of America’s most distinguished scientific minds, the Burgess Shale contained an astonishing diversity of forms – but most significantly, from a time at which no solid evidence for life had yet been found.

The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing

Edited by Richard Dawkins, this collection of extracts was created with a specific goal: to showcase examples of “good writing by professional scientists, not excursions into science by professional writers” – and only from within the last century. Dawkins chose to limit his own involvement to the introductory prefaces to each extract, but in these he warmly introduces many figures who the interested layperson, like myself, may never have heard of, and succeeds in making crystal clear his admiration even for those with whom he may not agree professionally.