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Do Elephants Have Knees? - And Other Stories of Darwinian Origins (Hardcover)
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Do Elephants Have Knees? - And Other Stories of Darwinian Origins (Hardcover)
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Thinking whimsically makes serious science accessible. That's a
message that should be taken to heart by all readers who want to
learn about evolution. Do Elephants Have Knees? invites readers
into serious appreciation of Darwinian histories by deploying the
playful thinking found in children's books. Charles R. Ault Jr.
weds children's literature to recent research in paleontology and
evolutionary biology. Inquiring into the origin of origins stories,
Ault presents three portraits of Charles Darwin-curious child,
twentysomething adventurer, and elderly worm scientist. Essays
focusing on the origins of tetrapods, elephants, whales, and birds
explain fundamental Darwinian concepts (natural selection, for
example) with examples of fossil history and comparative anatomy.
The imagery of the children's story offers a way to remember and
recreate scientific discoveries. By juxtaposing Darwin's science
with tales for children, Do Elephants Have Knees? underscores the
importance of whimsical storytelling to the accomplishment of
serious thinking. Charles Darwin mused about duck beaks and
swimming bears as he imagined a pathway for the origin of baleen. A
"bearduck" chimera may be a stretch, but the science linking not
just cows but also whales to moose through shared ancestry has
great merit. Teaching about shared ancestry may begin with
attention to Bernard Wiseman's Morris the Moose. Morris believes
that cows and deer are fine examples of moose because they all have
four legs and things on their heads. No whale antlers are known,
but fossils of four-legged whales are. By calling attention to
surprising and serendipitous echoes between children's stories and
challenging science, Ault demonstrates how playful thinking opens
the doors to an understanding of evolutionary thought.
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