Legend has it (it may even be true) that J. B. S. Haldane, when asked by a clergyman what he could infer about God from the works of creation, responded, “He must have had an inordinate fondness for beetles.” Were I asked to infer something essential about Homo sapiens from his work, I should probably reply that this zoological odd-ball required humor to lighten a life taken too seriously. How else can we explain the fact that very profession has its underground classic of humorous self-deprecation and verse? Garstang’s Larval Forms has long filled this role for evolutionary biology. But, as a residual Victorian, Garstang turned out some mighty stuffy poems—and recapitulatory theory of the details of invertebrate morphology do no reside on the frontier of modern biology. But voyeurs and hedonists can now rejoice, for John Burns has produced a worthy successor, a work full of all that is modern in evolutionary biology—mathematical modeling, ecological strategies, ethological theories and, oh yes, plenty of sex.
- ISBN10 0393000311
- ISBN13 9780393000313
- Publish Date 27 October 1982
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 9 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Paperback
- Pages 132
- Language English