Overview

The Paleobiological Revolution chronicles the incredible ascendance of the once-maligned science of paleontology to the vanguard of a field. With the establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. Pairing contributions from some of the leading actors of the transformation with overviews from historians and philosophers of science, the essays here capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline. In so doing, David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse harness the energy of the past to call for further study of the conceptual development of modern paleobiology.

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The 26 scholarly essays in The Paleobiological Revolution document and celebrate the rise of paleobiology--paleontology as a biological science--which established the study of the fossil record as a unique contributor to evolutionary biology. Fossils became considered as once-living organisms with real physiologies and ecologies, populating ancient environments and forming ecosystems that may have no close modern analogs....In this volume we find the scientific bones of the paleobiology revolution carefully examined both by historians of science and as personal accounts from many of those who played a part in shaping the transformation. Together they tell the tale, heralded by John Maynard Smith, of the return of paleontologists to the ''high table'' of evolutionary biology. --Rachel Wood, Science <br><br>--Rachel Wood Science (08/21/2009)

The 26 scholarly essays in The Paleobiological Revolution document and celebrate the rise of paleobiology-paleontology as a biological science-which established the study of the fossil record as a unique contributor to evolutionary biology. Fossils became considered as once-living organisms with real physiologies and ecologies, populating ancient environments and forming ecosystems that may have no close modern analogs....In this volume we find the scientific bones of the paleobiology revolution carefully examined both by historians of science and as personal accounts from many of those who played a part in shaping the transformation. Together they tell the tale, heralded by John Maynard Smith, of the return of paleontologists to the ''high table'' of evolutionary biology. -- Rachel Wood Science (08/21/2009)

Author Information

David Sepkoski is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Michael Ruse is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University and the author or editor of nearly thirty books, including The Darwinian Revolution, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

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