The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of the Animals [Hardcover]

'tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels. (New Scientist )

spiritually uplifting (THES )

The centerpiece of The Crucible of Creation is a descripion, authoritative and readable, of the animals themselves (New York Times Book Review ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels. Conway Morris has a collector's eye for the sort of entertaining yet informative snippets that keep readers on their toes." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"spiritually uplifting" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"The centerpiece of The Crucible of Creation is a descripion, authoritative and readable, of the animals themselves" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"tells a great story and manages to be informative at all levels." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"spiritually uplifting" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Challenging the views of scientists including Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins, this text takes us on a fresh journey back in time through the Burgess Shale - the astonishing collection of pre-Cambrian creatures so different from everything now living that many rank as separate trunks of life's tree. In readable style, Conway Morris paints a picture of a critical period in the history of life which saw the diversification of all the major animal groups, and takes a controversial stance on current evolutionary theories. The book should appeal to the general reader interested in popular science and evolutionary theory - in particular readers of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould.

Simon Conway Morris is Professor of Palaeontology in the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge. He was one of the team of three scientists who uncovered many of the fossils and worked on the interpretation of the Burgess Shale in the 1970s, for which work Stephen Jay Gould said "Palaeontology has no Nobel prizes though I would unhesitatingly award the first to Whittington, Briggs, and Conway Morris. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990, and presented the Royal
Institution Christmas Lectures in 1996. His search for fossils has taken him all over the world, including China, Mongolia, Australia, and Greenland. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.