Book Description
Parallel in style and sequence to Robinson et al's General Chemistry, Essentials of General Chemistry, and General Chemistry with Qualitative Analysis, 10/e, this manual emphasizes the use of descriptive chemistry and encourages students to think independently and sharpen their problem-solving skills in the lab.
Book Description
Life on earth began in the sea, and in this tour de force of natural history, authority on marine biology and illustrator Richard Ellis chronicles more than three billion years of aquatic history. From the first microbes and jawless fishes that evolved into the myriad species we know today-sharks, whales, dolphins, and, of course, humans-Ellis reveals the deep evolutionary mysteries of the sea. Encyclopedic in scope and complemented by more than sixty drawings, Aquagenesis is a fascinating work that will astonish readers with the wonder, richness, and complexity of the evolution of life.
"Quite simply, the best account we now have of the origins of human life." (Te Christian Science Monitor)
Customer Reviews:
Aquagenesis : The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea.......2005-06-16
this is a great book to read about the evolution of sea organisms evolving into land animals. very good black and white drawings by the author.
Decent overview of most marine animal evolution.......2005-01-20
Author Richard Ellis in _Aquagenesis_ originally sought out to document in a popular science format how the ancestors of marine mammals, reptiles, and birds returned to the sea. In the process of researching the book Ellis became intrigued with the phenomenon of life in the water, from the origin of life itself - which likely took place in water - to the evolution of marine invertebrates and fish. As result, the scope of the book widened considerably.
Ellis recounted some of the theories about the origin of life. The main one he reviewed was that life may have first appeared around hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, perhaps from impact generated hydrothermal systems (as for a period of about 200 million years, very roughly between 3.9 and 3.8 billion years ago, the Earth may have experienced as many as 10,000 impacts by extraterrestrial bodies). Not only would such environments have been plentiful, but they would have aided by virtue of high temperatures the creation of organic compounds and would have been places shielded from ultraviolet radiation.
I found fascinating his discussion of the Ediacaran (or Vendian) fauna, the oldest recorded animals, fossils of soft-bodied organisms that lived between 565 and 535 million years ago. The Ediacaran fauna is unusual; many of these organisms come in strange shapes and sizes, have no recognizable fronts, backs, heads, tails, circulatory, nervous, or digestive systems. Many of them vaguely resembled modern jellyfish, though they appear to have been benthic (or bottom-dwelling) organisms ranging in size from a few millimeters to a meter in diameter. One researcher (Gregory Retallack) according to Ellis believed that the Ediacarans were not soft-bodied animals at all but rather a type of lichen, with a sturdier structure made of substances not unlike chitin. Another paleontologist, Adolf Seilacher, wrote that the Ediacarans are unrelated to any existing lifeform (calling the Ediacarans as a group the vendozoans) and postulated that their structure was rather like that of an air mattress.
The much discussed Burgess Shale fauna is well covered in this book, along with the highly publicized disagreements between the late Stephen J. Gould, who felt the bizarre fauna represented many weird, wonderful, failed experiments, and Simon Conway Morris, who felt that researchers had focused too much on the differences rather than the similarities of the Burgess Shale animals to known species and phyla.
Ellis provided a good summary of squids, octopi, ammonites, belemnites, and the nautiloids (including the five existing species of nautilus), though much of his short section on trilobites quoted or paraphrased (with due credit) Richard Fortey's excellent book _Trilobite_. I think he could have been much more thorough though in his very brief discussion of the eurypterids (sea scorpions).
The evolution of fish is given wonderful treatment, accompanied by (as is much of the text) by Ellis' skillful black and white illustrations. I found his coverage of the coelacanths particularly interesting, noting some of the mysteries that even the living fish present (such as the function of their "rostral organ" - perhaps it is used to detect weak electrical fields). I also enjoyed his section on bioluminescence, something that still presents an enigma to biologists (such as how the luminous bacteria that some species depend upon to light up in the ocean depths are acquired, particularly if they cannot exist outside of their host and the young of the species are not born with the bacteria already present). Also worthwhile was Ellis' reporting of the Bear Gulch Limestone Formation of Montana (dating back to 320 million years ago from the Mississippian), a truly excellent fossil site that has yielded 4,500 specimens representing 113 species of fish, many beautifully preserved. A number of unusual fossils have been found there, such as the shark _Damocles serratus_, so named because of a dorsal spine with a serrated edge underneath, one that hung over the head of the animal, not unlike the sword that hung over the head of Damocles in ancient Greece.
Although not marine animals, the evolution of vertebrate limbs is covered as well. Ellis summarized the writings of Jenny Clack and others, noting the theory that the early amphibians used their legs not for terrestrial locomotion but for movement in the water or on river and lake bottoms, and that the study of the origin of tetrapods and the invasion of land by vertebrate animals are two issued that (according to researchers E. B. Daeschler and N. Shubin) need to be "decoupled."
Reptiles aren't given as much coverage as one might think. While sea snakes, crocodilians, and sea turtles are very well covered (the latter with a nice rundown of living species), the Mesozoic marine reptiles are given short shrift. Ellis has said in his subsequent book on Mesozoic marine reptiles, _Sea Dragons_ that he cut them out of _Aquagenesis_ due to space requirements.
The evolution of penguins and particularly marine mammals - sea otters, seals, walruses, whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, and dugongs - has some of the best coverage of any subject in the book. Particularly interesting were the problems with the pinnipeds (seals) in the fossil record, how they appear already to be fairly well specialized in the Miocene (about 24 million years ago), lacking much in the way of transitional forms; also the possibility of separate ancestors for the eared seals and walruses (perhaps a bearlike progenitor) and the earless seals (maybe an otterlike ancestor).
Near the end Ellis presented the controversial Aquatic Ape theory that humans descended from an ancestor that may have spent a fair amount of time in shallow coastal waters. Citing evidence presented by Alister Hardy and Elaine Morgan that man may have had an aquatic past - the presence of large amounts of subcutaneous fat, hairless bodies, the only terrestrial mammals that can hold their breath, that humans can swim almost from birth, noses well adapted to keep out water from nasal cavities - Ellis also recounted the opposition this theory has met.
Though I found a few errors in the book, overall it was enjoyable.
Very well done!.......2004-12-07
I have a copy of this book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to know more about animal history, before, during and after life emerged from the ocean. As a simple lay person without a biology degree, this book has been a great asset to me personally when seeking answers about primitive creatures. This book introduced me to many creatures I'd never heard of, and indepth information on ones I had. It's one of my favorite books and much treasured. -Sharon Mooney, NC, USA
Technical, for experts.......2004-05-31
I read the author's very good "Encyclopedia of the Sea" and hoped this would be equally entertaining. It seems this book is more for people who already know a lot about ancient life. There are illustrations, but not enough as the author will describe bizarre, one of a kind creatures, but then not have a drawing of it. He describes contraversies about where a fossil belongs in the classification tree or if a new branch has to be added. I found the "Shape of Life" video much more interesting. This book seems to be a scholarly work, with many quotes and credits given, for other scholars.
Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea.......2002-10-22
Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea Written by Richard Ellis is quite simply a very fascinating book. A book that covers life in the sea from small little creatures too a shark that can swallow a horse whole.
Aquagenesis is a book that traces the phylogenic origins of aquatic life further and further back of not only the ancestors of the living whales, seals, manatees, sea turtles, sea snakes and penguins that were terrestrial, and their living descendants all returned to the sea, to one degree or another. But, this book is not without opinion and it plays a considerable role, mainly because interpretation is so much a part of this book, opinions of others are relied on via their published works or directly. But, this isn't a book so much about whales, seals and manatees as it is a book about the beginning of life in the sea.
What I found interesting in the book is how the author explains how life and a phenomenon known as sea-floor spreading where cracks or rifts are created in the crust of the Earth are connected. Plate tectonics causes these rifts and minerals spew into the water in clouds known as "Black smokers" that eventually dissolve and disperse into a water columns and life is found where you would think none could exist.
Also, the author takes a look at some of Stephen Jay Gould's work from "Wonderful Life" about the Cambrian Shale deposits known as the Burgess Shale. A review of the fossil biota brings the differences in interpretation and conclusions, but the major battle lines have been drawn. I must say that this book takes the reader on a ride of mystery from the first microbes to jawless and finless creatures to a possible aquatic ape that could be mans ancestor.
Some of the creatures we read about in the book are quite bizzar and the author has supplied detailed drawings that bring these animals to life. Sharks with teeth on their backs and others had teeth as large as your hand, all making for wonderful reading. I liked the author's narrative style in this book as it was straight forward and easily readable. The subject matter of the aquatic ape is covered toward the end of the book and is quite interesting.
Aquagenesis is a book about life in the past, but also how that life shape life today making for some compelling fascinating reding.
Book Description
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted myths even before he died. His fantastic journeys across Europe and beyond were said to be made on a magical white horse, and he was rumored to carry the elixir of life in the pommel of his great broadsword. His name was linked with Faust, who bargained with the devil.
Who was the man behind these stories? Some have accused him of being a charlatan, a windbag who filled his books with wild speculations and invented words. Others claim him as the father of modern medicine. Philip Ball exposes a more complex truth in The Devil's Doctor—one that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus’s time. He explores the intellectual, political, and religious undercurrents of the sixteenth century and looks at how doctors really practiced, at how people traveled, and at how wars were fought. For Paracelsus was a product of an age of change and strife, of renaissance and reformation. And yet by uniting the diverse disciplines of medicine, biology, and alchemy, he assisted, almost in spite of himself, in the birth of science and the emergence of the age of rationalism.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive but not very helpful for understanding Paracelsus .......2007-08-24
The voluminous study written by P. Ball bears evident mark of his profession, that is of his being physicist. One has to appreciat how many historical topics he was able to cover in his book, less impressive is, nevertheless, his ability to discover the most important ones and to explain Paracelsus thought on the ground of the historical context so carefully described. Author's basic despise -- at least that's what I feel in his book -- for questions of theology and religion that, according to him, have at best a historical importance seems to prevent him from better understanding of real problems of Paracelsus, and even of real meaning of his "magic". Well, according to the title, Ball wanted to describe Paracelsus in the context of the "renaissance magic and science", yet this picture would be, and is, distorted if the effort is not made to understand the complex of his thought from his perspective, to find out what for him is important.
Another thing is that Ball works only with english anthologies and even, if I'm not mistaken, only with english written sources in general. Sure, it's not very easy to read Paracelsus in the original Swiss German dialect, yet to me it seems inevitable if one wants to get out of beaten tracks of long rooted, sometimes superficial opinions, and to get inside the text and thoughts.
So, if you want to read a reliable and better balanced study on Paracelsus' natural philosophy as well as on his theology (and you are not craving for an "esoteric" interpretation) read rather Andrew Weeks' nicely short monograph on Paracelsus and keep reservation about Ball's book: historically he seems to have found the proper sources to use, but systematically he's then not going deep enough to discover the "real" Paracelsus. If you read in German check the brand new and very valuable, although a little difficult-to-read, book by M. Bergengruen (Meiner 2007). Or just reach for the old, eventhough also partly one-sided "Introduction" by W. Pagel to add some more insights in the paracelsian thought.
Shifting Cultural Plates.......2007-07-29
The Devil's Doctor is a remarkably well written biography of Paracelsus as well as social history of his life time, that period in European History when the Scholastic mindset of the Medieval was being challenged by the coming Enlightenment. Ball, who writes with great clarity and skillful organization shows Paracelsus as a unique individual in the middle of this social revolution, not seeing the whole picture, but living on both sides of the split.
An alchemist who grew up in a mining region of Switzerland where the manipulation of metals was prevelant he received a scolastic education in medicine. He left early because he realized that the medicine of the Greeks no longer served. He sought out the best teachers and herbalists to educate himself and was recognized as one of the best doctors of his time. He grew up in the Roman church, but thought, wrote, and preached independently his own brand of spirituality barely escaping condemnation for heresy.
I had read bits and pieces about Paracelsus over the years, but gathered almost nothing about the man. By putting Paracelsus in his time and many places (the man traveled a get deal for the times), Ball has made him real and his significance to European, and so world, history understandable.
I can't say I disliked anything about this book. Except, maybe, the fact that Paracelsus was associated with so many interesting characters who deserved books of their own, which I'll probably never find. I highly recommend this book to those interested in this period of history even if they scoff at alchemy. If they scoff, Ball will give them a better understanding of its significance to the period.
Fascinating portrait of Paracelsus but with avoidable errors.......2007-07-19
I read the *The Devil's Doctor* in conjunction with *Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age: The Occult Tradition and Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare* by John S. Mebane. I read them to learn what magic meant to people in the sixteenth century - so that I could better appreciate Shakespeare's play, *The Tempest*.
In the *The Devil's Doctor*, Philip Ball gives a fascinating portrait of a man who believed in both science and magic. In fact, in his medical practice he did not distinguish the two. Paracelsus used both in his attempts to cure diseases and to gain mastery over the external world - which, of course, includes other human beings.
While I cannot judge the accuracy of Dr. Ball's historical and biographical claims about Paracelsus, his misunderstanding of fairly basic Christian teachings surprised me. Here are three examples:
1) Ball states that it was not "his (Paracelsus') intention to say anything that ran contrary to the established position of the church - he was indeed intent on defending the divinity of the mother of Christ, against suggestions that she was mortal." Hello. The Catholic Church does not and did not teach the "divinity" of Mary. Nor does the Church teach that she was not mortal. (The doctrine of the Assumption does not mean she was immortal like a goddess.)
2) In describing how people at that time viewed the spirit world, Ball asserts: "Christian dogma insisted that supernatural beings were universally evil." It did? What about St. Michael and the other angels, not to mention the Communion of Saints?
3) Regarding demonic influences, Ball states: "Paracelsus briefly mentions the *Obsessi*, who are obsessed (possessed) by the devil." Paracelsus, like any sixteenth century Christian, would have known that obsession and possession refer to two very different conditions.
I don't want to make a big deal out of these errors, as if there was something unique about Philip Ball. When reporters, university professors and others write about the Catholic Church, their IQ seems to drop 20 or 30 points. It's hard to know exactly why since today we have this great thing called the Internet. A simple Google search would have enabled Dr. Ball to avoid the above errors.
Great if you already know about the Renaissance, weak otherwise.......2007-03-27
I think some of the other reviews, especially those by Haines and Hardy, describe very well what is contained in the book. So I'll review the book more than the actual material in it.
I came to this topic not knowing anything about the Renaissance and the movement at that time from "magic" to science. So, on the one hand, the book was incredibly interesting. However, on the other hand, while Ball is a good researcher he is not a great author. Thus it is really tough for a novice, such as me, to gain a good general grasp of Paracelsus from this book. For instance, Ball never presents a general guide to help put everything in perspective. If you already have some knowledge of Paracelsus and/or his world, such a guide isn't necessary. But if you are a neophyte, such as me, this omission makes the book very hard to follow, especially because of two traits of Ball's writing. First, on virtually every page Ball introduces 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or ... more people, most of whom show up for a paragraph or two and then wonder off stage, never to be seen again. A few, however, emerge as more important. But without any general guide, it's impossible to know in advance who will be important and who will be a flash in the pan. Second, this fact combines with the point that Ball frequently goes off on a tangents. But, once again, without any general guide it is impossible to determine if the topic is a tangent that will, indeed, be tangential or if the topic is a tangent that will be a major factor in Paracelsus' life and/or importance. As a result, if you are a novice to the Renaissance it is a constant struggle to see and to grasp the "big picture" about Paracelsus' life and importance. Instead, you will read many very fascinating small points about Paracelsus, the Renaissance, medicine and doctors in the 16th century, and alchemy. But the big picture is, at best, elusive. It takes literally until the last chapter, where Ball writes about Paracelsus' followers and the eventual replacement of Paracelsus' beliefs with modern science, for the general picture to start to emerge. And even then, it's a struggle to put together the pieces that are being presented.
If the key material in last chapter had been presented and expanded upon in the first chapter, I'd happily give the book 5 stars. Alas, however, it was not. And so the book gets 3 stars. If you want a source of really neat trivia about Paracelsus or the Renaissance, this is your book. If you want an understanding of the importance of Paracelsus and do not already have a good foundation on this topic, prepare to work.
Paracelsus too elusive for this biographer.......2006-08-31
I was very excited when I first learned that this biography was going to be published, because there is really not much out there about Paracelsus, and only a small portion of his vast number of works have been published in english. I read Manly P. Hall's small but masterful work, but there is not too much else, in print anyways and easy to obtain.
On the plus side, Mr. Ball does a great job of capturing the historical background to Paracelsus, and he includes many detailed descriptions of life during the Renaissance into the 17th century, and he also illuminates the personalities of many figures that I either have never heard of, or have found only brief information on. In many ways, this is a kind of travel book, and I was fascinated by the amount of traveling Paracelsus did throughout his life, and how many different and exotic places he visited. This portion of the book reads like the movie "Forest Gump", as Paracelsus seems to be at every great event and happening during the height of the Renassaince.
That said, Mr. Ball misses the mark in elucidating the true genius of Paracelsus, and does not explain very well, many of his revolutionary and profound ideas. This is because Mr. Ball either does not understand them himself, or he is just not sympathetic to them. In my opinion, it is a combination of both. At the end of the book, he devotes a mere paragraph for his conclusion, which only highlights where he missed the mark.
He claims that Paracelsus would have been pleased with where science has ended up today, giving us, "sober professionals whose aspirations were typically modest and mundane.. a medicine that works, and understanding of the chemical composition of the macrocosm and microcosm, and (liberation) from the tyranny of the stars.. (putting) our fate into our own hands." Paracelsus would approve of scientists like Heisenberg and Einstein, but what the author is referring to is the athiestic, deconstructionist type scientists who rely on hyper-rationality as a means of "discovering" scientific facts. In fact, he does not even discuss physics in the 20th century as a bridge to Paracelsus, which is a big miss in my opinion. He does not grasp the healing theories of Paracelsus, nor does he discuss the real legacy of his ideas which are not modern medicine, which he seems to point too. If anything, modern medicine is just the old galenic medicine that has been repackaged for our time. Yes, modern medicine uses some of his ideas, but they have selfishly made them to conform to their own ways of thinking and doing. I am sorry Mr. Ball, but it is not "a medicine that works", when the number one killer in this country is iatragenic medicine (doctor induced). Alternative medicine such as homeopathy, naturapathy and polarity therapy would be more what Paracelsus was pointing to. He also does not grasp the real meaning behind astrology which is really about magnetics, polarity and energy theory, not fortune telling or superstition. We are influenced by the stars, the sun and moon via magnetics, and that is what Paracelsus was trying to convey. Again, this book is a great storehouse of historical facts and figures, but very weak on comprehending and elucidating Pracelsus' ideas and theories.
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Doctor on the Ball
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