new book

["James Farlow" <farlow@ipfw.edu>]

Given the events of the 11th, I am reluctant to mention something so mundane as 
the following, but I suppose we must try to continue with our lives, or the 
bastards really will have won.

I'd therefore like to announce publication of the latest book in Indiana 
University Press' paleontology series:  _Drawing Out Leviathan: Dinosaurs and 
the Science Wars_, by Keith M. Parsons, ISBN 0-253-33937-5

Parsons is interested in the on-going controversy over science as a process.  
Are scientific facts reflections of external reality, or  are scientific ideas 
social constructs that are negotiated among various interested parties?  
Parsons addresses this matter by reviewing the history of dinosaur studies, and 
the way controversies over dinosaur biology were argued and in some instances 
settled, to see what light this history sheds on the way paleontological 
knowledge is created.

To quote a passage from the book: "...are dinosaurs social constructs?  Do we 
really know anything about dinosaurs?  Might not all of our beliefs about 
dinosaurs be merely figments of the paleontological imagination?  A few years 
ago such questions would have seemed preposterous, even nonsensical.  Now they 
must have a serious answer."

The table of contents will give some idea about the matters covered by Parsons:

Mr. Carnegie's Sauropods
The Heresies of Dr. Bakker
The "Conversion" of David Raup
Are Dinosaurs Social Constructs?
Le Dinosaure Postmoderne
History, Whiggery, and Progress
Beyond the Science Wars

I think that vertebrate paleontologists generally, and dinosaur specialists in 
particular, will find much of interest in the story Parsons tells.  The book 
should also be an important contribution to the literature on the philosophy 
and sociology of science.

What does Parsons conclude?  

I'm not going to tell you--buy the book, eh?

And as a bonus, the dust jacket features a surprising piece of paleontological 
art that many folks may not have known existed.


Jim Farlow