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In Search of Deep Time Rita Hoots Department Editor I ROACHES MYRMECOLOGYI is it. The reading is appropriate for secondary level and beyond. The Compleat Cockroach. David By Ants at Work. By Deborah Gordon. Paula Flaugher G. Gordon. 1996. Ten Speed Press (PO 1999. The Free Press, a division of Graduate Student, Entomology Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707). 178 pp. Simon and Schuster Inc. (1230 Avenue UC Davis, California Paperback $11.95. of the Americas, New York, NY 10020). _ In the introduction author 182 pp. Hardback $25.00. David Gordon says, "Ask CLADISTICS yourself how you feel about cock- Deborah Gordon has spent 17 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/63/3/218/50050/4451082.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 summers roaches." Most folks will answer some- researching a popula- In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the tion thing along the lines of, "Ugh, disgust- of harvester ants in the desert of Fossil Record to a New History of ing things." An admitted insect lover Arizona. Her accumulated observa- Life. By Henry Gee. 1999. The Free with his own pet roaches and roach tions have concluded that the queen Press (1230 Avenue of the Americas, of the colony is not the all-powerful knickknacks, Gordon has written a New York, NY 10020). 267 pp. Hard- wonderful book on this often hated dictator that she has been previously back $26.00. but superbly hardy insect. Of course seen as. Complete with advice on how This is the story of cladistics there are sections on cockroach basics to survive a summer of desert field- G and of what it offers the biolo- including a definition on just what a work, Gordon's book summarizes her gist as a tool for understanding what cockroach is, where cockroaches can observations and experiments and happened to organisms across geologic be found, reproduction, and how they illustrates her revolutionary conclusion time. According to Henry Gee, cladis- affect the lives of humans. However with well-written text and a few well- tics, the science of comparison, "is the the most entertaining information can placed illustrations. At the end she only way we will really come to terms be found in the sections dealing with makes a connection between how ants with who we are... " Gee is Chief cockroaches in pop culture, as pets, in a colony react to each other and Science Writer for the prestigious Brit- and failed attempts to control them. their environment and the possibility ish journal, Nature, and holds a doctor- This is an informative read that does that brains and other systems of more ate in zoology from Uni- an excellent job of teaching the reader complex single organisms react in a Cambridge versity. He offers a thoughtful that roaches are not inherently disgust- similar fashion. Ants at Work is very explora- tion of the idea that there ing and in fact can be fascinating. It is good, even though it gets a bit dry at is no knowable descent of man. Gee appropriate reading full of fascinating times. It is appropriate for high school even challenges Darwin's tidbits for the high school reader up students up through the professional analogy of artifi- cial as used through all levels of interest. researcher and is recommended for selection, to explain natu- anybody interested in animal behavior. ral selection, and attacks the now-tra- Paula Flaugher ditional wisdom of the common ances- Graduate Student, Entomology tor. He argues that cladists choose not UC Davis, California 95616 The World of the Harvester Ants. By to look at ancestor-descendent rela- Stephen W. Taber. 1998. Texas A&M tionships (which he says are question- University Press (College Station, TX). able inferences), but instead look at Rita Hoots, Book Reviews Editor, is a 213 pp. Hardback. $34.95. the pattern of history in life ("relative Professor at Woodland Community degrees of cousinhood," because, Ants as dispersal College and teaches classes in the bio- agents of Cal- assuming evolution has occurred, logical vG ifornia native poppies? sciences, human anatomy, and Very "every organism that was, and is, and chemistry. Her various degrees in the interesting. Many such tidbits can be will be, is a cousin of every other"). sciences, counseling, and education found in this book by Stephen W. His thesis is that a revolution in come from the City University of New Taber, strung together with informa- York, paleontology has occurred during the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tion on day to day life in the harvester California State late 20th century. Cladistics is helping University-Sacra- ant colony and mento, and the University of California- the evolutionary his- scientists rethink all we claim to know Berkeley. Before entering the educa- tory of the genera Pogonomyrmex and about biology in deep time and tion field, Hoots was for many years Ephebomyrmexto form a thoroughly involves fewer assumptions than tradi- a researcher in cell ultrastructure and readable profile of some of the western tional, susceptibly impressionistic, immunology. Her predominant pas- hemisphere's busiest occupants. paleontologic reconstruction. For Gee, sion in education is directed to the According to the author, the book the critical difference in this new per- popularization and illumination of sci- started out as a large, dry technical ence for the spective is that cladistics offers "a way public. Her address is: treatise on the two genera of Science Dept., Woodland Community harvester of looking at the world in terms of College, 41605 Gibson Rd., Wood- ants found in the United States. Fortu- the pattern that evolution creates, land, CA 95776; e-mail: rahoots@ix. nately this book is not that. For those rather than the process that creates the netcom.com. interested in a good introduction to pattern." He sees it as moving from the world of the harvester ant, this children's stories "into a true science." 218 THEAMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, VOLUME 63, NO. 3, MARCH2001 This new view is based on many care- extent) among organisms across deep ticular book does a better job of linking fully measured anatomic and genetic time, then this book is a good place science with poetry perhaps by being differences between species (without to begin. more explicit than her previous book. weighting them), and subsequent com- Both books succeed in slowly and puter analysis of those data-which Jim Wandersee cumulatively making the points that ultimately generates the most parsimo- Wm. LeBlanc Alumni the author intends. She manages to nious cladogram (the one that assumes Professor of Biology Education present things just as they are. As a the smallest amount of evolutionary Louisiana State University former elementary and middle school change). As a process-independent Baton Rouge, LA 70803 teacher, I found these two books way of linking related forms, Gee would make a nice addition to a cre- observes that cladistics can even be ative and challenging curriculum. In used to analyze the evolution of lan- | CHILDREN'SSCIENCE | addition, parents of young children guages and literature! would enjoy using these books as a hippopotami are good source to create a story or to Did you know that A Drop Around the World. By Barbara related to whales than simply add to the child's bookshelf. more closely Shaw McKinney. Illustrated by Michael that mushrooms are more to pigs, or S. Maydak. 1998. 29 pp. Paperback Jose Vazquez closely related to humans than to $7.95. Department of Biological Sciences plants? This is so, according to the University of Illinois at Chicago proposed a still con- Pass the Energy, Please! By Barbara cladists who have Chicago, IL 60607-7056 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/63/3/218/50050/4451082.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 troversial system to replace "the old Shaw McKinney. Illustrated by Michael way of understanding nature." The S. Maydak. 1999. 32 pp. Paperback Bug Bites: Insects, Hunting Insects ... findings of traditional paleontology $7.95. and More. By Diane Swanson. 1997. and cladistics do not always agree. DAWN Publications (PO Box 2010, Whitecap Books Ltd. (351 Lynn Ave., Biologists have used Linnaeus' classifi- Nevada City, CA 95959). North Vancouver, BC V7J 2C4). 63 cation system for hundreds of years, pp. Teacher, writer and poet Bar- Paperback $10.95. building a hierarchical tree of organ- bara McKinney has written two just isms via perceived similarities and dif- books which attempt to bring some _ OK, admit it. There is cool ferences. However, in the mid 20th beauty and art to science lessons. In 4PC something really really beetle or century, after Dobzhansky's Modem A Drop Around the World she about watching a ladybird a colony of aphids. Synthesis in the 1930s, some scientists describes the path of a drop of water its larvae decimate what about a preying mantis began using an alternative system through different parts of the world, No? Well morning sun called cladistics, which yields a bush including regions where water is pol- sitting out in the early for its breakfast to come into of life with intertwined branches. For luted. Its emphasis is on describing waiting Perhaps this book by them, the search for ancestral forms how essential water is in any environ- range? Still no? with photos and illus- and missing links seemed to be an ment and how necessary it is to com- Diane Swanson trations from the Royal British Colum- untestable futility in the dark corridor plete essential activities. This book is will change your mind. of deep (geologic) time. aimed at children ages 5 to 12 and I bia Museum for ages 9-12, this book might Gee obviously likes cats.
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