Problems Well Worth Pondering

摘要

Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution sounds like an ambitious title, particularly for a book of only 300 pages (tens of which are taken up by an extensive bibliography). It is also a brave choice for a book that has only two authors. I would have thought one needs more contributors for a volume that describesrnhow Chinese officials in the T'ang dynasty began collecting annual reports on the abundance of migratory locusts and then lucidly moves on to cite astronomy sources on quasars when discussing a science fiction story of a planet in trouble. In the first few pages, the ecologists Thomas Sherratt and David Wilkinson thank their home institutions (Carleton University, Canada, and Liverpool John Moores University, UK, respectively) for granting them their first-ever sabbaticals. Reading the book truly made me wonder if I'll be able to put my own upcoming sabbatical to equally good use. Sherratt and Wilkinson have clearly spent considerable time in the library, and the stuff they found there ranges from the quirky to the really important and cutting edge.