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ARCHITECTS OF ETERNITY
- Richard Corfield
Have you ever wondered what the scientific
truth behind the Spielberg blockbusters Jurassic Park and
The Lost World is? Ever wondered how we can be so sure that
the 'Greenhouse Effect' exists at all? If so, look no further.
These and many other questions are answered in Richard Corfield's
authoritative and accessible book Architects of Eternity,
the definitive account of the development of the new science
of fossils.
Architects of Eternity tells the story
of the development of palaeontology through the eyes of
the subject's major players. Starting with Thomas Henry
Huxley - the visionary Victorian intellectual dubbed 'Darwin's
Bulldog'- and then on to the bone wars of Othniel Marsh
and Edward Cope that raged at the end of the nineteenth
century, establishing palaeontology's reputation for controversy.
It then examines the development of fossils
as indicators of the passage of geological time, and finally,
the techniques that, with the discovery of radioactivity
at the beginning of the twentieth century, allowed real-time
to be measured. Architects then takes us through
the history and techniques that underlie our hard-won ability
to measure the temperature and greenhouse gas content of
ancient atmospheres and oceans and on through the controversies
surrounding the extinction of the dinosaurs and other 'big-kills'
in the history of life. It discusses the revolution that
has occurred in our understanding of fossils in the past
thirty years with the discovery that molecular clocks exist
within each organism on the planet, which can be used to
trace the time since they evolved. From here Richard discusses
the science behind Jurassic Park and explains how, incredibly,
it was based on a single man's seminal revelation on a Californian
highway while driving home from work one Friday night in
1983. Finally, in 'Battles of Deepest Space and Time', Architects
of Eternity concludes with a discussion of the most
important frontiers and controversies facing the new palaeontologists
today.
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