After many long nights of scribbling down potential titles for the book I think I've finally got one that fits. Beyond the content itself I wanted to choose something that reflected the changes my thinking went through during the writing process (and the changing of my expected date of completion), thus leaving me only one clear option. Chinese Democracy.
Now that I have a title I can start plans to get this thing to eventually appear on bookshelves, and taking a cue from some other recent events I'm trying to work something out with Coca Cola where everyone in the country will be offered a free cherry coke if the book is published by this time next year.
Just kidding.
I still have to come up with another title (being that Archetypes and Ancestors was used by Adrian Desmond years ago) but the 15 year delay of the not-yet-released Guns N' Roses album has served as a bit of unexpected motivation to keep working. I don't want to keep saying "Oh yeah, I'll definitely have it done soon," and not come up with anything. I already did that for a long time, typing out short snippets or notes but not really working on the book in any meaningful way.
If I have more days like yesterday I don't think I'll have much to worry about as far as simply completing the book. Even though the going was a little slow as I picked through the literature for bits of relevant information, I still wrote about 7 new pages on whale evolution. (Although, as always, I had things I wanted to add to other chapters that I didn't get to.) Charles Lyell's second trip to the United States, cetacean limb buds, hyperphalangy, cetacean locomotion, and the evolution of ichthyosaurs made up most of the new material.
Even though I'm not presently concerning myself with editing I know it is going to be a somewhat difficult task. I'm at the point where I'm plugging things in order but they don't necessarily flow together. I would liken it to taking a box of bone fragments (let's say, just for illustration, of a hand) and laying them out on the table. Once you know the difference between the phalanges, metacarpals, and carpals it's easier to group the bones together and put things in order, but even when you've done this it's still just the skeletal framework. When I go back I'll be able to clothe the skeleton that is in place with connective tissue, muscle, and flesh, turning it from an ordered collection of notes and thoughts into something that is actually enjoyable to read.
(New sections are in bold)
Introduction
Huxley's rejoinder to Wilberforce at Oxford - Darrow puts Bryan in the hot seat - Behe's astrological mishap - One long argument - Flickering candles in the dark - Monstrous myths - Evolutionary archetypes -
Horses
Darwin's problems with paleontology - Evolution, sure, but natural selection? - Gaudry and Hipparion - Kowalevsky and Anchitherium - Huxley's linear phylogeny - Wherefore art thou, Hyracotherium? - "A gift from the Old world to the New" - Marsh's "toy horse" - Huxley buried under bones - Ladder of horse evolution - Putting the litoptern before the horse
Whales
Koch's Missourium - Hydrarchos - The king of the seas flees to Europe - Maybe Basilosaurus, maybe not - Huxley's overlooked insight - Intercalary whales - The problem of whale evolution - Diphyly of whales? - 70+ years of Protocetus - An unexpected skull - But what did it look like? - Indocetus - Teeth: confusion and convergence - Mesonychids, Perissodactyls, and Artiodactyls - The double-pulley - Diapsids did it first - From eel-like to tuna-like - Locomotion in the ocean - Limb buds - Unexpected vestiges - What development can do - Telescoping - Toothed mysticetes - Aetiocetus
Avian Dinosaurs
Noah's ravens vacation in New England - Hitchcock's Jurassic birds - A little fossil birdie told me about evolution - A misplaced feather - From London to Berlin - The source of Huxley's inspiration - Megalosaurus = an ossified, fossilized, underdeveloped chick - The unimportance of Archaeopteryx - Hypsilophodon as a good transition - Problems with the Pachypoda - How did we get such beautiful fossils? - Ornithosuchus or theropods? - The case of the missing clavicles - 75 years of pseudoscuhian narrative - Barnum Brown's forgotten Daptosaurus - Ostrom's "terrible claw" - "Tetrapteryx" and Microraptor
Human Evolution
Tyson's dissection of a "pigmie" - A chimp's place in the Chain - Where are the "missing links?" - White's 1799 attempt to save the Chain - The intellectual Rubicon - Without language there is no thought - Glorified apes and lowly humans - Buckland's "Red Lady" - She's no lady - Where were the ante-diluvian humans? - Cave contamination - Brixham cave - An unequal partnership - Falconer's enthusiasm, Prestwich's skepticism - Evidence from abroad - Somme Valley turning point - 1859 - Complaints and queries - Pre-Adamites - The Neanderthal that was mistaken for an Irishman - The Neanderthal fossils get named - Dubois goes to Indonesia - Skull of an ape, leg of a human - "Java Man" - The transitional gibbon-man - The discovery of "Peking Man" - Dart's Australopithecus - An irrelevant ape - Le Gros Clark to the rescue - Osborn vs Bryan - Harold Cook's Mystery Tooth - Hesperopithecus = Prosthenops - What makes us human? - Ask a stupid question... - Ape-like humans, not human-like apes - Caught in the Chain
Conclusion
Troodon sapiens? - It's all about the brain - Walking with dinosaurs - Eerie similarity - Evolution doesn't close a door without opening a window - Generations - "Nylon-eating bacteria" - Hop, skip, and a jump to citrate use - How can we know? - Unfamiliar ET's - Alternative apes - No fast-ball-throwing baboons - Prof. Ichthyosaurus - Little but a twig
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From Days Before
Our Deep Time Ancestors
(I get a copy. You're welcome.)
AFAIK human hands and feet are much more fin-like than any other primate, hand bones somewhat resembling manatee fins. Do apes typically throw overhand? I thought they dropped items from an overhand position, but switched to underhand when throwing on a level field. Elephants can throw fast with their trunks.
DD; I think I know what you're trying to get at with the comment about human hands being like fins. I don't see the resemblance, and if there is it is coincidental and not the result of adaptation to an aquatic habitat. Apes have curved hands and fingers due to their arboreal habits, habits likely shared by our ancestors, and our hands have been modified from more arboreally-adapted forms.
I'm not going to give everything away about the clue about doing things overhand, but I will say that if you watch baboons throw sticks and stones it is very different from watching a chimpanzee throw or even swing their arm downwards holding a stick. The placement of shoulders is key, and the placement of shoulders has a lot to do with locomotion and habitat. Exaptations from an arboreal mode of life have allowed for some interesting forms of movement in apes and our own species.
DDeden,
Ever watched a fast pitch softball game? The pitches are all underhand, and typical speed is over 100 miles an hour. When I was about Brian's age (before he was born) I saw a local news story on an exhibition of fast pitch softball pitching against our local baseball team. None of the batters came close to getting a hit, and the pitcher put every shot straight down the pipe.