I did it. The whale chapter has been put on the editorial chopping block three times, and I'm going to move on to other things for a while before coming back for the final cut. I'm particularly vexed by the last section of the chapter, which focuses on the evolution of cetacean intelligence due to sociality. The topic is contentious, and being that I'm not an expert on cetacean neuroanatomy or cognition I want to tread carefully. I've asked for professional help so I can make sure what I have written is accurate, but even so I still have mixed feelings about the subject.
On the one hand the last section of the chapter talks about the evolution of characteristics not directly tied to the transition from land to water, something that I think is important to talk about. On the other hand, the topic is somewhat loosely connected to the rest of the chapter. If I cut it I lose about two pages of text, so it wouldn't be a major loss, but I do not want to give the impression that all of whale evolution occurred between 55 and 33 million years ago.
Soon I'm going to try and get some outside input on the draft to see what I can do better. I don't want to end up like poor Jon Arbuckle, thinking I'm so clever when my intellectual fly is down. I know I'm bound to make mistakes, and I would rather identify the deficiencies of the book before I finalize my proposal than learn the hard way.
Now I'm on to dinosaurs and birds. I have learned a lot about the topic over the summer and I'm hoping to use what I've taken in to write something that is both accessible and compelling. I used to think that illustrations of feathered Deinonychus looked silly and had my doubts about whether the dromeosaur had the prominent plumage, but now I know better. Much of the book is made up of explaining how we know what we say we know, and that by itself will make the dino/bird section one of the most exciting.
Here's the Wordle of the whale chapter as it stands now;
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I still don't know what a Wordle is...
Great news that the chapter is finished. If you want some outside opinions, I'd be more than thrilled to read it. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'd be happy to provide some illustrations if you need 'em.
I'm not sure if you've seen these two recent publications; if not, they deal predominantly with post-archaeocete evolution:
Lindberg, D. R. and N. D. Pyenson. 2006. "Evolutionary patterns in Cetacea: fishing up prey size through deep time." In J. A. Estes et al. (eds.) Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems: UC Press. pp. 67-81
Lindberg, D. R. and N. D. Pyenson. 2007. "Things that go bump in the night: evolutionary interactions between cephalopods and cetaceans in the tertiary." Lethaia 40: 335343.
Thanks, Boesse. I think the section that directly precedes the discussion of intelligence is about the recent work on Aetiocetus and toothed mysticetes, so talking about feeding might be a more natural way to round out the chapter. I'll definitely look into it, and thank you for the suggestions!
Zach; Check out the Wordle website (just click on the little illustration). Basically you dump a bunch of text into the program and it spits back out a stylized picture of the most commonly used words (words used more often than others are larger). Thanks for the offers to help, too! I have some illustrations in mind so I may just take you up on the offer.