Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

In 2015 I shared about a new children’s books about dinosaurs, Ancient Earth Journal: The Early Cretaceous, which “combines two things I really love: learning about dinosaurs and natural history illustration.” As I noted, the depiction of dinosaurs is done by  praised by paleontologists, is presented by Juan Carlos Alonso in a nature journal fashion, as if the artist is encountering them as wildlife on a nature trip. This helps to see these animals as actual, living entities.

Alonso has published his second book in this series:

Juan Carlos Alonso, Ancient Earth Journal: The Late Jurassic (Lake Forest, CA: Walter Foster Jr., 2016), 112 pp. Coauthored with paleoartist Gregory S. Paul.

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Publisher’s description What would it be like to see a living, breathing dinosaur? Following in the footsteps of Ancient Earth Journal: The Early Cretaceous, this next installment,

A new book pits one Darwin expert against another in their views on what had more influence on Darwin: the social context of Industrial Revolution England or the German romantics.

Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse, Debating Darwin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 320 pp.

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Publisher’s description Charles Darwin is easily the most famous scientist of the modern age, and his theory of evolution is constantly referenced in many contexts by scientists and nonscientists alike. And yet, despite how frequently his ideas are evoked, there remains a surprising amount we don’t know about the father of modern evolutionary thinking, his intellectual roots, and the science he produced. Debating Darwin seeks to change that, bringing together two leading Darwin scholars—Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse—to engage in a spirited and insightful dialogue, offering their interpretations of Darwin…