Sepkoski D., Ruse M. (eds.) The Paleobiological Revolution: Essays on the Growth of Modern Paleontology

University of Chicago Press, 2009. - 568 pp.
The Paleobiological Revolution chronicles the incredible ascendance of the once-maligned science of paleontology to the vanguard of a field. With the establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. Pairing contributions from some of the leading actors of the transformation with overviews from historians and philosophers of science, the essays here capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline. In so doing, David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse harness the energy of the past to call for further study of the conceptual development of modern paleobiology.Introduction: Paleontology at the High Table (by Michael Ruse and David Sepkoski).
Major Innovations in Paleobiology
The Emergence of Paleobiology (by David Sepkoski).
The Fossil Record: Biological or Geological Signal? (by Michael J. Benton).
Biogeography and Evolution in the Early Paleozoic (by Richard A. Fortey).
The Discovery of Conodont Anatomy and Its Importance for Understanding the Early History of Vertebrates (by Richard J. Aldridge and Derek E. J. Briggs).
Emergence of Precambrian Paleobiology: A New Field of Science (by J. William Schopf).
Dinosaurs at the Table (by John R. Horner).
Ladders, Bushes, Punctuations, and Clades: Hominid Paleobiology in the Late Twentieth Century (by Tim White).
Punctuated Equilibria and Speciation: What Does It Mean to Be a Darwinian? (by Patricia Princehouse).
Molecular Evolution vis-à-vis Paleontology (by Francisco J. Ayala).
The Historical and Conceptual Significance of Recent Paleontology
Beyond Detective Work: Empirical Testing in Paleontology (by Derek Turner).
Taxic Paleobiology and the Pursuit of a Unified Evolutionary Theory (by Todd A. Grantham).
Ideas in Dinosaur Paleontology: Resonating to Social, Political, and Popular Context (by David E. Fastovsky).
Reg Sprigg and the Discovery of the Ediacara Fauna in South Australia: Its Approach to the High Table (by Susan Turner and David Oldroyd).
The Morphological Tradition in German Paleontology: Otto Schindewolf, Walter Zimmermann, and Adolf Seilacher (by Manfred D. Laubichler and Karl J. Niklas).
Radical or Conservative? The Origin and Early Reception of Punctuated Equilibrium (by David Sepkoski).
The Shape of Evolution: The MBL Model and Clade Shape (by John Huss).
Ritual Patricide: Why Stephen Jay Gould assassinated George Gaylord Simpson (by Joe Cain).
The Consensus That Changed the Paleobiological World (by Arnold I. Miller).
Reflections on Recent Paleobiology
The Infusion of Biology into Paleontological Research (by James W. Valentine).
From Empirical Paleoecology to Evolutionary Paleobiology: A Personal Journey (by Richard Bambach).
Intellectual Evolution Across an Academic Landscape (by Rebecca Z. German).
The Problem of Punctuational Speciation and Trends in the Fossil Record (by Anthony Hallam).
Punctuated Equilibrium versus Community Evolution (by Arthur J. Boucot).
An Interview with David M. Raup (Edited by David Sepkoski and David M. Raup).
Paleontology in the Twenty-First Century (by David Jablonski).
Punctuations and Paradigms: Has Paleobiology Been through a Paradigm Shift? (by Michael Ruse).