(Continued from Page 7B)
Origins
Richard Leaky and Roger Lewin
($17.95, E.R. Dutton, cloth)
2 million year old human skull
looks out, eyeless, at us, floating eerily
over the Kenya veldt near where it was
found. It is an imposing, uncompromising
image that serves as the cover of this col
laboration between scientist and science
writer.
In the tradition of Civilization and The
Ascent of Man, Origins gives us a detailed,
eminently readable (and illustrated!) ver
sion of our common past. Richard Leaky, a
pioneer anthropologist in the tradition of
his parents Mary and Louis, gives us an
up-to-date report of our place in time as
seen from the fossil record, one that is
becoming increasingly full. Against this
vast expanse of Earth’s evolving life forms,
Leaky and Lewin focus on the origins of
intelligence, language and behavior in con
text of the findings in the dust and rock. Our
future possibilities, seen in such a perspec
tive, come across as hard-edged and
humane conjecture:
“There is no law that declares the
human species to be immortal. Unques
tionably, mankind is special... Humans
are the first animals capable of manipulat
ing the global environment to a substantial
degree ... We now have in our hands the
engines of our own destruction.” And, con
sequently, our own salvation, or something
like it. The challenge posed by the past, by
that ancient skull, seems a task far more
fascinating than frightening.
CARL SAGAN
THE DRAGONS
OF EDEN
SJtCUl AlOVSON TH! tVUUiON
Of HUMAN INTtU O NQ
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the
Evolution of Human Intelligence
Carl Sagan
($8.95, Random House, cloth)
w
V We are not alone, we hear these
days. Carl Sagan has been telling us of
that likelihood for some time. Here he is
again, gracefully forcing us to confront our
own terrestrial intelligence, its origins, its
possible future paths.
Granted, this book has been out long
enought to be a bestseller, but what with
Close Encounters headed our way, it
seemed the thing to do. For some years
now , Sagan and numerous biologists and
astronomers and others have been labor
ing to provide a viable theoretical context
within which to consider the possibilities of
communication with extraterrestrial intel
ligence. Though a skeptic as concerns
UFOs and the IkeShood of a face-to-face
encounter, Sagan is convinced of the exis
tence of Others Out There. (See his other
books, like The Cosmic Connection and
Other Worlds for more on this.) Right now,
he seems equally concerned with Those
Down Here.
For he is also convinced of our urgent
need to deal with, if not help direct, the
recent rapid evolution of human intellig
ence, and so here gives us an engaging
speculative version of how it has come
about. His information is up to date, and his
writing is splendid to behold. In many
ways, a scientific myth maker.
Myths, he quotes the 4th century Salus
ris, “are things which never happened, but
always are." Indeed, and so he uses the
dragon and Eden motifs of the title:
metaphors of our story, our biology, our
future.
By Arthur C. Clarke
($8.95, Random House, cloth)
M
JL ¥ JKL y American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language describes
“serendipity'' as “the faculty of making for
tunate and unexpected discoveries by ac
cident” which is what this book is about for
both the writer and the reader.
Clarke says in Chapter 1, "For the past
20 years, my life has been dominated by
three S’s — Space, Serendip, and the
Sea." This book is a series of essays, talks
and private thoughts on those three sub
jects and how they affected one of the most
prolific (in many areas) and highly re
garded writers of our time.
Clarke shares with the reader some of
his behind-the-scenes observations on the
film 2001 (the book for which he wrote), his
coverage of the Apollo moon shot for CBS,
his testimony before the U S. Congress
Committee of Space Science in 1975, and
his exciting and rather convincing predic
tions for the future. There are also delight
ful glimpses of life in Ceylon, which was
called Serendip in ancient times and is now
known as Sri Lanka, which make it clear
why, once settled there, Clarke has never
wished to leave. And, somewhat unexpec
tedly, there is an exciting account of diving
for sunken treasure off the south coast of
the island.
X #r' . j- ■ ,.
HELLS
CANYON
He lXvp« st (hjnjp n»i t jrHi
*U»MH
Hell’s Canyon: The Deepest Gorge on
Earth
William Ashworth
($9.95, Hawthorne, cloth)
^^^^oyote dug it out with a big stick
one day in order to contain the Seven De
vils in Idaho and keep them from devouring
the inhabitants of the Blue Mountains. So
said the Nez Perce Indians, at least. And
that's but one of the stories William Ash
worth tells. He knows others.
The stones are of a place, some one
hundred miles of the Snake River s canyon
that is part of the Oregon-ldaho border
Hell's Canyon, fully one-third of a mile
deeper than the Grand Canyon at its
deepest Site of two dozen species of veg
etation found nowhere else on Earth, bom
in geological and hydrological violence,
locale of white water rapids, enormous
fish, some 200 significant archaeological
sites and potential source of an annual
2.85 million horsepower A place bound to
generate stones, as well as some energe
tic controversy.
Here we have them all, a clear well
documented chronicle leading up to the
probably inevitable battle between con
servationist and engineer That conflict
ended in victory in Washington D C for the
former scarcely three years ago, and is as
intriguing a story as any of the older ones
One imagines even old Coyote might be
pleased at the outcome
Reviews by Eric Wurzbacher (except
View From Serendip by Bob
Webb)/Graphic by Catherine Failor,
Carlos Castaneda’s extraordinary journey
into the world of sorcery has captivated
millions of Americans. In his eagerly
awaited new book, he takes the reader
into a sorceric experience so intense, so
terrifying, and so profoundly disturbing
that it can only be described as a brilliant
assault on the reason, the dramatic and
frightening attack on every preconceived
notion of life that is don Juan’s remarkable
legacy to his apprentice.
IK M 13th & Kincaid
686-4331
BOOKSTORE
TRADEBOOK DEPARTMENT
Drawing on the legacy of knowledge
gathered by his parents, Louis and Mary
Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, Richard
Leakey’s excavations at Lake Turkana in
northern Kenya suggest that perhaps
three or even more species of primitive
hominoids existed simultaneously in the
same geographic region millions of years
ago. Why “our” line — Homo — survived
while others vanished is the central ques
tion of this pioneering and exciting study
of human evolution. Equally important is
what this new information tells us about
humankind’s future as well as our early
history.
Open:
Mon-Fri 8:15-5:30
Sat 10:00-2:00
In The Cosmic Connection, Dr Carl
Sagan dramatized for the laymen the
search for life beyond the Earth. Here in
The Dragons of Eden, Sagan turns with
the same lucidity and excitement to the
equally fascinating inner world of the
mind. In a breathtaking overview from
prehistory to the present he explains how
human beings evolved, genes and brains
together; who our ancestors and their
competitors were; how our brains and the
brains of other animals work; and why
other intelligent beings will be sufficiently
like us intellectually to permit interstellar
communication
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