I've worked on Fishes a bit more, and have just now returned from the library where I've learned how hard it is to find books on alchemy or herbalism that are actually historical. All I wanted was a good medieval herbal... Everything I found on medicinal herbs was from 1970 or later, and very new-agey. The stuff about alchemy was limited to brief treatments of what the classic chemists got right and wrong, which, while interesting, isn't what I wanted AT ALL. I went in there with very specific books in mind (Huáng Dì Nèi Jíng, de materia medica libri quinque, Abu Hanifa ad-Dinawari's Book of Plants, etc - I really wanted a particular Aztec book, but I don't think it's actually in publication) and didn't find a one of them. I did, however, find a lovely biography of Paracelsus, A very good historical Herbal of plants used in Native American medicine, and, find of finds, a reprint of a 1865 book documenting the threat of Lycanthropy. Ooh, and something about the history of science with Gould listed as an author, which I grabbed just to read his chapter, because I am a shameless fangirl.

On the subject of my shameless fangirling, now that I'm thinking about it: I've noticed this, about myself, that whatever I'm interested in becomes a weird obsession that makes me squee, to the point that I have favorite primatolagists and early Cambrian animals and strains of superhot emergent tropical diseases. When I read a reference to the thing or person or their work, I freak out. Ooo! Someone mentioned Frans De Waal! Let me squee about the merging of primatology and ethology! Anamalocaris's mouthparts were mistaken for shrimp and jellyfish! Sure it's scary that Ebola Reston was isolated in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but Ebola Zaïre has a 90% mortality rate! I think there is something wrong in my brain that overloads the "I Recognize This" function and makes me go haywire. ^_^; I don't know what it is. I have favorite chemical elements, for the love of Pete!

I am, like, such a nerd. Mwahaha.  



I stole this from caerfree.

I  really am a giant enormous nerd. I bought a book today about the intellectual "feud" between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins and their conflicting variations on evolutionary theory. Because, before the book was published, I thought "wow, someone should really write a book about the intellectual "feud" between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins and their conflicting variations on evolutionary theory." Seriously. And not long after, I found out it was being written, and I jumped up and down and squealed. 

So, if anyone has any thoughts on Punctuated Equilibrium, I'm all rip-roaring ready for a good intellectual debate!