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The Ghosts of Evolution, Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms. By Connie Barlow. Foreword by Paul Martin. 291 pp. Basic Books, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022. 2001. US $26.00. ISBN: 0-465-00551-9 Hardcover.
Ghosts of Evolution, by Connie Barlow is one of those books that crosses the boundary between simple pleasure reading and scientific information. It is reminiscent of some of the best works of the late Stephen Jay Gould and is easily and enjoyably accessible to both the scientist and non scientist alike. The text builds upon the classic 1982 paper of Daniel Janzen and Paul Martin, "Neotropical anachronisms: the fruits the gomphotheres ate" (1982, Science 215:19 27). Much of the book focuses on relationships between present...