Installment #45 in Monolisticle's Ongoing Campaign Against the "Internet of Endless Listicles."
The book Fossil Men reminds me of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, in that on the surface its subject matter—in this case, fossils—isn’t inherently enticing. Yet the same way I quickly found myself binge-watching The Queen’s Gambit, I tore through all 400+ pages of Fossil Men in a matter of days.
Warring tribes, unstable governments, rivalries, petty feuds, politics, human evolution, existentialism, and competing egos—it’s all in there. And Kermit Pattison serves it up masterfully, taking on science and human drama with the research, rigor, and discipline of a distinguished academic and journalist—all with the storytelling skill of a best-selling fiction author. Quite a feat.
Particularly fascinating is the paleoanthropologist Tim White, a “fossil man” who outworks, debates, curses, insults, and deftly maneuvers his way toward his scientific objectives at the expense of popularity, making more than a few enemies along the way. He does this while managing to retain just enough strategically helpful advocates (especially within the Ethiopian community that controls access to the fossils in question) to achieve his goals.
In addition to this book’s significance as a chronicle of paleoanthropology and the scientific community that surrounds it, Pattison’s portrayal of Tim White’s relentless adherence and respect for scientific process, and his disdain for “careerists” and “academic politicians” should make this book required reading at all universities. For both students and faculty. While I’ll leave it to others to decide whether White’s ends justified his means, I will say that sometimes the advancement of science (and humanity) requires dogged and unapologetic pit bulls like White who couldn’t care less about stepping on a few phalanges.
Rarely has a book on a scientific subject been so thoroughly comprehensive and educating, yet so enjoyable to read. Its pages are filled with literary wonders, such as this wise and lovely passage:
“Sometimes revelation dawns slowly: the scientists finally see over the maze where they have spent their lives. Perspective shifts from rat in the labyrinth to the sapiens above who marvels at how long it took that poor, benighted creature to figure it out. That sorry creature is the former you. You see all the wrong turns you took, all the dead ends you banged your head against, and behold the true path you wished you had seen long ago.”
The book took Pattison 10 years to write, and when you realize the magnitude, depth, and detail of research he put into it, and the craft he worked into every chapter, page, paragraph, sentence, and word—10 years suddenly seems like a short amount of time. Because while The Queen’s Gambit will make you ponder the brilliance and complexity of the human condition, Fossil Men goes a step further into the contemplation of our very human existence. It’s not only riveting and entertaining. It’s profound.
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