"""It is a wonder what Mr. Gould can do with the most unlikely phenomena: a tiny organism's use of the earth's magnetic field as a guide to food and comfort, for instance, or the panda's thumb-which isn't one... Science writing at its best."" -- The New Yorker ""Stephen Jay Gould is a serious and gifted interpreter of biological theory, of the history of ideas and of the cultural context of scientific discovery... The Panda's Thumb is fresh and mind-stretching. Above all, it is exultant. So should its readers be."" -- H. Jack Geiger - New York Times Book Review"