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MCGOWRAN, B. 2005. Biostratigraphy. Microfossils and Geological Time.

xx + 459 pp. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Price £50.00, US $85.00 (hard covers). ISBN 0 521 83750 2.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Biostratigraphy is a curiously undervalued science these days. Whereas an improved or new high-technology methodology for deriving numerical or chemostratigraphical ages for deposits would attract global attention and acclaim, biostratigraphical innovation and expertise is effectively taken as read. Nobody gazes with awe and wonder at the palaeontologist who provides them with the age of the rocks they are studying.

It is in this context that McGowran sets out to assess the place of biostratigraphy in the modern scientific enterprise. In his Preface he asks ‘Is there any more to biostratigraphy than ... determining fossils and testing their constant ranges, over and over again...?’ Are biostratigraphers forever locked in a dead-end inductive cycle, isolated from the excitement of hypothesis-driven research? . . . [Full Text of this Article]