Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life

by Geerat J. Vermeij

Book Overview

Dr. Geerat (Gary) Vermeij is one of the foremost evolutionary biologists of our time and has been blind since the age of four. Professionally, he is known for his ability to identify a shell and its... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0716729547
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: W H Freeman & Co
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Why do scientists do what they do?

This book, autobiographical though it may be, is really about all scientists, particularly those of us who study natural history. Why do we do it? What motivates us, inspires us, even drives us? Geerat Vermeij chronicles his own voyage of discovery, along the way offering some hints, and not a little insight, into just exactly why anyone would choose to "do" natural history. I bought several copies of this book to give to friends and family, including my non-scientist wife. It explains why I do what I do much more elegantly than I have ever been able to. I highly recommend this book. Read it if you want to know what makes natural historians tick. Give it to someone you wish to understand you a bit better. Incidentally, Vermeij also happens to be blind. But that is, at best, a leitmotif in this story.

Fantastic

I think I might be a little critical of this book because I personally did not care for the way it ended. His life is an amazing one and being able to view the world through his thoughts was a wonderful ride. However, unfortunately, I felt that his stance on a supreme being towards the end seemed to bring a "cold" ending to the book. Science and God go together just fine, even though I can understand his frustration with highly religious people. Otherwise, I learned a lot and really enjoyed being able to see the world through a person without sight. Great!

An Inspirational Memoir Written By A Great Scientist

I wish Geerat Vermeij's "Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life" would earn the wide readership it deserves. Surely Vermeij's remarkable life is one which should resonate strongly with many readers, especially those accustomed to reading tales of poverty and woe told with ample literary grace and skill by writers as diverse as Mary Karr and Frank McCourt. Like Karr and McCourt, Vermeij is a splendid writer too, and yet in many respects, his own life story seems far more remarkable, if not as mesmerizing as theirs. Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, Vermeij clung to his childhood fascination with mollusk shells, had a successful graduate career at Yale University, and is now a prominent evolutionary biologist. Presently a professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, Geerat Vermeij's major scientific contributions range from advancing our understanding of molluscan shell architecture to his idea of escalation, in which he recognizes that the history of life on Earth - at least during the past half billion years or so - has been a coevolutionary arms race between predators and prey. Without a doubt, "Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life" is the finest recent personal saga on science told by one of the world's greatest scientists. It is also a poignant personal odyssey on blindness, made remarkable by Vermeij's determination to overcome what would be in others a crippling disability; instead, he has turned it into an important asset for his brilliant scientific research.

A life of thinking, learning, and significant contributions

Is this the story of a blind scientist? No! This is the story of a great scientist who happens to be blind, but who is certainly not without a vision of the world around him. Dr. Vermeij chronicles his life and development as a scientific thinker and worker. He draws the reader in as he tells what it's like to work one's way through the ranks and halls of academia, and how he had to simultaneously overcome prejudices and preconceptions others hold about what it means to be blind. He also tells of an ongoing life centered on the accumulation of knowledge, contemplation of those ideas, and the generation of important contributions to his field. The account of his development as a scientific thinker and worker was a great read, but the perspective he provides on life without sight is outstanding. I'd rate the book 5 stars for myself, and 4 stars for a more general audience: five stars for myself because, as an invertebrate zoologist, I felt a strong connection to the topics and experiences described; and 4 starts for a non-scientific audience. It's clear that this book was written prior to the end of his career, and I hope to see another installment on Dr. Vermeij's life in another decade or two.