We do not usually surrender the intellectual system of a lifetime for one bit of information that does not fit. - Stephen Jay Gould

The study of social setting does not imply either the irrelevance or nonexistence of a factual world out there.

A project like the Burgess revision has potentially flashy and predictably less noticeable aspects. Both are necessary. A conventional reporter will convey only the hot ideas and the startling facts — Hallucigenia gets ink, the Burgess trilobites get ignored.

But the Burgess oddballs mean little in isolation. When placed in an entire fauna, filled with conventional elements as well, they suggest a new view of life. The conventional creatures must be documented with just as much love, and just as assiduously — for they are every bit as important to the total picture.

I would trade all the advantages of humanity to be a fly on the wall when Franklin and Jefferson discussed liberty, Lenin and Trotsky revolution, Newton and Halley the shape of the universe, or when Darwin entertained Huxley and Lyell at Down.