Focus on this artwork and explore the Style.
Lincoln Barnett's style is populist rather than mathematical. Totally absent are the calculations and traditional proofs of geology and the other natural sciences. He does repeat or summarize some statistics derived from those sciences of the times, without much reference to the sources. His work is a selective summarization of some of the major scientific theories about "the world we live in," greatly enhanced by prize-winning art and photography.
Appealing to the public in general, rather than to any select scientific audience, his text can be criticized of being florid, sometimes to a ludicrous degree. As one reader put it, "[I] Enjoyed "Creatures of the Sea" most of all because of the way Lincoln Barnett slings the King's English around. While Nobel Prizer Sir Winston Churchill had an easier subject, he can't hold a candle to this guy Barnett". The rationale for mammalian dominance of the Earth from Ch. VI is only one example."Indeed, it is probable that the mammals may have survived and succeeded to hegemony of the earth not in spite of but by reason of their very weakness and obscurity, their smallness in a world dominated by giants, their nakedness in a world of armor plate -- in particular, by their fear and sensitivity and awareness in a world of unperceiving, insensate, brainless brutes."
There is also marked personification and some bias. Large prehistoric mammals, for instance, are variously described as being "awkward" or "witless". Tyrannosaurus rex in Ch. V does not escape this treatment either."The apogee of development was attained with the creation of Tyrannosaurus rex, the mightiest and most fearsome flesh-eater that ever terrorized the land. A towering agent of destruction, endowed with gigantic strength and power, Tyrannosaurus spanned 50 feet from nose to tail and carried his terrible head 18 to 20 feet above the ground. His hind legs were superbly muscled, from his thick thighs down to his three-toed, cruelly taloned feet. His main weapon of attack was his murderous mouth which had a gape of incredible size and was armed with rows of six-inch saberlike teeth."
Finally, apparently as part of Barnett's effort to interest a wide audience, the text features quotations from non-scientific literature, including the Judaeo-Christian Bible. For example, each part includes such an independent quotation just below the title, as is often the practice in scientific works. Concerning the few Biblical quotes, one reader remarked that the "text was written as if the clergy were looking over Mr. Barnett's shoulder and crossing out anything that might be in conflict with the story of Adam and Eve". Whether the statement is to be judged true is a matter of opinion. Certainly, the Bible is not used as justification for any hypothesis in the entire work, which, unlike the Bible, portrays the evolution of the natural world in every part.
Still, among the scientists, the purple prose does its job of conveying awe at the natural world. Paleontologist George Olshevsky described Lincoln Barnett's text as having "the grandeur of the universe contained in every word".
Bible evolution Lincoln Barnett Tyrannosaurus gene Tyrannosaurus rex