SOURCE: Medawar, P. B. “Back to Evolution.” New York Review of Books 28, no. 2 (19 February 1981): 34-6.

In the following review of The Panda's Thumb, Medawar comments on Gould's examinations of the Piltdown Man and the unusual opposable “thumb” of the panda.

When I reviewed Stephen Jay Gould's admirable Ever since Darwin a few years ago, I expressed the hope that he would not lay his pen aside for too long. I need not have worried, for Gould is a natural writer: he has something to say and the inclination and skill with which to say it. His present collection [The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History] is a series of essays that would give special pleasure to scientists, but they are sufficiently relaxed to be read with enjoyment by laymen too. A casual reader flipping through his pages may wonder what Mickey Mouse is doing in chapter nine...