Sunday, April 13 2008

In 1818, through a bizarre series of circumstances, taxonomy and science were put on trial in a courthouse in New York City. The whole cause célèbre court case revolved around the deceptively simple question as to whether a whale was a “fish” or a “mammal”. Tune in tonight when Inquiry speaks with writer D. GRAHAM BURNETT about his thought-provoking history of science and society: Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature.

 

Then at 9:30: Golden Wings and Hairy Toes by natural history writer and Rhode Island native TODD McLEISH is one of the most enjoyable and informative books on New England wildlife published in some time. Tune in and find out about the rare Sandplain Gerardia that seems to survive only in old New England cemeteries, and the American Burying Beetle, who finds a fresh corpse to inter for it’s young.