FULL HOUSE presents the truth about progress, evolution and excellence, and a different way to look at the phenomenon of trends . We tend to see the world in terms of bad trends-why this nation going to pot vis-à-vis increasing criminal behavior and loosening moral fiber-and good trends better ethnic in urban areas, better transportation. We have always interpreted trends as things or entities moving in a definite direction-up or down-but Gould identifies this mode of interpretation as a bias that needs correcting. The focus here is on the nature of excellence and the misperception that progress is inevitable. In Full House, Stephen Jay Gould examines how the misinterpretation of data and trends results in bad science and bad social policy.

Stephen Jay Gould is the Alexander A gassiz Professor of zoology and professor of geology at Harvard and the curator for invertebrate paleontology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He lives in Cambridge, Masuachusetts, and New York City.