The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium

By Juan Pimentel Harvard University Press £22.95

Scientific progress needs more than cold facts and rationality: it also requires a dose of imagination, according to Juan Pimentel. He argues that what we know about the giant ground sloth Megatherium (which now exists only as bones) and the Indian rhinoceros (which until 1515 was known only in the west from a few fantastical drawings) owes much to our delectation for a good story. No imagination would mean no theories of natural selection or relativity – indeed no interesting questions at all. Stuart Blackman Science writer