Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life

by Geerat Vermeij

This remarkable memoir by the great marine biologist Geerat Vermeij, who is perhaps the world's leading authority on marine mollusks and who has been blind since the age of three, resonates on several levels: it is, first of all, a profound and vivid exploration of the current state of evolutionary theory; secondly, an engaging memoir of scientific exploration carried out in exotic locales; and finally, an acute examination of what it means to be sightless. Vermeij's extraordinary life reads like that of one of the great early biological explorers, whose theories were all based on extensive fieldwork in remote spots. It is also an inspiring tale of a man who, thanks to a remarkably devoted and intelligent family and his own inexhaustible scientific curiosity, overcame his handicap to further the sum of human knowledge.

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Science, Medical, Nonfiction, Disability

297 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1996

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little autobiography. Traces the life and times of a conchologist who knew what he wanted to be from the time his elementary-school teacher brought in some shells she picked up on vacation in Florida. From there the author paddled upstream through years of science courses, very competitive university work, his doctoral thesis, and a variety of teaching and research jobs, with a lot of amazing-sounding trips to beaches all over the world to collect shells and study their living architects. What makes it more than just the story of a guy who's way, way too focused on snails is that he was blind from a very early age and had to have someone read every textbook to him, among other hassles.