DINOSAUR PLOTS And Other Intrigues of Natural History <i> by Leonard Krishtalka (Avon: $8.95, illustrated) </i>

Leonard Krishtalka’s collected columns from Carnegie Magazine are obviously modeled after Stephen Jay Gould’s “This View of Life” in natural history. Krishtalka neatly demolishes Sir Fred Hoyle’s attempt to discredit the Archaeopteryx fossils that establish the reptilian ancestry of modern birds, and demonstrates the implausibility of Walter Alvarez’s much-hyped theory that a giant meteor struck the Earth and killed off the dinosaurs. (It’s a dramatic, appealing theory, but the geologic evidence doesn’t support it.) Regrettably, Krishtalka often weakens his essays by trying too hard to be clever. Gould manages to incorporate such disparate topics as baseball and opera into his discussions of natural history; Krishtalka tries, but the effort shows, and the result is a bit like watching a pigeon try to build a nest in a high wind.