Jim's Reviews > A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species
A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species
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I really liked Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live & was thrilled to find this, but I had to quit less than 1/3 of the way through. He 'popularized' this to the point of idiocy. It's a shame, because I agree with him overall & there was some good information. Actually, a lot of was of interest, but it was too skewed & dumbed down for me to trust it.
He uses the word "species" a lot & bemoans diversity loss, but never defines what a species is at any level & he's discussing everything from bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) to large mammals. There is no single simple definition of species & it varies tremendously depending on the organisms involved. Mammals that can't produce fertile offspring together are considered separate species, but birds that can are still separate species just because their range & plumage is different. Unicellular organisms don't fit the 'standard' definition at all. This article covers the issue better.
https://thelogicofscience.com/2017/08...
At one point he says that 'species' doesn't really matter.
"The new pests, parasites, weeds, and other organisms that have evolved among our crops are not always referred to as new species. Sometimes they are called strains, varieties, or lineages. Typically, these are distinctions without a difference, subtleties of the agricultural subdisciplines..."
It matters a lot to make sense of the messages he's harping on: our ignorance, loss of species diversity, & creating BAD things. (We apparently never create good things, at least not in the portion I read.) That's just sloppy writing & logic. After all, there isn't much difference genetically between a Pekinese & a Rottweiler. They're not even separate species, just different varieties of the species Canis lupus familiaris (dogs), but that tiny difference is huge to the livestock or home they're guarding.
He preaches a lot of doom & gloom. It reminded me too much of Al Gore on Climate Change where he thought exaggerating & outright lies were fine so long as they pushed us to change our ways, but the bad science has just lent fuel to the deniers. He lost me when he used Caspar A. Hallmann's (& others) study “More Than 75 Percent Decline over 27 Years in Total Flying Insect Biomass in Protected Areas” & portrayed it as a definitive study, but there's been a lot of controversy about it because of poor methodology. The only books I know that use it as gospel all have an agenda. It wasn't long after this that I stopped.
Well narrated & interesting, but I just can't trust it. It plays too much to my own biases, so I'll wind up believing junk science. No thanks.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 BLINDSIDED BY LIFE
CHAPTER 2 URBAN GALAPAGOS
CHAPTER 3 THE INADVERTENT ARK
CHAPTER 4 THE LAST ESCAPE
CHAPTER 5 THE HUMAN NICHE
CHAPTER 6 THE INTELLIGENCE OF CROWS
CHAPTER 7 EMBRACING DIVERSITY TO BALANCE RISK
CHAPTER 8 THE LAW OF DEPENDENCE
CHAPTER 9 HUMPTY-DUMPTY AND THE ROBOTIC SEX BEES
CHAPTER 10 LIVING WITH EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 11 NOT THE END OF NATURE
CONCLUSION NO LONGER AMONG THE LIVING
He uses the word "species" a lot & bemoans diversity loss, but never defines what a species is at any level & he's discussing everything from bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) to large mammals. There is no single simple definition of species & it varies tremendously depending on the organisms involved. Mammals that can't produce fertile offspring together are considered separate species, but birds that can are still separate species just because their range & plumage is different. Unicellular organisms don't fit the 'standard' definition at all. This article covers the issue better.
https://thelogicofscience.com/2017/08...
At one point he says that 'species' doesn't really matter.
"The new pests, parasites, weeds, and other organisms that have evolved among our crops are not always referred to as new species. Sometimes they are called strains, varieties, or lineages. Typically, these are distinctions without a difference, subtleties of the agricultural subdisciplines..."
It matters a lot to make sense of the messages he's harping on: our ignorance, loss of species diversity, & creating BAD things. (We apparently never create good things, at least not in the portion I read.) That's just sloppy writing & logic. After all, there isn't much difference genetically between a Pekinese & a Rottweiler. They're not even separate species, just different varieties of the species Canis lupus familiaris (dogs), but that tiny difference is huge to the livestock or home they're guarding.
He preaches a lot of doom & gloom. It reminded me too much of Al Gore on Climate Change where he thought exaggerating & outright lies were fine so long as they pushed us to change our ways, but the bad science has just lent fuel to the deniers. He lost me when he used Caspar A. Hallmann's (& others) study “More Than 75 Percent Decline over 27 Years in Total Flying Insect Biomass in Protected Areas” & portrayed it as a definitive study, but there's been a lot of controversy about it because of poor methodology. The only books I know that use it as gospel all have an agenda. It wasn't long after this that I stopped.
Well narrated & interesting, but I just can't trust it. It plays too much to my own biases, so I'll wind up believing junk science. No thanks.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 BLINDSIDED BY LIFE
CHAPTER 2 URBAN GALAPAGOS
CHAPTER 3 THE INADVERTENT ARK
CHAPTER 4 THE LAST ESCAPE
CHAPTER 5 THE HUMAN NICHE
CHAPTER 6 THE INTELLIGENCE OF CROWS
CHAPTER 7 EMBRACING DIVERSITY TO BALANCE RISK
CHAPTER 8 THE LAW OF DEPENDENCE
CHAPTER 9 HUMPTY-DUMPTY AND THE ROBOTIC SEX BEES
CHAPTER 10 LIVING WITH EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 11 NOT THE END OF NATURE
CONCLUSION NO LONGER AMONG THE LIVING
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Reading Progress
February 10, 2022
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Started Reading
February 11, 2022
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February 11, 2022
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1audio
February 11, 2022
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2non-fiction
February 11, 2022
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science
February 11, 2022
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did-not-finish
February 11, 2022
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Peter
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rated it 3 stars
11 avr. 2022 02:53
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I'm getting curmudgeonly when science books are inaccurate & slanted. It's too easy to do since it's complicated. The harm to the future is immense as Gore showed us. There's too little money & public will to squander our resources in this area.
In my area, there's currently a really big push to get rid of Bradford pears & its cultivars. They're a BAD invasive according to all the press. While I agree, I can think of quite a few other plants that no one talks about which are worse, IMO. The ailanthus tree provides no fruit, less habitat, & shades out native plants far worse. It's just as prolific, but no one seems to care. Japanese honeysuckle vines are terrible as they strangle young trees & turn whole sections of woods into mats with their vines. Poison hemlock & 'Star of Bethlehem' displace native species & are poisonous, so they provide nothing. The latter is practically impossible to get rid of in grazing fields &, since it's the first green, it causes colic in the livestock that eats it. At least the pear trees are easy to kill & provide food & shelter to the native wildlife.