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A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species
A leading ecologist argues that if humankind is to survive on a fragile planet, we must understand and obey its iron laws
Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.
As ambitious as Edward Wilson’s Sociobiology and as timely as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself.
Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.
As ambitious as Edward Wilson’s Sociobiology and as timely as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2021
About the author
Rob Dunn
16 books127 followersRobert Dunn is a biologist, writer and professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University.
He has written several books and his science essays have appeared at magazines such as BBC Wildlife Magazine, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic and others. He has become known for efforts to involve the public as citizen scientists.
Dunn's writings have considered the quest to find new superheavy elements, why men are bald, how modern chickens evolved, whether a virus can make a person fat, the beauty of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the biology of insect eggs, the secret lives of cats, the theory of ecological medicine, why the way we think about calories is wrong, and why monkeys (and once upon a time, human women) tend to give birth at night.
Ph.D., Ecology and Evolution, University of Connecticut (2003). He was a Fulbright fellow in Australia. He is currently the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at NC State University.
{more at Wikipedia}
He has written several books and his science essays have appeared at magazines such as BBC Wildlife Magazine, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic and others. He has become known for efforts to involve the public as citizen scientists.
Dunn's writings have considered the quest to find new superheavy elements, why men are bald, how modern chickens evolved, whether a virus can make a person fat, the beauty of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the biology of insect eggs, the secret lives of cats, the theory of ecological medicine, why the way we think about calories is wrong, and why monkeys (and once upon a time, human women) tend to give birth at night.
Ph.D., Ecology and Evolution, University of Connecticut (2003). He was a Fulbright fellow in Australia. He is currently the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at NC State University.
{more at Wikipedia}
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May 2, 2023
A Flash in the Pan
According to Rob Dunn, the growth in the human population and its expansion to every climatic zone on the planet occurred more or less instantaneously (in evolutionary terms) over the last 12,000 years. This he refers to as “A train crash. An explosion. A mushroom rising from the wet ground of our origin.” No other species has ever accomplished this. According to the measure of ‘presence’ we obviously dominate the many losers in the Darwinian race for survival:
So our sense of entitlement, of having been given ‘dominion’ over the other life forms with which we share space, seems to be justified.
But it turns out we are size-ist, ageist, humanist, and somewhat Swede-ish when it comes to assessing our place in the world. The millions of insect species, the billions of bacterial species, and the trillions of species of phage that live off the bacteria make us less than amateurs in the long-haul adaptiveness required in order to continue our hegemony. And this doesn’t even count the unknown number of microbes which inhabit the Earth’s crust and which have life-spans of millions of years. We have been confident only because we have been ignorant:
For our blindness, Rob Dunn says, we can thank the great 18th century Swedish botanist and zoologist who was the first to attempt a systematic catalogue of life on Earth. He apparently missed a lot that didn’t exist for the naked eye in the North Woods. So it’s taken some time for science to catch up with our actual situation which, as many suspected, is not nearly as sanguine as conventional metrics might indicate. Since our appearance on the evolutionary scene, Dunn says, we have been breaking all the rules of ecology, and we ought to stop it now that we’re less ignorant.
And there are many such rules, all intellectually interesting and with fascinating implications. The rule of natural selection is the most well known but taken in isolation it has been used as evidence of human evolutionary superiority. Other rules are equally relevant and suggest that we may not be so well-placed in the evolutionary hierarchy. For example the “diversity-stability law, states that ecosystems that include more species are more stable through time.” So as we cause the extinction of untold numbers of species that failed to adapt to us (or simply put them at a safe distance), we reduce our own survivability. This is reinforced by “The law of dependence ‘which states that all species depend on other species.” Others like the species-area law, the law of corridors, the law of escape, and the law of niche are derivatives of the requirements for diversity.
What Dunn doesn’t mention, however, is a law from another discipline, that of cybernetics. This is the Law of Requisite Variety which in essence states that any living thing must be as flexible in its response to environmental change as the range of changes in that environment. In other words, unless the diversity of possible responses is at least equal to the diversity of the potential changes around it, the species will not survive. It seems to me that all of Dunn’s ecological laws are in fact subsets of this Law of Requisite Variety.
Dunn suggests that we must become more adaptable by reversing our insistent violation of the laws of diversity. The argument is that this will increase the level of environmental stability, thus reducing the range of conditions to which humans must adapt. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental issue with his logic, and indeed that of a number of well-meaning environmentalists. This logic presumes that human choice to stabilise the environment, even if that were politically possible, is a rational objective. It is at least possible that such efforts are merely whistling in the dark.
Look at the facts Dunn provides. The most adaptive species on the planet are those microbes living in the Earth’s crust. Their environment is very stable, they need do nothing to survive until an expanding and dying Sun consumes the entire planet. Then there are the bacteria and their phages. These adapt rapidly and effectively to every environment known on the planet, from the Arctic wastes to the deep sea vents of methane gas, even to the presence of human beings. Whatever the planet has thrown at them, they have been able to use to their advantage.
The species Homo Sapiens is another matter altogether. We have evolved relatively slowly into a relatively stable environment. Our adaptations to this environment are almost exclusively technological rather than genetic. We protect, feed, shelter, and multiply ourselves through our knowledge of the world, and our collective not individual abilities, that is to say, through language. Language is our fundamental technology through which we have managed to survive and thrive. It is language that allows Dunn to communicate his laws and to suggest what we have to do to stabilise the environment.
But isn’t this the ultimate in anthro-centrist arrogance? As Dunn says, “Most of what is knowable is not known.” Indeed, most of what is knowable will never be known, will never be brought into language. The complexity of interaction and dependencies among species makes theories of nuclear physics look like casual conversation. This quite apart from the fact that non-biological possibilities for environmental change - from sun spots and changes in magnetic polarity to large-scale volcanic eruptions and asteroid strikes - can make any understanding of current dependencies irrelevant at a stroke.
Dunn’s proposition that knowledge is the key to species survival is in itself paradoxical. Such knowledge can only be obtained by technology, the very technology which promotes the violation of Dunn’s laws of evolutionary biology. Philosophically speaking, he is recommending that we dig the hole we are in even deeper. It seems to me that our “train crash” actually occurred when our species found/created/developed language. We have been able to exploit a very narrow window of environmental stability pushing that capability relentlessly. We have been temporarily successful with this unique evolutionary strategy which depends acutely on a continuation of that stability, a very unlikely scenario even without human involvement. Dunn wants to push the technological strategy even further.
I prefer to think of us as a fragile aberration in evolutionary history, a genetic blind alley of over-specialisation, in short a flash in the pan of life. Dunn claims a 20th century American entomologist, Terry Erwin, as creating a Copernican Revolution in biology through his de-centring of biology so that Homo Sapiens was no longer its implicit focus. Perhaps what is necessary now is a kind of Einsteinian Revolution which recognises not just that we are not the top of the evolutionary heap, but that we don’t even qualify in the heats for the evolutionary race.
Dunn’s “first law of palaeontology” is that we will one day be extinct. We are likely to conform with that law just as quickly as we rose from species-obscurity. Pity the poor cockroaches, rats and bedbugs that will go extinct with us. Do they not bleed?
Postscript 14Dec21: https://www.washingtonpost.com/rolex-...
According to Rob Dunn, the growth in the human population and its expansion to every climatic zone on the planet occurred more or less instantaneously (in evolutionary terms) over the last 12,000 years. This he refers to as “A train crash. An explosion. A mushroom rising from the wet ground of our origin.” No other species has ever accomplished this. According to the measure of ‘presence’ we obviously dominate the many losers in the Darwinian race for survival:
“By one estimate, 32 percent of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass on Earth is now composed of nothing more than fleshy, human bodies. Domestic animals make up 65 percent. Just 3 percent is left over for the rest of vertebrate life, the remaining tens of thousands of boney animal species.”
So our sense of entitlement, of having been given ‘dominion’ over the other life forms with which we share space, seems to be justified.
But it turns out we are size-ist, ageist, humanist, and somewhat Swede-ish when it comes to assessing our place in the world. The millions of insect species, the billions of bacterial species, and the trillions of species of phage that live off the bacteria make us less than amateurs in the long-haul adaptiveness required in order to continue our hegemony. And this doesn’t even count the unknown number of microbes which inhabit the Earth’s crust and which have life-spans of millions of years. We have been confident only because we have been ignorant:
“As we confront the future, our collective bearings are off, and our perception of the world around us is deeply flawed. Nothing is where it used to be. We have begun to crash into things; we find ourselves blindsided by life.”
For our blindness, Rob Dunn says, we can thank the great 18th century Swedish botanist and zoologist who was the first to attempt a systematic catalogue of life on Earth. He apparently missed a lot that didn’t exist for the naked eye in the North Woods. So it’s taken some time for science to catch up with our actual situation which, as many suspected, is not nearly as sanguine as conventional metrics might indicate. Since our appearance on the evolutionary scene, Dunn says, we have been breaking all the rules of ecology, and we ought to stop it now that we’re less ignorant.
And there are many such rules, all intellectually interesting and with fascinating implications. The rule of natural selection is the most well known but taken in isolation it has been used as evidence of human evolutionary superiority. Other rules are equally relevant and suggest that we may not be so well-placed in the evolutionary hierarchy. For example the “diversity-stability law, states that ecosystems that include more species are more stable through time.” So as we cause the extinction of untold numbers of species that failed to adapt to us (or simply put them at a safe distance), we reduce our own survivability. This is reinforced by “The law of dependence ‘which states that all species depend on other species.” Others like the species-area law, the law of corridors, the law of escape, and the law of niche are derivatives of the requirements for diversity.
What Dunn doesn’t mention, however, is a law from another discipline, that of cybernetics. This is the Law of Requisite Variety which in essence states that any living thing must be as flexible in its response to environmental change as the range of changes in that environment. In other words, unless the diversity of possible responses is at least equal to the diversity of the potential changes around it, the species will not survive. It seems to me that all of Dunn’s ecological laws are in fact subsets of this Law of Requisite Variety.
Dunn suggests that we must become more adaptable by reversing our insistent violation of the laws of diversity. The argument is that this will increase the level of environmental stability, thus reducing the range of conditions to which humans must adapt. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental issue with his logic, and indeed that of a number of well-meaning environmentalists. This logic presumes that human choice to stabilise the environment, even if that were politically possible, is a rational objective. It is at least possible that such efforts are merely whistling in the dark.
Look at the facts Dunn provides. The most adaptive species on the planet are those microbes living in the Earth’s crust. Their environment is very stable, they need do nothing to survive until an expanding and dying Sun consumes the entire planet. Then there are the bacteria and their phages. These adapt rapidly and effectively to every environment known on the planet, from the Arctic wastes to the deep sea vents of methane gas, even to the presence of human beings. Whatever the planet has thrown at them, they have been able to use to their advantage.
The species Homo Sapiens is another matter altogether. We have evolved relatively slowly into a relatively stable environment. Our adaptations to this environment are almost exclusively technological rather than genetic. We protect, feed, shelter, and multiply ourselves through our knowledge of the world, and our collective not individual abilities, that is to say, through language. Language is our fundamental technology through which we have managed to survive and thrive. It is language that allows Dunn to communicate his laws and to suggest what we have to do to stabilise the environment.
But isn’t this the ultimate in anthro-centrist arrogance? As Dunn says, “Most of what is knowable is not known.” Indeed, most of what is knowable will never be known, will never be brought into language. The complexity of interaction and dependencies among species makes theories of nuclear physics look like casual conversation. This quite apart from the fact that non-biological possibilities for environmental change - from sun spots and changes in magnetic polarity to large-scale volcanic eruptions and asteroid strikes - can make any understanding of current dependencies irrelevant at a stroke.
Dunn’s proposition that knowledge is the key to species survival is in itself paradoxical. Such knowledge can only be obtained by technology, the very technology which promotes the violation of Dunn’s laws of evolutionary biology. Philosophically speaking, he is recommending that we dig the hole we are in even deeper. It seems to me that our “train crash” actually occurred when our species found/created/developed language. We have been able to exploit a very narrow window of environmental stability pushing that capability relentlessly. We have been temporarily successful with this unique evolutionary strategy which depends acutely on a continuation of that stability, a very unlikely scenario even without human involvement. Dunn wants to push the technological strategy even further.
I prefer to think of us as a fragile aberration in evolutionary history, a genetic blind alley of over-specialisation, in short a flash in the pan of life. Dunn claims a 20th century American entomologist, Terry Erwin, as creating a Copernican Revolution in biology through his de-centring of biology so that Homo Sapiens was no longer its implicit focus. Perhaps what is necessary now is a kind of Einsteinian Revolution which recognises not just that we are not the top of the evolutionary heap, but that we don’t even qualify in the heats for the evolutionary race.
Dunn’s “first law of palaeontology” is that we will one day be extinct. We are likely to conform with that law just as quickly as we rose from species-obscurity. Pity the poor cockroaches, rats and bedbugs that will go extinct with us. Do they not bleed?
Postscript 14Dec21: https://www.washingtonpost.com/rolex-...
January 24, 2022
I made 49 highlights while I was reading this book -- things I want to remember and things I wanted to share in a review.
Now I can't figure out how to narrow down those 49 highlights without re-writing the book. If you're interested in evolution, especially what predictions we can make for species in both the near and far future, it's better to pick up the book than read a lengthy review.
If I believed in a god, I would now think this creator was a single-celled organism that created humans for no other reason than to feed bacteria.
5 glowing, evolving stars
Favourite quote: "We need to remember that we are one species among many, a species that is no more or less special than the shimmering hairy protist that lives inside the termite gut."
Now I can't figure out how to narrow down those 49 highlights without re-writing the book. If you're interested in evolution, especially what predictions we can make for species in both the near and far future, it's better to pick up the book than read a lengthy review.
If I believed in a god, I would now think this creator was a single-celled organism that created humans for no other reason than to feed bacteria.
5 glowing, evolving stars
Favourite quote: "We need to remember that we are one species among many, a species that is no more or less special than the shimmering hairy protist that lives inside the termite gut."
July 5, 2021
I've explored the prospects of humankind from different perspectives. I read about global scenarios of what awaits us due to climate change: droughts, floods, and food shortages. I read about how technological achievements buffer the effects of climate change in such fields as transportation, building, and AI. I read about violence engendered, partially, by the warming of the planet. I watched a lot of documentaries. The book by Rob Dunn, 'A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species,' is a decent contribution to my collection.
The research contains a unique approach I have never encountered before in books about the future. Each chapter takes the existing universal law of nature and expands its reach into the nearest future. The benefit of this manner lies in creating an understandable connection between the present and the past. Conclusions have a solid evidence base. The author doesn't intend to frighten or shock a reader. The book leaves a feeling that the subject in question is self-evident, and a reader needs only a slight conscious effort to make the same discoveries as the author.
An occasional intermixture of popular science and science language is my single personal complaint about the narrative. An introduction is a prime example of this mixing, but the text got captivating after the first few pages.
The book contributed significantly to my understanding of nature and human's influence on it. We place climate change on a pedestal that it doesn't deserve. From our anthropocentric, self-centered perspective, global changes in the environment threaten everything on Earth. We tend to forget that even if humans, mammals, birds, and even insects go extinct, life will continue. Humans represent the tiniest fraction of the biomass. Without a doubt, we are the first species that has been warming the planet on a global scale. Yet, the hope that in our elusive superiority, we are unable to destroy all species is a starting point for saving as much of diverse nature as we can.
I'd gladly recommend the book for those who want to learn more about the future and read professional, well-written research.
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review.
The research contains a unique approach I have never encountered before in books about the future. Each chapter takes the existing universal law of nature and expands its reach into the nearest future. The benefit of this manner lies in creating an understandable connection between the present and the past. Conclusions have a solid evidence base. The author doesn't intend to frighten or shock a reader. The book leaves a feeling that the subject in question is self-evident, and a reader needs only a slight conscious effort to make the same discoveries as the author.
An occasional intermixture of popular science and science language is my single personal complaint about the narrative. An introduction is a prime example of this mixing, but the text got captivating after the first few pages.
The book contributed significantly to my understanding of nature and human's influence on it. We place climate change on a pedestal that it doesn't deserve. From our anthropocentric, self-centered perspective, global changes in the environment threaten everything on Earth. We tend to forget that even if humans, mammals, birds, and even insects go extinct, life will continue. Humans represent the tiniest fraction of the biomass. Without a doubt, we are the first species that has been warming the planet on a global scale. Yet, the hope that in our elusive superiority, we are unable to destroy all species is a starting point for saving as much of diverse nature as we can.
I'd gladly recommend the book for those who want to learn more about the future and read professional, well-written research.
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review.
January 20, 2022
Many books with an ecological theme are depressingly doom-laden. The authors delight in pointing out that from a biologist's viewpoint humans are just one of a vast number of species - nothing exceptional - and that we mess with nature at our peril. To be honest, I find such books hard going. So I was surprised that, despite Rob Dunn's take on the future of nature under human influence being fairly pessimistic, I got a lot out of A Natural History of the Future.
After some initial bombardment with Rutherfordian stamp collecting, Dunn captures the imagination by telling us genuinely interesting stories both about individual studies and about the more general relationships between species populations and their environment. That sounds rather dry, but it really isn't. There are many examples, but to pick one out, I was fascinated by the idea that attempts to stop species crossing borders will result in greater evolution of new species in those regions where access is restricted. This is because the mixing from crossing borders effectively waters down the gene pool so any local mutations are less likely to dominate.
One essential message in this book is how significant the small things are - bacteria, viruses etc. When thinking of both biology and ecology, most of us tzend to focus on the big things, from trees to mammals. But both in numbers and ability to quickly mutate, those small things dominate. And that message about the impact of stopping species crossing borders has a particular resonance when we stop thinking of invasive species as only being deer or parrots (say) and think as well of bacteria and viruses - a message firmly brought home by the pandemic.
Dunn is very good at pointing out the way that human interactions with the environment causes problems, while he also introduces some solutions. Admittedly, here he does tend slightly to the Luddite end of environmentalism - he seems very sceptical, for example, about about carbon capture other than through natural means - but the point that we rarely consider the full consequences of our actions is key, typified in an example he gives of the Mississippi River bursting its banks in his family hometown of Greenville, Mississippi. Unlike some environmentalists, Dunn doesn't live in a fantasy world where we can somehow go back to nature and abandon civilisation. He accepts the benefits that have ensued from trying to tame the river - but also emphasises how much we need consider the further consequences of our actions, rather than stick with business as usual and then be surprised when things go catastrophically wrong.
That I'm so positive about the book is despite my hackles rising as soon as I saw the cover and the subtitle that starts 'What the laws of biology...' In his introduction, Dunn points out that physicists raise an eyebrow at the concept of biology having natural laws in the same way that physics does. I strongly agree with the physicists - these just aren't laws in the same sense. I'm not saying the things Dunn calls laws aren't important, but they are rarely universal and precise. Even something as fundamental as evolution by natural selection is not a law, it's just the logical consequence of circumstances - so it irritated me every time the term 'law' was used. But I managed to overlook this with gritted teeth.
There were also one two slight historical oddities, such as a reference to year zero (there wasn't one), or this blooper on Newton 'It is often said that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. But this wrong. Newton's great contribution was not the the discovery of gravity but the discovery of the cause of gravity.' This is rubbish, I'm afraid. It's not so much the apple part (although that didn't happen), but Newton specifically said that he had no hypothesis for the cause of gravity. (He did in fact have one, but it was wrong.) Newton described how to predict the impact of gravity, not its cause.
Even so, I'm giving this book five stars because it makes the reader think, and because there are some truly fascinating ideas about the way species interact with their environment. These may be bread and butter stuff to ecologists (though Dunn makes the point that they too tend to think of the big species and ignore microbes), but the concepts have rarely been presented well to the general public. A useful and timely book.
After some initial bombardment with Rutherfordian stamp collecting, Dunn captures the imagination by telling us genuinely interesting stories both about individual studies and about the more general relationships between species populations and their environment. That sounds rather dry, but it really isn't. There are many examples, but to pick one out, I was fascinated by the idea that attempts to stop species crossing borders will result in greater evolution of new species in those regions where access is restricted. This is because the mixing from crossing borders effectively waters down the gene pool so any local mutations are less likely to dominate.
One essential message in this book is how significant the small things are - bacteria, viruses etc. When thinking of both biology and ecology, most of us tzend to focus on the big things, from trees to mammals. But both in numbers and ability to quickly mutate, those small things dominate. And that message about the impact of stopping species crossing borders has a particular resonance when we stop thinking of invasive species as only being deer or parrots (say) and think as well of bacteria and viruses - a message firmly brought home by the pandemic.
Dunn is very good at pointing out the way that human interactions with the environment causes problems, while he also introduces some solutions. Admittedly, here he does tend slightly to the Luddite end of environmentalism - he seems very sceptical, for example, about about carbon capture other than through natural means - but the point that we rarely consider the full consequences of our actions is key, typified in an example he gives of the Mississippi River bursting its banks in his family hometown of Greenville, Mississippi. Unlike some environmentalists, Dunn doesn't live in a fantasy world where we can somehow go back to nature and abandon civilisation. He accepts the benefits that have ensued from trying to tame the river - but also emphasises how much we need consider the further consequences of our actions, rather than stick with business as usual and then be surprised when things go catastrophically wrong.
That I'm so positive about the book is despite my hackles rising as soon as I saw the cover and the subtitle that starts 'What the laws of biology...' In his introduction, Dunn points out that physicists raise an eyebrow at the concept of biology having natural laws in the same way that physics does. I strongly agree with the physicists - these just aren't laws in the same sense. I'm not saying the things Dunn calls laws aren't important, but they are rarely universal and precise. Even something as fundamental as evolution by natural selection is not a law, it's just the logical consequence of circumstances - so it irritated me every time the term 'law' was used. But I managed to overlook this with gritted teeth.
There were also one two slight historical oddities, such as a reference to year zero (there wasn't one), or this blooper on Newton 'It is often said that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. But this wrong. Newton's great contribution was not the the discovery of gravity but the discovery of the cause of gravity.' This is rubbish, I'm afraid. It's not so much the apple part (although that didn't happen), but Newton specifically said that he had no hypothesis for the cause of gravity. (He did in fact have one, but it was wrong.) Newton described how to predict the impact of gravity, not its cause.
Even so, I'm giving this book five stars because it makes the reader think, and because there are some truly fascinating ideas about the way species interact with their environment. These may be bread and butter stuff to ecologists (though Dunn makes the point that they too tend to think of the big species and ignore microbes), but the concepts have rarely been presented well to the general public. A useful and timely book.
February 12, 2022
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
April 5, 2022
In the long run we are all dead! The species that are growing and evolving are microbes, parasites, ants, bacterial phages and more. Indeed, they are doing just fine—thank you very much. They are becoming resistant to pesticides, antibiotics, and other human efforts to control or eliminate them. Climate change is going to increase the incidence of nasty diseases like Yellow Fever and Dengue Fever in southern states. Weather will become more variable which makes it harder to grow crops—as if our farmers weren’t under enough strain. Dunn presents a well-researched, but depressing read.
March 27, 2023
"An understanding of the law of natural selection [and associated natural laws] is key to human health and well-being and, frankly, to the survival of our species."
One thing I found interesting was the "megaplate," a repeated giant Petri dish experiment to examine the law of evolution by natural selection. "In an evolutionary war with our microbial enemies, we are outmatched."
This pragmatic book goes a long way in improving understanding.
Recommended reading.
One thing I found interesting was the "megaplate," a repeated giant Petri dish experiment to examine the law of evolution by natural selection. "In an evolutionary war with our microbial enemies, we are outmatched."
This pragmatic book goes a long way in improving understanding.
Recommended reading.
September 20, 2021
3.5 stars
Definitely a thought provoking read. It really pushes the reader to think about and conceptualize how our actions will have lasting effects on unfixable problems in the future. Now with that sharp of a statement I will say that the book doesn’t read as depressing or hyper-fearful, but more so as a nudge and reminder that we need to keep ourselves accountable for the choices that we make and remember that our choices don’t only affect us but everyone we share the planet with. The author provides very well thought out hypotheses based on actual scientific data and experiments, there aren’t any guesstimates or non-researched conjectures.
The one thing that I am a bit disappointed that the author didn’t cover was the immense impact governments and large corporations have on climate change and other negative influences on our ecosystem. The book really pushed the onus on us as individuals and the things that we can do and change to help, but never holding bigger corporations and governments accountable. I feel like this was a huge factor to leave out and really only told a partial truth and outlook on the reality of environmental and biological impacts, which is why I can't give book a higher rating than a 3.5. But overall I did really enjoy reading this book, it was very informative without being dry.
ARC given by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Definitely a thought provoking read. It really pushes the reader to think about and conceptualize how our actions will have lasting effects on unfixable problems in the future. Now with that sharp of a statement I will say that the book doesn’t read as depressing or hyper-fearful, but more so as a nudge and reminder that we need to keep ourselves accountable for the choices that we make and remember that our choices don’t only affect us but everyone we share the planet with. The author provides very well thought out hypotheses based on actual scientific data and experiments, there aren’t any guesstimates or non-researched conjectures.
The one thing that I am a bit disappointed that the author didn’t cover was the immense impact governments and large corporations have on climate change and other negative influences on our ecosystem. The book really pushed the onus on us as individuals and the things that we can do and change to help, but never holding bigger corporations and governments accountable. I feel like this was a huge factor to leave out and really only told a partial truth and outlook on the reality of environmental and biological impacts, which is why I can't give book a higher rating than a 3.5. But overall I did really enjoy reading this book, it was very informative without being dry.
ARC given by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
August 1, 2022
This chatty, well written, but not very structured book is good enough. If you read, as I do, widely in biology for the masses, there is nothing particularly new here. Lots of examples, some interesting conceptual thinking about islands that aren't islands where life develops and changes - cities for instance, or farms - are fun. But much of this is covered in books I liked better.
But shout out to North Carolina State University, and an author who seems like he's thoughtful. This kind of work is really really important. Hopefully more of our brainier progeny will study ecology and climate, and species, rather than work on trying to cure cancer.
Oh, read fully to about 50%, then sampled the rest. Did finish though.
But shout out to North Carolina State University, and an author who seems like he's thoughtful. This kind of work is really really important. Hopefully more of our brainier progeny will study ecology and climate, and species, rather than work on trying to cure cancer.
Oh, read fully to about 50%, then sampled the rest. Did finish though.
February 24, 2022
We have accumulated the knowledge and power to be able to shape the very surface of this planet to our will. We have changed almost every square kilometre of the land surface either directly or affected it in some way or another.
We are masters of this planet, or at least we like to think we are.
Our rate of expansion has been immense. Around 50,000 years ago there were a few thousand humans and now we are about to go past eight billion. We have had such an effect on the planet that we have created our own epoch, the Anthropocene. We make up just over 30% of the entire biomass of the planet and consume its resources at ever rapid rates.
The way that things are changing with the havoc that we are causing means that lots of species are suffering from declines in numbers, sometimes drastically and in some cases going extinct. As these life forms disappear, that has a huge knock-on effect as everything is interconnected. And as it turns out not even we human beings can adapt at the pace that we are changing the planet. Places that we have once been able to live in are now becoming uninhabitable and there is the worrying rise of variability; where there is not a steady change in a particular direction, rather there are extremes that are much more difficult to cope with.
Using various examples he explains how our enormous footprint on the planet is affecting everything in ways that we cannot foresee, how species are being isolated and are changing and also how the simple use of a wildlife corridor can have great benefits. As humanity has moved around the planet we have taken our crops with us and adapted them to the new locale so we have brought with us numerous pathogens. Most of them have been harmless until now, but Dunn gives several examples where this is changing.
He explores how our current monoculture of food production may cause problems, what we need is diversity now to be able to cope with the dramatic changes that are starting to happen. The lack of diversity in the species will also cause problems and he goes into some detail on our dependence on the microbes that live in and on us and mostly keep us healthy and how a simple medical procedure is having an effect of the way that these are passed on between mother and child.
Even though this could be pretty gloomy at times and occasionally terrifying, I thought that it was excellent overall. Dunn knows his subject well and more importantly manages to get across all the salient points in a clear and concise manner. I felt that I was learning something on almost every page. He doesn’t go into much detail on how we can fix these problems, though to be fair that is an entire book in its own right. Rather he wants to present the problems and hope that we can work together to solve them. Essential reading I think.
We are masters of this planet, or at least we like to think we are.
Our rate of expansion has been immense. Around 50,000 years ago there were a few thousand humans and now we are about to go past eight billion. We have had such an effect on the planet that we have created our own epoch, the Anthropocene. We make up just over 30% of the entire biomass of the planet and consume its resources at ever rapid rates.
The way that things are changing with the havoc that we are causing means that lots of species are suffering from declines in numbers, sometimes drastically and in some cases going extinct. As these life forms disappear, that has a huge knock-on effect as everything is interconnected. And as it turns out not even we human beings can adapt at the pace that we are changing the planet. Places that we have once been able to live in are now becoming uninhabitable and there is the worrying rise of variability; where there is not a steady change in a particular direction, rather there are extremes that are much more difficult to cope with.
Using various examples he explains how our enormous footprint on the planet is affecting everything in ways that we cannot foresee, how species are being isolated and are changing and also how the simple use of a wildlife corridor can have great benefits. As humanity has moved around the planet we have taken our crops with us and adapted them to the new locale so we have brought with us numerous pathogens. Most of them have been harmless until now, but Dunn gives several examples where this is changing.
He explores how our current monoculture of food production may cause problems, what we need is diversity now to be able to cope with the dramatic changes that are starting to happen. The lack of diversity in the species will also cause problems and he goes into some detail on our dependence on the microbes that live in and on us and mostly keep us healthy and how a simple medical procedure is having an effect of the way that these are passed on between mother and child.
Even though this could be pretty gloomy at times and occasionally terrifying, I thought that it was excellent overall. Dunn knows his subject well and more importantly manages to get across all the salient points in a clear and concise manner. I felt that I was learning something on almost every page. He doesn’t go into much detail on how we can fix these problems, though to be fair that is an entire book in its own right. Rather he wants to present the problems and hope that we can work together to solve them. Essential reading I think.
August 5, 2021
As a biology degree holder and lifelong lover of evolution, microbiology, and genetics, this book was everything I wanted in a look at our future here on Earth.
Dunn doesn’t just argue climate change and greenhouse gases; he dives deep into crop diversity (or the lack thereof), biocides resistance, and the interdependence of humans with hundreds, maybe thousands of other species.
This book wasn’t gloom and doom but a well thought-out prediction for where we are headed based on experiments and trends in scientific data. Using the laws of biology, Dunn explained what the future will look like for us if we continue down the path we are going.
The fact that “nature” will continue on without us but may not look the same really hit home. Humans, and all our dependents, are endanger of extinction.
I enjoyed reading this book. I love continuing to learn in my field long after I have graduated. This book was easy to follow but informative enough I didn’t feel like it was “dumbed down”. A great look at the evolutionary biology of humanity; past, present, AND future.
I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley.
Dunn doesn’t just argue climate change and greenhouse gases; he dives deep into crop diversity (or the lack thereof), biocides resistance, and the interdependence of humans with hundreds, maybe thousands of other species.
This book wasn’t gloom and doom but a well thought-out prediction for where we are headed based on experiments and trends in scientific data. Using the laws of biology, Dunn explained what the future will look like for us if we continue down the path we are going.
The fact that “nature” will continue on without us but may not look the same really hit home. Humans, and all our dependents, are endanger of extinction.
I enjoyed reading this book. I love continuing to learn in my field long after I have graduated. This book was easy to follow but informative enough I didn’t feel like it was “dumbed down”. A great look at the evolutionary biology of humanity; past, present, AND future.
I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley.
February 23, 2022
This is a great book for anyone who is curious how climate change affects life on earth. It is very informative and easy to read. A big part of it focuses on microorganisms and their crucial role in our existence. The author has shared some very intriguing scientific researches in the field of biology and ecology. He also addresses problem-solving strategies to tackle species extinction and climate change impact. I will definitely come back to this book.
May 10, 2023
Rob Dunn "Tuleviku looduslugu: mida bioloogiaseadused räägivad meile inimese saatusest" on põnev ja silmiavav teos, mis näitab, kui vähe me teame maailmast, milles me elame ja kui enesekeskne on meie maailmavaade. Panin endale igast peatükist midagi kõrva taha.
Raamatu kokkuvõtmiseks tuleks pool raamatut siia ümber jutustada, kuna autoril on igas peatükis nii head arutelud, mõtted, teemad. Ta püstitab mitmeid hüpoteese selle kohta, milliseks tulevik kujuneb, puudutab liikide rännet ja väljasuremist, kliima soojenemist, geneetilist muundamist, looduse seadusi jpt. Kui muidu kliimamuutuste kontekstis keskendutakse sellele, kes välja surevad, siis see raamat teoritiseerib ka selle üle, kes alles jääb, kelle arvukus inimtegevuse tõttu lokkab, inimeste parasiidid, voodilestad, täid, rotid, varesed, kelle peale me mõelda ei taha. Osad asjad, mis Rob Dunn välja tõi, tunduvad tagantjärgi ilmselged, aga samas polnud ma kunagi nende peale niimoodi mõelnud.
Mulle meeldis, et teos on kirjutatud neutraalsest vaatepunktist, millest kumab läbi uudishimu. Autorit huvitavad muutused. Ta ei mõista hukka ega ütle, et asjad on hullult halvasti või hästi. Lugejal lastakse ise loetu põhjal omad järeldused teha. Õige pea selgub, mis päriselt saab, kuna kõik see hakkab lähikümnenditel lahti rulluma. Kliimasoojenemise mõju on ju juba praegu aastaaegade muutumisest tunda. Elame põneval ajastul, murrangulistel aastatel. Tundub, et Eesti on kliimamuutuse suhtes hea koht elamiseks. Samas ei ole ma absoluutselt vaimustuses liigirikkuse kadumisest.
“Tuleviku looduslugu” kannab mitmeid sõnumeid, millest põhiline oli see, et loodus on meist (inimkonnast) üüratult palju võimsam. Me ei saa seda enda kontrolli alla, isegi kui võib tunduda, et oleme välja töötanud hullult head tehnoloogiad ja muud särgid-värgid. Huvitav fakt - inimesed elavad ikka samades piirkondades, kus 6000 aastat tagasi, sõltudes parimatest tingimustest loomakasvatuseks ja põlluharimiseks. Me ei taha kolida kõrbe või jäämägede vahele. Veel toob Rob Dunn väga hästi välja, kuidas tekib antibiootikumide, putuka- ja umbrohumürkide resistentsus. Ükskõik, kuidas me ei ürita loodust endale allutada, tõstab see lõpuks ikka pea. Looduse keeruliste süsteemide tehislikust järele tegemisest pole üldse mõtet rääkida. Selle asemel tuleks kiiremas korras õppida loodust enda heaks ära kasutama ilma seda enda kontrolli alla allutamata.
Raamatul on kaval ülesehitus - alustatakse sellest, kuidas inimesed planeeti mõjutavad või üritavad mõjutada ja siis lajatatakse sellega, kuidas enamikku loodusest ei moodusta üldse inimesed ega loomad-taimed, keda-mida me kasvatame, vaid suurem osa Maal elavaid liike on nii väikesed, et me ei pane neid tähele või ei näegi silmaga. Autor toob veel välja põlvnemise puu, kust isegi imetajate haru ei paista sealt välja, sest mikroobe on lihtsalt nii palju.
Me vaatame maailma väga enesekesksest vinklist, sealhulgas ka kliima muutumist. Palju liike on välja surnud või suremas, aga keskendume ainult neile, mida me näeme - loomad, linnud, lilled. Mida väiksem on elusolend ja mida ebamugavam on tema elupaik inimesele, seda vähem teda uuritud. Nende seas leidub ka selliseid, kelle jaoks tingimused maal muutuvad aina paremaks. Sellest tulenevalt jäi kummitama, kui palju me ikkagi ei tea. Oleme palju uurinud, aga põhiliselt seda, mida on lihtne uurida - loomi, mis näevad meie sarnased välja, ilusad taimed, mis koduõuel kasvavad, aga mitte baktereid.
Kui armastad tulevikuulmekaid, pakub “Tuleviku looduslugu” head raputust, milline on tõenäoline tulevikustseraarium teadlaste arvates. Selle üle, et tehisintellekt maailma endale allutab, Rob Dunn naeris.
Aitäh, Rahva Raamat, raamatu eest!
Raamatu kokkuvõtmiseks tuleks pool raamatut siia ümber jutustada, kuna autoril on igas peatükis nii head arutelud, mõtted, teemad. Ta püstitab mitmeid hüpoteese selle kohta, milliseks tulevik kujuneb, puudutab liikide rännet ja väljasuremist, kliima soojenemist, geneetilist muundamist, looduse seadusi jpt. Kui muidu kliimamuutuste kontekstis keskendutakse sellele, kes välja surevad, siis see raamat teoritiseerib ka selle üle, kes alles jääb, kelle arvukus inimtegevuse tõttu lokkab, inimeste parasiidid, voodilestad, täid, rotid, varesed, kelle peale me mõelda ei taha. Osad asjad, mis Rob Dunn välja tõi, tunduvad tagantjärgi ilmselged, aga samas polnud ma kunagi nende peale niimoodi mõelnud.
Mulle meeldis, et teos on kirjutatud neutraalsest vaatepunktist, millest kumab läbi uudishimu. Autorit huvitavad muutused. Ta ei mõista hukka ega ütle, et asjad on hullult halvasti või hästi. Lugejal lastakse ise loetu põhjal omad järeldused teha. Õige pea selgub, mis päriselt saab, kuna kõik see hakkab lähikümnenditel lahti rulluma. Kliimasoojenemise mõju on ju juba praegu aastaaegade muutumisest tunda. Elame põneval ajastul, murrangulistel aastatel. Tundub, et Eesti on kliimamuutuse suhtes hea koht elamiseks. Samas ei ole ma absoluutselt vaimustuses liigirikkuse kadumisest.
“Tuleviku looduslugu” kannab mitmeid sõnumeid, millest põhiline oli see, et loodus on meist (inimkonnast) üüratult palju võimsam. Me ei saa seda enda kontrolli alla, isegi kui võib tunduda, et oleme välja töötanud hullult head tehnoloogiad ja muud särgid-värgid. Huvitav fakt - inimesed elavad ikka samades piirkondades, kus 6000 aastat tagasi, sõltudes parimatest tingimustest loomakasvatuseks ja põlluharimiseks. Me ei taha kolida kõrbe või jäämägede vahele. Veel toob Rob Dunn väga hästi välja, kuidas tekib antibiootikumide, putuka- ja umbrohumürkide resistentsus. Ükskõik, kuidas me ei ürita loodust endale allutada, tõstab see lõpuks ikka pea. Looduse keeruliste süsteemide tehislikust järele tegemisest pole üldse mõtet rääkida. Selle asemel tuleks kiiremas korras õppida loodust enda heaks ära kasutama ilma seda enda kontrolli alla allutamata.
Raamatul on kaval ülesehitus - alustatakse sellest, kuidas inimesed planeeti mõjutavad või üritavad mõjutada ja siis lajatatakse sellega, kuidas enamikku loodusest ei moodusta üldse inimesed ega loomad-taimed, keda-mida me kasvatame, vaid suurem osa Maal elavaid liike on nii väikesed, et me ei pane neid tähele või ei näegi silmaga. Autor toob veel välja põlvnemise puu, kust isegi imetajate haru ei paista sealt välja, sest mikroobe on lihtsalt nii palju.
Me vaatame maailma väga enesekesksest vinklist, sealhulgas ka kliima muutumist. Palju liike on välja surnud või suremas, aga keskendume ainult neile, mida me näeme - loomad, linnud, lilled. Mida väiksem on elusolend ja mida ebamugavam on tema elupaik inimesele, seda vähem teda uuritud. Nende seas leidub ka selliseid, kelle jaoks tingimused maal muutuvad aina paremaks. Sellest tulenevalt jäi kummitama, kui palju me ikkagi ei tea. Oleme palju uurinud, aga põhiliselt seda, mida on lihtne uurida - loomi, mis näevad meie sarnased välja, ilusad taimed, mis koduõuel kasvavad, aga mitte baktereid.
Kui armastad tulevikuulmekaid, pakub “Tuleviku looduslugu” head raputust, milline on tõenäoline tulevikustseraarium teadlaste arvates. Selle üle, et tehisintellekt maailma endale allutab, Rob Dunn naeris.
Aitäh, Rahva Raamat, raamatu eest!
August 16, 2021
Maybe you’ve seen “Save the Humans” bumper stickers. They came about due to twin realizations. First, the desire to save whales proved too remote to spur humanity into better behavior. Second, the sci-fi subtext that humans don’t need other species and that we can survive any form of cataclysm [including those that kill off everything else] is wrong on both counts.
Dunn’s book explores what changes Earth’s lifeforms can expect of the future. As one might expect, these changes are heavily influenced by climate change, but Dunn also looks at the effect of other factors – notably the growing resistances that results from heavy use of biocides (e.g. pesticides, antibiotics, etc.)
Dunn investigates the effect of islands on evolution and speciation, and goes on to show that not all islands are surrounded by water. (By geographic definition they may be, but in terms of constraints that restrict the movement, interactions, and well-being of lifeforms there are many besides water.) This is important because climate change will drive species to attempt migration to areas that present the conditions to which the species is evolutionarily adapted. Some will fail and may go extinct. Some will succeed, but will upset the ecological applecart of the location into which they’ve moved.
Chapter nine discusses a crucial principle: being able to break a thing doesn’t mean one can readily fix it. Dunn describes plans to use robotic drones to replace the extinct bee pollinators that play a crucial role in our ecosystem, as well as the ways the drones are likely to fail to live up to their predecessors.
I found this book to be immensely thought-provoking. One can argue whether the author is too gloomy about human future (“human future” because Dunn is clear that life on the planet will go on), but it’s impossible to ignore that challenges exist.
Dunn’s book explores what changes Earth’s lifeforms can expect of the future. As one might expect, these changes are heavily influenced by climate change, but Dunn also looks at the effect of other factors – notably the growing resistances that results from heavy use of biocides (e.g. pesticides, antibiotics, etc.)
Dunn investigates the effect of islands on evolution and speciation, and goes on to show that not all islands are surrounded by water. (By geographic definition they may be, but in terms of constraints that restrict the movement, interactions, and well-being of lifeforms there are many besides water.) This is important because climate change will drive species to attempt migration to areas that present the conditions to which the species is evolutionarily adapted. Some will fail and may go extinct. Some will succeed, but will upset the ecological applecart of the location into which they’ve moved.
Chapter nine discusses a crucial principle: being able to break a thing doesn’t mean one can readily fix it. Dunn describes plans to use robotic drones to replace the extinct bee pollinators that play a crucial role in our ecosystem, as well as the ways the drones are likely to fail to live up to their predecessors.
I found this book to be immensely thought-provoking. One can argue whether the author is too gloomy about human future (“human future” because Dunn is clear that life on the planet will go on), but it’s impossible to ignore that challenges exist.
January 30, 2022
4.5 rounded down to 4
The author embarks on a series of chapters conveying the importance of nature, natural resources and biodiversity, and how they teach us important things about being resilient to different challenges humanity faces today and surviving the future. He argues that finding technological solutions are not the way - rather looking towards his the system works must be the solution. Moreover, the anthropocentric perspective of science and life in general must be shed and a wholesome perspective must be inculcated to look at the systems as they are before they break down. Great read!
The author embarks on a series of chapters conveying the importance of nature, natural resources and biodiversity, and how they teach us important things about being resilient to different challenges humanity faces today and surviving the future. He argues that finding technological solutions are not the way - rather looking towards his the system works must be the solution. Moreover, the anthropocentric perspective of science and life in general must be shed and a wholesome perspective must be inculcated to look at the systems as they are before they break down. Great read!
February 17, 2022
There were a few good parts, but the subtitle set a reader's expectations too high. The subtitle is, "What the laws of biology tell us about the destiny of the human species". Unfortunately, they appear to tell very little.
One section on the use of pesticides, antibiotics, herbicides, and other treatments to combat agricultural pests and disease-causing organisms was very good. Dunn sees how these defenses are necessary and then describes four steps to use them more conservatively and rationally based on biology. Dunn also suggests that very targeted defenses should be used in the future, but he gives little discussion of the current use of plant genetic modification with specific Bt toxins to combat specific pests, such as the corn borer. Was he afraid to mention the dreaded GMO word to the lay public? GMOs are the likeliest route to specific attacks on our enemies. Of course, we now have the new targeted RNA vaccines, currently used against Covid. Perhaps a good description of this innovation appeared too late for this book. The spread of the Omicron variant fits perfectly into Dunn's analysis.
Dunn's discussion of the advantages of maintaining diversity of plants and animals is very good, but the writing was often annoyingly author-centric. He mentions his friends and collaborators and his own research frequently. Is Dunn a leader in the field or is this his ego talking? A little more humility and fewer personal refences would have allowed a more credible take on the information.
Dunn's considered of the impact of climate on human populations, with discussions of interesting fundamental research. I did not get the argument that global warming will lead to large-scale human migration, beyond perhaps to escape flooding. Lots of people already live in hot and cold places. Will that change so much with a few degrees of global warming? Perhaps, but the arguments have to be clearer.
Dunn takes a stab at what Earth would be like without humans, but necessarily can say very little. A more entertaining approach to this is Dougal Dixon's "After Man, A Zoology of the Future".
One section on the use of pesticides, antibiotics, herbicides, and other treatments to combat agricultural pests and disease-causing organisms was very good. Dunn sees how these defenses are necessary and then describes four steps to use them more conservatively and rationally based on biology. Dunn also suggests that very targeted defenses should be used in the future, but he gives little discussion of the current use of plant genetic modification with specific Bt toxins to combat specific pests, such as the corn borer. Was he afraid to mention the dreaded GMO word to the lay public? GMOs are the likeliest route to specific attacks on our enemies. Of course, we now have the new targeted RNA vaccines, currently used against Covid. Perhaps a good description of this innovation appeared too late for this book. The spread of the Omicron variant fits perfectly into Dunn's analysis.
Dunn's discussion of the advantages of maintaining diversity of plants and animals is very good, but the writing was often annoyingly author-centric. He mentions his friends and collaborators and his own research frequently. Is Dunn a leader in the field or is this his ego talking? A little more humility and fewer personal refences would have allowed a more credible take on the information.
Dunn's considered of the impact of climate on human populations, with discussions of interesting fundamental research. I did not get the argument that global warming will lead to large-scale human migration, beyond perhaps to escape flooding. Lots of people already live in hot and cold places. Will that change so much with a few degrees of global warming? Perhaps, but the arguments have to be clearer.
Dunn takes a stab at what Earth would be like without humans, but necessarily can say very little. A more entertaining approach to this is Dougal Dixon's "After Man, A Zoology of the Future".
January 12, 2022
So.... some mixed feelings on this one.
Rob Dunn is generally a strong author and I enjoy his books. That said, Rob, what's up with that awfully boring book cover? I do not think it's so appealing.
Moving onto content in the book, NYT gave this one a rave review. Having read a few books that have gotten some accolades, like The Sixth Extinction, and I could notice some aspects that lead to the rave reviews. Rob Dunn does a great job compiling resources and coming up with "laws of biology". It is a nice way to organize a series of studies. A few chapters that I found fascinating where how biodiversity helps stave off extinction. It was a strong synthesis of this information with some notable studies. Other interesting topics were: how we are shifting evolution toward disease resistant species and how we actually have a human "niche" but a more compressed one.
My critique is that I don't think this book had a great narrative flow. The chapters could have transitioned better. Individually they are good, but it seemed rather like a collection of essays instead. This made the book more challenging to finish (honestly can't totally pinpoint 100% why, but that is what I suspect).
Still, I believe the author and I have some overlaps in interest as he pays nods to a few books I have read in the pasts (he also agrees that Improbable Destinies is waaaaaaay underrated- see that review). For that reason, Dunn's narrative rarely devolves into really bland topics or when he does, writes in an engrossing way.
In conclusion, I would say this is a good "intermediate" book, by which I mean that it isn't too basic and not so advanced you have to re-read every section. If you already have a biology background, I think you will enjoy this synthesis of evolution and ecology.
Rob Dunn is generally a strong author and I enjoy his books. That said, Rob, what's up with that awfully boring book cover? I do not think it's so appealing.
Moving onto content in the book, NYT gave this one a rave review. Having read a few books that have gotten some accolades, like The Sixth Extinction, and I could notice some aspects that lead to the rave reviews. Rob Dunn does a great job compiling resources and coming up with "laws of biology". It is a nice way to organize a series of studies. A few chapters that I found fascinating where how biodiversity helps stave off extinction. It was a strong synthesis of this information with some notable studies. Other interesting topics were: how we are shifting evolution toward disease resistant species and how we actually have a human "niche" but a more compressed one.
My critique is that I don't think this book had a great narrative flow. The chapters could have transitioned better. Individually they are good, but it seemed rather like a collection of essays instead. This made the book more challenging to finish (honestly can't totally pinpoint 100% why, but that is what I suspect).
Still, I believe the author and I have some overlaps in interest as he pays nods to a few books I have read in the pasts (he also agrees that Improbable Destinies is waaaaaaay underrated- see that review). For that reason, Dunn's narrative rarely devolves into really bland topics or when he does, writes in an engrossing way.
In conclusion, I would say this is a good "intermediate" book, by which I mean that it isn't too basic and not so advanced you have to re-read every section. If you already have a biology background, I think you will enjoy this synthesis of evolution and ecology.
May 4, 2023
Kaunis ja põhjalik ja natuke kainestav lugemine sellest, kuidas bioloog maailma ja toimuvat näeb ning mida tema sellest arvab. Autor annab ülevaate mitmetest ökoloogia-, evolutsiooni- ja biogeograafia seadustest, näitamaks, et ohus võib olla hoopis inimene ja mitte loodus. Ja ma pean tunnistama, et mitte kunagi pole selline materjal mulle rohkem meeldinud ja paelunud kui praegu. Rob Dunn kirjutab põhjalikult, toob näiteid katsetest ja avastustest, aga ta kirjutan ka põnevalt ning arusaadavalt. Muidugi mitmel korral olen lugenud ja tundnud end pisut Sheldonina, sest peas vasardab “Miks?Kuidas?Miks see on oluline?Miks ma seda loen?”. No ja siis jõuad teema poindini - “Oh, that’s why!”.
Minu meelest võiks vabalt “Tuleviku looduslugu” olla gümnaasiumis bioloogia-geograafia-ühiskonnaõpetuse ainetele täiendav kohustuslik kirjandus. See on piisavalt lihtne, aga tohutult avardav. Ja siis miks mitte täienduseks ka “Nomaadide sajand”, mis mingil määral käsitleb samu teemasid.
“Me vormine loodust ümber enneolematul määral ja enamasti vaatame seda tehes hajameelselt mujale.”
Minu meelest võiks vabalt “Tuleviku looduslugu” olla gümnaasiumis bioloogia-geograafia-ühiskonnaõpetuse ainetele täiendav kohustuslik kirjandus. See on piisavalt lihtne, aga tohutult avardav. Ja siis miks mitte täienduseks ka “Nomaadide sajand”, mis mingil määral käsitleb samu teemasid.
“Me vormine loodust ümber enneolematul määral ja enamasti vaatame seda tehes hajameelselt mujale.”
Shelved as 'dnf'
June 9, 2022DNF. Way too dry. Felt disorganized. Lost my interest in less than 20 pages.
November 13, 2021
Humanity's impact on the environment around us is easy to see. We have dammed and re-routed rivers, built large cities whose growth has sprawled and interconnected, constructed nationwide and international transportation networks, and much more. All of these things have transformed the natural world.
But along with many of our environmental "improvements" have often come unintended consequences. Climate change is probably humanity's largest unintended environmental impact - indeed it may prove to be our most impactful change, and one that is already giving evidence to how detrimental it can be to humanity itself.
Rob Dunn's A Natural History of the Future gives us plenty of food for thought as we contemplate a warmer future. That said, this is not a book about how to prevent global warming. It doesn't lay out policy prescriptions for mitigating climate impact, ala Bill Gates' How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Rather it's a book urging us all to think about humanity's place in the natural world, to rethink what we do and the impact it has on the planet's inhabitants in total - human, plant, animal, or microscopic.
The book is full of examples of unintended consequences. Trying to contain the Mississippi River behind levees to clear land for occupation has led to larger and more damaging flooding when those levees inevitably burst. Creating large cities and connecting them with interstate highways has led to environmental conditions favoring certain animals - urban rats and pigeons for example - over others. Creating Cape Canaveral led to the extinction of the Dusky Seaside Sparrow. Favoring birth by C-section has led to babies who lack the appropriate gut microbiome normally acquired from their mothers during vaginal births. Babies born via C-section can be more susceptible to asthma, celiac disease, obesity and Type 1 diabetes.
The book is also full of examples of how much we know about life and the species that surround us, but more importantly, how much we DON'T know. We know that if you were able to put all the life on Earth on a gigantic scale, the weight of humanity would be a very small percentage of the total - most life on earth is microbial. Yet our understanding of microbial life is only just beginning. We can list a number of species that have gone extinct, but we know that species form dependencies with other species (think of humans and their dogs, or cows, or even more directly humans and their malaria viruses or humans and their pinworms). So any count we have on extinct species is necessarily low as we haven't made attempts to understand the co-extinctions that went along with them.
We also know that all species eventually go extinct - one of the many biological laws that Dunn cites throughout the book. As he puts it: "We [humanity] are a clumsy giant late to the drama, a character in life's play that doesn't make it to the curtain call." In other words, no matter what we do - however we handle the looming climate crisis - at some point in the future humanity will face extinction, and life on Earth will go on without us. The ultimate message of the book is that we should be humble and open to learning more, so that we can begin to live within nature's laws, using them to our benefit rather than continuing to try to "tame" nature and facing the growing unintended and adverse consequences.
Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ for A Natural History of the Future .
NOTE: I received an advanced reviewer's copy of this book through NetGalley and Basic Books in exchange for a fair and honest review. The book is generally available Tuesday, November 9, 2021.
But along with many of our environmental "improvements" have often come unintended consequences. Climate change is probably humanity's largest unintended environmental impact - indeed it may prove to be our most impactful change, and one that is already giving evidence to how detrimental it can be to humanity itself.
Rob Dunn's A Natural History of the Future gives us plenty of food for thought as we contemplate a warmer future. That said, this is not a book about how to prevent global warming. It doesn't lay out policy prescriptions for mitigating climate impact, ala Bill Gates' How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Rather it's a book urging us all to think about humanity's place in the natural world, to rethink what we do and the impact it has on the planet's inhabitants in total - human, plant, animal, or microscopic.
The book is full of examples of unintended consequences. Trying to contain the Mississippi River behind levees to clear land for occupation has led to larger and more damaging flooding when those levees inevitably burst. Creating large cities and connecting them with interstate highways has led to environmental conditions favoring certain animals - urban rats and pigeons for example - over others. Creating Cape Canaveral led to the extinction of the Dusky Seaside Sparrow. Favoring birth by C-section has led to babies who lack the appropriate gut microbiome normally acquired from their mothers during vaginal births. Babies born via C-section can be more susceptible to asthma, celiac disease, obesity and Type 1 diabetes.
The book is also full of examples of how much we know about life and the species that surround us, but more importantly, how much we DON'T know. We know that if you were able to put all the life on Earth on a gigantic scale, the weight of humanity would be a very small percentage of the total - most life on earth is microbial. Yet our understanding of microbial life is only just beginning. We can list a number of species that have gone extinct, but we know that species form dependencies with other species (think of humans and their dogs, or cows, or even more directly humans and their malaria viruses or humans and their pinworms). So any count we have on extinct species is necessarily low as we haven't made attempts to understand the co-extinctions that went along with them.
We also know that all species eventually go extinct - one of the many biological laws that Dunn cites throughout the book. As he puts it: "We [humanity] are a clumsy giant late to the drama, a character in life's play that doesn't make it to the curtain call." In other words, no matter what we do - however we handle the looming climate crisis - at some point in the future humanity will face extinction, and life on Earth will go on without us. The ultimate message of the book is that we should be humble and open to learning more, so that we can begin to live within nature's laws, using them to our benefit rather than continuing to try to "tame" nature and facing the growing unintended and adverse consequences.
Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ for A Natural History of the Future .
NOTE: I received an advanced reviewer's copy of this book through NetGalley and Basic Books in exchange for a fair and honest review. The book is generally available Tuesday, November 9, 2021.
January 3, 2023
إن رؤيتنا للعالم الطبيعي من حولنا متحيزة للغاية . أهم تحيزاتنا هو فكرة مركزية الإنسان. هذا التحيز هو جزء عميق من حواسنا ونفسيتنا لدرجة أنه يمكن تسميته بقانون، قانون مركزية الإنسان. قانون مركزية الإنسان مبني على بيولوجيتنا ؛ كل نوع من الحيوانات لديه تصور للعالم مؤطر بحواسه الخاصة. إذا كانت الكلاب هي المسؤولة عن العلم، فسأكتب عن مشكلة مركزية الكلاب. لكن ما هو فريد مع البشر هو أن تحيزنا لا يؤثر فقط على الطريقة التي ننظر بها بشكل فردي إلى العالم الحي من حولنا، ولكن أيضًا على النظام العلمي الذي بنيناه لفهرسة العالم. كان المؤرخ الطبيعي السويدي كارل لينيوس هو الذي أعطى نظامنا قواعده، لكنه أعطى أيضًا زخم لفكرة مركزية الإنسان في النظام والجغرافيا الغريبة.
من المدهش أننا كنوع حققنا النجاح الذي حققناه على الرغم من جهلنا بالعالم البيولوجي ومنظورنا المتحيز لأبعاده. قال أينشتاين أن «اللغز الأبدي للعالم هو فهمه» ؛ بعبارة أخرى، ما هو غير مفهوم هو مدى فهمنا. لكنني لا أعتقد أن هذا صحيح تمامًا. أعتقد أن الأمر غير المفهوم أكثر هو أننا نجونا على الرغم من ضآلة فهمنا. نحن مثل السائق الذي يسير بطريقة ما على الطريق، على الرغم من كونه أقصر من أن يرى من النافذة، وهو مخمور قليلاً، ومولع جدًا بالتسارع.
منذ سنوات عديدة، قرأت قصة لكاتب علمي دخل فيها كهفًا مع مرشد ومجموعة من زملائه المسافرين. عندما دخلت المجموعة الكهف، بدأت الخفافيش تطير بأعداد كبيرة. كان الكاتب يسمع حركتهم ويهتف وكان بإمكانه أن يشعر بالرياح من أجنحتهم العديدة. قال المرشد: "لا تقلق، تعرف الخفافيش مكانك بالضبط بفضل قدرتها على تحديد موقع الصدى. إنهم يروننا في الظلام! "
عندما استدار المرشد ليمشي بعيدًا في الكهف، خفاش، يطير بسرعة في الليل، ضربه في وجهه - بقوة.
ما لم يعرفه المرشد هو أنه في حين أن الخفافيش لديها قدرات مذهلة على «الرؤية» في الظلام من خلال تحديد الموقع بالصدى، فإنها تستخدم أيضًا معرفة مفصلة بالمعالم والطرق المتكررة للعثور على طريقها، خاصة في الكهوف. كان الخفاش يطير على طول طريق مفضّل وفجأة واجه المرشد، الذي لم يكن من المفروض أن يكون هناك، وفقًا لنموذجه للعالم. صدم الرجل والخفاش معاً .
.
Rob Dunn
A Natural History Of The Future
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
من المدهش أننا كنوع حققنا النجاح الذي حققناه على الرغم من جهلنا بالعالم البيولوجي ومنظورنا المتحيز لأبعاده. قال أينشتاين أن «اللغز الأبدي للعالم هو فهمه» ؛ بعبارة أخرى، ما هو غير مفهوم هو مدى فهمنا. لكنني لا أعتقد أن هذا صحيح تمامًا. أعتقد أن الأمر غير المفهوم أكثر هو أننا نجونا على الرغم من ضآلة فهمنا. نحن مثل السائق الذي يسير بطريقة ما على الطريق، على الرغم من كونه أقصر من أن يرى من النافذة، وهو مخمور قليلاً، ومولع جدًا بالتسارع.
منذ سنوات عديدة، قرأت قصة لكاتب علمي دخل فيها كهفًا مع مرشد ومجموعة من زملائه المسافرين. عندما دخلت المجموعة الكهف، بدأت الخفافيش تطير بأعداد كبيرة. كان الكاتب يسمع حركتهم ويهتف وكان بإمكانه أن يشعر بالرياح من أجنحتهم العديدة. قال المرشد: "لا تقلق، تعرف الخفافيش مكانك بالضبط بفضل قدرتها على تحديد موقع الصدى. إنهم يروننا في الظلام! "
عندما استدار المرشد ليمشي بعيدًا في الكهف، خفاش، يطير بسرعة في الليل، ضربه في وجهه - بقوة.
ما لم يعرفه المرشد هو أنه في حين أن الخفافيش لديها قدرات مذهلة على «الرؤية» في الظلام من خلال تحديد الموقع بالصدى، فإنها تستخدم أيضًا معرفة مفصلة بالمعالم والطرق المتكررة للعثور على طريقها، خاصة في الكهوف. كان الخفاش يطير على طول طريق مفضّل وفجأة واجه المرشد، الذي لم يكن من المفروض أن يكون هناك، وفقًا لنموذجه للعالم. صدم الرجل والخفاش معاً .
.
Rob Dunn
A Natural History Of The Future
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
October 12, 2021
In depth review of studies, statistics, charts, graphs offering a new view of climate change issues. Not the usual information. We are at the mercy of the laws of nature according to the author. This is like living within our means of what earth resources we can use. High temperatures are arriving and that means more violence. Studies reveal hundreds of millions of people will become (and have become) climate refugees. How will countries cope? Animal and plant species may or may not adapt - specific examples are given and explained. We need to stop thinking we can control our planet. We must reintroduce biodiversity, as low diversity has smaller yields and people need to eat. This book is not just solar panels and electric cars but caring for the earth for our survival
July 29, 2021
I really enjoyed reading A Natural History of the Future, I found it to be very informative and enlightening. Scientific terms are explained clearly and everything is backed by scientific evidence. This book is really easy to read and was occasionally humorous.
April 11, 2022
While I think that Dunn greatly overstates his case and I would have liked much more meat on the biological laws he presents, this book still has interesting material and thought-provoking hypotheses.
> Herren, Bellotti, and others then discovered a wasp that laid its eggs in the bodies of the cassava mealybugs in Paraguay. They took a dozen of those wasps to a quarantine lab in the UK (where an accidental escape would be less likely to prove problematic). Then, after detailed studies of the biology of the wasps, they took their progeny to West Africa where, against the odds, they found a way to turn a few wasps into hundreds of thousands. They released the hundreds of thousands of wasps and, amazingly, the wasps and their progeny spread across Africa, destroying the mealybugs and saving the cassava crop for hundreds of millions of Africans. The same story would later be repeated in Asia. A small group of scientists, each of them an expert in some obscure facet of the biological world, saved millions of people from hunger.
> If plants that do not produce pesticides are planted near crops that do, pests will preferentially devour the defenseless, pesticide-free, crops. These pesticide-free crops are called refuge crops: they provide refuge to susceptible pests. In such situations, resistant pests might evolve, but any individual resistant pests will be most likely to mate with the more successful pesticide-susceptible individuals that are feeding on the refuge plants that do not produce pesticide. The genes for resistance stay rare in the pests
> Today, the sidewalls of car tires and the entirety of airplane tires are made from latex that flows from trees of the species Hevea brasiliensis. These trees grow wild in the Amazon rain forest but cannot be grown on plantations there because they are very susceptible to pests and parasites. As a result, almost all the rubber in the world comes from plantations in tropical Asia. There, it grows, having escaped its pests and parasites. But it is only a matter of time before those pests and parasites catch up, and when they do, it has been estimated that the entirety of the global production of rubber could be wiped out within a decade
> Some C-section babies, by chance, ingest fecal microbes from elsewhere in their environment. From dogs. From the soil. From wherever those microbes might be found. In doing so, they acquire the microbes they need. But this chance pickup of necessary microbes has a statute of limitations, at least in humans. As babies get older, it is progressively more difficult for them to acquire new gut microbes, both because those microbes must compete with microbes that are already established and because the human stomach, while neutral at birth, becomes more acidic in the first year
> roughly two to three million years ago, an ancient human species appears to have evolved a change in the gene that produces a type of sugar found on red blood cells, the sugar to which one type of malaria parasite binds; that change made them immune to this ancient malaria for millions of years. Roughly ten thousand years ago, somewhere in tropical Africa, a strain of gorilla malaria made the jump to humans. In doing so, it evolved the ability to cope with human red blood cells and their lack of key sugars. It also diverged, eventually becoming a new species now called Plasmodium falciparum
> parasites from the crops of the Americas caught up with crops that had been moved. The arrival of the potato blight in Ireland reunited the potato with an ancient enemy from which it had escaped.
> one example of the relationship between species diversity and area for island-like habitats, ants in street medians and parks in Manhattan. … Savage, Amy M., Britné Hackett, Benoit Guénard, Elsa K. Youngsteadt, and Robert R. Dunn, “Fine-Scale Heterogeneity Across Manhattan’s Urban Habitat Mosaic Is Associated with Variation in Ant Composition and Richness,” Insect Conservation and Diversity 8, no. 3 (2015): 216–228.
> all the worst things we can imagine doing to Earth—nuclear war, climate change, massive pollution, habitat loss, and all the rest—may affect multicellular species like us but are unlikely to lead to the extinction of most major lineages on the evolutionary tree. What is more, in the face of our worst assaults, many of the most unusual lineages would actually be more likely to thrive
> Herren, Bellotti, and others then discovered a wasp that laid its eggs in the bodies of the cassava mealybugs in Paraguay. They took a dozen of those wasps to a quarantine lab in the UK (where an accidental escape would be less likely to prove problematic). Then, after detailed studies of the biology of the wasps, they took their progeny to West Africa where, against the odds, they found a way to turn a few wasps into hundreds of thousands. They released the hundreds of thousands of wasps and, amazingly, the wasps and their progeny spread across Africa, destroying the mealybugs and saving the cassava crop for hundreds of millions of Africans. The same story would later be repeated in Asia. A small group of scientists, each of them an expert in some obscure facet of the biological world, saved millions of people from hunger.
> If plants that do not produce pesticides are planted near crops that do, pests will preferentially devour the defenseless, pesticide-free, crops. These pesticide-free crops are called refuge crops: they provide refuge to susceptible pests. In such situations, resistant pests might evolve, but any individual resistant pests will be most likely to mate with the more successful pesticide-susceptible individuals that are feeding on the refuge plants that do not produce pesticide. The genes for resistance stay rare in the pests
> Today, the sidewalls of car tires and the entirety of airplane tires are made from latex that flows from trees of the species Hevea brasiliensis. These trees grow wild in the Amazon rain forest but cannot be grown on plantations there because they are very susceptible to pests and parasites. As a result, almost all the rubber in the world comes from plantations in tropical Asia. There, it grows, having escaped its pests and parasites. But it is only a matter of time before those pests and parasites catch up, and when they do, it has been estimated that the entirety of the global production of rubber could be wiped out within a decade
> Some C-section babies, by chance, ingest fecal microbes from elsewhere in their environment. From dogs. From the soil. From wherever those microbes might be found. In doing so, they acquire the microbes they need. But this chance pickup of necessary microbes has a statute of limitations, at least in humans. As babies get older, it is progressively more difficult for them to acquire new gut microbes, both because those microbes must compete with microbes that are already established and because the human stomach, while neutral at birth, becomes more acidic in the first year
> roughly two to three million years ago, an ancient human species appears to have evolved a change in the gene that produces a type of sugar found on red blood cells, the sugar to which one type of malaria parasite binds; that change made them immune to this ancient malaria for millions of years. Roughly ten thousand years ago, somewhere in tropical Africa, a strain of gorilla malaria made the jump to humans. In doing so, it evolved the ability to cope with human red blood cells and their lack of key sugars. It also diverged, eventually becoming a new species now called Plasmodium falciparum
> parasites from the crops of the Americas caught up with crops that had been moved. The arrival of the potato blight in Ireland reunited the potato with an ancient enemy from which it had escaped.
> one example of the relationship between species diversity and area for island-like habitats, ants in street medians and parks in Manhattan. … Savage, Amy M., Britné Hackett, Benoit Guénard, Elsa K. Youngsteadt, and Robert R. Dunn, “Fine-Scale Heterogeneity Across Manhattan’s Urban Habitat Mosaic Is Associated with Variation in Ant Composition and Richness,” Insect Conservation and Diversity 8, no. 3 (2015): 216–228.
> all the worst things we can imagine doing to Earth—nuclear war, climate change, massive pollution, habitat loss, and all the rest—may affect multicellular species like us but are unlikely to lead to the extinction of most major lineages on the evolutionary tree. What is more, in the face of our worst assaults, many of the most unusual lineages would actually be more likely to thrive
May 14, 2024
Książka jest super ciekawa jednak styl autora trochę utrudnia odbiór. Główne wątki można by opisać w o połowę krótszym tekście.
Przewidywania autora w pierwszej części co do migracji gatunków w związku ze zmianami klimatu są raczej oczywiste dla osób zainteresowanych tematem. Nisze ekologiczne będą się przesuwały wraz ze wzrostem temperatury i dla własnego dobra powinniśmy ułatwiać migrację zwierzętom. Najciekawsza chyba była druga część książki, która dotyczyła bardziej ewolucji i przystosowywania się gatunków do trudniejszych warunków. Wyścig zbrojeń, ludzie kontra szkodniki, może się skończyć bardzo źle, a są stosunkowo proste metody spowalniające adaptację gatunków niepożądanych. Niestety w naszej krótkowzroczności nie wszędzie je stosujemy i konsekwencje mogą być dramatyczne.
Autor fajnie wytłumaczył bioróżnorodność i przyrównał ją do dywersyfikacji portfela inwestycyjnego. Takiego porównania nie sposób zignorować. Większa liczba gatunków to większe bezpieczeństwo.
W podsumowaniu Dunn słusznie punktuje, że ostatecznie ludzie i te wszystkie ginące gatunki nie mają znaczenia. Istnieją całe gałęzie życia mikroskopijnego, które świetnie sobie radziły przed nami i będą żyły po nas. Życie przetrwa. Jesteśmy nic nie znaczącym gatunkiem, którego zniknięcie nikogo oprócz nas nie obchodzi, a nawet bym powiedział, że i nas samych też to niespecjalnie obchodzi.
Przewidywania autora w pierwszej części co do migracji gatunków w związku ze zmianami klimatu są raczej oczywiste dla osób zainteresowanych tematem. Nisze ekologiczne będą się przesuwały wraz ze wzrostem temperatury i dla własnego dobra powinniśmy ułatwiać migrację zwierzętom. Najciekawsza chyba była druga część książki, która dotyczyła bardziej ewolucji i przystosowywania się gatunków do trudniejszych warunków. Wyścig zbrojeń, ludzie kontra szkodniki, może się skończyć bardzo źle, a są stosunkowo proste metody spowalniające adaptację gatunków niepożądanych. Niestety w naszej krótkowzroczności nie wszędzie je stosujemy i konsekwencje mogą być dramatyczne.
Autor fajnie wytłumaczył bioróżnorodność i przyrównał ją do dywersyfikacji portfela inwestycyjnego. Takiego porównania nie sposób zignorować. Większa liczba gatunków to większe bezpieczeństwo.
W podsumowaniu Dunn słusznie punktuje, że ostatecznie ludzie i te wszystkie ginące gatunki nie mają znaczenia. Istnieją całe gałęzie życia mikroskopijnego, które świetnie sobie radziły przed nami i będą żyły po nas. Życie przetrwa. Jesteśmy nic nie znaczącym gatunkiem, którego zniknięcie nikogo oprócz nas nie obchodzi, a nawet bym powiedział, że i nas samych też to niespecjalnie obchodzi.
December 23, 2021
I loved the new perspective the author brought to subjects and concepts I’m already very familiar with. And it’s a valuable book for those who aren’t familiar with them yet. He packages it all in a way that felt so fresh to me. The last page, with a reference to Gould material that I first read in the eighties, still packed a punch like it was new. The author was also balanced in presentation, pointing out the pitfalls of our wayward ways and putting us in a geological context without resorting to hyperbole.
I did learn some new facts along the way and enjoyed the bits about the scientists that did the work (including the author, who has been a very busy bee). I also enjoyed the occasional humor.
I did learn some new facts along the way and enjoyed the bits about the scientists that did the work (including the author, who has been a very busy bee). I also enjoyed the occasional humor.
July 22, 2022
A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us About the Destiny of the Human Species by Rob Dunn (Basic Books New York 2021) (304.2) (3666).
Rob Dunn has convinced me that humans are doomed. That’s right. We - the most dominant species on planet Earth - are headed inevitably toward extinction and into the dustbin of history. Period. Just like the dinosaurs, and just like the trilobites before them.
This became clear when Dunn recited what he referred to as “The First Law of Paleontology”: Homo sapiens, like every other species, will go extinct. (p.249).
Here’s his argument in his own words:
“Our own family on the tree of life, the hominids (which includes modern and extinct humans and modern and extinct apes), evolved roughly seventeen million years ago. By the time hominids began to evolve, essentially all the major branches on the tree of life had already been around for hundreds of millions or even billions of years. Some had lived through periods devoid of oxygen, others through periods with dangerously high concentrations of oxygen. Some had lived through extreme heat, others extreme cold. These lineages survived these changes as well as others (triggered by meteors, volcanoes, and more) either through broad tolerances or by finding small habitats, here and there, in which their preferred conditions, whatever they might be, persisted. The average conditions seventeen million years ago were relatively hostile for many lineages, but not for our own ancestors, the first hominids.
By the time the first monkey-sized hominids evolved, the oxygen levels in the environment were essentially those we now experience. Carbon dioxide levels were slightly higher though, as were temperatures. These were conditions that were conducive to early hominids. By the time Homo erectus evolved, about 1.9 million years ago, concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide and temperatures were essentially what we experience today, if anything a little cooler. They were conditions that we would now perceive as relatively pleasant. This isn’t chance. Most of the features of our bodies related to our ability to withstand heat, the ability to sweat and even the details of our respiration, evolved during this period. Our lineage, in other words, like many modern lineages, is fine-tuned for the conditions of the last 1.9 million years, conditions that have been rare for nearly all of the long history of Earth.
Our bodies evolved to take advantage of a relatively unusual set of conditions that we think of as normal. It is easy to take those conditions for granted, but the truth is that the more we warm Earth, the less our bodies are suited to the world around us. The more we change the world, the more we increase the disconnect between the conditions we need to thrive and the world we live in. On the other hand, species that evolved their adaptations for temperature, gasses, and other conditions in the remote past and held on not through further adaptation but, instead, by finding small pockets of such conditions have the potential to persist and in some cases even to thrive, even as we make Earth warmer and, relative to our own needs and tolerances, polluted.” (pp. 239-241)
Dunn says that the average longevity of animal species appears to be around two million years; Homo sapiens evolved about two hundred thousand years ago. Dunn explains further:
“The only species that tend to survive much longer than a few million years are microbes, some of which can go into long dormancy. Recently a research team in Japan gathered bacteria from deep beneath the sea. The bacteria were estimated to be more than a hundred million years old. The team gave the bacteria oxygen and food and then watched. After a few weeks the dormant bacteria, which had last respired during the dawn of mammals, began to respire again and divide.
It is tempting to imagine in the far future, humans will figure out how to achieve bacteria-like suspended animation. But such imaginings are the sort of hubris to which our species has long been susceptible, the hubris of believing ourselves to be exempt from the laws of life. Our best bet for extending our stay on this planet is a humbler one: to pay attention to the laws of life and work with them rather than against them.” (pp.249-250).
I read this book and am writing this review in the middle of a historic heat wave across Europe and the US. Around the world, coastal areas are becoming uninhabitable as sea levels rise.
Scientists no longer attempt to argue that the changes to Earth’s climate can be attributed to anything other than man’s ignoring the laws of nature. We may have already set into motion such irreversible changes that Earth’s climatic conditions can no longer support our species. The sad part is that we have charted the same course for mammals. Then avians. Then reptiles, and then amphibians.
Dunn says that insects (most notably ants) will still exist - at least until they don’t. Dunn puts it this way:
“Once the ants are gone, it will remain the age of bacteria, or more generally microbial life, at least until conditions eventually become, for any of a variety of cosmic reasons, too extreme for microbes too. Then it will be quiet, a planet, once more, moved by physics and chemistry alone, a planet on which the innumerable rules of life no longer apply.” (p.267)
This is sobering. I am convinced.
I’m going outside for a while before it gets any hotter.
My rating: 8/10, finished 7/21/22 (3666).
February 15, 2023
this book was an ultimate chill pill for my athropo-centric brain.
it felt like one of those videos where the view infinitely zooms out, but every frame is backed by huge amounts of data and work of many scientists and disciplines.
rob dunn presents very concrete information, but in a whimsical and poetic way, which was for me very soothing, felt like finally learning something amidst all the noise and panic and fear for the future. he is like a therapist for the climate anxiety obsessed.
you walk away with an intimate knowledge of just how small and fragile the human branch is on the tree of life - but man it’s a beautiful tree.
it felt like one of those videos where the view infinitely zooms out, but every frame is backed by huge amounts of data and work of many scientists and disciplines.
rob dunn presents very concrete information, but in a whimsical and poetic way, which was for me very soothing, felt like finally learning something amidst all the noise and panic and fear for the future. he is like a therapist for the climate anxiety obsessed.
you walk away with an intimate knowledge of just how small and fragile the human branch is on the tree of life - but man it’s a beautiful tree.
March 13, 2022
Like many others, this book is a gentle reminder that our species has a heavy impact on Earth's environment. But, unlike some, it doesn't forecast the end of the world. No matter how much we pollute, regardless of how many nukes we drop, we can't stop nature. Sure, we can kill ourselves, and take several species with us. Not just those we kill off by encroaching on their habitats or accidentally poisoning them with pesticides, herbicides, or inadvertent side effects of various ill considered actions. A lot of species have evolved to depend on us. When we snuff it, there's a good chance so will they. Dogs, cows, chickens, and the fleas, mites, and various other parasites that rely on us may also become extinct. But fear not. Life will go on, and evolution will continue. New species will emerge to fill empty niches. They won't be descended from us, and they probably won't be sapient (at least not anytime soon), but Earth will still have life. Even if things really get bad, bacteria will still be here, and given time, bacteria can't evolve into all sorts of things. The sun may set on us, but it's likely to still be shining for a few more billion years. The planet will continue to turn. There will be many more tomorrows. We may not be there, but life will go on. Now, doesn't that make you feel better?
January 25, 2022
Must read to understand the ecology and biology of the future. Details how humans are changing the world's ecology and what we can do to bring along a more sustainable biological future.
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