A provocative thesis agreeably presented.
Music played a key role in making societies and civilizations possible.
So argues research scientist Levitin (Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise/McGill University; This Is Your Brain on Music, 2006, etc.), who believes that music and the human brain co-evolved. What distinguishes us from all other species, he declares, is not language or use of tools, but the impulse toward artistic expression. The auditory art of music became part of our brain’s wiring tens of thousands of years ago, and human nature has been shaped by six broad categories of songs, by which Levitin means music of all kinds. Devoting a chapter to each category—friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love—the author speculates about its origins and how it influenced the human spirit over thousands of generations. Levitin sees songs as efficient systems for preserving tribal histories, transmitting essential how-to information from generation to generation and communicating spiritual feelings and deep emotions. In his discussion of the music of friendship, he explores the role of synchronous, coordinated song and movement in creating strong bonds between early humans, arguing that these allowed the formation of large groups and, eventually, society as we know it. Besides citing research by sociologists, linguists, psychologists and biologists, the author illustrates his line of reasoning with a multitude of examples from his own extensive musical experience. Excerpts from familiar songs, conversations with musicians he knows and anecdotes from his years in the music industry make this an enjoyable and easy read. Whether evolutionary scientists will be persuaded remains to be seen, but they will surely be entertained.
A provocative thesis agreeably presented.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-525-95073-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pollinators are the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal world: They just don't get no respect. So claim entomologist Buchmann (Hayden Bee Research Center) and Nabhan (Director of science/Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum) in this at once delightful and disturbing tour d'horizon of those for whom the flowers bloom. ``One in every three mouthfuls of food we eat, and of beverages we drink'' is served up to us by pollinators, notes E.O. Wilson in his introduction. Butterflies are out there working for us, as are the hummingbirds and fig wasps, pygmy gliders and panurgine bees, carrying pollen to stigma, allowing seeds to set. Pollination is one of nature's vital processes, fine-tuned and mesmeric in its endless cycles, feedback loops, checks and balances. But as in so many other instances, humans are busy as the bees disrupting the process, bombing pollinators with pesticides, fragmenting their habitat, cutting off the nectar corridors, such that the ``current rate of species loss constitutes a biodiversity crisis of unprecedented proportions.'' Buchmann provides the hard science of the pollinators' world: flower stalk architecture and nectar chemistry and flowering sequences; Nabhan contributes a felicitous dose of pleasing prose, framed as anecdotal remembrances: He's never happier than when poking about in a sere landscape, following the monarch butterflies on their winter migration, taking stock of the floral pantries. While this book can only be considered a preliminary investigation, trends indicate that pollinators may be getting ever more limited in supply as their world shrinks around them. Buchmann and Nabhan make the case for increased wildlands, intact forests, an ecological approach that prevents pollinator habitat from becoming islands, thus coffins, in a developed landscape. A cautionary tale: Kill the pollinators and you might as well kill yourself. Another of nature's elegant loops. (b&w illustrations) (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-55963-352-2
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Shearwater/Island Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
A thorough, often riveting review of research on homosexuality and male-female differences. ``Amid the chaos of debate is the virtual certainty that the biological origins of sexual orientation will become known to us,'' writes journalist Burr, who penned a controversial 1993 article on the subject for the Atlantic Monthly. He has to be congratulated for providing a fine summary and preview of what is politically one of the hottest topics today. He does it by stressing the science, by using lengthy quotes from the investigators, and by asking questions that go beyond the disputes and data to tap the attitudes and philosophies of the scientists themselves. The recent furor dates to 1993, when National Cancer Institute investigator Dean Hamer reported that sexual orientation was at least in part due to maternal inheritance of a gene located on the X chromosome. But Burr and his corps of experts underscore that genes are not destiny and exhort all to bury forever the nature/nurture dichotomy. The X locus Hamer has found is a part of the biological picture, and to explore it, Burr treats the reader to a primer on fetal development, the role of androgens and estrogens in creating males from the ``default'' female pattern, and the influence of hormones on the brain. His concluding chapters touch on the heart of the political/social/ethical dilemmas—the guarantee that there will be not only tests for the sex-orientation gene (or genes) but micro- gene-chips that will tell you what could be in store for your potential offspring—with all the Brave New World scenarios that engenders. Burr ends with a brief commentary on the conflict between science and religion and the peculiar irony of the current debate, which finds conservatives plumping for homosexuality as an immoral ``lifestyle choice'' while liberals may say it's all in the genes. By this time the savvy reader—thanks to Burr's excellent exposition—can say, A pox on both their houses.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-6081-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
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