A thoughtful examination of the role of aging and death in supporting life.
An advancement of the challenging theory that, along with growth and puberty, aging also unfolds “on a schedule programmed into the regulatory portion of our DNA.”
At first glance, this would appear to contradict “the fundamental premise of Darwinian evolution,” survival of the fittest, the principle of natural selection epitomized by the “selfish gene,” a term coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976). Theoretical biologist Mitteldorf and ecological philosopher Sagan (Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science, 2013, etc.) make a convincing case for broadening the generally accepted neo-Darwinian framework, which incorporates the role of the genome in shaping the individual, to include species evolution and the relationship between individual survival and survival of the ecosystem on which it depends. They address the seeming paradox that “genes for aging have been fixed in the genome, despite the fact that these genes work against themselves.” By limiting the reproductive potential of the aging individual, they play an important role in evolution. The authors contend that death and aging are crucial to the existence of “stable ecosystems in nature.” Without them, unchecked reproduction would lead to major extinction events and the destruction of ecosystems. Mitteldorf and Sagan suggest that aging and death have evolved to moderate what might otherwise be untrammeled reproduction by predators, leading to the destruction of their prey and their own extinction. Natural selection operates to create a balance between longer life expectancy and greater fertility. Death and aging play a necessary role by regulating population growth in order to create the space for “populations of living things to evolve rapidly and efficiently.” This leads the authors to the provocative conclusion that if we accept the goal of increasing longevity and the long-term survival of the human species, we must also accept the idea of zero population growth.
A thoughtful examination of the role of aging and death in supporting life.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-06170-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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