The author’s offbeat view of human evolution makes for lively reading and invites readers to think deeply about some of his...
by Nathan H. Lents ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2018
Natural selection made us what we are today, and that is deeply flawed. So argues Lents (Biology/John Jay Coll., CUNY; Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals, 2016) in his second book.
The problem is that selection happens through random mutations, which are rarely useful. When good, the bearer may leave more offspring and spread the change to future generations. So over millions of years of evolution, our species has been shaped, but not to a state of engineered elegance according to some master plan. By way of demonstration, Lents lists some of our serious defects: The retinas of our eyes face backward so that light has to pass through nerve fibers to reach the photoreceptors. Gravity (from bipedalism) strains the knee’s delicate ligament structure. We suffer more colds than other species because of the poor design of the mucus drainage system to our sinuses. The author goes on to review defects in the human genome itself and in major systems: An overactive immune system can result in autoimmune disease and allergies. Regarding reproduction, the hazards to successful conception and childbirth are such that it is a wonder the species has survived. At points in the text, Lents explores cultural evolution, such as the formation of pair bonds and the division of labor, as well as the fixes that science has developed to fight some of our flaws. These aspects are further developed in the final chapters, as the author describes foibles of the brain, including false memory, optical illusions, and various forms of bias and illogical thinking. He goes on to ponder the fate of the species, growing ever more speculative: Maybe stem cells, gene editing, and other miracles of medicine will render us immortal, and maybe we can move to other planets. Or maybe we will implode, since we are already overpopulated and prone to violence and destruction of the environment.
The author’s offbeat view of human evolution makes for lively reading and invites readers to think deeply about some of his wilder conjectures.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-32897469-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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by Hope Jahren ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2016
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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