The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease? Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich… Product details and pricing info |
|---|
17 Customer Reviews Posted
- The Self-Destructive Animal...
- Lepidopterist Paul Ehrlich has fulfilled the role of doomsayer since at least 1968. In that year his famous (to some infamous) book "The Population Bomb" predicted catastrophic famines, death, and misery for the late twentieth century. Many of these prophesies never materialized - a fact that did not go unnoticed. As such, some critics have referred to Ehrlich as a "reverse Cassandra," namely, he's often wrong but many people keep believing him. But wrong predictions, even fantastically wrong ones, shouldn't necessarily invalidate the frameworks within which they're made. After all, many have wrongly predicted, often embarrassingly so, the return of Jesus Christ, but this hasn't caused the downfall of Christianity (though it may possibly inspire increased skepticism). Humans are bad prophets. Most of our predictions turn up wrong, even those supported by persuasive evidence. But bad predictions alone shouldn't invalidate warnings or precautions. Timing plays a fundamental role. Some predictions have longer gestation periods than others. The recent housing crash provides a textbook case. For years people said "it won't happen" and dismissed pessimism with the wave of a mortgage statement. Though some of the early crash predictions were premature, the catastrophe nonetheless occurred. Let's hope we're not in for a repeat experience with the global environment.
Along those lines, the tone of the Ehrlichs' latest book (Paul's wife, Anne, co-authored) may cause, for some critics, more eye-rolling skepticism. After all, who wants to believe we're destroying our own world? We're still here even though many claim that we should have done ourselves in by now. But just because we haven't doesn't preclude the possibility. Remember the housing crash. Ehrlich's "The Dominant Animal" delineates the mounting evidence that something nasty may be on the horizon if we don't act. Let's hope he's wrong (again). Or, better yet, let's hope we act.
The book weaves a few topical threads together in a slight hodge-podge manner. Though the title suggests a narrative of humanity's glorious rise to prominence, the book really focuses on our self-destructive side. In fact, "The Self-Destructive Animal" may have served as a more accurate title. In any case, a main theme, and paradox, bundles the threads: Humanity possesses genetic and cultural endowments that have risen us to earthy dominance, but those same elements may ultimately destroy us. Three main problems sprout from this paradox: overpopulation, economic inequality, and environmental erosion. Ehrlich sees possible salvation in uncovering the workings of culture. Though this, again paradoxically, has also led us to our predicament. He claims that we need a Darwin of cultural evolution to uncover the mechanisms that move cultural evolution. Compared to genetics, culture can move quickly. This argument implies that some means of influencing culture possibly exists, and can be used for positive ends. Many would argue that the tools of mass communication already influence culture, but also in negative ways. What Ehrlich wants to accomplish by unearthing the engines of culture remains nebulous. And the fact that such methods, if discoverable, could also wreak unparalleled havoc isn't mentioned. Though the book contains voluminous fascinating facts and ideas around humanity's rise, our genetic makeup, our history, and our pending problems, the cultural evolution threads that ooze between them seem undeveloped. A nagging question also lingers as to cultural evolution's effectiveness for solving society's problems. Doubtless much work needs to be done on this front.
"The Dominant Animal" fares better when adumbrating the human predicament. We are living paradoxes. The idea that we're not running out of energy, but we are running out of environment will surprise many readers. In addition, most of the big, and now familiar, hot button issues also appear: water supply, weather, climate change, global heating, biodiversity, corrupt governments, ecosystem complexity (manifest in the disastrous "Biosphere 2" project), pollution, alternative energy, resource wars, the toxification of the environment, the dilemma of economic growth, and countless others. The book packs quite an overwhelming wallop. Like a beached whale, it risks being crushed by its own weight in places. If anything it suffers from overambition. But that doesn't detract from its overall intriguing readability and its main argument that we may be on a collision course with our own laudable attributes. In the end, if we want to remain earth's dominant animal we need to find balance. Ehrlich's (and Ehrlich's) book provides a framework with which anyone can enter this vital, and often melancholy, topic. - 2008-12-05, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The Dominant Animal
- Tedious and convoluted. Supposed scientific objectivity transmogrified into subjective opinion and political bias. Unreadable. Save a tree, do not buy this book.
- 2008-10-21, 7 of 13 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The Other Dominant Animals
- I read this book several times. Each time I was surprised. The Dominant Animal begins by considering the ways in which humans influence the environment and the environment, modified by humans, shapes everything else. The book then parades through the delightful minds of Paul and Anne Ehrlich. In that parade one will see, more clearly presented than you will find anywhere else, the intertwined stories of human culture, evolution, and human actions toward and in the environment and how those have changed through time. In the parade one will find Darwin, Wallace, and the early history of evolution alongside traditional peoples living as hunter- gatherers in villages, sequoia trees and tangled banks.
The Ehrlichs' tone in the Dominant Animal is both friendly and approachable. Again and again the reader feels as though she has had something logical and intuitive revealed to her. Natural Selection, in the Ehrlichs' hands seems obvious, as does much else in the story of life and the human domination of it. It is easy to find oneself nodding again and again with what this book has to say. The surprise is what the clearly explained facts lead to; the train wreck of our current situation. Every time I read the book, I find myself forgetting what is coming and then there it is, in front of me, the other train.
It is clear early in the book that much is wrong in the world and that those problems have tremendous consequences. Yet this not a doomsday book. Most of the book is actually about the basics of ecology and evolution. There are chapters on evolution, culture, cultural evolution, the interactions between genes and the environment, and even how we perceive the world and how that perception influences our decisions. The book, in walking carefully through those basics all framed around the story of humans, would be very useful for an undergraduate biology course. Each chapter is, in and of itself, a kind of essay or perhaps more so a kind of Ehrlichian lecture; wide ranging, thought provoking and ultimately wound together into a strong thesis. The book binds these essays into a broader thesis about who we are and can be as humans. The Ehrlich's have looked further into the future than most scientists are willing to. They have at times been proven wrong, but more often they have just proven ahead of schedule. To read this book is to see what they are thinking now and, if history serves, to see what, for all of us, lays ahead.
After laying a clear foundation for understanding built on insights drawn from ecology, evolution, anthropology, economics and lifetimes spent talking with others of the ecological intelligentsia, the Ehrlichs turn to what remains before us. Natural selection favored beavers who built damns that improved their environments and improved their odds of surviving. Dammed ponds are, to beavers, a better environment than the one they found when they arrived. Humans, instead of dams, built cities and roads and global networks of communication and commerce. Instead of making our environment better for ourselves we have, in many ways, made it worse, less conducive to our own survival. Beavers dam ponds, but we've, in our way, damned ourselves. Reading this book will make clear the complex causes of this situation, why we've arrived at this point in history and where, if we are wise, we might go from here. This book is full of nuance and joy but also the ecological and evolutionary realities of our situation.
In reading this book I was reminded of another new book, The Superorganism by Burt Holldobler and Ed Wilson (I recently reviewed the book for Natural History Magazine). In The Superorganism, Holldobler and Wilson consider the simple rules that ultimately hold insect societies together. They are rules about communication and division of labor. They are rules that are reinforced because those colonies that do not work efficiently and effectively to produce new generations, fail to pass on their genes. The organization of The Dominant Animal is similar to The Superorganism. In both there are chapters about the evolution of societies, about the rise and fall of populations, and about how societies shape the environment around them. The difference between the stories of humans and those of insect societies is pointed out by Holldobler and Wilson who indicate that unlike ants, humans are conscious of what they are doing and make decisions about their fate. The Ehrlichs are perhaps less optimistic about humans ability to make the right decisions about their societies and the environments of which they are a part. Yet the last chapter of The Dominant Animal is, in part, a foundation for the kinds of rules and governance necessary to sustain human societies. If human societies really are more self-aware and self-determined than those of ants then the ideas laid out in the Ehrlichs' chapters "Saving our Natural Capital" and "Governance: Tackling Unanticipated Consequences" are what we should be paying attention to. Dysfunctional societies of ants are rare because those that were did not pass along their genes. Let's hope that we can choose to determine our fate rather than, like the ant colonies that didn't make it, letting selection decide.
Rob Dunn
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology, North Carolina State University - 2008-10-20, 3 of 6 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Must Read: Informing, rewarding, and inspiring
- In an easily readable style that resists simplifying the complex relationship between humans and their environment, this book explains why we find ourselves facing the almost overwhelming challenges confronting us and future generations; challenges such as global warming, the threat of nuclear war, resource scarcity and skyrocketing energy prices. Finally, a book that treated me like an adult who wants to be educated without being subjected to fear-mongering, demonizing those who made decisions which resulted in unintended consequences, or making me feel dumb for not having a sophisticated background in science. I loved it! What a great gift for my friends and family who want to make sense of this world but don't want to feel "beat up," manipulated or discouraged when the final page is turned.
The book links genetics-culture-population- perception-energy- consumption- ecosystems and globalization and concludes by describing governance and individual choices that can reverse the current momentum towards an increasingly unstable and inequitable world. It fluctuates between being very discouraging and very energizing, calling for intelligent action.
Forty years after The Population Bomb shaped a generation, The Dominant Animal may help redirect our personal choices in our homes and in the ballot box.
Joan Diamond
MBA - 2008-10-04, 2 of 4 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The Story of Evolution, Humankind, Environment, --All in One
- The Ehrlich's have produced a magistral review of everything the reader needs to know in order to properly understand what humankind is doing to the global environment. The background education offered on evolutionary biology, the evolution of culture, and the global environment, is breathtaking, and at times demanding of the reader. The most important part of the book is the last third, which tackles the current state of the earth and prospects and prescriptions for the future.This is an important book and deserves reading by decision-makers and informed citizens. I recommend it!
- 2008-09-24, 0 of 4 people found this review helpful, Rated:
