The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
Lucy Cooke
Basic Books
Nonfiction, Animals/History/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since humans first began noticing the natural world, misconceptions have abounded - not just in folklore or myths, but in the works of apparent experts and theoretically learned people... and not just in ancient times. It's not all just harmless ignorance, either; bad press and flawed understanding can substantially harm conservation efforts and the future of our planet. Zoologist and author Lucy Cooke examines several species that have borne the brunt of our species's seeming inability to separate fact from fiction and superstition from science, from bats to storks and eels to hippos, even the venerated panda.
REVIEW: Anthropomorphizing nature is one of the oldest human traits, turning them into supernatural agents or morality lessons or embodiments of our own aspirations or failings or plain old wishful thinking. Unfortunately, this idealized thinking can prove a serious problem when one is trying to understand the truth, as demonstrated in this examination of several key species. One would think that we'd be over that by now as a species, or at least science would be over that as a discipline, with our advanced understanding of so many fields and our increasing awareness of our own faults, but, as Cooke demonstrates, even in modern times myths and mysteries persist, with many secrets the natural world is still reluctant to offer up for our edification.
With a focus on the "Western" world's views of nature and how the roots of science and understanding were so hopelessly entangled with ideas that appear quite ridiculous now (but at the time were often implicitly believed to be true), Cooke explores the history of natural science and the people who both advanced and regressed the field. From the notion that eels spontaneously generated in river mud to beavers having hidden human-like communities complete with law enforcement, many false notions were rooted in the ancient classical world, where armchair experts repeated travelers tales as gospel truth, often with a dash of moralizing that would be raised to an art form in medieval bestiaries. Animals like the sloth were dismissed and denigrated by Europeans as "useless", when in fact their slow-motion lifestyle is such a successful way to survive in their native habitat that it evolved twice, while bats were treated as agents of evil in much of the world because theoretically intelligent H. sapiens brains apparently could not wrap their minds around something that couldn't be neatly defined as "beast" or "bird", and hyenas were considered cowardly and nasty because they just plain look less noble than a lion (who, it turns out, scavenge hyena kills more often than hyenas scavenge lion kills, despite popular media depictions). Even scientists in "enlightened" ages often skewed data based on their own religious or moral assumptions, even deliberately burying observations they deemed "unsuitable" for general knowledge (such as the sex lives of penguins - especially ironic, given how the nature documentary March of the Penguins was embraced in conservative circles as depicting an ideal monogamous family). Politics also invariably come into play; for many years, it was a commonly understood "fact" that North American animals (and, of course, natives) were inferior to their European counterparts in every conceivable way... a notion that was difficult to dislodge when most of the "experts" penning natural science resided in Europe. Even today, politics warps popular perceptions: for instance, "panda diplomacy" has created a highly artificial image of the panda as a cutesy but clumsy and naturally deficient "teddy bear" in desperate need of human intervention to even reproduce, when in fact human interference and captive breeding has created an entire population of animals so divorced from their very capable wild cousins that reintroductions almost invariably end in disaster. (As for the notion they can't even breed competently, that's yet another result of humans projecting human ideas and moralities onto wild animals; pandas breed just fine outside of captivity, just not very well in monogamous pairings that are forced on them in zoos.) The only thing they need from people is to be left alone with sufficient natural habitat to survive... but that's something nobody seems particularly interested in hearing, let alone doing, even in their native country. And then there's how people have used/abused animals through the ages, where even the best intentions often go awry; the African clawed frog, once a boon in the days before simple chemical strip pregnancy tests, is responsible for the worldwide spread of a toxic fungus devastating global amphibian populations after they escaped or were released into nonnative environments.
As part of her research, Cooke talked with many working conservationists and scientists who are doing their level best to dispel old myths and bad press before time runs out on the conservation clock, as it has for too many species. Misunderstandings and mysteries still plague the field, despite modern technology being brought to bear on matters such as eel reproduction (a reverse-salmon situation, where adults breed in the ocean and the young swim upriver to live for years until returning to the Sargasso Sea to breed... though, as of the book's writing, apparently even now nobody has witnessed the act). There is still so much to learn (and unlearn), even as a fresh tide of intentional ignorance seems to be rising globally in the form of authoritarian governments and would-be theocrats gaining traction.
At times, I'd hoped for a little less focus on the "Western" perception of animals, and maybe a little more on how native populations considered the creatures they lived beside for countless generations (though even they were not above anthropomorphizing and other misunderstandings). The whole is a plea for humans to step off our pedestal and actually look at the world around us, that we are part of (little as many seem willing to admit it). Seen on their own terms, even the "lowest" and "ugliest" animal is valuable and wonderful, with much to teach us if we're willing to learn... which we can't do until we stop insisting we're the pinnacle to which all others should kneel in subservience.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal) - My Review
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Friday, October 25, 2024
Friday, December 15, 2023
Other Minds (Peter Godfrey-Smith)
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Nonfiction, Animals/Philosophy/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For a long time, many humans - especially in the "Western" world - considered ourselves the sole thinking, self-aware animals on Earth. But that kind of thinking, even assuming it was true, never answered questions about how we came to possess the brains we have, able to process information and ideas as we can. More recently, research has shown us we are not as alone as we think we are; other animals have been shown to demonstrate behaviors and brain patterns we once reserved exclusively for ourselves, with increasing evidence that they possess some sort of "inner lives" too... but what might that look like? How and why, indeed, did minds like this evolve? Searching for answers, philosopher and scientist Peter Godfrey-Smith turns to animals with remarkable intelligence, animals that diverged from our own ancestors long before even the Cambrian "explosion" of life, animals that some have called the closest we humans may ever get to encountering a truly alien mind: the octopus.
REVIEW: This is an interesting exploration of the evolutionary roots of brains and consciousness, a process that has led to two very different "solutions" in humans and cephalopods. To understand philosophical questions of awareness and what being a nonhuman is like, one must understand something about how humans and nonhumans came to be, the biological and environmental and social pressures that drove what was once a presumably content free-floating cell to transform over countless generations into the remarkably complex life forms with remarkably complex behaviors that we're familiar with today. Through fossil records, gene sequencing, experiments, and more, some truly mind-boggling answers have come to light, particularly in recent years - answers that, in true scientific fashion, lead to even more questions. It is difficult enough to put ourselves into the mind of another mammal, or even a bird, but the cephalopods are further removed from us on an evolutionary scale even than insects, and the intelligence they've developed may be that much further beyond our imagination, suited to entirely different bodies and lifestyles than anything remotely familiar to us. It makes for some interesting thought experiments, if nothing else.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal) - My Review
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy (Arik Kershenbaum) - My Review
Your Inner Fish (Neil Shubin) - My Review
Peter Godfrey-Smith
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Nonfiction, Animals/Philosophy/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For a long time, many humans - especially in the "Western" world - considered ourselves the sole thinking, self-aware animals on Earth. But that kind of thinking, even assuming it was true, never answered questions about how we came to possess the brains we have, able to process information and ideas as we can. More recently, research has shown us we are not as alone as we think we are; other animals have been shown to demonstrate behaviors and brain patterns we once reserved exclusively for ourselves, with increasing evidence that they possess some sort of "inner lives" too... but what might that look like? How and why, indeed, did minds like this evolve? Searching for answers, philosopher and scientist Peter Godfrey-Smith turns to animals with remarkable intelligence, animals that diverged from our own ancestors long before even the Cambrian "explosion" of life, animals that some have called the closest we humans may ever get to encountering a truly alien mind: the octopus.
REVIEW: This is an interesting exploration of the evolutionary roots of brains and consciousness, a process that has led to two very different "solutions" in humans and cephalopods. To understand philosophical questions of awareness and what being a nonhuman is like, one must understand something about how humans and nonhumans came to be, the biological and environmental and social pressures that drove what was once a presumably content free-floating cell to transform over countless generations into the remarkably complex life forms with remarkably complex behaviors that we're familiar with today. Through fossil records, gene sequencing, experiments, and more, some truly mind-boggling answers have come to light, particularly in recent years - answers that, in true scientific fashion, lead to even more questions. It is difficult enough to put ourselves into the mind of another mammal, or even a bird, but the cephalopods are further removed from us on an evolutionary scale even than insects, and the intelligence they've developed may be that much further beyond our imagination, suited to entirely different bodies and lifestyles than anything remotely familiar to us. It makes for some interesting thought experiments, if nothing else.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal) - My Review
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy (Arik Kershenbaum) - My Review
Your Inner Fish (Neil Shubin) - My Review
Friday, October 27, 2023
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy (Arik Kershenbaum)
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens - and Ourselves
Arik Kershenbaum
Penguin Press
Nonfiction, Animals/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For generations, humans have speculated on what life on other worlds might be like. Given the many strange surprises and wonders that have evolved on Earth, and in the most unlikely of places, what could an entirely alien ecosystem produce? So far, aside from speculation (and innumerable offerings of science fiction and Hollywood), nobody knows, but it is possible to make some educated guesses. After all, while the details may be unknowable (such as whether alien biomes would use DNA as a basic genetic material, or show right/left body symmetry as the majority of Earth animals do), some things - the basic physics of locomotion, a need to consume nutrients and reproduce, adaptability in the face of changes and the opening or closing of niches, the constant trade-offs of advantages and disadvantages, and more - are quite likely to be universal. Zoologist Kershenbaum draws on our own world's prehistory and other sources to offer educated guesses on what we might find if we ever manage to glimpse life on another world.
REVIEW: Drawing on what we understand of evolution and adaptation from the first living microbes to the current Anthropocene age, plus several other disciplines such as mathematics, linguistics, studies of animal intelligence and communication methods, probability and "game theory" behaviors, and more, author Kershenbaum offers compelling arguments that, while we of course can't conjecture specifics of alien life, we can make some very educated guesses about what such life might look like. The idea that there is other life in the universe (microbial at the very least) appears more and more likely, even if interstellar civilizations (so far) have yet to make an appearance on our telescopes. Even though we only have one known example of a living biosphere (our own), we can make some general educated guesses based on what we have learned - knowledge that is still expanding and being rewritten, particularly in areas such as animal intelligence. Much of life is about solving problems, even if that problem is as basic as acquiring energy for survival or moving toward a nutrient source (or away from a threat)... the sort of problems that any life form is going to encounter, be it on Earth or elsewhere.
From the start, he admits that some terms he uses - even the term "animal", when there's no way to even know if alien biospheres would have any distinctions like what we think of as animals, plants, or fungi - are terms of convenience for the thought experiments in the book. From there, he makes convincing arguments that several of the things we find in Earth evolution are more likely than not to have analogues elsewhere, such as methods of locomotion or sound as an ideal method of intra/interspecies communication or the development of certain social dynamics and strategies. Others, however, are likely to be unexpected or surprising, especially in areas where life on Earth has developed numerous strategies and no one has come out a clear winner (such as the various ways Earth life forms reproduce). Later chapters speculate on artificial life or tailored evolution, and whether or not immortality is a feasible goal even for a superintelligent species. At more than one point, he delves into the thorny issues of what constitutes intelligence, and what constitutes "human" or "person" - concepts that most of us think we know, but which are very difficult to definitively quantify, especially if we were ever to be faced with making such calls in the faces (or equivalents) of actual non-Earth entities. In numerous places, he acknowledges the speculations of sci-fi creators without belittling the genre or sneering at their creations (even when they're biologically unlikely or were created for allegorical purposes). Throughout are notes on other works for further reading on a wide variety of topics covered. The whole makes for a fascinating exploration of an interesting topic. In considering what might evolve on alien worlds, it explains much about how life evolves and behaves on our own world, and why.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Undeniable (Bill Nye) - My Review
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Neil DeGrasse Tyson) - My Review
The Doors of Eden (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Arik Kershenbaum
Penguin Press
Nonfiction, Animals/Science
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For generations, humans have speculated on what life on other worlds might be like. Given the many strange surprises and wonders that have evolved on Earth, and in the most unlikely of places, what could an entirely alien ecosystem produce? So far, aside from speculation (and innumerable offerings of science fiction and Hollywood), nobody knows, but it is possible to make some educated guesses. After all, while the details may be unknowable (such as whether alien biomes would use DNA as a basic genetic material, or show right/left body symmetry as the majority of Earth animals do), some things - the basic physics of locomotion, a need to consume nutrients and reproduce, adaptability in the face of changes and the opening or closing of niches, the constant trade-offs of advantages and disadvantages, and more - are quite likely to be universal. Zoologist Kershenbaum draws on our own world's prehistory and other sources to offer educated guesses on what we might find if we ever manage to glimpse life on another world.
REVIEW: Drawing on what we understand of evolution and adaptation from the first living microbes to the current Anthropocene age, plus several other disciplines such as mathematics, linguistics, studies of animal intelligence and communication methods, probability and "game theory" behaviors, and more, author Kershenbaum offers compelling arguments that, while we of course can't conjecture specifics of alien life, we can make some very educated guesses about what such life might look like. The idea that there is other life in the universe (microbial at the very least) appears more and more likely, even if interstellar civilizations (so far) have yet to make an appearance on our telescopes. Even though we only have one known example of a living biosphere (our own), we can make some general educated guesses based on what we have learned - knowledge that is still expanding and being rewritten, particularly in areas such as animal intelligence. Much of life is about solving problems, even if that problem is as basic as acquiring energy for survival or moving toward a nutrient source (or away from a threat)... the sort of problems that any life form is going to encounter, be it on Earth or elsewhere.
From the start, he admits that some terms he uses - even the term "animal", when there's no way to even know if alien biospheres would have any distinctions like what we think of as animals, plants, or fungi - are terms of convenience for the thought experiments in the book. From there, he makes convincing arguments that several of the things we find in Earth evolution are more likely than not to have analogues elsewhere, such as methods of locomotion or sound as an ideal method of intra/interspecies communication or the development of certain social dynamics and strategies. Others, however, are likely to be unexpected or surprising, especially in areas where life on Earth has developed numerous strategies and no one has come out a clear winner (such as the various ways Earth life forms reproduce). Later chapters speculate on artificial life or tailored evolution, and whether or not immortality is a feasible goal even for a superintelligent species. At more than one point, he delves into the thorny issues of what constitutes intelligence, and what constitutes "human" or "person" - concepts that most of us think we know, but which are very difficult to definitively quantify, especially if we were ever to be faced with making such calls in the faces (or equivalents) of actual non-Earth entities. In numerous places, he acknowledges the speculations of sci-fi creators without belittling the genre or sneering at their creations (even when they're biologically unlikely or were created for allegorical purposes). Throughout are notes on other works for further reading on a wide variety of topics covered. The whole makes for a fascinating exploration of an interesting topic. In considering what might evolve on alien worlds, it explains much about how life evolves and behaves on our own world, and why.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Undeniable (Bill Nye) - My Review
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Neil DeGrasse Tyson) - My Review
The Doors of Eden (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Sunday, April 4, 2021
The Red Canary (Tim Birkhead)
The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal
Tim Birkhead
Bloomsbury USA
Nonfiction, Animals/Biography/History/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since its discovery by Europeans, the canary had fascinated the western world with its enchanting song, if not its original drab greenish coloring. Captive breeding became a booming industry, and soon gave rise to both brighter colors and greater song variations, but it wasn't until the early 20th century, in the canary breeding hotbed of Germany, that anyone thought to turn the fledgling concept of genetic inheritance to the matter of deliberately creating a canary not seen in nature or any domestic random mutation: a red canary. To do this, one would need to introduce genes from a related species and somehow get the hybrids to breed true without otherwise compromising the basic canary makeup: selective genetic introduction. The idea sent shockwaves through the highly competitive world of canary fanciers and breeders around the world. But even as amateur scientist Hans Dunckler turned his prodigious intellect to the task, aided by local Bremen fanciers, Germany was developing another, far less wholesome interest in the matter of genetics, one that would derail the experiment and bury its originator under a generation of scandal.
REVIEW: I obtained this as an e-book some time ago when it was discounted (possibly even free), and finally got around to clearing it from the backlog. Birkhead touts the long-unsung contributions of amateur scientists and domestic bird keepers and even medieval bird-catchers to modern ornithology (while glossing over the destruction to wild populations and somewhat questionable birdkeeping practices of the not-so-distant past, such as blinding birds so they'd sing more), as well as the long-besmirched contributions of Dunckler to canary breeding in particular and bird genetics in general. The author's opinions show fairly clearly beneath the research and retelling, occasionally compromising objectivity to the point where even I, a notoriously unobservant reader, noticed. He does, however, present a mostly interesting history of singing birds in captivity and the canary breeding craze that was, for a time, a very lucrative cottage industry in various parts of the world. Dunckler was indeed revolutionary in his way, seeing the potential for genetic transfer between species in a time when Darwin was still somewhat controversial. Politics, though, have a way of warping everything and everyone; Dunckler was swept up in the eugenics fervor of the Nazi party, not particularly against his will, and whatever his later rationalizations, a lot of harm was done by him and others like him. Because of that association, much of his work was swept under the rug of history, but his canary breeding experiments led to later breakthroughs, even as they showed that he was overlooking some key ingredients to success. (They also, sadly, likely helped contribute to the near-extinction of the tropical red siskin, the species chosen for the cross-breeding, which remains critically endangered and a target of bird smugglers to this day.) In any event, while the author's ideas and preconceptions had a way of coloring the narrative, overall it's not a bad exploration of its subject.
You Might Also Enjoy:
On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition (Charles Darwin) - My Review
How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner and James Gorman) - My Review
The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf) - My Review
Tim Birkhead
Bloomsbury USA
Nonfiction, Animals/Biography/History/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since its discovery by Europeans, the canary had fascinated the western world with its enchanting song, if not its original drab greenish coloring. Captive breeding became a booming industry, and soon gave rise to both brighter colors and greater song variations, but it wasn't until the early 20th century, in the canary breeding hotbed of Germany, that anyone thought to turn the fledgling concept of genetic inheritance to the matter of deliberately creating a canary not seen in nature or any domestic random mutation: a red canary. To do this, one would need to introduce genes from a related species and somehow get the hybrids to breed true without otherwise compromising the basic canary makeup: selective genetic introduction. The idea sent shockwaves through the highly competitive world of canary fanciers and breeders around the world. But even as amateur scientist Hans Dunckler turned his prodigious intellect to the task, aided by local Bremen fanciers, Germany was developing another, far less wholesome interest in the matter of genetics, one that would derail the experiment and bury its originator under a generation of scandal.
REVIEW: I obtained this as an e-book some time ago when it was discounted (possibly even free), and finally got around to clearing it from the backlog. Birkhead touts the long-unsung contributions of amateur scientists and domestic bird keepers and even medieval bird-catchers to modern ornithology (while glossing over the destruction to wild populations and somewhat questionable birdkeeping practices of the not-so-distant past, such as blinding birds so they'd sing more), as well as the long-besmirched contributions of Dunckler to canary breeding in particular and bird genetics in general. The author's opinions show fairly clearly beneath the research and retelling, occasionally compromising objectivity to the point where even I, a notoriously unobservant reader, noticed. He does, however, present a mostly interesting history of singing birds in captivity and the canary breeding craze that was, for a time, a very lucrative cottage industry in various parts of the world. Dunckler was indeed revolutionary in his way, seeing the potential for genetic transfer between species in a time when Darwin was still somewhat controversial. Politics, though, have a way of warping everything and everyone; Dunckler was swept up in the eugenics fervor of the Nazi party, not particularly against his will, and whatever his later rationalizations, a lot of harm was done by him and others like him. Because of that association, much of his work was swept under the rug of history, but his canary breeding experiments led to later breakthroughs, even as they showed that he was overlooking some key ingredients to success. (They also, sadly, likely helped contribute to the near-extinction of the tropical red siskin, the species chosen for the cross-breeding, which remains critically endangered and a target of bird smugglers to this day.) In any event, while the author's ideas and preconceptions had a way of coloring the narrative, overall it's not a bad exploration of its subject.
You Might Also Enjoy:
On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition (Charles Darwin) - My Review
How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner and James Gorman) - My Review
The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf) - My Review
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal)
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Frans de Waal
Norton
Nonfiction, Animals/Science
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: For centuries, despite anecdotal evidence and the work of a few often-belittled pioneers, the idea that nonhuman animals might possess active cognition, or be more than simple stimulus-response machines, was scoffed at by layman and scholar alike. Over the years, under the weight of increasing evidence, the study of animal cognition has bloomed, leading to surprising revelations about the minds of everything from wasps and fish to elephants and apes. Tool use, social politics, self recognition, delayed gratification, theory of mind, and more have been found across the animal kingdom. From his own studies with primates and others in the field, de Waal presents findings that challenge humanity's traditional seat atop the imaginary ladder of evolution and enlightenment.
REVIEW: If there's one thing humans excel at, it's storytelling - particularly, telling ourselves stories of our own superiority and uniqueness, stories that have colored our perceptions of the world around us for generations. Even as evolution has moved from radical notion to accepted fact (or at least the theory that best fits all available evidence), it's amazing, and a little depressing, how even highly educated people still cling to those stories that grant humans a place apart from other species. The author delves into the history of evolutionary cognition, from before Darwin through the strict behaviorist models to more recent revelations, and some speculation on what discoveries might be coming as techniques improve and exploration continues. It's fascinating, even watered down for us uneducated laypeople. The studies of de Waal and other scientists increasingly show how cognition - yes, even human cognition - couldn't evolve in a vacuum. It's a tool evident, to some degree, across many branches of the tree of life, even if it doesn't always manifest in easily recognized ways. And why should it? Human cognition fits human lifestyles; other animals' cognition would, by necessity, best suit their own lifestyle, their anatomy and environment and challenges. As human scientists relinquish the idea of humans as the defining pinnacle of intelligence and awareness, learning to see each animal on its own terms, they make some amazing discoveries. Yet for each discovery, "slayers" move the goalposts, changing the stories they tell themselves, determined to preserve their idea of human superiority. (de Waal differentiates these from skeptics, which are a necessary part of any scientific field, challengers that drive new experimentation and ensure self-checking on results and methodology, rather than outright dismissing anything not fitting preconceived ideas.) At the end, de Waal expresses hope that the "slayers" of the field appear to be a dying breed, comments I couldn't help reading with a slight twinge of sorrow; with a disproportionate number of "slayers" elevated to positions of outsized power, my own country seems bound and determined to roll the clock backward on all manner of science, particularly science that challenges their stories. For the sake of science and the future of the world, I sincerely hope de Waal is right...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Last Ape Standing (Chip Walter) - My Review
Frans de Waal
Norton
Nonfiction, Animals/Science
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: For centuries, despite anecdotal evidence and the work of a few often-belittled pioneers, the idea that nonhuman animals might possess active cognition, or be more than simple stimulus-response machines, was scoffed at by layman and scholar alike. Over the years, under the weight of increasing evidence, the study of animal cognition has bloomed, leading to surprising revelations about the minds of everything from wasps and fish to elephants and apes. Tool use, social politics, self recognition, delayed gratification, theory of mind, and more have been found across the animal kingdom. From his own studies with primates and others in the field, de Waal presents findings that challenge humanity's traditional seat atop the imaginary ladder of evolution and enlightenment.
REVIEW: If there's one thing humans excel at, it's storytelling - particularly, telling ourselves stories of our own superiority and uniqueness, stories that have colored our perceptions of the world around us for generations. Even as evolution has moved from radical notion to accepted fact (or at least the theory that best fits all available evidence), it's amazing, and a little depressing, how even highly educated people still cling to those stories that grant humans a place apart from other species. The author delves into the history of evolutionary cognition, from before Darwin through the strict behaviorist models to more recent revelations, and some speculation on what discoveries might be coming as techniques improve and exploration continues. It's fascinating, even watered down for us uneducated laypeople. The studies of de Waal and other scientists increasingly show how cognition - yes, even human cognition - couldn't evolve in a vacuum. It's a tool evident, to some degree, across many branches of the tree of life, even if it doesn't always manifest in easily recognized ways. And why should it? Human cognition fits human lifestyles; other animals' cognition would, by necessity, best suit their own lifestyle, their anatomy and environment and challenges. As human scientists relinquish the idea of humans as the defining pinnacle of intelligence and awareness, learning to see each animal on its own terms, they make some amazing discoveries. Yet for each discovery, "slayers" move the goalposts, changing the stories they tell themselves, determined to preserve their idea of human superiority. (de Waal differentiates these from skeptics, which are a necessary part of any scientific field, challengers that drive new experimentation and ensure self-checking on results and methodology, rather than outright dismissing anything not fitting preconceived ideas.) At the end, de Waal expresses hope that the "slayers" of the field appear to be a dying breed, comments I couldn't help reading with a slight twinge of sorrow; with a disproportionate number of "slayers" elevated to positions of outsized power, my own country seems bound and determined to roll the clock backward on all manner of science, particularly science that challenges their stories. For the sake of science and the future of the world, I sincerely hope de Waal is right...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Last Ape Standing (Chip Walter) - My Review
Thursday, June 1, 2017
This Side of Wild (Gary Paulsen)
This Side of Wild: Mutts, Mares, and Laughing Dinosaurs
Gary Paulsen
Simon and Schuster
Nonfiction, YA Animals
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Popular author Gary Paulsen reflects on animal encounters through his life, from the dog Gretchen (who would hold long "conversations" over cups of bitter-dark coffee) to the toy poodle Corky (who proved unexpectedly brave against Alaskan grizzlies), not to mention his ongoing, frequently contentious relationship with ravens.
REVIEW: This is an interesting, if sometimes meandering, collection of stories demonstrating the intelligence, playfulness, and occasional spite of all manner of animals. In his observations, he comes to agree with a conclusion reached by an animal trainer friend of his: we do not train animals, but animals train us, having far more awareness and agency than humans like to credit to them. Paulsen sees how even wild animals learn to manipulate humans, in memorable encounters at a highway rest stop and on a desert horseback ride. He also offers glimpses into his long and colorful life, not to mention a brief detour into the true horrors of nuclear warfare, as part of his military training introduced him to facts that were deliberately withheld from the general population on warhead lethality. (It's Gretchen, the dog who appeared to have figured out a way to hold wordless talks with her people, who helps him deal with this troubling knowledge.) As usual, I enjoyed Paulsen's writing style, though the chapters sometimes wavered and wandered in their focus. Overall, though, it's an interesting collection of animal encounters, mostly domestic but a few wild, that can be enjoyed by somewhat older children and adults alike. (Some of the material is a little graphic for very young or sensitive readers.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Guts (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Gary Paulsen
Simon and Schuster
Nonfiction, YA Animals
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Popular author Gary Paulsen reflects on animal encounters through his life, from the dog Gretchen (who would hold long "conversations" over cups of bitter-dark coffee) to the toy poodle Corky (who proved unexpectedly brave against Alaskan grizzlies), not to mention his ongoing, frequently contentious relationship with ravens.
REVIEW: This is an interesting, if sometimes meandering, collection of stories demonstrating the intelligence, playfulness, and occasional spite of all manner of animals. In his observations, he comes to agree with a conclusion reached by an animal trainer friend of his: we do not train animals, but animals train us, having far more awareness and agency than humans like to credit to them. Paulsen sees how even wild animals learn to manipulate humans, in memorable encounters at a highway rest stop and on a desert horseback ride. He also offers glimpses into his long and colorful life, not to mention a brief detour into the true horrors of nuclear warfare, as part of his military training introduced him to facts that were deliberately withheld from the general population on warhead lethality. (It's Gretchen, the dog who appeared to have figured out a way to hold wordless talks with her people, who helps him deal with this troubling knowledge.) As usual, I enjoyed Paulsen's writing style, though the chapters sometimes wavered and wandered in their focus. Overall, though, it's an interesting collection of animal encounters, mostly domestic but a few wild, that can be enjoyed by somewhat older children and adults alike. (Some of the material is a little graphic for very young or sensitive readers.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot) - My Review
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Guts (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Sunday, January 15, 2017
All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot)
All Things Bright and Beautiful
James Herriot
Open Road Media
Nonfiction, Animals/Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Yorkshire country veterinarian James Herriot collects more tales of his life and practice. Now a newlywed and a full partner, his life is still filled with eccentric farmers, peculiar cases, and other adventures.
REVIEW: Like Herriot's first volume, All Creatures Great and Small, this collection captures a lost time and place, a world on the cusp of great change and revolution that would eventually remake even small farm towns like "Darrowby," the author's somewhat-fictionalized recrafting of the small Yorkshire communities where he practiced. (Other details are altered as well.) He himself would soon depart to serve in World War II's Royal Air Force. More stories, some charming and some sad, unfold, including a few more flashbacks to his often-disastrous courtship of Helen. Brothers Siegfried and Tristan are less prominent here, as Herriot proved himself in the first volume and is now more a colleague than a wet-eared student. The harshness and beauty of the Yorkshire landscape and the farming life come through clearly in every story, as do the changes slowly remaking not only his practice (such as his first experiences with antibiotics) but the rest of the community (the waning of the draft horse, among other things.) It's an enjoyable collection of memories.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot) - My Review
The Cat Who Couldn't See In The Dark (Howard Padwee, D.V.M., and Valerie Moolman) - My Review
James Herriot
Open Road Media
Nonfiction, Animals/Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Yorkshire country veterinarian James Herriot collects more tales of his life and practice. Now a newlywed and a full partner, his life is still filled with eccentric farmers, peculiar cases, and other adventures.
REVIEW: Like Herriot's first volume, All Creatures Great and Small, this collection captures a lost time and place, a world on the cusp of great change and revolution that would eventually remake even small farm towns like "Darrowby," the author's somewhat-fictionalized recrafting of the small Yorkshire communities where he practiced. (Other details are altered as well.) He himself would soon depart to serve in World War II's Royal Air Force. More stories, some charming and some sad, unfold, including a few more flashbacks to his often-disastrous courtship of Helen. Brothers Siegfried and Tristan are less prominent here, as Herriot proved himself in the first volume and is now more a colleague than a wet-eared student. The harshness and beauty of the Yorkshire landscape and the farming life come through clearly in every story, as do the changes slowly remaking not only his practice (such as his first experiences with antibiotics) but the rest of the community (the waning of the draft horse, among other things.) It's an enjoyable collection of memories.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Being a Beast (Charles Foster) - My Review
All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot) - My Review
The Cat Who Couldn't See In The Dark (Howard Padwee, D.V.M., and Valerie Moolman) - My Review
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Last of the Giants (Jeff Campbell)
Last of the Giants: The Rise and Fall of Earth's Most Dominant Species
Jeff Campbell
Zest Books
Nonfiction, YA? Animals
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: When people think of megafauna, they usually think of such lost behemoths as woolly mammoths - creatures long gone before the rise of recorded history, save a few enigmatic images left by our earliest ancestors on cave walls. Surely, driving animals to oblivion was something only our short-sighted cave-dwelling ancestors would do. But some have vanished in more recent centuries; the baiji, a river dolphin in China, was just declared extinct in 2011. As we stand on the brink of the "Sixth Extinction", even more species are poised on the edge. The author describes thirteen species - most lost to us, a few barely clinging to survival - and what humans have done to both destroy and save them.
REVIEW: By its very nature, this is a depressing book on many levels. For all the compassion we preach (if so rarely practice) in our religions and philosophies, for all the reverence we bestow upon animals, even for all the scientific progress we've made, we just can't seem to grasp how to live without destroying most every species and ecosystem we encounter - or how such destruction ultimately lessens our own chances of long-term survival. Campbell covers a wide range of animals, from the giant moa of New Zealand to the Steller's sea cow of the Arctic, the aurochs of primeval Europe to the passenger pigeon of the Americas. (Why include a relatively small bird? They existed in such massive numbers - over a million to a flock - and had such a large impact on the environment that Campbell fully justifies their inclusion with other earth-shaping megafauna like rhinos and giant tortoises.) This book is geared for the casual reader, suitable for older school-age children, so the articles aren't necessarily deep, but they are reasonably thorough, and an extensive bibliography offers further reading for those interested. For all the doom and gloom, some glimmers of potential hope remain; not all species in this book are gone, and one can only hope that humanity eventually matures enough, morally and scientifically, to take better care of our world and ourselves.
While the book itself was reasonably interesting, what cost it a solid star in the ratings was the terrible formatting of the eBook copy. In order to preserve the printed book's appearance, with several insets and asides, the text was rendered so small I could barely read it on my Kindle eReader; normally, enlarging the font size helps, but here I had to manually scroll around the page in order to read, which was highly inconvenient. Trying it on the Kindle app of my Nook (with its larger screen) was only marginally better; the book's font was eye-straining to read and couldn't be changed. The insets often broke between pages, and I couldn't just glance ahead to finish like in a printed book. An eBook just plain isn't going to look the same as the print version, and this forced attempt to make them identical hurt my reading experience. Otherwise, this is a good introduction to and exploration of (relatively) recent extinctions and the concept of the Anthropocene age. Just do yourself a favor and get the paperback.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Ghosts of Evolution (Connie Barlow) - My Review
Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowat) - My Review
Let Them Eat Shrimp (Kennedy Warne) - My Review
Jeff Campbell
Zest Books
Nonfiction, YA? Animals
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: When people think of megafauna, they usually think of such lost behemoths as woolly mammoths - creatures long gone before the rise of recorded history, save a few enigmatic images left by our earliest ancestors on cave walls. Surely, driving animals to oblivion was something only our short-sighted cave-dwelling ancestors would do. But some have vanished in more recent centuries; the baiji, a river dolphin in China, was just declared extinct in 2011. As we stand on the brink of the "Sixth Extinction", even more species are poised on the edge. The author describes thirteen species - most lost to us, a few barely clinging to survival - and what humans have done to both destroy and save them.
REVIEW: By its very nature, this is a depressing book on many levels. For all the compassion we preach (if so rarely practice) in our religions and philosophies, for all the reverence we bestow upon animals, even for all the scientific progress we've made, we just can't seem to grasp how to live without destroying most every species and ecosystem we encounter - or how such destruction ultimately lessens our own chances of long-term survival. Campbell covers a wide range of animals, from the giant moa of New Zealand to the Steller's sea cow of the Arctic, the aurochs of primeval Europe to the passenger pigeon of the Americas. (Why include a relatively small bird? They existed in such massive numbers - over a million to a flock - and had such a large impact on the environment that Campbell fully justifies their inclusion with other earth-shaping megafauna like rhinos and giant tortoises.) This book is geared for the casual reader, suitable for older school-age children, so the articles aren't necessarily deep, but they are reasonably thorough, and an extensive bibliography offers further reading for those interested. For all the doom and gloom, some glimmers of potential hope remain; not all species in this book are gone, and one can only hope that humanity eventually matures enough, morally and scientifically, to take better care of our world and ourselves.
While the book itself was reasonably interesting, what cost it a solid star in the ratings was the terrible formatting of the eBook copy. In order to preserve the printed book's appearance, with several insets and asides, the text was rendered so small I could barely read it on my Kindle eReader; normally, enlarging the font size helps, but here I had to manually scroll around the page in order to read, which was highly inconvenient. Trying it on the Kindle app of my Nook (with its larger screen) was only marginally better; the book's font was eye-straining to read and couldn't be changed. The insets often broke between pages, and I couldn't just glance ahead to finish like in a printed book. An eBook just plain isn't going to look the same as the print version, and this forced attempt to make them identical hurt my reading experience. Otherwise, this is a good introduction to and exploration of (relatively) recent extinctions and the concept of the Anthropocene age. Just do yourself a favor and get the paperback.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Ghosts of Evolution (Connie Barlow) - My Review
Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowat) - My Review
Let Them Eat Shrimp (Kennedy Warne) - My Review
Friday, October 14, 2016
Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide (Charles Foster)
Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide
Charles Foster
Metropolitan Books
Nonfiction, Nature
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Through the ages, many people have speculated on the minds and lives of beasts, using them to teach lessons or tell stories. In more recent years, science has begun examining how animals experience their worlds through sensory arrays that often differ wildly from our own. But all those fables, children's stories, and dry reports can't answer the question many of us have wondered: what is it really like to actually be an animal? Author Charles Foster turns a lifetime of fascination into a series of attempts to cross the species divide by living, as best he can, as a badger, an otter, a London city fox, a red deer, and a swift. He digs a burrow and feeds on live earthworms. He learns to "see" in the darkness of a Scottish riverbed. He trains his nose to sift scents on multiple layers. He follows one of the world's great migrations, from Oxford to the Congo, while learning the eddies and drifts of air "rivers". Along the way, he discovers just how limited human lives and minds have become - and just what our potential is when we choose to reconnect and learn from our elders in furred and feathered coats.
REVIEW: The author of this book was a recipient of a 2016 Ig Nobel award, the strange-science counterpart to the more famous Nobels, designed to recognize scientific studies that, to paraphrase their official statement, first make you laugh and then make you think. The idea of stripping naked and crawling around in the woods (with his son, no less - Foster's children accompany him on more than one experiment, in ways that make me suspect England has far fewer overbearing child protection laws than America) trying to be a badger, or nosing through rubbish in the city like a fox, seems patently ridiculous on the surface. But by doing what most scientists wouldn't consider, actually putting himself in an animal's world (or as close as he could manage), Foster gains insights that elude the most imaginative writer or intensive lab study. He often finds existing English inadequate to describe what he experiences, trying his best to translate the way smells or touch or air patterns can create a world more immediate and relevant than mere vision. However, Foster can't help injecting himself into his own experiments, and more than once he prattles on about himself more than the animal he's trying to "be" - the human unwilling, or simply unable, to cede dominance to another species. He acknowledges this flaw, more than once, but admitting pretentiousness doesn't negate pretentiousness, and his philosophical speculations only served to weaken his actual, tangible experiences. I sometimes found myself skimming, trying to get back to the interesting parts and beyond the self-absorbed babble. Foster's success in drawing me into animal lives, or his experiences of animal lives, varies considerably. His attempts at "being" a red deer, in a chapter that's more about hunting red deer and how humans are programmed to be more wolflike (here, Foster's own anthropomorphic ideas of animals show loud and clear, despite his efforts to expunge such symbolic projection elsewhere) than the deer themselves, is the weakest. The final chapter on the swift is the strongest, likely because he admits a certain level of intrinsic defeat by this point; it's more of an attempt to be kin to the birds, rather than "be" the birds themselves, which isn't so prone to stumbling over his own preconceptions and attempts at sensory free-form poetry in making human language dance to the rhythm of an animal's drum. Taken all together, Foster's work is an admirable, if not always successful, attempt to step beyond the limits of our species - particularly the limits we've chosen to create for ourselves, rather than those created by biology.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowatt) - My Review
Charles Foster
Metropolitan Books
Nonfiction, Nature
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Through the ages, many people have speculated on the minds and lives of beasts, using them to teach lessons or tell stories. In more recent years, science has begun examining how animals experience their worlds through sensory arrays that often differ wildly from our own. But all those fables, children's stories, and dry reports can't answer the question many of us have wondered: what is it really like to actually be an animal? Author Charles Foster turns a lifetime of fascination into a series of attempts to cross the species divide by living, as best he can, as a badger, an otter, a London city fox, a red deer, and a swift. He digs a burrow and feeds on live earthworms. He learns to "see" in the darkness of a Scottish riverbed. He trains his nose to sift scents on multiple layers. He follows one of the world's great migrations, from Oxford to the Congo, while learning the eddies and drifts of air "rivers". Along the way, he discovers just how limited human lives and minds have become - and just what our potential is when we choose to reconnect and learn from our elders in furred and feathered coats.
REVIEW: The author of this book was a recipient of a 2016 Ig Nobel award, the strange-science counterpart to the more famous Nobels, designed to recognize scientific studies that, to paraphrase their official statement, first make you laugh and then make you think. The idea of stripping naked and crawling around in the woods (with his son, no less - Foster's children accompany him on more than one experiment, in ways that make me suspect England has far fewer overbearing child protection laws than America) trying to be a badger, or nosing through rubbish in the city like a fox, seems patently ridiculous on the surface. But by doing what most scientists wouldn't consider, actually putting himself in an animal's world (or as close as he could manage), Foster gains insights that elude the most imaginative writer or intensive lab study. He often finds existing English inadequate to describe what he experiences, trying his best to translate the way smells or touch or air patterns can create a world more immediate and relevant than mere vision. However, Foster can't help injecting himself into his own experiments, and more than once he prattles on about himself more than the animal he's trying to "be" - the human unwilling, or simply unable, to cede dominance to another species. He acknowledges this flaw, more than once, but admitting pretentiousness doesn't negate pretentiousness, and his philosophical speculations only served to weaken his actual, tangible experiences. I sometimes found myself skimming, trying to get back to the interesting parts and beyond the self-absorbed babble. Foster's success in drawing me into animal lives, or his experiences of animal lives, varies considerably. His attempts at "being" a red deer, in a chapter that's more about hunting red deer and how humans are programmed to be more wolflike (here, Foster's own anthropomorphic ideas of animals show loud and clear, despite his efforts to expunge such symbolic projection elsewhere) than the deer themselves, is the weakest. The final chapter on the swift is the strongest, likely because he admits a certain level of intrinsic defeat by this point; it's more of an attempt to be kin to the birds, rather than "be" the birds themselves, which isn't so prone to stumbling over his own preconceptions and attempts at sensory free-form poetry in making human language dance to the rhythm of an animal's drum. Taken all together, Foster's work is an admirable, if not always successful, attempt to step beyond the limits of our species - particularly the limits we've chosen to create for ourselves, rather than those created by biology.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowatt) - My Review
Thursday, May 12, 2016
All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)
All Creatures Great and Small
James Herriot
Open Road Media
Nonfiction, Animals/Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the late 1930's, an eager young vet leaves school with a new degree and a dream of practicing small animal medicine in some nice city or town... only to end up treating farm animals in Yorkshire. Here, he recounts his first two years of practice alongside senior vet Siegfried Farnon, Siegfried's slacker brother Tristan, and the many peculiar characters (two- and four-legged) of the countryside.
REVIEW: Growing up in an animal-loving household, it's amazing that I missed reading these books myself before now, but a recent e-book reissue of the first three titles allowed me to correct this oversight. Herriot's tale remains a classic, doubtless launching countless careers (or attempted careers - veterinary medicine's not the easiest path) even as it captures a fleeting time precariously balanced between the old ways and the new, in medicine and the world at large. James starts out a wet-eared city boy who never intended to stay in the countryside, up to his armpit in the wrong end of a cow in the wee hours or dealing with stubborn Yorkshire farmers clinging to old lore (such as the oft-repeated rumor of a "worm in the tail" that's to blame for all manner of cattle ailments.) Had jobs not been notoriously scarce for new graduates, he never would've even made the drive out to Siegfried Farnon's practice. Through the course of the book, the countryside's charms, not to mention the unexpected challenges and rewards of the job, slowly work their magic, a fascination that shines clearly in Herriot's writing even in the most frustrating cases. No small part of those frustrations stem from Siegfried, a competent and cheerful fellow with oddly convenient memory lapses, and Tristan, who dedicates himself to a playboy bachelor lifestyle with almost maddening single-mindedness, not to mention other characters. Despite hints that the "omnibus" American edition has been trimmed (disappointing, if true), I enjoyed this, and will undoubtedly be reading more of Herriot's work soon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
The Cat Who Couldn't See in the Dark (Howard Padwee, D.V.M. and Valerie Moolman) - My Review
James Herriot
Open Road Media
Nonfiction, Animals/Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the late 1930's, an eager young vet leaves school with a new degree and a dream of practicing small animal medicine in some nice city or town... only to end up treating farm animals in Yorkshire. Here, he recounts his first two years of practice alongside senior vet Siegfried Farnon, Siegfried's slacker brother Tristan, and the many peculiar characters (two- and four-legged) of the countryside.
REVIEW: Growing up in an animal-loving household, it's amazing that I missed reading these books myself before now, but a recent e-book reissue of the first three titles allowed me to correct this oversight. Herriot's tale remains a classic, doubtless launching countless careers (or attempted careers - veterinary medicine's not the easiest path) even as it captures a fleeting time precariously balanced between the old ways and the new, in medicine and the world at large. James starts out a wet-eared city boy who never intended to stay in the countryside, up to his armpit in the wrong end of a cow in the wee hours or dealing with stubborn Yorkshire farmers clinging to old lore (such as the oft-repeated rumor of a "worm in the tail" that's to blame for all manner of cattle ailments.) Had jobs not been notoriously scarce for new graduates, he never would've even made the drive out to Siegfried Farnon's practice. Through the course of the book, the countryside's charms, not to mention the unexpected challenges and rewards of the job, slowly work their magic, a fascination that shines clearly in Herriot's writing even in the most frustrating cases. No small part of those frustrations stem from Siegfried, a competent and cheerful fellow with oddly convenient memory lapses, and Tristan, who dedicates himself to a playboy bachelor lifestyle with almost maddening single-mindedness, not to mention other characters. Despite hints that the "omnibus" American edition has been trimmed (disappointing, if true), I enjoyed this, and will undoubtedly be reading more of Herriot's work soon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Animal Wise (Virginia Morell) - My Review
The Cat Who Couldn't See in the Dark (Howard Padwee, D.V.M. and Valerie Moolman) - My Review
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