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Dominion

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This author is a curator in the Dept. of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Together with Stephen Jay Gould, he formulated the evolutionary theory of Punctuated Equlibrium. In this excellent book Mr. Eldredge explores our evolutionary history, showing that although we think and act as though we live outside of nature, in reality, we have simply modified our position within the ecosystem through our agriculture and now global reach. He shows us how our notion of "dominion" over nature is largely an illusion and looks frankly at the consequences of this illusion, now and in the future, without resorting to darkness and gloom.

Mr. Eldredge is a very good writer for the layman and has a flair for transmitting a sense of wonder to his readers. His writing style reminds me of the late Carl Sagan. I especially enjoyed his thoughts on the biblical story of Genesis; how God's words regarding our dominion over the world have affected man and how we need a new story of who we are and our place in nature.

Don't worry as you read this book about forgetting anything important along the way, because Eldredge provides a brief and complete review of his salient points at the end. You won't need that highlighter.

I most sincerely recommend this easy-to-read yet scholarly book to anyone interested in ecology, evolution, and the future.

Eldredge brings his experience as an anthropologist to assess the present world. It's overcrowded, he notes, and seriously so. That's causing stress on the entire planet, stresses the Earth can no longer sustain. The reason for the pressure is that at some point, human evolution brought us to the point where we became detached from Nature. We abandoned the environment to create a new one. With the rise of agriculture and fixed settlements, we were on the path to becoming an ecological disaster. As the first species to accomplish full control over our own food supply, we broke the pattern of nearly four billion years of evolution. Without a precedent to consider, we simply forged ahead with little consideration of what we were doing. It's a formula for disaster.

Agriculture, so fundamental to our existence today, was an innovation of immense consequences. It brought humans out of their previous wandering habits and settled us in permanent habitats. Instead of hunting animals, we corralled them in paddocks, to be utilised at our whim. From stone tools shaped on the fly for a limited number of tasks, we now created a range of implements to increase yields and produce items for personal use or trade. These elements led us to become "inner-directed". With this change in focus, learning the ways of the land, we simply made the land over to suit our needs. This is a momentous step in evolution, and while Eldredge is excellent at explaining what happened, there's nothing of the why. Coming from a palaeontologist, this should be surprising. In Eldredge's case, the reason is blatantly clear.

In this brief summary of our history, Eldredge's passion has many faces. He's clearly concerned about the future of our species and the biosphere. He's eloquent in his descriptive passages. He's informative in giving his account of how science has addressed our evolutionary track. Various positions are stoutly defended [his], while others are scathingly treated. Since it's Eldredge, we are subjected to repetitive treatments of the theory of punctuated evolution [evolution by jerks] developed in conjunction with the late Stephen J. Gould. Gould and his selected colleagues have long stressed "culture" has swamped biology. We have abandoned our biological roots, they argue, and replaced them with cultural mores. Tools and society are prime examples, and agriculture employs them both to grant us our enormous power over nature.

In his chapter, "Fashioning the Future", it would seem we might find solutions for the problems due to our innovative prowess leading to our break with evolution. Sadly, this is but partly true. Since no previous patterns of existence offer means of breaking our cycle of habitat overload, we must innovate further. The new methods, Eldredge contends, must overcome the natural pace of evolution - this after flogging "punk eek"! We have been "genetically engineering" domestic species for millennia. Now, we can fine-tune the process to accommodate our needs and reduce planetary impact. We can even apply such methods to ourselves. Beyond these biological questions, lie issues of "cultural homogeneity". Communication forms: radio, TV and the Internet, are already making inroads into cultural diversity. This "smearing" process will only increase, leading to broader applications of solutions to problems. "Band-aid" fixes are already being applied. These will likely be expanded from local through regional to global applications. It will, he concludes, likely require Draconian measures to implement them. One can only wonder which leaders will undertake the task. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Niles Eldgedge is well-credentialed to sound the alarm for the profound disequilibrium which underlies homo sapiens' relationship with his world. He is a paleontologist and curator of invertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He is co-author, with Stepen Jay Gould, of the theory of "punctuated equilibrium," which explains evolution's non-linear genetics. So when we see phrases such as "agriculture declares war on our local ecosystems," we need to take note. The central theme is that, with the development of agriculture, ten thousand years ago, man's population has expanded beyond a sustainable level. Our destruction of non-renewable resources, and our careless attitude toward biodiversity are likely to be the proximate causes of our own extinction. As for what can be done about this threat, he proposes to edit the book of Genesis: "The People decided to curb their population numbers. They determined to curtail evnironmental damage and the loss of other species. They decided to conserve the world's remaining ecosystems. And they embraced sustainable development, matching economic growth to the carrying capacities of their surroundings. The People lived. And it was very good."

As you might have guessed, the first thing that came to my mind after reading this book (and it's a very fast read, so don't feel intimidated!) was how strikingly similar to the series of books written by Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael, etc.), making many of the very same points. The author even makes use of the Bible as support for his position that we developed a mythology of our proper place in the world (thus becoming "homo magister", rulers of all the world).

I certainly don't believe that the author intended his work to be so similar to the "Ishmael" books, but the similarities are striking. Given that this book was published 5 or more years after "Ishmael", it seems reasonable that the author was influenced in some way by it.

While much of the material covered is the same as "Ishmael", this book is more straightforward (and perhaps, some might think, a bit drier - posh to that!), and complements that book nicely, dealing far more in the nitty-gritty ecological and genetic significance of mankind.

In short, this book will not replace "Ishmael", but neither is it eclipsed by it. The two books complement each other wonderfully, and Mr. Eldridge does a far more exhaustive job of explaining exactly how we are impacting the environment. Don't just get one or the other, buy both (oh yes, I'm sure Amazon is just thrilled to hear that :))!

In his introduction, Eldredge asserts that we have to get beyond such myths as the assertion in Genesis that God meant man to have dominion over all of nature, and that stories are important. Much of the book reviews the science of paleantology, which the field of his discipline. But I saw little convincing connection between that material and the extinction of animals which existed in prehistoric times. He speculates that the cave man artists who lived at least 30,000 years before the writing of Genesis, painted animals as a symbolic means of gaining dominance over them. In the Afterward, he proposes "A New Story", in which he ignores real history of human understanding of our place in the world. He offers no clear evidence of a connection between his exegesis of Genesis and the massive extinctions of species in our times. Perhaps he should read more widely and become aquainted with St Francis of Assisi.