Customer Reviews

Future Evolution

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

A welcome addition to a far-too-neglected genre - alternative evolution - the author provides great background information, as well as a sobering evaluation of the state of the world's ecology today.

The odd thing about this book is that one of the major premises of "Future Evolution" is that humans will not become extinct, and that there will be no radiation of existing, smaller species to fill old niches and create new ones, as they did after the extinction of the dinosaurs, the end of the Permian, and several smaller extinctions. Fair enough - but the illustrations in the book seem to go completely against Ward's thesis. The alternative trees of life created by Rockman have no place in Ward's vision of the future. I saw the original exhibit at the Henry (at UW) a while back, and the tone of the background information was completely different. Someone really should have noticed this in editing.

My major criticism, however, is in with Ward's vision of the future. Ward in his introduction notes the consensus that humanity will become extinct, and asks whether it is more of an ideological bias than a valid point. But as the time frame goes into the future, Ward's own bias becomes stronger and stronger. He offers no convincing reason that humanity will inevitably survive a billion years, other than faith. He offers no reason why humans would not themselves speciate or exploit technology to become different, and assumes that it is impossible to go anywhere in space and live there, even in our own solar system. Again, no reasons given. He offers no reason why small animals who survive the current extinction would not evolve in similar manner as they always have before - even mentioning that mammals have high rates of evolutionary change. He offhandedly states that this time, they will not evolve - no descendents of mice replacing elephants, for example - but gives no reason, actually contradicting the evidence he shows us paragraphs beforehand.

In his narration of a "Time Traveler", the Traveler visits Seattle 1000 years from now, and finds that nothing has changed. Not only do the people speak easily recognizable English, but the racial/ethnic composition is the same, the University of Washington looks the same, and politically, nothing at all seems to have changed. This, I submit, is highly unlikely - it betrays Ward's own bias, excluding the entire history of human society. The underlying assumption - that things will continue as they are indefinitely, everything is the way it is because that was the only way it could have worked out, and that anything that isn't known now will never be known and cannot exist because it is not known now - colors Ward's work and the "Rare Earth" hypothesis, not to mention the bulk of evolutionary biology and quite a few political and economic positions. Determinism is always popular in nations that are on top of the heap as a legitimizing ideology - it was very popular in Britain during the Empire - but it is always proven wrong. The tone of the book, dismissing any disagreement or speculation such as in Dougal Dixon's "After Man" or his own Zepplinoids as mere fantasy, doesn't really help. Merely dismissing something does not make the dismissal valid without reason and argument.

To sum it up - cool book, cool ideas, very iffy overall tone and basic assumptions. A must for any geek who loves to imagine ecologies that don't exist, but don't read without a skeptical eye...

Danger awaits those who declare the existence of patterns based on paltry data, but I feel like living dangerously. I think I have discovered a relationship between the study of mollusks and the writing of great nonfiction on evolution. Exhibit A: Stephen J. Gould studies gastropods [snails for the layperson, or, as we called them in college, ghastly-pods] and writes books on evolution from the highest peak of the adaptive landscape of evolution writers. Exhibit B: Peter Ward studies living and fossil shelled cephalopods [relatives of squids and octopi] and writes books on evolution that have a mother-of-pearl beauty and a filling of tasty meat. Future Evolution is not the book that I'd recommend to first time Ward readers; in my opinion, first timers should start with Time Machines [1998] or Rivers in Time [2000, an updated version of The End Of Evolution (1994)]. But readers of books on evolution should make it a point to put Future Evolution [and Rare Earth (2000, co-written with D. Brownlee)] on their reading list.

Future Evolution is a beautiful book visually, making the hardback a must and worth the price. Paintings by Alexis Rockman compliment and illuminate the text by Ward. Future Evolution is a thought provoking book. Even though the book is grounded in our extensive knowledge of evolution and mass extinctions, any book about the future must extrapolate from the data of the past and this is dangerous in the historical sciences. Future Evolution is not a cheery book. Folks who want to hear that humans will save the Earth from themselves [or that humans will go extinct and leave the Earth to continue happily without us] wiil probably not be supportive of many of Ward's conclusions. For readers who want to THINK about evolution, Future Evolution is a must.

I highly recommend Future Evolution to any reader of good books on science and especially to people interested in evolution, mass extinctions, conservation, and the future of life on the Earth.

This is almost as much of an art book as it is a book on evolution. The images, photos of about 30 paintings by Alexis Rockman, mostly oil and acrylic on wood or watercolor and ink on paper, are stunning depictions of creatures, past, present and to come: an arsinotherium (a rhino-like animal), a thylacine (a doglike marsupial, extinct in 1936), huge dandelions with thick roots several feet long, rabbits and rats on hind legs like kangaroo, crows like vultures, snakes with wings, etc. The text by geologist Peter Ward is sprightly, informed, very readable, and at times even moving, as when Ward recalls his return to New Caledonia after twenty-five years.

Ward's vision, however, is not pretty. He is not looking at planet earth after humans have gone extinct as some other books on future evolution have done. He sees us as surviving for another 500 million years so that the fauna and flora that do evolve will do so with humans as probably the most significant part of their environment. Consequently there will not be any large mammals, and the most numerous creatures will be small and "weedy." They will be mostly nocturnal animals that have learned to tolerate humans, rats and insects and "escapes" from our farms and genetic engineering labs.

Ward is very good at producing striking word portraits. One is the "brown mountain" he observed flying into Mexico City (the polluted air rising above the city), and another is his fanciful creatures of the future, the "Zeppeliniods," who have learned how to create hydrogen-filled air sacks so they can float in the air. In a particularly dystopian vision on pages 135-137, Ward's time traveler visits a garbage dump 10-million years in the future crawling with "cockroach-sized insects...[and] mammals, a few as large as cats but most rat-, mouse-, or even shrew-sized." These creatures have evolved adaptations for exploiting the garbage dump: "some with long tapered heads, others with thin ribbonlike tongues, others with blunt heads and large knoblike teeth, still other with huge batlike eyes." A pig-like creature with rats "like hairy lampreys with greedy sucking mouths" hanging from its sides appears. Overhead large crows "with brilliant plumage" dive bomb the traveler with knifelike barbs on their feet, driving him bleeding toward a tree where a hungry flock of these clever and hungry crows await. Ward also sees a great increase in the number of snakes, some with unusual adaptations to feed on the garbage eaters.

This "dyspeptic" vision, like some of the other visions in the book, is calculated to shock and revolt the reader, but just how likely is it to come to pass? On the one hand it would seem, not very, since we are already recycling away from garbage dumps in many places in the world. On the other hand, if we consider that we, as domesticated creatures ourselves, may be getting dumber, this scenario might seem more likely. (See page 105 where Ward references neurologist Terry Deacon as noting that "all domesticated animals appear to have undergone a loss of intelligence compared with their wild ancestors.") My feeling, however is, that should we by some wild happenstance still be around ten million years from now (average life span of a mammalian species is about two million years) I would expect us to have used our technology to better effect. More likely of course (and Ward addresses this possibility, but dismisses it) is that we will be replaced by the products of our technology long before then. Whether "they" will think it worthwhile to continue "living" is a very interesting question.

Clearly this is a popular book, almost a "coffee table" book, aimed at a popular readership, but that doesn't mean it's simplistic or dumbed down. True, Ward is biased toward a long-lived humanity which he thinks is likely the only intelligent creature in the cosmos (see Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (2000), which he wrote with Donald Brownlee), but Rockman's paintings really are first rate, and although the speculations are no more than that, they are interesting in themselves. Additionally there is a wealth of information in the text about evolution. Ward points out for example that it is not likely that we are going to undergo much Darwinian-type evolution in the future unless some humans become isolated. This can happen, he speculates, if an elite population isolates itself reproductively from the masses, or if we establish far-flung colonies in space. Another nice tidbit is Ward's observation that the average human I.Q. is not going to change much because whatever is measured on I.Q. tests is subject to the actions of numerous genes and any short term anomalies will be flooded by the mass of genetic humanity.

This book is a bit pricey because it is printed on expensive, glossy paper for the reproduction of the paintings. It's an attractive and entertaining book.

I am not fully sure where to begin. I have never really felt compelled to write a review but this book did indeed compel me to, and not to discuss how much I liked it. This one book has made me decide that I will not leave any good reviews for good books because people will take care of that. However, I do not think enough people leave reviews telling just how horrible some books are.

After getting through the second paragraph of the preface I knew I was probably not going to like this book. The only reason I read it all the way through was that I have a personal feeling that any book started should be finished. This book challenged that feeling with every page I progressed into it.

Since it was the preface that first gave me doubts then it is with the preface that I will begin. This book begins with _Professor_ Ward (and I address him as such because he seems to place so much value on being addressed in the proper manner) telling a story that sets the stage for the rest of the book. It also, though I do not think it was intentional, serves to show that Ward fully believes that his vision of the future of evolution is the one true version and that all others, who have put forth more "radical" futures to evolution (i.e. Dixon), are doing nothing more than playing at fantasy and are fools for behaving thus.

As I continued to read I began to wonder just how it was the Ward was able to hold a professorship given the absolute lack of education he seemed to have. There are numerous portions of this book that give me the impression that Ward has not read any serious scientific literature in at least 20 years. As a simple example, page 29, "...The dominant form of the Mesozoic, exemplified by... iguanodons and duck-billed dinosaurs, was bipedal." If you were to open any modern day dinosaur book you would find that iguanodons and the duck-billed dinosaurs are portrayed as quadrupeds. This has been the standing belief for at least 15 years. I first read about it in Robert Bakker's book (1986) and it was considered fairly common knowledge even then.

Ward's ignorance of modern science continued throughout the book. Page 104, "...scientists and doctors waged a campaign of eradication against bacterial illness, using the then newly developed antibiotic drugs. The result was a mass extinction of bacteria... Smallpox, rabies, typhoid, rubella, cholera: the ancient scourges of humankind were wiped out." For the record, only cholera is a bacterium, the rest are all viruses and as such they are treated against using vaccines and not by administering antibiotics. It is also worth noting that none of these was ever "wiped out" though smallpox might have been considered such at one point. Another display of ignorance, page 164, "...what if a 100% fatal disease such as HIV..." HIV is not 100% fatal; no recorded disease is 100% fatal, at least a single organism in the population will have an immunity that is the whole point of evolution. In fact HIV in and of itself is not fatal at all, it is the secondary infections that can establish once HIV infects a person that are the cause of death in AIDS patients.

I could go on in this manner but the amount of space it would take up and the amount of time it would take me are unacceptable. However I must cite one more "mistake" to move on. If all of Ward's "mistakes" were related to fields that he was not familiar with (though as a scientist I would assume he would have at least passing familiarity with many sciences) then it might be understand able. However, his "mistakes" extend even into basic understandings of math. Page 134, "There are over 4700 species of mammals... the smallest... have an adult weight of 2.5 grams, whereas the largest... weighs about 1.6 x 10^8 grams - a difference of twenty orders of magnitude." Anyone with even a high school level education in math knows that one order of magnitude is equal to one power of ten. So the difference between the weights is only eight orders of magnitude. There is no reasonable way the numbers can be fudged to "accidentally" come up with an additional 12 orders of magnitude. There are only 2 possibilities I can see for Ward adding in those 12 orders of magnitude. The first is that Ward really is completely ignorant of basic math (which I doubt, though it could explain the similar math error I have heard about in _Rare Earth_). The second is that Ward knows full well that his statement is wrong but he actually believes he is significantly more intelligent than his readers and that, as such, they will be too stupid to catch him if he puts something in writing that is just blatantly false. While I can not prove it I am convinced that the second of these statements is the truth.

After I came to this conclusion I began to notice other things that support it. Throughout the book, Ward refers to the works of other people, however, if one were to check the bibliography they would find that only about 40% of those people are actually cited. This is actually a rather old trick that many (unethical in my opinion) scientists resort to when they do not want the reader to learn that the un-cited material has arguments that destroy those of the author. I also found that the vast majority of the material in the book had no follow through. Ward would talk about how new selective pressures would effect human parasites but then not actually discuss either the selective pressures or the effects. Ward proposed that snakes would become one of the best fit species for continued evolution in a human dominated world while totally ignoring his own earlier argument that any animal that man found to be a threat would not be allowed to evolve up. And considering how many people would just as soon kill a snake as look at it I would have to group them into the group that could not evolve because of the (perceived) threat that pose. Again I could go on and on with examples like this.

In all this book is nothing more that Ward going on and on about how great his ideas are and how stupid every one else is. I found this particularly annoying, especially given how critical he is of those who delve into "fantasy" by imagining a world without humans while he himself spouts off so many fantasies of his own in the book. This book is an insult to any educated person or any person that wants an educated view on evolution. There is no real basis for his conclusions and his logic could be picked apart by anyone who has ever taken a basic logic course. If you are totally devoted to Ward or just like being talked down to then go ahead and pick up this book. Otherwise steer clear.

One final thing before closing. I abhor plagiarism. The painting on page 31 of this book is a blatant plagiarism of the Troodon on page 399 of Gregory S. Paul's book _Predatory Dinosaurs_(1989). That Rockman tries to hide this and deny Paul credit by calling it a Velociraptor is reprehensible.

Who has not wondered what the world will be like in the far future? Will humans
evolve into something new? Will rabbits evolve into giant herborives to fill the niche
left behind by the bison and elephants? Will the oceans of the future have new monsters that put the giant squid and blue whale to shame? In Future Evolutuin Peter Ward makes a series of educated guesses at what the future holds in store for life on Earth. One may agree or disagree with his conclusions, but he raised several points that can not be easily dismissed.

Ward's starts by describing the mass extinctions that ended the Permian and
Cretaceous periods and then discusses the evidence that we are currently in the middle of a mass extinction of our own devising. He points out similarities and
differences between the past and present mass extinctions and comes to the conclusion that there will be no new blooming of the tree of life in the future, as
there was after the the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions. He argues that
humans have fundementally altered the channels that are available to evolution
and that humans will dominate the Earth's ecology until we go extinct. This is a reasonable assumption. After all, it is very unlikely that we will ever allow a species
to evolve that represents a thread to us, such as a large predator.

Peter Ward's more contraversial assumption is that humans are immune to extinction. He argues that we have enough control over our environment that
only a planet-wide disaster such as a large asteroid impact, or wide-spread trap
vulcanism can pose a serious threat to our survival. This assumption that humans
will be around for as long as there in as Earth is the bedrock that the rest of his
predictions for the future of evolution are based upon.

Future Evolution is an interesting and thought provoking book, even if you
disagree with some of the assumptions that the authorr makes. My main reason
for only giving it a medium rating is that the book was choppy and parts of it
felt rushed. For example, I would have preferred to have been given more detail on the similarities and differences between the present and past mass extinctions.
I would also have liked to see Mr Ward explore more scenarios for the future.
All in all I recommend this book, not as a description of what the future will be
like, but as a starting point for pondering what the future may hold for the Earth
and its ecosystem.

This book is a fantastic book on the future evolution of mankind using our knowledge of the past, dealing with causes of extinction and evolution, to build scenarios to come. With the extinction of mega-animals and others, what will replace them? Animals from the farms? Creatures from the sewers under our cities? The book asks what our near future and our future over the next ten MILLION years will be like. Will we be killed off by an asteroid? How about World War Three and the decaying Ozone? Will mankind become stupid thru unnatural selection or will the robots take over? Will climate changes be so slow that we can change with it or happen so fast we'll never be able to adjust in time and die out?

All these questiions and more. In fact, being just about 190 pages, I wanted an even bigger book, with MORE details!

Great pictures!!!

This book is very depressing. It paints a picture nobody wants to view. Some of the prose in this book is poorly written, and there are some minor factual errors. It also makes a convincing case that an extinction level event is taking place around us. I don't feel that all of the reviews of this book are being fair.

The supporting artwork for the book is stunning. Alexis Rockman uses delicate lines and bright colors to bring the prose to life. Oddly, the majority of the artwork is not illustrations of future species. Instead the pictures diagram and explore life history and human influence.

Many parts of the book had me second-guessing the author's conclusions, or looking up things on the web. That's the sign of a great popular science book. This is not written for biologists, but it's significantly more scientifically grounded than most books on future evolution.

There seems to be four main topics on which professional scientists write for the general reading public: the origin of the universe category, the origin of life category, the origin of consciousness category, and the future of the planet category. Peter Ward's book Future of Evolution falls into the latter. While his book Rare Earth is much more specific and thorough with respect to origins and fates, this book is probably a little more approachable for the reader who has yet to delve into the subject. Like others of its kind, it is a cautionary tale.

The author is a colorful writer who is able to capture the concepts of scientific data in brilliant word-pictures for the non-scientist. He also brings his work and that of others into focus by reflecting on his own experiences in the field, which for those who enjoy adventure stories might well capture the imagination. One of the most poignant stories is that of the death of a close friend during a diving accident (p. 171).

Like many in the scientific community Ward is inclined to see the impacts of human activity on the planet as posing a major and irreversible threat to the continued existence of much of the biota with which we share the planet. Unlike others, however, he believes that much of the worst damage has already been done, namely the demise of the mega fauna of the glacial and post-glacial world and the introduction of domestic cultivars into the floral domain. As a paleontologist he is aware that after each major extinction event in the past, whether a broad spectrum or a narrower one, it takes almost 10 million years for the world's living community to recover. Even if our species lives the usual two million years, it will not live to see that recovery, which is a sobering fact.

While he, like one of my former professors, believes that the human species is almost extinction resistant--barring another asteroid impact like that which put "paid" to the dinosaur--he does believe that the world that our descendants inherit will be vastly different from the one bequeathed to us by our ancestors. He would look to the "weeds" of the living world for the future radiation into vacated niches, animals like rats, insects, and snakes, and plants like the dandelion. He also believes that domesticated animals may give rise to new species.

In the last chapters Ward also gives some thought to the fate of our own species, examining what he calls "unnatural selection." He discusses the apparent increase in behavior disorders in modern society, the possibility of artificial genetic modification of the species, the possibility of merging with machines, the possibility that machines will actually be our only "descendants," the possibility that we will be reduced by an asteroid impact, by nuclear war, or by catastrophic climate change.

A very imaginative book.

Peter Ward's research into life's history of extinctions inevitably displays recoveries. Evolution's long, sometimes tortuous course, is necessarily spotted with species' demise and replacement. In this book he is given the opportunity to cast his palaeontologist's eye into the future. With many studies bemoaning the likelihood of the human species following the dodo and the dinosaur, Ward posits a diverging view. In this charming, and stunningly illustrated study, he uses evidence from past extinctions to paint some scenarios for the future.

Ward's career and credentials rule out this book being a light speculation with enticing graphics. Those looking for a titillating or exotic glimpse into a possible future here will be disappointed. Ward understands evolution and the morphology of living things. Having studied the fossils with care, he knows what pointers suggest natural selection's likely course. He also understands how environment affects how animals survive. As a result, this "prediction" spends much more ink on past life and its losses than he does glimpsing into a vague future. It also results in that glimpse having greater validity than some of the works speculating on forecasting life.

Life, he reminds us, established body plans and habits within certain constraints. Once four limbs became the norm, even extinctions didn't result in new experiments. Large animals retained the basic plan. So, therefore, will future life. A pair of eyes, forward for predators and on the sides for prey species emerged continuously. We can expect the same tomorrow. Of far more importance, Ward feels, is whether the large fauna that preceded humanity will return. Not a chance. Small and medium-sized mammals will be the rule, although the likelihood of much larger rats and pigs, both exquisite scavengers, is likely. There may be more avian species. His speculation about flying toads might be the high point of the book.

In what may be a surprise to many is Ward's dismissal that, although we have driven - and are driving - many species into extinction, it will be humans who persist for many more millenia. And persist nearly unchanged. The human body plan is well established and ensconced in every useable niche. There is little selection pressure to change us. The doom-sayers predicting the loss of habitat will elimate us along with those we've destroyed are thus refuted. We are simply too adaptable to wither away unmourned. One of our adaptations is the creation of "new" species through domestication. Horses, cows, pigs and dogs have been bred by us to thrive in the environments we've created for them. So long as we and they are mutually dependent, we will be able to continue with this altered food base. Native species may disappear, but humans and pigs will march together into the "unknown country".

Ward's text and Rockman's excellent graphic renditions make this book an eye-opening experience. Neither are taking highly imaginative flights of fancy, but projecting the lessons of paleontology from the past to the future. While it's easy to argue over many points Ward makes, his logic and science are irrefutable. The book is worth your attention. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Those familiar with "The Future is Wild" series based on the Dougal Dixon book of the same name will find a starkly different version of future evolution here.

Whereas Dixon's Future is Wild posits a future voluntarily abdictated by man leaving other creatures to fill the evolutionary void, Ward's future is one of desolation where man cotinues to reign, albeit with a diminishing small number of species left to join him.

The reason for such global catastrophie? Man's own abuse of his environment says Ward who notes that some eighty percent of megammamals worldwide have been brought to extinction in the past 20000 years owing to man's plunder.

Aside from domesticated animals Ward sees rats, snakes and weeds as the likely beneficiaries of a world dominated by man. Interestingly Ward and his artist collaborator Alexis Rockman draw out family trees of these creatures showing the various ways in which they may come to differentiate to occupy their various ecological niches.

Throuh it all he sees a mankind, safe from extinction owing to his sheer numbers and mastery of the environment around him. On the one hand the picture is optimistic in that it posits long years of survival by mankkind. On the other hand, the picture is bleak, basically of a species forced to live the consequences of its misdeeds and lay in its own bed for a very long time.

While obviously the future itself will alone ultimately reveal its secrets Ward's book is terrifying glimpse of would could be.