Customer Reviews

The Garden of Ediacara

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

 

 

The first forms of multicellular, complex life formed about 600 million years ago and left fossils first discovered near the Ediacaran Hills in Australia. Hence they are called the Ediacarans. Since their discovery in 1946 little has been written for the lay reader about these early forms of life. Mark McMenamin's Garden of Ediacaria is one of the few books to cover the subject. For that reason alone the reader interested in the history of early life on earth should read it. The scientific facts are presented and the history of their discovery is explained. No other source of this information is readily available to the non-scientist.

The book is, however, both pedantic and annoying. McMenamin's personal role in the discoveries and the importance of his work is explained in intrusive detail. The book is almost a diary that should have been titled "Ediacarans: My Success In The Science Of Paleobiology." For example, to understand the Ediacarans we really don't need to see photos of McMenamin's identification card or hotel in Namibia or read about his travel plans on fossil hunting expeditions.

Worst of all McMenamin's basic theses about the Ediacarans begin to get lost in the somewhat confused narrative of his personal history. Ultimately the book leaves the reader with the impression that the real story of the Ediacarans is only about 100 pages long, but McMenamin needed 250 pages to satisfy his publisher, so he filled in with a lot of unnecessary "history."

Cut to half its length this book could tell a clear and fascinating story of the earliest multicelled life and their discovery. I suggest that the reader quickly skim the protracted personal stories and concentrate on the sections describing the Ediacaran biota. Read that way, the book is interesting and well worthwhile.

Although I've only given it two stars (I decided to be more charitable and give it three stars), I'm not sorry I bought the book (used), because it is the only popular book available on this fascinating subject.

The "travelogue" or biographical information didn't bother me much. It's fairly standard in popular science writing, because the non-scientific challenges of field work in remote and exotic (to Western readers, anyway) locations is interesting to the lay public. (See, for example, Peter Ward's book Gorgon, which I think strikes a better balance between personal detail and the scientific story.) However, I agree with some of the critics in thinking that McMennamin overdoes it with his extended digressions on Namibian history and the evolution of German aircraft. Some of his diary entries are overlong and could have been summarized in a few sentences. The space taken up by these digressions and diary entries could have been devoted to more photos and high-quality illustrations, and to a more detailed discussion of the evidence supporting his conclusions. The author does a better job focusing on the science in the second half of the book.

What most bothered me in this book was the author's 9th inning invocation of neovitalism to explain parallel or convergent evolution, which seemed to come out of left field (to continue the baseball metaphor). It appears to me to be based on rather thin evidence: the very termite-like social organization of naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber), and the similar adaptations of distantly related desert plants. The naked mole rat example seems exceptional and coincidental. If vitalism was at work in evolution, I'd expect more widespread termite-like eusociality in fossorial vertebrates and the close but non-fossorial relatives of naked mole rats. The example of convergence in desert plants seems to me adequately explained by the extremity of the environment limiting the range of possible adaptations that will work. Only those organisms that come up with successful adaptations will survive in the desert, another form of contingency. McMennamin should consider writing another book more fully making the case that natural selection cum evo-devo cum self-organizing criticality (call it neo-neo-Darwinism) needs help from any sort of vitalism.

The Ediacaran fossils are an interesting chapter in the history of life. They are also an interesting chapter in "The Garden Of Ediacara." Unfortunately, this book appears to have more material in it about Mark McMenamin than it does about the subject matter. Is it truly necessary to show a photograph of a hotel in Namibia or the author's official Mexican fieldwork badge in order to discuss the first complex life forms? I don't think so. The reader truly has to pick and choose what paragraphs to read in order to learn about Ediacaran fossils as opposed to the author's travelogues. Much of the material is simply extraneous. Proper editing would have made this book much more interesting and pleasurable.

The Garden of Ediacara reads like a 295-page Valentine card written by Mark A. S. McMenamin to Mark A. S. McMenamin. I have never seen such egotistic indulgence in a work which claims to be a scientific treatise. Nor have I ever seen an author cite his own (rather ordinary) words in a chapter epigraph! Where the reader might have enjoyed a color photo of an Ediacaran animal, he or she is treated instead to a color photo of Mark A. S. McMenamin's identification card. This is like showing the reader your driver's license (by the way it happens to have a photograph of Mark A. S. McMenamin's face on it). Columbia Press really let its guard down and this thing will take its rightful place as an awkward sore, much like the writings of Wilhelm Reich of "orgone energy" fame.

I'm still puzzling over how this one got through the editors at Columbia. The Ediacaran fauna represents a fascinating piece of evolutionary history, and a popular-press work on it would be a great help for students in understanding how the scientific study of evolution works. It could also give an insight into the mind of a scientist. It's a shame that this book does not fit the bill. Other reviewers have covered most of the shortcomings (although they missed my favourite gem - we now know the name of his parents' realtor), but I think the thrust of several reviews, that there is something worthwhile at the end to reward one's wading through the extraneous filler that comprises the majority of the book, is misleading. The meat of the work alluded to by other reviewers dissolves into a very loose presentation of neovitalism that does little more than take away from the author's credibility. I would like to see his scientific ideas presented lucidly, with better editing this time, and then the book could perhaps be of use. Until then, if you want a look at a quirky (but endearing) scientist doing evolution science, read Darwin's Dreampond. For a good popular look at evolution, try Carl Zimmer's "Evolution" or Mayr's "What Evolution Is."

McMenamin takes up where Dolf Seilacher left off in theorizing that the Ediacara (precursors to the animals of the Cambrian explosion) were in fact a separate experiment in body plan, distinct from both plants and animals. He goes so far as to suggest that they may have independently developed nervous systems and sense organs. If McMenamin is right he is presenting evidence for the independent development of intelligence in more than one evolutionary lineage. Such a finding would have profound implications to our understanding of our place in the universe. Unfortunately, I didn't find his arguments very convincing. Seilacher has made a good case for the Ediacara having a unique and tough body plan unlike that of subsequent animals. Some Ediacara do show organs that may be heads--but to assert this is not to assert that they were heads, that they had nervous systems or sense organs. There may be plenty of other sensible explanations for Ediacaran body plans. We j! ust don't have evidence either way. As to the debate about whether the Ediacara were precursors of Cambrian animals or a separate line, there is no reason why they could not have been a separate evolutionary line; the fact that Ediacaran fossils are preserved in sediments that wouldn't preserve Cambrian-type organisms or soft-bodied creatures like worms suggests that a parallel development of animals with Ediacarans was possible, but simply isn't recorded. This is a very intriguing book, and obviously a very political one, designed to land like a bomb in the middle of the debate about Ediacara. As such I think readers should read it with some skepticism, bearing in mind that the Ediacara are almost the last virgin territory for evolutionary biologists to stake fundamental claims. If McMenamin is right it's groundbreaking stuff--but it's way too early to say.

I have read the book nearly twice and each time close it with a deep sense of disappointment. The problem I have with the story is the personal observation and biographical material. I wanted to read about Ediacaran animals NOT the namibian airport, recalcitrant gatekeepers and inane diary entries about who the author had dinner with. Some of the book could have been taken up with more photos and perhaps professional sketches and not the crayon drawings from Mrs Thompson's second grade class.

The ideas the author presents on the fauna are what made me get through the book at all. Those were great but occupy very little of the book.

Disappointing reading. There is some interesting information here, but it is mostly at the end. Before you find it though, you have to go thru a lot of personal anecdotes in tedious detail and other interjections of questionable relevance. A pity, because some of the ideas and explanation seemed good, but in need of fuller treatment.

In my experience, scientists are a modest lot. Unfortunately, some science popularists seem to have an ego the size of all outdoors. However, if you have the patience to battle your way through the I said..., I did..., I am..., then McMenamin's book contains a few interesting snippets for anyone interested in the Vendian biota.

Alternatively, you could read Chapter 3 of "Major Events in the History of Life" (Ed. by J. William Schopf and available from Amazon) in which Bruce Runnegar writes about the fossils (rather than about Bruce Runnegar.)

The author makes the hypothesis that Edicaran fauna are distinct from other multicellular animals and that they underwent a different type of embryological development. The book presents no real scientific test of these ideas. Instead appeals to over extended analogies and conjecture.