The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The first thing that Harvard University biology professor Stephen Palumbi wants you to know is that evolution is a fact, not a theory. The second is this: evolution does not require eons and eons to make its effects manifest. By tinkering with genes and rewriting the laws of natural selection, we humans have lately been "accelerating the evolutionary game, especially among the species that live with us most intimately"--not our pets, that is to say, but the food we eat, the pests that share that food, and the diseases that visit us.

Almost all of this accelerated evolution--which, as in the pointed case of the human immunodeficiency virus, occurs faster than we can track it--is an unintended, accidental consequence of some well-intentioned effort to improve human life by sidestepping nature. One such consequence is the growing incidence of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, which have mutated to survive antibiotic treatments to the point that postoperative infections from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus now pose a major threat to hospitals. Another is the arrival of pests that have evolved to survive pesticides of many kinds, pests that threaten crops around the world in a time of ever-increasing scarcity. All this, Palumbi writes, is "evolution with teeth," and such responses to our hapless prompting make humans the most potent evolutionary form the planet has ever known. Whether we can survive our own power to reshape the earth remains a question. But, Palumbi concludes, ideas evolve, too, so that we can hope against hope to think our way back to more or less normal cycles of evolutionary change. Well-written and provocative, his book makes for a useful start. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

While some human beings stubbornly refuse to accept the fact that evolution is synonymous with life on Earth, others, such as Harvard biologist Palumbi, try valiantly to explain evolution's astonishing intricacies in order to reveal how our species is "upping the evolutionary ante and accelerating the evolutionary game." The example that hits closest to home is Palumbi's account of how various disease-causing bacteria have rapidly evolved strains resistant to antibiotics, the miracle drugs that briefly seemed to have eradicated such scourges as TB, but are now ineffectual against a host of frightening infections. The war against insects is another arena in which evolutionary wiliness has trumped humankind's efforts at controlling nature: insect species resistant to insecticides now abound. Palumbi's writing is lively and lucid, and his analogies are felicitous. His enlightening discussions of the evolution of HIV, the ecological dangers posed by precipitous bioengineering, and such remarkable evolutionary phenomena as the changes in size and spawning strategies of fish in overfished regions give weight and urgency to his call for evolution literacy. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1st edition (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393323382
• ISBN-13: 978-0393323382
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #676,988 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humans impact evolution, July 23, 2001

By	David Liscio (Nahant, Ma USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change (Hardcover)

"The Evolution Explosion" by Stephen R. Palumbi, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2001.

By David Liscio

Anyone seeking an eloquent explanation of recent evolution as it relates to human impact -- from the use of herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics to AIDS treatment and genetic manipulation -- should find "The Evolution Explosion" a worthwhile read.

Harvard University biology professor Dr. Stephen R. Palumbi has written what is essentially a text on fast-paced evolution, in a style more akin to travel and adventure books, yet packed with scientific detail.

From the start, he explains that the task is "to bring home the equally common impact of evolution on daily life - and not through eclectic recourse to scientific theory or historical anecdote. Instead, I need to do it through examples about how evolution in the world around us matters." To make his point, Palumbi refers to the fertile soils of Kansas that "are part of the everyday life of millions of people - and billions of insects and weeds. And evolution lives among the fields and stalks the checkbooks of struggling farmers - here, like everywhere else, living in the many weed and insect species that have evolved resistance to pesticides." Palumbi notes that as long ago as 1954, a young Paul Ehrlich studied the impact of DDT and evolution of flies that would survive and resist the deadly chemical. As the author explains, Ehrlich's famous work, "The Population Bomb," is partially a result of "the DDT dustings (Ehrlich) and his future wife endured at drive-in movie theaters during Kansas' aborted attempt at mosquito eradication."

Consider this: American troops during WWII dusted themselves and civilians with a white powder. In 1944, entire neighborhoods of Italian villages were coated to keep typhus-bearing lice in check. The epidemic was soon declared dead. "But complete victory was short-lived, and only a year later, DDT-resistant insects were reported," Palumbi writes. "By 1946, houseflies in Sweden were resistant, and by 1951, mosquitoes and flies in Italy were resistant not only to DDT but also to a wide range of the new pesticidal chemicals like chlordane, methoxychlor, and heptachlor."

The author adds that both Egypt and the U.S. used DDT to control mosquito-borne malaria from 1947-52, even though the disease was already on the decline because of extensive dredging. It is yet another example of attempts by human to intervene and, ultimately, speed up the natural evolutionary process.

Palumbi, 44, who in 1996 relocated his laboratory after 11 years from the University of Hawaii to Harvard, articulately lays out the issues surrounding AIDS treatment, the use of antibiotics, and the genetic "tinkering" linked to the fight against crop-destroying diseases, all framed in terms of evolutionary speed.

The researcher most recently caused a stir in the scientific community by using molecular genetics to show that the meat of a certain whale species was contained in fish products sold by Japanese commercial markets. Although the product was marked as containing whale, Palumbi's technique showed that the specific whale was a member of an endangered species.

The book publicist quotes Harvard University's Edward O. Wilson as commenting that Palumbi "has hit upon and clearly explains one of the most important but widely neglected issues of our time in biology, medicine and agriculture: the potential for the swift evolution of our organisms when accelerated by human activity."

Bottom line: evolution is generally thought of as slow, with significant change requiring millions of years, yet human intervention can dramatically speed up the process through efforts to improve the quality of life. The benefits and risks of such intervention must not be ignored....

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Colorful take on how we cause unwanted evolutionary change, November 23, 2001

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change (Hardcover)

It has become clear over the last few decades that evolution can take place much more rapidly than Darwin ever imagined. The evolution of the AIDS virus is a particularly compelling case in point, and one of the focal points of this engaging book about how our efforts to control our world can bring about unwanted evolutionary change over time periods measured not in millennia, but in weeks and months. Mostly it is microbial evolution that Harvard Professor of Biology Stephen Palumbi writes about, the AIDS virus, the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, staph and other infections, but also insects and plants, particularly the insects that eat crops and the plants we call weeds, and even fish. At the center of change is the "evolutionary engine" that is continually at work adjusting organisms to their environments. Change the environment of a creature and the creature changes to keep its fit, a never-ending phenomenon that frustrates our efforts to eradicate harmful pests and deadly diseases.

Palumbi shows how it is not enough to spray our fields of amber grain with pesticides because the pests will inevitably evolve to flourish in the new pesticide-filled environment. It is not enough to throw antibiotics at the bacteria that invade our bodies because they too will evolve to flourish. Our efforts to combat the scourges of field and body are now seen as just one half of the prey/predator, parasite/host phenomenon of co-evolution. As Palumbi phrases it, "The disease dance continues, turning to the evolutionary tune, and both players must step smartly." (p. 90) We must take the power of life forms to evolve rapidly into account, and realize that they will react to our efforts. This is the evolutionary arms race, the "Red Queen" hypothesis, that keeps us (if we "step smartly"enough) and our enemies in the same place even though we are both running at full speed. This may be seen as a kind of cosmic joke at those who would find "progress" in evolution.

En route on bringing us up to speed on rapid evolutionary change, Palumbi sets some sort of record for the use of colorful language. There is some distraction as metaphors and analogies fly about like confetti at a wedding , but he is so clever that we forgive him. Some examples:

p 16: "...as unknown as the dreams of a sleeping infant."

p. 56: a trait (a recessive gene) is said to lie "dormant like thoughts on a Saturday morning."

p. 102: a virus is compared to a credit card.

p. 107: a typical viral attack on the immune system "has more plot twists than a soap opera."

p. 137: expressing the too-optimistic hopes of a five-year malaria eradication program: "...by then, surely malaria would be gone like the world's last car payment."

p. 240: "bad ideas" are compared to "anchovy daiquiris" that "live on only in a few people with fishy breath."

In short, this book colorfully illuminates one of the most significant conundrums of our time: despite our best pesticides, our most powerful antibiotics, our most clever and hopeful chemical cocktails, we are not winning the war against pests and disease. We are at best holding our own. The message of this book is perhaps we can do more if we take into account the power of the evolutionary engine, and finds ways to use it to our advantage.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why evolution Matters and why you should care., January 11, 2002

By	"ahoude" (Highland Park, Il USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change (Hardcover)

This is a great read. Steven Palumbi shows everyone why evolution matters today in real and meaning ful ways.
Two quotes from the book
".. the best education is the one that bites back, the one that shows with clarity of glacial ice that the facts and principles of the scientific world are of crucial importance to every day life.... not through eclectic recourse to scientific theory or historical anecdote. Instead, I need to do it through examples about how evolution in the world around us matters."

And why does it matter: " And if antibiotic resistance just happens, then we have no notion of how it comes to be, and no real chance to block the rise of some of the world's deadliest forms of life. But if something evolves, then the science of evolution can chart the answer to why, and perhaps prevent or change it."