A Biography of E.O. Wilson, the Scientist Who Foresaw Our Troubles

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/books/review/scientist-eo-wilson-richard-rhodes.html

by Hooke • 5 years ago

32 21 5 years ago

The title is a little over the top. E.O. Wilson is an excellent writer and speaker, but I wouldn’t necessarily call him a visionary. Extinction is, for better and for worse, part of the natural process here on earth. Over 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct.

https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions

jjtheblunt2• 5 years ago

What's the rate (if known) of generation of new species?

( randomly, i thought of that while thinking like someone who wrote a parallel (and parallelizing) garbage collector before )

culi• 5 years ago

This is a little unanswerable in the same way questions about how many languages there are are unanswerable. The way taxonomists decide what makes two different patterns of life separate species varies drastically across for example plants and animals (fungi are especially messy). Different standards are used even within botanical taxonomy across different families. Even measures of phylogenetic differences have big limitations and are applied differently

Also to touch just a tiny bit on just how messy this question can get with fungi:

If you take certain species of fungi, put them in some soil they're really not adapted for, they will literally increase the rates of horizontal gene transfer and start borrowing genes from soil bacteria there in order to quickly evolve themselves and better adapt to that soil

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5095653/

Certain parasitic plants may act similarly:

https://www.pnas.org/content/113/45/E7010

newsbinator• 5 years ago

Over 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct.

This is often cited, but the jury's out on whether it applies to us.

As far as we can guess, none of those 99% of species could control fire, much less band together to push aside an asteroid or develop a vaccine.

We, too, might go extinct. We might even go extinct because we can control fire or do space things or biology things.

But as far as we know, compared to 99% of all species, we're a special case.

robbedpeter2• 5 years ago

I can't wait for noninvasive brain scan tech that can give whales, orcas, and dolphins voices to communicate with us. We'll probably need to develop a semi tame culture of cetaceans to go out and live and learn among wild groups to allow us to learn more. Our brains and thumbs are enough to assist other species, not just our own - we might be the best thing to happen to every extant species if we can get our shit together in time.

mandmandam4• 5 years ago

Extinction is, for better and for worse, part of the natural process here on earth

You make it sound like human-caused extinction is "part of the natural process" - it is not.

"The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.[4][9][10][11][12][13]"

"human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, caused rapidly rising global mammal extinction rates during the past 126,000 years. Around 96% of all mammalian extinctions over this time period are attributable to human impacts"

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

slibhb4• 5 years ago

You make it sound like human-caused extinction is "part of the natural process" - it is not.

Only from a human perspective are humans something other than natural. This seems to conflict with the vague sort of anti-humanism that is in vogue among many environmentalists. If you want to look at humanity from a perspective that isn't human then "the Holocene extinction" is perfectly natural.

prvc• 5 years ago

I think anyone who founds a new field of scientific research may fairly be called a visionary. As for extinction, I did not see any place where he denied that it could be caused naturally. More relevant is whether it is anthropogenic and/or detrimental.

famil• 5 years ago

William Catton is another visonary. I consider his book, Overshoot to be better than limits to growth.

This lecture sums up his work well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8

A Biography of E.O. Wilson, the Scientist Who Foresaw Our Troubles

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