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pejahanako's review against another edition
1.0
While this non-fiction journey through the impact of species is comprehensive and interesting, the formatting isn't enough to mitigate the boredom that this book brings. Lacking infographics, interesting titles and facts, the plain text gets monotonous pretty fast and I genuinely fell asleep more than a few times while reading this. Maybe for those specifically interested in human history and biology, this could be exciting when read in small chunks or for those writing a research paper on this specific topic, but otherwise I would not recommend. It's also notable that there's a lot of borderline offensive takes on the culture of entire countries and there isn't a lot of in-depth analysis of the negative effects of colonialism (although the colonization of the "New World" is mentioned many times).
agavemonster's review
informative
slow-paced
2.5
Somewhat well researched, but the extreme human-centric view of "man" as the pinnacle of evolutionary history was a huge turnoff and made me question whether the author even understood the process of evolution. For example, the author spends several pages asserting that only mammals are capable of "rational thought," which he defines as the opposite of instinct: "So it was that with the evolution of mammals came the beginnings of an alternative operating system for the working and organizing of life on Earth. The most extreme expression of this rise of reason, of problem-solving, of deliberative thought and self-awareness, is still very much alive today--it belongs to us: modern man." So crows, ravens, and parrots don't count as intelligent or problem-solving? Not to mention cetaceans, elephants, and our fellow primates. Also, in a section about sea scorpions, "Could a link between today's human instinctive fear of arachnids (spiders) [sic] originate with sea scorpions hundreds of millions of years before people first evolved? Arachnophobia is common enough: almost 80 percent of 25-34 year olds questioned in a UK survey owned up to having some form of fear of spiders." Dude, what? "Modern man" is shoehorned in like this throughout the text's journey through evolutionary history, as though all these evolutionary adaptations and detours were just waiting to lead up to humankind.
The author also obsesses over what he thinks "many biologists" believe, almost all of which are gross mischaracterizations of current scientific thought in order to make himself, the author, appear insightful and educated, as in, "It is a fashion among many modern biologists to account for the rise of variety in nature through the random mutation [sic] of living things from one form into another... it is also apparent that mutations in some genes matter a great deal more than in others." Which serves as his introduction to Hox bodyplan genes and how Hox mutations can rapidly accelerate speciation. Who do you think discovered and characterized Hox genes, dummy? And again: "Evolutionary biologists have spilled plenty of ink in recent years trying to prove that, in the wild, all species act only according to the individual selfish interests of their genes in an unfettered competitive battle for the survival of the fittest. Less well appreciated is how normal it is for one species to align itself with the interests of another." Who says that? Literally no one says that. You'd have to go back to pop science books from 30 years before this book was written to find a narrative like that (and, of course, pop science books often drastically simplify or mischaracterize the contemporary science they draw from). "At this point university professors and biology teachers will with one voice protest: how on Earth could life begin as a virus? Everyone knows that a virus itself is not a living thing!" Shut up.
So overall, informative on individual species, but extremely tiresome.
The author also obsesses over what he thinks "many biologists" believe, almost all of which are gross mischaracterizations of current scientific thought in order to make himself, the author, appear insightful and educated, as in, "It is a fashion among many modern biologists to account for the rise of variety in nature through the random mutation [sic] of living things from one form into another... it is also apparent that mutations in some genes matter a great deal more than in others." Which serves as his introduction to Hox bodyplan genes and how Hox mutations can rapidly accelerate speciation. Who do you think discovered and characterized Hox genes, dummy? And again: "Evolutionary biologists have spilled plenty of ink in recent years trying to prove that, in the wild, all species act only according to the individual selfish interests of their genes in an unfettered competitive battle for the survival of the fittest. Less well appreciated is how normal it is for one species to align itself with the interests of another." Who says that? Literally no one says that. You'd have to go back to pop science books from 30 years before this book was written to find a narrative like that (and, of course, pop science books often drastically simplify or mischaracterize the contemporary science they draw from). "At this point university professors and biology teachers will with one voice protest: how on Earth could life begin as a virus? Everyone knows that a virus itself is not a living thing!" Shut up.
So overall, informative on individual species, but extremely tiresome.
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