Two things, or so the joke goes, are sure in life: death and taxes. Entropy, that existential bummer*, is another candidate for that list. Why Fish Don’t Exist sees science reporter Lulu Miller grapple with the question of how to find meaning in a world where “there is no escaping the Second Law of Thermodynamics” (p. 3), to quote her biochemist father. She does so by examining the life of fish taxonomist David Starr Jordan who saw his life’s work destroyed—twice—and responded by rebuilding it bigger and better. But is Jordan a suitable role model? In vivid prose that jumps off the page, Miller attempts to come to terms with his complex character, tracing the heights to which confidence can lift you, but also the depths to which it can plunge you.
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, written by Lulu Miller, published by Simon & Schuster in April 2019 (hardback, 225 pages)
David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) was possessed from a young age by the urge to understand and name the diversity of nature. After training under the famous naturalist Louis Agassiz, he became an ichthyologist, made huge contributions to fish taxonomy, and would in time become the founding president of Stanford University. When his research collection of ethanol-pickled fish was destroyed in a fire in 1883, he rebuilt it even bigger. Only to have the 1906 San Francisco earthquake tear it all asunder again. It shattered hundreds of glass jars and scattered the included name tags—a taxonomist’s nightmare. “In some terrible act of Genesis in reverse, his thousands of meticulously named fish had transformed back into a heaping mass of the unknown” (p. 4). His response? Start over, this time stitching the name tags directly to the fish with needle and thread.
Miller contrasts Jordan’s life story with her own struggles growing up. How she felt beaten down by her father’s take on life: “There is no point. There is no God […] There is no afterlife. No destiny. No plan […] These are all things people dream up to comfort themselves against the scary feeling that none of this matters […]” (p. 34). How she suffered seeing her sister being bullied to the point of dropping out of high school. How she harmed herself and attempted suicide. I admit that I found this part of the book hard as I struggled to sympathise with her—her father’s grim attitude resonates much more with me. Your mileage with this may vary, but, regardless, it is not the main thread of this book.
Instead, she is engrossed with Jordan’s life story upon hearing about it, dissecting it for lessons. How can someone find the strength to keep going in a universe that so clearly does not care for the order we try to impose upon it? Even to spit in the face of adversity and double down? Why Fish Don’t Exist initially casts Jordan as a hero, a role model to aspire to. But is he really? The second part of the book takes an unexpectedly dark turn.
“Why Fish Don’t Exist initially casts Jordan as a hero, a role model to aspire to. But is he really? The second part of the book takes an unexpectedly dark turn.”
Miller briefly looks into the psychology behind (over)confidence. How self-deception, when administered in moderation, can enhance your life. Jordan certainly did not lack these qualities, though they backfired in later years. First, there was his patron, Jane Stanford, who very likely died of poisoning. Jordan publicly changed the story to one of a simple heart attack, undermining professional medical opinion as he went. Stanford was about to fire him from his position as president over misconduct, and Miller and others consider him a likely suspect.
Darker still is that later in life Jordan became a very vocal spokesperson for eugenics.
Ho boy did I not see that coming.
In what is surely the most harrowing part of this book, Miller delves into the history of eugenics in the US and speaks to some of the survivors. She traces Jordan’s beliefs to his mentor, Agassiz, who was convinced that life’s diversity hid a divine hierarchy: the Scala Naturae with humans at the top as Creation’s crowning achievement. To reveal this order was, according to Agassiz, “missionary work of the highest order” (p. 28). This idea, contends Miller, transformed Jordan’s childish hobby of naming nature, filling him “with a burst of purpose that sailed him through life, winning him jobs, awards, wives, children, presidencies” (p. 144). Faced with human imperfections, his belief in a natural order was so unwavering that he wielded it “like a blade, convincing people that sterilization was the soundest way—the only way—of saving the human race” (p. 145).
Jordan emerges as a complicated character, both virtuous and sinful. Yet, that second part seems to have largely been forgotten. To this day, writes Miller, “his legacy as the swashbuckling giant of fish discovery remains untarnished” before she somberly concludes that “this is the world in which we live. An uncaring world with no sense of cosmic justice” (p. 170).
“Jordan emerges as a complicated character, both virtuous and sinful. Yet, that second part seems to have largely been forgotten […] “his legacy as the swashbuckling giant of fish discovery remains untarnished“.”
In the end, Miller tries to derive some joy from the fact that, as the book’s title indicates, the group to which Jordan devoted his life does not exist—from a taxonomical perspective, that is. Fish are a paraphyletic group, meaning a group consisting of the last common ancestor and some, but not all, of its descendants. In this case, we exclude all the other vertebrate groups that descended from the ancestors of fish. From a cladistical standpoint, such group names are invalid—linguistic crutches used in day-to-day language. But even that irony brings little calm to Miller’s troubled mind: “Did it matter, in any broader sense, to anyone whose job is not arranging specimens in jars, that fish, as a category, does not exist? It was a question that was beginning to haunt me.” (p. 178).
As much as Miller’s mindset might differ from mine, it is the driving force behind her brilliant writing here. She engages with her protagonist with a fury that is impressive to behold. In vivid prose that is accompanied by beautiful artwork from Kate Samworth, she paints unforgettable scenes. When the universe uncaringly flexes its muscles and the San Francisco earthquake shatters Jordan’s fish collection? “the bastard, the wonderful bastard, takes out his sewing needle and plunges it straight into our ruler’s throat” (p. 78). When she recoils at his later fall from grace? “He drank the eugenics Kool-Aid hard and fast. He began hallucinating evidence of heritable personality traits everywhere” (p. 129). When she kicks over Agassiz’s Scala Naturae? “The most damning argument came from nature herself […] This dazzling, feathery, squawking, gurgling mound of counterevidence. Animals can outperform humans on nearly every measure supposedly associated with our superiority.” (p. 146).
In just under two hundred pages, Miller interrogates Jordan’s life and manages to make me laugh and cringe, to entrance and horrify me. What starts as a biography of sorts—a homage to an unflappable scientist—turns into a cautionary tale. The unexpected twists by which it arrives there are so engrossing that I read this book in a single sitting.
*I liberally borrow here the words of Jason Silva.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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Convergent evolution was the subject of the first book I reviewed on this blog and is a topic I keep returning to. MIT Press recently published two further books on it, Convergent Evolution on Earth in 2019 and Contingency and Convergence in 2020. I felt the time was ripe to finally read their 2011 book Convergent Evolution that I bought some years ago. All three of these are part of The Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology, a series I hold in high regard. This, then, is the first of a three-part dive into what I consider one of evolutionary biology’s most exciting topics.
Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful, written by George R McGhee, Jr., published by MIT Press in December 2011 (hardback, 322 pages)
George McGhee is a Professor of Palaeobiology at Rutgers University and a member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Austria. The latter can be considered the alma mater of this series, as its three editors work here. The book’s subtitle, Limited Forms Most Beautiful, is a play on Darwin’s triumphant conclusion to On the Origin of Species where he wrote that “endless forms most beautiful […] are being evolved“.
For those needing a refresher, convergent evolution refers to the ubiquitous pattern of evolution repeatedly hitting on the same or similar solutions to a problem in different organisms. One commonly cited example, shown on the book’s cover, is that of wings. Birds, bats, and pterosaurs all modified their forelimbs into appendages used to generate lift. This is where I feel Convergent Evolution does not get off to its strongest possible start. Together with definitions, it immediately dives into a discussion on the subtle distinction between parallel and convergent evolution before deciding that the former is but one type of the latter. However, do not let this put you off, as the book is very accessibly written throughout.
Despite not planning to be an “Encyclopedia of Convergent Evolution”, the bulk of the book falls into the listicle category, with five of its eight chapters providing numerous tables with examples of convergent evolution. Two chapters tackle convergent structures in animals and plants, for example the eyes and ears involved in prey detection and reproductive structures such as plant seeds. Next to many remarkable examples, what stands out is how some adaptations are so common that you would forget they evolved convergently numerous times. Take viviparity, which is neither unique to terrestrial animals nor even to vertebrates; live birth also repeatedly evolved in marine animals and invertebrates.
“[…] some adaptations are so common that you would forget they evolved convergently numerous times.”
More interesting even for evolutionary biologists are the subsequent three chapters where McGhee considers molecules, minds, and ecosystems. Molecules makes sense, as there are many examples of repeated evolution of DNA sequences coding for, say, a light-sensitive protein in eyes. Or of different amino acid sequences evolving to produce functionally and geometrically very similar proteins, such as antifreeze proteins in cold-water fish species. Convergent evolution of minds here means the repeated evolution of behaviours such as tool use or social hunting. But ecosystems? McGhee makes the convincing argument that whole assemblages of organisms, all with their specialised roles, have evolved repeatedly.
Where the book gets really interesting, and the theoretical biology part comes to the fore, are the last two chapters. One reason for convergent evolution is constraints imposed by physics—Cockell memorably summarised this with the phrase “physics is life’s silent commander”. The other is developmental constraints. Some biological forms that evolve are non-functional and lethal, these are the freaks of nature, the animal anomalies.
These two meet each other in the concept of theoretical morphology, which can be thought of as the less whimsical version of speculative zoology: an exercise in mapping all the possible forms, existent and non-existent, an organism could take, with the aim of answering why some morphologies evolved but others did not. The total set of all possibilities forms a hyperdimensional morphospace. McGhee wrote more about this in his 2007 book The Geometry of Evolution where he applies it to the concept of the adaptive landscape to explain why evolution favours certain solutions over others (in short, because not all solutions are equally good). I realise that if you are not well versed in evolutionary biology this might all sound rather abstract. I thoroughly recommend Andreas Wagner’s brilliant books Arrival of the Fittest and Life Finds a Way as introductions to the idea of evolution as life endlessly probing the hyperdimensional space of all possible options (whether morphologies or DNA and protein sequences).
“[…] physical and developmental constraints form a Venn diagram in morphospace. All life forms, extinct and extant, are found [here]”
McGhee here shows how physical and developmental constraints form a Venn diagram in morphospace. All life forms, extinct and extant, are found in the space where the two constraints overlap: these are the forms that are both functional and viable. Lethal mutants are those that are allowed by physics but not by developmental constraints. Those that are developmentally but not physically allowed are of particular interest to astrobiology. “Not physically allowed” comes with an asterisk that reads: not on Earth. But what of other planets? Could silicon-based life forms exist on planets with extremely high or low temperatures? Peter Ward thought so, but Charles Cockell makes a case for the universality of carbon-based lifeforms. This leaves a vast set of possibilities not accessible to life due to the constraints imposed by both development and physics.
The other big question touched on is the predictability of evolution with McGhee juxtaposing the two dominant schools of thought. There is Stephen Jay Gould’s view of evolution as being dominated by contingency (i.e. chance events) and therefore being unpredictable if it was to be repeated. The second is the view of Simon Conway Morris and others who argue that evolution is predictable and its outcomes inevitable. In McGhee’s eyes, the latter is the clear winner and his argumentation why is worth reading.
There are some points of criticism that McGhee does not tackle here. Are we cherry-picking examples when arguing for convergent evolution? Are we even seeing patterns where there are none? To return to the example of the wings on the book’s cover: though all involve modification of forelimbs, the details differ. And is shared genetic ancestry predisposing organisms to converging on similar solutions? Losos tackled these questions in a very balanced manner in his brilliant book Improbable Destinies.
McGhee delivers a fascinating tour through convergent evolution with this book and I am especially intrigued by the subtitle of his 2019 book which promises to apply this further to astrobiology, and which I review next.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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Extremes fascinate us: the biggest, the fastest, the oldest, the tallest. Books and TV-programmes regularly scratch our itch for records, whether it is feats of engineering or biological extremes, and many sporting events revolve around humans attempting to set new records. One glance at the cover of Matthew D. LaPlante’s book Superlative and you might think that this is yet another book offering lots of gee-whiz factoids. You would also be wrong. Instead, this is an amusing and fascinating book that digs just that much deeper into the biology behind extremes, and why studying them is so worthwhile.
Superlative: The Biology of Extremes, written by Matthew D LaPlante, published by BenBella Books in May 2019 (hardback, 304 pages)
Superlative starts with an interesting observation: science often purposefully ignores statistical outliers. And yet, studying them can be revealing, showing how evolution manages to push organisms to extremes. Next to satisfying our curiosity, understanding how such extremes can exist could lead to all sorts of applications. Take size, most recently also discussed in Nature’s Giants. From books such as Scale and Why Size Matters, I already knew that most things do not scale linearly with one another. But given the vastly larger number of cells that make up an elephant, how is it they do not develop cancer more? As mammals, humans and elephants share a large amount of genetic material, but clearly the latter are doing something different. Through a close reading of both primary literature and popular articles, LaPlante explains how elephant cells activate apoptosis pathways (basically a form of cellular suicide) at the first sign of mutation.
Throughout Superlative, LaPlante employs this strategy, thus examining the world’s biggest, smallest, oldest, fastest, toughest, deadliest, smartest, and most-keen eared organisms. Bringing his background as a newspaper reporter to bear on this topic, he offers plenty of interesting tidbits with the wide-eyed wonderment of an outsider while witty footnotes provide more details on some of the interesting research that he puts in the spotlight here. There was plenty here that raised my eyebrows, though, as mentioned, the book avoids being a mere collection of factoids, rather seeking to stimulate deeper reflection.
“Even for simple metrics such as speed or age, determining who is the faster or oldest is less straightforward than you might think.”
For one, it is not always easy to determine who is the most extreme in something. When it comes to something as complex as intelligence this should come as no surprise. LaPlante discusses dolphins (admittedly a somewhat loaded topic) to then show how other animals are also very smart, including octopuses, elephants, ants, plants, and even slime moulds. Each of these is smart in their own unique way.
But even for simpler metrics such as speed or age, determining who is the most extreme is less straightforward than you might think. Sure, cheetahs are fast, but not for very long. And when you measure speed in comparison to body size, they pale in comparison to tiny mites which have been shown to sprint over 300 body lengths per second. Slow in absolute terms, but lighting-fast in relative terms. Age can be similarly slippery. A bristlecone pine nicknamed Methuselah is estimated to be 4,850 years old, but what of clones? Aspen trees exist as clonal colonies that might well be tens to hundreds of thousands of years old, taking the cake for being both the oldest and largest organisms on the planet – though certain fungal colonies might disagree (the wonderful coffee-table book The Oldest Living Things in the World illustrates many of the plants LaPlante mentions).
“Many record-holders are threatened with extinction, and many others might disappear before we had a chance to learn much about them, or to even become aware of their existence in the first place!”
The other thing is that many of the current record holders may not stay that way for long, for we often simply have not looked very hard. New discoveries can be made under our very noses, such as the world’s smallest frog (average length: a mere 7.7 mm), which was found in between leaf litter layers where nobody had thought to look. Admittedly, in some cases, we need to look outside of our normal range of perception, such as with infra- and ultrasound. But the real reason LaPlante flags this up is his concern with the biodiversity crisis. Many record-holders are threatened with extinction, and many others might disappear before we had a chance to learn much about them, or to even become aware of their existence in the first place!
The last way in which his theme of extremes serves a larger purpose is that LaPlante uses it to make a case for fundamental research. Much of the science discussed here superficially seems quirky and pointless (Do elephants experience long-term trauma? Why are waterbears so tough? How do these super fast tiny mites change direction?). But seeing scientific knowledge only through the lens of immediate (monetary) applications is a shallow perspective. In that sense, Superlative does a, well, superlative job of pointing out the value of seemingly useless research. Whether it is better understanding morphology, physiology, diseases, ageing, or evolution, we can learn an awful lot about both our own and other’s biology by being more observant of nature’s extremes. To that end, Superlative offers a very pleasant mix of mindblowing facts and a deeper context into which to place them.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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or Fungi have been eaten, worshipped, reviled, and studied for centuries. Neither animal nor plant (though originally classified as such), they occur pretty much everywhere, from the frigid icy wastes of Antarctica to between your toes. And yet I, like many others, know surprisingly little about them. With part of their life happening underground and on a microscopic scale, they easily evade our attention. With Fungipedia, mycologist Lawrence Millman provides a delightful little introduction to the world of fungi.
Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore, written by Lawrence Millman, published by Princeton University Press in October 2019 (hardback, 208 pages)
Princeton University Press has gone mycology-mad this season. At one end of the spectrum, they have just published the massive 2-volume set Fungi of Temperate Europe: over 1700 pages of photographic goodness for the serious mycologist. At the other end of the spectrum, there is this: a whimsical 184-page A-Z miscellany that could be slipped into your back pocket.
The approach to this book is straightforward – Millman has written approximately 180 short entries on the biology, ethnography, history, and students of fungi. Line drawings from the hand of Amy Jean Porter are scattered throughout, further lightening up the text.
Fungipedia provides plenty of interesting tidbits of information, but it is not all factoids. In fact, it concisely defines some of the major taxonomic fungus groups: ascomycetes, basidiomycetes, boletes, coral fungi, corticioid fungi, and yeasts to name but a few. Even a group such as slime moulds – technically not fungi – are described. Similarly, it explains some of the biological basics. Don’t know the difference between endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi? Fungipedia has got you covered. Can’t point out the gills, stem, cap, or veil on a drawing of a mushroom fruiting body? Millman explains what they are and what they look like.
“Fungipedia provides plenty of interesting tidbits of information, but it is not all factoids. “
Beyond the basics, Fungipedia lifts the lid on some of the more outlandish biological particularities of fungi. Such as their tolerance for, and sometimes dependence on, extreme cold (psychrophiles) or dryness (xerophiles). And what of the mycelium, that underground network of thread-like hyphae invisible to the naked eye? Peter Wohlleben has been making waves with his book The Hidden Life of Trees, popularising the finding that trees can communicate with each other via fungi, something dubbed the “wood wide web” (see also this short TED-Ed talk). You can read more on this from the fungi’s perspective in Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life.
I personally found the entries on the people some of the most fascinating reading. I never knew that Beatrix Potter was first and foremost a mycologist, but only turned to illustrating because, as a woman, her scientific work was ignored at the time. A similar sign of the times was that it was a reverend, the clergyman Miles Berkeley, who coined the term mycology in 1837. From the pioneers (Carolus Clusius, a mycologist some 300 years ahead of his time), to the eccentric (Sam Ristich, who taught at the New York Botanical Garden with, apparently, characteristic enthusiasm), or the crestfallen (John Allegro, whose academic career took a nosedive after publishing The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross), Millman gives short, informative biographies of some notable figures.
“[…] amidst all the informative entries there is plenty of space for witty entertainment […] what to make of the fungus that goes by the common name of “shit on a stick”?”
Plenty of rots and diseases caused by fungi have found their way onto these pages, as well as edible, medicinal, and psychedelic mushrooms. There is a good deal of deserved scepticism regarding the curative powers of medicinal mushrooms, with Millman noting that anything that claims to cure AIDS and cancer and gout and migraine and etc. etc. is suspect. His treatment of psychedelic mushrooms and other ethnomycological topics is somewhat more agnostic though, and he sees the value of research into the neurochemical properties and effects of fungal compounds.
But seriousness aside for a moment, amidst all the informative entries enough space remains for witty entertainment and spectacular fungal facts. From berserker mushrooms (supposedly sending Vikings into a fit of rage) and humongous fungus to the delights of fairy rings or zombification by Ophiocordyceps species. Or what to make of the fungus that goes by the common name of “shit on a stick”? (Because, well, that is what it looks like…).
The air of mystery that surrounds fungi lends itself particularly well to these kinds of books, with Mycophilia being another good example of a recent book that plays into this. Mycologist Nicholas Money, whose book The Rise of Yeast I reviewed last year, has also tapped into this vat with his books Mushroom and Mushrooms. Similarly, Jens H. Petersen, one of the authors of abovementioned Fungi of Temperate Europe, wrote a very accessible introduction with The Kingdom of Fungi. Even so, Fungipedia is a delightful little book to wile away some hours. The neat cloth binding with debossed illustration immediately shouts out “stocking filler!” and this would make a nice little gift for the mycologically curious. But, as Leif Ryvarden (an experienced Norwegian mycologist and author of Poroid Fungi of Europe) also mentions, even seasoned mycologists will here find things to entertain and enlighten them.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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“Strange Survivors: How Organisms Attack and Defend in the Game of Life”, written by Oné R. Pagán, published by BenBella Books in March 2018 (paperback, 229 pages)
Opening this book, I was immediately reminded of Emlen’s Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle I read some years ago, and this is the first book Pagán refers to himself. After introducing the basics of evolution and biochemistry, Strange Survivors presents an eclectic potpourri of nature’s marvels. We get a chapter on bioelectricity and how this finds its use in electric eels and rays. There is a long chapter on venoms, toxins and poisons throughout the tree of life, clearly a favourite topic of the author. We meet the powerful punch packed by mantis shrimps in a chapter on the use of insanely fast motion at small scales. And finally, Pagán talks about cooperation, from eusociality in insects to endosymbiosis. The selection of organisms included seems somewhat haphazard, and they are treated cursorily, Pagán being quick to refer the reader to the reference section for suggestions to further reading.
Pagán decided to write this book as if he was having a conversation with the reader. As a consequence his writing is conversational, chatty even, and the text is littered with exclamation marks, humorous footnotes, pop-culture references, interjections, and rhetorical questions. Maybe I have grown a bit jaded, or maybe I have become too British after seven years here, but I found it a bit much at times. On the other hand, here is a writer who truly remembers the wonder felt when you first opened your biology textbooks and learned completely new things. He talks about these topics while maintaining that attitude of innocence and is keen to share his enthusiasm with the reader. Sure enough, I learned many new interesting facts along the way, and wrote down a fair few other books to check out in the future. Strange Survivors is thus a popular science book that you can safely put in the hands of readers with little or no background in biology.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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