| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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letters to the editor Culture = Lucre I tend to agree with Jerold Lowensteins's position that culture is the main determinant of a nation's wealth ("Counterpoints in Science," Summer 2000). However, I wonder if the wholesale import of Western institutions is really fundamental to economic success. More basic than the particular form of government may be the extent of reliable interactions in a society. The farther afield from one's immediate family that trusted economic exchange can occur, the more likely it is that enterprise can be rewarded and resources will flow to where they can be most productively utilized. An analogy might be drawn to the functioning of the collections of neurons called brains: the longer and more interconnected the pathways over which signals can be transmitted, the more complex and rewarding the resulting behaviors can be. Indeed, the particular form of Western institutions may be far from optimal for economic development. Witness the increasing formalization of social interactions in our culture (read: too many lawyers) and the extent to which this is weighing Western capitalist societies with the same sorts of burdens that afflicted the formally planned economies of the communist East. Perhaps what we should really be promoting, in our own nations as well as the economically underdeveloped ones, is education and peer pressures that permit individuals to rely on one another to behave rationally and even morally. An economically successful society seems more likely to grow from these fundamentals than from the adoption of flawed and potentially inappropriate foreign models. Philip Early Whomans? I recently watched a Discovery Channel special "Humans: who are we?" Given the information about the meanderings of Homo sapiens and the extinction of Homo erectus and Neandertals, I could not help but draw circumstantial conclusions. I am confident that modern humans did hunt and kill other human species but suggest that the most ruthless killing came in the form of disease. Consider: 1. Both Homo erectus and Neandertals lived in relative isolation before the advent of modern humans. Their exposure to disease must have been limited; 2. Modern humans brought with them a primitive trade that would have been a rapid vehicle for quickly (not by today's standards) transporting diseases from one community to the next; 3. Homo erectus and Neandertals are close enough relatives to us to be susceptible to the diseases we carry. They would have little, if any, immunity to these imported diseases; 4. This could also explain why modern humans took a sudden dip in population about 100,000 years ago. Those that survived had natural immunity; 5. This may also explain the lack of human and Neandertal offspring. Disease could have killed off Neandertal women quickly, or babies from human women and Neandertal men could have been susceptible to the diseases. This simple but effective method of eliminating competition was dramatically played out with the intervention of Europeans to the Americas. Tyler Sweet Inspired by Insects While as a naturalist working also in schools I can sympathize with Norm Gershenz's ("Inspired by Insects," Fall 2000) concern for endangered ecosystems, it troubles me that so many naturalists presenting ecology to school children concentrate on the exotic, out-of-place animals instead of what's in the student's backyard or local park. Very few urban students, for example, will have the opportunity to visit a foreign rainforest or coral reef that they have "adopted," but by stepping outside their school grounds into a local park, they probably will find an ecosystem just as "endangered" as anything they experience in an "imaginary tour of endangered ecosystems." The article mentions only one insect native to California, the darkling beetle. In my own walks with kids through parks here in San Francisco, I often point out one of the darkling beetles laboring across a path and then we stop to watch its progress. Inevitably one of my students will ask: "Will someone step on it, teacher?" Our discussion then leads naturally into how trails might adversely affect the life cycle of the beetle. In other words, the discussion has some relevance to the student's daily life. The article ends with a young child's concern about what is happening to rainforests around the world as the trees fall, to which Gershenz assures the student that he can do something about it, such as "adopt" a forest or raise money to send off somewhere. Isn't the real lesson, however, that these kids have to learn about humans being part of the problem? And even more importantly, that they can begin to solve the problem by remembering to walk more lightly on the earth on their way to school? Thinking globally may make sense to adults, but acting locally in a responsible way is where it's at when it comes to kids making a real, positive connection with their environment. David Graves Mono Lake I enjoyed the article on Mono Lake in California Wild, Summer 2000 issue. I was shocked and dismayed at how Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (ladpw) caused the lake level to drop, endangering surrounding wildlife. Mono Lake is a natural habitat for many forms of life that are important to our ecological system. From the natural food chain of grebes who feed off brine shrimp and so on, if any of these living creatures are destroyed by mankind's infringement upon their territory, this whole lake habitat could be destroyed. It would be like a domino effect with dire circumstances. It was pleasing to see that a wake-up call is taking effect with ladpw teaming up with the Mono Lake Committee in the restoration of Rush Creek, a vital source of replenishment for Lake Mono. Paul Dale Roberts |