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Reviews

The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin’s Soul, by Richard Morris. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, NY, 2001, 262 pp., $22.95 hardcover.

Richard Morris begins by picturing a typical scientific conference. The lay reader, for whom this book is intended, may be surprised that much of the meeting—regardless of the specialty of the science being discussed—will be filled with controversy. At the heart of the scientific enterprise are contests of reason that create controversy, but also feed intellectual vigor. Controversy is necessary for issues to be aired and delineated, and no arena of scientific debate has generated more than Darwinian evolution.

Considering the volatility and public display of these disputes, observers could be misled into thinking that the scientific community is about to overthrow Darwinism as the central explanation system of biology. Quite the contrary. Morris sees the controversies not as a sign of Darwinism’s demise, but as evidence of its vitality. Still, some argue that something should be added to Darwin’s theory, and it is the dispute over these “additional somethings” that is the thesis for this book.

All the usual suspects are here—Gould, Dawkins, Dennett, Lewontin, Kaufman, Pinker, E.O. Wilson—struggling for Darwin’s soul (or at least a sizeable chunk of his inheritance). There are “spandrels” and “selfish genes” and “self-organization.” Equilibrium is punctuated, and chaos and complexity abound.

After stating the case for Darwinian evolution, citing evidence ranging from the smallest molecules to the largest fossils, and touching on popular misunderstandings of the meaning of “theory” and “fact,” Morris demonstrates that Darwinism is more properly an amalgam of five distinct, and independent, theories. He also shows that while natural selection is undoubtedly a cause of evolution, it is not necessarily the only one—a point that Darwin himself made.

Morris proposes that “complexity science,” an emerging field that explains intricate systems, such as rainforests, may offer new insights and possible resolutions for some of the controversies raging today. Complexity science suggests an obvious model for punctuated equilibrium, for instance, and, though Morris doesn’t carry the argument this far, it may also make a very good model for the evolution of scientific understanding itself.

While the topic may be complex, Morris’s style is exceedingly accessible, perhaps too much so. He tells us what he will say, says it, then tells us what he said. There is little chance to lose the thread of his arguments. But within this disarmingly simple structure he exposes the heart of the controversies that have spilled over into the public arena.

In any case, scientific theories are not created by decree or by democratic vote. They emerge from, and are refined within, scientific controversy. The Evolutionists is a testament to this process and underscores the strength and continued vitality of Darwinism today.

John Dillon

The Other Evolutionist

The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader: A Selection of Writings from the Field, by Jane Camerini. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2001, 219 pp., $18.95 paper.

Imagine journeying to a fascinating field site with a botanist and a geologist. While one will interpret what is visible, the other will focus on the essential underpinning of it all.

This is very much the effect of two current books on the life of Alfred Russel Wallace, Victorian explorer, biologist, and social activist. In Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life, Peter Raby is our informational botanist, reporting on the skin of events in Wallace’s life, placing them in the historic and social context of their time, and pointing out his odd outcrops of eccentricity. Jane R. Camerini’s The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader mines Wallace’s own writings for nuggets of information and the mother lode of perspective. She presents long excerpts from the hundreds of popular articles, field notes, and 21 books that Wallace wrote during his lifetime.

Wallace is perhaps most famous as the man who made Darwin hurry up and get on with The Origin of Species. But he was far more than Darwin’s intellectual covoyager, and his scientific contributions were far greater than he’s given credit for today. A passionate and curious naturalist since childhood, the young Wallace made money as a surveyor in the British mid-nineteenth-century boom in railway building. Then, without a university degree, he and his friend and fellow beetle-collector Henry Walter Bates, embarked on a seemingly madcap venture collecting animals for money in the Amazon. There was also the little matter of answering “the species question”; one of the main philosophical issues of the day, this sought to find out how, if not created by the Deity, had the visible differences between species arisen.

That first voyage was plagued by sickness, shipwreck, fire, and famine, but so enthusiastic was Wallace that, less than two months after his return from Amazonia, he was planning his trip to Borneo and beyond. As both books show, he was not content to simply be a natural historian, a recorder of events and specimens. Primed by his early surveying career, Wallace sought patterns in nature. As such, he was among the elite few who ultimately changed the way natural philosophers asked questions, paving the way for modern biological science. He also wrote wonderfully well, using hubris-free language to evoke the excitement of scientific discovery in remote places as well as the grit and determination needed to make them.

The two books complement each other well. Raby’s provides an engaging summary and is without doubt the more captivating and accessible book. There are lovely quotes, and the author has gone to great pains to research the information he interprets. Camerini, on the other hand, gets under the skin of the man himself. Her account is more pithy, with succinct explanatory commentaries that precede each carefully chosen excerpt. Raby’s analysis edges ahead on breadth, while Camerini’s selection succeeds in conveying the multifaceted nature of Wallace’s character. The more academically oriented Camerini occasionally assumes knowledge on behalf of the reader and has chosen to avoid Wallace’s well-known ardent interest in mysticism. Raby, in contrast, clearly relishes this part of his subject’s life, so seemingly at odds with his extremely rationalistic treatment of most other phenomena.

In synergy, these books bring the man, his time, and his voice to life, making sense of this complex individual.

Adrian Barnett

Ardent Annie

On Her Own Terms: Annie Montague Alexander and the Rise of Science in the American West, by Barbara Stein. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2001, 435 pp., $35.00 hardcover.

Though often described as frail, Alexander possessed extraordinary physical stamina and drive. Interested in paleontology, she collected fossils under the harshest and most unrelenting conditions. She saw that it was necessary to compare fossil specimens with their closest living relatives in order to understand the evolution of different taxonomic groups. The West lacked a collection of preserved vertebrate specimens, and scientists had to travel east to conduct their research. So in 1907, Alexander established the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California at Berkeley. She negotiated terms that allowed her tight control over its activities. She wanted no building named after her. If the university would provide the building, she would supply the funds for research, supplies, and the preparation of specimens. The museum would become the center for the study of vertebrate evolution on the West Coast.

Author Barbara Stein, who was curatorial associate and researcher at this museum from 1985 to 2000, researched her subject meticulously. She unravels Alexander’s complexity, allowing her rich life story to speak for itself. Often described as quiet and friendly, caring and generous, Alexander was a woman of many contradictions. For example, she encouraged women as research and field scientists, but tolerated their exclusion from her zoological museum. Concerned with habitat destruction in California, she nonetheless drained and farmed some 525 acres on Grizzly Island in Suisun Marsh.

Alexander would continue collecting throughout her life and go on to establish UC Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology in 1921. In all, she and her collecting (and life) partner, Louise Kellogg, contributed 22,738 specimens to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 17,851 to the University Herbarium (also at Berkeley), and 1,540 to the Museum of Paleontology. She actively continued to do fieldwork into her 80th year, and her drive would last to her final hours in 1950. Alexander’s last words were, “I can’t go yet, I’m not finished.”

Elizabeth Rush

Recommended Reading from the Editors’ Desks

Wild L.A.: A Celebration of the Natural Areas in and Around the City, by James Lawrence. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA, 2001, 192 pp., $42.00 hardcover.