OPINION NATURE|Vol 457|19 February 2009

fundamental. For example, how can dynamic focus, social norms and conventional meeting adventures of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel socio-ecological feedback loops become inte- places. Yet scientists can be inspired by the Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. Lacing each grated within dynamic financial markets? How chapter on civil society. Non-governmental tale with anecdotes of success and failure, can we measure the effects of trillions of dollars organizations influence capital markets Carroll conveys the sense that real people of investment on natural capital stocks or eco- through active capital campaigns, includ- with real aspirations, fears and enthusiasm system services? How can financial governance ing shareholder activism, partnerships with endured years in jungles and on ships to come models make these interconnections possible? powerful institutional investors and formal up with ideas that would ultimately change And we need to experiment with new organi- investor briefings. the way scientists view the natural world. Next zations that better connect financial markets Sustainable Investing is a good read for man- come stories of major fossil discoveries, show- to science and societies. aging your portfolio. But it remains to be seen if ing how exploring the rocks of the world can One such example is the Resilience Alliance, Nature will be read by investment analysts. ■ reveal the history of life. He uses as his exam- an international research network of scientists Gail Whiteman is associate professor and director ples Eugène Dubois’s discovery of the Java and practitioners working on sustainability. of the Sustainability and Climate Research Centre, Man fossils, the Cambrian radiation of animal Their Connectors Group is trying to establish Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus phyla, the origin of birds, the impact theory for more-explicit links with the business world — University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, the Netherlands. mass extinction, and the fishapod, Tiktaalik, not an easy task given the differences in career e-mail: [email protected] including my own work with Ted Daeschler and Farish A. Jenkins. The final grouping looks at human origins and bridges from the fossil record to the molecular one, first revealed by Linus Pauling and Emile Zukerkandl, and In search of adventure later by Allan Wilson, Vincent Sarich, Mark Stoneking and Svante Pääbo. This shift, Most scientists have tried to explain their from expeditions revealing new fossils to work to inquisitive relatives or acquaint- laboratory adventures recovering ancient ances. Whether one studies salamander DNA, reflects a bridge to our current biology, glacial moraines or dark energy, approach, one that integrates data from one inevitably faces someone who is con- fields as diverse as geology and molecular vinced that a life devoted to understand- biology to explain evolutionary history. ing nature is no vocation for a grown In reading Remarkable Creatures, one person and is merely an escape from the could feel a sense of loss that the days of ‘real world’. The string theorist and author, great adventure are no more. We live in Brian Greene, has argued that these mis- an age in which almost every region of perceptions are derived from how science Earth has been mapped and every spe- is taught and communicated to the public. cies known is being documented with His prescription is that scientists need to its own web page in the Encyclopedia convey the breathtaking vistas opened up of Life. It is easy to think that the days by scientific inquiry and teach science for when a naturalist such as Humboldt what it is: one of humanity’s great adven- could describe themselves as demented ture stories. Evolutionary biologist Sean Ecuador’s unexplored terrain thrilled the nineteenth-century with the joy of seeing a new vista for the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Carroll’s new book, Remarkable Creatures, first time are over. ARCHIVE ART ORTI/THE DAGLI VINCENNES, FRANCE/G. SERVICE HISTORICAL fills this important niche. But unexplored vistas still exist, from Carroll tells the story of evolution through Earth were unexplored wilderness, and much the countless new species of microbes that the adventures that lie behind its great discov- of the flora and fauna was unknown to west- dwell in every clump of dirt and every inch eries. With skill as a storyteller, and a passion ern science. His first tale, that of the naturalist of our guts to the deepest reaches of space for his subject, Carroll deftly describes the great and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, opens revealed by telescopes and probes. Indeed, expeditions and people behind 13 major discov- with the combination of enthusiasm, hardship in the cast of scientists manning the Mars eries in natural history over the past 200 years. and adventure that pervades the narrative of rovers at NASA mission control, we find a He imparts an infec- later chapters. Ven- room full of Humboldts, exploring a new tious enthusiasm for Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in turing into the forests world and giddy with each patch of Mars that the act of discovery, the Search for the Origin of Species of South America, is seen for the first time. These emotions are with all the risks, fail- by Sean B. Carroll Humboldt exclaims in among the universals of our vocation, and ures, dead ends and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2009. a letter to his brother: there are few better introductions to them ultimate successes that 352 pp. $26 “What trees! Coconut than Carroll’s book. Remarkable Creatures is expeditionary work trees, fifty to sixty feet the book to give those inquisitive relatives, or often involves. As fast-paced as a detective high … We rush around like the demented; in even more important for our society’s future, story, the book is a primer on the joy of being the first three days we were unable to classify their kids. ■ an evolutionary biologist, written by one of our anything …”. Like Humboldt, each of the scien- Neil Shubin is professor of anatomy at the best modern practitioners. tists in Carroll’s book was the first one to see a University of Chicago and author of Your Inner Carroll reveals the challenges and rewards new fossil, species or historical connection. And Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the of venturing into the unknown. He begins his each shared Humboldt’s excitement. Human Body. tour in 1800, in an age when vast stretches of The first part of the book describes the travel e-mail: [email protected]

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