EDITOR's CHOICE the Control of Nature Wallace, Darwin, and The

COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS ILLUSTRATIONS BY SEÑOR SALME BY ILLUSTRATIONS

The Control of Wallace, Darwin, Nature and the Origin of John McPhee Species Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 1989. James T. Costa Icelandic lava, Mississippi Harvard Univ. Press: 2014. floodwater, San Gabriel Moun- tain mud studded with car-sized Did Charles Darwin and Alfred boulders, in Biblical quantities, Russel Wallace really come up gushing intermittently but with the idea of natural selec- inexorably, without surcease. tion simultaneously and inde- McPhee, a master of structure, pendently? Was it the same leaves his thesis unstated but idea? How did Darwin and his unmistakable: each of these ele- colleagues manage the delicate mental currents hurtles towards negotiation of co-presenting this a crushing central focus, a black concept to the public — without hole. The Control of Nature is Wallace’s knowledge? ironically titled, an allegorical, James Costa takes on these pitch-perfect triptych of futil- questions, and delves into the ity. In each locale — live vol- intellectual influences of the canoes in Iceland and Hawaii, two luminaries. (This book fol- the sliding mountains above lows two others by Costa for the Los Angeles, California, the Harvard University Press: The Atchafalaya swamp in Louisi- Annotated Origin (2011), a defin- ana — disaster is immanent. itive collection of facsimiles of The human inhabitants are in the first edition of Darwin’s 1859 denial, living where they should On the Origin of Species, and not. They dam, divert, sandbag, On the Organic Law of Change bulldoze, firehose and blockade, (2013), a facsimile of Wal- trying to stem the deadly flow. It lace’s historically crucial Species cannot be done. Their efforts are Notebook.) He also annotates puny and, if anything, make the a facsimile of the 1855 Wallace next inundation worse. paper known as the Sarawak The Control of Nature sucked law, an important precursor to me in when it was first pub- the essay ‘On the tendency of SUMMER lished. I read it slowly, letting varieties to depart indefinitely McPhee’s virtuosic prose and from the original type’, which playful wit leaven the har- Darwin received from Wallace rowing stories. A quarter of in 1858. That manuscript forced a century on, the book seems the question of a mechanism for prescient, an early warning evolution into the open. Costa’s BOOKS about a natural world respond- nuanced and well-documented Plunge into a profusion of brilliant ing with mounting violence as reading of this episode, as well we try to bend it to our will. as Wallace’s contributions and summer reads suggested by regular his relationship with Darwin, is reviewers and editors, far away from Nathaniel Comfort is a gift for any scientist’s bookshelf. professor of the history of the lab and lecture hall. medicine at Johns Hopkins Kevin Padian is professor University in Baltimore, of integrative biology at the Maryland, and is writing a University of California, biography of DNA. Berkeley. EDITOR’S CHOICE 1 THE HADAL ZONE / ALAN JAMIESON 2 THE DISPOSSESSED / URSULA K. LE GUIN

How Not to Be Designing the Period Piece Extinction Wrong: The New American and Evolution: Gwen Raverat Hidden Maths of University Faber & Faber: 1952. What Fossils Everyday Life Reveal About the Michael M. Crow and Period Piece is a delightful Jordan Ellenberg William B. Dabars memoir of a late-nineteenth- History of Life Penguin: 2014. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press: 2015. century Cambridge childhood, by Charles Darwin’s grand- Niles Eldredge Anyone who writes about How can universities make daughter, Gwen Raverat. Firefly: 2014. mathematics faces this prob- the world better? In Designing Readers will learn nothing lem: readers need years of the New American University, here about natural selection. Palaeontologist and acute training to acquire the vocab- Michael Crow and William They will instead be absorbed thinker Niles Eldredge describes ulary and basic conceptual Dabars call for a reinvention into a world of “born Darwins”, how life has evolved through frameworks that insiders take to broaden access, engage the “married-in Darwins” and geological time, partly through for granted. Mathematician “knowledge enterprise” to the “Anti-Darwin League” for 160 beautiful colour plates Jordan Ellenberg tackles that address social needs, and reflect those who had “inadvertently” depicting more than 200 speci- issue at the outset. He will on why we seek to understand married into the family, such as mens of fossil and living species. guide readers through math- nature and ourselves. Gwen’s own mother. Among them are Eocypselus ematical ideas that are “simple Crow, president of my institu- In this world, the room in rowei, an extinct relative of swifts and profound”, which require tion, Arizona State University which On the Origin of Species and hummingbirds that inhab- no special techniques but (ASU), and historian Dabars was written is used for flower ited Wyoming some 52 million reveal deep insights into our have the ASU model in mind, arranging. The family hypo- years ago, and the coelacanth world and minds. but do not propose a blueprint. chondria is demonstrated by Latimeria menadoensis, a ‘living Ellenberg breathes life into Rather, Dabars’ rich historical each Darwin in turn — Aunt fossil’ whose close relatives are his theme of the perils of mis- contextualization and Crow’s Etty’s patent anti-cold mask nearly exclusively from the Pal- understood statistics through policy and managerial experi- receives special attention. And aeozoic and Mesozoic eras, 541 clear storytelling and by draw- ence provide design principles Darwin’s grandchildren mod- million to 66 million years ago. ing diverse and unexpected encouraging institutions to lev- estly feel due some small credit Most of the photographs are by connections. He delivers a erage their own place in a locally for having produced such a the late, great Murray Alcosser. thorough history of statistics appropriate way. For instance, grandfather. Eldredge emphasizes the — including digressions about the University Innovation Alli- Raverat, the elder daughter of existence of many species that taxes, basketball, lotteries and ance — a consortium of 11 pub- distinguished astronomer and resist evolutionary change the US Supreme Court — as lic research universities — is mathematician George Darwin, for long periods (such as the well as high points of the dis- working to increase retention draws the quirks, curiosities brachiopod Mucrospirifer cipline such as prime numbers, and graduation rates for low- and narrowness of academic mucronatus), and the impor- information theory, geometry, income students through local Cambridge engagingly. Dinner- tance of mass extinctions in logic and calculus. strategies to achieve shared goals. party guests, for example, were creating conditions that aid the The book quietly initiates Crow and Dabars push uni- seated according to the foun- emergence of new species. He the reader into thinking like versities to boost diversity, pro- dation dates of their college argues convincingly that it is a mathematician. I would call mote the public good, develop or chairs — so professors of palaeontology, rather than evo- it one of the most intelligent sustainable environmental and Hebrew and Greek, founded in lutionary genetics, that allows us books written about math- societal practices, and achieve the same year, could never be to recognize these points. Splen- ematics, and possibly the most ideals of educated democracy invited together. For beach, bal- did photographs, vivid language entertaining. inspired by Thomas Jefferson. cony or a few hours’ travelling, and concise text: a great read. this offers wonderful, escapist Michael Harris is professor Jane Maienschein is a reading. Xu Xing is a professor at of mathematics at Columbia historian and philosopher the Institute of Vertebrate University, New York, and of science at Arizona State Tilli Tansey is professor of Paleontology and Université Paris Diderot, and University in Tempe and the the history of modern medical Paleoanthropology of the author of Mathematics without Marine Biological Laboratory sciences at Queen Mary Chinese Academy of Sciences in Apologies. in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. University of London. Beijing.

3 THE VITAL QUESTION / NICK LANE 4 MISBEHAVING / RICHARD H. THALER 5 EXTREME / EMMA BARRETT & PAUL MARTIN 6 MELTING AWAY / CAMILLE SEAMAN

Animal, What If?: Serious Vegetable, Scientific Mineral? Answers to Absurd Susannah Gibson Oxford Univ. Press: 2015. Hypothetical Questions While dallying among the rock pools this summer, spare a Randall Munroe thought for earlier naturalists John Murray: 2014. — starting with Aristotle — who scoured the boundary between What if, on your summer holi- earth and sea for genre-defy- days, you are invited for a swim ing specimens of life. Animal, in the spent-fuel pool of a nearby Vegetable, Mineral? is a book nuclear-power station? Should about boundaries, following the you go? What are the risks? Or attempts of eighteenth-century what if you and your partner men of science to classify nature, want to prolong the sunset for despite nature’s apparent reluc- as long as possible by driving tance to be classified. From ahead of the dusk — for how fossils and Venus flytraps to long could you postpone the corals and somersaulting pol- night, and which road should yps, organisms seeped across the you use? If someone made a bul- ancient borders between animal, let out of neutron-star material, plant and mineral, inciting feuds should you poke it? The answer and rival theories among those is strange and repulsive, but not who sought to place them. as deadly as you might think. Susannah Gibson unpacks What If? is an essential holi- the experiments and specula- day companion. Each chapter tions that underpinned Enlight- takes a daft-but-tractable ques- enment natural history, showing tion such as those above, and how finds pushed at disciplinary applies science, reason and crit- boundaries. Puzzled naturalists ical thinking to find a rational drew on chemistry and New- answer. Chapter lengths vary tonian physics to explain how according to the question and plants breathed and embryos the relentlessness with which it formed, and fossils offered a key is pursued. Randall Munroe — to the new field of geology. Sen- author of popular webcomic sitive plants and self-generating xkcd — is a genius. His book lets animals also ignited religious the analytical, problem-solving and philosophical controversy bits of your mind play cleverly about how to define life, locate with stupid stuff, while the rest the soul and detect God’s role in of you relaxes. (What if every- creation. Gibson’s story whisks one in the world bought this us from one taxonomical can of book and laughed all at once? worms to the next. Would that affect the weather?)

Jennifer Rampling is assistant Jon Butterworth is professor professor of history at Princeton of physics at University College University in New Jersey, where London and the author of she teaches the history of science. Smashing Physics. REVIEWS: GO.NATURE.COM/DJJQID 7 PALIMPSEST / MATTHEW BATTLES 8 UNIQUELY HUMAN / BARRY M. PRIZANT WITH TOM FIELDS-MEYER

The Hadal The Dispossessed The Vital Misbehaving: Zone: Life in the Ursula K. Le Guin Question: Why is The Making of Deepest Oceans Harper and Row: 1974. Life the Way it is? Behavioural Alan Jamieson There is no humble-bragging Nick Lane Economics Cambridge Univ. Press: 2015. on the planet Anarres — its Profile: 2015. culture blends socialism and Richard H. Thaler Deep trenches in the ocean anarchism, and ‘egoizing’ is Ever since Charles Darwin’s On Allen Lane: 2015. harbour the strange, little- considered obscene. There is the Origin of Species (1859), the studied hadal zone, stretching no income inequality, because best books in biology have been When the global financial crisis from 6 kilometres to as far as income and ownership do not arguments, writes Nick Lane. In unfolded in 2008, many ques- 11 kilometres down (in the case exist: everything is shared. No The Vital Question, this deep- tioned economic theory. In of the Mariana Trench in the celebrity worship, either. Para- thinking biochemist sets out to Misbehaving, Richard Thaler Pacific Ocean). Marine scien- dise? Perhaps, except that just persuade the reader of his own relates how researchers in his tist Alan Jamieson knows this like on twenty-first-century argument about how chemis- budding field, behavioural eco- mysterious region better than Earth, it is hard to get your try and physics created life and nomics, have brought the disci- most. His overview, The Hadal research published. constrained its later evolution. pline back into the real world. Zone, moves from the history Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 This is nothing less than a new From his graduate-student of deep-sea science — cover- novel The Dispossessed is essen- history of life on Earth. days, Thaler understood that ing HMS Challenger’s 1870s tially a work of political phi- Lane starts with the key point when faced with price deals or expedition and film director losophy dressed in physics. Our that every living cell generates decisions about saving money, James Cameron’s 2012 DEEP hero, the theoretical physicist chemical energy by moving people would almost never SEA CHALLENGER dive — to Shevek, travels to neighbouring protons across membranes, act in the way that economic examining all of the species planet Urras for the sake of his coupling proton flow to the models predict they should. To known to live in the zone, from work. Its capitalist democracy generation of the energy-stor- explain this ‘misbehaviour’, he bacteria to fish. and ‘propertarian’ behaviours age molecule ATP. In Lane’s looked to psychology. A serious scientific text, offend Shevek down to the view, this universal biochemical This is the remarkable story Jamieson’s tome is so densely bone. The scene is set for revo- engine betrays life’s origins in of how Thaler integrated packed with facts on this lutions, scientific and otherwise. deep-sea vents. There, natural findings on judgements and extraordinary environment Although the ideas of equal- gradients in proton concentra- behaviour into economics, and that it rewards casual dipping in ity, wealth, the role of the state tion could have sprung up across demonstrated the value of his and out. It includes the debate and geopolitics in The Dispos pores in rocks. Flowing water approach. We learn of all-too- about just how deep fish can sessed were informed by the and carbon dioxide might have common issues of self-control live (around 8 kilometres); the cold war and Vietnam, this combined in chemical reactions and overconfidence vis-à-vis technology behind scientific science-fiction classic has aged to form organic matter. Mem- money, and how these irration- equipment that can withstand well — particularly in themes brane-based energy genera- alities influence financial mar- pressures of 10 kilometres of that reach beyond classic politi- tion limited life to single-celled kets — where rational choices water (for example, super- cal theory and into the roles of organisms until one swallowed are supposed to reign. Thaler strong glass made of sapphire); self-promotion, privacy and another. Their co-dependency builds on Nobel-prizewinning and the wonderful ‘supergiant’ freedom in society. Le Guin’s led to complex cells and to the psychologist Daniel Kahne- amphipod, which resembles a ‘anarchy’ is, in many ways, perplexing traits — such as age- man’s prospect theory, the idea woodlouse but is one-third of a today’s libertarianism. ing — that all such cells share. that people make decisions on metre long. If Lane fans feel they have the basis of quick judgements In shedding light on a place Kelly Krause is Nature’s heard this before, they largely rather than a thorough assess- far beyond the Sun’s illumina- creative director. have, in his exhilarating Life ment of the probable outcome. tion, Jamieson has uncovered Ascending (2009). That poppier He explains important anoma- delights — and shown us just book sketched out the argument; lies such as the equity-premium how much we have yet to dis- The Vital Question fills in the puzzle — why people overreact cover about the hadal zone. knotty details with mathemati- to the short-term volatility of Here’s hoping for enough new cal equations, biochemical dia- stocks and prefer investing findings to justify a second edi- grams, laboratory experiments in government bonds, even tion soon. and clarifying objections. (It is though stocks have a higher sometimes hard to distinguish return in the long term. Thaler Daniel Cressey is a reporter between fact and speculation in tells, too, of the struggle to get for Nature in London. Lane’s writing, as Adrian Woolf- his work published and the put- son notes in his review (Nature downs of resistant economists. 520, 617–618; 2015).) This book Behavioural economics is now is more textbook-like, less adroit a growing field, and Thaler and harder to grasp than Lane’s hopes that it will start to influ- earlier works. But for those who ence monetary and fiscal poli- want to understand his vision, cies — a change long overdue. it is ultimately more rewarding. Monica Contestabile is a Richard Van Noorden is senior editor at Nature Climate deputy news editor for Nature. Change.

Extreme: Why Melting Away: Palimpsest: A Uniquely Some People A Ten-Year History of the Human: A Thrive at the Journey Through Written Word Different Way of Limits Our Endangered Matthew Battles Seeing Autism Polar Regions W. W. Norton: 2015. Emma Barrett and Barry M. Prizant with Tom Paul Martin Camille Seaman Scrawled, incised, printed or Fields-Meyer Oxford Univ. Press: 2014. Princeton Architectural Press: digitally rendered, the written Simon & Schuster: 2015. 2014. word is indelibly inked into Everybody has a limit to how human culture. In Palimpsest, Two books about autism spec- far they will go to achieve a goal. In Melting Away, photographer Matthew Battles meditates on trum disorder (ASD) released And throughout history, people Camille Seaman (Nature 492, how it came to represent and this summer look set to be have pushed themselves beyond 40; 2012) presents stunning build meaning. serendipitous companion vol- average human capabilities to images capturing the beauty Battles sees reading as an umes. Steve Silberman’s Neuro explore, experience or simply and fragility of the Arctic and ancient skill rooted in our Tribes (Avery, 2015) will, in a endure extreme environments. Antarctic — a reminder of the distant ancestors’ perusal of sobering history of scientific In Extreme, behavioural costs to the cryosphere of cli- earth and sky to discern sig- hubris, make the case that scientists Emma Barrett and mate change. Between 2003 nificant patterns. Writing is the respect for people with ASD is Paul Martin reveal the depth of and 2011, Seaman journeyed to laggard, emerging as cuneiform long overdue. Parents, teachers, character required to survive in both regions every year, camera in 3500 bc Mesopotamia and as researchers and carers eager for the world’s most hostile places. in hand, on board cruise ships “oracle bone script” in 1400 bc a how-to guide on what form An itch to walk along paths and research vessels. Hers is a China. From those beginnings, that respect should take in the less travelled is not enough for record of strange and spectacu- Battles follows the tide of writ- home, clinic or classroom can some people. Pulse-raising tales lar scenes. Icebergs loom over ing and printing around the turn to Barry Prizant’s Uniquely of doomed polar expeditions, still, black seas. Glaciers perch world, drawing on palaeontol- Human for ideas. scorching desert walks and solo perilously at the ocean’s edge. ogy, neuroscience, mythology Prizant distils decades of flying, sailing and diving feats Calm waters stretch seamlessly and the history of technology. working with autistic children highlight the true grit required into softly lit skies. Alongside He highlights illuminating and adults, and their teams, into to soldier on. US cavalry sol- the icy vistas and washed-out transformations. Tenth- practical advice for lowering diers, lost in a desert, drank seascapes, Seaman captures century monastic scribes, by stress, leveraging strengths and coagulated horse blood when some of the creatures of these filling the libraries of medi- interests, building resilience their water ran out; explorer remote regions — a young polar eval Europe, created nodes of and, importantly, embracing Ranulph Fiennes’ crotch sores bear cleaning the salt from its order in war-torn fiefdoms. and celebrating difference. failed to stop his solo traverse of fur in the snow, king penguins Nineteenth-century Britons Not for him the ‘cures’ narra- Antarctica. Extreme adventure congregating at the water’s discovered a passport to social tive condemned by the Autism becomes a test of physical and edge. mobility in writing, as Charles Self Advocacy Network (ral- mental endurance as obvious As the chronicle progresses, Dickens revealed in his semi- lying cry: “Nothing About Us, hardships such as hunger and the consequences of climate nal novel of class transition, Without Us”). Prizant’s is a mes- pain vie with unexpected bore- change grow hard to ignore. Great Expectations (1861). In sage of empathy, support and dom and loneliness. Having An ancient granite cliff bears the early twentieth century, a empowerment. climbed glaciers and trekked the scars of its encounter with a creative misunderstanding of Consider a child rocking with the Scottish Highlands alone, I once-vast glacier, now dwarfed Chinese compound ideograms her hands over her ears. She is thought I was adventurous until in comparison; the scattered by radical US poet Ezra Pound probably coping with hyper- I read this book. remnants of summer sea ice fomented a poetic revolution acute hearing or auditory- Barrett and Martin emphasize float on an eerily open ocean; that played out through the processing difficulties. Don’t the value of intensive training. a polar bear preys on a bird Beat and Black Mountain poets train her to put her hands in her However, even good planning colony in the absence of seals, decades later. lap so that she ‘looks normal’; can fail. In 1875, a couple of gone with the sea ice. Will computer code scupper instead, offer ear defenders, French balloonists took to the Although not a systematic or further our ability to engage turn off the noisy air condi- skies with bottled oxygen to exploration of the shifting with the page? Battles dith- tioning or allow her to bolt for breathe as the air thinned. Inhal- ecology and climate of the ers philosophically over the the library where it is quiet. ing it, they became light-headed poles, the collection serves as a answer. But humanity will, Writ large, Prizant shows, such and reckless, pushing their visual testament to the beauty he feels, go on writing history understanding creates a context balloon higher until the oxy- and rapidly fading grandeur of regardless. in which people with ASD can gen ran out. Extreme is littered perhaps two of the most majes- thrive, not just survive. with fatalities, yet the inspira- tic places on the planet. Barbara Kiser is Nature’s tional stories of survival, from Books & Arts editor. Sara Abdulla is chief Ernest Shackleton to the crew Anna Armstrong is senior commissioning editor of of Apollo 13, expose humanity’s editor at Nature Plants. Nature. remarkable resilience. NATURE.COM For more on science Emily Banham is editorial in culture see: assistant for Nature Books & nature.com/ Arts. booksandarts