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Supernova Century Domestication from Taming As “The Per- Manence of the Change in the Wild Ani- Jay Pasachoff Relishes a Novel That Brings to Life the Mal”

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Supernova Century Domestication from Taming As “The Per- Manence of the Change in the Wild Ani- Jay Pasachoff Relishes a Novel That Brings to Life the Mal” COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS scavenging around human settlements, ASTRONOMY wild animals gradually became habitu- ated, were selected for tameness, and over generations became domesticated. Shipman outlines the distinction of true Supernova century domestication from taming as “the per- manence of the change in the wild ani- Jay Pasachoff relishes a novel that brings to life the mal”. Yet she misses what I believe is the scientific stars of the 1600s. essence of why humans relate so readily to animals, which is supported by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy in her book on the evolu- omewhat eclipsed in popular culture on the interaction of tion of hominins as cooperative breeders, by his great Italian contemporary Gali- each with Rudolph Mothers and Others (Harvard University leo Galilei, Johannes Kepler is finally II, the Holy Roman Press, 2009). Sachieving the iconic status he has long held Emperor, who became Humans, Blaffer Hrdy says, alone in science. In 2009, the seventeenth-century Kepler’s patron and among the great apes, readily nurture German astronomer was the subject of an whose name is com- each other’s children. Without this opera by US composer Philip Glass (Nature memorated in the help, few children in hunter-gatherer 462, 724; 2009). Now, Stuart Clark’s novel — Rudolphine Tables societies would survive to adulthood. the first in a trilogy about famous astrono- (1627). These were There are many examples of hunter- mers — puts fictional flesh on the bones of produced by Kepler The Sky’s Dark gatherers extending the shared care of Kepler’s life and times to enjoyable effect. Labyrinth: A Novel using the laws of plan- their infants to the adoption of young Only 60 years or so after Copernicus pro- STUART CLARK etary orbits, which he animals. So the human desire to enfold vided the idea of the heliocentric Universe, Polygon: 2011. derived on the basis of other species within our societies may Kepler worked out the orbits of the planets. 272 pp. £12.99 Tycho’s observations. be explained as having evolved from The story told in The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, Working with these the combined instincts for nurture and which takes its name from a phrase in Gali- ‘planetary tables’, Kepler accurately pre- domination. leo’s 1623 book Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), dicted that transits of Mercury and of Venus I believe that the inborn human desire is well known. Kepler assisted aristocratic would occur in 1631. The first of these was to nurture children and animals was fol- court astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, observed in Europe, but he did not realize lowed by the domestication of dogs, and taking over Tycho’s precise observations of that there would soon be a second transit of all the livestock animals whose social Mars and its changing position in the sky. Venus, in 1639. (The next transit of Venus behaviour allowed it, in hunter-gatherer From these studies, Kepler deduced his will be visible from Earth on 5–6 June 2012, societies that were under pressure in the three laws of planetary motion, the first two depending on the observer’s location; the early Holocene from population growth of which he published in Astronomia Nova following one is not until 2117.) and climate change. Shipman describes (The New Astronomy) in 1609, the same The author paints the conflicts between the conventional theory that domes- year that Galileo first pointed his telescope Lutherans and Catholics that drove the tication follows from the selection by skywards. Lutheran Kepler from Graz to Prague, and humans of favoured attributes. I see the Clark depicts the clash of two strong per- that helped govern how Pope Urban VIII process as more complicated and in two sonalities: the haughty Tycho, and Kepler, treated Galileo. Clark describes the blood parts: biological and cultural. whose confidence in his own mathemati- that literally flowed during the internecine It is now accepted that some wild ani- cal abilities never wavered. He draws, too, warfare between Rudolph II and his brother, mals have cultures, that is, the inherit- Matthias, as the latter’s troops attacked while ance of learned behaviour. With taming, Kepler and his family cowered in the city — an animal is brought into a protected evoking parallels with battles today. place where it learns a new set of social My wife and I have made several astron- relationships, as well as new feeding omy-related pilgrimages: to Prague to see the and reproductive strategies. Biological plaque over Kepler’s lodgings and his joint INTERFOTO/ALAMY domestication is complete only when this statue with Tycho; to dine at the Golden ‘culture’ becomes heritable. Griffin where Tycho lodged for a time, now Shipman ends with the conviction that a restaurant and hotel; to visit a monument the ancient, innate connection between (we found it defaced) to Kepler in Regens- humans and animals is grossly under- burg, Bavaria, possibly near where his bones estimated in today’s urban landscape. I were originally buried until they were lost; see little evidence for this. Despite the and to see the house in Regensburg where inexorable spread of megacities and fac- Kepler died in 1630, now a museum. I was tory farms, the connection with both also able to help the Houghton Library domestic and wild animals still occu- at Harvard University in Cambridge, pies the minds and lives of innumerable Massachusetts, acquire the only known copy people around the world. ■ of Kepler’s 1603 almanac. As Clark emphasizes, 1603 was thought Juliet Clutton-Brock is a research to be particularly auspicious at the time. associate at the Natural History Rudolph II is quoted as saying, “Eight hun- Museum, London. Her forthcoming book dred years earlier, Charlemagne founded is Animals as Domesticates: A World Europe; eight hundred years before him, View Through History. Christ was born.” Soon thereafter, Kepler e-mail: [email protected] Astronomer Johannes Kepler in his final decade. saw a supernova — the last seen in our 280 | NATURE | VOL 476 | 18 AUGUST 2011 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT Galaxy and now named after him. I could all but smell the streets and markets of seventeenth-century Prague Q&A Daphne Sheldrick in this novel. In one memorable passage, Clark describes Kepler taking the path to the castle, across the Stone Bridge, where in 1611 he wrote his little book on Elephant rescuer the snowflake, recently republished to Daphne Sheldrick was the first person to rear baby elephants successfully by hand, and has celebrate its 400th anniversary. worked with animals for 50 years in Kenya. As she stars in an IMAX film chronicling her efforts, Clark also brings to life interest- she describes her experience of conservation and animal husbandry. ing minor characters and conjures up Kepler’s eventful family history, includ- ing the joys of parenthood, his difficult How did you get involved Born to Be mother (whom he had to clear of suspi- with elephants? Wild 3D cions of witchcraft), and the tragic deaths I grew up on a highland On release now at IMAX cinemas. of his children and first wife, Barbara. farm in Kenya. We had a Thoughtfully crafted dialogues reveal lot of wild orphan animals the tension between Kepler’s rationalism because in those days wild animals were eve- and the ‘magical’ beliefs of others. rywhere. I married into the wildlife service Interspersed among the chapters and lived in Tsavo National Park, where wild about Kepler are several about Galileo’s orphans started coming in — buffalo, rhinos time in Padua, and elephants. The elephants were a huge “The fun Florence and challenge: nobody had managed to raise a of reading Rome. In these, newborn calf. My husband thought it was plausible words Kepler endorses impossible. Eventually I managed to keep one from the mouths the veracity of alive for six months, having lost many others. Daphne Sheldrick with one of her early charges. of Kepler Galileo’s reports We knew we were on the right track. and Galileo of seeing new to have the staying power to see the project overwhelms ‘stars’ around Why are elephants so challenging to rear? through. I’ve been working with elephants for objections Jupiter through The milk formula is very special. So is the 50 years — that’s most of my life. (WWW.SHELDRICKWILDLIFETRUST.ORG) SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST DAVID to invented his newfangled husbandry. It took 28 years of trial and error conversations.” optical tube. to get both about right. We knew that ele- How do you return hand-raised elephants to And Galileo’s phants’ milk was high in fat. We added extra the wild? lack of response to a letter from Kepler is cream and butter to cows’ milk, but then we They are one of the easiest species to return; explained as a result of religious rivalry: learned that the elephants lived a lot longer it just takes a long time. It isn’t a question of the Catholic church in Rome feared on skimmed milk. So we scouted around the getting an animal to two or three years old that lapsed-Lutheran Kepler would side shops to try to find infant human formula and tipping it out in the bush. They go to with their Protestant enemies. that contained vegetable fat instead — the the rehabilitation stations in Tsavo with their Today, in an age when Vatican astrono- nearest thing to the fat in elephants’ milk human family until they have made friends mers have telescopes in Arizona and host is coconut fat. With this mix, we have now in the wild herds. They are introduced to the summer schools on cosmology at the managed to raise 130 elephants, which are wild herds by other now-integrated orphans.
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