The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment | 
 enlarge | Authors: Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich
Publisher: Island Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 37483
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 440
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.7 x 1.4
ISBN: 1597260967
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.2
EAN: 9781597260961
ASIN: 1597260967
Publication Date: June 30, 2008
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Product Description
In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease? Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardry we know today. But the Ehrlichs also explore the flip side of this triumphant story of innovation and conquest. As we clear forests to raise crops and build cities, lace the continents with highways, and create chemicals never before seen in nature, we may be undermining our own supremacy. The threats of environmental damage are clear from the daily headlines, but the outcome is far from destined. Humanity can again adapt—if we learn from our evolutionary past. Those lessons are crystallized in The Dominant Animal. Tackling the fundamental challenge of the human predicament, Paul and Anne Ehrlich offer a vivid and unique exploration of our origins, our evolution, and our future.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 The Dominant Animal October 21, 2008
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
Tedious and convoluted. Supposed scientific objectivity transmogrified into subjective opinion and political bias. Unreadable. Save a tree, do not buy this book.
 The Other Dominant Animals October 20, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I read this book several times. Each time I was surprised. The Dominant Animal begins by considering the ways in which humans influence the environment and the environment, modified by humans, shapes everything else. The book then parades through the delightful minds of Paul and Anne Ehrlich. In that parade one will see, more clearly presented than you will find anywhere else, the intertwined stories of human culture, evolution, and human actions toward and in the environment and how those have changed through time. In the parade one will find Darwin, Wallace, and the early history of evolution alongside traditional peoples living as hunter- gatherers in villages, sequoia trees and tangled banks.
The Ehrlichs' tone in the Dominant Animal is both friendly and approachable. Again and again the reader feels as though she has had something logical and intuitive revealed to her. Natural Selection, in the Ehrlichs' hands seems obvious, as does much else in the story of life and the human domination of it. It is easy to find oneself nodding again and again with what this book has to say. The surprise is what the clearly explained facts lead to; the train wreck of our current situation. Every time I read the book, I find myself forgetting what is coming and then there it is, in front of me, the other train.
It is clear early in the book that much is wrong in the world and that those problems have tremendous consequences. Yet this not a doomsday book. Most of the book is actually about the basics of ecology and evolution. There are chapters on evolution, culture, cultural evolution, the interactions between genes and the environment, and even how we perceive the world and how that perception influences our decisions. The book, in walking carefully through those basics all framed around the story of humans, would be very useful for an undergraduate biology course. Each chapter is, in and of itself, a kind of essay or perhaps more so a kind of Ehrlichian lecture; wide ranging, thought provoking and ultimately wound together into a strong thesis. The book binds these essays into a broader thesis about who we are and can be as humans. The Ehrlich's have looked further into the future than most scientists are willing to. They have at times been proven wrong, but more often they have just proven ahead of schedule. To read this book is to see what they are thinking now and, if history serves, to see what, for all of us, lays ahead.
After laying a clear foundation for understanding built on insights drawn from ecology, evolution, anthropology, economics and lifetimes spent talking with others of the ecological intelligentsia, the Ehrlichs turn to what remains before us. Natural selection favored beavers who built damns that improved their environments and improved their odds of surviving. Dammed ponds are, to beavers, a better environment than the one they found when they arrived. Humans, instead of dams, built cities and roads and global networks of communication and commerce. Instead of making our environment better for ourselves we have, in many ways, made it worse, less conducive to our own survival. Beavers dam ponds, but we've, in our way, damned ourselves. Reading this book will make clear the complex causes of this situation, why we've arrived at this point in history and where, if we are wise, we might go from here. This book is full of nuance and joy but also the ecological and evolutionary realities of our situation.
In reading this book I was reminded of another new book, The Superorganism by Burt Holldobler and Ed Wilson (I recently reviewed the book for Natural History Magazine). In The Superorganism, Holldobler and Wilson consider the simple rules that ultimately hold insect societies together. They are rules about communication and division of labor. They are rules that are reinforced because those colonies that do not work efficiently and effectively to produce new generations, fail to pass on their genes. The organization of The Dominant Animal is similar to The Superorganism. In both there are chapters about the evolution of societies, about the rise and fall of populations, and about how societies shape the environment around them. The difference between the stories of humans and those of insect societies is pointed out by Holldobler and Wilson who indicate that unlike ants, humans are conscious of what they are doing and make decisions about their fate. The Ehrlichs are perhaps less optimistic about humans ability to make the right decisions about their societies and the environments of which they are a part. Yet the last chapter of The Dominant Animal is, in part, a foundation for the kinds of rules and governance necessary to sustain human societies. If human societies really are more self-aware and self-determined than those of ants then the ideas laid out in the Ehrlichs' chapters "Saving our Natural Capital" and "Governance: Tackling Unanticipated Consequences" are what we should be paying attention to. Dysfunctional societies of ants are rare because those that were did not pass along their genes. Let's hope that we can choose to determine our fate rather than, like the ant colonies that didn't make it, letting selection decide.
Rob Dunn
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology, North Carolina State University
Must Read: Informing, rewarding, and inspiring October 4, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
In an easily readable style that resists simplifying the complex relationship between humans and their environment, this book explains why we find ourselves facing the almost overwhelming challenges confronting us and future generations; challenges such as global warming, the threat of nuclear war, resource scarcity and skyrocketing energy prices. Finally, a book that treated me like an adult who wants to be educated without being subjected to fear-mongering, demonizing those who made decisions which resulted in unintended consequences, or making me feel dumb for not having a sophisticated background in science. I loved it! What a great gift for my friends and family who want to make sense of this world but don't want to feel "beat up," manipulated or discouraged when the final page is turned.
The book links genetics-culture-population- perception-energy- consumption- ecosystems and globalization and concludes by describing governance and individual choices that can reverse the current momentum towards an increasingly unstable and inequitable world. It fluctuates between being very discouraging and very energizing, calling for intelligent action.
Forty years after The Population Bomb shaped a generation, The Dominant Animal may help redirect our personal choices in our homes and in the ballot box.
Joan Diamond
MBA
The Story of Evolution, Humankind, Environment, --All in One September 24, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Ehrlich's have produced a magistral review of everything the reader needs to know in order to properly understand what humankind is doing to the global environment. The background education offered on evolutionary biology, the evolution of culture, and the global environment, is breathtaking, and at times demanding of the reader. The most important part of the book is the last third, which tackles the current state of the earth and prospects and prescriptions for the future.This is an important book and deserves reading by decision-makers and informed citizens. I recommend it!
This book is a 'must read' for everyone, particularly politicians. September 21, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
It is sad that C. Hardin, instead of reading and reviewing "The Dominant Animal," simply offers an unsubstantiated attack on its author. Ehrlich has written dozens of books and hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers, and received virtually every honor the scientific community can offer for his work in ecology, evolution, and environmental science. "Dominant Animal" is a brilliant book, by far the best volume ever written explaining where we came from and where we're going. Despite the enormous breadth of the topics covered, the book is concise and an easy read. It explains everything from how genetic and cultural evolution led us to dominate the earth to why climate change, destruction of biodiversity, toxic chemicals, and vast new epidemics could end civilization as we know it. And, as a glance at the acknowledgements would show, the book has been reviewed by the cream of the scientific community. "Dominant Animal" fills in the gaps largely ignored by our educational system. I wish it were a required book for every college freshman; it should certainly be read by every politician - especially presidential (and vice-presidential) candidates.
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