Books
Although the book is terrific overall, I did find that some parts worked
better than others did. The analogy
between animal and human weapons
is unconvincing in parts: It works well
in some instances, such as when considering the comparison between animal arms races and human military
spending, but it does not work as well
when considering weapons technology
per se, in my opinion. The weapons
that humans use in battle are usually built simply as tools to kill other
­people, whereas the extravagant animal
weapons that are the main focus of this
book are used in nonlethal contests
between males and have a function in
signaling male fighting ability that can
be considerably more important than
their utility as tools. For example, the
eyestalks of diopsid flies are discussed
in the book, but these are really pure
signaling structures and are not even
used when a pair of males have begun
actually fighting.
If we move away from traits that
have a signaling function and look at
the animal traits that are most similar in function to an assault rifle or a
longbow, we find that these are often
quite boring and similar to each other.
Want to kill another animal? A set of
medium-length sharp canines seems
to do the trick for many mammals,
and although the diversity of weapons
used by predatory insects and fish is
somewhat wider, there is little suggestion of the diversity of forms found
in the structures used in nonlethal
combat. Human weapon designs are
often similarly conformist: The basic
design of the assault rifle was settled
on in the 1940s and 1950s, and these
weapons have changed little since then.
Although sights, calibers, and barrel
lengths have been refined, modern
soldiers use rifles that are fundamentally the same as those used half a century ago—not really much of an arms
race going on there, I think. There are
examples of arms races between predator and prey, of course, such as those
between shelled animals that evolve
thicker armor and shell-crushing predators who evolve larger and more muscular jaws or claws, and I think that it is
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a bit of a shame that these are not really
mentioned in the book or compared
with analogous situations in human
weaponry—the increase in the thickness of tank armor and the simultaneous increase in the power of antitank
guns, infantry portable antitank weapons, and tank guns themselves during
the Second World War, for example.
There are also some errors in the
book, most of which will be spotted
only by ancient and medieval history enthusiasts. Following a misspent
youth working on assorted archaeological sites, culminating in a particularly strange week spent by accident
in Switzerland with a Roman Army
reenactment group sometime in the
early 1990s, I have a surprisingly good
knowledge of ancient Roman arms
and armor (including some especially
strong memories of how heavy it all
is). The illustration of the Roman
­soldier clearly shows someone wearing
lorica segmentata, the classic “banded”
armor as worn by the hapless legionaries in the Asterix books, whereas
the accompanying text seems to be
describing the lorica squamata, which
was made of overlapping metal scales.
There is a picture of what is described
as a ballista that does not show a
large bolt-throwing device but instead
what looks to me to be an onager,
also a Roman weapon very similar to
a medieval catapult. Finally, from a
British perspective, the description of
the medieval longbow as not requiring
much training causes a bit of a wince.
As is known by pub bores from Dover
to Cardiff, the longbows that were
used at Crécy and Agincourt required
constant training from a young age,
and the remains of medieval archers
can be distinguished by the effects
this training had on their skeletons.
Indeed, there are few modern archers
who can even draw a full-size replica of the 6-foot-plus bows that were
retrieved from the wreck of the Mary
Rose. The longbow has near-mythical
status in England and Wales, and you
trivialize it at your peril.
Are these caveats and errors something that should really concern only
specialists and those concerned with
the Latin names of different types of
Roman armor or the penetrating power
of a 1944 bazooka versus a 1939 antitank rifle? I think so, and I do not think
they are anywhere near important
enough to worry the general reader,
at whom this book is squarely aimed.
I enjoyed it a lot, I learned some things
I did not know before, and it really
made me think about the connection
between animal and human weapons
in a way I had not before. I also fieldtested the book on my 13-year-old
daughter, who absolutely loved it, and
on that basis, I can do nothing but recommend Animal Weapons to all.
ROB KNELL
Rob Knell ([email protected]) is with
the School of Biological and Chemical
Sciences at Queen Mary University of
London.
doi:10.1093/biosci/biv067
BETTING ON DISPARATE VISIONS
The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon,
and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future.
Paul Sabin. Yale University Press,
2013. 304 pp., illus. $18.00 (ISBN
9780300198973).
O
ne does not need to stray far
when studying contentious ideas
to understand that egos often create
more problems than solutions, and the
history of the environmental movement is no different. In this timely,
interesting, and insightful work, Paul
Sabin provides us with a history lesson
through the lives of two bullish protagonists who were at extreme ideological
odds with each other. The juxtaposition of the two men, Paul Ehrlich
and Julian Simon, and their disparate
visions for the future of humanity
and humanity’s role on the planet is
a symbol of the differing directions
of American society and may help
explain the currently entrenched divisions we have in American politics.
Sabin’s thesis is therefore a wonderful
July 2015 / Vol. 65 No. 7 • BioScience 731
Books
contribution to our understanding of
not only how to approach (and not
approach) environmental problems
but also how to better discern the
ways in which our American society
has fundamentally changed over the
past few decades. According to this
book, these changes have occurred at
least in part because of our culturally
inherited ideas—driven by politicians
as well as academics such as Ehrlich
and Simon—that have pushed people along different ideological paths,
and the journey that Sabin guides us
through is one filled with surprising
insight into American history.
Sabin, an associate professor in
the Department of History at Yale
University, infuses his own experiences and insight throughout the
book, which makes for comfortable,
easy reading—I realized very quickly
that that author was very open about
his own learning process, and understanding how the environmental
movement changed his family growing
up and his own life’s trajectory made
it easier to apply the historical knowledge of The Bet and all of its ramifications to my own world. Sabin weaves
this mix of environmental issues, politics, and real-world consequences in
elegant fashion, making for an easy
and entertaining read.
Moreover, his thesis is quite convincing. Although the book centers on
Ehrlich and Simon’s much contested
bet about how the price of certain metals would change over a decade—and
the author certainly spends significant
and warranted time on the bet per
732 BioScience • July 2015 / Vol. 65 No. 7
se—this book is about much more
than a wager between two disagreeing
scholars. It details the life histories of
both men, providing considerable biographical information on each, allowing the reader to understand how they
became who they are (or were), why
their ideologies may have developed,
and why each of them would have
been so eager to make a wager to
prove their own personal point of
view. Sabin does this in an honest way,
without taking sides, and provides a
fair portrayal of each man’s life, giving
needed insight into their merits as well
as their faults, the importance of their
families (particularly Anne Ehrlich,
Paul’s wife), and the contributions that
they made to their respective fields
of study. Having lived and worked
at the Rocky Mountain Biological
Laboratory, Ehrlich’s summer stomping grounds, for the past 25 years, I
found Sabin’s portrayal of Paul and
Anne Ehrlich very familiar, and much
of the information has given me an
even clearer impression of both of
their careers.
But the real story is in the bigger
picture. The bet is a symbol, and it
becomes a flash point for environmental problems and how we deal
with them. But the bet was also a
symptom of our society, the changes
that occurred on the planet, and the
American responses to those changes.
It was a result of how Ehrlich and
Simon viewed these changes and society’s responses, using the lens of an
environmental biologist and that of an
economist, respectively, and developed
their own ideology that they then often
preached to their own choirs, as well as
to the nation. Both men were deeply
(although not equally) involved in
this transition from a nation that was
often blind to environmental issues to
one in which environmental problems
became a national focus, only to be followed by another shift in which antienvironment backlash has grown over
time as free-market economics and
corporate influence have flourished.
And both men represented viewpoints
that were shared by countless other
citizens from a variety of walks of life.
One of the greatest insights in The
Bet is Sabin’s take on environmental
politics. Although I was fully aware
of the variation among presidential
administrations in the seriousness
with which they addressed environmental issues, I learned much from
Sabin’s prose about the early years of
the environmental movement, from
Nixon to Reagan, and how Ehrlich,
Simon, and the segments of society
that each represented figured into
the ebb and flow of environmental
politics and the resulting variation in
responses (or lack thereof) to environmental problems. This layer of insight
is necessary for a full understanding of
the changes that have occurred in our
nation and the global environmental movement, per se, and make this
work a must-read for anyone interested in the environment, politics, or
how human behavior affects both of
these fields.
Another terrific lesson from The Bet
is the parallels and disparities between
how both science and economics are
conducted by their respective academics and how findings are interpreted
and subsequently championed or stifled. This provides a cautionary tale for
both fields and for human inferences
in general. Both are built on previous
information, and both have suffered
from misguided attempts at drawing
conclusions—or even promoting policies—based more on ideology than
on reality. Indeed, the limited degree
to which some scientists have stood
up to climate-change deniers in our
current age may reflect the pain felt
from previous overreaching mistakes.
In other cases, reasonable attempts
at understanding the world through
these different lenses has led to outright mockery of one by the other,
and Ehrlich and Simon were exemplars of this behavior. Scientists and
economists have sometimes lacked
the ability to effectively communicate with one another; however, such
communication is particularly important between these fields today as we
attempt to address the most important environmental problem of our
time—one that has vast implications
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for the global economy. Sabin’s timely
book weaves these tangled strands in a
way that allows one to see the web in
its entirety and better understand the
changes that need to be made in the
way we approach science, economics,
and society.
In summary, I wish all historical
works were this interesting to an environmental biologist. The book has
an inspiring quality to it in terms of
Sabin’s academic rigor and wonderful prose but also in terms of the way
in which he spins the topic, which
made me, for one, think about how I
approach my own work and the degree
to which my teaching, research, and
outreach efforts are affected by the way
in which I present and discuss environmental issues with others. Such
introspection is a valuable commodity
in any work, but particularly when the
stakes are so high.
HOWARD WHITEMAN
Howard Whiteman
([email protected])
is professor of ­biological sciences and
director of the Watershed Studies
Institute, at Murray State University,
in Kentucky.
doi:10.1093/biosci/biv080
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July 2015 / Vol. 65 No. 7 • BioScience 733