Bully for Brontosaurus Read Free

scale, though natural for planetary history, is not appropriate in our legitimately parochial concern for our own species, and the current planetary configurations that now support us. For these planetary instants—our millennia—we do hold power to impose immense suffering (I suspect that the Permian catastrophe was decidedly unpleasant for the nineteen of twenty species that didn’t survive).
    We certainly cannot wipe out bacteria (they have been the modal organisms on earth right from the start, and probably shall be until the sun explodes); I doubt that we can wreak much permanent havoc upon insects as a whole (whatever our power to destroy local populations and species). But we can surely eliminate our fragile selves—and our well-buffered earth might then breathe a metaphorical sigh of relief at the ultimate failure of an interesting but dangerous experiment in consciousness. Global warming is worrisome because it will flood our cities (built so often at sea level as ports and harbors), and alter our agricultural patterns to the severe detriment of millions. Nuclear war is an ultimate calamity for the pain and death of billions, and the genetic maiming of millions in future generations.
    Our planet is not fragile at its own time scale, and we, pitiful latecomers in the last microsecond of our planetary year, are stewards of nothing in the long run. Yet no political movement is more vital and timely than modern environmentalism—because we must save ourselves (and our neighbor species) from our own immediate folly. We hear so much talk about an environmental ethic. Many proposals embody the abstract majesty of a Kantian categorical imperative. Yet I think that we need something far more grubby and practical. We need a version of the most useful and ancient moral principle of all—the precept developed in one form or another by nearly every culture because it acts, in its legitimate appeal to self-interest, as a doctrine of stability based upon mutual respect. No one has ever improved upon the golden rule. If we execute such a compact with our planet, pledging to cherish the earth as we would wish to be treated ourselves, she may relent and allow us to muddle through. Such a limited goal may strike some readers as cynical or blinkered. But remember that, to an evolutionary biologist, persistence is the ultimate reward. And human brainpower, for reasons quite unrelated to its evolutionary origin, has the damnedest capacity to discover the most fascinating things, and think the most peculiar thoughts. So why not keep this interesting experiment around, at least for another planetary second or two?

1 | History in Evolution

1 | George Canning’s Left Buttock and the Origin of Species
    I KNOW the connection between Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. They conveniently contrived to enter the world on the same day, February 12, 1809, thus providing forgetful humanity with a mnemonic for ordering history. (Thanks also to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson for dying on the same momentous day, July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after our nation’s official birthdate.)
    But what is the connection between Charles Darwin and Andrew Jackson? What can an English gentleman who mastered the abstractions of science hold in common with Old Hickory, who inaugurated the legend (later exploited by Lincoln) of the backwoodsman with little formal education fighting his way to the White House? (Jackson was born on the western frontier of the Carolinas in 1767, but later set up shop in the pioneer territory of Nashville.) This more difficult question requires a long string of connections more worthy of Rube Goldberg than of logical necessity. But let’s have a try, in nine easy steps.
    1. Andy Jackson, as a result of his military exploits in and around the ill-fated War of 1812, became a national figure, and ultimately, on this basis, a presidential contender. In a conflict conspicuously lacking in good news, Jackson provided much solace by