Experimental blog #2 September 8, 2009

Comments on 2 books

Book #1 - "Creatures of Empire - How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America" by Virginia DeJohn Anderson

This book is about the cultural and agricultural events and processes that describe the replacement of the Native American Indians in the areas of Chesapeake Bay and the New England colonies by the English immigrants in the early 17th century.
The different attitudes and beliefs of the Indians and the English about both wild and domestic animals are thoroughly described. The Indians had virtually no significant domesticated animals, while the English had several, and could not live without them.
The Indians lived by hunting wild animals while the English adopted "free-range husbandry" and insisted on letting their cattle and pigs and sheep roam free in the forests, fields, and meadows.
There were other causes, of course, but this lead to continuous and chronic clashes between the Indians and the English immigrants and the wars which drove out or even exterminated the Native Americans in both areas.

Book #2 - "Naming Nature" The Clash between Instinct and Science by Carol Kaesuk Yoon

I can not imagine a better teacher about the developement of Charles Darwin's scientific works than this author.
Even 10 years after returning from the 5 year voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin had not published his scientific work and was still looking for the tiny differences in any plant or animal species that would provide for the natural selection that his new theory depended on. Charles Darwin then embarked on an exhaustive 8 year study of all the world's barnacles, still living or extinct, that he could find, and there he found the minute differences necessary for natural selection, and could justify his theory.
The author also describes the history of the science of taxonomy, beginning with Carolus Linnaeus and proceeding through evolutionary, numerical, molecular, and ending with cladistic taxonomy.
I almost forgot to mention the "umwelt", which is a word and concept that the author uses over and over again. The "umwelt" is our "hard-wired{in our brains, of course}shared perceived world". Shared by all the people, with undamaged brains, of the world, without exception.