On his book Feats of Strength: How Evolution Shapes Animal Athletic Abilities
Cover Interview of March 05, 2019
In a nutshell
This book is about the often amazing athletic abilities that
animals possess. It aims to explain how and why evolution has equipped certain
animals with the capacity to do things like climb waterfalls with their jaws,
run across the surface of the water without sinking, or shoot water bubbles at
potential prey. As strange as some of these things are, they are all explicable
according to the rules of mechanics, physics, and physiology, and they happen
because they help the animals that possess these strengths to survive and reproduce
in the face of their specific challenges.
I suppose one feature of this book that is a bit different
is the style. I read popular science books to learn cool stuff about science,
and I am sometimes annoyed by the intrusion of too many personal stories and
narratives into the proceedings. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, and
it is very effective when done well, but it isn’t to my taste and nor is it one
of my strengths. The challenge then was to make this book entertaining, fun to
read, and not at all like a textbook without relying overmuch on storytelling. I
think I ultimately produced something that explains the exciting and compelling
science involving performance but that isn’t self-important or dry. I wouldn’t
call it “moist,” because nobody likes that word, but maybe it’s “humid.” Or “sultry.”
(Both of those are bad. You’re going to edit this so that nobody finds out I
described my book as “humid,” right? Cool.)
I also thought it was important to point out the many things
that we don’t know, or instances where we understand something only poorly. Nonscientists
often view contradictory results or corrections to previous findings with
suspicion. In fact, making sense of those contradictions and fixing the flaws
in our understanding is how science works! Scientists are far more comfortable
with uncertainty than one might suspect, and I think it’s important to note
that there are certain areas and subjects that we just don’t know much about,
and that’s OK. As someone almost definitely probably already said, the first
step towards learning is knowing what you don’t know.
I’d recommend the reader read this book in the normal way:
in public at 10am on a Wednesday whilst drinking a daiquiri and dressed as a
clown. (I should probably note that it’s Mardi Gras here in New Orleans right
now so my sense of “normal” might be a bit off.)
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
This book is about the often amazing athletic abilities that animals possess. It aims to explain how and why evolution has equipped certain animals with the capacity to do things like climb waterfalls with their jaws, run across the surface of the water without sinking, or shoot water bubbles at potential prey. As strange as some of these things are, they are all explicable according to the rules of mechanics, physics, and physiology, and they happen because they help the animals that possess these strengths to survive and reproduce in the face of their specific challenges.
I suppose one feature of this book that is a bit different is the style. I read popular science books to learn cool stuff about science, and I am sometimes annoyed by the intrusion of too many personal stories and narratives into the proceedings. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, and it is very effective when done well, but it isn’t to my taste and nor is it one of my strengths. The challenge then was to make this book entertaining, fun to read, and not at all like a textbook without relying overmuch on storytelling. I think I ultimately produced something that explains the exciting and compelling science involving performance but that isn’t self-important or dry. I wouldn’t call it “moist,” because nobody likes that word, but maybe it’s “humid.” Or “sultry.” (Both of those are bad. You’re going to edit this so that nobody finds out I described my book as “humid,” right? Cool.)
I also thought it was important to point out the many things that we don’t know, or instances where we understand something only poorly. Nonscientists often view contradictory results or corrections to previous findings with suspicion. In fact, making sense of those contradictions and fixing the flaws in our understanding is how science works! Scientists are far more comfortable with uncertainty than one might suspect, and I think it’s important to note that there are certain areas and subjects that we just don’t know much about, and that’s OK. As someone almost definitely probably already said, the first step towards learning is knowing what you don’t know.
I’d recommend the reader read this book in the normal way: in public at 10am on a Wednesday whilst drinking a daiquiri and dressed as a clown. (I should probably note that it’s Mardi Gras here in New Orleans right now so my sense of “normal” might be a bit off.)