A little knowledge

Our books for this month richly illustrate the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to public policy, the media and science. The topics are hot – evolution and global warming. The stakes are high and therefore the arguments get more and more simplistic as each side tries to woo the ignorant, the learning challenged or the merely uninterested public to its side.

So we get the polar bear as the poster child of global warming on the one hand versus the “what’s wrong with playing golf on Christmas?” argument. E.C. Pielou is a believer in the dangers of global warming. Let’s state that up front; she leaves it for the end. But her book does point out that a. constant climate change is normal and cyclical, and b. there’s a continental glacier in your future if nature holds its course. We are well into the next glacial cycle, according to Pielou’s math – which it’s hard to doubt. If you like global warming, or merely own a lot of stock in oil and coal companies, it’s easy to say that your favored industries are the only thing holding the ice at bay.

However, none of us is likely to be around by the time our favorite prairie or woodland turn to tundra. Global warming is operating at a pace at last 10x faster than historic climatic variation – possibly much faster, so even humans are unlikely to be able to adapt to the changes without serious financial loss. Never mind the environmental losses. Historically, hotter means drier and that, along with the northward invasion of really annoying plants and insects, is likely to be the most disruptive affect of the change, rather than bigger hurricanes or rising seas, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in North America.

I haven’t gotten far into Of Moths and Men yet, although “little knowledge” people call this a refutation of Darwinism. In fact, it starts out with the best précis of the early scientific course of evolutionary theory that I have yet seen. How many false starts and wrong notions, even by Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, et al. How close we came to abandoning evolution by the start of the 20th Century.

And a story well told. I don’t think I have yet read a book on evolution and found the words louche and bijoux in the same paragraph.