506
which seeks to communicate the substance of what life means to us; whether there
is actually any significant difference between one species and another, given the
through-story of life herself; questions concerning “wilderness” that have turned to
a crossword puzzle of patchwork between sand-traps, pavement, megacities, toxic
waste-dumps, and all the other largely inorganic congeries of human existence.
Wilderness, like evolution is an idea, a word, that continues to elude us. While we
can glean evolution in real-time—such as in the “59,000 generations” of Escherichia
coli bacteria that Richard Lenski at Michigan State University has been observing
in an ongoing experiment since 1988
3
; or in studies that have enabled researchers to
recognize distinct changes in communities of Guppies within streams of Trinidad
“in response to changes in predation threat [by killfish] in just a few generations”
4
;
or even real-time changes in deer mice of the Sand Hills of Nebraska within “a
single generation”
5
—the word “evolution” invites only half-formed intimations of
contradiction involving time, consciousness, purpose, esthetic predilection, survival, and every conceptualization of the meaning of human life, and all other life
forms. A word so steeped in inconclusiveness that it all but enshrines the notion of
ecological paradox.
3 See “Evolution in real time,” by Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette, February 13, 2014 https://
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/evolution-in-real-time/. Accessed May 22, 2020.
4 See “Infographic: Watching Evolution in Real Time,” by Jef Akst, April 30 2017, TheScientist,
https://www.the-scientist.com/multimedia/infographic-watching-evolution-in-real-time-31599,
Accessed May 22, 2020.
5 See “Seeing ‘evolution in real time’: Mice blend in to survive,” by Katherine J. Wu, January 31,
2019, NOVA WONDERS, NOVA, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/evolution-in-real-timemice/. Accessed May 2020.
Fig. 54.1 A local in Dijon. (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
54 The Unfettered Gaze
which seeks to communicate the substance of what life means to us; whether there
is actually any significant difference between one species and another, given the
through-story of life herself; questions concerning “wilderness” that have turned to
a crossword puzzle of patchwork between sand-traps, pavement, megacities, toxic
waste-dumps, and all the other largely inorganic congeries of human existence.
Wilderness, like evolution is an idea, a word, that continues to elude us. While we
can glean evolution in real-time—such as in the “59,000 generations” of Escherichia
coli bacteria that Richard Lenski at Michigan State University has been observing
in an ongoing experiment since 1988
3
; or in studies that have enabled researchers to
recognize distinct changes in communities of Guppies within streams of Trinidad
“in response to changes in predation threat [by killfish] in just a few generations”
4
;
or even real-time changes in deer mice of the Sand Hills of Nebraska within “a
single generation”
5
—the word “evolution” invites only half-formed intimations of
contradiction involving time, consciousness, purpose, esthetic predilection, survival, and every conceptualization of the meaning of human life, and all other life
forms. A word so steeped in inconclusiveness that it all but enshrines the notion of
ecological paradox.
3 See “Evolution in real time,” by Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette, February 13, 2014 https://
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/evolution-in-real-time/. Accessed May 22, 2020.
4 See “Infographic: Watching Evolution in Real Time,” by Jef Akst, April 30 2017, TheScientist,
https://www.the-scientist.com/multimedia/infographic-watching-evolution-in-real-time-31599,
Accessed May 22, 2020.
5 See “Seeing ‘evolution in real time’: Mice blend in to survive,” by Katherine J. Wu, January 31,
2019, NOVA WONDERS, NOVA, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/evolution-in-real-timemice/. Accessed May 2020.
Fig. 54.1 A local in Dijon. (Photo © M.C.Tobias)
54 The Unfettered Gaze