838
To be clear, Dixon’s creatures are no more fantastic, charismatic, or unusual than
any one of today’s species, including ourselves. That is of utmost importance to
contemplate. Take hummingbirds. To date, the oldest fossils of their expansive kind
were found in Germany, and date to approximately 30 million years ago.
5
The second largest family of birds is the neotropical hummingbird, with 338 known species, far more than 10% of which are endangered.
6
To grasp some inkling of their
marvelous life histories, consider the very foundation upon which all sciences and
their human practitioners are hypnotized. Facts and dreams whose combined charm,
eloquence, artfulness, and sheer weight of the anomalous lead irresistibly to that
mental monument which underpins a belief in the future, because the future must be
predicated upon the present. In both biology and mathematics, nonlinear systems
that tend to ignore our obsession with the regular, ordered, linear modus operandi
are manifest everywhere.
7
We find them even in our backyards.
5 See “Old World Fossil Record of Modern-Type Hummingbirds,” by Gerald Mayr, Science 07
May 2004: Vol. 304, Issue 5672, pp. 861–864, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1096856, AAAS,
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5672/861.abstract, Accessed June 29, 2020.
6 See The Hummingbird Society, https://www.hummingbirdsociety.org/endangered/, Accessed
February 17, 2020.
7 See de Canete, Javier, Cipriano Galindo, and Inmaculada Garcia-Moral (2011). System
Engineering and Automation: An Interactive Educational Approach. Berlin: Springer. p. 46. See
also “Nonlinear Biology”, The Nonlinear Universe, The Frontiers Collection, Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 181–276, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-34,153-6_7.
Fig. 97.1 Endemic to New Zealand, the Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) are the last living reptiles
to have wandered beside dinosaurs 200 million years ago. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
97 The Biosphere Beyond Humanity
To be clear, Dixon’s creatures are no more fantastic, charismatic, or unusual than
any one of today’s species, including ourselves. That is of utmost importance to
contemplate. Take hummingbirds. To date, the oldest fossils of their expansive kind
were found in Germany, and date to approximately 30 million years ago.
5
The second largest family of birds is the neotropical hummingbird, with 338 known species, far more than 10% of which are endangered.
6
To grasp some inkling of their
marvelous life histories, consider the very foundation upon which all sciences and
their human practitioners are hypnotized. Facts and dreams whose combined charm,
eloquence, artfulness, and sheer weight of the anomalous lead irresistibly to that
mental monument which underpins a belief in the future, because the future must be
predicated upon the present. In both biology and mathematics, nonlinear systems
that tend to ignore our obsession with the regular, ordered, linear modus operandi
are manifest everywhere.
7
We find them even in our backyards.
5 See “Old World Fossil Record of Modern-Type Hummingbirds,” by Gerald Mayr, Science 07
May 2004: Vol. 304, Issue 5672, pp. 861–864, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1096856, AAAS,
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5672/861.abstract, Accessed June 29, 2020.
6 See The Hummingbird Society, https://www.hummingbirdsociety.org/endangered/, Accessed
February 17, 2020.
7 See de Canete, Javier, Cipriano Galindo, and Inmaculada Garcia-Moral (2011). System
Engineering and Automation: An Interactive Educational Approach. Berlin: Springer. p. 46. See
also “Nonlinear Biology”, The Nonlinear Universe, The Frontiers Collection, Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 181–276, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-34,153-6_7.
Fig. 97.1 Endemic to New Zealand, the Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) are the last living reptiles
to have wandered beside dinosaurs 200 million years ago. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
97 The Biosphere Beyond Humanity