Narendran Sairam

AP Biology
Ms. Jagelski
August 25, 2010
Summer Reading Response
Ernst vs. Mayr
Edward O. Wilson has a very systematic and proper way of arguing and in his
book, The Future of Life, he outlines his argument against the destruction of nature and
the biosphere. His essential point is that our race, the only sentient and intelligent one on
Earth, is blowing through the resources of the world a lot faster than the world can
regenerate and this will eventually create a supply demand problem in which the supply
will not meet the demand.
In Chapter 2: The Bottleneck, Wilson acknowledges the presence and the
argument of his opposition: the Economist. The Economist argues that while it is a
problem that industries are destroying nature, the pace at which the industries destroy is
manageable by nature and that all the problems can be solved. To the economist the
problems are the “detritus of progress. (24)” Being the ecologist, Wilson says that while
it is true that the economic growth of the world today is unprecedented, the cost that we
are paying for that gain is too high; almost unaffordable. According to Wilson, this
progress forces the world to lose species. He makes an example of Blue Whales to
illustrate his point. The whaling techniques today are quite advanced resulting in larger
number of whales being harvested each year. At the same time the population of whales
is falling proportionally and soon there will be none left. This clearly posses a threat to
the environment because if all the species slowly are hunted down, each one will go
extinct and that will lead us to hunt other species and slowly but surely there wont be any
left. In terms of evolution this is Wilson’s point: if the world continues on its current
path, then there will be no species left to continue the process of speciation because we
exploiting nature at too high a rate.
Ernst Mayr’s What Evolution Is? is also a very systematic book but it has two
fundamental differences: one, this book is not opinionated and two, it is an explanation of
evolution itself. Mayr uses fairly simple language to explain the ideas of evolution
starting from the evidence of its existence to the technicalities of its processes. He starts
with the reason for evolution, follows it up with an explanation of variational evolution
and natural selection and adaptedness. The one thing that is noticeable through the first
and the second parts of the book is that his writing is fairly technical and that he assumes
that the reader at least knows some ecology but from the third part on his writing
becomes even more dense and it becomes difficult to understand without reading some
things twice. At the same time, once understood the material becomes crystal clear.
Mayr’s major point, so to speak, is that evolution is inevitable and that given the fact that
it has happened for so many years and the fact that our world is changing so rapidly,
organisms will adapt accordingly.
Personally I prefer Mayr’s book for this course. I have a few reasons for this. First
of all, Mayr’s book is not based on statistics, which, more often than not, only tells one
side of the story. Instead, Mayr’s book is based on facts presented to match a logical
progression. He goes from explaining what it is to proving that it happens (through
various types of evidence such as morphological similarities, embryology, vestigial
structures, biogeography and molecular evidence.) to explaining how it happens and
finally to the future of it. ‘It’ being evolution, of course. And I like this method (again,
only for this class) because it kind of follows a text book pattern. Secondly this book has
depth. By that I mean that this book, while explaining a complex process in a relatively
simple way, does not dumb the knowledge down to the level of a two year old and I
believe that, for an academic book, that is necessary. While Wilson uses numerous
numbers and statistics and analogies to make his point, Mayr uses complicated jargon
(which he explains well) and hard based facts to make his. So all in all after reading
Wilson’s book one can walk out with ones head full of numbers but no actual
understanding of the problem or read Mayr’s book and stroll out with a deeper
understanding of the process and the ability to face the evolutionary problems put forth
by Wilson. But hey, since us AP Biology students have read both, there shouldn’t be a
problem should there?

I’m taking this class for two reasons. One, I developed a liking for biology as
early as ninth grade (and I’ve always done well in it). And two, I’m aiming to become a
doctor so I figured some highschool AP Bio would do me more good than harm. As far as
my strengths are concerned I enjoy learning new and interesting things and I’m
motivated. Weaknesses? The list is too long but for this class at least, my memorizing
ability is zero. I need to really really try to memorize something to get it into my head but
that is usually not a problem because I do my work. (most of the time).

I hope this paper and short introduction were not too informal. If you feel that is
the case, please let me know and I will formalize it.

Yours sincerely,
Narendran