Better than a Dog Anyhow: Stories of Darwin, by Stan Rice

Author Stan Rice has just published a set of short stories, Better than a Dog Anyhow, based on Charles Darwin. Rice wrote the Encyclopedia of Evolution and other popular books about evolution. He knows a lot of details about Darwin, and this collection of stories shows it.

 

Here is the Amazon description of the book: “The young Charles Darwin wants to believe in an orderly created world. But his experiences of the world—from the death of his mother, to the beautiful ravages of love, to the many exciting adventures during his trip around the world—disrupt this view. For Charles and Emma, his wife of four decades, religious faith has always been a point of quiet but loving contention. Five of these stories are fictionalized accounts of Darwin’s true biography. The others are imaginary stories: about Darwin’s Irish gardener who cannot understand why Darwin is so kind to him; a fantasy in which Darwin is reunited, via interlacing time lines, with his dead daughter Annie; and, what if Darwin, the father of evolution, had met Mendel, the father of genetics? In these stories, you will find a man whom you wish you could have known.”

Calling All Commensals!

I have just posted a video in which Darwin explains that there are three rough categories of ecological interaction between any two species: parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism. Of course, whenever a scientist says “there are three categories” this is almost always an oversimplification—even if a useful one.

In parasitism, the parasite gets most or all of its resources from the host. Obviously, the parasite benefits, and the host is harmed, at least over the long term. A botanical example that is abundant in the forests of Alsace, from which Darwin reports, is mistletoe growing on a tree. The mistletoe roots actually grow into the wood and extract water and minerals from it, thus harming the tree.

In mutualism, both species benefit from the interaction. A botanical example from Alsace is lichens, in which single-celled algae live inside a sandwich of fungus tissue. Both species benefit from this: the algae make food when the weather is moist, and the fungi protect the algae from damage when the weather is dry.

Both parasitism and mutualism are fairly clear-cut. But commensalism? This is when the commensal benefits and the host is unaffected. The example Darwin uses is vines growing on a tree trunk. The vines do not actually put their roots into the tree tissue; the vines just climb on the tree like a trellis. This would seem to be commensalism: the vine benefits from getting its leaves up into the sunshine without having to make its own trunk, while the tree just stands there.

But many times the “host” is negatively affected by the commensal. In the case of the vine and the tree, the host has to bear the extra weight of the vine. A little vine might not have much impact, but a large vine can weigh a lot (see the photo). And while a vigorous tree might be able to bear the extra weight in normal times, the tree could collapse in times of high wind—or even without high wind. In fact, the vine might even shade the tree leaves, reducing the growth of the tree.

When you think about it this way, maybe there is no such thing as commensalism. The best example is the microbes that live in our guts. Some of them are mutualists—they produce waste products that enhance our nutrition by digesting molecules that the human gut cannot—and some of them are parasites under certain conditions. But there may be none of them that are commensals all of the time. We seldom notice the little mites that live in our hair follicles—that is, unless there are too many of them, or we have an allergic response to them.

Vine to tree: Thanks for letting me grow on you.

Tree to vine: I’m not dead yet!

The Thinking, Walking Biped, part twelve. The Perfect Exercise

Walking is, at least for people like me, the perfect exercise. Just this morning I walked 11 kilometers. Most other kinds of exercise result in strain and injury, especially to joints. Pascal Picq points out in his book (reviewed earlier) that slow, long-distance running and walking is something that humans do much better than any other species, especially the ones like cheetahs that can run much faster but only for short distances. And even older humans, who are no longer athletic in other ways, can run or walk for long distances; geriatric marathon runners are actually quite common, though often unnoticed because they finish last. But they finish.

Walking is slower than running, which means that the walker is less likely than the runner to trip over or step on things in the path or, if so, to sustain injury from them. An injury can take an old body a long time to recuperate from. I have required physical therapy for things that, as a younger man, I would hardly have noticed.

Walking is almost perfectly aerobic. That is, your muscles can keep working for long stretches of time because your circulatory system can provide them with all of the oxygen that they need (that is what aerobic means). And the body can also keep itself cool during long walks.

There are three ways that an object, such as your body, can keep cool even while generating body heat during exercise.

• The first is through what is called radiant heat transfer. Your body emits invisible light, just off the red end of the spectrum, which is why it is called infra-red. It is, in fact, a kind of energy and to lose this energy means you will cool off. How much energy you lose is not completely under your control. It depends on your environment and how hot you are. Deep space is almost at absolute zero, and when you lose infra-red light into outer space—even into a clear blue sky—it is gone forever. You cannot speed it up or slow it down. This is why you feel a chill if you sleep out in the open, but not if you sleep under a tree or a roof. The tree or roof is not at absolute zero.
• The second is sensible heat transfer—sensible as in the fact that you can feel it. Your molecules conduct some of their energy to the air, that is, if the air is colder than you are, which is usually the case. You have some control over this. You can alter the amount of surface area you expose to the air by curling into a ball (to hold in the heat) or extending your arms (to release it). There is always an unstirred boundary layer of air next to your skin, especially when that air is trapped inside of fabric. To cool off, wind is your friend.
• The third is latent heat transfer—from the evaporation of water. Water constantly evaporates from you, especially from your invisible sweat. Your sweat glands allow water to evaporate before it has a chance to become visible on your skin or clothes. People who have defective sweat glands easily overheat. Again, wind is your friend—it not only blows away sensible heat but also water vapor.

You cannot do much about radiant heat. But walking or slow running allows sensible and latent heat to keep you cool. I need the exercise for my body but also to keep my mind active. I will walk all I can for as long as I can. If someday I can only hobble, I will still be healthier for having walked (around 90 kilometers a month) as much as I do.

The Walking, Thinking Biped, part eleven. Social Nature Walking

A lot of us like to walk along in nature and have our own thoughts and insights. As soon as you get even one more person, there is the possibility of having quotidian conversation, not very different from what you would have in an automobile, drive out the appreciation of the natural world. I have frequently had this experience when leading students on hiking field trips. They can walk all day and see almost nothing they will remember.

That is, unless the hike is specifically designed to enhance observation and the ability to integrate with nature. This may be nowhere better seen than in scouting groups. I was, for several years, a Boy Scout. Though I was the one most interested in nature, the others got really good at rock climbing, tying knots, erecting tents, building camp fires, rappelling across creeks, and even the use of Morse code for long distance communication. For us, the Boy Scout Handbook and the Army Field Survival Manual were central texts (which included how to distinguish edible vs. dangerous plants). I was about the only boy who saw the spiritual dimensions of nature, which is why I was chosen to give the Sunday morning sermon at the Boy Scout Camporee in Tulare County about 1968.

There can be an even larger social context. In Europe, especially Germany, hundreds or thousands of people like to go on mass hikes together. The movement is called Volksmarch and its theme song, as far as I can tell, is The Happy Wanderer:

I love to go a-wandering along the mountain track

And as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back.

Sometimes sharing a trail with other hikers is not particularly pleasant. While I was hiking in the Black Hills of South Dakota, parents with two adolescent children singing, as they walked, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer.” I’m sure you know or can guess the next ninety-eight verses. I found this incredibly annoying. But then I told myself, the parents are taxpayers just like me, their revenues sustain the National Forest Service, just like mine. Even when we are alone in a forest, we depend on the social network, which sustains the forest.

Edd's Land: A Novel of Four Cherokee Brothers in Early Oklahoma, a novel by Stan Rice, part one. Edd Making the Best of It

Author Stan Rice has just published the third of three novels (Edd’s Land) in the series Trail of Tears: Novels of Cherokee Identity. Because Kindle has unreliable availability and formatting, the author has also posted a free PDF download. This second novel is about four Cherokee brothers in early Oklahoma.

Here is Rice’s summary from Kindle:

Four mixed-blood Cherokee brothers, and the white swindler who steals their land and oil allotments, greet Oklahoma statehood in different ways. Edd Hicks loses not just his land but his fiancée to Averd Hargrove, a Claremore banker. Edd remains confident and upright, and brings order to his farmland and family. Frank Hicks learns confidence as he plots his dramatic revenge against Hargrove. Lon Hicks leaves his past behind in pursuit of a failed Hollywood career. William Hicks is ill with tuberculosis when he meets the great Oklahoma socialist crusader Kate Barnard. Frank, to the disapproval of his racist family and friends, falls in love and moves in with Bert Hicks, a black woman descended from slaves owned by Frank’s ancestors. Frank nearly gives up on his plan to scalp Hargrove until he sees Hargrove leading a lynch mob against Bert’s brother. The net effect of the vast wealth of the former Cherokee Nation is that Edd’s daughter Nina finally gets enough money back from the United States government to buy a new pair of shoes.

Edd Hicks (a real person) was one of hundreds of Cherokees who received a land allotment in northeastern Oklahoma at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was a self-educated man, he upheld and championed education wherever he lived, which was always in Oklahoma. He was fully aware of the injustices and cruelties committed by the white government of the United States against the Cherokee tribe. This included the Trail of Tears itself, but also the process by which farmland was allotted to Cherokees in Indian Territory by white overseers. Each adult Cherokee was given a certain amount of land, but when all of the allotments were added up, there was a lot of land left over, which was given to white people. In addition, the allotment commission often appointed dishonest guardians or overseers for the Cherokees (see the next essay). Edd knew all of this, but also that there was nothing he could do about it. His solution was simply to get whatever land he was given, and grow food and a family on it.

Edd was an upright man. He was very righteous, without looking down on people who were not as religious as he was, including his brothers. He even forgave the brother (Lonnie; see later essay) who stole money from the family. He was proud to raise all of his own food. On paper he was poor, but his family never went hungry.

Edd’s career did not get off to an easy start. He was looking forward to the twentieth century, in which the Cherokees could finally settle down on their own land. And he was engaged to a beautiful woman, Mary Carter. But then Mary’s disreputable brothers forced an end to this engagement. What was Edd’s response? He just went ahead with his farm, and hoped to find a woman who would be his wife. He did. He made the best of his circumstances, not looking back to the past, and he had to admit that he probably ended up better than he otherwise would have—certainly better than his brothers.

Elizabeth’s Exile, a Novel of a Cherokee Refugee, by Stan Rice, part five. What Is Faith?

Author Stan Rice has just published the second of three novels (Elizabeth’s Exile) in the series Trail of Tears: Novels of Cherokee Identity. Because Kindle has unreliable availability and formatting, the author has also posted a free PDF download. This second novel is about a Cherokee woman, Elizabeth Hilderbrand Pettit who, in middle age, walked with a contingent of other Cherokees on the infamous Trail of Tears from the Appalachians to what is now Oklahoma, after losing their land and possessions. As Rice’s novel explains, this was totally illegal, as the law under which Andrew Jackson prosecuted this Trail of Tears was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Of course Rice, a botanist and evolution author, would revere Asa Gray, the Harvard botanist who was Charles Darwin’s main defender in America. Gray promoted Darwinism even though he was a conventionally and seriously religious Christian.

And Gray promoted the protection of Black people as far as he could in Boston. While even white Northerners were prejudiced against Blacks (they thought slavery was wrong, but had no particular love for Black people), Gray taught Sunday School for Blacks.

But Rice totally made up the stuff about Asa Gray being a leader in the Underground Railroad, which escorted escaped slaves to freedom. This is perfectly credible—especially since Gray would have had the perfect excuse to be in the borderlands of the Union and the Confederacy, searching for new plants—but it just didn’t happen. This is fiction; there has to be something that is not completely historical. Rice also invented the part about Elizabeth Hilderbrand Pettit being an Underground Railroad leader.

But Rice gives us some insights about the Christian faith in these examples. Elizabeth had to lead some of the slaves blindly in the darkness without any assurance that their rescue would be successful. That is, her journey was based on faith, not on evidence. As the Bible says, we walk by faith, and not by sight. One of Elizabeth’s sections of the novel ends with these words: “This is faith. I walk where I cannot see, leading people I do not know, toward a salvation that may not be there.”

Darwin and Primeval Forests

I have just posted a new video in which Darwin speculates on primeval forests. He begins by reciting, from imperfect memory, the beginning of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem Evangeline: something like “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like druids of eld…” Evangeline begins in Acadia. Well, Longfellow might have thought that the Acadian forest had always been there, but by the time Longfellow published the poem in 1847 geologists had already begun to understand that the entire northern part of the North American landscape had been covered by glaciers until about ten thousand years ago. The Acadian forest was less than ten thousand years old.

Another place many tourists visit is Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau lived in nature (actually only a couple of years, and in a forest profoundly altered by human activity). Many may think that the forest at Walden has always been there, but Thoreau would have been the first to tell you that the forest was always changing, especially as hardwoods grew up underneath pines in the process of ecological succession. He studied tree rings and could give you the evidence that the forest was always changing.

Darwin speaks to you in this video from a forest in Alsace in northeastern France. It looks like an ancient forest. The forest itself may look not too different from when the Empress Josephine saw it in the nineteenth century on the way to her mansion in Strasbourg. But none of the trees were there when Josephine saw them.

We know this because the oldest trees are about a century old. When a big old tree dies and falls over, it frequently blocks hiking paths. Municipal workers (the forest belongs to the town of Bischheim) cut away the trunks and move them off the path. The radial cuts reveal tree rings, one ring for each year of growth. The oldest ones on which I have counted the rings were about a hundred years old when they fell.

This means they started growing about the time of World War I. At this time, most of Alsace was a devastated landscape, in which almost all the trees were dead. (World War II did not have such a severe effect on Alsace.) A few lucky seedlings survived near a ballast mining pit (which is now Lake Balastière) and lived until they fell down and I saw them a century later. The forest looks impressive—lots of big beech, linden, and maple trees—but the whole forest grew in a century.

Every forest is in constant flux—old trees dying, young trees taking their place, sometimes trees of the same species, sometimes of a different species. There is perhaps no primeval forest anywhere. Sorry, Longfellow.