Adair Turner, criticising John Gray’s Straw Dogs, wrote in Prospect:
mankind’s development of larger brains several hundred thousand years ago was a product of natural selection, pure and simple. But once the accident occurred, man was blessed or cursed with a brain large enough to change the conditions of his life in ways different from those available to other species. And in this important respect man is not only different in degree but unique among the species of which we are currently aware.
Right now, I’m sympathetic to almost any general criticism of Straw Dogs, one of the most irritating books I have ever read. And I don’t think Gray understands the biological concept of “species”. But Turner’s wrong, too, to suppose that there is anything biologically unique about our using our brains “to change our conditions of life in ways unavailable to other species”. All species use their brains to construct a more favourable environment for themselves. To some extent, that’s what brains are for. Even creatures without brains, like aerobic bacteria, change the world to suit them better.
What natural selection acted on wasn’t the brains themselves, but the things that the brains enabled us do; and this was presumably true for every incremental (and expensive) growth in brain size. Adair Turner should read the Extended Phenotype. but so should everybody else.
And he should read Nature Via Nurture too, which includes the best recent discussion I have seen of this subject. A shame Mr. Ridley has no specific light to shed on trout brains – odd, given his piscatorial proclivities. God knows I could do with some advice this season.
S.
Thank God someone else didn’t like ‘Straw Dogs’. I bought it because of the reviews and I can’t begin to understand why anyone thought it any good at all. Badly written, stupidly argued.
On the only occasion I actually saw the good Dr Ridley matching wits with trout, it seemed to me that the trout won, in that it remained immersed in its fluid of choice. But since Matt seemed happy with the outcome too, maybe I just don’t understand the subtler aspects of this pastime.
These would be hardy Northern trout, would they, with callouses on their fins? Down here the Cambridge trout have wits that are gratifyingly easy to overmatch this summer. On the other hand, I quite often find myself simply watching them go about their lawful business. They just seem too beautiful to disturb.