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Video Summaries of The Diversity of Life
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1-Page Summary of The Diversity of Life
Overall Summary
The Diversity of Life is about how earth is on the verge of another mass extinction. Edward Wilson, a well-known entomologist and sociobiologist, uses data to show that we are responsible for this sixth mass extinction. The book also shows how life has evolved over time and why it’s so important to preserve biodiversity. He proposes several strategies that might help us limit our impact on the environment, but he admits that they’re just hypotheses based on his own theoretical fallibility.
Wilson, an entomologist who studies ants and other insects, thinks of biodiversity differently than the way it’s typically presented. He looks at all species in a given ecosystem equally rather than focusing on one or two that are more popular. To Wilson, all living things are important to their ecosystems and shouldn’t be left out of any evaluation of biodiversity. While global warming might mean something different to most people—for example, a polar bear stranded on an ice floe—to Wilson it represents a much larger problem that threatens millions of species around the world.
There are many types of extinctions. They can be on a small scale and last for only a short time, or they can be huge and permanent. For example, the extinction of an individual tree is much less significant than the extinction of dinosaurs. Some species have recovered from mass extinctions in just tens of thousands of years; however, it takes millions to recover from large-scale extinctions caused by humans.
Next, Wilson runs through several popular beliefs about evolution and explains how they are related to the biological theory. He also acknowledges that there is much more to learn in order to fully understand life. He suggests that we should not abandon a theory just because it’s incomplete; instead, stick with the theories that have the greatest consensus among scientists. For example, he criticizes the accepted definition of “species” as a population in which individual organisms can interbreed under certain environmental conditions, but concedes that it’s better than no definition at all.
Wilson ends his book by noting that humans have destroyed many more species than they have nurtured. He laments the fact that humans are responsible for driving animals to extinction, and he lists habitat destruction as the leading cause. Habitat destruction is followed by artificial introduction of foreign species into ecosystems where they haven’t naturally developed an ecological niche. The silver lining in Wilson’s grim assessment is that since these two factors account for most extinctions, it should be fairly easy to reverse them if we take action now before things get worse.
