Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You

December 16, 2013
In a thoroughly engaging if somewhat simplistic survey of nature, Riskin, co-host of Discovery Canada’s Daily Planet and host of Animal Planet’s Monsters Inside Me, makes it abundantly clear that there’s no sense in turning to the natural world for advice about leading a moral life. “Nature,” as he notes, “has no place in discussions of social justice.” Indeed, using the Seven Deadly Sins as a touchstone, he describes numerous ways in which individuals of a wide range of species act in morally reprehensible ways. Murder, torture, rape, theft, and virtually any other act imaginable—except for selflessness—can be considered common in the natural world. What lessons, he wonders, might we learn from an Amazonian toad that regularly practices necrophilia? While his examples are often fascinating, his writing boarders on the sophomoric: “Plants have boy parts and girl parts, and they use those to make babies.” Riskin is a close adherent of the “selfish gene” concept first advanced by Richard Dawkins, but his constant references to physical bodies as “meat robots” quickly wear thin. A little more substance would have provided a more meaningful context for all of Riskin’s anecdotes. Agents: Jeff Kleinman and Michelle Brower, Folio Literary Management.