A Natural History of the Future (2021) by Rob Dunn

Book Review

A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us About the Future of the Human Species (2021)

by Rob Dunn

   Rob Dunn, a biologist, has facts to tell us about the natural world, and how our actions influence the growth of life on planet Earth.   He is hardly the only such person, but as biologist with a solid grasp of explaining complex ideas to civilians, he is well situated to put the point across.  The main thrust of his thesis is trying to explain that evolution works much faster than we original theorized. Far from taking centuries or millennium of change that is invisible to the naked eye, it in fact appears that life, particularly microscopic organisms like germs and viruses, can evolve incredibly fast in ways that thwart human intent.

  The major examples include antibiotic resistant viruses in hospitals and pesticide resistant bacteria on crops, but as the book progresses he expands the thesis to include a thorough discussion of relative adaptability of life (or lack of it) and makes the disturbing point that a future of climate change means that ALL life will have to reconfigure itself to new environments or niches, and that humanity, despite its enormous success, has not managed to expand its basic range of inhabitable land.  Unlike antibiotic resistant viruses, we may not be able to adapt fast enough as a species, and it is this weakness, not client change itself, that may spell doom for the species.