Wild Life: Adventures of an
Evolutionary Biologist
Robert L. Trivers
Biosocial Research
New Brunswick, NJ
2015
225 pages
$9.58 (Paperback and Kindle)
Reviewed by Clara B. Jones, Asheville,
NC, USA (February, 2016)
To dispense with preliminaries, I have
interacted with Robert L. “Bob” Trivers intermittently since I
was in graduate school but have never been in his “inner circle.”
I requested a complimentary copy of Wild Life from Robert,
telling him that I intended to review it for a journal that was, at
the time, undetermined. Robert was enthusiastic about the idea and
sent the memoir. I have reviewed a number of books for ISBE
Newsletter so it was logical for me to consider it as the venue
for publication, particularly, since I speculated that many readers
would be interested. I appreciate Andreas Svensson for giving me this
opportunity.
In addition to several other biologists
(e.g., Louise Emmons, Dan Janzen, Russ Lande, Nancy Moran, Steve
Stearns, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Don E. Wilson), I consider Trivers
to be a National Treasure. Against numerous odds, he has risen to the
top of his field, having published papers that are fundamental
contributions to Social Biology, generators of immeasurable bodies of
systematic and informal research and publications, as well as,
continuing streams of productive thought—among his peers, other
scientists, educators, students, journalists, and the general public.
Many persons in and outside the scientific community will purchase a
copy of Wild Life hoping, even, expecting, to find inside
their names or mention of one of their vivid memories with Robert.
Most of these men and women will be crushed, and I can think of four
or five who will never recover. Robert's new book should have
included a detailed index, not only for reference purposes, but,
also, to prevent time wasted by some who would otherwise rifle
through the book in search of evidence that Trivers considers them
worthy of mention.
In the literary world, a memoir belongs
to the genre, Creative Nonfiction. Wild Life, however, for the
most part, appears to be uncontrived, a convincing example of a
brilliant, though, controversial, figure telling it as he truly sees
it. As the saying goes, “What you see is what you get.”, though
Robert is clear to point out that he is unable to measure the full
extent to which deception and self-deception influenced this project.
After reading Wild Life,
I was left with several messages, one being that its author has
written a memoir hoping to determine the arc of his legacy. With the
exception of Chapters 14 and 15, he crafts his story, as he has
presented all of his ideas, with clinical, even, scapular, precision.
There is a sense in which the dominant theme of the book can be
summarized by a single observation expressed on page 186 when
speaking of W.D. Hamilton: “I thought of Bill as perhaps the
greatest evolutionary theorist since Darwin. Certainly, where social
theory based on natural selection is concerned, he was our deepest
and most original thinker.” Many would place E.O. Wilson in second
place. However, in Wild Life, as well as, elsewhere, Robert
seems of the opinion that Wilson is greatly overrated (an opinion
with which I disagree). Though he does not say so explicitly, Trivers
likely considers himself to hold second rank after Hamilton, a
self-assessment that many would challenge if only because of the
author's non-normative record of behavior. Nonetheless, as Robert
told a reporter at Rutgers University in 2014, “I
don’t want to sound immodest, but I am one of the greatest social
theorists in evolutionary biology alive, period.”
Wild
Life,
dedicated to Robert's teacher, William H. Drury, Jr., comprises
fifteen chapters, seven of which, in addition to numerous additional
remembrances, concern his life and research in Jamaica. He reports,
with obvious pride, that all of his five children are
“American/Jamaican,” referring to himself as an “out-breeder”
created by his peripatetic experiences as the son of a career
diplomat. For decades, I was an obsessive reader of the print-version
of The New York
Times.
One day in 1987, scanning the obituary page, I noticed the name,
Howard Trivers [sic,
no middle initial], and, because, at that time, I had received
second-hand reports of Robert's life from one of his close friends, I
determined from relevant details that the deceased was the
evolutionary biologist's father. Among other prominent roles in the
U.S. Department of State, Howard Trivers had been Director of its
Office of Research and Analysis. It was impossible not to note that
the diplomat's obituary included no personal information—no mention
of parents, a wife, or other family members. I had been told that
Robert had a very contentious relationship with his father, in part,
because of the latter's profession. Robert has only mentioned his
father to me once, in passing; thus, I was not totally surprised to
find virtually no reference to his family, including his mother, in
Wild Life.
For this reason, combined with the, sometimes shocking, even,
disturbing, particulars of his life, Robert would provide a Freudian
scholar with copious material and room for speculation (e.g., Oedipal
failure?). In addition to passing mention of his “family of origin”
and his children, the Preface expresses the author's opinions about
the conventional lives of scientists (“This kind of life never
appealed to me.”), and the remaining few paragraphs introduce the
reader to themes that follow.
Chapter 1 is revealing to all students of Trivers' work. He documents
his early precocity in mathematics, particularly, The Calculus. I
consider myself an amateur student of the thinking strategies of
famous scientists. Many population ecologists, for example, think
like physicists, characterizing genes and other events as mass
flowing in space and time. Ecosystem ecologists, on the other hand,
are likely to think, not only spatially, but at multiple scales at
once. Robert's mind is that of a quantitative modeler expertly
identifying and manipulating decision rules. A limitation but, even,
more, a strength, of his mostly verbal theories is that they bypass
complexity to identify fundamental principles of natural selection
for mechanisms and functions of general import. Trivers reveals that
Drury taught him to begin with interesting questions about human
behavior, and Robert has exhibited a remarkable ability to choose
topics basic to non-human, as well as, human, Social Biology, always
cognizant of intra- and inter-individual conflict (-of-interest) and
of genetics operating at the level of individuals, constrained by
Hamilton's Rule. While I imagine there is intuition and art involved
in Trivers' generative processes, I think his successes can be
attributed, primarily, to his cogent choice of topics and his ability
to write with laser clarity, as close as verbal models can come to
mathematical ones. In my humble opinion, Robert is a better verbal
modeler than Charles Darwin.
Chapters 2 and 3 describe early experiences conducting fieldwork and
the impact of Drury and Ernst Mayr, respectively, on the development
of the memoirist's early thinking, publications, and career. Robert
convincingly communicates the extent to which he honors these men,
and he shares with candor the pivotal role they played in the
formation of some of his most important ideas. Trivers has reason to
be confident that his acknowledgments of others' inputs will not
reduce his reputation and that, though some critics may attempt to
diminish his project, particularly, posthumously, Robert's theories
are not subject to claims that they are derivative. Chapter 4 is
titled, “I Become a Lizard Man in Jamaica,” describing how he
became “a green lizard freak” after accompanying Ernest Williams
there as a research assistant. Some readers will be offended by both
men's evaluation of primatologists and, by implication, Anthropology
as a field (but, see Chapter 6). In another chapter he denigrates
Psychology, and it is clear throughout the memoir that Robert's
opinion about what constitutes a Science is a narrow one.
Wild
Life
is peppered with interesting facts about lizards and other animals,
as well as, snapshots of geography and human nature. Chapters 5, 7,
8, 9, and 10 recount a variety of experiences in Jamaica, some of
them life-threatening, as well as, significant friendships, mostly
with men. The only women who receive a lingering nod in the memoir
are “mother-in-law,” “Miss Nini,” and her daughter, Robert's
“wife,” Lorna, mother of four of his children. Even though these
chapters, and a few other accounts, document Robert's capacity for
deep, sincere, and reciprocated feelings, he sometimes refers to
friends using clinical, seemingly detached, language.
Chapter 11 is an interesting one in which the author reminisces about
his relationship to Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party, and
Chapter 12 continues descriptions of his entanglements with
intra-specific conflict, including, incarceration. Robert seems not
to have learned a litany from Behavioral Ecology that the costs of
aggression (or, spite) usually outweigh its benefits (see the
self-analysis in Chapter 15, and Parker 1974). Chapter 13, titled,
“Vignettes of Famous Evolutionary Biologists,” suggests that, in
addition to Drury, Mayr, and Williams, Richard Dawkins and W.D.
Hamilton, effectively, complete Trivers' list of illustrious figures
in the field who have influenced him and his ideas, and in this
chapter, Robert includes a few sarcastic paragraphs about Stephen J.
Gould that I consider gratuitous and unnecessary.
The final two chapters are intimate in nature, Chapter 14 is titled,
“Ambivalence About Jamaica,” describing the unsettling and
increasing rates of violence there. Some readers will find the final
chapter haunting since Robert candidly assesses personal failings and
outlines his burial plans. I was surprised that he had nothing to say
about politics or the state of the world (e.g., climate change,
income inequality, racism, biodiversity loss, terrorism), if only to
inform the reader about how his opinions and values might have
changed since his Black Panther days (“One man's terrorist is
another man's freedom fighter.”, as the CIA used to say). His life
is not as dark as it may appear, however, since Robert has recently
outlined several proposals for future research, specifically,
speciation processes (with Koos Boomsma); evolutionary heterogamety;
natural selection of honor killings; evolutionary dynamics of
homosexuality; and, human evolutionary genetics.
It
would be remiss and unrealistic not to provide some academic critique
of Trivers' work, and I consider it appropriate to suggest a couple
of limitations*. Since I was introduced to his publications in the
1970s by Behavioral Ecologists at Cornell, it has concerned me that
Robert's research fails to reflect the importance of Evolutionary
Ecology, particularly, evolution in changing environments about which
there is a significant literature pre-dating Robert's first
publication (e.g., Levins 1968, Lewontin 1957). Though Evolutionary
Ecology is relatively recent as a systematic discipline, Robert has a
terrific grasp of Population Genetics and G x E interactions, an
operation receiving limited treatment, at best, in his publications
(e.g., How do “selfish” genes and social traits behave
when conditions vary or along gradients? When and under what
conditions is social behavior situation-dependent? ...flexible?).
Furthermore, his “feel” for statistical thinking is that of an
expert, and I would expect more treatment of variation and deviations
from central tendencies in his canon.
On
the other hand, one way that Trivers' work achieves elegance, is by
simplifying complex phenomena; thus, environmentally-focused,
realistic theories might not have been as successful, productive, or
fundamental. In a sense, the author's insights are primitive
in the deep, honorific sense that the word is employed to describe
some treatments in pure mathematics. Nonetheless, all theoretical
work of import is subject to vetting by subsequent theory, models,
experiments and other empirical tests. Already, a few researchers
have modified certain details of Trivers' theory of sex ratio
selection, and his ideas about parental investment and sexual
selection have been challenged by some feminist biologists. Related
to any discussion of Robert's legacy, in Wild
Life,
the memoirist states how important the appreciation of conflict
(genetic and whole organism, intra- and inter-individual) has been to
his success. In my opinion, this observation confirms Trivers'
understanding that asymmetries produce differential “fitness
optima” and that differential (asymmetric) phenotypes are exposed
to environments upon which selection may act. I strongly recommend
Wild Life
to all who are interested in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, not
only, for its explication of “wild” experiences, but, also, for
insights into how a stunning mind works.
References
Levins
R (1968) Evolution
in changing environments: some theoretical explorations
(No. 2). Princeton University Press.
Lewontin
RC (1957) The adaptation of populations to varying environments. Cold
Spring Harbor Symp Quant Biol
22: 395-408.
Parker
GA (1974) Assessment strategy and the evolution of fighting
behaviour. J Theor
Biol
224: 115-126,
*Unlike E.O. Wilson, Trivers is not a synthesizer, though his most heralded papers have general import. Trivers has not communicated much interest in a search for general patterns--within, between, and across taxa. Also, again, in contrast to E.O. Wilson, Trivers' canon pays scant attention to Genotype<----->Phenotype<----->Environment<-----> causes and effects. One seeks, for the most part, in vain, to locate Ecology--abiotic & biotic Environments [however conceptualized] in Trivers' writings...
Asheville, NC, USA
February, 2016 In International Society of Behavioral Ecology Newsletter
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