Life as We Made It
How 50,000 years of human innovation refined – and redefined – nature
Beth ShapiroA Times Best Book of 2021
From the very first dog to glowing fish and designer pigs – the human history of remaking nature.
Virus-free mosquitoes, resurrected dinosaurs, designer humans – such is the power of the science of tomorrow. But the idea that humans have only recently begun to tinker with the natural world is false. We’ve been meddling with nature since the last ice age, and we’re getting a lot better at it. Drawing on decades of research, Beth Shapiro reveals the surprisingly long history of human intervention in evolution – for good and for ill – and looks ahead to the future, casting aside scaremongering myths about the dangers of interference. New biotechnologies can present us with the chance to improve our own lives, and increase the likelihood that we will continue to live in a rich and biologically diverse world.
Beth Shapiro
Beth Shapiro is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. She has appeared on the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery, and written for the Financial Times and Observer. She is the author of the award-winning How to Clone a Mammoth.
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