Dodo
With apologies to René Magritte.
Imagine you are a judge in a small court and I am the accused. I have been caught stealing coconuts from the local supermarket. In my defense I say I did it to feed the last remaining flock of dodos that I have living in my garden. Thus I am committing a small crime to prevent a greater disaster – which is an adequate defense provided they really are dodos.
How do we establish whether the things in my garden are dodos or not?
Being broad minded you visit my garden and look at the birds. They appear, to you, to be turkeys. So it is your word against mine. I say they are dodos because I have a broad definition of what I mean by ‘dodo’. You, and probably any expert you ask, think I am mad. But still we are talking of a matter of opinion. I use the word dodo differently to other people. In fact every scientist you ask will come up with a different diagnosis of a dodo – unless they are allowed to collaborate. There is no ‘official’ definition of a dodo or any other species. There isn’t even a list of definitions of species or a way to recognize a adequate definition of a species over an inadequate definition. So if you ask what a dodo is some one will typically make up a definition on the spot. If you are very lucky they will point you to a published description.
What about all those scientific names you say. The scientific (Latin) name for dodo is Raphus cucullatus L (1758). Does this help? There will be a type (or reference) specimen linked to Raphus cucullatus and you could go and touch this specimen but it will consist of a pile of bones or a stuffed skin and is definitely not what we mean when we say “This is a dodo!”. Not all Raphus cucullatus are exactly the same as the type specimen. How different can they be and still be Raphus cucullatus?
The bottom line is that taxonomy may go the way of the dodo without rapid change. The key thing that is needed is a list of species definitions. What we call the species is secondary to having the definitions for those species. The name is an attribute of the taxon yet many people seem to treat taxa as attributes of names. I suspect I have been guilty of this…
Today I start a new job at the Natural History Museum London. For the next two years I’ll be working on Pan European Species Infrastructure as the project officer for Work Package 4 – which is all about standards for exchange of taxonomic data between databases in Europe. I’ll still be keeping an eye on the Biodiversity Collections Index in my spare time – especially encouraging others to become involved in developing it. The two subjects overlap considerably.
I am an ethical vegetarian who perhaps one day, when the kids have grown a little, will become vegan or nearly so. I also have an allergy to fish. Back in the days when I was a flesh eater I would throw up and have a histamine reaction within thirty minutes of eating even white fish. This is a proper allergy (not an intolerance) and quite common apparently.
This combination of factors means I have to physically restrain myself from getting into a full blooded, red in the face, frothing at the mouth rant whenever anyone mentions omega-3 and fish oils and how we HAVE to eat oily fish for healthy brains. Clearly I haven’t ever successful consumed the stuff and I am neither dead nor stupid – though you may disagree. This is a little pathetic as it makes me sound like the octogenarian chain smoker saying “never did me any harm” but I just can’t help ranting. This is a related story that is hopefully more interesting – bear with me I am trying not to rant.
There is an interesting quote in this article in the Guardian about the government actually suggesting an ethical approach to food. The whole article is fascinating in its implications but it is a particular quote that sparks me:
Rosemary Hignett, head of nutrition at the FSA, said: “Eating fish has considerable health benefits, so we will continue to encourage consumption as part of a drive to improve public health but we recognise the potential impact our advice might have on demands for fish.”
What does the phrase “considerable health benefits” mean? Benefit over what? Clearly we all have to eat something and it is perfectly possible to have a healthy diet without eating any fish in which case adding fish to ones diet would not improve it. There are many ways to balance a diet and only some of them include consuming fish. What I guess she really means is eating fish rather than something like fatty meat is better for you but the thing that is doing you good is not eating the fatty meat rather than eating the fish. If you swapped meat out for tofu and brown rice it may have an equally beneficial effect. Rosemary is probably being very sensible in accentuating the positive rather than harping on about what people must not do. Eat more X is more likely to be acted on than stop eating Y. But our whole logic seems totally twisted in order to support this complex of assumptions about the fact that it is good to eat fish.
The point that bothers me is that this bothers me when it probably doesn’t bother anyone else who isn’t a veggie with a fish alergy. Everyone else is blind to it because they have a different perspective. Now if I presume that I am much like other people there must be things I am blind to that they see or perhaps no one sees. Things I take as read without questioning. Things I say and do that are grossly wrong, possibly offensive and cause harm but that I am totally unaware of. How would I feel if I were aware of them? Could I handle it?
So this short passage about fish just makes me realise that I know little about Reality and my view of the world is highly blinkered. For me this is a familiar kicking off point for my interest in Buddhism. From this mundane example it is easy to move to the realisation that I know little of the real nature of anything – even the current experience of myself in this moment. So I stop and try and tune into it through meditation and this in turn leads me to taking an ethical stance on eating flesh and we have come full circle.
When I was impressionable and even more naive than now I was warned not to trust anyone who started a story with “When I was in …”. This was tremendously good advice. For some reason the society I swim in rates travel above all else and fails to see it as just another form of consumption – like fast cars, designer clothes and unnecessary kitchens. It is relatively easy to travel half way round the world, look poverty and injustice in the eye, then rail about it at comfortable middle class dinner parties. It is far harder to admit to it in your own back yard.
Not Quite World’s End by John Simpson didn’t therefore look promising as the only book I got under the Christmas tree this year. It consists almost entirely of “When I was in…” stories. Fortunately Simpson has been in a few interesting places in the last forty years such as Saddam Hussein’s trial or parts of the Congo and so many of the stories are genuinely fascinating and I have had an entertaining few days working through the four hundred plus pages. There is no doubt that Simpson is a highly professional reporter. The back stories to some of the major conflicts of the world are fascinating.
Unfortunately Simpson can’t help giving us more than a glimpse of his personal life. He could have covered the birth of his son (a third child by a second marriage late in Simpson’s life) in a page or two and it would have had the same effect as the entire chapter he devotes to it. Has he not noticed that although conception and birth stories are of immense personal importance their interest to others is minimal. Parts of the book read like a rather embarrassing chain letter. On the one hand he says he has to keep working to pay for the upbringing of his new son but goes on to describe his house in London and his flat in Paris (two of the most expensive places on the planet) and is clearly shuttling backwards and forwards to South Africa to holiday and visiting relatives. Whatever Simpson’s reason for continuing to work into his 60’s it isn’t putting bread on the table. It would be helpful if he were honest with himself and his readers – many of whom really will have to work to seventy to pay for even one home in a modest location.
The whole thing can be summed up for me with a single quote:
Directly Rafe [Simpson's son] is old enough to remember the experience, I will take him to see tigers, jaguars, gorillas and polar bears in the wild, so that he can at least take the memory of them into the future.
There isn’t even a hint that it is supporting this kind of life style for the very rich, or even the existence of the very rich, that is causing these creatures to become extinct and many of the conflicts in the world. Simpson seems totally unable to examine the fact that he may actually be part of the problem rather than a neutral voice.
The book would have been improved enormously with the help of a non sycophantic editor who could have said “John nobody is really interested in this” instead I suspect, like Saddam, Simpson is surrounded by celeb buffers. He would get on well with Prince Charles.
