I am an evolutionary biologist who wrote two books on my theory that all species increase the biodiversity of their ecosystem in a natural environment (humans are an exception to this). I am a dedicated conservationist and founder and president of the World Rainforest Fund (worldrainforest.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the Earth’s rainforests. I collected reptiles and fossils when I was a child, and never out-grew my passion and love for science, biology, biodiversity, the natural world, animals, plants, ecology, and evolution. I love reading about these topics, hearing lectures on them, and learning about them. I love being in nature, traveling to natural ecosystems, and seeing wildlife.
I wrote
How Life Increases Biodiversity: An Autocatalytic Hypothesis
This book is well-written and exciting. It is educational. It explains evolution and ecology, as well as conservation issues. I love the author’s enthusiasm and ability to explain biology clearly without talking down to the reader.
He makes biology exciting. The photographs and illustrations are terrific. The chart on the history of biodiversity of the Earth through geologic time is thought-provoking.
"A superb blend of lyrical description, sweeping historical writing, lucid scientific explanation, and dire warnings. . . . The most important scientific book of the year." ― Boston Globe
In this book a master scientist tells the story of how life on earth evolved. Edward O. Wilson eloquently describes how the species of the world became diverse and why that diversity is threatened today as never before. A great spasm of extinction ― the disappearance of whole species ― is occurring now, caused this time entirely by humans. Unlike the deterioration of the physical environment, which can be halted, the…
The ideas in this book are exciting, interesting, and thought-provoking. It is clearly written with great enthusiasm. It presents fresh, novel perspectives.
The author is very well-informed and brings in historical and other facts that make the essays exceptionally fun and interesting. I learned a good deal, and my creativity was enhanced by the new perspectives and ideas. The essays are on evolution and natural history.
Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould's first book, has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. Like all succeeding collections by this unique writer, it brings the art of the scientific essay to unparalleled heights.
I am working on a theory that viruses were crucial in the evolution of higher organisms and major evolutionary breakthroughs. This book is about that very topic.
It is full of incredible information and has me jumping with excitement. Seeing a scientist who shares my ideas is exciting. It is well-written and comprehensible. The examples are great. I found it thought-provoking and could hardly wait to read the part I had not yet read!
The extraordinary role of viruses in evolution and how this is revolutionising biology and medicine.
Darwin's theory of evolution is still the greatest breakthrough in biological science. His explanation of the role of natural selection in driving the evolution of life on earth depended on steady variation of living things over time - but he was unable to explain how this variation occurred. In the 150 years since publication of the Origin of Species, we have discovered three main sources for this variation - mutation, hybridisation and epigenetics. Then on Sunday, 12th February, 2001 the evidence for perhaps the most…
This book presents a fascinating theory that life created an atmosphere favorable to life. The sun is much hotter than when life began. Life kept the temperature beneficial to life by removing greenhouse gasses from the air. Organisms created an atmosphere high in oxygen.
The book is exciting and educates the reader on the interaction of life and the geophysical environment. This book is relevant to and influenced my theory that all species increase biodiversity, the theory about which I wrote the two books I am featuring here.
In this classic work that continues to inspire many readers, Jim Lovelock puts forward his idea that the Earth functions as a single organism. Written for non-scientists, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence in support of a radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that life is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter influences air, ocean, and rock to form a complex, self-regulating system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.…
This book presents the fascinating, radical view that symbiosis is crucial in evolution and common and central to it. I am fascinated by symbiosis. This book influenced my theory that all species increase biodiversity, the theory about which I wrote the two books I am featuring here. This book, by one of the two originators of the Gaia Hypothesis, educates the reader on the importance of symbiosis in evolution, which, in my view, is a major mechanism of evolution. It tells how our cells were built by symbiosis.
Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell the whole story. Most remarkably, The Origin of Species said very little about, of all things, the origins of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms come to be in the first place.In Symbiotic Planet, renowned scientist Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members of different species living in physical contact with each other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Ranging from bacteria, the…
Presents a new scientific theory that all species are ecosystem engineers that make their ecosystem better for life and increase biodiversity in natural environments, that organisms made Earth better for life with the result that evolution produced great breakthroughs and the high biodiversity of today, and that symbiosis is fundamental and much more important than recognized.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
