Quick-Change Artist?

Pessimism about the human condition sometimes can become apocalyptic. “The Coming Anarchy” was the title of an Atlantic Monthly article in which Robert Kaplan posited chaos in West Africa as a foretaste of the chaos that awaits us all.

The question of human survival is all-encompassing; but before representatives of world leaders can begin to try to answer it at September’s Cairo conference on population, they must understand what kind of question it is. It is at the deepest level not only an economic or social or political or even environmental question but also a question of evolutionary biology.

Evolutionary biology is far more than the study of the fossil record. As Jonathan Weiner shows in a remarkable new book, “The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time,” it is the study of the continuing biological change by which a species either adapts or perishes.

It may be true, as the old saying goes, that “you can’t change human nature.” But Weiner has marshaled an astounding array of examples showing that under extreme evolutionary pressure, extreme and sudden biological change has sometimes occurred in other species. Where elephants are being hunted to near-extinction for their tusks, tuskless elephants begin to appear. Can humans change that drastically?

Just what kind of change would save Homo sapiens from extinction, not to speak of who would implement the change, is far from clear. But credit Weiner with moving a bold question a large step toward explicit formulation on the eve of an important conference.