Plants and People

While I do like Michael Pollan’s writing style, I believe his angst to make an interesting story occasionally obstructs the scientific accuracy even if slightly. He made misstatement many time when trying to convey a point but two on pages 20 and 21 made me want to immediately point this out. The first is when he says “After water, carbon is the most common element in our body”, well no carbon IS the most common element, water isn’t an element. The second was when he said “It is more than a figure of speech to say life is created out of thin air” air is a combination of molecules many of which are not required for photosynthesis. This may be very nit-picky, however when writing a book trying to make scientific points a certain level of credibility needs to be maintained. It makes me nervous that he sacrifices that for entertainment value. I enjoyed Pollans use of George the corn farmer from Iowa in this book. He is the focus of Pollan early on, and he takes u...

I found the way Jared Diamond introduces the two paths of human history to be an eye-opening reality for me. I have never thought of how there are agricultural practices and hunter gatherer practices are differentiated. In chapter 4 Jared Diamond speaks on how hunter gatherers tend to only have children once every four years because they need their children to can run with the tribe before rearing another young. He also points out that hunter gatherers generally don’t have political systems or the same hierarchical structure as with agricultural based societies. It is proposed that having these resources being heavily available (an excess of available calories) allows for individuals to differentiate themselves beyond the pressures of a “normal life” such and hunting and gathering. This is when you see kingdoms, taxes, Priests, armies etc. In chapter 4 on page 93 Jared Diamond begins to ask why crops and agriculture developed in early years in places like Iraq an...