This book is a fascinating dive into some of the major changes that people have caused to happen to many organisms (plant, animal and tiny) on the earth. It is interesting to consider how impactful we have been – both positively and negatively – to such a large part of the world’s flora, fauna and micro-organisms.

Shapiro describes many things that were surprising to me, such as the fact that “we” almost made the American Buffalo (Bison bison) go extinct twice – first the early Native Americans almost wiped them out starting about 15,000 years ago. The environment was taking a toll on the Bison, but so were the people who had found very imaginative (and effective) means of hunting them in very large numbers. The decline in the bison population was turned around when Conquistadors brought various plagues to the new world. The plagues in the form of smallpox, whooping cough, typhoid, scarlet fever and others quickly destroyed the long established human population – taking the pressure off of the buffalo. The buffalo quickly increased in numbers to something around 60 million by the middle of the eighteenth century. However, the early Europeans not only brought disease, they brought horses! That was the beginning of the second massive die-off of the buffalo. First the Native Americans got horses, vastly increasing their hunting efficiency – followed by Europeans that added guns to the mix. By the turn of the century (1905), the known buffalo population had been reduced to 125 animals, 25 in Yellowstone and around 100 on private property. Since that time, conservation efforts have brought them back from extinction, with around 500,000 alive today. Many (perhaps more than 50%) buffalo today have some cattle DNA so are actually hybrids.

Part I of the book discusses purposeful, and accidental, changes made by man for various reasons such as the creation of corn, dogs from wolves, etc., etc. These changes were almost all done using the techniques of selective breeding over long periods of time. And then there were all of the species that went extinct because of over hunting, changes we made to the environment, and other actions that directly or indirectly resulted in the inability of a species to maintain a breeding population.

The second part of the book, “The Way it Could Be” in the most troublesome to me. It discusses the things that we can change by either traditional means of selective breeding, or more recently gene editing techniques. I am rather appalled by Shapiro’s seemingly over-confidence that we can change species by editing genes within a species, or by introducing genes from other species, without causing unexpected, unintentional catastrophes. She points out many of the marvelous things that gene editing can accomplish. We now do things like add parts of jelly fish DNA into other fish that makes the fish glow in various colors when exposed to pollutants in the water. If you catch a yellow day-glow fish perhaps you might want to avoid adding it to you dinner.

There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of “experiments” and “scientific studies” going on right now to find ways to “improve” upon the hand that “we” (the total community of organisms on the earth) have been given. Shapiro talks confidently that we always make sure that the changes are “safe” before introducing them into the wild (while also discussing instances where that has NOT be done), how we can always stop and backup our changes (also while discussing instances where that cannot be done), and that we know all about what we are actually doing when we change the DNA of an organization (when it is obvious that we often find “surprises” much later).

Shapiro is willing, and apparently anxious, to make small and potentially large, often unknown, changes in the name of solving some specific problem. I understand the value, importance, and how enticing it can be to have the power to solve so many problems with such a simple approach. It is so simple in fact that there are essentially no controls on what is allowed and allowable. There is nothing that prevents a scientist from introducing lasting changes to the gene pool of any species (including humans) with little or no oversight, testing or safety protocols. They can just “do it”, as was the case when He Jiankui, a biophysicist at Shenzhen’s Southern University of Science and Technology modified human embryos resulting in a pair of twin girls with “new” DNA. Assuming that these girls go on to be mothers, then these changes will become a part of “humanity” in the future. Not only did he make changes in the hopes of making the girls immune to HIV, but it turned out that he had inadvertently made additional changes that have unknown impacts. He could tweak those girl’s genetics, so he did. “Experimentation” is happening all around the world by perhaps tens of thousands of individuals, tweaking organisms because they can, hoping for find something good (and valuable) in the process.

It appears that we are too far into this brave new world of gene editing to change it at this point. CRISPR has been invented and it will be used for anything and everything that people can dream up, including all of the “accidents” that happen because they didn’t actually know what they were doing. I obviously have no idea where this might be leading – but from the risk point of view, it appears that it could lead to one or more of those “existential” events whereby humans go extinct, or perhaps a wide swatch of other species do so. We are already releasing animals into the wild that have their genes changed in ways that prevent all of the females to be sterile after a few generations. The changed genes get transmitted from generation to generation until it accumulates to a tipping point where sterility kicks in- quickly leading to extinction of that species. That certainly gets rid of pests, but at what cost?

Shapiro ends with a nice sounding prediction of the future that we will always be careful and will never intentionally, or accidentally, cause a global disaster. She points out that we are smart, ethical, and bound by our desire to only do what is good for all. She scoffs at those of us that see very dark clouds on the horizon of such unlimited power in the hands of “everyman.” Perhaps. Obviously the point of no-return has been passed decades ago – perhaps it is just a continuation from the last 40,000 or so years as suggested by Shapiro. This is once again a situation where I am inwardly pleased that at 75 years old I will be spared many of the obvious problems that are just over the horizon. I am sorry for what we have left for our children, grandchildren and the seven generations in the future that the Native Americans understand to be our immediate responsibility.