A Reason for Everything


I am a middle aged Englishman who rather late in life, has discovered how to live. Many things that passed me by as a young man now hold my attention. For instance the theory of natural selection provides me now, as it did not then, with a sense of transport.

    Marek

    Dear Marek

    In January I bought your book for my daughter when she announced her decision to read Human Sciences at Sussex University. The hardcover book was heavy and it lay unread through the spring and summer as Lucy travelled the world, and so in the manner of selfish gifts, I took it back and read it first.

    It’s not often that I pick up a book on evolutionary theory that both anticipates and extends my wonder at the world but yours did just this. My children are all teenagers but it’s only in recent years that I have returned – older, less foolish, a little sadder – to an early fascination.

    I read Zoology at Oxford and next month I take my son Sam there for an interview to read the same subject. No one is more surprised than me. I was never a naturalist (I make my living in the world of computer games) and although Richard Dawkins was my tutor for a term (and I published The Extended Phenotype while at WH Freeman) I graduated and turned away from my interest in life sciences. As I have re-discovered evolutionary biology I make excited reports to my kids (who are simply some of the most interesting people I know) and (as Dawkins did for me) introduce them to a chilly and inspiring vision, to grand designs but no designer, to intrigue and awe.

    I am a middle aged Englishman who rather late in life, has discovered how to live. Many things that passed me by as a young man now hold my attention. For instance the theory of natural selection provides me now, as it did not then, with a sense of transport. Darwin’s dangerous idea, a danger he discerned (”whisper it as though it were a murder”) but could not fully reveal, is now a candidate for the most momentous idea to be introduced to human reason. It has become a cornerstone of my developing theory of the world and – in ways that are not entirely clear to me – a cornerstone of the way I make sense of my life as I live it. I found enlightenment, encouragement (and warnings) in every one of the six life stories you told so well. I delighted in your tracing the exploration of this idea through a particular Englishness of the imagination: an intelligence both pragmatic and protean, an insistence on addressing the world in plainsong, arguments that say more than they say on the surface, a whimsical humour that allows Nature – ancient, implacable and uncaring – to be faced without flinching.

    A couple of years ago my life changed about entirely and I moved cities. I was brought up in Sussex and thought I knew Brighton but it has proved a city of surprise and delight. How could I have missed – as you have not – that it is Down Town? To run around Dyke Road Park I cross Port Hall Road. I look right and left: right the narrow comb of terrace rises to meet a post-it stamp of bright green down, left the fall of the city and the slash of sea under sky. When I first saw this I laughed out loud at my good fortune and if I fail to do that today, on a sun lit morning, I know there can only be one reason: I am not trying hard enough. I will instead purloin your closing words. If you require meaning, look around.

    Lucy attends Anthropology lectures and she was making fun of the Anthropologists. Apparently they are rather serious and a little chippy, having to borrow and beg teaching facilities, whereas her academic life revolves securely around the John Maynard Smith building. ”Who ever he is” Lucy added. I started to tell her but stopped because I wanted Lucy to encounter JMS through your lens of affection and regard. I saw that it was time to return her book but then I had another – I think better – idea.

    How about you come to Sunday lunch and tell her in person? Please bring your young family.

    Thank you for a fine read.

    J