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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A search for who we are by Carl Sagan
and Ann Druyan, Century, pp 505, £17.99

As an exploration of human nature and its purpose, Shadows is a Big
Book with a Big Purpose. Produced by the team that gave us Cosmos, Shadows
can be expected to be a tour de force. ‘We humans are like a newborn baby
left on a doorstep, with no note explaining who it is, where it came from,
what hereditary cargo of attributes and disabilities it might be carrying,
or who its antecedents might be,’ write the authors. ‘We long to see the
orphan’s file.’ Shadows, the reader is encouraged to believe, is that file.

Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan began to assemble the file in the early 1980s,
impelled by the potential horrors faced by Homo sapiens as a result of the
Cold War. ‘How did we get into this mess?’ they asked. ‘How can we get out?
Can we get out?’ An understanding of how our species came to be and of its
fundamental nature would address these questions, they reasoned. ‘When we
began this search into our origins, using the methods and findings of science,
it was almost with a sense of dread,’ the authors confide. ‘We were afraid
of what we might find. We found instead not just room but reason for hope.’

Although the source of this last sentiment never becomes entirely evident,
the authors’ conclusion about human nature is quite clear: we are one with
the animals, and they with us. For too long people have sought to erect
barriers between Homo sapiens and the rest of the world of nature, seeking
to confirm (nay, assert) the uniqueness of humanity. Tool use, language,
consciousness, religion-these and many other aspects of human life have
been claimed as separating Homo sapiens from other animal species, only
to prove to be permeable barriers on closer inspection, say the authors.
‘If we insist on absolute rather than relative differences, we do not, so
far at least, discover any distinguishing characteristics of our species,’
they note. ‘Shouldn’t we expect, especially with our close relatives, that
the differences will be of degree and not kind? Isn’t this the lesson of
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With this last conclusion this reviewer enthusiastically concurs: even
in the post-Darwin era, scientists and non scientists have too often displayed
a disinclination to acknowledge a close animal heritage. That emotionally-based
disinclination has to be overcome by dispassionate science, and Shadows
aims to do that. The manner by which the authors reach the conclusion, however,
inspires less enthusiasm.

Although the authors claim to have employed ‘the methods and findings
of science’ in their search, the presentation of their discoveries strays
from science. The problem is one of language. The authors appear unable
to let their case rest on crisp declarative or explanatory sentences, and
insist on ‘enhancing’ them. For instance, telling us that 3 billion years
ago the Moon would have appeared as big as a saucer held at arm’s length,
compared with a small coin as it does now, they add: ‘It must have been
heartbreakingly lovely. But it was billions of years to the nearest lovers.’
Plants are described as having ‘a maniacal devotion to sex’. And we learn
that ‘The cooperation between plants and animals is uneasy’ because ‘animals
can’t be trusted; given a chance, they’ll eat any plant in sight’. This
is not only untrue (herbivores are often very selective about what they
eat) but also encourages us to imagine a geranium in the throes of weighing
an animal’s motives. DNA is described as the ‘Holy of Holies’. And so on
. . . relentlessly, ad infinitum.

Sagan and Druyan correctly condemn scholars for succumbing to an inner
urge to emphasise human uniqueness, but in their unwise use of florid language
commit the crime of anthropomorphising. When dealing with evolution, this
is not only sophomoric but misleading. ‘The rabies virus is a brilliant
strategist,’ the authors tell us. ‘It knows its victims, and how to pull
their strings.’ ‘We know the insect decides who to eat, who to run away
from, who to find sexually attractive.’ Really? The selection of mates by
female Syrian hamsters-an example of female choice-is marvelled at: ‘There
were no questions asked about his education, family, financial prospects,
or the gentleness of his disposition. Every female was eager for sex with
the dominant male.’ There ought to be a law against this kind of linguistic
excess.

In their quest to narrow the gap between humans and other animals, the
authors’ zeal sometimes gets the better of them. Art, dance and music are
not confined to human culture, they say: bower birds decorate their nests
with an ‘aesthetic that resonates with ours’; gibbons ‘fling themselves
balletically through the high forests’, and ‘chimps delight in resonant
drumming’. Moreover, consciousness is attributed to all organisms, including
microbes. ‘You look at these little one-celled beings under the microscope
and you’re struck by their apparent self-assurance,’ write Sagan and Druyan.
‘They seem to know with certainty what they’re about.’ We cannot, they suggest,
deny a ‘rudimentary consciousness’ to such organisms. Consciousness is one
of the more mercurial of biological phenomena, eluding easy definition and
easy identification. Most people, however, would be surprised to think of
microbes as conscious.

The 21 chapters weave a sometimes erratic story of human ancestry,
beginning with the origin of the Solar System and ending with apes. Those
who turn to Shadows with the hope of learning what the subtitle promises
may be surprised that so remote an event as the pre-Solar System condensation
of cosmic debris might somehow illuminate human nature. The repeated reference
to the earliest microbes, more than 3 billion years old, as our ‘ancestors’
may also cause puzzlement. Not only is this plainly wrong, but it is also
irrelevant to the stated matter at hand: learning ‘who we are’. Stressing
biological continuity between Homo sapiens and other animals is laudable,
but exploring the relationship between humans and the occupants of 3-billion-year-old
stromatolites stretches the argument a little.

Shadows traverses much territory, but virtually all of it bears the
footprints of other authors (Desmond Morris, Richard Dawkins and Stephen
Jay Gould, for instance) who did a far better job. Sagan and Druyan add
little that is new, either in substance or in presentation. More than half
the book passes before a serious encounter with a primate is to be had,
where biological continuity in terms of understanding human origins and
behaviour become persuasively pertinent.

And there is no discussion of the evolution of the human family (the
hominids) itself. The mystery as to why a book that promises ‘A search for
who we are’ should lack any reference to anthropologists Donald Johanson
and Richard Leakey is solved in the epilogue. Shadows, this reviewer learned
with mixed feelings, is the prelude to another volume that will actually
do what this one promises, but fails to deliver.