Biocivilisations A New Look at the Science of Life

A recurrent theme in the books that I review is that we underestimate what other animals are capable of and, by extension, overestimate humans. One thrust of Biocivilisations is that many of the hallmarks of human civilisations have parallels in the worlds of plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. Less of a popular science book that marvels at life's achievements, this is more a full-throated attack on reductive materialism and mainstream biology that leans on philosophy, metaphor, and a substantial dose of unconventional ideas. In turns fascinating and frustrating, there is a lot to unpack here.

This book, the result of a slow intellectual stew of some 30 years, breaks down into three parts. In three chapters, Slijepčević first outlines his objections to anthropocentrism and techno-scientific hubris in mainstream biology and science more generally. Seven chapters then discuss examples of his concept of biocivilisations: the idea that many hallmarks of human civilisations have precedents in the deep history of life on this planet, with a starring role for microbes. The final two chapters conclude with a call for a new school of thought in the life sciences that relies less on a mechanistic worldview.

At first glance, the concept of biocivilisations ought to appeal to many biologists and I am on board with the idea that we are not smart enough to know how smart animals are. Other ideas that Slijepčević proposes require you to squint a bit harder and he admits that calling organisms doctors, scientists, or artists is true in a limited and metaphorical sense only.

Similarly, there are some interesting ideas worth future investigation in Slijepčević's four proposed principles of non-mechanistic biology, which push back against reductionism. The notion of universal flux, that "life is permanent change" (p. 28), appeals. I recently praised both Kevin J. Mitchell and Carl Safina for effectively writing the same. The notion of symbiosis as the glue holding life and environments together allows him to feature the celebrated example of endosymbiosis. Other ideas are more unconventional. Slijepčević goes a step towards the scientific fringe by invoking both agency and autopoiesis (systems, such as cells, that maintain themselves by creating their own parts) as defining features of life. Lastly, his notion that all these sentient organisms symbiotically joined together means that the world at large possesses a decentralised mind—Gaia's mind—pushes the envelope.

On paper, the idea of biocivilisations is really intereresting, and there are some fascinating examples discussed here. In practice, however, the execution comes with some eyebrow-raising ideas and is marred by a few frustrating tendencies. I will break this down into four main objections.

Objection #1: The Gaia hypothesis. In earlier reviews I dove into this idea and, long story short, concluded that it is mostly wrong, but stimulated much interesting new research, e.g. spawning the discipline of Earth systems science. Slijepčević mentions this intellectual legacy yet sticks to the loaded term Gaia and develops various imaginative metaphors. Is there mileage in the Gaia hypothesis, or derivations thereof, still? No doubt. I have admittedly only scratched the surface and have added Doolittle's upcoming book Darwinizing Gaia to my to-review list.

Objection #2: Strawman fallacies. Slijepčević has the rather frustrating habit of presenting exaggerated, sometimes caricaturesque versions of ideas and making them sound as if they are representative of the mainstream. Whenever he talks of techno-scientific hubris, he lashes out at futurists and AI researchers who think technology will soon overcome our biological limits, explicitly mentioning e.g. Ray Kurzweil. Is there anybody outside of Silicon Valley who takes the infantile fantasy of the singularity seriously? Slijepčević also persistently misrepresents the idea of the Anthropocene as something that exalts humans. Instead, I mostly encounter (contained) horror amongst Earth scientists and environmental historians at the scale and speed with which we have come to dominate and damage the planet. Lastly, and rather absurdly, is how, in Slijepčević's telling, the discipline of evolutionary biology consists exclusively of neo-Darwinists versus a few heroes at the fringe. As if there is no thriving gradient of ideas. In his personal perspective in chapter 12, Slijepčević writes that he is part of a loose collective of scholars called The Third Way who question "the two dominant ways of interpreting biological diversity, neo-Darwinism and creationism" (p. 215). He writes this after in the previous paragraph introducing the extended evolutionary synthesis, which brings together conceptual changes from the preceding sixty years!

Objection #3: Scientific dogma and the persecution complex. Following directly on the preceding is his criticism of scepticism and dogma in science which, in my opinion, rather misses the point. This is a feature, not a bug. By only focusing on those people whose ideas turned out to be correct in the long run (who says scientists never change their minds?) you are counting the hits while ignoring the misses: all the ideas that fell by the wayside or were never sound to begin with.

Objection #4: Reverse anthropocentrism. Returning to the topic of biocivilisations, I think this proposal is praiseworthy but risks suffering from a form of reverse anthropocentrism. Rather than considering certain traits and behaviours as uniquely human, all lifeforms would possess them, which still takes the human experience as the universal yardstick. This sentiment is perhaps expressed mostly clearly in two books I reviewed previously. First, Why Animals Talk argues that, to understand animal communication, we have to abandon the human-centric notion of words, forcing you to rethink linguistic concepts you have always taken for granted. Second, Slijepčević approvingly mentions Suzanne Simard's idea of the Wood Wide Web and mother trees. Entangled Life warned that this metaphor is both plant-centric and value-laden, and asked readers "to stand back [...] and let the polyphonic swarms of plants and fungi and bacteria [...] be themselves, and quite unlike anything else" (p. 193 therein).

Overall, Biocivilisations is a thought-provoking and at times controversial book that highlights several topics to investigate further in the future. There are various notions here that I disagree with and that, to my taste, veer into fringe territory. However, the overall aim of the concept of biocivilisations, taking down anthropocentrism a notch or two, is one I support. Philosophically inclined readers with a penchant for the unconventional might well find this a worthwhile addition to their shelves.