Check and balance

I suggest that the signage in Paris Hilton’s jail cell include below:

• Kingdom: Animalia (has many cells)

• Phylum: Chordata (has a cord that supports length of body when fully grown)

• Subphylum: Vertebrata (has a chain of bony elements that make up a backbone)

• Class: Mammalia (three middle ear bones, hair and mammary glands)

• Subclass: Placentalia (embryo develops in the mother’s uterus)

• Order: Primates (eyes oriented forward with stereo vision, opposable thumbs)

• Family: Hominidae (upright posture, large brain, flat face, and have both incisors and molars as teeth)

• Genus: Homo (used to be associated with tool use, language and culture but these have been found in other animals)

• Species: Homo sapiens (puzzlingly assigned “sapiens,” which means “wise,” to themselves as their species’ name)

Above is the taxonomical profile of each of the roughly seven other billion human beings in the planet whom Ms. Hilton may think exist merely as her portable audience. It might seem painfully obvious to some to even state this fact in a science column but for those who behave like they are another species — yes, all human beings belong to only one species. Some Homo sapiens like Ms. Hilton may consistently over-perform in the self-esteem test, but there is no taxonomical category that accounts for “self-esteem.”

But it is too bad that Ms. Hilton would only be in jail for a few weeks. If she were given more time — like 10 years — in, well, in-house, she could have balanced her over-performing self-esteem by having access to the private lives of at least all the other 1.8 million other species. She could have discovered who was not having sex but reproducing, who was changing genders on demand, who was having sex with entire communes, who was sleeping with whom, and other life tricks over which she may have thought she had a personal monopoly.

But I am sure that neither Ms. Hilton nor her self-esteem was in the minds of the institutions that launched this project called The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) last May 9. This EOL project is the dream of renowned biologist and champion of biodiversity Dr. E.O. Wilson.

The Encyclopedia of Life will catalogue, Wikipedia style, all information on all life on Earth from all biological kingdoms — Animalia, Plantae, Fungi and the microscopically small kingdoms of Monera and Protista. The consortium consists of The Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution and Biodiversity Heritage Library, the American Museum of Natural History (New York), Natural History Museum (London), New York Botanical Garden, and Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew). These groups will collaborate to have all the information on the at least 1.8 million species of life we know so far, on the Web, for FREE.

This consortium sees that in 10 years, anyone interested to learn about life for themselves, could just log on to www.eol.org and have all the possible information about any species they choose in different media — audio, video, text, etc. There could be a lot more available online by then as we discover more since estimates of species range from five million to 100 million more. They will even post information on species that have gone extinct so that we will get to know, even belatedly, what we have already lost.

EOL would even have the flexibility so that users can track the species in space and time. For instance, before a given area is used for another purpose, anyone would be able to check what creatures will be affected and how that development will affect the overall health of the area. Users will even be able to build scenarios on what could possibly happen to certain species given developments like Climate Change. This could either breed a rescue mission or a farewell ceremony on the part of a user. It all depends on the leaning of the Homo sapiens user. But that is just the point. Your action would now come from an informed choice for which you are responsible. E.O. Wilson hopes that once you realize that different kinds of wildlife have matching homes (which often is not your backyard), you will no longer insist, “Oh Daddy, I know it is the only one left of its kind on Earth but it is so cute and I want a pet so buy it!” But if you would still insist, I hope that logging on to EOL will give you a couple of bonus IQ points in exchange for your leaving the rare species alone.

This is what E.O. Wilson believes. He thinks that if people themselves were empowered to discover and understand how rich and varied life is, they would have a lot more respect for it and therefore, preserve it. This is not the first time this desire was expressed. I read it in the Lives of A Cell Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. He said that maybe before we hit the button on the computer that would launch the weapon to destroy the planet or parts of it, the computer should continually ask us questions about what we know about certain creatures. The point is, we are nowhere exhaustive in our knowledge of other life forms, so why destroy the planet before we have even shaken hands with each of those creatures in understanding? 

I now think of all the creatures on this planet and realize that we are the only kind who needs to mount a multimillion-dollar, monumental scientific consortium in order to remind each other that, as all other wildlife organizations grow hoarse reminding us, “We are only one strand in the web of life; that we do not weave it.” Chimps, rhinos, elephants, orchids, fern, worms, mushrooms, bacteria and all the other strands in the web of life instinctively “know” this. No wonder they do not talk to us. They probably think it is futile. They probably have seen and heard too many Ms. Hiltons.

* * *

For comments, e-mail [email protected]