In the 1950s, the distinguished limnologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson was invited to give a seminar at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, USA. I was asked to determine the compatibility of his slides with the Academy's projector. Slide 1 was two monkeys, one holding a lantern; slide 2 was a depiction of the onset of the menstrual cycle in Swedish women; slide 3 was a sketch of a Dodo. Other slides in the group were equally unrelated. I could not imagine how these diverse slides might possibly be related. When Professor Hutchinson gave his lecture, I wondered how I could have missed the obvious connections between the slides. I had the same reaction when I flipped through and then read Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind by Craig Dilworth. The book is a most effective undertaking in demonstrating the tremendous value of consilience ([literally, ‘a leaping together’] as used in E. O. Wilson's 1998 book Consilience), which discusses the reconnections between the disciplines that are occurring now and the new insights the connections provide).

Dilworth's book is an exceptionally ‘good read’ and is a synthesis of many important components (ecological, social, and technological) that are commonly treated in isolation from each other. Information is provided in a systematic and orderly way, and the flow from one idea to the next is almost seamless. The book also has a wealth of useful references. The unifying theme is the vicious circle principle (p. 110): ‘Humankind's development consists in an accelerating movement from situations of scarcity, to technological innovation, to increased resource availability, to increased consumption, to population growth, to resource depletion, to scarcity once again, and so on.’

Although hunter-gatherers drove much of the megafauna of their era to extinction, they did manage to keep their populations within the region's carrying capacity. They knew the food resources available to them and used abortion, infanticide, sexual abstinence, war and male fear of too frequent contact with women to keep populations from outgrowing their resource. Due to the comparative abundance and great nutritional value of their food, they apparently had greater health and longevity than the agrarian culture that followed. Less social inequality existed then than in the 21st century. They had few possessions, more time per person for socialization, and exhibited a strong sense of territoriality and a detailed knowledge of a territory's boundaries.

Dilworth covers the patterns of today in Chapter 6 (p. 356): ‘And so the vicious circle of the development of humankind churns on, and does so with ever greater momentum due to the constantly increasing consumption of fossil fuels and metals, with only the tiniest sign of resistance in the form of the efforts of environmental organizations and green political parties.’ The situation is dire and public concern is inadequate. Any plan of societal redirection must be based on this information.

Chapter 7 (p. 393) also covers resistance to change: ‘The fundamental problem as regards to the continuing existence of the human species is that, while we are ‘smarter’ than other species in our ability to develop technology, we, like them, follow the reaction, pioneering and overshoot principles when it comes to dealing with situations of sudden, continuous or great surplus. In keeping with this, and also like other animals, we are not karyotypically built so as to care about coming generations, other than those with which we have direct contact. . . . To react directly to our surroundings is how we instinctively react; it is built into our karyotype, just as it is built into the karyotypes of other species. And if it were at all possible to overcome this predilection, it would seem that we, as a species, would have to act on the basis of that very intelligence that has landed us in this situation in the first place. Overcoming our instincts with our intelligence would be a difficult task to say the least; however, as is evident from the fact that we haven't made the least effort to do so despite being well aware of the problem for many years.’

The book is well written and should be important to anyone interested in the future of civilization and Homo sapiens. Such breadth and depth in a single book are rare.