Lulu Miller: Why Fish Don't Exist | Town Hall Seattle
Taxonomist David Starr Jordan was a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humanity. But when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor, Jordan did not despair. Instead, he surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection.
NPR reporter Lulu Miller joins us with a livestreamed examination of Jordan’s tale as a model for how to go on when all seems lost. Drawing from her book Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, she delves into the ways the universe seemed to thwart Jordan’s efforts to catalogue life’s hidden blueprint-and the one clever innovation he implemented after the earthquake that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world. Miller shares these and other unearthed revelations about Jordan’s life that have transformed her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Tune in with Miller for an improbable biography, memoir, scientific adventure, and fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science reporter who has been working in public radio for over fifteen years. She is a cofounder of NPR’s Invisibilia, a show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. She is also a frequent contributor to Radiolab.
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Пікірлер: 15
This books was amazing! ( I personally believe Jordan murdrd Jane Stanford .
Hello Lu Lu! Is there any virtue do you believe in the "shaddow self"? Also, how did you come across such beautiful etchings?
The most revealing part of this book was Miller's foot note on page 176 with includes her interpretation of text. And her following opinion: " ...this intuitive order may be a part of our wiring does not mean it is truth. It means it is useful. It means it is useful. It means that it has served our species well over the generations, helped us to successfully navigate and exploit the Chaos around us." Dear author Sue Miller, Could you please explain that statement? I have read your book. I do appreciate the history of Jordan, but if you want readers to think, maybe you can state your questions a bit better and clearer. Thank you!
@jackolson8015
3 жыл бұрын
I didn’t read that as being a question. I understood it as a subtext (one footnote?) underlying the entire book; man’s constant activity (whether unconsciously or obsessively) of trying to bring order to the chaos, if only in ones own mind. To me, this idea was expressed first in the story of Adam and Eve. We are born into a dog eat dog survival of the fittest system, and god shows them a garden, the way to start taming the wild, bringing order to nature to produce what we need to live. What did Adam do besides gardening and having babies? He started Naming stuff!
I ate a fish recently. It was damn good.
Well what should we call the finned creatures with scales and gills that live exclusively in water such as the ocean, lakes, ponds and streams?
@pifflesomepuffnadder855
3 жыл бұрын
"Oceanic Organisms," perhaps, and not Fish.
@mostazezo
3 жыл бұрын
mermaids duh
@robinkirk13
3 жыл бұрын
Read the book.
@jackolson8015
3 жыл бұрын
That’s partly what the book is about... ceaseless categorizing, labeling, sorting and organizing.
@dougr.2398
2 жыл бұрын
The point is that the name does not tell you everything about the category. This unfortunately has become exaggerated (perhaps to prove the point by reduction ad absurdism?) to assert that the categorization (and attendant Over-compartmentalizations) is totally useless. It is the exaggeration and shock and awe to attract the reader.
B
fish do exist dummies
@mostazezo
3 жыл бұрын
...
@josvisser1805
2 жыл бұрын
Your eloquent reply to the statements made in the book has all the power that its careful phrasing and cited references imply.