The Evolutionary Future: Ecology, Genetics, and Symbiosis

Dr. Shane Simonsen returns to talk about his new book Taming the Apocalypse, a vision of humanity's potential as “the universal symbiont,” facilitating new pathways for evolution. Ranging from the immediately viable to the highly speculative, the projects described in Taming all eschew the industrial science model in favor of a more participatory, low-tech, and reverential paradigm. Could novel microorganisms someday convert cellulose to starch, allowing humans to eat trees? Ant colonies form a symbiotic association with us to ferment tempeh? Elephants partner with us to create new forms of dispersed agroforestry? Cockroaches someday be involved in constructing shelters? Dr. Simonsen draws on his own experiences, creating a novel staple-producing tree species and many other hybrids, to speculate about futures as radically distant from Star Trek as they are from Mad Max. We also discuss how work done on the margins of a society can suddenly become relevant when that society confronts crisis, converting scientific knowledge to stories which can be told around fires, and his efforts with World Tree to make local languages illegible to authorities.