The Human Criteria

Diamond, J. 1999. How to make an almond. pg. 114-130 in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York.

Pollan, M. 2001. Introduction. Page xiii to xxv in The Botany of Desire. Random House, Inc. New York.

Both of the readings cited above were overlapping in their theory and information presented, however they had different points of view and when read consecutively added to each other significantly. Guns, Germs, and Steel approached the domestication of plants and the human-plant interaction with a humanistic explanation (we domesticated said plant because we want it) , while The Botany of Desire seems to make us think more about maybe we are the ones being used. After all, certain plants, such as the oak tree, we would love to domesticate for the acorns produced but we have not been able to, even with today’s technology. So what is the true story?

Like everything in life, I believe nothing is black and white. We are not the lone ones benefiting from the domestication of plants, nor are plants – the true story is gray. Its true humans are the best (or worst) at altering and controlling our environment to suit our needs, and through various methods of trial and error, the domestication of certain plants occurred throughout our history. We saw what we liked, we took it, and we grew it. Through this act, we were able to pick what we liked and artificially selected it against the usual natural selection. The example used in Guns was almonds. Almonds in the wild contain amygdalin, which is metabolized to cyanide, however we eat them by the handful when we buy them in the store. This is because a mutation of a single gene in the almond prevents the synthesis of amygdalin and, therefore, the almonds are delicious and edible. Humans at one point or another stumbled across this mutant plant and started cultivating and caring for these plants leading the plants to be able to reproduce – even though in nature these almonds would be eaten before reproduction. This human intervention blocks natural selection in favour of our human criteria.

Birds, bats, bees and many other animals pollinate and disperse genetic material for plants, however they “don’t fulfill the other part of the definition: they don’t consciously grow plants” (Diamond, 116) like humans do. We collect, harvest and plant the most desirable plant to use – back to this human criteria. However, while “human desires...connect us to these plants” (Pollan, XVII), the plants also benefit. In nature, plants with certain mutations (such as the edible almonds described in Guns) would be stripped clean and fail to reproduce, where as the amydgalin containing almonds outcompete and reproduce effectively; in human cultivation, we take these mutants which should be selected against and protect them, giving them a sort of second chance to reach that “moment of bliss” (Lyn Baldwin). The protection granted allows these plants to thrive with our help and reproduce more than they could ever could in the wild, leading to a benefit for both species.

 “Plants are so unlike people that it’s very different for us to appreciate fully their complexity and sophisitication.” (Pollan, XIX). This quote for Botany of Desire speaks loudly to me, as I myself didn’t have any interest in plants before being forced into learning about them in my second year of my bachelors, however the more I learn, the more respect I have. I personally look at domesticated crops and fruits as opportunists of the plant world – much like the Mako Shark, which follows boats for easy meals or the common crow –seizing a opportunity presented. These plants were easy to domesticate and thus can almost be thought of as willing to fit the niche we unknowingly created for them.