Human, All Too Human

The basic premise of Dr. Carin Bondar’s Nature of Human Nature is that human behavior and intentions and the adaptive strategies of ants, birds, spiders, nonhuman primates, and fish can illuminate one another. After a brief introduction explaining natural selection and introducing the question, Are humans a part of nature?, Dr. Bondar puts this premise to work in a series of vignettes that are divided into two main parts, “survive” and “reproduce.” These are further subdivided into chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of survival or reproduction. Each chapter consists of twoto three-page unnumbered sections, each of which centers upon a different animal behavior. Dr. Bondar focuses on kinds of behaviors that might seem to us to be especially characteristic of our species, or perhaps unique to us. For example, surely there cannot be, in the animal world, behavior analogous to the human institution of dietary supplements and professional advice from dietitians and scientists? Dr. Bondar addresses this issue in “oxidatively stressed” (p. 50). No doubt human abilities such as reasoning and careful observation are required to discover that certain fruits and vegetables are high in antioxidants, believed to fight cancer and even aging itself. One important point that a dietitian would want to make to a patient is that fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants are dark in color, purples and dark blues having the highest levels. Not only can scientists discover what nutrients are good for us but they also can help guide us to those foods with that simple rule.