Comments on: Book review – Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

By: Book review – Biocivilisations: A New Look at the Science of Life | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 31 May 2024 11:43:52 +0000

[…] I have some issues with this concept but more interesting is Merlin Sheldrake’s warning in Entangled Life that this metaphor is both plant-centric and value-laden. He challenges readers by asking: […]

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By: Book review – Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest | The Inquisitive Biologist

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 12:34:43 +0000

[…] One of the best critiques I have read is the chapter on the wood-wide web in Sheldrake’s Entangled Life that raises numerous objections. For example, he points out how this plant-centric metaphor […]

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By: Book review – Lessons from Plants | The Inquisitive Biologist

Book review – Lessons from Plants | The Inquisitive Biologist — Mon, 17 May 2021 10:42:17 +0000

[…] not discussed here. I will, on that note, prominently mention Merlin Sheldrake’s criticism in Entangled Life. He calls these metaphors very plant-centric and points out that mycorrhizal networks are not all […]

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By: Year list – The Inquisitive Biologist’s top 5 reads of 2020 | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 18:08:09 +0000

[…] It is rare that a book manages to make you see things in a truly new light, but Merlin Sheldrake managed to achieve just that for me. Without stepping off the edge of reason, the beautifully written Entangled Life is a truly mind-altering and perspective-shifting book on fungi. Read more… […]

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By: Book review – Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 16:19:05 +0000

[…] Beyond the basics, Fungipedia lifts the lid on some of the more outlandish biological particularities of fungi. Such as their tolerance for, and sometimes dependence on, extreme cold (psychrophiles) or dryness (xerophiles). And what of the mycelium, that underground network of thread-like hyphae invisible to the naked eye? Peter Wohlleben has been making waves with his book The Hidden Life of Trees, popularising the finding that trees can communicate with each other via fungi, something dubbed the “wood wide web” (see also this short TED-Ed talk). You can read more on this from the fungi’s perspective in Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life. […]

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By: inquisitivebiologist

inquisitivebiologist — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 13:41:21 +0000

In reply to Connie C Barlow.

Thanks Connie, glad you enjoyed reading it – I like the term “surface chauvinism”! Very apt. I’ll look up Gold’s book as I’m not familiar with it yet.

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By: Connie C Barlow

Connie C Barlow — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 13:31:00 +0000

This is only my second comment on your terrific book review site, as I am moved to comment only on the books I have already read myself. Again, a splendid job both summarizing the key points of the book and in placing gold stars on particular writing style and substantive elements. I fully agree with your review. As a former science writer myself, I recognize the enormous advantage Sheldrake had in being both a scientist and a writer. He is a junior scientist, so he could bring in his seniors in a way typical of a science writer. Yet as a scientist himself, he has the official platform to enter his own pronouncements, too. Prior to publication of this book, I was already aware (and grateful!) that Sheldrake would tackle the overwrought public presentation of mycorrhizal networks as being used BY plants FOR their own (usually, be-kind-to-neighbors) purposes. For years I have found that plant-centric assumption offensive. Thus I admire the polite, yet very clear, way that Sheldrake communicates and grounds his opposition. A clarifying term I would, however, add is that a plant-centric interpretation of the Wood Wide Web reveals a bias that Thomas Gold and I together named “surface chauvinism.” As a professional writer, I help Gold organize his concepts and arguments into his final book, not long before he died. Titled “The Deep Hot Biosphere” and published in 1998, Gold’s book has astounded me with how much of what then seemed too speculative and unsupported has now proved true — notably, discovery of a liquid hydrocarbon sea on a moon of Jupiter and normalizing of the concept of “lateral gene transfer” as a significant mode of evolution. Bravo for Entangled Life — and for the Inquisitive Biologist review.

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