Why Fish Don't Exist

*Originally published on my Wordpress blog 06.15.2020 

Despite the fact that he was the founding president of Stanford University and I spent ten years living just down the 280 from Stanford, I’d never heard of David Starr Jordan before I read the book Why Fish Don’t Matter by Lulu Miller. I thoroughly enjoyed the book but found it to be far more than a biography of this American ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist, and peace activist. The reader is introduced to Jordan and is led to some surprising developments in Jordan’s life and work. His life story was eye opening and valuable but I also liked the way Lulu Miller wove some of her own story into the book. Most of all, I appreciated the broader themes that Miller probes in the narrative.

Chaos is an ongoing touchstone in the book. More than once, Ms Miller offers up the word Chaos in response to the world. Her dad informed her, when she was quite young, that Chaos ruled over all. The laws of science orchestrated our presence in the universe. We are, individually, each a speck on a speck on a speck (as Neil deGrasse Tyson put it). In the big picture, we don’t matter. Dad told her that we human beings are really nothing. So what is the point of all this? An essential question that Lulu Miller addresses is: Do we try to organize the world around us or do we accept that the universe will be what it is and we will be okay? Do we try to make meaning or do we ride the carousel and take it all in stride without getting caught up in sorting it out? It’s a complex question.

David Starr Jordan spent his life trying to make order out of Chaos. He was determined to fill in the grid on what he considered the hierarchy of creation. In his mind, all creatures fit somewhere on the ladder of evolution and their place was in relation to other creatures on the ladder. The higher up on the ladder the creature was, the more evolved the creature was. The idea was to be at the top. But when you look at the world the way David Starr Jordan did, you fail to see the value of diversity. Why does there have to be a champion? Why do the species need to be ranked? Lulu Miller brings Darwin into the discussion. Darwin said there was no ladder. In fact, each creature had its own area of expertise, its own purpose. Every little parasite “was not an abomination but a marvel. A case of extraordinary adaptability.” His belief was that there are endless ways of existing in the world and that one way is not superior than another, simply different. That is a lesson for our times. The thoughtful reader might ask themselves where do they fit in this discussion. Is life about assigning relative value to all of creation (including human beings) or is life an opportunity to see the absolute value in every creature (including every human being)?

And let’s go back to that assertion from Dad that we don’t matter. Is that really true? Dad made the point that, as a little kid, Lulu was not even as significant as an ant. She might be bigger but no more significant. In fact, he emphasized that the ant aerates the soil and so helps with decomposition so possibly little Lulu was even less significant to the earth than an ant is. “You don’t matter” seemed to be how he lived his life. He lived a big life, full of adventure, risk, and nihilism. But there was this other moral code he owned. Oddly, it went like this: While other people don’t matter, either, treat them as if they do. So. You don’t matter but treat other people as if they do matter. Okay. To me, that’s cognitive dissonance at its finest.

I don’t know if, in the grand scheme of things, I matter or not. I do know, however, that other people matter. In fact, Lulu comes to that same idea. She writes poignantly about how we don’t matter. “This is the cold truth of the universe. We are specks, flickering in and out of existence, with no significance to the cosmos.” She also takes a page from her own story and writes about the “small web of people keeping one another afloat. All these minuscule interactions - a friendly wave, a pencil sketch, some plastic beads strung up by a nylon cord - they might not look like much from outside, but for the people caught inside that web? They might be everything, the very tethers than keep one bound to the planet.” The way I read it, life matters because other people matter. That’s what counts. That’s the point of it all.

In short, I enjoyed this small book. It did at times feel scattered and I had to stop and readjust my vision for where we were going but it was worth it. If you enjoy biography, memoir, science-y stuff, fish, philosophy, humor, and poignancy, then I think you’ll enjoy Why Fish Don’t Exist. And, by the way, an added bonus is that you will be able to explain why fish don’t exist.