English Hacking

리처드 도킨스의 “The Greatest Show on Earth”를 -읽고- 듣고 있습니다. 저자와 다른 여자분 한 분이 읽으시는데, 이걸 들으면서 맨 먼저 느끼는 것은 두 가지입니다.

첫째, 리처드 도킨스는 영국인이다. 이건 책을 읽을 때는 느끼지(!) 못했던 건데, 막상 들으니… (아래 스펠링도 눈여겨 보세요)

둘째, 리처드 도킨스도 영국식의 비실거리는 유머에 꽤 강할 수 있다! 식물은 꽃가루를 보내기 위해서 바람을 사용할 수도 있고(이건 낭비가 심하겠죠), 아니면…

Why don’t plants choose the animal option, and walk around looking for another plant of the same species, then copulate with it? That’s a harder question to deal with than you might think. It’s circular simply to assert that plants don’t walk, but I’m afraid that will have to do for now. The fact is, plants don’t walk. But animals walk. And animals fly, and they have nervous systems capable of directing them towards particular targets, with sought-for shapes and colours. So if only there were some way to persuade an animal to dust itself with pollen and then walk or preferably fly to another plant of the right species …
Well, the answer’s no secret: that’s exactly what happens. The story is in some cases highly complex and in all cases fascinating. Many flowers use a bribe of food, usually nectar. Maybe bribe is too loaded a word. Would you prefer ‘payment for services rendered’? I’m happy with both, so long as we don’t misunderstand them in a human way. Nectar is sugary syrup, and it is manufactured by plants specifically and only for paying, and fuelling, bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, bats and other hired transport. It is costly to make, funnelling off a proportion of the sunshine energy trapped by the leaves, the solar panels of the plant. From the point of view of the bees and hummingbirds, it is high-energy aviation fuel. The energy locked up in the sugars of nectar could have been used elsewhere in the economy of the plant, perhaps to make roots, or to fill the underground storage magazines that we call tubers, bulbs and corms, or even to make huge quantities of pollen for broadcasting to the four winds. Evidently, for a large number of plant species, the trade-off works out in favor of paying insects and birds for their wings, and fuelling their flight muscles with sugar. It’s not a totally overwhelming advantage, however, because some plants do use wind pollination, presumably because details of their economic circumstances tip their balance that way. Plants have an energy economy and, as with any economy, trade-offs may favour different options under different circumstances. That’s an important lesson in evolution, by the way. Different species do things in different ways, and we often won’t understand the differences until we have examined the whole economy of the species. (pp. 48 – 49)

솔직이 전 전투적인 리처드 도킨스보다는 약간, 아주 약간 빌 브라이슨과 비슷한 리처드 도킨스가 더 좋네요. 내일도 이 책에서 조금 더 읽어 보겠습니다. 진화론 자체에 대해서…