November 17, 2025

A fresh look at domestication

A new book turns the general consensus about domestication on its head. Human selection had little to do with transforming grass into wheat or any of the other domestications that gave rise to settled agriculture and thus to civilisations.

Rather, plants and animals responded in predictable and inevitable ways to changes in their environment, changes wrought by humans but without any intention to domesticate.

In this episode I talked to Robert Spengler III, the author of Nature’s Greatest Success: how plants evolved to exploit humanity.

I hope you will give it a listen.

Take care