{"id":965,"date":"2023-09-27T12:07:47","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T16:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/?page_id=965"},"modified":"2023-09-27T12:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T16:07:47","slug":"review-the-snail-with-the-right-heart","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/review-the-snail-with-the-right-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Snail with the Right Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Cover<\/figure>\n<\/div>

\n 
\nReview of The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story<\/em> by Maria Popova, artwork by Ping Zhu
\nBrooklyn, NY: Enchanted Lion Books, 2021<\/strong>\n

Reviewed By Maughn Rollins Gregory<\/em>
\n<\/p><\/div><\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Not many years ago, a retired scientist from London\u2019s Natural History Museum noticed a garden snail with a shell that spiraled left to right\u2014the opposite direction from others of its species. He delivered the singular creature to Angus Davidson, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Nottingham, who had never seen a \u201clefty\u201d snail before, and jokingly named this one Jeremy, after the left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy-the-snail\u2019s condition is known as situs inversus<\/em>, Latin for \u201cinverted internal organs,\u201d meaning that not only did Jeremy have a reversed shell, but internal organs arranged on the opposite side from other snails, including a heart on the right side of its body\u2014a condition rarer than one in a million. Humans are symmetrical on the outside but asymmetrical on the inside, and Maria Popova was inspired to write this story because of her relationship with \u201ca beloved young human in my own life, who is living with the same rare and wondrous variation.\u201d <\/p>\n

To study Jeremy\u2019s genes, Davidson needed to help the right-hearted snail reproduce\u2014something nearly impossible, because Jeremy could only mate with other snails with reproductive organs on the \u201cwrong\u201d side of their bodies. So, Davidson went on BBC Radio to ask citizen-scientists around the world to look for other lefty snails. Within a month, one was found in England and another in Spain. Jeremy eventually mated with the Spanish snail, producing 56 babies\u2014none of which had left-spiraling shells. The story concludes that the recessive gene responsible for Jeremy\u2019s variation \u201chad once again become a dormant seed in the garden of life. But somewhere, in some future garden, it will bloom again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Illustrated<\/figure>\n

\nArtwork by Ping Zhu from The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story<\/em> \u00a9 2021 by Enchanted Lion Books<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Genetics and Identity<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
Genes are like tiny seeds that your parents plant in the garden that becomes your body.[…] Your genes decide things like how tall you grow, what color your eyes are, and how your thumbs are shaped.[…]. But not every one of your seeds will bloom.[…] These shy seeds may lay dormant in the soil and only bloom in generations of gardens down the line\u2014in your children or your children\u2019s children.[…] Those seeds are called recessive genes<\/em>. <\/dl>\n<\/dd>\n

In order to understand Jeremy\u2019s story, we have to understand the process of genetic reproduction. In doing so, we come to see that our own genetic traits shape our individuality and our relationship to family members and others in the concentric ripples of our gene pool. Scientists today ask questions about how much of our personhood is caused by our genes\u2014besides our height and eye color, what about our ways of thinking, our emotional reactions, our tastes and preferences, and other personality quirks? How much of who I am was decided by my genes, how much by how I was brought up and educated, and how much by my own choices? How much of who I am can only be understood in the longer story\u2014much longer than my own life\u2014of where I came from?<\/p>\n

Sex, Gender, and Love<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to understand Jeremy\u2019s story, we also have to understand that genes are \u201cplanted\u201d in each new generation through biological reproduction. Popova explains that reproduction may be sexual or asexual, and that some species, like snails, can reproduce in both ways: \u201cIf a [snail] makes babies alone, they are almost exactly like their parent. But when two parents make a baby together, the baby is partly like each of them.\u201d What\u2019s more, any two snails can mate together, because \u201cOne of the wonders of snails is that […] every snail has a body that is both male and female. Such a wondrous body is called a hermaphrodite<\/em>.\u201d This is why, \u201calthough Jeremy the snail was given a boy name, Jeremy the snail was neither a he<\/em> nor a she<\/em>. Jeremy\u2014like all land snails\u2014was a they<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n

The biological facts of asexual reproduction and of intersex species and individuals\u2014including humans\u2014have become the stuff of science fiction thought experiments. But these facts should also provoke philosophical questions about the \u201cnaturalness\u201d of sexual and gender diversity across human cultures of various times and places. <\/p>\n

\n
\"Illustrated<\/figure>\n

\nArtwork by Ping Zhu from The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story<\/em> \u00a9 2021 by Enchanted Lion Books<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Evolution, Mutation, and Diversity<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to understand Jeremy\u2019s story, we also have to understand how random genetic mutation drives biological diversity. For this reason, Popova situates Jeremy\u2019s story in geologic time, beginning \u201clong ago, before half the stars that speckle the sky were born.\u201d She recounts the beginning and the diversification of biological life on Earth\u2014vividly depicted in Ping Zhu\u2019s artwork\u2014in which snails appeared hundreds of millions of years before humans. <\/p>\n

Being confronted with this scale of time prompts us to take a philosophical step backward. How is what it means to be human altered by this perspective of our species as a relative newcomer in the story of life, and as just one among millions of others that have co-evolved over millennia? Should we, as environmental biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer urges, think not of a hierarchy but of a democracy of species? And if evolution will continue as long as biological life continues, what might be the next chapter in the story of our species?<\/p>\n

\n
\"Illustrated<\/figure>\n

\nArtwork by Ping Zhu from The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story<\/em> \u00a9 2021 by Enchanted Lion Books<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Popova\u2019s descriptions of genetic differences are intentionally appreciative. The man who notices Jeremy\u2019s left-spiraling shell wonders, \u201cMaybe its strangeness held some beautiful secret waiting to be unlocked.\u201d The bodies of hermaphrodite snails and situs inversus<\/em> humans are \u201cwondrous.\u201d The story of life on Earth begins with \u201ca change so mysterious and magnificent that it was given a special name: mutation<\/em>.\u201d And Popova remarks that \u201cdiversity is always lovelier than sameness.\u201d There is no mention of deformity, defect, abnormality, or mistake. <\/p>\n

But we can, and should ask: What genetic traits\u2014height, weight, skin color, hair color and texture, dis\/ability, gender, sexual orientation, reproductive health\u2014make life easier or more difficult in our community and our broader society? What mental traits, including creativity, learning dis\/abilities, and neurodiversity? What non-genetic factors, such as religion, first language, ethnic heritage, gender expression, occupation, and wealth? Human communities in different times and places have gone to great lengths to protect and accommodate certain kinds of differences, while discouraging and even punishing others. How should our community deal with these and other kinds of dramatic differences from the normal?<\/p>\n

Science and Community<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The American philosopher Charles Peirce observed over a hundred years ago that science and philosophy require \u201ccommunities of inquiry.\u201d Jeremy\u2019s story shows how sometimes, science needs not only a community of scientists but a community of professional and citizen scientists, including children. In fact, in the three years following the story told here, citizen-scientists and snail farmers sent 40 more lefty snails to Davidson\u2019s team, who helped them mate with Jeremy\u2019s children, hatching nearly 15,000 more offspring. Davidson\u2019s team credited \u201c\u2018Jeremy the snail\u2019 citizen scientists\u201d as contributors to the study they published in 2020.<\/p>\n

Human communities\u2014of inquiry, art, politics, education, cooking\u2014draw out and draw on the peculiar talents of their members. How many different communities do you and I belong to? What do we contribute to them? How do these communities support us in\u2014or hinder us from\u2014becoming a better you and me? Most species of plants and animals also form biological communities, in which there are diverse roles and responsibilities. And many species\u2014humans in particular\u2014cooperate with other species. When humans cooperate with honeybees, dairy cows, or tomatoes, what kinds of benefits and detriments occur to each side? <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a coincidence that philosophy\u2014not only in the West\u2014began as inquiry about nature. And as this story illustrates, modern science is brimming with philosophical concepts and perplexities.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Illustrated<\/figure>\n

\nArtwork by Ping Zhu from The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story<\/em> \u00a9 2021 by Enchanted Lion Books<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Davidson, Angus (2020) Experience: I helped a snail find love. The Guardian<\/em>, 14 August 2020.
\n    Retrieved 29 July 2023 from
\n    https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2020\/aug\/14\/experience-i-helped-a-snail-
\n    find-love<\/a>.
\nDavison, Angus, Thomas Philippe and \u2018Jeremy the snail\u2019 citizen scientists (2020) Internet
\n    \u2018shellebrity’ reflects on origin of rare mirror-image snails. Biology Letters<\/em> 16(6).
\n    Retrieved 29 July 2023 from
\n    https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/full\/10.1098\/rsbl.2020.0110<\/a>.
\nKimmerer, Robin Wall (2021) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Women, Scientific Knowledge,
\n    and the Teachings of Plants<\/em>. Milkweed Editions.
\nPopova, Maria (2021b) The Snail with the Right Heart: A true story of science and love.
\n    Retrieved 29 July 2023 from https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2021\/01\/02\/the-snail-
\n    with-the-right-heart\/<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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