#221: The Sound of Science
Bacteria made the first sounds on Earth, dinosaurs likely belched and bugled instead of roared, and for millennia, the Earth was largely silent. Why it took so long for communicative sound to emerge\u2014and how it flourished into the coos, croaks, cries, and cacophony of today\u2014is the subject of David George Haskell\u2019s new book, Sounds Wild and Broken. While documenting the sonic marvels of the world, Haskell arrived at the alarming conclusion that we\u2019re in an acoustic crisis. Manmade sounds and behavior are causing insects and songbirds to die out, disrupting whale song and silencing shrimp, creating stress in our own minority communities, and generating countless other aural ills. David George Haskell, a professor of biology and environmental studies at Sewanee: The University of the South and a Guggenheim Fellow, joins us on the podcast to talk about why sound matters.
Go beyond the episode:
- David George Haskell\u2019s Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution\u2019s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
- Listen to more sounds from the book in this playlist
- \u201cThe Insect Apocalypse Is Here,\u201d Brook Jarvis writes in The New York Times Magazine
- Despite a 2008 U.S. Navy report in which it admitted that its sonar killed whales, whale beachings and deaths from military sonar continue even today
- In The Conversation: \u201cUrban noise pollution is worst in poor and minority neighborhoods and segregated cities\u201d
- See also: Scholar contributor Harriet A. Washington on environmental racism in A Terrible Thing to Waste
- Explore the sounds of different decades and countries on Radiooooo, \u201cthe musical time machine\u201d
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