Strange Creations

Strange Creations, by Donna Kossy, self-proclaimed expert of Kookology purports itself as a tome dedicated to the strangest ideas about human origin – something I was so down for. I was drawn in by promises of aquatic ape theory (delivered) and expected that to set the tone of the book (not-delivered.) Instead, Kossy spends the majority of the book discussing racial overtones in the ways in which people have thought about the origin of the human species. The chapter entirely on race (focused on polygenesis – the idea that the ethnic groups are literally separately originating species – vs. monogenesis), to me felt interesting and in-bounds. However, the subsequent chapter on eugenics, which isn't really a human origin idea, felt like too much. Also, based on the billed description, I read this mostly on vacation and in the mood for a fun read and eugenics...isn't. And that's before the focus on race in the section on devolution as well.

Even if a book about racial tensions in the history of science and pseudoscience wasn't what I signed up for, it would have been interesting, but Kossy manages to fall into the Uncanny Valley of pop science writing: she is neither comprehensive or systematic like a scientific approach would be (and frequently interjects her own opinions, including her complete disdain for creationists but deep respect for the Heaven's Gate cult, which I found discordant), but she's also not approachable like a more literary approach would be. Instead, she is very detail-oriented about single people or topics in a story that she explores in depth and then abandons related context. It really felt like a no-forest-only-trees writing approach. As a result of the combination of unexpectedly heavy and off-topic material and this strange writing style, I found the book quite dry and a chore to read.

The first and last chapter were by far and away the best – the first focusing on the ancient astronaut theory and the last aquatic ape, Heaven's Gate and other weirdness. Bizarre and breezy, that's what I signed up for.