Why Fish Don’t Exist

1. The Inevitable Chaos and Our Quest for Order

Chaos is the only sure thing in this world. The master that rules us all.

Life's inherent disorder. The author introduces the universal truth of chaos, a relentless force that will inevitably unravel everything we build and love. This fundamental principle, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, dictates that entropy only grows, never diminishes. A smart human, the author's scientist father taught her, accepts this truth rather than fighting it.

Jordan's defiant spirit. Against this backdrop of inevitable decay, David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist specializing in fish, dared to challenge chaos. His life's work was to bring order to the natural world by classifying species, meticulously naming and preserving thousands of fish specimens in jars. This quest for order was a direct defiance of the universe's inherent disorder.

A personal struggle. The author's own life was marked by a similar struggle against chaos, leading to a "grand temptation" of despair. She sought in Jordan's story a "prescription for hope," wondering if his unwavering persistence in the face of repeated disasters—like the 1906 earthquake that shattered his entire collection—was the mark of a fool or a victor. This personal quest frames the entire narrative.

2. The Seduction of Divine Hierarchy

Indeed, in his writings Agassiz is clear: he believes that every single species is a “thought of God,” and that the work of taxonomy is to literally “translat[e] into human language… the thoughts of the Creator.”

Finding purpose in classification. As a young man, David Starr Jordan found his calling validated by the renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz at Penikese Island. Agassiz taught that nature contained a divine hierarchy, a "Scala Naturae," where every creature was a "thought of God." Classifying organisms, therefore, was not merely science but "missionary work of the highest order," revealing moral instruction and the path to human betterment.

Nature's moral code. Agassiz believed that by meticulously observing and ranking organisms based on their "complication or simplicity of their structure" or "relations to the surrounding world," one could discern God's intent. For instance:

• Humans were superior due to their "heavenward" posture, unlike fish that "lay prostrate."
• Lizards ranked higher than fish for "bestow[ing] greater care upon their offspring."
• Parasites were "lowlifes" due to their "mooching" habits.
  This framework provided Jordan with a profound sense of purpose, transforming his boyhood obsession into a sacred mission.

The allure of order. This belief in a fixed, divinely ordained hierarchy offered Jordan a powerful antidote to the chaos he perceived. It promised that even the "dullest slug or dandelion" held spiritual guidance, and that by understanding this order, he could contribute to a better society. This foundational idea would profoundly shape his life and, tragically, his later actions.

3. Darwin's Truth: Nature Has No Ladder

“Natura non facit saltum,” he writes. Nature doesn’t jump. Nature has no edges, no hard lines.

Challenging fixed categories. Darwin's On the Origin of Species presented a radical challenge to Agassiz's divine hierarchy. Darwin argued that species were not immutable, hard categories but rather fluid, ever-evolving forms. He observed immense variation within species and even debunked the idea of absolute sterility between different species, concluding that all taxonomic ranks were human inventions for "convenience," not inherent truths of nature.

Jordan's reluctant shift. This revelation was deeply troubling for a taxonomist like Jordan, whose life was dedicated to ordering fixed categories. Initially, he resisted, but eventually, he "went over to the evolutionists with the grace of a cat the boy ‘leads’ by its tail across the carpet!" He accepted that life evolved accidentally, not by divine design. However, he found a way to preserve the idea of a hierarchy, believing that time, not God, forged a ladder of fitter, more intelligent, and morally advanced life forms.

The persistence of hierarchy. Despite accepting evolution, Jordan clung to the notion of a natural ladder. He believed that by studying fish anatomy, he could still uncover humanity's "true creation story" and find clues to help our kind "advance even further." This selective acceptance of Darwin—embracing evolution but retaining the hierarchical framework—would prove to be a critical, and ultimately destructive, intellectual compromise.

4. The Dangerous Shield of Optimism

“I never worry over a mischance, once it is past,” he explains. A shrug in his tone.

Unflappable resilience. David Starr Jordan cultivated an extraordinary "shield of optimism," a remarkable ability to remain unfazed by setbacks. Whether it was the fire that destroyed his first fish collection, the death of his wife Susan and daughter Thora, or the 1906 earthquake that shattered his life's work, Jordan responded with relentless persistence. He would immediately rebuild, "publish at once," or find a new wife, seemingly immune to despair.

The alchemy of delusion. Psychologists later termed this phenomenon "positive illusions"—a moderate degree of self-deception that can lead to greater well-being, success, and "grit." Jordan was a poster child for this, effortlessly transforming failures into compliments and deflecting criticism. His ability to convince himself that "what he wanted was right" allowed him to pursue his goals with "boundless energy," leading to numerous awards, presidencies, and a celebrated legacy.

The hidden cost. However, this powerful shield had a dark side. While it enabled his personal success, it also made him "impervious to obstacles" and, crucially, to moral introspection. This unchecked self-certainty, as some psychologists warn, can ferment into a "vicious thing," leading to aggression and a willingness to "crush those in his path" who disagreed with his increasingly rigid worldview.

5. Eugenics: The Peril of Ranking Humanity

By simply snipping the reproductive organs of people he saw as “unfit,” David assured audiences that “each individual cretin should be the last of his generation.”

Applying hierarchy to humans. After losing executive power at Stanford, Jordan found a new, chilling application for his belief in a natural hierarchy: eugenics. Inspired by Francis Galton's ideas, Jordan became a fervent advocate for "genetic cleansing," believing that traits like poverty, criminality, and "feeblemindedness" were heritable and could be "exterminated" by preventing "unfit" individuals from reproducing.

A "veritable chamber of horrors." Jordan's travels to Aosta, an Italian village that sheltered people with disabilities, solidified his eugenic convictions. He described it as a "chamber of horrors" and warned that such charity led to "animal pauperism" and the "decay" of the human race. He championed forced sterilization, helping to legalize it in Indiana (the first in the world) and California, and chaired the Eugenics Committee of the American Breeders Association.

Ignoring Darwin's core lesson. Ironically, Jordan's eugenics agenda directly contradicted a core tenet of Darwinism: the power of variation. Darwin emphasized that genetic diversity is crucial for a species' resilience against chaos. To cull "mutants and outliers" was a "death sentence," making a species dangerously vulnerable. Jordan, however, dismissed scientific and moral dissent, convinced of his "righteousness."

6. The Cover-Up: A Stain on a "Great Man"

“He absolutely believed that Jordan did it,” she told me, without needing time to think. “Oh yeah. He thought Jordan was rotten to the core.”

Jane Stanford's mysterious death. In 1905, Jane Stanford, who had been critical of Jordan's leadership, died mysteriously in Hawaii after a previous poisoning attempt. Despite clear evidence—strychnine found in her body and medicine bottle, eyewitness accounts of violent convulsions—Jordan rushed to Hawaii and, using his authority and a hastily hired, inexperienced doctor, declared her death due to "natural causes" (overeating gingerbread and overexertion).

Gaslighting a murder. Jordan actively covered up the poisoning, dismissing the Hawaii doctors' findings as "imbecile" and accusing them of conspiracy. He even explained away Jane's dying words ("I think I have been poisoned again") as "hysteria." His public statement, carefully crafted to omit the previous poisoning attempt, was released only after he had left the island, avoiding confrontation.

A legacy re-examined. For nearly a century, Jordan's version of events prevailed, largely due to his prestige and power. However, later research, notably by neurologist Robert W. P. Cutler, meticulously uncovered the truth, revealing Jordan's deliberate efforts to quash the murder investigation. This episode exposes the profound moral cost of Jordan's "shield of optimism" and his willingness to manipulate truth to protect his image and power.

7. Meaning in the Web of Human Connection

“Because of me!” Anna started laughing. Sure. Right. Of course. “Because of Mary.”

The search for meaning. The author, grappling with her own despair and the nihilism taught by her father, sought a "prescription for hope." She found it not in Jordan's self-delusion or scientific pronouncements, but in the lives of Anna and Mary, two women who had been victims of Jordan's eugenics policies at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.

Resilience in mutual care. Anna, forcibly sterilized at 19, and Mary, her childhood friend from the Colony, had built a life together, characterized by deep mutual care and support. Despite immense suffering and the state's judgment of their "unworthiness," they created a "menagerie of movement and light and laughter and warmth." Their small acts of kindness—a shared home, a doll, a hamster, a beaded necklace—formed a "small web of people keeping one another afloat."

The dandelion principle. This profound connection revealed a truth that challenged both her father's cosmic insignificance and Jordan's rigid hierarchies. The "dandelion principle" posits that something deemed a "weed" by one perspective can be medicine, pigment, or sustenance from another. Similarly, human lives, though insignificant to the cosmos, matter immensely within their interconnected webs of relationships.

8. The Ultimate Irony: Fish Don't Exist

In the 1980s taxonomists realized that fish, as a legitimate category of creature, do not exist.

The undoing of a life's work. The ultimate irony of David Starr Jordan's life is that the very scientific method he championed—taxonomy, refined by Darwin's evolutionary principles—eventually led to the "death of the fish." Modern cladistics, a method of classifying organisms by shared evolutionary novelties, revealed that "fish" is not a scientifically valid, monophyletic group. Many "fishy-looking" creatures are more closely related to mammals than to other "fish."

A "bum category." Taxonomists discovered that to include all descendants of a common ancestor in the "fish" category, one would also have to include frogs, birds, cows, and even humans. The category "fish" was a human delusion, a "slippery, sloppy" term that obscured the true, complex evolutionary relationships. This meant Jordan's life's dedication to classifying fish was, in a profound sense, built on an imaginary foundation.

Cosmic justice? The author finds a "sick satisfaction" in this revelation, seeing it as a form of "cosmic justice" for Jordan's moral failings. His relentless pursuit of order, his rigid classifications, and his use of hierarchy to justify violence against "unfit" humans were ultimately undermined by the very nature he sought to control. The universe, in its chaotic way, had the last laugh, dissolving the most precious category of his life's work.

9. Embracing Doubt and the Boundless World

To turn the key all you have to do… is stay wary of words. If fish don’t exist, what else do we have wrong?

Beyond categories. The realization that "fish don't exist" becomes a "skeleton key" for the author, unlocking a "gridless place" where nature is more boundless and bountiful than imagined. It's a call to embrace doubt and curiosity, to question the "convenient" lines we draw over nature and the "man-made designs" that obscure a wilder truth. This perspective offers a new kind of hope, not in certainty, but in infinite possibility.

The power of humility. The author learns that true progress and understanding come from admitting "you have no idea what you are looking at." This humility contrasts sharply with Jordan's dangerous certainty. By staying wary of words and categories—especially those about "moral and mental standing"—we can avoid the pitfalls of rigid thinking that led to eugenics and other forms of violence.

Hope in the unexpected. Giving up the fish means accepting that "Chaos" also brings "good things in store"—life, growth, and unexpected connections. It's a mantra to examine every moment with curiosity, to see potential gifts in setbacks, and to recognize that salvation can be found in the "kind of person you had discounted." This new worldview, born from personal and historical reckoning, offers a path to finding meaning and joy in a fundamentally uncaring universe.

Last updated: November 3, 2025