His fuzzy explanations, which don’t really educate the lay reader on what is known about tree physiology.He states that “researchers are only peripherally interested in the thousands of species discovered so far,” which ignores the many hundreds of research papers focused on soil. Wohlleben’s lack of knowledge of certain research fields, such as pedology (the study of soils).The mixing of opinions and anecdotes with scientific fact, without adequately distinguishing between the two.She cites several issues with the book, including: I was interested to read a critical review of the book, written by my colleague, plant physiologist and science writer Erin Zimmerman. Not only did the book not have an introductory section of any kind, but the excessive anthropomorphizing of trees and forests went against all of my scientific and science writing instincts.

I tried to read it, but couldn’t make it past the first few chapters. “An uninformed reader gets the impression that all amazing “findings” were confirmed by science…it is no wonder that most German forest scientists, including myself, are very unhappy with this book as it is definitely not what it pretends to be: popular science. Christian Ammer, a forestry professor at Germany’s Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, writes: The book was originally published in German, where it has been heavily criticized by forest scientists. What you probably haven’t heard, however, is that-in his push to make trees seem human-like (feeling affection toward one another, experiencing pain, having a sense of taste and even maternal instincts)-Wohlleben has cherry picked data and seriously stretched scientific facts. It’s been a huge bestseller, with critics and readers alike raving about it being a “paradigm-smasher.” It purports to reveal the science of trees and forests, and to show how they’re much like humans. You’ve probably heard of Peter Wohlleben’s book, The Hidden Life of Trees.

The hidden life of trees book review