Zoologist Robert Zhao Renhui’s encyclopaedia – A guide to the flora and fauna of the world.
In this instance, he asks why the goldfish is never included in any natural history encyclopaedia. The goldfish does not have a scientific name as it is a man-made creature. It’s a fish that has been artificially bred for thousands of years. How the goldfish is created remains a mystery. Robert created the encyclopaedia as a system to talk about our ideas of what is natural and what is man-made. Towards the end of the book you realise there’s really not much of a difference.
…everything artificial will start to look natural once we get used to it.
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