Gaia's Joy: May 2010

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

We Can Live Without Oil, But Not Without Flora and Fauna

by Stephen Leahy
Inter Press Service
May 10, 2010

The policies and deals that contributed to the massive oil spill under way in the Gulf of Mexico are also jeopardising the Earth's vital biological infrastructure, according to the Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, published Monday., published Monday...

click Title for full article

Taking Darwin Personally

by Diane Roberts
NPR
Weekend Edition Sunday, February 15, 2009 · I used to teach a wonderful college course called Origins. In it, we'd ponder the origins of the universe, the origins of nations, the origins of language, the origins of faith, the origins of humankind.
We'd read about the cities of Mesopotamia and the spread of monotheism. We'd explore Yeats' poetry and Faulkner's prose. We'd study Galileo's struggle for truth over dogma, and Leakey's discoveries at Olduvai Gorge.
Everything would go swimmingly until we hit Darwin. And while many students treated his Origin of Species the same way they did Newton's work on gravity or Einstein's theory of relativity, others got upset. There'd be anger, even tears. Once, a much-pierced, much-tattooed young woman stormed out of the classroom, saying "I am NOT kin to a monkey."
Evolution hurts people's feelings. Nobody denies that cells divide or that light travels 186,000 miles per second.
Evolution's different. People take evolution personally.
This is largely an American phenomenon. Europeans can't for the life of them figure out why we pitch a hissy fit over evolution. They seem quite happy that the Age of Reason superseded the old theocratic world view. But some Americans still implicitly accept the Great Chain of Being. God perches at the top, then angels, then man (often literally men — women get shoved down a notch), then animals, bugs, plants, rocks. No fraternizing.
Americans see themselves as a people apart, living in a chosen nation.
We are a chosen species. If humans and apes descend from a common ancestor, well, then we're mere mammals. Not the measure of all things, not the pinnacle of creation.
But does accepting our place in the animal kingdom make us any less miraculous? The human brain evolved to remember the past. We can imagine the future. We can make worlds with our heads and our hands. We can delight in the stars of the night sky and know that we are made of the same stuff as they are. We are part of nature — we lose nothing by admitting it.

Diane Roberts is a writer living in Tallahassee, Fla.

FAIR USE NOTICE

This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance the understanding of humanity's problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Reading the articles posted on this blog represents such a request for information.Consistent with this notice you are welcome to make 'fair use' of anything you find on this web site. However, if you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.You can read more about 'fair use' and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. This notice was modified from a similar notice at Common Dreams and Informationclearinghouse.
Thank you, Saker!

Gaia's Joy

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

We Can Live Without Oil, But Not Without Flora and Fauna

Bee in Flower

Books

Elephants Cry

News

Bison

Protectors

Mother and Baby

Blog Archive

Gorilla

Followers

About Me

Taking Darwin Personally

FAIR USE NOTICE