Words&Dirt

“Lovers are rarely the most rational beings in creation and so it will come as no surprize to my readers to discover that Strange’s musing concerning Miss Woodhope had produced a most inexact portrait of her. Though his imaginary conversations might be said to describe her opinions, they were no guide at all to her disposition and manners.”

––Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, pg. 254

“Scientific knowledge, humanized and well taught, is the key to achieving a lasting balance in our lives. The more biologists learn about the biosphere in its full richness, the more rewarding the image. Similarly, the more psychologists learn of the development of the human mind, the more they understand the gravitational pull of the natural world on our spirit, and on our souls.

We have a long way to go to make peace with this planet, and with each other. We took a wrong turn when we launched the Neolitic revolution. We have been trying ever since to ascend from Nature instead of to Nature. It is not too late for us to come around, without losing the quality of life already gained, in order to receive the deeply fulfilling beneficence of humanity’s natural heritage. Surely the reach of religious belief is great enough, and its teachers generous and imaginative enough, to encompass this larger truth not adequately expressed in Holy Scripture.

Part of the dilemma is that while most people around the world care about the natural environment, they don’t know why they care, or why they should feel responsible for it. By and large they have been unable to articulate what the stewardship of Nature means to them personally. This confusion is a great problem for contemporary society as well as for future generations. It is linked to another great difficulty: the inadequacy of science education everywhere in the world. Both arise in part from the explosive growth and complexity of modern biology. Even the best scientists have trouble keeping up with more than a small part of what has emerged as the most important science for the twenty-first century.

I believe that the solution to all of the three difficulties––ignorance of the environment, inadequate science education, and the bewildering growth of biology––is to refigure them into a single problem. I hope you will agree that every educated person should know something about the core of this unified issue. Teacher and student alike will benefit from a recognition that living Nature has opened a broad pathway to the heart of science itself, that the breath of our life and our spirit depends on its survival. And to grasp and discuss on common ground this principle: because we are part of it, the fate of the Creation is the fate of humanity.”

––Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, “The Fate of Creation is the Fate of Humanity,” by E.O. Wilson, pg. 23-4