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Summary: Book Description:
Review: From famines and deforestation to water pollution, global warming, and the rapid rate of extinction of plants and animals--the extent of the global damage wrought by humankind is staggering. Why have we allowed our environment to reach such a crisis? What produced the catastrophic population explosion that so taxes the earths resources? Reg Morrisons search for answers led him to ponder our species astonishing evolutionary success. His extraordinary book describes how a spiritual outlook combined with a capacity for rational thought have enabled Homo sapiens to prosper through the millennia. It convincingly depicts these traits as part of our genetic makeup--and as the likely cause of our ultimate downfall against the inexorable laws of nature. The book will change the way readers think about human evolution and the fate of our species. Small bands of apes walked erect on the dangerous plains of East Africa several million years ago. Morrison marvels that they not only survived, but migrated to all corners of the earth and established civilizations. To understand this feat, he takes us back to a critical moment when these hominids developed language and with it the unique ability to think abstractly. He shows how at this same time they began to derive increasing advantage from their growing sense of spirituality. He convincingly depicts spirituality as an evolutionary strategy that helped rescue our ancestors from extinction and drive the species toward global dominance. Morrison concludes that this genetically productive spirituality, which has influenced every aspect of our lives, has led us to overpopulate the world and to devastate our own habitats. Sobering, sometimes chilling, consistently fascinating, his book offers a startling new view of human adaptation running its natural course.
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Summary: Kitchen science
Review: I'm keenly interested in climate issues and evolutionary psychology, and looked forward to this book. Morrison's breadth of knowledge is impressive, but I doubt his qualifications to integrate the bits he casts out. I stopped reading at Ch. 6 where he describes (p. 132) research by an East German scientist in the 1970s that linked environmental stress (in the research that was conducted the stress was WW II) to increasing rates of homosexuality, and goes on to suggest that similar effects will result from the stress of climate change: "We will see a gradual increase in the incidence of biological and social dysfunction, as well as rising levels of unproductive sexual behavior, such as homosexuality, lesbianism, and pedophilia, and an increasing heterosexual tendency to postpone or avoid parenthood." (p. 134). I'm not a scientist, but the evidence cited is incredibly thin , and sounds like personal biases getting involved in a scientific discussion. I'll wait for a more qualified author.
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Summary: Don't let the negative reviews put you off.
Review: Most of the unfavourable reviews on this page seem to come from people that haven't read the book, or at least not all of it. Read it for yourself then come back and see quite how much those reviewers have missed. It will also be apparent how much the emotionally driven nature of the negative reactions actually support Morrison's conclusions.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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Summary: Profound Hopelessness
Review: Not just pessimism -- utter hopelessness. Reg Morrison's view is that you and I are plague animals, an infestation on the earth. If you have any hope for humanity, any at all, then clearly you don't "get it." You must be disabused of hope -- to see hope only as a genetic mechanism that will serve to delay recognition of ecological disaster until our self-made mousetrap is inevitably sprung. Thomas Malthus was a prophet, and modern agriculture's green revolution only an insignificant pause on the road to our destiny of overpopulation and catastrophic megadeath. We have maybe 50 years. You'll find a photograph of New York City's skyline with this caption: "New York, New York. This prodigious accumulation of biological deposits on the banks of the Hudson River appears to echo the monolithic uniformity of the Shark Bay stromatolites, yet it incorporates an unprecedented variety of waste materials." If you agree with Morrison's logic, this will be your only reasonable perspective of NYC, or of your own home. What you won't find is a discussion of counter evidence -- of the aging population in the world's developed countries -- aging because births are well below replacement level. Nor will you find a discussion of actions that might be taken to make a better world. Any such actions, you see, would suggest that there is hope -- and there can be no hope, not if you "get it." Provocative. But hopelessly wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Profound Hopelessness
Review: Not just pessimism -- utter hopelessness. Reg Morrison's view is that you and I are plague animals, an infestation on the earth. If you have any hope for humanity, any at all, then clearly you don't "get it." You must be disabused of hope -- to see hope only as a genetic mechanism that will serve to delay recognition of ecological disaster until our self-made mousetrap is inevitably sprung. Thomas Malthus was a prophet, and modern agriculture's green revolution only an insignificant pause on the road to our destiny of overpopulation and catastrophic megadeath. We have maybe 50 years. You'll find a photograph of New York City's skyline with this caption: "New York, New York. This prodigious accumulation of biological deposits on the banks of the Hudson River appears to echo the monolithic uniformity of the Shark Bay stromatolites, yet it incorporates an unprecedented variety of waste materials." If you agree with Morrison's logic, this will be your only reasonable perspective of NYC, or of your own home. What you won't find is a discussion of counter evidence -- of the aging population in the world's developed countries -- aging because births are well below replacement level. Nor will you find a discussion of actions that might be taken to make a better world. Any such actions, you see, would suggest that there is hope -- and there can be no hope, not if you "get it." Provocative. But hopelessly wrong.
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Summary: Right On!
Review: Reg has captured the human animal that no one wants to beleive exists, from the sex drive to the mystics(religious) behavior that drives so many nations into war. Humans continue to play ostrich to the real facts of life, unfortunately to our demise. UNLESS?
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Summary: How many innocent trees were killed to write this book?
Review: Reg Morrison and Lynn Margulis start their book off with some provocative, fascinating stuff. They suggest, as E.O. Wilson has done, that something way back in human evolution drove people to evolve an inclination toward spirituality, a sense of "specialness" (the "proud illusion" in the title), and many of the traits of cooperativity that people hold dear. In the book Morrison himself expresses admiration for human achievement, while noting that an aspect of human evolutionary heritage of which people are generally unconscious, has driven the tendency toward pollution and overpopulation which is damaging to human and environment alike. It's a compelling idea, and is also useful in that it can help society to look more pragmatically at tacit assumptions and address the root causes of many problems, to craft better policy. If the authors had only stopped with this sensible, though novel, idea and developed it further, they would have written a 5-star masterpiece. But the authors disastrously overstretch themselves and indulge in the ultimate hubristic fantasy: They pretend that they can "step outside" of their own human selves and perceptions, take a so-called "objective" viewpoint (though, needless to say, they do not hesitate in piling on assumption after assumption), and essentially give an absolute description of human nature and society based solely on genetic determinism. They trip over their own logic so many times that they bruise themselves, and come up with an utterly downbeat conclusion that, ironically, actually argues against doing anything constructive for the environment, since in their view the genetic tendencies basically lead humans toward destruction of their own civilization and the environment alike. It's an utterly preposterous, amoral, irresponsible, laughable conclusion that is essentially a self-parody. Most problematically, the book takes total genetic determinism as a given. Undoubtedly the genes say an awful lot about human behavior, but while they do introduce a set of tendencies, the interaction of the genes with environment and with the many facets of human society, foster quite a few unpredictabilities-- most of all in the capacity to observe and learn, and to adjust behavior correspondingly. This is in fact already happening; in developing countries as well as the developed world, birthrates are rapidly dropping, and especially in Europe, Japan, and developing countries alike, there is an intense drive underway to implement renewable energy sources in place of fossil fuels. There is quite a bit of human behavior that is extraordinarily adaptive, far more than can be glimpsed from a reductionistic assumption derived from genetic determinism, and Morrison fails to consider the power of this "higher-brain" thinking in adjusting behavior to protect both society and the environment. The next time these or any other authors talk about attacking the "human cancer," they should start with the people staring at them in the mirror. If you read this book, ignore its eventual argument; instead, continue in its theme of examining underlying assumptions that might be destructive to the environment, since this can provide insight-- and a more sensible environmental policy.
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Summary: How many innocent trees were killed to write this book?
Review: Reg Morrison and Lynn Margulis start their book off with some provocative, fascinating stuff. They suggest, as E.O. Wilson has done, that something way back in human evolution drove people to evolve an inclination toward spirituality, a sense of "specialness" (the "proud illusion" in the title), and many of the traits of cooperativity that people hold dear. In the book Morrison himself expresses admiration for human achievement, while noting that an aspect of human evolutionary heritage of which people are generally unconscious, has driven the tendency toward pollution and overpopulation which is damaging to human and environment alike. It's a compelling idea, and is also useful in that it can help society to look more pragmatically at tacit assumptions and address the root causes of many problems, to craft better policy. If the authors had only stopped with this sensible, though novel, idea and developed it further, they would have written a 5-star masterpiece. But the authors disastrously overstretch themselves and indulge in the ultimate hubristic fantasy: They pretend that they can "step outside" of their own human selves and perceptions, take a so-called "objective" viewpoint (though, needless to say, they do not hesitate in piling on assumption after assumption), and essentially give an absolute description of human nature and society based solely on genetic determinism. They trip over their own logic so many times that they bruise themselves, and come up with an utterly downbeat conclusion that, ironically, actually argues against doing anything constructive for the environment, since in their view the genetic tendencies basically lead humans toward destruction of their own civilization and the environment alike. It's an utterly preposterous, amoral, irresponsible, laughable conclusion that is essentially a self-parody. Most problematically, the book takes total genetic determinism as a given. Undoubtedly the genes say an awful lot about human behavior, but while they do introduce a set of tendencies, the interaction of the genes with environment and with the many facets of human society, foster quite a few unpredictabilities-- most of all in the capacity to observe and learn, and to adjust behavior correspondingly. This is in fact already happening; in developing countries as well as the developed world, birthrates are rapidly dropping, and especially in Europe, Japan, and developing countries alike, there is an intense drive underway to implement renewable energy sources in place of fossil fuels. There is quite a bit of human behavior that is extraordinarily adaptive, far more than can be glimpsed from a reductionistic assumption derived from genetic determinism, and Morrison fails to consider the power of this "higher-brain" thinking in adjusting behavior to protect both society and the environment. The next time these or any other authors talk about attacking the "human cancer," they should start with the people staring at them in the mirror. If you read this book, ignore its eventual argument; instead, continue in its theme of examining underlying assumptions that might be destructive to the environment, since this can provide insight-- and a more sensible environmental policy.
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Summary: #1 Best-Seller if we "get it!" (Don't hold your breath....)
Review: Reg Morrison has been able to take a few basic scientific proofs, put them together and achieve a conclusion that no scientist can argue with. Yet humanity is so amazingly, head-buttingly programmed to believe itself mystically created and guided that most readers will be unable to drop those "self-importance" blinders even as they read this simple truth. He realizes that fact, and realizes also that it doesn't matter. We are what we are, and we're going where we're going. Changing our "progress" to give the human branch (of our real species) a longer stretch on earth would be quite undesirable as far as nature is concerned. There is no choice in the matter - we do what comes naturally. In our case, that would be self-extinction on the double-quick. Hey, don't worry about it!
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Summary: The elusive beast within
Review: Reg Morrison summarizes in succinct and personal polemic style what problems the human race really faces, and does a good job of unmasking the nature of our mystically constructed delusions. It is a short book for covering such a broad sweep of our evolutionary and cultural heritage. Possibly some minor details are amiss, but the message is clear. For such an ultimately pessimistic view of what we prize most about ourselves, its punches are well delivered.
According to Morrison, globalism is heading for global ecological collapse under the weight of the human plague, and will be followed by massive decline in human numbers, if not outright extinction. As the situation gets more dire, the search for mental escape in our mystical beliefs in culture-land, nationalism, media will increase, not decrease. We will be all mentally "off the planet" by the time we are kicked off it. Taking his presentation of facts and conclusions seriously means that the present course of human affairs is still heading for disaster. I present some conclusions of the book. Reg debunks some of our cherished mystical beliefs, and counterpoises his grim facts, and I present here his main conclusions.
Belief 1. Humans have spiritual autonomy and are therefore accountible for their actions.
Fact 1. We are genetically driven just like any other animal. We have no mind other than the body, and we lack behavioural choice.
Belief 2. The environment is inherently stable and will rebound if given half a chance.
Fact 2. The environment is a chaotic system and is therefore inherently unstable and always has been. If it were not so, evolution could not have occurred. Rebound is a not characteristic of the system.
Belief 3. With enough moral courage, political will and technical know how, time and money, the environment could be repaired.
Fact 3. Most environmental damage is inevitable product of overpopulation. The more technological the attempted solutions, the greater the environmental debt. All human activity adds to environmental debt. We fall for the false beliefs most of the time, because humans have a split brain, with "two spheres of awareness available to us, with two entirely separate behaviour control systems, one rational and one entirely non-rational.... ". Unfortunately for the human species " ... the rational brain should be viewed, not as the principal generator of behaviour and the pivot on which the species turns, but as an optional extra designed to be switched off the moment any serious evolutionary matters, such as genetic survival or propagation, arise."
The best course for human species survival would be a global, concious coordinated reduction in human environmental impact, and a strong reduction in birth rate. Instead we are probably going to get conflict, continued exploitation to death and extinction, with war and upheavals on the scale of the Biblical Revelations. As Reg says, "All species must fail eventually, especially the very successful ones, or the whole system will grind to a halt". Reg hopes we will wipe ourselves out quickly as plagues tend to do, so the system can carry on without us.
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