The Biophilia Hypothesis

Rating:
Summary: Difficult but important
Review: Human beings are deeply psychologically attached to nature and the sooner we realize that, the better off we'll be. Why are houseplants so popular? Why do so many children's books feature animals as main characters? Why do more Americans visit zoos than sporting events? Why are so many of us worried about rainforests we'll never see firsthand? Unlike the previous two reviewers, I hold that our ties with nature are deep and ancient. We can bury them under concrete but WE CAN'T CUT THEM. As a last word: most of the really happy people I know have a deep relationship with nature or something from nature, such as a pet.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult but important
Review: In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectual's Abuse of Science, postmodernists are taken to task for distorting physics and math through poetic license that says nothing and means nothing. Edward O. Wilson likewise has criticized postmodernists for their attacks on science and Western knowledge, and now we have the evolutionists stooping to the same distortions of logic and clear thinking in pursuit of personal agendas to resurrect a new religion of nature. In the book The Biophilia Hypothesis (henceforth BioHyp) we can clearly delineate between the evolutionary observations of our past and what it should mean to us today. This book merges evolutionary knowledge of our environment for survival, with an ethic of deep ecology that is as befuddling and lacking in coherence as anything I have previously seen written by those who claim to be on the side of neo-Darwinist empiricism. But we should all recognize that it is easy, even for true empiricists, to slip into quasi-religious cults even while appearing to embrace the principles of science. Since this book does not have any coherence, aside from making some rather bland connection between how humans interact with nature which I accept but fail to see as profound, I will take a few of the most egregiously inept statements in the book to pull the rug out from under their proposed paradigm.

This book tries to equate affiliation with nature with the essence of a good life that has meaning. Granted, many aspects of human nature go into the make-up of our beings, including: the need to create, observe nature, have sex, accumulate and show off our amassed wealth, dominance over others, athleticism, gathering and enjoying food, AND competition with other human groups including warfare and genocide. Yes, along with a love of nature humans also have a blood lust that these authors all know exists but fail to address in this book. Another quasi-religious group of scientists could easily conjure up a new natural paradigm based on warfare (perhaps like the Spartans) and be equally content with a new culture based on love of animals but hatred of other humans (perhaps the genophilia hypothesis?).

"The biophilia hypothesis necessarily involves a number of challenging, indeed daunting, assertions. Among these is the suggestion that the human inclination to affiliate with life and lifelike process is: 1) Inherent (that is, biologically based); 2) Part of our species' evolutionary heritage; 3) Associated with human competitive advantage and genetic fitness; 4) Likely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment; and 5) The self-interested basis for a human ethic of care and conservation of nature, most especially the diversity of life." [20]

Assertions 1,2 and 3 I have no problem with, they are simple evolutionary statements. However I take strong issue with 4 and 5. Lets rephrase 4: "[T]he inclination to affiliate with life . . . is [l]ikely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment." Let us merely rephrase it to read, "The inclination for humans to commit genocide is likely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment." I contend that genocide and group cohesiveness are in fact far more powerful emotions than our need of love for nature. And yet we have been able to subdue this emotion quite nicely by introducing incentives in cultures to forego blood-letting for other more valuable past times. Likewise, BioHyp may improve our urban environment by paying more attention to planting trees and providing for some bird sanctuaries, but I would contend that the average urban dweller is far more impacted by daily road rage than they are sensitive to the number of animals and fauna they observe on their journey to work. That is, hostility to other humans who may have offended me carry a much greater burden on my temperament than seeing a squirrel climb up the tree as I walk to my garage.

Assertion 5 above, in order to be true, must show that an extreme caring and conservation for nature, one that must reduce the average material wealth of humans while also reducing the number of humans, is of real benefit to humans: that is, it is a good in itself, to all humans! Does this hold for those who will not be born? For those who will die on the way to the emergency room because we have reverted back to bicycles or horse and buggies? Don't get me wrong. I am not an egalitarian that thinks "banning guns to save just one child is reason enough to give up our constitutional rights." Its just that no group or philosophy can make the above statement to simplistically and universally alter our national or humans agenda. They are calling for a ecological Jihad that is not warranted. Our culture cannot be cut from whole cloth based on such simplistic assertions. They are made up of a myriad of compromises and constraints that do not fall easily into any one fundamental of human nature as espoused in BioHyp.

Rating:
Summary: This book is more postmodernism jibberish
Review: In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectual's Abuse of Science, postmodernists are taken to task for distorting physics and math through poetic license that says nothing and means nothing. Edward O. Wilson likewise has criticized postmodernists for their attacks on science and Western knowledge, and now we have the evolutionists stooping to the same distortions of logic and clear thinking in pursuit of personal agendas to resurrect a new religion of nature. In the book The Biophilia Hypothesis (henceforth BioHyp) we can clearly delineate between the evolutionary observations of our past and what it should mean to us today. This book merges evolutionary knowledge of our environment for survival, with an ethic of deep ecology that is as befuddling and lacking in coherence as anything I have previously seen written by those who claim to be on the side of neo-Darwinist empiricism. But we should all recognize that it is easy, even for true empiricists, to slip into quasi-religious cults even while appearing to embrace the principles of science. Since this book does not have any coherence, aside from making some rather bland connection between how humans interact with nature which I accept but fail to see as profound, I will take a few of the most egregiously inept statements in the book to pull the rug out from under their proposed paradigm.

This book tries to equate affiliation with nature with the essence of a good life that has meaning. Granted, many aspects of human nature go into the make-up of our beings, including: the need to create, observe nature, have sex, accumulate and show off our amassed wealth, dominance over others, athleticism, gathering and enjoying food, AND competition with other human groups including warfare and genocide. Yes, along with a love of nature humans also have a blood lust that these authors all know exists but fail to address in this book. Another quasi-religious group of scientists could easily conjure up a new natural paradigm based on warfare (perhaps like the Spartans) and be equally content with a new culture based on love of animals but hatred of other humans (perhaps the genophilia hypothesis?).

"The biophilia hypothesis necessarily involves a number of challenging, indeed daunting, assertions. Among these is the suggestion that the human inclination to affiliate with life and lifelike process is: 1) Inherent (that is, biologically based); 2) Part of our species' evolutionary heritage; 3) Associated with human competitive advantage and genetic fitness; 4) Likely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment; and 5) The self-interested basis for a human ethic of care and conservation of nature, most especially the diversity of life." [20]

Assertions 1,2 and 3 I have no problem with, they are simple evolutionary statements. However I take strong issue with 4 and 5. Lets rephrase 4: "[T]he inclination to affiliate with life . . . is [l]ikely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment." Let us merely rephrase it to read, "The inclination for humans to commit genocide is likely to increase the possibility for achieving individual meaning and personal fulfillment." I contend that genocide and group cohesiveness are in fact far more powerful emotions than our need of love for nature. And yet we have been able to subdue this emotion quite nicely by introducing incentives in cultures to forego blood-letting for other more valuable past times. Likewise, BioHyp may improve our urban environment by paying more attention to planting trees and providing for some bird sanctuaries, but I would contend that the average urban dweller is far more impacted by daily road rage than they are sensitive to the number of animals and fauna they observe on their journey to work. That is, hostility to other humans who may have offended me carry a much greater burden on my temperament than seeing a squirrel climb up the tree as I walk to my garage.

Assertion 5 above, in order to be true, must show that an extreme caring and conservation for nature, one that must reduce the average material wealth of humans while also reducing the number of humans, is of real benefit to humans: that is, it is a good in itself, to all humans! Does this hold for those who will not be born? For those who will die on the way to the emergency room because we have reverted back to bicycles or horse and buggies? Don't get me wrong. I am not an egalitarian that thinks "banning guns to save just one child is reason enough to give up our constitutional rights." Its just that no group or philosophy can make the above statement to simplistically and universally alter our national or humans agenda. They are calling for a ecological Jihad that is not warranted. Our culture cannot be cut from whole cloth based on such simplistic assertions. They are made up of a myriad of compromises and constraints that do not fall easily into any one fundamental of human nature as espoused in BioHyp.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful reading
Review: This was recommended by a scientist-science teacher-friend and I was simply blown away by the implications. If this theory is correct, then it explains the human descent into madness brought on by increased development without thought.