from: Island Press
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 577
EAN num: 9781559631471
ISBN number: 1559631473
Label: Island Press
Manufacturer: Island Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 496
Printing Date: March 01, 1995
Publishing house: Island Press
Sale Popularity Level: 365819
Studio: Island Press
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Product Description:
'Biophilia' is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book 'Biophilia,' he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers.'The Biophilia Hypothesis' brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component: fear, and even full-blown phobias of snakes and spiders are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artifacts -- knives, guns, automobiles -- rarely elicit such a response people find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics people would rather look at water, purple vegetation, or flowers than built structures of glass and concrete The biophilia hypothesis, if substantiated, provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity. More important, it implies serious consequences for our well-being as society becomes further estranged from the natural world. Relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life, not just materially but psychologically and evenspiritually.
Amazon.com Review:
Why is it that most of us find baby animals irresistibly cute? Why do so many people fear even the sight of snakes? What prompts us to feed birds, to allow cats to roam around the house at will, to admire the lines of dogs and horses? Stephen Kellert and Edward Wilson, the prolific Harvard biologist, gather essays by various hands on these and other questions, and the result is a fascinating glimpse into our relations with other animals. Humans, Wilson writes, have an innate (or at least extremely ancient) connection to the natural world, and our continued divorce from it has led to the loss of not only 'a vast intellectual legacy born of intimacy' with nature but also our very sanity. There is much to ponder in this timely book.
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This book contains writings and research from several fields, their experts trying to confirm the hypothesis that human beings are naturally drawn to various manifestations of the natural world ("biophilia"). This hypothesis is important not because it can start a new religion or redeem the world, but because it balances more pessimistic views of human nature with the idea that we have a natural psychological connection to our fellow creatures. This in turn implies that we harm our own psyches to the extent we push other beings out of existence.
Don't expect any end-stage science from this book. The editors make it clear up front that these are tentative, exploratory, and sometimes speculative investigations. The amount of biophilia research funding remains quite small compared to environmental research on how to market things or brainwash customers. The studies herein go up to the 1990s, so it's time for another collection.
A chapter that puzzled me was written by Dorion Sagan and Lynn Margulis to argue that appeals to save the planet are grandiose. Granted; Joanna Macy has been making the point for decades that we are PART of the planet, not sitting high above it. At best we can participate in its self-healing from what humans have done to it. But the authors go beyond this to normalize what we have done to it, even suggesting that we could be making way for the subsequent evolutionary experiment of Gaia. I hate to use the hard word "misanthropic," but dismissing global warming and mass extinctions with the suggestion that "the decline in species diversity may be balanced by an increase in technological diversity" is astounding. It is quite a contrast to the growing numbers of people who feel the pain of those disappearances and declines with agonizing urgency and sorrow. I'm concerned that it also supports the very passivity and hopelessness that deprive the public sphere of so much pro-environmental energy directed toward appreciating and encouraging Earth's self-healing complexity: a very different idealism from the heroic posture of the world-shaper.
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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.
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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.
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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 ... Read More
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The great biologist Edward O. Wilson noted that human beings seem to have some constants in what they like in the natural world. Everybody likes the landscape they grew up in, but there appears to be a surprising consensus, at least among men, in favor of landscape with these features: grassy parklands with intermittent trees, water, high points providing vistas across a complex landscape, and the ability to see but not be seen. Researchers believe that this represents an inborn affinity toward the superb hunting grounds in which humans evolved in East Africa. From this work, Wilson announced the existence of biophilia, the innate human love of nature, and asserted that this means we should Save the Rainforests (home to most of the species of Wilson's beloved ants).
As much as I admire Wilson, I have to point out that his political argument is absolutely not supported by this research, which demonstrates not that humans like all forms of nature but that they have strong opinions about which landscapes they prefer. Reread the description of the consensus pleasurable landscape: does it remind you of anything that modern humans all around the world spend billions upon? Yup, what we males really have an innate affinity for are golf courses. In fact, we probably have an innate aversion toward rainforests, with their snakes, bugs, and lack of sunlight. Humans have largely avoided rainforests throughout our history, and yesterday rainforests are much more popular on the Upper West Side of Manhattan than in the Amazon.
None of this implies that we shouldn't Save The Rainforests
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