book analysis
Symbiotic PlanetNavigating the site:
Analysis
“If this book teaches you about symbiosis and the Gaia theory in the context of a radically new views of life, it is only because of four lucky facts.”
“This book is about planetary life, planetary evolution, and the ways our view of them are changing.
“Many circumstances conspire to extinguish scientific discoveries that discomfort our culture’s sacred norms.”
p. 2.“Call the dominating inhibitions that determine our point of view whatever you wish. They affect all of us, including scientists.”
“One widely unstated assumption is the great chain of being. It defines the venerable position of humans as the exact center of the universe in the middle of the chain of being below God and above rock.”
“All beings alive today are equally evolved. All have survived over three thousand million years of evolution from common bacterial ancestors.”
p. 3.
"As a species, we still fear the eccentric in our views of ourselves.
Despite or perhaps because of Darwin,
as a culture we still don’t really understand the science of evolution.”
“Most evolution occurred in those beings we dismiss as “microbes.” All life as we know it, evolved from the smallest life-forms of all, bacteria.”
"My claim is that, like all other apes, humans are not the work of God but of thousands and millions of years of interaction among highly responsive microbes.”
p.4
What do her ideas tell us about the deeper significance of wilderness and wildness?
natural wealth of habitats, or settings.
McKibben | Nash | Leopold | Wilderness
