Can Religion and Science Unite to Save Eden? The Creation by Edward O. Wilson

Book Review
The Creation by Edward O. Wilson
Published in September 2006 by W.W. Norton

In his latest book, world-renowned biologist and evolutionary scientist Edward O. Wilson, makes a case for why saving "The Creation", i.e., Nature and the millions of species that inhabit it, are of paramount importance to humans and our future generations. The reasons for the decline of Earth's biodiversity, Edward Wilson writes, are known in scientific circles by the acronym HIPPO, listed in order of destructiveness:

habitat loss, including that caused by human-induced climate change

invasive species (harmful aliens, including predators, disease organisms, and dominant competitors that displace natives)

pollution

human overpopulation, a root cause of the other four factors

overharvesting (hunting, fishing, gathering)

The prose, as in other E.O. Wilson books including On Human Nature and The Future of Life, is well-written and in the form of a letter to a Southern pastor (Edward Wilson grew up in Alabama). Wilson makes the case, that even tough their views may differ on the origin of the Creation and Homo sapiens, they must put their differences aside to save Earth's living diversity, a goal which he believes they share. If we go back in history, the problem started when "civilization was purchased by the betrayal of Nature." Wilson writes:

"According to archeological evidence, we strayed from Nature with the beginning of civilization roughly ten thousand years ago. That quantum leap beguiled us with an illusion of freedom from the world that had given us birth. It nourished the belief that the human spirit can be molded in to something new to fit changes in the environment and culture, and as a result the timetables of history desynchronized. A wiser intelligence might now truthfully say of us at this point: here is a chimera, a new and very odd species come shambling into our universe, a mix of Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology. The combination makes the species unresponsive to the forces that count most for its own long-term survival."
...
"The Neolithic revolution, comprising the invention of agriculture and villages, fed on Nature's bounty. The forward leap was a blessing for humanity. Yes, it was: those who have lived among hunter-gatherers will tell you they are not at all to be envied. But the revolutions encouraged the false assumption that a tiny selection of domesticated plants and animals can support human expansion indefinitely. The pauperization of Earth's fauna and flora was an acceptable price until recent centuries, when Nature seemed all but infinite, and an enemy to explorers and pioneers. The wilderness and the aboriginal surviving in them were there to be pushed back and eventually replaced, in the name of progress and in the name of the gods, lest we forget.

History now teaches a different lesson, but only tho those who will listen. Even if the rest of life is counted of no value beyond the satisfaction of human bodily needs, the obliteration of Nature is a dangerous strategy. For one thing, we have become a species specialized to eat the seeds of four kinds of grass-wheat, rice, corn, and millet. If these fail, from disease or climate change, we too shall fail. Some fifty thousand wild plant species (many of which face extinction) offer alternative food sources. If one insists on being thoroughly practical about the matter, allowing these and the rest of wild species to exist should be considered part of a portfolio of long-term investment. Even the most recalcitrant people must come to view conservation as a simple prudence in the management of Earth's natural economy. Yet few have begun to think that way at all.

Meanwhile, the modern technoscientific revolution, including especially the great leap forward of computer-based information technology, has betrayed Nature a second time, by fostering the belief that the cocoons of urban and suburban material life are sufficient for human fulfillment. That is an especially serious mistake. Human nature is deeper and broader than the artifactual contrivance of any existing culture. The spiritual roots of Homo sapiens extend deep into the natural world through still mostly hidden channels of mental development. We will not reach our full potential without understanding the origin and hence meaning of the aesthetic and religious qualities that make us ineffably human.

Granted, many people seem content to live entirely within the synthetic ecosystems. But so are domestic animals content, even in the grotesquely abnormal habitats in which we rear them. This in my mind is a perversion. It is not the nature of human beings to be cattle in glorified feedlots. Every person deserves the option to travel easily in and out of the complex and primal world that gave us birth. We need freedom to roam across land owned by no one but protected by all, whose unchanging horizon is the same that bounded the world of our millennial ancestors. Only in what remains of Eden, teeming with life forms independent of us, is it possible to experience the kind of wonder that shaped the human psyche at its birth."

Thus, Wilson describes why we should all care about saving Nature, and how human nature is intertwined with it. He goes on to explain the extent of the damage done so far and unless we take concrete steps now (more thoroughly explained in The Future of Life), likely to happen in the near future: an extinction of half of the Earth's living species by the end of this century. This is where he needs the Pastor's help, Edward Wilson writes, because religion plays such an important part in the fabric of society and politics, especially in the United Sates. Edward Wilson ends by writing,

"What are we to do? Forget the differences, I say. Meet on common ground. That might not be as difficult as it seems at first. When you think about it, our metaphysical differences have remarkably little effect on the conduct of our separate lives. My guess is that you and I are about equally ethical, patriotic, and altruistic. We are products of a civilization that arose from both religion and the science-based Enlightenment. We would gladly serve on the same jury, fight the same wars, sanctify human life with the same intensity. And surely we also share a love of the Creation.

In closing this letter, I hope you will not have taken offense when I spoke of ascending to Nature instead of ascending away from it. It would give me deep satisfaction to find that expression as I have explained it compatible with your own beliefs. For however the tensions eventually play out between our opposing worldviews, however science and religion wax and wane in the minds of men, there remains the earthborn, yet transcendental, obligation we are both morally bound to share."

The Creation is a very important book because if we are to take a long-term view of humanity, it is the most important issue facing us today. Indeed, his quote from 1980 (Harvard Magazine, January/February 1980) still serves true today if we continue on our current path of destruction:

"The worst thing that can happen, will happen, is not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us."

[Edit 12/14/2006: Charlie Rose interviews E.O. Wilson about the book; and another interview from December 2005 with E.O. Wilson and James Watson]