Do you share the optimism of Edward O Wilson?

I have been enthused by reading the posts on the EvC forum and through reading what I think are important books concerning Evolution and Creation. Most enjoyable so far have been E O Wilsons The Creation, and The Diversity of Life. Of course reading has also included Darwin and my next book shall be Carl Zimmers Evolution.
Most of what I have been reading understandably concerns the past. Some of what I have read also refers to the future. Just such a book is Edward O Wilson's, The Creation. I also downloaded an interview with Edward O Wilson which I believe was given after recieving an award at the American Museum of Natural History. During this interview he refered to the points below.My point for discussion? Wilson's book, The Creation, is a direct appeal to save life on Earth. Wilson, refers to the numbers of species so far described on Earth and claims that up to now, 'between 1.5 and 1.8 million species have so far been described to date, and at least 10 million more await discovery.' Numbers, habitats and their geographical distributions need to be noted. My immediate question was, to what extent would such a mammoth task help towards saving life on Earth? Wilson's answer? 'The positive impact of this scientific knowledge on medicine, agriculture, and resource management will be beyond measure.How else can we help to Save Life on Earth? Wilson says we could raise Naturalists. According to Wilson, 'Every child is a beginning explorer naturalist. Hunter, gatherer, scout, treasure seaker, geographer, discoverer of new worlds,' Wilson also says we should take our children to seashores, we should equipe them with microscopes.Do you agree with Wilson's statement that scientifically describing up to 10 million species will help save life on earth beyond measure?And secondly, how many children do you know are willing to become Naturalists?I genuinly don't have an answer for the first question as I don't feel the least bit qualified or knowledgeable enough. But the second question I can have a personal attempt at answering.
I have been a teacher for the best part of 20 years and I have taught children 2-19 years of age of all abilities. I shall quickly get to the point. Most, if not all the children I currently teach would rather be handed an i pod than a microscope. And more to the point, they would know what to do with an i pod! Okay, I could educate them as to what a microscope is, but I can guarentee that if they believe it doesn't impact on their lives, they won't give a damn. Their environment is the street, not the Earth. Only this week I was sitting in a carpark next to a river reading 'The Creation' when a minibus of school children pulled up. A lovely river environment in which to discover wildlife diversity? Yeh right! Chasing mother ducks and their chicks is fun, throwing stones into the water is fun, and believe it or not, getting out a catapult and shooting ducks is even more fun! Yes, I did point these things out to the teacher. In return I got a grump, a huff, and the following comment, 'weren't you ever young?'Saving life on Earth is a whopping job. Most people are only concerned with their own human life on Earth unaware of the dependancy of their lives on natural life. Classifying species and educating the youth will help to rectify things? Easier said than done. I personally don't share Wilson's optimism, do you?
ogon

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I am curious as to what your overall optimism about being a teacher is in general.It is indeed a challenge to engage young minds. Share with us some success stories.

Hi again, ogin. Since this is your topic, and since you have told us that you are a teacher, I want to combine both of your PNTs into one main topic and we can discuss your philosophies here. Wonderful! I respect teachers! Now is your opportunity to teach us something and, perhaps, learn a few things from us as well! Here was the question in your other PNT. Lets address it here along with any comments on Edward O. Wilson I have never been a creator, but I assume that I would be unable to create something perfect, so that rules out #1.Number 3 sounds suspiciously like a setup question for a creationist agenda at preaching!Please tell us that you are an open minded teacher!Edited by Phat, : edit

There are lots of general teachers in the world. I would say my Father was my first teacher in that he taught me so much about the natural world in which we live.
Through his teaching I developed a love for and a basic understanding of nature. Teachers have knowledge and experience to pass on to students, and of course, as in the case of my Father, their children. Education does indeed begin at home.But Fathers can’t be around all day with a family to rear so the educational duties get passed on to professional teachers. One hopes, that as well as their knowledge and experience in the world, teachers give a fair and balanced view of the world to students. While at the same time giving them room to develop and test out the world for themselves. It is probably healthy that students do go to professional teachers as what we hope develops in a student is an individual capable of making up his own mind about the world and not just a replicate of his Father.I guess that’s where my optimism sits. I would hope, that the teacher that stands before a student, has that students hopes and aspirations as a priority. Unfortunately this has become less so in our education systems as the overall focus seems to have strayed from the student and is well and truly focused on the performance of the teacher. A teacher is no longer judged by what the students have learned in a lesson. But rather on whether he or she can convince a head teacher or similar that the intentions to teach that student were in the lesson plan.It is the head teacher or observer then who determines whether the student has learned anything, whether they have or not is not important! What is important is whether the observer believes they have or not!I guess I am not very optimistic about the future of education and being a teacher in general because it is my belief that we no longer have the child/student as our priority, instead producing paperwork and convincing others that students are progressing is our priority.I believe also that as a consequence students themselves take nothing away from lessons, they don’t get the opportunities to explore and develop what they have learned, the teacher has the next target to move onto, and in response students become disillusioned with education altogether. And todays students are tomorrows parents. My teacher thinks more about himself than me and my parents don’t give a damn!My optimism about being a teacher? Thanks for giving me the opportunity to blow off a bit! Most success stories go unnoticed. The reason I have taught children through such a wide range of ages is because I am a special needs teacher. I have been involved with the education of children ranging in age 2-19 years old. The principles of how children learn remain the same. The approach and content of the lesson change appropriately.Like I said, success stories mainly go unnoticed. And most get forgotten. So much so that I advise teaching students to carry note books with them and list their successes with pupils. It makes for interesting reading and can help boost confidence at times when its needed. Some success stories do stick in my mind.Persevering with a toddler who had mobility problems and teaching him to walk. Everyday helping him to stand up against a wall until one day he had the confidence in me to leave the wall and walk.Being put into a class of post 16 students who would be lucky to get through their final year without being expelled! Through gaining trust and respect we all got through the year in one piece. It wasn’t easy believe me.
Today dear head teacher my aim is to help this toddler walk. Okay, it didn’t work today, maybe tomorrow. Yes I know it said ”today’ on my lesson plan but . . . Open minded? Any more so and I would fall in!
The above post you refer to didn’t make the grade in it’s original form. As you now bring it up it may indeed provide a link to my accepted post regarding E O Wilson,s ”The Creation’.My point being. what would happen if you assembled a car and left the brakes out? Easy, when it came to stop the car it wouldn’t stop! But you, the driver, wouldn’t know that until it was too late. You would have to do something drastic! Perhaps applying the handbrake will slow you down enough to swing into a u turn?
But as the car mechanic/technician you knew what would happen anyway.
Now let’s say you are the (hopefully intelligent?) creator of human life on Earth. Wilson tells us that the current population on Earth at present is past 5.4 billion (2005) By the year 2025, the population is projected to reach 8.5 billion. By mid century we are looking at the worlds population leveling off at 10-15 billion. It goes without saying really that at that rate sustainability isn’t a voluntarily option anymore.My question was really directed at those who suggest human life on Earth was created by an intelligent creator. If this was the case, then don’t you think this creator, knowing we are eventually going to over populate the planet and its sustainability, would have supplied us with some form of braking system?
Perhaps that braking system comes in the form of Wilson and like minded people? But how feasible is a braking system given the complacency (see my points above) of our present generation and their future generations?Okay Edward, I’m open minded, I share your optimism, train me to become a professional systematist and I’ll help turn your words into actions. Train me to become a professional biologist and I’ll turn children into naturalists. I would like to think education could play its part but I’ve been on the front line and the biggest enemy is those within education itself.If I say anymore I will probably tie myself in knots!
ogonEdited by AdminPhat, : fixed quotes and punctuation...to a degree

Of course if one is a student one will read that God or no God, NATURE provides a so-you-called "breaking system" with the ecological notion of the "carrying capacity" Carrying capacity - Wikipedia
http://users.rcn.com/...net/BiologyPages/P/Populations2.html
(when the student is presented with this notion (as I was in a 200 level ecology class at Cornell, the 'capacity' is THE END of the curve that begins with a CHOICE of R or K "strategies" for the species involved(see second link).) I never could see that such a curve was necessarilyconnected.And what was worse was neither the teachers nor any books I could read seemed to recognize the issue of the extra-population-polation. Calculus and higher math was just assumed to apply to any population of creatures and yet the reality on the campus made the smooth relations of differential equations look like th shpae of aerodynamics of the car spoiler than the either kind of brake. Yet no one would answer me with what numerical standard where organ bodies supposed to be measured. There was an implicit Cartesianism that masked payment for research done. The praxis of the issue is apparent in how Bertrand Russell discussed "numbers". Ernst Mayr assumed that this is NOT something populationally thought but it is (when I asked him about it).The problem with my question about the shape of this curve is that one starts not with one monophyly or a single species’ population but with two different potentially changing translations in space and form-making. The reason that no matter what the original strategies are, that in the end; there will be a limit:: is due to 'the “third” dimension' and that is the one that induced Darwin to think, as is taught.This idea, that only so much environment is available is not thus a question that belongs towards asking a creationist because it is like cutting off someone’s left arm and then asking them to shake hands with the left side. Besides, from within an evolutionary thought one simply needs to realize that mutation and adaptation towards places on Earth not populated that may lead or guide (following James' notion of reality and not Russells') to population on other objects in the solar system is also not included in consideration of the capacity which was about ecological interactions ON EARTH WHERE LIVE already is not any arbitary causality. Kant recognized but never spelled in a different refexive causality that James' was trying to get over on Russell, the logic of this difference IS NEEDED in ecology of life off Earth but has not been done even if physics can get by without it.Thus as for a creationist style response, I feel like so much counter creationist crooning on the web asking if a Benevolent God, bla, bla blah would not have foreseen mans sins and have a contingency plan for natural disasters... fails to realize that the cause of this is mans even if man will not in the future veer off but it was not common mans'. This is a problem for elite society.The solution paradoxically in the elite society writings is the same society. Supposedly advanced civilizations will have fewer births and as picture first shown in the post reveals is one projection of how “teaching” will brake of it self.I think this is wrong. I think it arises from a false sense of economics that evolutionary theory continues to raise from the dead tails of 19th century thought(thus not about education sensu stricto. I think that if Phil Johnson had any point, it was that Will Provine continues to think from the 1800s rather than the 2100s. In the collapse, the problem is that we have the notion of value added systems than synthetic mathematical propositions. Elite philosophers say the latter do not exist, apriori.I think that we can use the evolutionary synthesis to torque natural populations to survive WHILE the economics of survival of the fittest indicates otherwise to the popular imagination. One does not need to convince the elite. They will change overnite if the idea is correct.Ecosystem Engineerin requires the application of torque to genetic 'systems' and is the name I use for the concept. I need to get the discussion beyond "religious perspective" vs "ethical considerations".It will demand a different use of economics, of which my web page is my first output towards such an end-->
http://aexion.org/ecosystemengineering.aspx
(Simon referred to here, won a bet with Ecologist Ehrlich over the nature of the human population derived curve)
This is not an issue of teachers and students but of money and politicians.One can only take the logic of “reading” graphs so far with our current higher education system. Money will change everything if anything. If I am correct the academic resistance is purely one of energy. No one is trying to extract energy from biological form-making and thus we argue over oil instead. I do not see how the positive parts of my contribution will survive the overnight if one does not use the internet to accomplish economic things not possible even with the 90s boom.

quote:

---

If this was the case, then don’t you think this creator, knowing we are eventually going to over populate the planet and its sustainability, would have supplied us with some form of braking system?

---

Death is the braking system. Natural disasters, disease, plagues, famine, starvation, etc. Humans don't like the braking system and think they have a better system.

---

"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

I have a much simpler answer than others who have answered. You start them young. The younger the better.I have a 7 year old nephew who spends all his free time turning over rocks and observing insects. To tell you the truth, it was I that slowly put the curiosity in him.I have a 5 year old niece that is afraid of everything non-human. I've been trying to get her to be more curious of other creatures. Seems to be working so far. She's asking questions about them now.What I find sad is that there are parents that shelter their kids too much that it becomes just rediculous just how afraid they are of everything. My sister's neighbors are examples of some of the extreme examples. That family has 5 kids, ages from 8 to 15. To give you an example, take a look at the following picture. My sister has a dog that looks almost the same as that. Can you imagine anyone being afraid of that adorable thing? All 5 of those kids are simply terrified of my sister's dog. They are so terrified that everytime the dog is let outside into my sister's fenced in yard, the kids would be running into the house to avoid seeing it. One of my dogs look very similar to that picture. When I brought my dogs to my sister's place and put them outside, the mom next door actually came over and asked me to put the dog inside.Now, imagine those kids growing up being afraid of everything non-human. They couldn't care less whether a species go extinct or not.Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

---

We are BOG. Resistance is voltage over current.

​

Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

My experience and that of my kids is probably different from a lot of the folks who post here. However, I strongly endorse Taz's main idea: get 'em young, keep 'em engaged, and eventually kids' natural curiosity will begin to have them explore and learn on their own. Ideally, the kids should be consistently exposed to nature as young as possible (I started mine at about 4-5). A once-a-year field trip with the school isn't going to do it. The adults in their lives have to be as engaged as they are, by the way. If not, the kid is going to look at the excursions as a chore - not as a fun way to be with mommy and/or daddy. Make it fun, interesting, even exciting, and you've gone a long way towards getting the kid permanently interested.Will this solve the man-made biotic crisis currently facing the planet? Possibly not - but education is a strong step in the right direction. If we can inculcate an understanding of the value of the natural world, our legacy (our children) will be motivated to continue and even expand efforts to preserve it.

I am staggered that Wilson would give such a parochial response. Medicine and agriculture are strictly human endeavors for the benefit of humans, not all life. They actually impact other species, both plant and animal, negatively and diminish the diversity of life. I don't know what he means by 'resource management', but the the way it is usually applied is strictly for human benefit, and to the detriment of the rest of life on earth. Does Wilson actually have anything to say about 'life on earth' referring to the complete panoply of life?

Except for two possibilities (one natural, one man-made) life is in no danger of premature extinction on this planet. The human species certainly is, as are a big portion of our fellow species, but life will be here and will continue to be here with us or without us.A Star-eating Black Hole or roaming Stellar Rogue, something coming in to disrupt this stellar system is one possible scenario to the premature end of life on this planet (not counting the death of our own star which I do not consider a premature end).The other is a nano-tech nightmare all too possible in the not-too-distant future.I’ve always loved the “green” sentiments of “Save The Planet” and “Save Life on Earth.”The planet is doing just fine, thank you, and life is perking along just as it has for the last 3.75 +- billion years. Baring the nightmare scenario above (which is presently not within our capabilities) there is nothing we can do to end life on this planet. The most damage we can do is to the ecosystem which contains ourselves causing a lot of extinctions including our own, but, frankly, that's just a small bump in the road to the rest of life. Edited by AZPaul3, : A little clearer statement would be good, me thinks.Edited by AZPaul3, : I gota stop re-doing this. Help me. Please!

When these phrases are used, they are used to refer to the so-called higher order of life that we see.If you look at the history of life on this planet, the vast majority of life that have ever existed are microscopic single cell organisms. In other words, the more complex multicellular life, especially those with the more advance nervous systems, are what could be considered irregularities in the history of life. And certainly, it is entirely possible for much of these irregulars to go extinct. It's happened before several times.The point is who cares about bacteria? We know they'll be here a hell of a long time after we are gone. It's the higher echelon life that need protection.

---

We are BOG. Resistance is voltage over current.

​

Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

In a generic sense, you're absolutely correct: "Life" with a capital "L" is not in any real danger. Nor is planet Earth. However, even though somewhat trite, in my opinion the catchphrases you take exception to refer to a more profound philosophical concern. For the first time (at least as far as we know) there exists a species on this planet who is capable of severely disrupting the global environment - much in the way of the great natural cataclysms of the past such as the Alvarez Event or whateverthehellitwas that happened at the End Permian. The key difference is: we don't have to be a natural disaster. We CAN choose to change. And THAT is what the "green movement" is ostensibly geared towards. Not that they're very effective to date. I personally would like to see a great deal more done to mitigate or even prevent the anthropogenic Holocene mass extinction we appear to be heading towards.

I agree, it will take one hell of an event to end LIFE on Earth. To exterminate humans though might be a little easier. And I guess one thing Wilson is saying is that if we damage our ecosystems around the world in an ever increasing rate then there are limits to their survival, and ours. At the moment we are taking out facia bricks. But take out a keystone and the thing comes tumbling down! Before this happens Wilson wants us to take advantage of these ecosystems and the species they contain. They offer natural medicines,(there have already been great medicinal discoveries that are helping in the fight against cancer, aspirin also springs to mind) they offer substitutes to some man made materials, they offer potential to poorer countries for tourism,(such tourism is already big business around the world but the local people don't always benefit) they offer alternatives to the known foods that we eat, (Wilson suggests that iguana's taste like chicken, large sea turtles can be farmed much more efficiently and cost effective than our present meat providing animals) Wilson also sees no problem in clearing some land space in order to grow crops. Possibly genetically modified crops. The larger of these ecosystems provide much needed oxygen. Of course the destruction of ecosystems and the extermination of species will have a knock on effect to humans. We are part of the chain of life on Earth. Okay, we knock out all the visible life on Earth including ourselves but life will go on because as Wilson so often says, the largest of ecosystems is under our feet. These guys are gonna survive, again! So yes, I understand Wilson's thinking, but like I said earlier, I'm not sure I share his optimism. I can do everything in my power to save life on Earth but at the end of the day I don't have ultimate control or power do I? Bring on the worlds governments. What they want is what we are going to get. They are driven by forces much larger than what we are driven by.
ogon

All agreed. But the catchphrases and the bumper stickers and the view we give our young people are bogus. The problem is we divert attention from the real issue. Whales, rain forests and global warming are but threads in a tapestry; one that we are woven into. While important in addressing the main issue this stuff is fluff that does not focus on the issue at hand. Kids think whales are in danger and have been told this is not good but the reinforcement of “why” is left out.Unless we are upfront, honest and adamant about it the heart gets diverted into (albeit important) minutia. The real drive needs to be stated clearly and precisely so there is no mistake about what is at issue here. The issue is not “Save The Dolphins” or “Save The Snail Darter” or “Save The Majestic Bald Eagle.” The issue here is “Save The Humans.”