Book Review: E O Wilson, The Future of Life

Edward O Wilson: The Future of Life (Alfred A Knopf, NY, 2002) 189 pages, chapter notes (extensive), glossary, index

abbreviations used: EROEI - Energy Return on Energy Investment

                                IMF - International Monetary Fund

                                WB - World Bank

 

             In writing Future, Wilson adopted the mantle of the Old Testament Prophet: redeem your ways or suffer the wages of your sin! His intentions are admiral but his proposals to rectify our ways are too often based on a faulty or over-optimistic reading of the state of the world, above all, of the human capacity for self-deception. 

            In the course of Future's nearly 200 pages,Wilson delivers a truly damning indictment of the destructive impact of human economic activity on earth's vital "bearing capacity", its ability to sustain life as we know it. As a naturalist, he knows that by degrading the natural world with our excessive numbers and badly designed technology, we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

             From a philosophical and moral perspective, particularly the latter, it is hard not agree with his analysis. I particularly appreciated his replies to "hard doomers", fueled by fundamentalist fervor that earth (or humanity) is doomed and nothing we can imagine or do will save us. The former doomer assertion is laughable: industrial society will collapse long before it renders the planet unlivable for hardy, archaic microbes: they are found kilometers deep buried in primeval rock and under the sea floor. Even if we somehow succeeded in sterilizing the earth's surface of life, ancient bacteria would eventually recolonize the seas and the land in a few zillion years.. Humanity, of course, is more fragile than the earth itself and so we could, conceivably, cause ourselves to go extinct. I just rather doubt it: protohumans and humans survived terrific hardships and are a resilient lot. More to the point: what the hell kind of world are my kids and grand kids going to live in..

             In all honesty, it must be admitted Prof Wilson has stepped up to bat. He has headed or supported various organisations devoted to international conservation efforts. My difficulties in accepting his proposals lie not in his scientific analysis of climate and ecosystem health but in the implicit "business-as-usual" perspective of human demographics and economic activity his analyses are based on. In short, Wilson is proposing what I would call the "liberal green action plan". This world view holds that, collectively, we are becoming more aware of environmental problems. Growing wealth of the world's population - especially the poorer segments of societies - permits greater positive interventions in the management of natural life support systems. Thus Wilson encourages his readers to become more informed and active in environmental issues: habitat destruction, energy development,.. It is important to work in both their local communities and, through donations, with international nongovernmental organisations like the World Wide Fund for Nature, fair trade associations for third world agricultural producers, etc. This view, essentially optimistic, is founded, I believe, on the false logical argument that the future will resemble the past, that our current trajectory can be adjusted to deliver us to a predictable destination using tools and strategies we are familiar with. Since I do not share Wilson's assumptions regarding the sustainability of the current trajectory, I find much to criticize in his proposals (and much less in his overall guiding principles). 

            In discussing declining global birth rates - page 30 - Wilson speaks of these almost as if they reflected declines in absolute population levels. Such reductions in population growth may provide reason for "guarded optimism" perhaps, but not reason to rejoice just yet. Total global population has not leveled off yet, it's just growing more slowly..

             Wilson attributes the observed declines in growth rate to the globalized industrial economy, urbanization and the empowerment of women. Historically, modernization has indeed depressed mortality below traditional birth rates, creating a chronic excess of births over deaths. During modernization, European societies generally doubled their population sizes from the Enlightenment (latter half of 18th century, the early Industrial Era) to today. Thus it is perhaps a bit disingenuous to claim that the major, or immediate, impact of trends like economic globalization and women's liberation is a decrease in population growth! The short and medium term perspective seems rather the converse: a multigenerational pulse of population growth until birth rates once again drop to equilibrium with mortality rates, the condition that existed in "steady state" traditional economies (except that there, high birth rates were in equilibrium with high mortality rates).

             Thus, when modern medicine and hygiene are introduced, the immediate impact will be a sharp reduction in infant mortality creating a "baby boom". Even if these kids have fewer children than their parents (say three rather than five), there will be a glut of young parents producing a huge number of offspring. Moreover, this second generation glut of babies, like their parents, will have a lower mortality rate thereby causing a secondary, or "echo", baby boom in the next generation. Even if birth rates continue to drop in successive generations, it will take several generations for birth and death rates to equilibrate. During this time, if European societies are any guide, population will probably double. To worsen matters, the "baby boom" generation of early modernization will produce a glut of unemployed, often unemployable, young men looking for trouble (it's a hormone thing aggravating lousy future perspectives..) How much of contemporary terrorism is actually due to "socio-demographic factors" is anyone's guess, given the state of evolution of the human and social sciences. But failed development, rampant population growth and poverty, the "boomerization" / juvenilization of the population, the breakdown of traditional social arrangements without adequate replacement - none of this announces a smooth transition into the "Information Century".

             Prof Wilson does make a capital point, though: "the freeing of women socially and economically results in fewer children". This has been established but the question remains: does the liberation of women necessarily result from globalization? Can globalization, as currently practiced, not actually hinder the empowerment / liberation of women? One thinks of the repressive regimes bankrolled by the USA, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). Pinochet in Chile, Mubarak in Egypt come immediately to mind!

link: torture-under-pinochet

              Prof Wilson appears to (naively) believe the West will act in the best interests of third world countries. Given the last 500 years of colonization and exploitation by Europe, the track record is not good.. defintely not a good start. I personally believe that, more often than not, the West acts in the (perceived) interest of its own ruling elites and, only secondarily, in the interest of "symbiotic" third world elites who serve their Western masters by keeping the "natives in their place". (It's called neocolonialism.) A rather shocking example: to recuperate bad loads made to thrid world states, IMF and WB forced third world cut backs in social safety nets which actually act as brakes on procreation. In these traditional societies, children are their parents' old age pension plan. Cut back on modern social safety nets and you re-instate the traditional argument for huge families! (Sometimes it's hard to believe that people working for IMF and WB generally have university degrees - makes you wonder what they are teaching these days..) A non-ideological approach to development would instead work to fine tune social programs like old age pension, social medicine, affordable or free schooling, family planning with ready access to contraception, etc in order to speed up the "demographic transition" to a steady state low birth rate / low death rate modern society. Even more damning for the perspective that the West acts as a "moral agent" in the world: the support by the West - particularly the United States - of Islamic "freedom fighters" during Cold War anti-Soviet conflicts. These policies have now come back to bite us in the rear end as former mujahideen "freedom fighters" have morphed into today's "islamofascists", "extremists" and "terrorists".

"The arms race between the Cold War superpower rivals sapped the Soviet Union of its economic lifeblood and presaged the collapse of communism. The decisive battle of the Cold War was fought and won for the West in Afghanistan by Muslims. They were trained, indoctrinated, armed and given financial assistance with the approval and support of the West and the more affluent “moderate” Islamic countries, notably Saudi Arabia. Thousands of volunteers from Muslim countries and particularly the Arab world were flown to training camps in Pakistan and sent into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation forces. They were acclaimed as the “mujahideen” or holy warriors and were lionised as the heroes of the liberation struggle. By one account, mujahideen commanders were paid between US $ 20,000 to $ 50, 000 each per month while those that were more influential received US $ 100,000. Afghan, Arab and Pakistani mujahideen were convinced they were fighting a holy war against the godless communists. This is what they were taught in some, but not all, of the seminaries or madrassas of Pakistan. In 1971 there were approximately nine hundred madrassas in Pakistan by mid-1988 the number soared to eight thousand recognized religious schools and “an estimated twenty-five thousand unregistered ones.”"

                That's right, we have Ronald Reagan and his macho gang to thank for the disastrous political climate we are living in now. (When I discovered these facts, I could hardly believe it: why are our leaders such - apparent - idiots? And what does this say about the institution of democracy - since the people put these joiks in power in the first place..)
  
http://www.criterion-quarterly.com/the-contemporary-challenge-to-global-peace-and-security/

              It is also obvious that many westerners do care about what happens elsewhere and about the fate of our earth for future generations. Witness the "ethical investement" and "fair trade" movements, not to mention third world adoptions, emergency relief aid, etc. That is not the point. The west, like everyone else, is a house divided against itself, a house "of many mansions" with divided, often conflictual interests. Wilson, in essence, is providing us with an over idealized vision of the West and a very over optimistic judgement of its future capacity to "carry" third word "development" and emergency relief. In my reading, the capacity of upper middle class westerners, the people Prof Wilson is counting on, will diminish as the impacts of non-renewable resource supply short falls begin to work their way through the system.

             We are beginning to see the early stages of this process in the Peak Oil phenomenon. Oil, a non-renewable resource, exists in great quanity in the ground. When people began to exploit it commercially, at the beginning of the twentieth century, they logically went after the "low hanging fruit", the stuff easy to get at: it actually spurted out of the ground under pressure, no need to pump. For every barrel worth of energy used to extract, ship, process and distribute  the oil, the producer got the energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil out of the ground. We say he had an "Energy Returned on Energy Invested" ratio, EROEI, of 100 : 1. Today, the low hanging fruit has all been picked. Today we are forced to go after the hard to get stuff. Despite technological advances, the EROEI for contemporary "new" reserves just going into production is a mere 7 - 8 : 1. An incredible depletion in resource quality in a mere century! 

              Obviously, from a physical perspective, an EROEI of 1 is the break even point for which you are wasting your time: for every barrel of oil worth of energy you get one barrel of energy back. Your net gain is zero. Economics, though, is a harsher mistress than physics: energy market analysts claim that an EROEI of about 3 - 4 is necessary for economic viability. We are not far from that already. In short, I find it unlikely that the Western societies will have the wealth - or the inclination - to support the kind of programs of nature conservation Prof Wilson advocates. Example: paying a third world country money NOT to extract oil but to perserve the land in a pristine forested condition. Or paying "carbon credits" for the maintenance of rain forest on the grounds that the ecosytem services provided (climate regulation) is worth more than the monies payed in perpetuity to maintain the forest as a wildlife refuge. Wilson admits that small amounts of sustainably harvested products may be extracted from the forest to offset its upkeep. In addition, ecotourism can provide some payback. Once again, I think he is being overoptimistic about the perspectives for a continued degree of affluence in an energy starved West. Our wealth and power are historically based on cheap energy. Take that cheap energy away and so goes our wealth and power. I may be wrong here, of course, but I don't see the future as rosy as Wilson does.

              Future, though, provides a wealth of information about human / environment interactions. Natural wealth includes essential "ecosystem services" such as oxygen, clean water, bacterial recycling of waste but also the esthetic and health restoring values of natural surroundings. A strong body of evidence is emerging that optimal human health, both physical and mental, is obtained, maintained, or regained by regular contact with the natural world and / or its domesticated representatives like cats, dogs, horses ("therapeutic animal visits" to pension houses, prisons or disturbed / spinal cord injured children for example). It turns out that when you begin adding up all the free ecosystem services in dollar equivalents you arrive at a sum that is (minimally) double the global Gross Nation Product! (Page 106)

             Fortunately, Wilson demolishes the simplistic dollar equivalence valuation. In reality, natural ecosystem serices are vital: without oxygen we die in a few minutes; without water, within a week or so; without food, maybe about a month. Simply put, life is worth more than money when push comes to shove. In practice, this means that the "marginal value" of natural ecosystem services rises exceedingly sharply with increasing scarcity. If water is rationed in an equitable manner and everybody get enough, we bathe less and bitch. Reduce the ration further and we're willing to go to war, eventually even to kill our neighbors to assure our family has enough. Simple dollar valuation cannot account for this quality of essential serves or goods. In the limit a dollar spent on water or food is not worth a dollar spent on a SUV or the gas to run it.

          Even in purely economic terms, going green sometimes wins hands down. Wilson analyzes the case of New York City and the Catskill Mountain catchment basin. As NYC population grew, forests were cleared, farms spread and water quality declined. A proposed filtration plant would have cost $6 to $8 billion with $300 million annual running costs. The city wisely chose an alternative route: it bought and upgraded forested land and subsidized the upgrading of sceptic tanks in the Catskill catchment. Cost a "mere" $1 billion and lower running costs. Better! In addition, the people of NYC and the catchment basin benefit from the "double gift from nature" in perpetuity of clean water at low cost and a beautiful recreational area at no, or little, additional cost. Seems like a no brainer: why don't our leaders do more "system thinking"? Alas, Future, offers no answer to this question..

              It's a bit hard rating a book a disagree with so much written by an author I generally admire. If I put myself in the place of a potentially targeted reader - a 16 year old asking questions, possibly with some interest in earth or space science - I would probably consider this an informative book on several levels: 1- a good, solid set of humane, life-affirming values and 2- a lot of info on human / natural interaction and its economic values and dis-values. From that perspective, I think Wilson has done a good job: give it 8 points on 10, then.

Book Review: E O Wilson: The Social Conquest of Earth

E O Wilson: The Social Conquest of Earth (Liveright Publishing , NY, 2012) 297 pages, references (adequate), index (minimal). Well illustrated: drawings, photos, tables

abbreviations used: EP - Evolutionary Psychology 
                                NS - natural selection

       I had the good fortune to read this text soon after reading Robert Wright's The Moral Animal (1994), another "classic" of Evolutionary Psychology (EP) destined for a wide reading public. These two texts published nearly two decades apart provide a fascinating series of snapshots of a rapidly evolving area of scientific investigation. It is possible we are witnessing, or have already witnessed, the birth of a new science, EP - formerly known as "Sociobiology". Texts such as Wright's and Wilson's would correspond, roughly, to Darwin's  Origin of Species. Time will tell if EP is a viable addition to the family of sciences or merely a passing intellectual fad.

           What is EP? The study of human behavior - or the human mind - and its evolutionary history. What is its inherent interest? Wilson, like Wright before him, argues that knowledge is power, power to change our currently irrational, self-destructive behaviors which are causing ecosystem collapse, climate change, overpopulation, etc. At this stage of the game, no one knows if such a supposition is warranted or not. Once again, "time will tell"..

           The gist of Wilson's analysis is that wo/man is a"chimeric being" with bipolar instinctive impulses in eternal conflict - the "human condition" so well described by modern existentialist philosophers.. This "house divided against itself" condition is due to the fact that our basic instinctual drives have been "programmed" from two different - usually  opposing - levels of natural selection (NS). The first level is the individual. NS selects for those who look out for # 1. Selfish, status seeking behaviors are selected for. However, NS also operates on another level of biological (and genetic) organization: the group. Here, "altruistic" behaviors, and the genes which support or facilitate them, are selected for. Such (potentially) self-sacrificing, co-operative behaviors often do not favor the survival of the individual but rather increase the efficiency with which the social group can harvest the resources of its environment and compete with other social groups of the same  - or similar - species. 

       In this perspective, genes do not, usually, "cause" behavior but modify their intensity, frequency, timing, probability, etc. A mutation in a cerebral neurotransmitter regulating gene might enhance nurturing behaviors in situations where such behaviors are appropriate. If, in addition, there were selective pressures such that nurturing individuals produced more successfully breeding offspring, the mutant gene would tend to spread in population. Eventually the mutant might eliminate "competing" alleles (variant forms of the gene). Alternatively, a balance in frequency of occurrence  between the mutant and other alleles might be struck, a balance which shifts as environmental conditions fluctuate. As environmental conditions - including competition with other groups or species - shift the balance of benefits and disadvantages between the different alleles, their relative frequency of occurrence in the population will vary accordingly. "Success" in the Darwinian "struggle for survival" in the end means reproductive success of a genetic lineage over time.

         Humanity evolved as a highly adaptable, intelligent, tool making / tool using primate. Our nature is basically social. Our true strength lies in strategizing and working together. A strength which is also our weakness for, like other social mammals, "alien" groups and those belonging to them are naturally seen as enemies or competitors for the resources of our territory. This situation, transposed into  the modern technological era of atom bombs and genetic engineering is obviously untenable. Tribalism in its ancestral expression must go or we will not survive as a civilization. Since we cannot change our nature - we will remain tribal as long as we remain human - we must adopt tribal urges and needs to modern conditions of living. One suggestion: we must learn to decentralize our systems of governance and our economies. Humans have survived and thrived against imposing odds when they lived in small, cooperative, self-governing social bands (hunter-gatherer clans). One knew one's neighbor, one worked with him and one governed the community with him. One depended on one's neighbor in hard times. This is the good side of tribalism - as Wilson recognizes.  Much of the misery and failure of modern, depersonalized, industrial societies lies in the loss of these positive aspects of tribal life. We have, perhaps rejected these aspects at our own peril: might not some of the collective social monstrosities of the 20th century - fascism and communism in particular - be due to a desperate attempt to recapture the tribal?

          Wilson argues that genes drive cultural evolution. These genes act through group selection: groups which cooperate best compete best. This process is "recursive", like that old riddle puts it: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Genes drive social / cultural evolution which, in turn, selects for particular genetically determined traits. Society does this by selectively rewarding - in such ways as to increase reproductive success - individuals who exhibit desired traits (the assumption being that the trait in question has some, at least, genetic determination). At the limit, it is arguable that our genes have been selected to make us culture creating animals. So much for the old "Nature versus Nurture" debate. "Human nature" - our genome - and "Culture" are interacting, not mutually exclusive categories. The situation is analogous to the relation of the individual and the society they live in. The society shapes and nurtures the individuals who compose it. The society, in turn, emerges from the collective behavior of the individuals who compose it. Chicken or egg?

           From this perspective, it is not hard to see why so many cultural traits appear either universal or quasi-universal around the world: language, music, poetry, marriage, hierarchy, justice and law, religion, magic, divination, belief in gods and some kind of afterlife, medicinal use of plants, manners and customs, rites and rituals, taboos, superstitions, respect, honor and shame, humor, crime and deviance, architecture, time reckoning and so on. The list is impressionably long, in fact. The fact that there is so much "in common" between human groups - yet expressed so differently! - strongly suggests a common (hence genetic) origin. All men have language, this is genetically determined. But what that language will be, what it sounds like, what its particular genius will be depends upon local and historical contingencies, not genes.

            The scientific study of color language, for example, tends to confirm these insights. If we look at the number of colors different languages recognize, we are surprised by the common sequence by which new colors are added:

- white and black: two color words used
- red is added next: three word color vocabulary
- either green or yellow is added next: four color words used
- five color cultures invariably recognize: white, black, red, green AND yellow
- six color cultures add blue
- seven color cultures add brown

             The statistical odds against such invariance are very large. At the physiological level, the pattern observed reflects well the varying sensitivity of the human eye to different colors. Thus in color naming - a cultural trait - our genetically determined physiology plays a strong role. Caveat! Humans are not "biological robots". It is culture - and, to some degree, environment - that determines how many colors are recognized..

            Human social nature appears to represent a powerful advance in evolutionary and adaptive potential. Sociality permits NS to operate in a more "holistic" fashion because what is being selected for are not individual traits of physiology but behavior patterns (and their supporting emotional matrix) emerging from the interactions of many individuals. Much the same may be said of cognitive abilities. Emerging problem solving abilities are linked with the evolution of language as language allows a group of individuals to share a common cognitive field and exchange information, increasing the "bag of survival tricks" the group possesses. Example: the ability to integrate cognitive aptitudes within the individual mind. Chimps, surprisingly, are more spontaneously innovative than humans. The average chimp can figure out more novel uses of screw drivers and hair blowers than you can, hands down. But their ingenuity lies mostly fallow: they do not pass on their inventions to future generations the way humans have learned to do. Our spontaneous mechanical ingenuity may be less than theirs but, as a species, our innovativeness seems better integrated into our overall psychology and social behavior. Our capacity, not just to innovate, but pass on innovations and build upon past innovations has allowed homo sapiens, as the book of Genesis puts it, to "dominate the earth". Language - a shared or group phenomenon - is another product of "holistic" NS acting at the level of the group, not the individual organism.

           Wilson emphasizes that, as evolution proceeds, it seems to act in a more holistic fashion. In the  early stages of proto-life - the "chemical soup" of the early oceans - random "mutations" could occur in the cycles of self-replication of autocatalyzing enzymes. Such "mutations" could, sometimes, result in more efficient autocatalyzing cycles. Less energy might be used for the enzyme molecule to copy itself. Or it might make fewer - or better! - errors during the copying process. Such "improved" enzyme cycles would, being more efficient in harvesting the energy and material of their environment, tend to dominate and lead to more efficient self-replicating chemical cycles. From such humble origins, life emerged. Or so the new book of Genesis, written by Science, reads..

         With the emergence of more complex nervous systems and complex social behaviors (birds, mammals, social insects), NS could act on more "holistic", integrative properties of collectivities. For proto-humans and early humans, this group level was represented by the hunter-gatherer clan of several dozen to, perhaps, several hundred individuals. Groups who harvested the resources of their territory more efficiently tend to displace - or eliminate - the less efficient. In the process, human traits like group solidarity and our sense of justice emerged. And so did our propensity for tribalism, nationalism and racism - the dark, obverse face of group solidarity and brotherhood.

          Human cultural evolution, especially after the introduction of modern science and technology, poses some very special problems and perspectives, some of which make me wonder if EP - being a science - is capable of addressing them in their fullness.Our science makes us morally responsible for the life of our world in a way that applies to no other animal, past or present - just for openers..

             EP is, generously, an emerging science. (It may have an analogy in Astrobiology, the study of the physical conditions under which life emerges in the cosmos.) It's weaknesses: relatively weak explanatory power, resulting in instability of foundational categories and principles. Thus, back in 1994, a widely acclaimed popularization of EP, The Moral Animal by Robert Wright defined three principles which found EP as kin-selection, reciprocal altruism and social status. Less than two decades later, one of the founders of EP, EO Wilson himself, rejects kin-selection - which he formerly championed -and replaced it by group-selection. The difference may seem slight to the outsider but both Wright and Wilson emphasize their incompatibility. Kin-selection operates on related individuals (kin). The biological  clan is the nexus and target of NS's ministrations. Group selection operates on the level of competing social groups (generally composed of a mix of related and non-related individuals). The fact that foundational principles are still in such a fluid state suggests that EP may not yet have fully won its spurs as a full-fledged science. It may be moving through a transitional phase. One one side, the pre-scientific array of competing "schools" (one thinks of schools of psycho-analysis or Communism's various sects). One the other side, the Sciences, each with its dominant "paradigm" or consentually agreed upon hypothetical model guiding research.

        I have read several books on EP recently and found them fascinating. EP will, probably, have its plate full with the emerging study of religion and religious behavior. EP appears to ask the right kinds of question: not "does God exist?" but "what is the function of religion - or belief in God - in human societies and in their evolution?", "what advantages did religious behavior confer on those groups which possessed genes favoring the emergence of such behaviors?"

       I found Wilson's discussion of religion perhaps the weakest part of the text. Not from lack of sympathy with his critique: I concur that religion's hands are blood drenched, that, indeed, religion is "irrational". While Wilson admits the attraction of religion, one feels his resistance to the subject. He gives lip service to religion's power: "the power of organized religion is based upon their contribution to social order and personal security, not to the search for truth. The goal of religions is submission to the will and common good of the tribe" (page 259).

           Indeed, Wilson captures much truth here but distorts some. It is probably too early to assess "modernity" - we live too close to the trees to see the general lay of the forest - but one interpretation of the 20th century reads: if God is dead, then He must be resurrected. The political ideologies of the last century may be seen as surrogates for dead faiths. Like religions proper, they often make high demands and force an "ascetic" existence upon the zealous. The Marxist future utopia - the Classless Society - justified much human sacrifice, both self-immolation and (mass-)murder. Is this different from high demand religious faiths like, during certain phases, Christianity or Islam? It may be that the role of religion in providing "social order" - a "road map of reality" - may be primordial - and irreplaceable. Time will tell..

           "The goal of religion is submission to the will and common good of the tribe". This statement is perhaps more ripe with (discordant) meanings than Wilson realized. One might debate whether or not tribes - like anthills - actually possess anything that could, by analogy with individual minds, be called a (collective) Will. However, for me, the important point is submission to the  common good of the tribe. The question is obviously a minefield. For example, WHO determines is the common good? Today, with our burgeoning - and interlocking, mutually reinforcing - ecological, social, moral, political and economic crises, the idea of a common tribal good - for all of humanity if not the entire biosphere - is becoming strongly clarified. Once we choose to reject the narcissistic option, we are left with questions like: what kind of a world do we WANT to leave to our children?

           I feel that Wilson does not address the fully metaphoric power of religious language and thought. It is arguable that "religion" - or other similar modes of cognition - allows people to break through logical / emotional logjams of suffering, loss, grief, absurdity.. to reach places of healing and transcendence. But rather than address these transformative powers of religion, Wilson restricts his discussion to "intellectual" matters such as the (literal) validity of creationist claims or the belief that the universe possesses an overall purpose conferred by the Deity. In so doing, he skirts the potentially beneficial, healing power of religion to "unite the tribe" in a web of solidarity, caring and mutual aid.

          Above all, religion was "invented" to satisfy a basic human need or cluster of needs: the need to situate or ground our existence in a larger whole which provides our life with context, meaning, purpose, signification, value. Viktor Frankl, was a psychotherapist who survived the Nazi death camps. Frankl observed that without a sense of purpose, human life degenerates, becoming existentially flat and clinically neurotic: Man does not live by bread alone. But a wo/man with a strong life affirming sense of purpose might survive hell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl

        Religion may likewise satisfy basic human need for collective rites and rituals which forge , express, reinforce and celebrate community solidarity and brotherhood. One American Episcopalian bishop, John Shelby Spong, has gone as far a identifying God with love. We pray, says Spong, in working for social justice in an active, engaged fashion. Like traditional religions and 20th century political ideologies, Spong's vision of the faithful life makes high demands in time and commitment. It demands a certain form - or attitude - of "asceticism": engagement, faith, devotion, sacrifice, commitment, effort, even risk. Such human needs run deep (but are highly variable in intensity and expression from one individual to another).

        Perhaps the strongest point of Wilson's philosophy lies in his commitment to reason. I have an image of one overlooking a vast panorama (our human evolutionary history in Deep Time perspective.) This view, if cultivated, helps us to "fix" - contextualize - our human strengths, talents, abilities, weaknesses and failings. This "view from a high place" encourages a certain measure of compassion towards others -  perhaps even towards ourselves! - and toward life as a whole. Unfortunately, since Wilson does not fully estimate religion's potentiality for expressing the best in ourselves, his deep and often compelling insights lie fallow.

          The Social Conquest of Earth is a fascinating, engaging, popular introduction to an emerging field of scientific study, Evolutionary Psychology - a work in progress. A good book, mildly flawed stylistically in places - 8 on 10.

Book Review: Anthill by E. O. Wilson

E. O. Wilson: "Anthill" (W. W. Norton, New York, 210), 378 pages.

E O Wilson, the (in)famous "sociobiologist" has written his first novel and it is a winner.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sociobiology/

This American scholar has given us a privileged view into the environmental "culture wars" wracking his country and his hopeful view of what can be done to build bridges between the warring camps.

"Anthill" is, at root, the coming of age story of a young, Alabaman ecological activist. Raphel Semmes Cody represents in his birth some of the internal divisions of his culture. His dad is a working class cracker, his mother, the scion of a family of land developers with proud Civil War (Confederacy) roots. She loves her man but is secretly ashamed of her fallen social status.

But Raphael - or Raff, as he always called - is something of a free spirit, a non-conformer. While not a great student, he is drawn from an early age to the life of a naturalist. "His" land is the Nokobee Lake tract of wildland where his family often picnics. A chance meeting of the small family with a biology professor from Florida State University ends up launching Raff for earnest into the life of the natualist scholar. The relationship between Raff and his adopted "uncle Fred" remains one of the anchors and motive forces of his life. Raff goes on to study earth science at Florida State, graduating with honors.

While a student, Raff learned from his land developer uncle (on his mother's side), Cyrus, that the Nokobee Lake tract's days are counted. Sooner or later, within a few years, the wilderness will be razed and covered over with concrete. Since he loves "his" land about as much as his life, Raff decides to go to the best law school, Harvard, - his marks and family connections permit it - to study environmental law in order to protect his land. Raff undoubtedly serves as a foil for author Wilson's own ideas about reconciling the competing worlds of Nature and Progress.

At Harvard, Raff becomes something of an expert in conflict resolution. His goal, as an environmental lawyer, is to reach compromises through which both parties - the environment and those who want to protect it and those promising jobs through "development" - find satisfaction and can live in peace. In the simplest cases, a tract of biodiverse land might be exchanged for one with less ecological importance. Despite his basic good nature and compromising spirit, down deep Raff recognizes that no one is going to defend the land if he doesn't. Passing the buck doesn't count in this most final of "culture wars", the war to save the earth we walk upon from human greed.

Unfortunately, people get hurt in wars and soon Raff crosses swords with the religious extreme right. He has returned to work for the company of his developer uncle Cyrus as attorney and counsel on land issues. Somehow his work comes to the attention of a fanatical self-ordained preacher, the "Reverend" LeBow, who is convinced that the End Days are here. Jesus wants the world to end so he can establish the Kingdom of God. People like Raff who fight for the earth are therefore serving God's enemy, Satan in person. At first LeBow tries to frighten Raff off with lightly veiled threats of violence. When Raff continues, drawing publicity to himself in ongoing negotiations to develop a strip of the Nokobee Tract while protecting the rest, LeBow decides, simply, to eliminate him.

Wilson, for a first time novelist, shows himself surprisingly versatile in the action packed and graphically violent concluding pages. To Wilson's credit he does not glorify or romanticize violence: he depicts it all its biological, sensorial and existential nastiness. This, I suspect, was intentional.

"Reverend" LeBow and a couple of accomplices have stalked Raff and, as he is leaving the tract after a day of photography and solitary wandering, they confront him and force him to accompany them on a walk to the river flowing from Lake Nokobee. Raffs notes the concealed weapons and decides he has to make a break for it or he will end up in the river as the gators' supper.

So as not to spoil the surprises, I will go no further. However, blood is shed and Raff escapes. He contemplates dropping environmentalism but a call from a collaborator, a local environmental journalist, thanking him for his good work in saving 90% of the Nokobee tract from development, rekindles his sense of duty and mission.

Raff, as expected, bears post-traumatic stress syndrome scars from the attempted assassination. He can no longer enter the Nokobee tract unless he is surrounded by people. However, his boy scout troop serves him well here. On an outing to Nokobee lake, as the sun sets and the boys wait for the bus home, Raff contemplates his world, his land: "Nokobee was here, now and forever, living and whole and serene as he had first found it in his childhood. This was his sacred place.. Nokobee was a habitat of infinite knowledge and mystery, beyond the reach of the meager human brain.. It was his island in a meaningless sea. Because Nokobee survived, he survived. Because it preserved its meaning, he preserved his meaning. Nokobee has granted him these precious gifts. Now it would heal him. In return, he had restored its immortality, and eternal youth, and the continuity of its deep history."
What greater manifesto of environmental activism could one find?

Although Wilson is a noted scholar and has published many books and papers, this is a surprisingly strong first novel: it won the Pulitzer Prize.

I really love Wilson's description of the ideal scholar. In a note to the admissions committee at Florida State, "Uncle Fred", the biology professor who served as Raff's mentor in all things natural, wrote "Raphael Semmes Cody, admittedly has participated in no team sport, or sport of any kind. He plays no musical instrument. He has never been more than two hundred miles from Clayville, Alabama. But then, one recalls, Henry David Thoreau was similarly limited. Like Thoreau, young Cody walks to a different drummer's beat. As his Eagle Scout record shows, he is ambitious and hardworking in a unique way, with goals of his own choosing. I predict that among the ten thousand students admitted this year to FSU, he will someday be one of the alumni whom this university will be most proud."

One of the more surprising and interesting sections of the novel is the section entitled "The anthill chronicles" in which Wilson, drawing from his own studies as a biologist, describes the life an ant colony - from the ants' perspective. It makes for very interesting reading for nature and science buffs.

It's hard to fault "Anthill" much, aside from the odd clumsy or ambiguous sentence. In this novel, Wilson reveals his own liberal, middle of the road, biases and ideology: "Raff lived by three maxims. Fortune favors the prepared mind. People follow someone who knows where he's going. And control the middle, because that's where the extremes eventually meet." It's inspirational message to those struggling for a livable future is tonic and bracing. Let's hope he's right. I willingly give "Anthill" a nine on ten.