On his book Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity from Darwin to the Anthropocene
Cover Interview of September 30, 2020
In a nutshell
“Why do we care about diversity?” Assuming that biological and,
to a lesser extent, cultural diversity are accepted as important values in
current Western society, how did this come to pass, and have we always thought
this way? That is the central question addressed in this book.
While many existing books on biodiversity have examined
various dimensions of the current crisis, mine takes a different approach. Catastrophic
Thinking reconstructs the historical process by which diversity came, over
the past two centuries, to be held as an intrinsic value. Ultimately, I argue that
the celebration of diversity—in both biological and cultural forms—is a fairly
recent invention. And the key concept running throughout this story is
extinction.
We care about biodiversity in large part because we fear the
consequences of its loss: the loss of plants that might provide the basis for
new medicines, the depletion of environments that provide so-called “ecosystem
services” on which our own species depends, the disappearance of animals we
value for food and recreation. In other words, the single, unified threat to
biological diversity is extinction—or more precisely, mass extinction,
which involves the coordinated and cascading extinctions of many groups of
organisms in a relatively short period of time.
Surprisingly, however, extinction was not a major area of scientific
study prior to about 50 years ago, nor did Western culture attach much
significance to the general phenomenon. Indeed, during much of the nineteenth
century and well into the twentieth, Western scientists regarded extinction as
a slow, piecemeal process that punished nature’s “losers” and rewarded those
species that are better adapted for their environments. Charles Darwin, for
example, rejected the notion that mass extinctions had ever occurred in the
geologic past, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that scientists began to take extinction
seriously. Because extinction was not seen as a threat to the health of the
environment, the preservation of biological diversity—and, by extension,
cultural diversity—was simply not considered an important value in Darwin’s day.
Clearly, we see things very differently today, but this
enormous shift in values has not been documented in a comprehensive way. Catastrophic
Thinking tells the story of how a major scientific and cultural shift in
thinking about the consequences of extinction—and ultimately, diversity—took
place over the last 200 years, from a culture that valued diversity very little
to one in which it is held up as a central value. One of the key points of
transformation occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, when the reality of past
global, catastrophic mass extinctions was accepted. This scientific shift was conditioned
by a broader set of political and cultural debates and events spanning the twentieth
century: two world wars, nuclear proliferation, political upheaval, and
environmental disasters all contributed to the sense that human history had
entered an age of crisis.
Scientific consensus about catastrophic change, in other
words, was influenced by and has reinforced a broader “catastrophic thinking”
about the fate of human civilization. It is in this context, I argue, that we
have come to value diversity, because only at this later date have Westerners
tied the fate of our own species to that of the broader natural environment we
inhabit. Our current moment, in which the threat of anthropogenic climate
change and species loss challenges us to consider whether we have permanently
altered the geological and evolutionary trajectory of our planet, is both a
consequence of this longer history, and an opportunity to conceive of new ways
of thinking about our future.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
“Why do we care about diversity?” Assuming that biological and, to a lesser extent, cultural diversity are accepted as important values in current Western society, how did this come to pass, and have we always thought this way? That is the central question addressed in this book.
While many existing books on biodiversity have examined various dimensions of the current crisis, mine takes a different approach. Catastrophic Thinking reconstructs the historical process by which diversity came, over the past two centuries, to be held as an intrinsic value. Ultimately, I argue that the celebration of diversity—in both biological and cultural forms—is a fairly recent invention. And the key concept running throughout this story is extinction.
We care about biodiversity in large part because we fear the consequences of its loss: the loss of plants that might provide the basis for new medicines, the depletion of environments that provide so-called “ecosystem services” on which our own species depends, the disappearance of animals we value for food and recreation. In other words, the single, unified threat to biological diversity is extinction—or more precisely, mass extinction, which involves the coordinated and cascading extinctions of many groups of organisms in a relatively short period of time.
Surprisingly, however, extinction was not a major area of scientific study prior to about 50 years ago, nor did Western culture attach much significance to the general phenomenon. Indeed, during much of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Western scientists regarded extinction as a slow, piecemeal process that punished nature’s “losers” and rewarded those species that are better adapted for their environments. Charles Darwin, for example, rejected the notion that mass extinctions had ever occurred in the geologic past, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that scientists began to take extinction seriously. Because extinction was not seen as a threat to the health of the environment, the preservation of biological diversity—and, by extension, cultural diversity—was simply not considered an important value in Darwin’s day.
Clearly, we see things very differently today, but this enormous shift in values has not been documented in a comprehensive way. Catastrophic Thinking tells the story of how a major scientific and cultural shift in thinking about the consequences of extinction—and ultimately, diversity—took place over the last 200 years, from a culture that valued diversity very little to one in which it is held up as a central value. One of the key points of transformation occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, when the reality of past global, catastrophic mass extinctions was accepted. This scientific shift was conditioned by a broader set of political and cultural debates and events spanning the twentieth century: two world wars, nuclear proliferation, political upheaval, and environmental disasters all contributed to the sense that human history had entered an age of crisis.
Scientific consensus about catastrophic change, in other words, was influenced by and has reinforced a broader “catastrophic thinking” about the fate of human civilization. It is in this context, I argue, that we have come to value diversity, because only at this later date have Westerners tied the fate of our own species to that of the broader natural environment we inhabit. Our current moment, in which the threat of anthropogenic climate change and species loss challenges us to consider whether we have permanently altered the geological and evolutionary trajectory of our planet, is both a consequence of this longer history, and an opportunity to conceive of new ways of thinking about our future.