On his book Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity from Darwin to the Anthropocene
Cover Interview of September 30, 2020
Lastly
My assumption is that readers of this book are aware of and
concerned about the impact of climate change and other crises linked to human
activity. I did not write this book to question the seriousness of these
developments, but I do want my readers to think critically about the
relationship between science and culture.
While there are certainly isolated examples of rogue
scientists who have distorted their findings to serve the interests of industry
or politicians, science is more often cultural or political in other, less
dramatic ways. The relationship between fact, theory, and belief is extremely
complex: facts, like the reality of mass extinctions in the geological past,
have contributed to theories, like the nuclear winter scenario, which in turn
have conditioned beliefs, like the certainty that biodiversity is an inherently
good thing. If we look, say, at the development of the biodiversity movement in
the 1990s and beyond, which is the subject of the last chapter of the book, we
see that all of these concerns are combined in the practice of science
itself.
Importantly, general receptiveness to scientific ideas is
strongly conditioned—among scientists as well as the public—by prevailing
cultural attitudes. It was no coincidence, the book argues, that the reality of
past catastrophic mass extinctions gained widespread acceptance in the era of
nuclear proliferation, whereas Victorian naturalists like Darwin rejected such
proposals in favor of a model of earth’s history that reinforced wider beliefs
about progress and cultural superiority in human society. Likewise, the current
belief that biological and cultural diversity is essential for the survival of
humanity was conditioned by studies—in ecology, genetics, and
paleontology—suggesting that ecological systems are more stable when they are
more diverse.
This shouldn’t convince us to mistrust scientists—who are
only human, after all—but should give us pause when reflecting on the cultural
authority of science. By providing a window on the complex relationship between
scientific authority and cultural values, this book encourages readers to be
critical and reflective about the sources of some of the deepest values we
hold. In the twenty-first century we will increasingly rely on science to help
us understand and hopefully overcome the challenges we face, but we must
understand that science itself cannot tell us what to care about or how to act.
[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
Lastly
My assumption is that readers of this book are aware of and concerned about the impact of climate change and other crises linked to human activity. I did not write this book to question the seriousness of these developments, but I do want my readers to think critically about the relationship between science and culture.
While there are certainly isolated examples of rogue scientists who have distorted their findings to serve the interests of industry or politicians, science is more often cultural or political in other, less dramatic ways. The relationship between fact, theory, and belief is extremely complex: facts, like the reality of mass extinctions in the geological past, have contributed to theories, like the nuclear winter scenario, which in turn have conditioned beliefs, like the certainty that biodiversity is an inherently good thing. If we look, say, at the development of the biodiversity movement in the 1990s and beyond, which is the subject of the last chapter of the book, we see that all of these concerns are combined in the practice of science itself.
Importantly, general receptiveness to scientific ideas is strongly conditioned—among scientists as well as the public—by prevailing cultural attitudes. It was no coincidence, the book argues, that the reality of past catastrophic mass extinctions gained widespread acceptance in the era of nuclear proliferation, whereas Victorian naturalists like Darwin rejected such proposals in favor of a model of earth’s history that reinforced wider beliefs about progress and cultural superiority in human society. Likewise, the current belief that biological and cultural diversity is essential for the survival of humanity was conditioned by studies—in ecology, genetics, and paleontology—suggesting that ecological systems are more stable when they are more diverse.
This shouldn’t convince us to mistrust scientists—who are only human, after all—but should give us pause when reflecting on the cultural authority of science. By providing a window on the complex relationship between scientific authority and cultural values, this book encourages readers to be critical and reflective about the sources of some of the deepest values we hold. In the twenty-first century we will increasingly rely on science to help us understand and hopefully overcome the challenges we face, but we must understand that science itself cannot tell us what to care about or how to act.