"Value-free" science and ecological ethics

Dhlazare Dhlazare at aol.com
Mon May 18 13:39:30 PDT 1998


In a message dated 98-05-16 10:56:40 EDT, you write:

Louis Proyect writes: << Some

ecosystems are in "balance" while others are not. For instance, the gentle

Arawak who Columbus wiped out in the 15th century were, by his own

admission, living in balance with nature. Meanwhile, the European cities of

the 15th century with their paupers, congestion, open sewers and rat

infestation were also ecosystems, but somewhat out of balance.

"By his own admission"? This doesn't make it true...

LP adds:

In the case of Stephen Jay Gould, one might make

the observation that his "Marxism" is rather well-isolated from his

popular, scientific investigations into a wide variety of topics. Unlike

the outspokenly green but non-Marxist paleontologist Richard Leaky, Gould

has never made a big issue of how dinosaur extinction might relate to the

threat of our own extinction. A comet might have caused the climate changes

that cooled off the atmosphere to such an extent that dinosaurs perished.

By the same token, greenhouse gases might have the opposite effect and make

our own continuing existence impossible. In Gould's view, there will always

be the consolation of the surviving bacteria.

>> Again, I'm confused. Human society is not facing extinction. It's facing environmental degradation, which is a very different thing. People will survive, but not on the level we think they should. It seems to me that all Gould is saying is that rather than deferring to nature, people must recognize that their fate is in their own hands, that they must take responsibility for transforming the world as they would like it to be. What's wrong with that?

Dan Lazare



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