Big giant heads, unite! 6

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1. 

   Nucbuddy Posted 5:16 am
   06 Apr 2007

   'Behavior cannot be understood without biology'Edward O. Wilson writes:
   
   lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wilson01.html
   The prevailing view in the social sciences in the seventies was essentially that there is no biologically based human nature, that human behavior is almost entirely sociocultural in origin, and therefore that the genes play little or no role except in bestowing intellectual and emotional capacity. I urged the contrasting view, that biology plays a larger role, in close concert with culture, and that human behavior cannot be understood without biology.
   
   

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2. 

   Biodiversivist Posted 10:39 am
   06 Apr 2007

   Wilson is the manbut, as always, there are those out there ready to warp great ideas to support their own beliefs and agendas. Darwin's evolution was perverted into social Darwinism and used by Hitler among others, Ehrlich's warnings on population were picked up by nutjobs calling for euthanasia, Wilson's ideas on sociobiology have attracted their share of skinheads as well. What can you do?
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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3. 

   sideside Posted 12:00 am
   07 Apr 2007

   Biological basis for behaviorErich Fromm emphasized the potential importance of biology in understanding human behavior in his book The Anatomy of Human Destructivness (1973).
   
   
   
   LR Europe

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4. 

   caniscandida Posted 2:48 am
   07 Apr 2007

   HIPPOWow!, this speech was not really very long, and it still manages to be overwhelming in all that it contains.
   Wilson is amazing, the way he rattles off all the novelties: newly discovered vertebrates for starters (a new kind of elephant?!); Prochlorococci; the variety of nematode worms; the possibility that there are microbes on Earth of alien origin; the possibility of recording easily the genomes of all bacteria.
   I am not sure what his proposed Encyclopedia of Life is supposed to be, really.  But the concept that we need to document all the different kinds of living things, as soon as possible, makes sense.  As he illustrated with his Cuban metallic-sheen ants, which he documented back in the 1950s, just the loss of a few acres of forest can bring about the extinction of species that we never knew were there.
   His acronym HIPPO, for referring to the significant elements of the biodiversity crisis, is handy: H is for habitat loss, including what is caused by global warming; I is for invasive species, bringing with them new and unsustainable forms of competition; the first P is for pollution; the second P is for the population growth of humanity; O is for the over-exploitation of species, by hunting, fishing and other kinds of human consumption.
   And the video that he showed, with that woozy Billie Holiday number, was very pretty.
   
   Chickens are our cousins!
   
   So are other sensitive animals!
   
   Enough is enough!
   
   No more factory farms!

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5. 

   Robert Delfs Posted 8:36 pm
   08 Apr 2007

   E. O. Wilson is a hero of mine...... and I'm incredibly jealous (green?) that DR got to interview him last year.  (And did a very nice job.)
   On my favorite subject of island biogeography, by the way, I'm off tomorrow on a trip to the Bandas, Wetar, Alor and Flores.  There are a couple of E. O. Wilson's books that I left on the boat on previous trips.  Great (re-)reading when visiting islands.
   
   Robert Delfs

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6. 

   caniscandida Posted 11:35 pm
   09 Apr 2007

   re-found books!A lovely, not unimportant piece of civilization, that one can forget a book on a boat one season, and expect to find it there, in the library, a couple of seasons later.
   
   Chickens are our cousins!
   
   So are other sensitive animals!
   
   Enough is enough!
   
   No more factory farms!

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