ARCHIVE - Visualizing Ecology - Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/taxonomy/term/7/0 en ARCHIVE - Aileen Milliman - Week 2 http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/aileen-milliman-week-2 <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">“I take infinite pains to know the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I posses and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.” -Thoreau (Worster 66)</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">    Thoreau&#39;s use of the term “demigod” to refer to his ancestors points out the intrinsic anti-nature behavior of the Puritan settlers. Thoreau&#39;s was frustrated by his ancestors&#39; arrogance about nature, and their belief that they were closer to god and therefore were allowed by him to destroy as they saw fit. By claiming this, they placed themselves on a higher tier than their fellow animals and made of man something of a demigod. These humanistic views clashed with those of the Romantics, like Thoreau, who warned that “There is no place for man-worship.” (Worster 85). The settlers, believing that the earth and its inhabitants were put here by a higher being for their own unfettered exploitation, quickly cleared the land of “wilderness” and “civilized” it. They ripped the trees and animals out of the area like they were “tearing the leaves and grandest passages” of nature&#39;s poetic existence. The ripping out of pages suggests that this damage is irreversible, and those who come afterwards will never be able to enjoy this lost beauty. </p><p><a href="http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/aileen-milliman-week-2">read more</a></p> http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/aileen-milliman-week-2#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:21:01 -0800 milail09 87 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter ARCHIVE - Courtney Beauchene Week 2 Commentary http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/courtney-beauchene-week-2-commentary <font face="Arial" size="2"><p>“Any whole, be it an individual life or the entire ecological order, is a system of paired tensions working against each other, non surmounting its opposite, each in its own existence implying the existence of each other” (Worester, 107) Acknowledging the existence of two tensions does not necessarily imply that these tensions have any need to be working against each other. If both exist, then they both work for the whole of the system. Two systems may be said to be opposing forces, but one individual is never entirely separate from the whole. In a system all parts work for the benefit of the system even if the cause may seem to be conflicting. As in ecology, there may be microcosms within the system, but the smaller systems still make up the whole. One organism may be struggling against the force of another to survive, but the success of the organism helps make it better adapted to its environment. The successes and failures of species can have the succeeding species proliferate and be more dominant than the lesser species. In this way, the excess or lack of organisms in an area still works in some way to benefit the area. Implying that all systems are contradictions of even greater contradictions and are equal to each other is not consistent with the succession of life often seen. From what we see of the systems that make up various ecology networks, the greater systems of life are not absolute. These systems are “interrelated and whose whole is completed by individual parts working in unison. It is too simple to see all life process as being distinctly opposing forces. The fact that all components of life are related makes trying to study any particular system difficult. By simplifying the “mechanics” of life to one or another is disregarding the whole. Worester in some way acknowledges the whole, but still sees the individual forces at work as contradictions before being compromised. “ …that all experience is complex to be captured in a single vision, and at the same time that all apparent contradictions are resolvable at last in a larger organic union.” (Worester, 108) The only way to be inclusive of this whole is to acknowledge that all parts of life work together and effect each other entirely. </p></font><p><a href="http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/courtney-beauchene-week-2-commentary">read more</a></p> http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/courtney-beauchene-week-2-commentary#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:18:30 -0800 beacou15 86 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter ARCHIVE - Kathryn Cardenas - Week 2 http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/kathryn-cardenas-week-2 <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Lynn White, Jr. generalizes Christians, and attributes the roots of our abuse of the natural world to Christianity. “We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has not reason for existence save to serve man… the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious…” (n1) </font></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Our ecologic crisis cannot be attributed solely to the Christian religion. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">The destruction of the natural world and ecologic crisis are results of the rise of the modern, human world, and the marriage of science and technology for the benefit of mankind. “The driving motive behind … technological development was the pure and simple desire to increase productivity and wealth.” (n3, pp. 12) The need to make life as comfortable as possible, that science should have a more “useful” purpose besides archiving and observance, is an idea not rooted singularly in Christianity. The crisis is the “product of an emerging, entirely novel, democratic culture.” (n1), not a complete exploitation by a singular group who just happens to have the same religious title. </font></p><p><a href="http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/kathryn-cardenas-week-2">read more</a></p> http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/kathryn-cardenas-week-2#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:03:17 -0800 carkat07 85 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter ARCHIVE - henry week 1 http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/henry-week-1 <p>Henry Browne </p><p>Week 1 commentary</p><p>Christianity did give creation to modern ecology but that does not mean it has an particular characteristics that helped science. It was just a semi-viable substrate, which in the right place and time science could root itself in . Science and religion have the same essential goals, to explain the world, so it only stands to reason that a religious man like White would lay down some of the scientific basis for ecology. It seems like the evolution is for one person to find the root truth in earlier works and embrace them and advance science until his own views take him on some convoluted direction. Then someone else will take his root truths and contributions and take it further and in another direction. Science like corals grows on its ancestors skeletons.</p><p><a href="http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/henry-week-1">read more</a></p> http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/henry-week-1#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Sun, 14 Jan 2007 23:22:25 -0800 brohen24 76 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter ARCHIVE - RHys Jones wk2 http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/rhys-jones-wk2 <p style="line-height: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><font size="2">&quot;Narrow specialization, mathematical abstraction and extensive reliance on elaborate instruments of measurement were all cited as causes for what was seen as the alienation of scientists – and mankind generally – from nature.” (18)</font></p> <p style="line-height: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><span> </span>I don’t think that many people could argue against the statement that mankind has alienated itself from nature; how is the debate. Worster finds many reasons other than the ones quoted above, including Christianity, industrialism, and many other things. But these qualities of contemporary science, this need for white coat laboratory science that has been the alienation of the Arcadian view of nature that is needed to gain a complete understanding of its workings. As Worster has presented to us the truly inspiring works in natural sciences were the ones connected to place, that had meaning, understanding and emotion for the place of study, like White’s Selborne. As we see in contemporary ecology there is a need for “elaborate instruments of measurement” and “mathematical abstraction” to collect the needed data. This is an essential part of modern ecological practices, but there does still seem to prevail a romantic love of nature, beyond the imperial search for resources. Is it possible that there is a blend that can be found in the use of mechanistic methods to reach a holistic goal?<span> </span></font></p><p><a href="http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/rhys-jones-wk2">read more</a></p> http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/rhys-jones-wk2#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:58:08 -0800 jonrhy11 68 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter ARCHIVE - Posting Test http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/posting-test Kathryn Cardenas http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/posting-test#comment Week 2: Christianity and Romantic Science Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:22:12 -0800 carkat07 29 at http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter