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Published on Visualizing Ecology (http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter)

shaun libman

“The chain thus becomes an ascending scale of larger and larger mouths and bellies…The only species that ignores these rules is civilized man, with his artificial techniques for more efficient food-gathering. He can kill the largest animals on earth, or he can gather the smallest grain and seeds, and so eat lower on the food chain. But for Elton, modern man is distinctly an outsider, not to be confused with the natural economic system and its working.”

 

This thought, that humans are not part of the natural world has intrigued me. Is it some part of our vanity that thinks we qualify as something above nature? We have always classified our self’s as more important than other animals. Even though that way of thinking has proved necessary at times, we shouldn’t be so sure. It is very hard to seriously question this though because we seem to truly be more superior. So which of our features separates us? Is this question for philosophers and not for scientists? Is the job of the scientist to distinguish and discover at all costs? I believe that morals have been compromised in the name of science and very important things have been made and known directly because of that.

 

            We don’t seem to live as other animals. We eat differently. We cook and process, build and clear. We are amazing. We are so awful. We can all sit and talk of our self’s as the most amazing raze, we could go on listing out accomplishments for hundreds of years. We could also have a similar conversation for equally as long if not longer about all the harm we have created. We have created science and math for that matter. So thank you us. That must make us superior? Is all this accomplishment and destruction proved that we are truly in a whole different league then all those other species?

 

            Simply put, why there is always is clash, why we always seem to be competing with the ecosystems that we live in or are near, is because we are part of them. We should never think that we hold place above the natural world. We still have inseparable, inseverable ties with the natural world. I believe does include us.

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Source URL:
http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter/visecowinter/shaun-libman-1