A ‘State of Nature’ Has Been Lost Forever
[Source for this essay is a Washington Post article by Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis in June 2016: see here.]
“‘Let’s get back to that natural environment with humans out of the picture. . .’—that’s a chimera, a false hope. . . it’s too late for that,” declares Melinda Zeder. co-author of a paper published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, stuffed with anthropological, paleoecological and archaeological evidence, establishes that humans have been modifying the natural environment for many tens of thousands of years. Well, we knew that. . . and we’ve also been exposed to this line of thinking, if not for tens of thousands of years, for long enough to have drummed into our heads the idea that returning significant portions of the Earth to Nature is a doomed hope.
Continue reading “Giving up on Natural: Do We Need Intelligent (Human) Design?”