99
Indo- Malay islands, for example, he perceived vast disparities in numbers of species (parrots versus pigeons), despite ample time for evolution to have altered and
equalized biological composition within insular regions.
11
In the absence of a clear
story to explain the apparent discrepant representations of different genera, Wallace
expanded his geographical understanding of biodiversity in general to conclude
with a global picture, closer to the presumed truth of species equilibria. He enlarged
the context of understanding; rewrote the atlas of mind, achieving a new equilibrium or center from which to gaze out at the world, renewed.
If there is an ecological argument for equilibrium, within the too obvious tumult
that occasions every observation of, and feeling about, nature, then it would theoretically require, and ethically should suggest, a treatment (human behavior meted
out) of individuals in no different a manner than entire populations. And then on to
complete ecosystems and ecosystem behavior. A most curious approach to what
E. Gordon Ericksen describes under the heading of “The Principle of Insufficiency:
The Assertion Model” is his sense of the mirroring effect: “Knowing that, like a
mirror, a person reflects a neighborhood, a town, a nation, a place of work, a home…
”
12
And for philosopher/political activist Jerome M. Segal, “The adequacy of a specific conception of the self cannot be assessed without some prior conception of the
kind of theorizing in which we are engaged.”
13
The mirroring is like that theoretical
premise of personal involvement which motivated Wallace during his time observing habitat throughout Indonesia and surrounding regions. A concept that hinged
upon a sense of perfect equipoise spanning individuals and populations (a mirroring), which is why he was so firm a believer in, and co-author of, the overall concept
of evolution, along with Darwin to whom he dedicated his book The Malay
Archipelago, the ultimate sense that evolution mirrored and propelled every one of
us, personally. While its impetus echoed the old and severely obsolete cliché Man is
the Measure of All Things, its incarnations in Wallace and Darwin looked very different, as if to remedy the Cartesian fallacy of feeling superior with a primal
acknowledgement of the privacy, personality, and biographical details enlisted in
the act of epiphany.
Far more recently, Jared Diamond examined mechanisms inherent to equilibrium
among bird populations on islands that were once connected to New Guinea’s mainland. His underlying methodology was core species-curve mathematics, the numeric
description—long held as a kind of gospel of biogeography—which argued for specific “relaxation time” between species number agitations, great flux, looming
extinctions, and/or re-establishment of equilibrium, of a balance, once pre-existent,
11 See The Malay Archipelago – The Land Of The Orang-Utan And The Bird Of Paradise, A
Narrative Of Travel With Studies Of Man And Nature, Alfred Russel Wallace, Macmillan And Co.,
Ltd., London, 1906, p. 303.
12 The Territorial Experience – Human Ecology As Symbolic Interaction, by E. Gordon Ericksen,
Foreword by Herbert Blumer, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1980, p. 103.
13 Jerome M. Segal, Agency And Alienation -A Theory Of Human Presence, Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Inc., Savage, Maryland, 1991, p. 55.
10.3 The Argument for Equilibria
Indo- Malay islands, for example, he perceived vast disparities in numbers of species (parrots versus pigeons), despite ample time for evolution to have altered and
equalized biological composition within insular regions.
11
In the absence of a clear
story to explain the apparent discrepant representations of different genera, Wallace
expanded his geographical understanding of biodiversity in general to conclude
with a global picture, closer to the presumed truth of species equilibria. He enlarged
the context of understanding; rewrote the atlas of mind, achieving a new equilibrium or center from which to gaze out at the world, renewed.
If there is an ecological argument for equilibrium, within the too obvious tumult
that occasions every observation of, and feeling about, nature, then it would theoretically require, and ethically should suggest, a treatment (human behavior meted
out) of individuals in no different a manner than entire populations. And then on to
complete ecosystems and ecosystem behavior. A most curious approach to what
E. Gordon Ericksen describes under the heading of “The Principle of Insufficiency:
The Assertion Model” is his sense of the mirroring effect: “Knowing that, like a
mirror, a person reflects a neighborhood, a town, a nation, a place of work, a home…
”
12
And for philosopher/political activist Jerome M. Segal, “The adequacy of a specific conception of the self cannot be assessed without some prior conception of the
kind of theorizing in which we are engaged.”
13
The mirroring is like that theoretical
premise of personal involvement which motivated Wallace during his time observing habitat throughout Indonesia and surrounding regions. A concept that hinged
upon a sense of perfect equipoise spanning individuals and populations (a mirroring), which is why he was so firm a believer in, and co-author of, the overall concept
of evolution, along with Darwin to whom he dedicated his book The Malay
Archipelago, the ultimate sense that evolution mirrored and propelled every one of
us, personally. While its impetus echoed the old and severely obsolete cliché Man is
the Measure of All Things, its incarnations in Wallace and Darwin looked very different, as if to remedy the Cartesian fallacy of feeling superior with a primal
acknowledgement of the privacy, personality, and biographical details enlisted in
the act of epiphany.
Far more recently, Jared Diamond examined mechanisms inherent to equilibrium
among bird populations on islands that were once connected to New Guinea’s mainland. His underlying methodology was core species-curve mathematics, the numeric
description—long held as a kind of gospel of biogeography—which argued for specific “relaxation time” between species number agitations, great flux, looming
extinctions, and/or re-establishment of equilibrium, of a balance, once pre-existent,
11 See The Malay Archipelago – The Land Of The Orang-Utan And The Bird Of Paradise, A
Narrative Of Travel With Studies Of Man And Nature, Alfred Russel Wallace, Macmillan And Co.,
Ltd., London, 1906, p. 303.
12 The Territorial Experience – Human Ecology As Symbolic Interaction, by E. Gordon Ericksen,
Foreword by Herbert Blumer, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1980, p. 103.
13 Jerome M. Segal, Agency And Alienation -A Theory Of Human Presence, Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Inc., Savage, Maryland, 1991, p. 55.
10.3 The Argument for Equilibria