201
this end, the individual, and her/his species, is incapable. Incapable of everything that
would matter in an ideal world, and that poses an inseparable crisis. But, as Calin
O. Schrag long ago considered, “Why is the problem of fact vs. value a problem?...
The true character of this crisis only becomes visible when one moves from the level
of methodological analysis to archaeological inquiry”
17
. By then, of course, it is too
late to realize effective, virtuous change that conforms to any aboriginal land ethic.
Down on the ground, in the middle of the dirt, the concrete, the metallic infrastructure of petroleum extraction—a grotesque edifice that fumes and gorges like a
swollen canker—leads by pipe, truck, and river lorries to towns like Coca
18
barreling through from oblivion to oblivion, graveyard to sand dune. A solitaire stands in
the way and is either mowed down or shrinks into some equal oblivion, amid exponentially endowed quadrillion, quintrillion, sextillion numerics that are the cells,
leaf stomata, bacteria within the insects and spiders, the droplets of moisture, and
vast entanglements of soil. These continua have self-honed into a stability that
defies all encroachment, until the eleventh hour. And in Yasuní, an especially critical
premonition of such ambiguity abases the human family tree, given that it is considered to be among the most biologically diverse micro-quadrants on earth, with as
many as 100,000 invertebrate species per hectare, and other numeric superlatives
across nearly every suite of plants and animals. Indeed, scientific consensus now has
it that Yasuní, in fact, is as close as we are ever likely to get to something approaching the planet’s epicenter of the collective life force.
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas
Biologists speak of the C-value paradox that recognizes far greater amounts of DNA
in what most had taken to be, for example, a simple unicellular Polychaos dubium
(freshwater amoeboid) genome. Whereas nearly 99% of our human DNA is noncoding, meaning that our proteins, amino acids, and genes are largely redundant, or
outright “junk.” Not so throughout the rainforests of Yasuní. Here, 98% of the DNA
is indeed meaningful, perhaps purposeful. These are just words. It has evolved to be
necessary for physical thought, not abstract thought. The G-value paradox adds
further complexity to what, ultimately, is our own ignorance of an experiential horizon that differentiates between what we take to be authentic and integral, and what
is actually all around us biospherically, an integrity comprising proteins and a
geography of folding that is heralded and authenticated by time, far more time than
the 300,000+ years of Homo sapiens’ ontology
19
.
17 See Radical Reflection and the Origin of the Human Sciences, Purdue University Press, West
Lafayette, Indiana, 1980, p. 85.
18 See “11,000 barrels of oil spill into the Coca River in the Amazon,” by Jeremy Hance on 12 June
2013, https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/11000-barrels-of-oil-spill-into-the-coca-river-in-theamazon/. Accessed April 13, 2019.
19 See Bioessays. 2007 Mar;29(3):288-99. “The relationship between non-protein-coding DNA
and eukaryotic complexity,” by Taft RJ, and Pheasant M, Mattick JS., PubMed, The U.S. National
Library of Medicine, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17295292, Accessed April 13, 2019.
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas
this end, the individual, and her/his species, is incapable. Incapable of everything that
would matter in an ideal world, and that poses an inseparable crisis. But, as Calin
O. Schrag long ago considered, “Why is the problem of fact vs. value a problem?...
The true character of this crisis only becomes visible when one moves from the level
of methodological analysis to archaeological inquiry”
17
. By then, of course, it is too
late to realize effective, virtuous change that conforms to any aboriginal land ethic.
Down on the ground, in the middle of the dirt, the concrete, the metallic infrastructure of petroleum extraction—a grotesque edifice that fumes and gorges like a
swollen canker—leads by pipe, truck, and river lorries to towns like Coca
18
barreling through from oblivion to oblivion, graveyard to sand dune. A solitaire stands in
the way and is either mowed down or shrinks into some equal oblivion, amid exponentially endowed quadrillion, quintrillion, sextillion numerics that are the cells,
leaf stomata, bacteria within the insects and spiders, the droplets of moisture, and
vast entanglements of soil. These continua have self-honed into a stability that
defies all encroachment, until the eleventh hour. And in Yasuní, an especially critical
premonition of such ambiguity abases the human family tree, given that it is considered to be among the most biologically diverse micro-quadrants on earth, with as
many as 100,000 invertebrate species per hectare, and other numeric superlatives
across nearly every suite of plants and animals. Indeed, scientific consensus now has
it that Yasuní, in fact, is as close as we are ever likely to get to something approaching the planet’s epicenter of the collective life force.
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas
Biologists speak of the C-value paradox that recognizes far greater amounts of DNA
in what most had taken to be, for example, a simple unicellular Polychaos dubium
(freshwater amoeboid) genome. Whereas nearly 99% of our human DNA is noncoding, meaning that our proteins, amino acids, and genes are largely redundant, or
outright “junk.” Not so throughout the rainforests of Yasuní. Here, 98% of the DNA
is indeed meaningful, perhaps purposeful. These are just words. It has evolved to be
necessary for physical thought, not abstract thought. The G-value paradox adds
further complexity to what, ultimately, is our own ignorance of an experiential horizon that differentiates between what we take to be authentic and integral, and what
is actually all around us biospherically, an integrity comprising proteins and a
geography of folding that is heralded and authenticated by time, far more time than
the 300,000+ years of Homo sapiens’ ontology
19
.
17 See Radical Reflection and the Origin of the Human Sciences, Purdue University Press, West
Lafayette, Indiana, 1980, p. 85.
18 See “11,000 barrels of oil spill into the Coca River in the Amazon,” by Jeremy Hance on 12 June
2013, https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/11000-barrels-of-oil-spill-into-the-coca-river-in-theamazon/. Accessed April 13, 2019.
19 See Bioessays. 2007 Mar;29(3):288-99. “The relationship between non-protein-coding DNA
and eukaryotic complexity,” by Taft RJ, and Pheasant M, Mattick JS., PubMed, The U.S. National
Library of Medicine, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17295292, Accessed April 13, 2019.
21.3 Evolutionary Enigmas