826
radiation),
6
Ernst Mayr’s theories set forth in his book, What Evolution Is,
7
as well
as within rubrics of evolutionary psychology.
8
Indeed, there is an endless array of
apt, descriptive scenarios for who we are and what, alas, we are doing.
In that impulse to survive, against the odds we have suicidally stacked against
earth, there is revival of the pre-Socratic Renaissance of physiolatry, the love and
reverence of nature, even as our species solely manifests a final crusade of violence
against the planet, for no reason. Obviously, deeply rooted fear, greed, anger, superego, and self-loathing enter into any such equations.
No reason, of course, defies every workable simile that might shed logic, plausibility, order, or, most tempting of all, empirical probability. As an unprecedented
weight of biomass and heavy consciousness aggregated in a non-linear distribution
of consumption and ungainly presence across every biome, from year-long habitation of Antarctica to the most recent deadly traffic jams atop Mount Everest, the
environmentally precocious, presumptuous, and self-destructive investiture of
Homo sapiens confronts philosophical analysis with a genetically unscrupulous
dilemma that is embodied in the many visages of Giacometti’s lone figures.
We cannot follow real-time re-evolution occurring in the wake of so many biological stressors. It is evidenced from rapid phenotypic changes in Caribbean mosquitoes, wasps and fig trees, magpies and cottonwoods, and in demonstrative
instances of behavioral adaptations in urban acorn ants to Mongolian rodents. The
onrush of data provides a poignant context for both our deepest anxieties, and most
unabashed tributes to the underlying significance of scientific inquiry. Everything
biological cries out to us with meaning, giving us to strive toward enshrinement,
replication, translation, and expression: toward some rarified solace that persuades
and gives credence to that collective conscience that would consecrate the very
meaning of evolution.
Current studies of metaphysical, and naturalist paradox, suspect rules, and easily
bypassed laws of contemplation, have all but settled the primordial questions surrounding self-doubt and the fundamental conjecture at the heart of both Western and
Eastern philosophical and ethical analysis: How do we know what we think we
know? We don’t. And that is, surprisingly, a valuable component of true freedom.
The question is what we do with it (Fig. 95.2).
6 “Ecological Opportunity and Adaptive Radiation,” by James T. Stroud and Jonathan B. Losos,
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. 47: 507–532, 2016, https://doi.
org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-12,145-032254.
7 Basic Books, New York, 2001.
8 See “Evolutionary psychology: An emerging integrative perspective within the science and practice of psychology,” by L. E. O. Kennair, Human Nature Review 2: 17–61, 2003.
95 A Metaphysics of Naturalism
radiation),
6
Ernst Mayr’s theories set forth in his book, What Evolution Is,
7
as well
as within rubrics of evolutionary psychology.
8
Indeed, there is an endless array of
apt, descriptive scenarios for who we are and what, alas, we are doing.
In that impulse to survive, against the odds we have suicidally stacked against
earth, there is revival of the pre-Socratic Renaissance of physiolatry, the love and
reverence of nature, even as our species solely manifests a final crusade of violence
against the planet, for no reason. Obviously, deeply rooted fear, greed, anger, superego, and self-loathing enter into any such equations.
No reason, of course, defies every workable simile that might shed logic, plausibility, order, or, most tempting of all, empirical probability. As an unprecedented
weight of biomass and heavy consciousness aggregated in a non-linear distribution
of consumption and ungainly presence across every biome, from year-long habitation of Antarctica to the most recent deadly traffic jams atop Mount Everest, the
environmentally precocious, presumptuous, and self-destructive investiture of
Homo sapiens confronts philosophical analysis with a genetically unscrupulous
dilemma that is embodied in the many visages of Giacometti’s lone figures.
We cannot follow real-time re-evolution occurring in the wake of so many biological stressors. It is evidenced from rapid phenotypic changes in Caribbean mosquitoes, wasps and fig trees, magpies and cottonwoods, and in demonstrative
instances of behavioral adaptations in urban acorn ants to Mongolian rodents. The
onrush of data provides a poignant context for both our deepest anxieties, and most
unabashed tributes to the underlying significance of scientific inquiry. Everything
biological cries out to us with meaning, giving us to strive toward enshrinement,
replication, translation, and expression: toward some rarified solace that persuades
and gives credence to that collective conscience that would consecrate the very
meaning of evolution.
Current studies of metaphysical, and naturalist paradox, suspect rules, and easily
bypassed laws of contemplation, have all but settled the primordial questions surrounding self-doubt and the fundamental conjecture at the heart of both Western and
Eastern philosophical and ethical analysis: How do we know what we think we
know? We don’t. And that is, surprisingly, a valuable component of true freedom.
The question is what we do with it (Fig. 95.2).
6 “Ecological Opportunity and Adaptive Radiation,” by James T. Stroud and Jonathan B. Losos,
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. 47: 507–532, 2016, https://doi.
org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-12,145-032254.
7 Basic Books, New York, 2001.
8 See “Evolutionary psychology: An emerging integrative perspective within the science and practice of psychology,” by L. E. O. Kennair, Human Nature Review 2: 17–61, 2003.
95 A Metaphysics of Naturalism