The Subjectification of Nature

Several weeks ago while hammering away on the computer, struggling to improve the same paragraph for the umpteenth time, I heard it again—the cry of a red-tailed hawk. This was not the beautiful, haunting, and justifiably famous red-tail “kree-eee-ar” that seems to pierce the core of your being. No, this was more of a repetitive, high-pitched wailing that brought to mind a demented sea-gull. Over the previous days and weeks, this incessant noise had driven me to the ragged edge of distraction. What’s the problem with that bird?, I kept asking myself (but in much less kind language).

The following day, while ascending the stairs after a long walk, I heard that same wailing, but this time it was directly overhead. Craning my neck and raising a hand to block the sun, I saw a young hawk wobble unsteadily on unskilled wings, barely navigating its way to a nearby tree. Suddenly the chaos of my thoughts was shattered by the realization that those incessant shrieks were the desperate cries of a fledgling red-tail calling out to parents for food and comfort. Immediately my frustration over the clamor vanished, replaced by a sense of compassion for this awkward youngster attempting to master a talent about which I could only dream. The animal that had seconds before been little more than an object of annoyance was transformed into a marvelous, freshly volant subject—a living, breathing creature that filled me with wonder. (I also reminded myself of this animal's dinosaurian status, making the connection back into deep time.)

Today, we in Western societies are in desperate need of a large-scale transformation in consciousness that parallels my attitude shift toward the hawk. Much of our unsustainable behavior can be traced to a broken relationship with nature, a worldview that treats the nonhuman world as a realm of mindless objects all but incapable of feeling. The road to sustainability must be built upon a radically new perspective (or at least a re-invention of an old one) that reanimates the living world and views other creatures as relatives to be respected rather than resources to be exploited. What we require is no less than the subjectification of nature. In the insightful words of “geologian” Thomas Berry, we must transform the world “from a collection of objects to a communion of subjects.”

To subjectify is to interiorize, such that the exterior world interpenetrates one’s interior world. Whereas the relationships we share with subjects often tap into our hearts, objects are dead to our emotions. Finding ourselves in relationship, boundaries of self can actually become permeable and blurred. Many of us have experienced such feelings with lovers, family, friends, and even pets. For indigenous peoples around the world, the notion of being embedded in a landscape of relatives is not alien at all; we have much to learn from this ancient wisdom.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the subjectification of nature is science, a cultural practice founded on the notion of objectivity. Scientists seek to objectify nature so that they can measure, test, and study it. In order to undertake such studies, we biologists tend to think animals in terms of fragments—from genes and bones to reproductive strategies and dietary preferences. Yet it is my contention that this pervasive, centuries-old trend toward fragmentation and objectification need not preclude us from treating nature as subjects. In other words, the subjectification of nature would not require that we abandon objectivity. After all, scientists have managed (at least most of the time) to treat their fellow humans as both subjects and objects. Why can’t we extend this same duality to nonhuman nature?

What would nature look like if we truly regarded it as a communion of subjects? Perhaps more to the point, what would it feel like? As evidenced by my initial attitude toward the fledgling red-tail, I am hardly an authority on the matter, and have a long way to go in my own personal growth. Like most of us in the industrialized West, I must battle a lifetime of practice in objectification, augmented in my case by training as a scientist. Nevertheless, while I can attest only to brief glimpses of such a fundamentally different perspective, I have found these fleeting insights both profound and inspiring. Such experiences have left me deeply convinced that widespread subjectification will be an essential element in sustainability.

But how might we undertake the “subjectification transformation?” Worldviews are deeply ingrained in adult minds, so much so that they become like the air we breathe—essential but ignored. As I’ve argued previously on this blog, much of the answer is going to be found in education. We must gain the wisdom to shift our views and raise our children so that they can see the world with new eyes. It may sound heretical, but science education in particular could be re-invented with subjectification in mind. Certainly the practice of science—the actual doing of scientific research—must be done as objectively as possible. But the communicating of science could include both objective and subjective components. Imagine if the bulk of science education took place outdoors, in direct contact with the natural world. And imagine if parents and educators emphasized not only the identification and functioning of parts (say, of flowers or insects), but the notion of organisms as sensate beings. What if students were asked more to spend more time learning about how a particular plant or animal experienced its world?

A tool with amazing potential is the “soap bubble technique,” attributed to biologist Jakob von Uexküll [1]. Take a group of children outside and ask them to imagine each and every organism to be surrounded by a transparent bubble, within which they can experience only the perceptual world of that organism. Then ask the children to select a particular organism (perhaps from a sample considered earlier in the classroom) and try to imagine what it might be like to actually be that creature. Take earthworms for example. These soil denizens detect light but not color, so the rainbow of hues with which we construct our world suddenly disappears. Earthworms have a keen sense of taste, but no ability to smell. In lieu of vision, their dominant senses are taste and touch, and they are particularly sensitive to ground vibrations.

The soap bubble technique is powerful because it helps to transport us beyond our everyday world and foster a sense of relationship with nonhuman organisms. Done repeatedly over a period of years, it is easy to envision how practices like this might encourage children to see their native places as communities of subjects worthy of care and respect. Conversely, I cannot imagine any community becoming sustainable if people do not care about their native places.

As I type the final paragraph of this post, I can still hear that fledgling red-tail calling out. Although far from melodious, the sound now generates within me feelings of compassion rather than frustration. I have hopes that Western societies will embrace a similar transition; that we will realize the promise and potential of subjectification and begin a dialogue on how we might inject this much-needed perspective into schooling for sustainability.

References
1. Evernden, N. 1993. The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment, Second Edition. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 172 pp.

Image Credits
Top: Red-tail hawk: http://content.cornell.ornith.edu/
Middle images: National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/ Bottom image: http://www.kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/

The Great Triad

The mysterious power of the number three has a long and distinguished history. Among the Classical Greeks, Plato suggested that truth, beauty, and goodness are the primordial values against which all things can be judged. His student Aristotle, speaking on rhetoric, argued for three primary modes of persuasion—logos, pathos, and ethos—appeals to logic, emotions, and the character of the speaker, respectively. I’m convinced that these two Greek triads are interwoven, with modern lessons for a world in crisis.

Aristotle’s rhetorical trio is often linked to body parts: logos to brain, pathos to heart, and ethos to gut. Equivalent linkages can be made to Plato’s “Big Three.” Truth reflects mind, beauty reflects pathos or spirit, and goodness reflects gut or consciousness. More recently, philosophers have sometimes associated Plato’s primal values with the developmental sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; begin with beauty, layer on truth, and synthesize these into a sense of goodness.

Once unified, it seems to me that this “Great Triad” holds immense power because it embodies different kinds of knowing. All of us have experience understanding something intellectually that has minimal bearing on our emotions (street names or geometry, for example). Conversely, knowledge may be rooted in emotions or intuitions, fostering deeply held beliefs with little to no basis in reason (choice of partner, sacredness of a particular place). A third, even deeper kind of knowledge is founded on “gut feelings” that often reflect the marriage of intellect and emotions. Worldviews, I would like to propose, reside in the gut, rooted in a messy mixture of logos and pathos.

I make no assertions about the originality of this claim. I’m a paleontologist, not a philosopher, so my expertise relates more to ancient life than to the nature of reality. Yet, whether empirically accurate or not, it seems to me that this tripartite division of knowledge offers a useful tool for probing our present eco-crisis. Ecological sustainability in any meaningful sense will require not only new technologies, but a new worldview, one that re-inserts humanity inside nature and transforms the nonhuman world (to borrow Thomas Berry’s poignant phrase) from “a collection objects to communion of subjects.”

At present, Western societies rely overwhelmingly on intellect and scientific truth, giving little credit to the role of emotions and spirit. We live too much in our heads, not enough in our hearts. This centuries-old bias results in terribly skewed worldviews, causing our guts to mislead us again and again into decisions devoid of any sense of beauty. Resetting the balance will demand, among other things, a transformation (rather than mere “reform”) of our schooling system, including new approaches to both the delivery and content of education. In particular, learning must spark the heart as well as the mind. Devoid of any sense of what is beautiful, let alone sacred, intellectual knowledge remains sterile, often unable to influence worldviews and behavior (or doing so in dangerous ways).

Let me illustrate by making what may seem an outlandish claim. At heart, most of us in Western societies are a bunch of flat-earthers and creationists.

Intellectually, we know that we live on a spherical world hurtling with a gaggle of other planets around a nearby star. Yet we still speak of sunrise and sunset, and persist in conceiving of ourselves as living on the top of the world. Of course, reality is rather different; the rotation of the Earth causes the sun to appear to rise and fall in our sky, and we live on the side of our rapidly spinning globe, anchored by the mysterious force of gravity. My point is this—we know (in our minds) that we live on a sphere, but live (through our hearts) as if the world was flat.

Similarly, even for those who embrace the notion of evolution, the vast majority of us are effectively creationists. Don’t believe me? Step outside, look at the nearest tree, or dog, or bird, and ask yourself the following question: Do I regard this organism as my relative, part of my extended family tree? If you’re like the vast majority of people, your honest answer is no.

If we truly embraced the notion of common descent through deep time—not just in our minds, but in our hearts—would we put chimpanzees, our closest living evolutionary relatives, in cages for public display? Would we decimate rainforests, overfish oceans, or foul our native bioregions? Perhaps. After all, humans frequently don’t treat members of their own kind with compassion and empathy. Nevertheless, for those of us in the industrialized West, the notion of living in community with the natural world is an alien one. For us, nature isn’t relatives, its resources.

How, then, might we communicate scientific concepts like spherical planets and biological evolution so as to engage emotions, building upon the “knowledge” of pathos so as to influence ethos? I am aware of two principle tools: experience and narrative.

Firsthand experience outdoors has the potential to stir our emotions deeply. As most of us know, smelling wildflowers, holding a slug, and beholding a full moon are all experiences that differ mightily from virtual alternatives. Next time you watch a sunset, hold the image in your mind of sitting on the side of rotating globe; it helps to have a planet like Venus nearby to the sun so that you can picture yourself as part of a solar system of worlds. If you’re lucky, just as the sun disappears below the horizon, you will have a momentary experience of vertigo as you fathom your true relationship to our nearest star. Do this frequently and you may just shift the way you envision your place on Earth.

Now imagine if, in stark contrast to the vast bulk of present day schooling, children learned about evolution largely in natural settings, with appropriate reverence given to the bounty of relatives inhabiting our communities. We might call this “experiential science education,” a strategy worthy of broad application in science teaching. As I see it, without abundant time spent outside in intimate contact with nonhuman nature, some of it guided by adult mentors, we will be unable to move beyond intellectual understanding to form meaningful bonds with the nonhuman world.

With regard to the second tool, narrative, I have written previously in this blog of the importance of the Great Story, the epic of evolution that extends from the Big Bang to the present day. If evolution were taught as the history of the universe (rather than focusing predominantly on obtuse concepts like mutation, natural selection, and adaptation), we would become fully engaged in this astounding story, which just happens to be our story. Beyond the science class, this story could be conveyed through numerous creative arts—from painting and poetry and to drama and dance—with the potential to reach our deepest emotions. Only when the Great Story becomes meaningful in both our minds and hearts, tapping into our sense of truth and beauty, will we begin to truly understand what it means to be part of a single, evolving universe at this pivotal moment in deep time. And only then will we begin to conceive of nature as relatives deserving of our compassion and empathy rather than resources for our exploitation.

In short, the lesson of the Great Triad is this: If we are to foster wisdom and navigate our way into a sustainable future, knowledge must pass through our hearts on the way from the mind to the gut. The roots of service (Goodness) lie in the amalgam of both insight (Truth) and compassion (Beauty). Logos + Pathos = Ethos.

Image Credits
All images courtesy of National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Training the Brain

As a society, we are techno-addicts, shifting obsessively back and forth between gadgets, from smart phones and iPods to laptops and televisions, among others. Over the past 50 years, our consumption of information has more than tripled. The bulk of young people now spend 7-10 hours each day staring at screens—and that’s when they’re not at school or working! On average, we compulsively check our email about 37 times each day and visit about the same number of websites [1]. Awash in an ever-shifting sea of digital information, we all too rarely stop to consider the impact of this rampant technophilia on ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Several months ago, I argued on this blog [2] that the Internet is a mixed blessing, offering up the “Great Source” of information while simultaneously leading us toward the “extinction of experience”—that is, the absence of time spent outdoors in nature. If we are to stave off the deepening sustainability crisis, I suggested, our experience of reality must become less virtual and more “real.” Today I would like to build on this discussion. Instead of focusing on what we lose by not spending time outdoors, my emphasis here is directed at the influence of technology on our minds.

Last week, a cover story in the New York Times [1] tackled this timely topic and highlighted a number of revealing studies. Since you are likely a consumer of technology yourself, and thus have considerable personal experience, most of the results will likely come as no surprise. Heavy consumption of information technologies reduces attention spans and makes us more easily distracted. Regular email interruptions tend to increase stress and decrease short term memory, making it more difficult to learn or perform even simple tasks. Brain researchers are becoming increasingly convinced that excessive use of the Internet makes us more impatient, impulsive, forgetful, and even narcissistic.

More surprising perhaps is the multitasking myth. That is, with the exception of few “supertaskers” (about 3% of us), concurrent use of multiple technologies does not increase efficiency. Indeed committed multitaskers tend to be slower than non-multitaskers when attempting to do several tasks simultaneously. The problem, it seems, is that multitaskers have trained their brains to be highly sensitive to new information and thus tend to be easily distracted, always searching for that next digital tidbit.

At a deeper level, many psychologists now worry, and are attempting to document, what they see as impacts to our very identity wrought by a fixation on gadgets. The NY Times article cites one Stanford researcher, Elias Aboujaoude, referring to the “fracturing of the self” caused by excessive reliance on technology. Another Stanford researcher, Clifford Nass, thinks that, by limiting face-to-face interactions, heavy technology use reduces our empathy. The concern seems to be that all of this interaction with technology is somehow rewiring our brains in ways that diminishes our humanity.

Less than two decades ago, researchers thought that the brain ceased developing at the onset of adulthood. A slew of recent studies, however, demonstrate that the brain has the capacity to adapt throughout life, including in our senior years—a phenomenon dubbed “neuroplasticity.” To cite just one example, a study of Tibetan monks showed much higher gamma wave activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain during meditation than in a control group, resulting in stronger feelings of happiness and compassion in the former [3]. The remarkable truth of the matter, then, seems to be that, one way or the other, we “train our brains,” actually rewiring parts of our neurocircuitry based upon the activities we choose to engage in. So it’s best to give serious consideration to the things we allow to dominate our minds.

Why are we so prone to techno-addiction? Some researchers suggest that, for the bulk of human evolution, an ability to pay attention to novel stimuli had a major survival advantage. To give the most simplistic example, that stimulus just might be an animal you’re hunting or a predator stalking you. More nuanced discussions have addressed the ability to recognize any novel patterns in one’s environment that might indicate the presence of food, medicine, or other items necessary for survival. Today, information technologies seem to tap into this ancient predisposition, making it more likely that we will become addicted to glowing gadgets.

Despite the tone of this piece, I’m no Luddite. On a personal level, I am a major technology user myself, and battle the daily siren call to “stay connected.” On a societal level, I see no path forward, whether sustainable or not, that does not embrace technology. So, as I see it, the key question is this: given our penchant for what may best be described as techno-addition, how are we going to learn to co-exist with information technologies?

Some psychologists compare our dependence on screen technologies to an eating disorder [1]. Like food, technology is now an essential component of our daily life. And just as a food addict cannot stop consuming calories, we must learn to moderate our consumption of technologies, both for ourselves and our children. At a minimum, this will require setting thoughtful constraints, such as limiting the number of times you check your email, and restricting children’s screen time to 1-2 hours per day (their choice of gadget?). In extreme cases, just as with any addiction, heavy technology users may require therapy to assess the underlying reasons for the repeated escape into the Internet [1].

The bottom line is that, despite their many advantages, phones, computers, and televisions can be dangerous tools. Our obsession with technology threatens not only our personal health, but also the health of our communities and even the biosphere. If we are to set sail and navigate a sustainable path into the future, we must limit the amount of time we allow ourselves (and our kids!) to be immersed in this ocean of information. Don’t forget to come out on the deck, breath the fresh air, and connect with each other and the spectacular world we inhabit. Your brain will be thankful.

References
1) Richtel, M. 2010. Hooked on gadgets, and paying a mental price. New York Times, June 7, 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html)

2) Sampson, S. D. 2010. The extinction of experience. The Whirlpool of Life (blog). (http://scottsampson.blogspot.com/2010/01/extinction-of-experience.html)

3) Kaufman, M. 2005. Meditation gives brain a change, study finds. The Washington Post, January 3, 2005. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html).

Images
Top three images courtesy of of Free Digital Photos: http://freedigitalphotos.net/
Bottom image courtesy of National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Transforming Education

Education reform is a phrase that is virtually ubiquitous in American political circles. Any outsider would assume—correctly, I’m afraid—that we never get education right. To give a couple of recent metrics, a 2007 study found that only one-third of US students could read and do math up to current grade level standards, and that one in four students does not graduate from high school.

While in New York City recently, I had the opportunity to listen to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan present his reform vision to an audience of well over a thousand teachers. Duncan is a thoughtful, intelligent man, as well as a polished speaker, and I enjoyed hearing him speak about replacing the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” with a new alternative, “Race to the Top” [1-4]. “The Race,” as its nicknamed, is a $4.3 billion incentive program (read “competition”) designed by the US Department of Education to overhaul the education system. Key elements include performance pay for teachers (together with a system for firing teachers deemed “inadequate”) and a major boost in the number of public charter schools. States compete for large sums of money by demonstrating that they are aligning their education system with the new criteria.

I applaud the renewed emphasis on teaching performance. To my mind, we should go much further, transforming teaching into a high-status, well paid profession akin to medicine. With greatly increased salaries paired to much higher standards, we could recruit the very best teachers and offer them appropriate kinds of training both before and after receipt of their education certificates.

Why is teaching so important? Not, as is generally argued, because American kids need to keep up with youth in other countries so that the US can maintain its position in the global economy. No, teaching is critical because education reform—or, more accurately, transformation—may just be the key to saving civilization. As argued previously in this blog, techno-fixes alone simply aren’t going to cut it. Sustainability will depend on raising future generations of citizens possessing a different perspective on the human-nature connection. Specifically, we must counter the prevalent and erroneous notion of viewing ourselves as external conquerors of nature, and begin to understand that we are fully embedded within nature.

What most disturbs me about the ongoing debate over education reform, including the Race, is the virtual lack of conversation, let alone debate, about curriculum content. The unspoken assumption is that a shift in the delivery mechanism is all that is needed to “fix” education. Yet in addition to how we are teaching our children, we should be equally concerned with what we are teaching them.

Today, as for most of the 20th Century, education is about careerism, preparing students to successfully enter consumer society—that is, to be “upwardly mobile.” Although we are well aware of the environmental calamity facing us today, and the fundamental role of that “consumers” play in accelerating our pace toward disaster, education (K-16) is still organized as if no such specter is sitting out there on the horizon.

Education for the 21st Century should be education for sustainability, a system of teaching and learning that helps our youth understand how to live well in the world. At its root, sustainability depends on two factors: 1) human justice; and 2) an harmonious relationship between the human and nonhuman world (i.e., justice for nonhuman nature). One of the greatest problems with our present day education system is that it fragments the world into artificial chunks (biology, history, geography, math, etc.) and prevents us from seeing larger patterns and unified wholes [5]. A partial remedy to this curricular myopia, and certainly a fundamental element that deserves residence at the curriculum core, is ecological literacy, or “ecoliteracy” [6,7]: the interweaving of Earth’s natural systems, and the human role is those systems. Some remarkable progress is being made is the ecoliteracy arena [8], but we urgently need to find ways to scale up these successes so that they are applied more broadly.

Another key content element is what I have termed “evolutionary literacy,” or “evoliteracy” [9]. Whereas ecoliteracy focuses on connections and energy flow within the temporal snapshots of ecological systems, evoliteracy inserts the vertical dimension of deep time. The Epic of Evolution, from the beginnings of the universe to the present day, is our amazing origin story delivered by science [10-12]. As argued in recent posts, this grand, unifying saga, also called the “Great Story,” is capable of offering a critical dose of meaning and purpose to our lives. Far from the random, meaningless place so often portrayed in textbooks and the popular media, our universe is a stunningly creative place that birthed us through a long series of transformations, beginning with simple hydrogen atoms. Seeing ourselves as players in this 14 billion year old drama, and recognizing that our decisions will impact that next 14 billion years, may just be an essential element in achieving anything worthy of the title “sustainable.” Yet, at present, the Great Story is virtually absent from all levels of education, communicated, if at all, only as a series of fragments rather than a unified whole.

Rapid education transformation (as opposed to mere “reform”) is critical to the future of humans and millions of other species on this planet. We need a major mindshift, one that may only come through empowering future generations. So get informed. If you’re an educator, think about the underlying messages of your teaching, and how you might alter these in the direction of sustainability. If you’re a parent, find out what your children are learning in school, and make efforts to shift the content (as well as the delivery) in ways that will enable our youth to live well in the world. Earth’s future depends on our mobilization efforts.

Notes and References
1) Obama Offers “Race to the Top” Contest for Schools. Guardian News, London, UK, July 24, 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8625198?FORM=ZZNR7.
2) Dillon, S. and T. Lewin. 2010. Education chief vies to expand U.S. role as partner on local schools. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/education/04educate.html
3) Brill, S. 2010. The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand. New York Times Magazine, May 17, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Race-t.html
4) Race to the Top, Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top
5) Orr, D. W. 1994. Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
6) Orr, D. W. 1992. Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World. State University of New York Press, Albany, 210 pp.
7) Stone, M. K. and Z. Barlow (eds.). 2005. Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World. University of California Press, Berkeley, 275 pp.
8) Stone, M. K. 2009. Smart By Nature. University of California Press, Berkeley.
9) Sampson, S. D. 2009. Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life. University of California Press, Berkeley.
10) Berry, T. 1999. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Bell Tower, New York.
11) Swimme, B. and T. Berry. 1992. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to Ecozoic Era. Harper Collins, New York.
12) I strongly encourage readers to check out a brand new website, Journey of the Universe, supporting an upcoming documentary by Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker. This project promises to provide some excellent tools for educators interested in communicating the Great Story. Check out: http://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/

Images

All images courtesy of National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Re-Defining the E-Word

What does the word “evolution” mean?

In last week’s post on this blog, I argued (as have a number of others before me) that the “e-word” should be expanded beyond biological evolution to include no less than the “history of the universe.” In this more comprehensive sense, evolution is able to capture in a single word the unified story of the cosmos, life, and culture. In response to this post, one of the comments I received came from Kenneth (last name not included), who argued that evolution should be restricted to biological evolution. In his words,

"So much of the refusal to accept evolution (in this country at least, the US) comes from those who think evolution explains the origin of life. It, of course, does not and has nothing to do with abiogenesis. But presenting the origin of the cosmos as "the epic of evolution" is just going to further that divide. We need to teach about the Big Bang, stellar birth and refinement, how planets form, the Miller-Urey experiment's results, and evolution and natural selection. But we can't put them all in the same basket since they're not actually related (and saying that non-reproducing things "evolve" is adding gasoline to the fire, too).

Kenneth raises a critical issue, and I thank him sincerely for taking the time to articulate it. Because “evolution” has become such a loaded word in the United States (and a number of other countries), I have thought long and hard about whether or not to expand the word to refer to the history of the universe. After all, I reasoned, people might reject the Great Story out of hand, effectively tossing out the baby with the bathwater because of a bias against anything evolutionary. Eventually, however, I came to think that the two truly deserve--even need--to be linked. Not only is the teaching of biological evolution a critical endeavor worthy of our energies—so too is the teaching of the Great Story. And I’m convinced that this pair of ideas can be mutually reinforcing. I devote today’s post to a brief outline of my position.

Ultimately, of course, how we decide to define the word “evolution” is a matter of semantics, and words can have multiple meanings. For example, at Dictionary.com, the biological definition of evolution is, “change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.” However, nine other definitions are also listed, including one that applies to the history of the universe: “any process of formation or growth; development.” So the question is this: Do we elucidate or muddy our understanding of nature if we refer to the Great Story of everything as the “epic of evolution”?

Kenneth contends that the expanded version of the word gives ammunition to those who conflate the process of (biological) evolution with the origin of life, suggesting that evolution has nothing to do with life’s beginnings. I would disagree with at least the latter half of this claim. Recent work by origin of life researchers have revealed remarkable continuities between geochemistry and biochemistry, between the living and nonliving worlds (1). My strong hunch—likely bolstered by the announcement this week of the first synthetic life (2)— is that resolution of the origin of life problem, one of the greatest mysteries in science, will reveal blurry boundaries between the animate and inanimate, akin to what we see between major groups of biological ancestors and descendents (e.g., theropod dinosaurs and birds).

On a larger scale, I think that using evolution to describe the Great Story serves at least two important purposes. First, it underlines the fact that the evolution of life (and humans in particular) is not separate from the rest of nature. Rather, life’s origin and expansion is merely one of the latest examples of increasing complexity within a single, unified, and stunningly creative whole. By treating biological evolution as an entirely distinct process, we tend to construct a false dichotomy and ignore the many similarities between organic and inorganic transformations.

For example, although increasing diversification has been a major trend in both cosmic and biological evolution, another frequently overlooked propensity is toward unification. As I described in a previous post, “The numerous and dramatic increases in complexity, it turns out, have been achieved largely through a process of integration, with smaller wholes becoming parts of larger wholes. Again and again we see the progressive development of multi-part individuals from simpler forms. Thus, for example, atoms become integrated into molecules, molecules into cells, and cells into organisms. At each higher, emergent stage, older forms are enveloped and incorporated into newer forms, with the end result being a nested, multilevel hierarchy.” Indeed a strong argument can be made that the major steps in complexification over the past 14 billion years have been achieved large through unifying rather than diversifying (3).

A Darwinian sense of evolution has also helped to inform ideas about evolution in the nonliving realm. Perhaps the most surprising case in point is Lee Smolin’s cosmological natural selection theory (4,5). Smolin, a theoretical physicist, has suggested that the rules of biology apply on the scale of the cosmos. Specifically, the eventual collapse of a black hole may result in the creation of another universe on “the other side.” If so, each universe generates as many universes as it does black holes, the equivalent of reproduction. Due to a number of physical constraints, the majority of these universes may undergo “heat death” before they can generate stars and black holes; that is, they die off before reproducing. If so, there would be a kind of natural selection favoring the formation of universes of that could successfully spawn new universes!

The second important reason I advocate use of the e-word to describe the Great Story is that it increases the scope of the challenge facing those who oppose the notion of organic evolution. That is, opponents of evolution, especially young Earth creationists who argue that the universe is a mere 6,000 years old, must contend not only with the Everest of evidence supporting biological evolution, but also with the equally abundant evidence in favor of cosmological evolution (the origins of the universe, galaxy, solar system, etc.) and cultural evolution (e.g., evidence of tool use within the hominid lineage). Anti-evolutionists typically search for supposedly “fatal flaws” (e.g., structures showing “irreducible complexity”) that might indicate the work of a “Designer.” But there will always be things in science that cannot be fully explained (at least not yet), and overthrowing the notion of evolution requires that one upturn the entire mountain rather than a few grains of sand. Explicitly linking the evolution of life with the evolution of the non-living universe greatly increases the size of that mountain.

Finally, much of my confidence in promoting an expanded definition of evolution comes from such luminaries as biologist E. O. Wilson (6), who made this argument long before I did. I recently received additional assurance when I ran into my friend Eugenie Scott, Executive Director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE; the leading organization promoting). Arguably more than anyone else in the country, Genie and the NCSE are on the frontlines fighting to keep the teaching of biological evolution in the science classroom (and creationism out). When I asked for her view on the matter, Genie responded in wholehearted agreement with me, adding that she too defines evolution as “the history of the universe.”

So let’s feel free to refer to our cosmic story as “the epic of evolution,” and then recognize biological evolution as a subset of this grand narrative (7). At present, the general public is effectively illiterate with regard to both, a dire situation that, as argued last week, deserves immediate and widespread attention.

References and Suggested Sources
1) To give just one example, check out a terrific talk by one of these workers, Eric Smith (http://fora.tv/2007/04/18/Inevitable_Life).

2) Wade, N. Researchers say the created a “Synthetic Cell.” New York Times, May 20, 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/21cell.html).

3) Margulis, L. 1998. Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. Sciencewriters, Amherst.

4) Smolin, L. 1997. Life of the Cosmos. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

5) Lee Smolin Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin

6) Wilson, Edward O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. Pp. 206-207.

7) For additional reading on this topic, I recommend:
- Cosmic Evolution Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_evolution

- Epic of Evolution website: http://epicofevolution.com/celebrate.html

- Chaisson, E. 2006. Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos

Images
All images courtesy of National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

The Great Story

Do you know your origin story—the evolutionary account of your roots and those of everything else? If you’re like most people in Western societies, your honest answer is no. And that, it turns out, is a BIG problem.

What’s the problem with being story-less? We’re in the midst of a gargantuan sustainability crisis, the greatest challenge ever faced by humanity. The vast majority of scientific experts, from ecologists to climatologists, are in full agreement that we are currently on a collision course with ruin, involving human suffering and devastation to the biosphere on an almost unimaginable scale. Finding and following a new, more sustainable path will require much more than new technologies. Any solution demands no less than a novel way of seeing the world, one that gives our lives greater meaning and causes us to take action to protect and nurture our native places. In other words, we must foster a new worldview that roots humanity in both local places and deep time—exactly the kind of thing that origin stories do best.

Fortunately, an astonishing, awe-inspiring, and staggeringly beautiful story of our origins is now readily available, one with the potential to unite humanity at this critical juncture in our history. Variously called the Great Story, the Universe Story, the New Story, or the Epic of Evolution, this grand narrative is founded on several centuries of scientific inquiry [1,2]. Evolution isn’t just Darwin, natural selection, and mutation. Evolution is the history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the present day. And far from leading to a view that the universe is random and meaningless, as commonly conceived, this saga provides the foundation for seeing ourselves as deeply embedded within the fabric of a creative cosmos.

Indeed the Great Story is arguably the greatest contribution of science, offering a direct glimpse into where we come from and what it means. More than three decades ago, famed biologist E. O. Wilson [3] stated that, “the evolutionary epic is probably the best myth we will ever have.” He added that this same story, “retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic.” In the intervening decades, fields like cosmology, geology, paleontology, and archaeology have greatly augmented this saga, generating for the first time a unified, evidence-based narrative encompassing the cosmos, life, and culture.

Over that same time period, a number of people, in particular the late “geologian” Thomas Berry [1], have argued strongly for the importance of a general understanding of this unified epic. Yet the Great Story has remained virtually absent from all arenas of education. Today, few of us can convey anything of this story beyond perhaps an incomplete sequence of origins—for example, galaxy, Earth, bacteria, worm, fish, amphibian, mammal, upright primate, Homo sapiens—with humans generally placed atop the pile as the “king of the world” (if not king of the universe). It is ironic that we who have access to the most rigorous and complete story of everything do not use it to inform the arc of our lives.

I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Berry that the Great Story, expanded beyond biology to encompass cosmos and culture, deserves to reside at the very core of the education curriculum. This astounding epic deserves to be told and retold, with appropriate increases in complexity, from childhood through adulthood. Education is currently focused almost entirely on the present day, with the unspoken assumption that everything that came before is meaningless and irrelevant. Yet meaning, purpose, and belonging have less to do with where we are at any given moment than where we’ve been and where we’re going. So, in addition to the horizontal perspective offered by understanding the present day world, education must convey the vertical context that roots us in deep time. Humanity must reinvent the sacred [4] and learn to see that everything around us has its origins in deep time stardust.

But isn’t the Epic of Evolution incompatible with the beliefs of major religious traditions? So it might seem, given ongoing media coverage of this conflict. It’s true that, despite resounding acceptance by the scientific community, biological evolution remains a hotly debated topic within the general public, particularly in the United States. About one half of all Americans currently support the statement that “God created humans pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” And many scientists, educators, and parents, responding to attempts by Christian fundamentalists to discredit Darwin and re-inspire a dominant role for a Creator throughout the history of life, have been fighting to keep evolution in America’s classrooms.

So embittered is this conflict that rarely is much thought given to why evolution education is important. Scientists and educators often state that learning the fundamentals of evolution is necessary because this idea is central to biology, or because evolutionary concepts underlie hot button topics like genetics. Such arguments miss a fundamental point. Teaching evolution is critical because the underlying concept of transformation is the very glue that holds together the epic of cosmos, life, and culture. And understanding this story could change the world by shifting the human conception of nature.

Ultimately, I can’t envision the necessary shift in worldview occurring (at least not in the brief time allotted to us) in the absence of a dialogue between the science and religion communities [4-6]. Fortunately, attitudes toward evolution, within and outside of religious circles, are far more nuanced than generally believed and great potential exists to integrate the Great Story with traditional theist views [6]. Spiritual leaders as diverse as the Pope and the Dalai Lama have advocated acceptance of evolution (though, granted, sometimes with caveats pertaining to human origins). Theologian John Haught [7] declared that, “Darwin has gifted us with an account of life whose depth, beauty and pathos—when seen in the context of the larger cosmic Epic of Evolution—exposes us afresh to the raw reality of the sacred and to a resoundingly meaningful universe.” Michael Dowd, minister and author of Thank God for Evolution [5], has adopted the role of “evolutionary evangelist,” preaching the Great Story to church congregations throughout North America.

“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” So said poet Muriel Rukeyser, underlining the power of narrative. Why does the Great Story merit a central place in our culture? Because this grand epic represents our best understanding of the evolving universe; because internalizing the idea of common ancestry through deep time will help us reconnect with nonhuman nature; and because disseminating this story widely may well be critical to shifting worldviews and achieving sustainability. Only when the Great Story is finally expressed throughout our culture—not just in science, but in poetry, song, fine arts, and dance—will we begin to truly understand what it means to be part of a single, evolving universe at this pivotal moment in deep time. Only then will we begin to conceive of nature as relatives deserving of our compassion and empathy rather than resources for our exploitation. We need a story.

References
1) Berry, T. 1999. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Bell Tower, New York.
2) Swimme, B. and T. Berry. 1992. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to Ecozoic Era. Harper Collins, New York.
3) Wilson, Edward O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. Pp. 206-207.
4) Kauffman, S. A. 2008. Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. Basic Books, New York, 320 pp.
5) Dowd, M. 2005. Thank God for Evolution. Council Oak Books, San Francisco.
6) Phipps, C. 2007. The REAL Evolution Debate. EnlightenNext Magazine. http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j35/real-evolution-debate.asp
7) Haught, J. F. 2008. God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Westview Press (quote: p. 2).

Images
Top image courtesy ofSky Image Labe: http://www.skyimagelab.com/
All other images courtesy of National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent

In my last post, I addressed the hypothesis of dinosaur provincialism—that is, isolated communities of giant dinosaurs—on North America during the Late Cretaceous. Specifically, I discussed a recent paper by Vavrek and Larsson (1), who concluded on the basis of a rigorous statistical analysis that Maastrichtian dinosaurs (i.e., those living in the final 6 million years of the Mesozoic immediately prior to the K-T extinction) were not split into isolated provinces, as argued previously, but rather formed a single community. I cautiously agreed with their findings and noted a few caveats. For example, their study was restricted geographically—limited to the four most dinosaur-rich geologic units in the northern part of the Western Interior—leaving plenty of terrain for possible dinosaur provinces elsewhere.

Today I want to focus on another of my caveats: dinosaur provincialism in the preceding Campanian Stage (83.5 – 70.6 million years ago). If your goal is to understand large scale patterns and processes in the Mesozoic world of dinosaurs, the best place and time to look for answers is Campanian-aged rocks from the Western Interior on North America. Period. Nowhere else on Earth do we have continent-scale sampling of fossiliferous formations from the Mesozoic that have been intensively worked for more than a century. Literally dozens of different kinds of dinosaurs, many of them exceptionally preserved, have been recovered from as far north as Alaska and as far south as Mexico. And the great bulk of these occur in a 2 million year window of time, between about 77 and 75 million years ago.

The importance of this particular slice of Mesozoic time and space is heightened by the geographic context of the fossils. The Mesozoic was a hothouse world virtually devoid of polar ice caps. As a result, sea levels tended to be much higher than they are today, often flooding low-lying regions of continents with shallow seas. In North America, the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. For almost 30 million years (~95-67 million years ago), this so-called “epeiric” sea subdivided the continent into eastern and western landmasses, known as Appalachia and Laramidia, respectively. We know little of the dinosaurs of Appalachia, but geologic activity in the west has exposed an abundance of Campanian rocks along the eastern margin of the “lost continent” of Laramidia. Key geologic units that have yielded dinosaurs include the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, the Two Medicine and Judith River formations of Montana, the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah, the Kirtland and Fruitland formations of New Mexico, and the Aguja Formation of Texas.

Campanian Laramidia was home to arguably the greatest known fluorescence of dinosaurs, and the emerging diversity patterns are stunning. On the one hand, wherever we look, the same groups of dinosaurs tend to show up. Bird-hipped herbivores include horned dinosaurs (ceratopsids), duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs), smaller ornithopod dinosaurs (hypsilophodonts), armored ankylosaurs (nodosaurids and ankylosaurids), and dome-headed dinosaurs (pachycephalosaurs). Lizard-hipped theropods are also very diverse, including ostrich-like ornithomimids, beaked oviraptorosaurs, and sickle-clawed dromaeosaurs and troodonts, with giant tyrannosaurs invariably filling the role of top predator. (Although poorly known, a great diversity of smaller-bodied theropods, such as feathered microraptorines and birds were almost certainly present.) On the other hand, the species-level representatives of these groups appear to be limited to small ranges. In particular, as first argued by Dale Russell (2), and later by Thomas Lehman (3), we find different genera and species in the north (Alberta and Montana) than we do in the south (Utah, New Mexico, and Texas). So, for example, Chasmosaurus is a horned dinosaur known only from the north, whereas Pentaceratops is limited to the south. Similarly, some species of Gryposaurus are known only from the north, whereas at least one species is restricted to the south.

Until recently, a relative dearth of identifiable dinosaurs from southern Laramidia made it difficult to test the provincialism hypothesis. This “southern gap” has now been partially remedied by a decade of fieldwork in the Kaiparowits Formation, abundantly exposed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. Working in close collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management, our interdisciplinary team—based out of the University of Utah, but including researchers from multiple institutions—has unearthed an entirely “new” assemblage of dinosaurs in the Kaiparowits,16 different dinosaur varieties so far, 11 of which can now be identified to the level of species (4). Several of these animals are represented by exceptionally preserved skulls and partial skeletons, often with skin impressions. Some of these species have been named and described, including the oviraptorosaur Hagryphus giganteus (5) and the hadrosaur Gryposaurus monumentensis (6). Other studies are nearing completion or well under way. I am happy to say that the discoveries keep on coming; the most recent field season yielded a plethora of amazing finds from a single quarry. First to be found was a hadrosaur about the size of T.rex; excavation of this specimen, which includes a nearly complete skull, yielded one skull and skeleton of a crocodilian and another of a turtle, as well as an ankylosaur with what appears to be an intact skull, and a possible pterosaur! All this from a single (albeit very large) site.

Remarkably, of the dozens of dinosaur species now identified from the Campanian of Laramidia, none can be confidently placed in both the north and the south—strong support for the notion of dinosaur provincialism. Sullivan and Lucas (7) argued previously that this provincialism is illusory, the result of animals arrayed in time rather than space. But recent advances in both the number and precision of radiometric dates (8) conclusively demonstrate temporal overlap of key formations (e.g., Dinosaur Park and Kaiparowits), as well as species belonging to particular groups (e.g., horned dinosaurs, hadrosaurs, and tyrannosaurs). A recent faunal review and statistical analysis by our working group (9) supports earlier claims from Lehman, showing that the late Campanian provincialism extends well beyond dinosaurs to encompass a variety of vertebrates.

These findings have profound implications for our understanding of dinosaur ecology and evolution. The “island continent” of Laramidia was less than 20% the size of present day North America. Much of this landmass was covered with rising mountain ranges (primarily the Cordilleran Overthrust Belt, but perhaps the Laramide orogeny as well), sandwiching known Laramidian dinosaurs between a restless seaway to east and rising mountains to the west. So it’s remarkable to contemplate the notion of one diverse assemblage of dinosaurs—many with body masses in the rhino-to-elephant range—let alone multiple assemblages of such animals. To add insult to injury, some of these dinosaurs, especially among the hadrosaurs and ceratopsids, appear to have lived in large herds numbering at least in the hundreds of animals. How could so many giants make a living and persist over geologic time spans on such a diminutive landmass. Likely answers involve greater volumes of available plant food (primary productivity) and/or decreased dietary needs relative to modern-day warm-blooded mammals.

Given that most northern and southern dinosaur species within a given group appear closely similar, differing primarily in features associated with reproductive success (horns, frills, crests, etc.), they may well have played similar ecological roles. For example, the long-frilled horned dinosaurs (chasmosaurines) in the north and south, although distinct species, may well have consumed very similar kinds of plants. If so, the ecological niches filled by dinosaurs might have changed very little for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous. Behind this apparent ecological stasis, however, a variety of factors—perhaps including seaway migrations and other environmental changes—appear to have resulted in rapid evolutionary turnover of species (10). Like a long-running Broadway show, the players changed while the same story played out endlessly.

We have only begun to plumb the depths of knowledge relating to Laramidian dinosaurs. And we can count on many surprises to come. I will use this blog as an outlet to update readers on new discoveries as they are announced.

References
1) Vavrek, M. J. and Larsson, H.C. E. 2010. Low beta diversity of Maastrichtian dinosaurs of North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
2) Russell, D. A. 1967. A census of dinosaur specimens collected in western Canada, National Museum of Canada Natural History Papers, 36:1-13.
3) Lehman, T. M. 1997. Late Campanian dinosaur biogeography in the western interior of North America. Dinofest International Symposium Volume, pp. 223-24.
4) Sampson, S. D., Gates, T. A., Roberts, E. M., Getty, M. A., Zanno, L. E., Loewen, M. A., Smith, J. A., Lund, E. K., Sertich, J., and Titus, A. L. in press. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: A new and critical window into the world of dinosaurs. Learning from the Land Symposium Symposium Proceedings.
5) Zanno, L. E. and Sampson, S. D. 2005. A new oviraptorosaur (Theropoda: Maniraptora) from the late Campanian of Utah and the status of the North American Oviraptorosauria. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 25(4): 897-904.
6) Gates, T. A. and Sampson, S. D. 2007. A new species of Gryposaurus (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Upper Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of Utah. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 151:351-376.
7) Sullivan, R. M. & Lucas, S. G. 2006. The Kirtlandian land-vertebrate "age" – faunal composition, temporal position and biostratigraphic correlation in the nonmarine Upper Cretaceous of western North America. New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science Bulletin 35, 7-29.
8) Roberts, E.M., Deino, A.D., and Chan, M.A. 2005a. 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of coeval strata and faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin: Cretaceous Research, 26:307-318.
9) Gates, T.A., Sampson, S.D., Zanno, L.E., Roberts, E.M., Eaton, J.G., Nydam, R.L., Hutchison, J.H., Smith, J.A., Loewen, M.A., and Getty, M.A. in press. Biogeography of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Western Interior of North America: new information from the Kaiparowits Formation, south-central Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
10) Sampson, S. D. 2009. Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life. University of California Press), 332 pp.
(Note: One of the book's chapters is dedicated to the story of Laramidian dinosaurs.)

Images (from top to bottom)
1) Late Cretaceous (Campanian) North America, showing the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway subdividing North America into Laramidia (western landmass) and Appalachia (eastern landmass). Image credit: Ron Blakey http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/
2) The Kaiparowits Formation, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. Image credit: Rebecca Hunt-Foster.
3) Reconstruction of the oviraptorosaur Hagryphus giganteus. Image credit: Michael Skrepnick.
4) The skull of Gryposaurus monumentensis, a new duck-billed dinosaur from the Kaiparowits Formation.
5) The skull of an unnamed horned dinosaur from the Kaiparowits Formation.