Adventures in Thought Space

The crux of the environmental debate is a disagreement over the relationship humans and animals have with the planetary environment and each other. This debate includes but is by no means limited to evolution. Although humans are a grave threat to their environment and themselves (at least over a geologic/evolutionary timescale), the popular/layperson’s pro-environmentalist position isn’t much more scientific than their counterparts’. Ironically, they reveal their ignorance in part by their UNDERESTIMATION of humankind’s threat. Also interesting is the fact that the best summary explanation for humanity’s threat is simpler than most of the “scientific” ones generally offered by lay environmentalists.    It all comes down to this:  The health of ecosystems depends on their naturally-selected physical, chemical, and biological compositions and interactions; and humankind’s lifestyle alters environments in vast excess of what evolution can keep pace with.    Since ...