Continuous devastation Essay Example for Free

Continuous devastation Essay The story of a jellyfish in Quinn’s book represents quite an original psycho-philosophical approach to the problem of evolution. The story is made up in a form of a dialogue. A person, telling a story argues, that man is a highpoint of evolution, and the opponent applies something like a doctrine of relativity, explaining, that the world has not always been made for man and it can be ascertained, that once the world will be made for someone else again. For the speaker, evolution has finished as man appeared, because there is no more way to evolve, thusly, he advocates a theory of extremity of evolution. And while man is a final product of evolution, he can be mentioned as ultimate and supreme creature and the whole world is made for him. To contest such a conclusion the opponent turns to a relativistic approach, trying to concretize the concerned time. A jellyfish serves as example of such relativity, because in case a researcher appeared on the shore of an ocean 500 million years ago, he would find nothing more perfect, than a jellyfish on earth. Therefore, a jellyfish could reasonably believe, that it is a supreme creature, because man was just to appear and has not yet become factual. The evolution ended with jellyfish and the world was made for jellyfish. For Quinn, the core difference between jellyfish and man in the matter of evolution is that a jellyfish does not tell stories, and a man does. Therefore, he invented a religious dogma to justify his superiority and to prove, that the evolution indeed ended with man. Nevertheless, religions remain human inventions and can serve as justification only for other humans. The conclusion is quite pessimistic for humanity: once there can appear a creature, which overpasses man just as we overpass a jellyfish. Question 2 It should first be pointed, that Ishmael sees agriculture as violation of natural laws. Humans do not listen to the voice of mother-nature which tells â€Å"take what you need and leave the rest†. In spite of doing so, man starts producing surpluses, taking more, than he needs. Production of surpluses leas to expansion of population in proportion to food supplies and is not limited by any cultural or technological barriers, finally resulting in environmental and natural phenomena, which limit population growth. Quinn compares such processes to a system of checks and balances. Women’s fertility in the regions with high surpluses production lessens year after year, until it falls below reproduction rate. Quinn suggests, that population still continues to grow globally, although population may fall locally, and this depends on the type of society. Industrial societies are much less reproductive, since people have less incentive for reproduction. Agrarian societies and their members need a lot of children, often just of economic reasons, because children are future working force. For Quinn there is one positive effect from present model of population growth. This is unsustainable pressure on nature and biosphere, leading to extension of about 200 species daily. The situation is especially dramatic in non-European countries, where industrialization, combined with traditionally high birth rates, would lead to catastrophic increase of pressure on nature. Question 3 The next link between food supplies and population growth, which is proposed by Quinn is embodied in term â€Å"food race†. He compares such a race with the arms race during the Cold war. For him, human population is determined by food supplies just as with any other animals. In case food supplies grow – population and civilization grow. Sometimes the inverse relationship is possible and food supplies grow as the population grows. Consequently, there are two variables: population and food supplies, which are mutually dependant. The primary difference with the Malthusian catastrophe concept is that fro Quinn, population can never exceed it’s food supplies. It will just not grow big enough to consume more food, than it produces. Quinn himself explained, that the problem of Malthus is that â€Å"How are we going to feed those people? †, and his problem is â€Å"How are we going to stop producing all those people? †. So, Quinn saw population growth as function of food supplies with direct correlation between them. Under his concept, a population merely can not overgrow it’s food supplies, because more people are going to produce more food. Nevertheless, it can be pointed, that Quinn does not consider secondary factors, for example, ability of the Planet itself to produce enough food. Quinn believes, that there can be two endings for food race – either abandonment, or catastrophe. It is therefore up to human discretion whether to sensually stop reproduction or face overpopulation and finally decline. Question 4 Quinn defined two major types of humans dependently on their attitude to nature – Takers and Peacekeepers. Takers are those, who are usually referred as civilized. Their culture came to the world with the beginning of agricultural revolution 10 000 years ago. Takers considered themselves the masters of nature, for whom the world has been created, and so man has a right to conquer the world. They think, that the world belongs to man. The reverse of their ideas is a belief, that there is something fundamentally wrong with people. Man does not know how to live properly because that knowledge is unobtainable and related to some divine revelation. Peacekeepers, named Leavers by Quinn represent a pretty different approach. They consider themselves just a part of Nature and try to limit their influence on it by taking nothing more than they need from their environment. They think, that a man belongs to world. Quinn uses an example of Cain and Abel. Cain symbolizes ancient tribes of farmers, who already acted as takers, and Abel presents prehistoric tribes of Semite herders. Undoubtedly, herders have much smaller influence on nature, since they do nothing to change it. Killing Able by Cain, therefore, is s Symbol of Taker’s victory over Leavers. Takers indeed easily overcome the Leavers in the process of evolution, because they enjoy much greater opportunities to increase their food supplies and consequently the population. However, in the remote prospective, their way leads to disaster due to overpressure on nature. The Leaver’s approach is more respective to nature and allows to retain it for longer time, so prospectively the Leaver’s idea seems to be preferential. Question 5 Quinn uses a figure of a pedaling airman and an aircraft as a civilization metaphor. He speaks, that humans in the last several thousands of years are Takers, â€Å"who are in the air, but not in the flight†. He compares a modern taking man to a person, who has brought some flying machine to a top of a cliff and attempts to fly. For some time he could really think, that he is able to fly, because his apparatus does not longer stand on the top of a cliff, and a man finds himself in the air. However, only a little time later a man discovers, that he flies down towards his death. Under Quinn, this happens, because man is not familiar with natural laws. He looks like an inventor, who attempts to fly without knowledge of laws of aerodynamics. Similarly, humanity, which is not aware of natural laws is likely to fall down. The basic mistake of a man is that he believes, that it is he, who pilots the aircraft, although it is piloted only by natural laws. Not having a sufficient instrument to make his machine fly, man looks like a pedaling pilot, who tries to move his plane by means of bicycle pedals. It is obvious, that pedals are not good enough to bring an aircraft into motion, so man falls down. Such fall is a direct result of Taker’ conviction, that the world is made for man. Many humans just ca not believe, that their effort to pilot such a strange aircraft would lead them only to death and annihilation. Question 6 The poster, which is observed by the character of a story puts forth one of the key questions of Quinn’s book. Gorilla here is likely to represent those other creations of nature, which share our planet with us, humans. It is impossible to say whether they should be reviewed separately from nature, Separation is human feature, and gorilla’s never tried to oppose natural processes. So, they can both be regarded as nature itself and as inhabitants of that nature. The first part of a slogan: â€Å"With Gorilla gone, will there be hope for man† is more or less clear. Quinn points, that continuous devastation of nature would lead to devastation of man, who can not survive without nature. The second part: â€Å"With man gone, will there be hope for Gorilla† is less obvious. It can seem, that in case humanity died out, natural balance would be restored. In other words, gorilla does not need man to survive. To answer the question we should consider, that finally a man is also a part of nature, same as gorilla is, so distinguishing of man would also violate natural balance. Therefore, destroying humanity to save nature appears to be an extreme, same as extreme of human’s supreme power over nature. So, humans need to find a third way – a way of clever cooperation with nature. They need to once again become part of the world and be in a way similar to gorillas.