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bending_sickleStephen Jay Gould (1990) - Natural History 99: 24-30
“Patience of this magnitude usually involves a deep understanding of a fundamental principle […] the effects of scale.”
“So much of accumulating importance at earthly scales – the results of geological erosion, evolutionary changes in lineages – is invisible by the measuring rod of human life.”
“Architects of medieval cathedrals had to frame satisfaction on scales beyond their own existence, for they could not live to witness the completion of their designs.”
“genre (environmentalists versus developers)”
“I do not think that, practically or morally, we can defend a policy of saving every distinct local population of organisms. […] Subspecies are dynamic, interbreedable, and constantly changing; what then are we saving by declaring them all inviolate? […] I will stoutly defend species, but we cannot ask for the preservation of every distinct gene, unless we find a way to abolish death itself (for many organisms carry unique mutations).”
“preservation must be made on a case by case basis, not a general principle of preservation (lest the environmental movement ultimately lose popular support for trying to freeze a dynamic evolutionary world in status quo).”
“Consider the role that islands […] have played both in developing the concepts of evolutionary theory and in acting as cradles of origin (through isolation) or vestiges of preservation for biological novelties.”
“Let the Mount Graham red squirrel, so worthy of preservation in its own right, also serve as an indicator species for the unique and fragile habitat that it occupies.”
“I can at least grasp, while still rejecting, the claim that nature would be no worse off if the squirrels died, but I am utterly that the squirrels inflict a positive harm upon the mother of us all!”
“Honorable intellectual disagreement should always be addressed; misquotation should be ignored, when possible and politically practical.”
“Paleontologists have been enlisted again and again, in opposition to our actual opinions and in support of attitudes that most of us regard as anathema, to uphold arguments by developers about the irrelevance (or even, in this case, benevolence) of modern anthropogenic extinction. This standard error is a classic example of failure to understand the importance of scale.”
“Paleontologists do discuss the inevitability of extinction for all species – in the long run and on the broad scale of geological time. […] (My colleague Dave Raup often opens talks on extinction with a zinging one-liner: ‘To a first approximation, all species are extinct.’) We do therefore identify extinction as the normal fate of species. […] We do discuss the issue of eventual ‘recovery’ from these extinctions, in the sense that life does rebuild or surpass its former diversity after several million years. Finally, we do allow that mass extinctions break up stable faunas and, in this sense, permit or even foster evolutionary innovations […].”
“…some apologists for development have argues that extinction at any scale (even of local populations within years or decades) poses no biological worry but, on the contrary, must be viewed as a comfortable part of an inevitable order.”
“The mean life span of marine invertebrate species lies between 5 and 10 million years; terrestrial vertebrate species turn over more rapidly, but still average in the millions. By contrast, Homo sapiens may be only 250,000 years old […]. Similarly, recovery from mass extinction takes its natural measure in millions of years – as much as 10 million or more for fully rekindled diversity after major catastrophic events.”
“Of what conceivable significance to us is the prospect of recovery from mass extinction 10 million years down the road if our entire species, not to mention our personal family lineage, has so little prospect of surviving that long?
Capacity for recovery at geological scales has no bearing whatever upon the meaning of extinction today. […] We are trying to preserve populations and environments because the comfort and decency of our present lives, and those of fellow species that share our planet, depend upon such stability. Mass extinctions may not threaten distant futures, but they are decidedly unpleasant for species in the throes of their power […]. […] And to say that we should let the squirrels go (at our immediate scale) because al species eventually die (at geological scale) makes about as much sense as arguing that we shouldn’t treat an easily curable childhood infection because all humans are ultimately and inevitably mortal.”
“Two linked arguments are often promoted as a basis for an environmental ethic:
1. That we live on a fragile planet now subject to permanent derailment and disruption by human intervention;
2. That humans must learn to act as stewards for this threatened world.
Such views, however well-intentioned, are rooted in the old sin of pride and exaggerated self-importance. We are one among millions of species, stewards of nothing. […] Nature does not exist for us, had no idea we were coming, and doesn’t give a damn about us.”
“This assertion of ultimate impotence could be countered if we, despite our late arrival, now held power over the planet’s future (argument number one above). But we don’t, despite popular misconceptions of our might. We are virtually powerless over the earth at our planet’s own geological time scale. All the megatonnage in our nuclear aarsenals yield but one ten-thousandths the power of the asteroid that might have triggered the Cretaceous mass extinction. […] We fear global warming, yet even the most radical model yields an earth far cooler than many happy and prosperous times of a prehuman past. […] On geological scales, our planet will take good care of itself and let time clear the impact of any human malfeasance. […] Our planet simply waits.”
“People who do not appreciate the fundamental principle of appropriate scales often misread such an argument as a claim that we may therefore cease to worry about environmental degradation […] We cannot threaten at geological scales, but such vastness is entirely inappropriate. […] The planet will recover from nuclear holocaust, but we will be killed and maimed by the billions, and our cultures will perish. The earth will prosper if polar icecaps melt under a global greenhouse, but most of our major cities, built at sea level as ports and harbors, will founder, and changing agricultural patterns will uproot our populations.”
“We have never entirely shaken this legacy of environmentalism as something opposed to immediate human needs, particularly of the impoverished and unfortunate. […] clean air and water, solar power, recycling, and reforestation are best solutions (as they are) for human needs at human scales – and not for impossibly distant planetary futures.”
“I have never been much attracted to the Kantian categorical imperative in searching for an ethic – to moral laws that are absolute and unconditional and do not involve any ulterior motive or end. The world is too complex and sloppy for such uncompromising attitudes (and God help us if we embrace the wrong principle, and then fight wars, kill and main in our absolute certainty.) I prefer the messier ‘hypothetical imperatives’ that invoke desire, negotiation, and reciprocity. […] I imagine that our various societies grope toward this principle because structural stability, and basic decency necessary for any tolerable life, demand such a maxim. […] ‘the golden rule’ […].}”
“I suggest that we execute such a pact with our planet. She holds all the cards and has immense power over us – so such a compact, which we desperately need but she does not at her own time scale, would be a blessing for us, and an indulgence for her. […] Poor Richard told us that ‘necessity never made a good bargain’ but the earth is kinder than human agents in the ‘art of the deal’. She will uphold her end; we must now go and do likewise.”’
* Dave Raup
