Bare Bones Biology 006B – Frames

If you sit in one of the places in Downtown Bryan, for example, where people are discussing ideas, you can notice that most arguments that come up are caused by people using the same words to mean different things. Of course this has always been true. But in today’s world it’s more important than ever to be aware of the fact, because in addition to accidental confusions, we have to deal with intentional ones. There are campaigns to take perfectly good words and turn their original meanings upside down. It’s very confusing.

I was about to say I can’t imagine why, but in fact I can. People in power know that the real power lies with the people. If they can keep us yelling at each other over things that we basically agree about, that is one less worry for them.

So, boring as it may be, I will spend quite a lot of energy defining words and worldviews. And since I’ve recently been told that the new word for worldview is “frame,” I’ll call them frames.

My first frame is that we all need the same things, and I think the best way to get these things would be to work together to find a way to make them available.

My second frame is the concept introduced by James Lovelock in his several books. That the earth ecosystem is a unit of life — just as you and I are units of life, but a good deal more complicated than we are. The earth biosystem has the same basic life needs as all other units of biological life on earth. There is ample biological evidence to convince me of this, but for not everyone cares about the biology. For you who don’t know the concept of the living earth ecosystem — or if you believe something else might be more important, I’m going to point you to the NASA pictures that were taken of Mars, and ask you to compare that red with the blue marble picture of the living earth that was taken from the moon. That is the difference between life and death on a planetary scale.

So ecosystem is a scientific word, but surely we cannot believe that the ecosystem is a scientific thing. Any more than you are a scientific thing. Biology is a science that studies life, but the ecosystem is the real deal — a real living thing that we require for our own survival.

My third frame is that our living earth exists in and is a part of the universe. If you have been following Bare Bones Biology, you know that I believe there is a basic law of cause and effect in the universe. So if the universe exists, there is a good chance that it was created or is in process of being created. And now we bump into ideas about God and Creation that are way outside of my expertise, and probably quite controversial, so I will quote the experts.

Let’s begin with God. I heard Pastor Jeff Hackleman say that: God is “the one that created the universe.” It was on KBTX, so it must be true, and I don’t have a problem with putting a name to a creator.

That leaves only to define what we mean by creation. To create. That which is created. Doesn’t sound complicated to me, but rather than argue with anyone, I will quote another of our most renowned Christian religious scholars, Huston Smith, who says that the Creation is: “everything, as it is.” That’s also hard to argue about.

Next, we probably can also agree that we human persons did not create The Creation, and we do not understand everything about it.

So what is the problem here, folks? I sincerely believe that we all really need the same thing, and that is the living earth ecosystem that makes our air, water, soil and climate. This human-friendly environment is not available on Mars or on the moon, and if we have any idea that we humans can create any ecosystem anywhere — well in my lexicon that comes under the heading of excuses for not trying to take care of the one we already have.

Lynn Lamoreux

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy.wordpress.com and KEOS Radio, 89.1 FM, Bryan, Texas.
The podcast of this episode can be downloaded at:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/Bare_Bones_Biology_-_006-Frames-Final.mp3

Bare Bones Biology 005B – Gaia

Midafternoon on a shizukana Monday in Niibo Uryuya is quiet and peaceful, but if you walk along the paths and the car-width roads you find a day filled with relaxed activity.  People are meticulously fixing, mending, weeding.  I am sitting, eating an ice cream cone quick, before it melts, and reading Gaia, the new edition. The mockingbird-equivalent screeches long high notes from the electrical wire, while the local hawk paraglides the survey of his territory.

And then I have to try to write about it.Spiders hide in the hedges, behind their webs, apparently with their bellies full of dragonflies, judging by the remains.  In Texas this time of year the dragonflies range under the electrical wires and over the goatweed, about head high to a horse, in territories about two meters square.  Sometimes they switch territories with a neighbor, but they maintain an equidistant cruising mode.  Someone said they are hunting fire ants.  Anyone who lunches on fire ants is OK by me, so I like to sit and read and watch their iridescent air dances in the middle of the afternoon when it’s too hot to do anything else.

Here in Niibu Uryuya there are no fire ants, but I’m sure there is a fire ant equivalent because today for the first time the dragonflies are flashing red over the rice fields in little equally spaced territories, about head height to a horse.  If there were horses.  I wonder if it’s the same species of dragonfly, and then I wonder if it matters.  Amateur naturalists love to learn the names of things, but I’m having trouble remembering Japanese words, which right now I could really use, and I already know there is an animal to inhabit every lifestyle on this earth – the Japanese mockingbird equivalent and the hawk and the dragonflies, all are fulfilling the same purpose, doing the same job here that they do, whatever the species, in Texas, and that is one reason the world does not grind to a halt.  The magnificence of this whole of creation, where every little bit fits perfectly into the whole fabric of life, far surpasses words for explanation.  Gaia indeed.

In fact, that’s why I never read Gaia the first time round.  The so-called “Gaia hypothesis” is one of those beautiful ideas, like evolution, that clicks open a door of the mind to a new view on the reality of creation, as it has to be (or it wouldn’t work).  If you take the time to learn all the reasons why people have discovered these concepts they seem so obvious, after they have been discovered, so elegant, so necessarily true (or we wouldn’t exist) that the reading of the book, which by the way was written by James Lovelock — no matter how well it’s written, is anticlimactic — a comparatively pedestrian recitation of specifics that clip the wings of the beauty of the creation it is trying to describe.

But I am reading the book, so I can give the guy credit for calling our attention to the beauty of our one common reality, the living earth.

And then I have to try to write about it.

A podcast of this episode can be downloaded at:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB-005-Gaia-_2.mp3

Bare Bones Biology 127 – Community

Now that I am back from my trip, you will not be surprised to hear that I did not find any answers to the big questions. The biggest thing I learned is that nearly everyone I spoke with uses the same words to mean different things. Words are almost the most important things about being human, and the whole point of having words is so we can work together as human “communities,” because cooperating groups can accomplish more, working together, than any one person can accomplish alone. But that effort all falls apart in frustration and irritation if we are each using our same words to mean different things.

So I want to talk about community, because we humans are all hepped up right now about community-building. Maybe defining the words I used above, human and community, might be a good start, but let’s go back even farther. I have met people who do not know the meaning of the term earth, and there could be no humans and no communities and no life without the earth. So let’s start there.

One meaning of earth is a rather upscale word for dirt, isn’t it. Just plain old dirt that could be good dirt for growing food, or mountaintop dirt, or even the clay in the Brazos Valley. That’s the dirt we must have to stand on, build houses on, and grow our food. That is the first meaning of earth, but it’s not what I want to discuss.

What I’m talking about now is the whole planet Earth, the big blue and green and brown living marble as it is seen and photographed from a space ship. That earth is a living, breathing bit of life, floating in space. In fact, that earth is the only complete, self-contained unit of life that we know about in all the universe.

The whole living earth has several names. Biosphere is a term used in The Ecological World View, written by Charles Krebs. Krebs says: “Ecosystems consist of communities and their physical environment.” And he says that: “. . . they can be aggregated to include the whole earth ecosystem, or biosphere, which is sometimes called the ecosphere.” So the only complete unit of life that is not part of some other bit of life – the only one in all of space that we know about – the words that describe that amazing thing, are the earth or the biosphere or the ecosphere. Sometimes I like to call it the whole earth ecosystem, but the term ecosystem can be confusing because the whole earth ecosystem is made up of subunits that are also called ecosystems. And besides that, the same word has been widely used by the corposystem to apply to all sorts of combinations of things that are not really ecosystems. So no wonder we get confused some times.

A non-technical term for the whole living earth is Gaia, the concept introduced by James Lovelock. Sometimes I use this term to emphasize that the whole earth biosphere is a complete, stand-alone living thing within the universe.

The earth is not the universe. The universe is everything. All the stars and planets and moons and space and sun and energy and matter and everything that we don’t know about. The planet earth is only a small part, a tiny part of that, but the planet earth is important to us because it is the place that gives us our own lives. To do this, the planet makes its own food and water and climate and atmosphere and all the living things. It does this to stay alive.

The basic function of life is to perpetuate life.

And so the next question is, what has all that to do with community?

Bare Bones Biology is a completely nonprofit project. This edition aired on KEOS radio, 89.1 FM. The audio is available at http://www.BareBonesBiology.com. We use the .com because we also refuse to become or behave as an integral part of the corposystem that is destroying both our lifestyles and our place in the communal life of earth.

Recommended References

Krebs, Charles. The Ecological World View.
Margulis, Lynn. Symbiotic Planet. Amherst, MA: Basic Books, 1998.
Lovelock, James. The Vanishing Face of Gaia. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.

Bare Bones Biology 005 – Gaia

BBB005-Gaia

Ohh, sorry to be late posting today, I was out in the wilds of Dallas where they have no web access. Here is the transcript of BBB 005.

In July of 2005 I went to Japan to write a book that may be completed this year. I’ll let you know. But at the time I thought I was writing the book, it turned out I was just learning what questions needed to be asked, and of course I kept a diary. On this day I had walked from the youth hostel where I was staying about a mile into the littleone-road town of Niibo-Uryuya. It’s a beautiful place, surrounded by a green expanse of rice fields, and beyond the rice a circle of low volcanic mountains.. And I’d like to read you an excerpt from the diary.

Midafternoon on a shizukana Monday in Niibo Uryuya is quiet and peaceful, but if you walk along the paths and the car-width roads you find a day filled with relaxed activity. People are meticulously fixing, mending, weeding. I am sitting, eating an ice cream cone quick, before it melts, and reading Gaia, the new edition. The mockingbird-equivalent screeches long high notes from the electrical wire, while the local hawk paraglides the survey of his territory

Spiders hide in the hedges, behind their webs, apparently with their bellies full of dragonflies, judging by the remains. In Texas this time of year the dragonflies range under the electrical wires and over the goatweed, about head high to a horse, in territories about two meters square. Sometimes they switch territories with a neighbor, but they maintain an equidistant cruising mode. Someone said they are hunting fire ants. Anyone who lunches on fire ants is OK by me, so I like to sit and read and watch their iridescent air dances in the middle of the afternoon when it’s too hot to do anything else.

Here in Niibu Uryuya there are no fire ants, but I’m sure there is a fire ant equivalent because today for the first time the dragonflies are flashing red over the rice fields in little equally spaced territories, about head height to a horse. If there were horses. I wonder if it’s the same species of dragonfly, and then I wonder if it matters. Amateur naturalists love to learn the names of things, but I’m having trouble remembering Japanese words, which right now I could really use, and I already know there is an animal to inhabit every lifestyle on this earth – the Japanese mockingbird equivalent and the hawk and the dragonflies, all are fulfilling the same purpose, doing the same job here that they do, whatever the species, in Texas, and that is one reason the world does not grind to a halt. The magnificence of this whole of creation, where every little bit fits perfectly into the whole fabric of life, far surpasses words for explanation. Gaia indeed.

In fact, that’s why I never read Gaia the first time round. The so-called “Gaia hypothesis” is one of those beautiful ideas, like evolution, that clicks open a door of the mind to a new view on the reality of creation, as it has to be (or it wouldn’t work). If you take the time to learn all the reasons why people have discovered these concepts they seem so obvious, after they have been discovered, so elegant, so necessarily true (or we wouldn’t exist) that the reading of the book, which by the way was written by James Lovelock — no matter how well it’s written, is anticlimactic — a comparatively pedestrian recitation of specifics that clip the wings of the beauty of the creation it is trying to describe.

But I am reading the book, so I can give the guy credit for calling our attention to the beauty of our one common reality, the living earth.

And then I have to try to write about it.

Optimum Population Trust

A quote here from the new OPT newsletter.

Lovelock Becomes Patron
Dr. James Lovelock, the scientist responsible for the Gaia theory, is the latest leading green thinker to become an OPT patron. Dr. Lovelock, who has warned that climate change will cause mass human mortality over the coming century, reducing the world population total to as little as half a billion, said that population growth and climate change were “two sides of the same coin” and called on environmentalists to “recognise the truth and speak out” on the link between rising human numbers and global warming. OPT is delighted to have his support.

James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A biography of our living earth
James Lovelock The Vanishing Face of Gaia, a final warning
And other publications.