Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life. E.O. Wilson, 1984

26 Nov 2012

The Life Scientist



"Our human eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other, non-human eyes, as our ears are now tuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the truming of frogs. While gliding in huge undulating schools through the depths of the ammotic oceans, or later, while crawling upon our bellies from puddle to puddle (our scaley skin glinting in the sun). While racing beneath the grasses as tiny noctural mammals, or leaping from branch to branch as long tailed primates, our brainy bodies have steadily formed themselves in dynamic interaction with the texture and rythms of terrestrial nature."

Given this evolutionary entanglement with our animal ancestry, and a deep rooted sensitivity to our natural surroundings, what good can be gleamed from the detatched observations of a scientist? Screened by the lenses of microscope, or the crystalex screen of my laptop, what purpose does my retreat from directly experienced reality serve? The detached states of mind  and clinical practice necessary to derive insights proper to science has yielded insights and explanations which in my opinion justify this objective and materialist position. But caution must be applied, for the rise of science and technology deadens the senses to our carnal embedment in a world ultimately beyond our control.

Abandoning the animate landscape that has formed the very eyes that now peer through our microscopes, the very intelligence that now seeks to interprate the data, is not an option. "Every coherent image we can have of those other, ostensibly more objective dimensions is secretly rooted then, in the ambiguous, ever-shifting terrain of our ordinary experience."

Quotes taken from David Abram- Becoming Animal
Image taken from the MRS Science as Art Collection


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