Biology and Society: Exposing the Vital Linkages

The Relationship between the Study of Life and Humanity's Chances for a Future

Abstract

In this essay we examine the relationship between the science of biology and human society, especially as related to the chances for a future for the human species. We maintain that biology always has been the most important area of human study for it is this science that outlines the rules for the continued existence of life on Earth. We call this set of basic rules “the biological contract.” The prevailing worldviews adopted by humans over their tenure on Earth, however, have involved misreading all of the biological contractual obligations, giving rise to global perspectives that are maladaptive, including the ethical frameworks intended to determine right and wrong behavior. The principal flaw of these prevailing worldviews and associated ethical systems is that they are afflicted with varying degrees of centristic orientation (e.g., anthropocentrism, ethnocentrism, and egocentrism). Forming views of how the world works based on misconceptions arising from such centristic orientation allows most humans to embroil themselves in a mass denial trap. Such an approach is dangerous in that it allows humans to remove themselves from the reality imposed upon them by the obligations of “the biological contract.” Twenty-six years ago, a significant study appeared in 1992’s State of the World volume entitled “Denial in the Decade of Decision,” The author maintained that crafting sustainable solutions to global environmental problems will have to involve the stripping away of the mass denial that entraps humans across the planet. The author envisioned that such developments would need to be initiated in “the decade of decision,” i.e., the decade of the 1990s, prior to the advent of the present millennium. Since such changes did not occur, the human species has significantly less time in which to take action. Our species, thus, remains locked in a mass addiction-denial cycle, allowing it to continue disassembling the planetary life-support systems because of its addiction to misuse and abuse of resources and its denial that continuing overpopulation is the basic fuel of such misuse and abuse. If humans are entrapped within a species-wide addiction-denial cycle, then it might be helpful to examine this global psychological problem by use of the disease model of substance abuse. Application of this disease model indicates that humans have become addicted to resource overconsumption accompanied by denial that such overconsumption has given rise to global problems that threaten the continued existence of life on planet Earth. We submit that rerouting our destructive pathway will have to involve exposing the origin of the collective psychic trauma that has given rise to our addiction to overpopulation and overconsumption. In this attempt, we have constructed a multi-step hypothesis proposing the evolution of a series of events that have led from the appearance of rationality accompanied by self-awareness and awareness of space-time positioning establishing a fear of the inevitable giving rise to a cycle of addiction and denial promulgating violence of all types and at all levels leading to the development of destructive worldviews that reinforce the violence. Given the pervasive nature of such destructive worldviews, the violent behaviors they facilitate, and the social and environmental problems they have promulgated, a pivotal question facing our species is whether worldviews can be shaped that are constructive as opposed to destructive. In our opinion, if such a transformation is possible, it will have to involve neutralization of the fear of the inevitable that appears to arise from our rationality and the awareness it gives us of the limited nature of our existence as individuals. Such a transformation from destructive to constructive worldviews will have to be based on a clear understanding of the manner in which human culture has evolved from generalized behavior. Culture is dependent on the passage of information from one member of a species to another through the agency of teaching and learning. Teaching and learning is the aspect of human culture that will have to be marshalled to accomplish the neutralization of the fear of the inevitable necessary to intervene in the vicious cycle of addiction to violence and its denial and bring about a transition to a worldview that will support the creation of a sustainable human society. Formal teaching and learning occur within educational systems. The present educational system, however, acts as a hindrance to the change necessitated, because it is based on operant conditioning, which produces graduates of the system who are wedded to the status quo, i.e., the system that has given rise to the addiction-denial cycle of violence. As a consequence, the formal educational system will have to be restructured in a top-to-bottom fashion by recognizing that rational capability will need to rest on the creation of evidence-based belief systems that emphasize operating within the world as it really is and not as we might like it to be. Furthermore, we will have to eschew short-term thinking that makes us think that it is possible to gain immediate benefits without having to face long-term consequences. In addition, we will have to learn that rights do not accrue to individuals without attendance to the associated responsibilities. Given such powerful impediments, it might be most efficacious to think of the role of education in effecting the transition from unsustainable to sustainable society as one of providing therapy for the various psychological ailments with which most humans appear to be beset. Envisioning educational reform to achieve sustainability as species-wide psychotherapy involves the realization of three principal goals as follows: (1) to alleviate the conditions that have led to the unsustainable society; (2) to modify the destructive behavior caused by embroilment in an addiction-denial cycle; and (3) to increase the understanding of the provisions of the “biological contract” to lead ultimately to the capacity to adapt to the requirements for living sustainably on the planet. We have written this essay in an attempt to identify why humans have embraced destructive worldviews in adapting to life on Earth and why the traditional educational approach has had so little effect on responding successfully to the global environmental problems issuing from these worldviews. In our view, we will have to confront the serious flaws in the human psychic and societal makeup in order to learn how to overcome these flaws in order to have any chance to create workable and lasting solutions to the set of problems that threaten the human species with extinction by design