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Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility.
Author and conservationist
Aldo Leopold wrote these words in 1949, and they are all the more important today.
As we enter the 21st century and today's children look forward to living in the 22nd, this lack of intellectual humility is harming us in a number of ways.
Most notably, humanity is fundamentally and unintentionally changing the shape of the natural world. But the scientists who best understand this shift typically use only the language of science and reason - data and models - to explain it.
This overreliance on science and reason makes it difficult to communicate with the general public. It also blinds us to the full scope of the issues we now face, which can be fully grasped
only through the emotional, cultural, ethical and spiritual perspectives on the world.Leaving room for the mysterious and unexplainableGeophysicists have proposed that we have entered the
Anthropocene, a new geologic epoch defined by humanity's influence on the planet and nature's systems. What we do to adapt to this new reality requires that we augment our scientific ways of studying the natural environment with the wisdom to appreciate our intellectual limitations.
For example, scientific reason relies on data and analysis, and yet there is
much in this world that cannot be measured; one cannot provide data that proves that love for another human being, a spiritual connection with the natural world, a sense of calling of vocation or the presence of God all exist. And yet, a great many people believe - or even know - that these exist.
Scientific reason also seeks to understand the natural world by breaking it down into individual parts. But
it is the integrity of the whole that matters, what
Rachel Carson called the
"web of life."
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