MAIN IDEA:

This book asks the question:” HOW CAN WE LIVE IN HARMONY with nature?” and then attempts to provide the answer that the author defines in the following way:” This book is a comprehensive response to that question. Instead of choosing sides, it shows how the framing is fundamentally misguided and counterproductive. An oppositional binary between “natural” and “unnatural” inhibits constructive dialogue about humanity’s most pressing problems. It trades complicated truths for the comfort of clear categories. It encourages dogmatism over compromise, certainty over humility, and simplicity over nuance.” The bottom line is the recognition of the meaninglessness of the division of the world into natural and unnatural when humans and everything that they produce are parts of this world. The author also discusses attempts to derive morality from natural vs. unnatural in such cases as homosexuality. There is also a discussion of the theological aspect of nature’s goodness vs. humans’ unnatural badness, concluding that:” The best future for humanity and nature must be built on dialogue and evidence, not taboos and zealotry.”. Finally, the author discusses the interplay between science and natural/unnatural approaches in multiple areas, from economics to nature vs. nurture’s role in the formation of personality. At the end of the book, the author concludes:” I am more philosophically confused about nature than I was when I began. Maybe you feel the same way, full of questions instead of answers. This is no reason for shame or guilt. It is not something to be overcome. Uncertainty is humility, and humility can also be sacred, its own source of rituals and laws, which, like nature, can change while remaining true to themselves.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

In my simple mind, all these “natural vs unnatural” notions are just stand-ins for good vs bad and are somewhat puzzling. I think everything that exists is natural, and only imagination can create something that is not natural. For example, everything moving below the speed of light is natural, something moving with warp speed is not, unless it is observed in reality, causing humans to come up with some improvements to the theory of relativity.  All human actions are natural, as well as the artifacts produced by these actions. They are as natural as artifacts produced by other animals, be it beaver-built dams or termite mounds that have air conditioning. It really does not matter that termites build their mounds without planning committees, budgeting, and government approvals.

Nature is not a conscious entity and, therefore, could not possibly care about humans and the products of their activities.  Humans, however, have to care because any changes produced by humans or occurring regardless of their activity always do one of two things: they either make human life easier or more difficult. I support the idea that the powerful and energetically costly human brain was evolutionally developed as a tool to be used for speedy adjustment to environmental changes. For example, the ice age that moved at the speed of a couple of thousand years left no chance of survival for a naked ape without enough brain because DNA change required to grow fur cover required a much longer time. The naked ape with a powerful brain can learn to use the fur of other animals a lot faster than that. The process of adjustment speeds up considerably because it worked so well that humans multiplied to the level that required new adjustments.  We came to the end of the human expansion phase when adjustments were local and are at the beginning of the global accommodation phase that will result in the state of dynamic accommodation to an always-changing environment based on a scientific understanding of these changes. This could occur only if there is freedom of scientific discussion, research, and debates. Otherwise, humanity will suffer from religious and quasi-religious movements such as global warming (climate change) that suppress real science and direct resources to waste. I believe that eventually, dynamic accommodation will be achieved, but lots of people will pay a high price with the misery of their lives for trusting crooks that promote quasi-religious environmentalism.