Time permitting, I may pick up a copy and contribute what I can to this discussion. I’m at least familiar with Robert’s thoughts on the subject. I have disagreed with him in the past on some of the particulars, which I guess puts me on the “prophet” side.DWill wrote:I've wanted to read this book since hearing about it a couple months ago. In talking about the fate of our species with Robert, it seemed that he was on the side of humans continuing to beat the odds against continuing to expand our economies and populations, through technical/industrial innovation. I, on the other hand, most often spoke about the dim prospects of humans becoming ever more dominant as a species. That, I thought (and still tend to think) just won't work; we'll collide with natural limits and completely degrade the planet in the process. Robert is set up to take the wizard's side, played by Norman Borlaug in Mann's book, and I'm representing the prophet, played by William Vogt. Unless, that is, either of us change our minds!
It seems to me the wizard-prophet dichotomy may have its roots in an age-old philosophical question: what is (hu)man’s place in nature? Stephen Jay Gould discusses this question in an essay he wrote in the 1980s called “Our Natural Place.”
Gould identifies two basic philosophies that try to put man in his place, so to speak. The zoocentric idea that sees humans as “nothing more” than animals. And the anthropocentric one that sees humans as the pinnacle of evolution. (For the sake of brevity, I’m sort of presenting the extremes of both sides, knowing that most people will fall somewhere between.) But it sounds like the prophet’s position may be rooted in zoocentrism and the wizard’s position in anthropocentrism? Maybe?
I’m more zoocentric than anthropocentric and probably more prophet than wizard. Through my study of evolution, I understand that human beings are very much part of the natural world, and that all life is intrinsically connected. And, yet, humans are also more than “just animals.” We’re special in the sense, as Sagan once said, as a way the universe can know itself. But with sentience and our position at the very top of the food chain comes a very grave responsibility to NOT muck the planet up for the rest of God’s creatures. In sheer numbers we are doing just that. We occupy an ever-expanding niche, displacing other life in the process. At the same time, I don’t believe we have any control over population growth unless we go to a one-world totalitarian government. Our numbers will rise until some catastrophic event, war, famine, etc. Until then, I can’t help but wonder if a world of 10 billion people will be a catastrophe of a different kind. But it’s it’s an important discussion nonetheless. As Gould says, “we live in an essential and unresolvable tension between our unity with nature and our dangerous uniqueness. Systems that attempt to place and make sense of us by focusing exclusively either on the uniqueness or the unity are doomed to failure. But we must not stop asking and questing because the answers are complex and ambiguous.”
Sorry if this is way out in left field. I think I just like quoting Gould.