|
| The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth | 
| Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $10.10
You Save: $11.85 (54%)
New (5) from $10.10
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 470822
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.9516
ASIN: B001717522
Publication Date: September 5, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Wholly Creation March 12, 2007
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
After listening to E.O. Wilson's stirring lecture at Oklahoma State University, I found myself trying to assimilate gobs of information regarding conservation. During this search I read E.O. Wilson's most recent book; The Creation. It would be right to say, this book struck a chord with me. Written in the form of a lengthy letter to a southern Baptist pastor, Wilson pleas for usually conflicting institutions of science and religion to collaborate in their efforts to save our planet. Wilson writes with elegant clarity and devoted passion to the subject of biodiversity conservation. He reveals accurate as well as disturbing details about the overall health of the planet we live on. In addition, Wilson gives advice to readers on how to protect, teach, and sustain biodiversity for the future. A great read, not your average non fiction bedtime reading material.
 A tour d'force regarding Biodiversity- the "holy grail" for biodiversity??? February 20, 2007
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
E.O.Wilson has produced a beautiful little book with a eloquent tour d'force about "biodiversity." The book has depth and breadth, scientific grounding and eloquent advocacy, originality, ethics and science, etc.
care for creation February 1, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Harvard's renowned entomologist E.O. Wilson was born (1929) in Alabama and raised in the evangelical faith of the Southern Baptists, a faith that he rejected long ago in favor of what in this book he calls "secular humanism." So there is a personal history behind his decision to craft this book as a long letter written to a fictional pastor, asking the pastor to set aside their important differences in order to join forces in a common cause. The stakes are high, for "the fate of the Creation is the fate of humanity," he writes, and right now creation is in deep distress. As the two most powerful forces in society, he says, religion and science can act as a tremendous force for good.
To the extent that religion neglects the earthly present in order to emphasize a heavenly future, and as a consequence abuses creation, Wilson blames faith for many of our environmental woes; and his history of humankind reads something like a long, slow march from superstition due to religion to liberation thanks to science. But he is just as wary of scientific and technical optimism as he is of religious pessimism. Such "exemptionalism" that denies our environmental crisis is what he fears most.
Whereas the earth's genetic heritage has taken tens of millions of years to evolve, our cultural heritage has developed swiftly with catastrophic consequences. Earth's biodiversity is vanishing at an astonishing pace due to the destruction of habitats, global warming, the spread of alien species, pollution, and over-population. And this is only what we do know. "We don't know what is happening to most of the rest of life, because we don't even know what it is. We don't need a moon base or a manned trip to Mars. We need an expedition to planet Earth, where probably fewer than 10 percent of the life forms are known to science, and fewer than 1 percent of those have been studied beyond a simple anatomical description and a few notes on natural history."
Across seventeen very short chapters Wilson sketches why and how this has happened, along with the projected consequences for our failure to act. He also laments current science education and suggests how we can improve it. I especially enjoyed his personal anecdotes, how, for example, he recalled his first microscope at the age of eight, and three important university mentors who bequeathed to him a passion for science. If various news reports are accurate, at long last the evangelicals that Wilson left long ago are beginning to get the message about the environmental crisis and joining scientists like him in what he calls in his last chapter an "alliance for life." If true, and let us hope that it is, that would be good news about the Good News.
 Appeal to save biodiversity on our home planet February 1, 2007
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
I like the book and I like E.O.Wilson's work. I agree with the plea made by author in this book.
I wish wholeheartedly that we can save as many species as possible on our home planet.
But...I want to make a few observations:
1) The book is written as a long letter to a Pastor. But, the author doesn't explain why religion is antithesis to conservation efforts.
One can extrapolate religion to politics to global warming debate or to trade subsidies or to discouraging condom use in poor countries or to fundamentalist belief in Rapture negating all concern for future on our home planet and so on.
But this connection is not explicit in the book. One can be religious and yet be against all issues mentioned above. ( or not)
I thought that the author is more concerned with negating Intelligent Design but doesn't explain how belief in Intelligent Design might lead to active destruction on wilderness.
There is a connection but it would have been better if the connection is explicitly mentioned in book.
2) The major causes of destruction of habitat is never touched..Population Explosion and Conspicuous Consumption.
I know these are difficult subjects. Population ties in to standard of living and individual's rights to procreate. Without getting one's hands dirty in politics, corruption and trade, one can't solve problem of population explosion. It has been shown that with economic prosperity, population growth goes down but how to raise standard of living for one & all on this planet is a much, much tougher question.
And global oil use (and global warming) can not be curtailed without cutting down on conspicuous consumption by affluent societies (and lately not so affluent ones). Again politics comes into picture.
These are dead important questions. Without dealing these two problems head on, I don't see any changes coming about.
3) I don't understand how the author signed off the book. He says "I fight the same wars as you" to pastor as a way of showing solidarity with religion. I hope the "wars" are metaphorical and not "real" wars. I thought the whole point of the book was to rise above trivial, tribal wars and see our earth as owned by everyone. The same applies to patriotism. Being proud of our earth rather will go a long way in my opinion.
4) How can saving species in a lab or a repository be helpful to mankind in the long term? Yes, we can save the biodiversity in short term but the natural balance of ecosystems can hardly be preserved in this manner. Only by curtailing human encroachment by reducing population can we save fragile ecosystems. And unless people depending on these ecosystems have financial and political freedom, they will keep poaching. Again politics and economics comes into picture.
Author's effort to install love for our planet's biodiversity is laudable. These are grave and important issues. Our future depends on this. I think these issues need to dealt with at a much broader platform. These need to raised on a global, political platform (haha, it won't happen) where global poverty, global overpopulation and pollution are dealt head on. This is so much bigger than religion.
Work Together January 17, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
As a former deeply religious man, now a physician and athiest, with a believing/questioning wife and family members of all persuasions, I admire Professor Wilson immensely and commend his highly readable effort to tackle the most urgent common goal facing church, science and politics today. It's well worth reading and passing around, particularly before or after watching Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
