HANNON WRITES:

You may have caught a recent PBS program on frogs, called “Frogs: The Thin Green Line.” It looks at the alarming decreases in frog populations around the world. I’ve heard about this strange malady for years and it was an informative experience. What struck me as eerie was that the pitch was for science discovering and solving the problems, and of course our magnanimous role in conserving these wonderful animals in an act that itself is a part of evolution — this was stated explicitly by one of the scientists.

Many pressures are facing frogs around the world: a pernicious and poorly known fungal pathogen; habitat destruction; pesticides; and of course global climate change, all presented without clear causal connections between any of them, if there are any. The show labeled this nexus as “the perfect storm” of lethality for amphibians, and it tells us that “something is wrong” according to one of the scientists. I didn’t know anything could be “wrong” in nature or in evolutionary scenarios.

The overarching theme was how terrible the existence of humans is for other life forms. None of this was balanced by introducing the idea that some populations of such “canary” species and others have doubtless faced equal or greater difficulties over millennia that we have no observations or records of. The show was smooth and relentless in fostering the idea that biodiversity, as exemplified by frogs, is on an unprecedented precipice, due primarily to the effects of man’s callous indifference. There is of course truth in this idea but its presentation needs to be balanced with broader thinking about all life on this planet rather than treating man as an alien invader.

The examples of captive frogs being released into the wild as a measure against adverse natural conditions (!) were interesting, and measure against adverse natural conditions (!) were interesting, and the scientists stressed that without habitat the animals are doomed. Fair enough. But it is the overall final message that is distressing: the long term solution, really the only solution, is more science through research and regulation. Maybe it is the cynic in me but I see this as a control issue. Whoever has the ability to reduce a dilemma to a materialistic understanding, with a self-reinforcing agenda as its source of solutions and funding, has the power.

Laura writes:

As you noted, how can humans step into the evolutionary process and rescue frogs if we ourselves are part of the evolutionary process? And, how can one justify this sentimental attachment to frogs? They are just surviving and so are we. The hypocrisy of these nature shows is enough to make a person mentally ill, so thorough are the contradictions that lead a viewer, on one hand, to see all of life as mechanistic and predetermined and, on the other, to view the delicate balance of life forms as hinging on the proper sentiment in human beings, which is the very opposite of a mechanistic force. The final impression they leave is that human beings are evil and yet meaningless. But how can we be both evil and meaningless?

“Whoever has the ability to reduce a dilemma to a materialistic understanding, with a self-reinforcing agenda as its source of solutions and funding, has the power.” That’s right. This program sounds like a thinly-veiled grant proposal.

Hannon writes:

By the way, another recent program on Balkans wildlife was amazing. It was more like the old shows that focused on the animals and their environment, largely avoiding heavy-handed sermonizing.

                                             — Comments —

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Thanks to you and your reader for making that essential point about evolution and the view of man as somehow both within and outside of nature. I find that people are utterly incapable of grasping the point, though it’s very essential and very elementary. If human beings are nothing but “non-human animals,” then our interaction with the environment is no different, morally speaking, from that of any other animal. Animals simply do what they do, and if we are a product of macroevolution and if the same is true of every other animal, then from a purely scientific point of view we are indistinguishable and it makes no sense whatsoever to go on bewailing the behavior of homo sapiens. All there is to do is simply observe how humans behave, and observe it with the exact same detachment as we observe sunspots or lions killing their young. 

But that isn’t what environmentalists do, and by becoming outraged, they are unknowingly acting on fundamentally Christian assumptions, which they inherit at the level of “gut” morality while rejecting it as a matter of doctrine. If human beings somehow transcend nature while being a part of it, and are imbued with moral responsibility unique in the known cosmos, then that is a Christian view and one totally at odds with the conception of man as a biological machine that is the product of a larger biological machine. If it is true that man is nothing more than a natural end product, then the environmentalists need to take up their case with mother nature—it’s her fault, not ours, that we’re made this way. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, what makes people really different is the fact that we are capable of being less than what our true natures demand of us—a lion, no less than a star, is not capable of moral failure. From this obvious fact much else follows, including the fact that man is neither completely alien to nature, nor a mere artifact of it. 

Moreover, environmentalists have stolen the notion that there is some “right” way for the world to be, and because the contradiction with materialism is so stark, many of them rush instead to Gaiaism or Wicca or whatever else as a means of preserving some conception of the transcendent, of teleology, and of morality. Anyway, it’s a point that they seem incapable of grasping, and the contradictions run through most contemporary “Nature” shows which, increasingly, are really nature-worship shows.

Laura writes:

I was not joking when I said these contradictions can cause mental instability. When a person accepts and tries to live with incompatible and conflicting ideas, – and the notion that man is morally meaningful and yet also a mere machine is as stark a contradiction as you can get – “cognitive dissonance” doesn’t capture the psychological effect. It’s like an internal seizure or earthquake is always in the offing; the fault line is volatile.

One could approach this issue of the decline of frog populations one of two ways and maintain consistency. One could look at the decline with genuine scientific detachment and with conscious avoidance of any bias towards any possible causes, especially those that signal human interference. One might find human factors significant, but one would not rush to find them significant or feel any panic in correcting these human factors. Understanding would be the only scientific goal.

Two, one could approach the issue with scientific detachment only to a certain point. One could make the conscious decision to look for all possibility of human intereference because human beings are morally culpable and are stewards of the earth. But, if human beings are morally culpable and stewards of the earth, they are also superior to frogs and human concerns would trump those of frogs. Therefore any panic would be modified by the recognition that, while frogs are important, human survival is more important.

Laura writes to Hannon:

So what you are saying is the program is a thinly-veiled grant proposal, a  request for funds for more research.

Hannon writes:

I think you are right about that. The message of such programs is what we can do about nature and how, a line of thinking that would have been seen as fundamentally egoistic, if not irrational, a short time ago.

It is as if some of these shows are made to indoctrinate young minds to this line of thinking, which naturally flows into the machinery of university education, thence grant writing and a career in science (or teaching science). This pathway is emphasized relentlessly in our culture as you know; it is the ideal unisex vocation. Compare this with what young people might have imagined after watching Mutual of Omaha-sponsored wildlife shows.

Investigative science truly justifies itself and has endless possibilities, all with equal meaning– or equal meaninglessness. It is the science itself that often motivates most and this shows in what graduate students are excited about. The initiative is no longer about the organism itself– which organism or environment is selected is merely topical– but some unifying molecular insight or a new technique. These drive funding and vice versa and lead to an insatiable quest after the next parcel of knowledge, which is a natural component of science but should not be its end purpose. As a consequence, strength in general knowledge is seen as an anachronism.

For all the hue and cry about global perspectives, American biologists are often notably provincial and ignorant of their subject beyond regional features and general principles. This is hardly surprising in view of the fact that many of them go on to teach rather than continuing in research, where jobs are comparatively scarce. Yet it
harks back to the problem of reducing a subject to universals and is a result of the way many graduate programs are structured. It would be like having only specialists in the medical field, all of them with some general training, but no GPs. The idea of comprehensive general knowledge is no longer a goal when formerly is was de rigueur.

I’ve had many philosophical discussions with these folks, and often they have noble sentiments regarding their study subjects. But in the end I doubt if many of them could imagine a future humanity that is not wholly dependent on science, even as a thought exercise. As if everything that came before the Enlightenment was a Dark Age.

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