WEBVTT - From the Vault: Biophilia 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.080 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.440 It's time for a Vault episode. This originally aired July 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:20.160 seen and this is our episode on the biophilia hypothesis. Yeah, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.280 this is ah. This was Edward O. Wilson's hypothesis about 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.200 about life and how we think about life, and it's 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.199 it's a very I think, uplifting idea. Granted, we you know, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.160 we talked about some of the pros and cons of 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:37.440 the hypothesis in this episode, but I think it's a 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.840 cool thing to take with us here in our first 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.440 Vault episode of the new year. Yeah, I think we 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.440 talked about some potential limitations of it as an idea, 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.600 but at the same time, it's hard to resist EO. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.839 Wilson's infectious love of all things living and squirming and breathing. 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.960 Absolutely all right, So let's go ahead and dive right in. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:11.120 dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.119 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert. 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.679 Not too long ago we were talking about ticks, about 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.360 how it turns out you can get a tick on 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.600 your eyeball sucking the juice from within straight through the conjunctiva. 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.959 It turns out you can get all kinds of acquired 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.319 diseases from ticks, like the acquired meat allergy syndrome, or 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.840 the of course lime disease. We all know about all 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.600 these other diseases. Of course, the woods are full of 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.399 not just small animals that can hurt you, but in fact, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.480 if you want to go up to the Northwest or 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.720 somewhere like that, there might be bears that could be 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.200 a threat to you. And yet people want to go 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.800 to the woods. Well they're lovely, dark and deep, that's 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.040 the thing. I mean. I like to go to the woods. 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.880 And yet there's nothing in the woods that materially benefits me. 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.000 There's no food there, there's no like mating opportunity there. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:05.880 And it's kind of an odd thing to say, but 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.760 you know, there's no in a biological sense of the word, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.079 nothing there for me really except an experience. And yet 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.200 I seek that experience. I love going hiking in the woods. Yeah, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.440 I find the same situation with with my family. We 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.720 go out in these these little hikes, you know, in 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.120 the Atlanta area, And yeah, we're not We're not foraging 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.840 for berries or mushrooms or or hunting small prey. We're 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.760 just going out there and kind of breathing air, getting 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.480 a little exercise. And um, yeah, I mean you can. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.760 You could break it down into those tangibles and say, well, 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.400 I'm getting some fresh air, I'm getting some exercise, I'm 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.080 you know, I'm occupying myself for the morning, I'm getting 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.919 away from my phone or something like this. But be 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.720 happen in terms of these like evolved needs, these basic 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.519 biological needs, they're not they're not necessarily being fulfilled. Yeah, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.919 the woods, for some reason, seem to give you pleasure. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.360 It's a thing you're seeking out, even though there's not 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.120 a real direct that. There might be indirect explanations, but 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.040 there's not a really direct explanation for why your body 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.120 would be sending you there. Here's another question, why do 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.320 we like pets? Oh yeah, I mean this is a question. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.360 My wife and I asked a lot about our cat 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.000 because she's kind of a nightmare. But we so we 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.800 always have the discussions where like parasites. Yeah, there, she's 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.160 living in our house, eating our food. Uh, and what 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.040 does she give back? Like, she's not she's not keeping 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.240 mice out of our our grain or anything. She's just 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.000 laying around and frequently attacking my feet and sometimes barfing 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.880 on the floor. But then but we still love her 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.920 for some reason. She's still enriches our lives somehow. Our dog, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.160 Charlie is an absolute parasite. He sometimes can be so annoying, 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.680 but we love this dog. This dog. He brings me 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.440 so much pleasure. I'm so happy to have this dog, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.680 even when he's barking at me to take him on 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.560 a walk while I'm trying to work on something, or 0:03:58.080 --> 0:03:59.880 or just eating a bunch of food that we have 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.760 to pay for. I mean, from a strict material point 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.480 of view, there's not really a reason to want to 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.720 have this thing in my house except that I love him. Yeah. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:11.240 And you know, and I bet a lot of people 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.000 out there right now are thinking, well, I'm not a 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:14.800 dog person, I'm not a cat person. I don't like 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.440 to go into the woods. I would I would invite 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.599 you to expand these definitions because I feel like there 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.520 are certainly individuals out there who really don't want to 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.000 go into the you know, the north Georgia wilderness. But 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.600 they might be very attracted to, say, you know, the 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.240 desert environments of Arizona, or to other national parks, or 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.279 to the beach or you know, or to tropical islands 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.480 like some. So if your local outdoor environment doesn't call you, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.600 if specific outdoor environments don't don't call to you, then 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.360 there have to be there are probably other natural world 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.840 environments that that do ring your bell. I got one 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.640 more for you, Robert. Why do people plant flowers in 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.719 their backyard? Yeah? I mean what maybe maybe you could say, Okay, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.960 planning flowers in the front yard could be some kind 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.200 kind of social thing where you're trying to demonstrate your 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.920 I don't know, wealth and leisure time or something like that. 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.360 People plant flowers in their backyard people nobody can see 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.840 them except you. And so again is that there There 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.760 appears to they're getting some kind of pleasure from having 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.480 these plants that are growing, that they're taking care of. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.520 And the plants don't provide food, they don't provide any 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.120 material benefit except that you look at them and it 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.640 makes you feel good unless you're growing edible flowers. Well, 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.120 you know, but wait, is that a thing? I thought 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.880 edible flowers. You can buy them at heallefits. You can 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.400 seriously get a whole container of edible flowers for like, 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.680 you know, eighteen bucks or something. Wait, people eat squash 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.400 blossom stuff, true squash blossom. But yeah, a lot of 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.320 people that do grow flowers. You're just growing to look 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.839 at them or to appreciate, say the butterflies that are 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:53.000 attracted and by them, the or the various pollinating insects. Yeah. 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.240 So we have all these weird relationships with life forms 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:02.120 and natural landscapes, with pet animals, with vegetation. And if 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.119 not a dog or a cat, you think of fish, think, oh, yeah, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.200 you know snakes, reptiles, You have the reptiles, whatever your 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.280 fancy is, even a even a weird pet like a 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.960 scorpion or a tarantula. And uh and you know, I'm 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:16.640 not calling you a weirdo if you have those, but 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.400 you're probably into the weirdness of it. If you do 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.200 own a pet scorpion, a tarantula. What about if you 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:26.320 own pet ticks, well, then you're probably what a a 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:32.280 A a partially mythological Eastern warlord. Right. As a call 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.320 back to our Ticks episode, that would be great to 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.360 have a pit of ticks in your house for when, 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:38.560 you know, just to threaten the children when they're being 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.760 too unruly, or you just have them as pets, and 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.119 people are like, whoa, you have a pit full of ticks. 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:44.680 That's horrible, And you're like, no, I don't. I don't 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.800 feed anybody to the ticks. I just keep them around. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.760 I love to watch these little guys crawl around. So 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.680 we're presented with a question here, and the human seek 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.080 out all kinds of activities and get pleasure from all 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.960 kinds of activities that don't appear to have any direct 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.200 material benefit, yet we we just like them. And so 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.480 one reason for this could be that it's some kind 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.800 of cultural thing that we, you know, we grow up 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.240 being taught to like walking in the woods or to 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:13.800 like looking at flowers, and that's possible answer. But also 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.200 many of these things seem very universal, like across different cultures, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.040 people have some kind of companion animal relationship, or they 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.480 enjoy certain natural landscapes, they enjoy being surrounded by certain 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.720 types of plants, and so another way of looking at this, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.920 apart from just cultural learning, could be that there's some 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.880 kind of biological instinct that connects us to other forms 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.840 of life, even forms of life that aren't directly benefiting 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.080 us by say, providing food or providing shelter or something 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.080 like that. And this brings us to the topic of 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.840 today's episode, which is a hypothesis that's been around in 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.880 biology and evolutionary psychology for a few decades now, known 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:01.360 as the biophilia hypothesis, and this is mainly attributed to 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.160 the work that there have been multiple people working in 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.960 this field now, but it's mainly attributed to the work 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.920 of the American biologist Edward O. Wilson also known as EO. Wilson. Now, Robert, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.200 you recently went to like the E. O. Wilson Center. 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.360 Is this a place uh from his hometown? Um, it's 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.280 It's definitely down from his stomping grounds because Edward O. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.400 Wilson is it was Alabama, born in the nineteen nine 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.560 and he grew up in various Florida and Alabama towns, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.280 so this is very much in his his stomping grounds. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.959 The Edward Wilson Center is in Freeport, Florida, and um 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.760 I and my family visited it earlier this month and 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.520 it's named in honor of Wilson. And it echoes his 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.439 ideas and values. And he's he's been there, he's done, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.640 he's he's visited the center, so he's he's he's very 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.480 much a part of it's it's ethos. I guess you, 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.360 I guess you would say, so, what's this place like? 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.800 It's wonderful. So my family was vacationing at Graton Beach, 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.760 which is close to Deston, But if you need a 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.520 broader idea of where it is, we're talking roughly halfway 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.560 along the coast between Pensacola and Panama City. And I 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.720 know that at times, if one is visiting Florida you're 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.280 not a Floridian yourself, there's sometimes a hesitancy to uh 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.960 to backtrack away from the beach too much. But there 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.720 there are some I mean, far from from just this 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.120 one location. There's some wonderful outdoor uh you know, things 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.559 to see in the States. So so don't be afraid 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.040 to explore a bit. Uh No, I know exactly what 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.080 you're talking about. Some people really love the beach. I 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.480 really love the swamp. Yeah. One of my favorite places 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.160 that have been to a few times now is uh 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.200 Coola Springs State Park in Florida. This is where you 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.160 have this wonderful deep natural spring. You have manateees coming 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:47.760 in this rich um estuary environment with protected regions. Is 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.199 this where you saw the leaping fish? When we jump 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.280 off leaping fish, they were just leaping around like it 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.320 was a Disney movie. It was fabulous. If you haven't 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.520 caught that episode, that's from I guess a year or 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.640 so ago. Yeah, but yeah, I go back and check 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.600 out our episode about jumping fish. That was a more 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.200 interesting topic than I expected. Yeah, that one and and 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.000 at times deadly. I'll make sure we linked to that 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:07.720 one on the landing page for this episode is Stuff 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.319 to Blow your Mind dot com. But the Edward O. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.280 Wilson Center, Yeah, so it's a wonderful indoor outdoor educational 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.160 center and it really does an excellent job of relating 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.680 biology to two young people. Most of the time, during 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.960 the course of the year it's it's only open to 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.319 school groups and whatnot. But during the summer June and 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.840 July it's open to the public on Thursdays and Fridays. 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:32.480 If you want to learn more about it, you can 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.200 go to E. O. Wilson Center dot org. Uh. But yeah, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.160 it's wonderful. There's a giant bird when you first walk 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.319 in the door. They are giant animals to crawl on. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.640 There's a there's an observable bee colony honey bees you 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.640 can check out and try and find the queen. So 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:47.920 if it's Edward Wilson Center, I would expect there to 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.199 be ants there right. There are ants. Yes, there's a 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.839 huge display on ants, a giant ant that you can 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.640 crawl on. Yeah. So it's it's it's really wonderful stuff. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:02.960 I recommend going like honey, I shrunk the kids scale. Yes. Well, 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.920 so before we get into the biophelia hypothesis, we I 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.960 guess we should talk about Edward Wilson himself because one 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.920 of the so he's got this book from nineteen four 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.280 I believe, is from the nineteen eighties called Biophelia, where 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.400 he first articulates this idea. Now he would explore it 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.840 more in a later book. Um, but this book, Biophilia 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:24.600 is a is a book I've read, and it's a 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.360 really enjoyable scientific memoir. A lot of what he talks 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.520 about is like his research on ants and his field 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.240 work in places like Suriname and Papua New Guinea, And 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.600 so he weaves together these themes from his life and 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.120 from his work in science and his thoughts about what 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.199 the role of science and society is. The the idea 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.400 that ties this all together is this idea of biophilia 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:52.560 are innate affiliation with or desire to focus on other 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.800 living life forms in natural landscapes or lifelike processes. Now, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.640 there's some ambiguity in there, and we can address that 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.160 ambi uity later and any problems that might cause for 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.839 this as a hypothesis. But he definitely has a personal 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.600 way of expressing his feelings about this idea, right. It 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.160 very much connects back to stories throughout his life. Yeah, 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.760 so it's important to note that Edward O. Wilson is 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.480 he's the real deal here. He is. He's he is 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.199 an acclaimed scientist, uh specifically an entomologist, and he is 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.679 a and he is a very accomplished author. Like he 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:32.920 he officially retired in but he's just continued to write books, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.040 uh like almost every year. I mean, his bibliography is 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.600 incredible and his books are good. He's one of those 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.240 science writers who is actually a very very good writer. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.120 He's expressive and poetic, but he also gets to the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.600 point I think he's one of the better scientists slash 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.360 science writers in America. Yeah and then. And he's also 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.840 very relatable, especially when you see him, you know, in 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.240 person or a video or a Ted talk. He's he's Alabamable, worn, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.640 he's very folksy, and he describes himself as being essentially 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.600 still a child at heart, and he has that kind 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.640 of enthusiasm for nature. So I mentioned he was born 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.800 in an earlier biographical detail that often comes up and 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.600 he attributes to being what sort of steered him into 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.440 studying ants is that he was seven years old and 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.840 he blinded himself in one eye during a fishing accident, 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:23.640 you know what. He pulled up a fish and the 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.280 finn got him right, and spiny finn got him in 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.400 the eye and blinded him. And so he this led 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.520 him to focus more, he says, on little things, things 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.400 that he could actually get up, you know, get up 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.199 close to with an eyeglass. So he turned to ants entomology. 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.120 This game his key area of research. He attended the 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.000 University of Alabama and earned his bachelor's and masters in biology, 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.320 and he identified fire ants as an invasive species and 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.280 reported on the first US colony of fire ants. That 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.000 was while he was in college. That was when he 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.440 was in college, the early days for him. Um and 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.160 and this is we were just talking about this before 0:13:58.200 --> 0:13:59.679 we went on the air. Here there's a video on 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.319 you to uh and it was I believe it. It 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.240 is aligned with the E. O. Wilson Center. But it 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.599 starts off narrated by Harrison Ford and uh and in 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.680 Attenborough comes in and talks about how how how amazing 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.599 Edward o'wilson is. So this this video is weird for 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.080 multiple reasons, and one of them is that you hear 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:20.360 Harrison Ford trying to sound enthusiastic about something, which I 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.160 don't know if I've ever heard before. Yeah, you know, 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:28.560 the most chronically bored and unenthusiastic actor in the history 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.480 of cinema, and we love him for it. But he's 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.560 he's talking about the greatness of the work of Edward Wilson, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.640 and he still kind of has that that lake onic, sad, 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.720 not very excited edge in his voice. Yeah, even though 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.160 this is this is clearly like he's clearly passionate about it, 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.680 Like you did this for a reason. But later on 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.160 in the video, you're following Edward o Wilson, like recent 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.000 Edward O. Wilson, Old Edward O. Wilson wandering around in 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:58.400 the Florida wilderness, coming up to uh a fire ant colony. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.560 He reaches down with his bare hand, stirs them up 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.440 like scrapes the nest and they all begin to swarm. 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:05.560 And then he sticks his hand in the nest and 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.640 lets them crawl in his hand and lets them begin 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.640 to uh to attack his hand and uh and then 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:16.280 he brushes them off. But it really demonstrates his man 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.440 his devotion to connecting with the natural world and his 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.800 fascination with the With these insects, well, it's almost deranged 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.600 because he's he's like smiling gleefully as they're all stinging 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.720 and attacking the back of his hand. He's got these 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.440 hundreds of ants on his skin and he's like each 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.400 one of these bites is like a hot needle. But 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.280 it it just shows you how, you know, how fascinated 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.200 he is with them like that he would have this 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.560 really kind of a holy moment, Like I kept thinking 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:48.000 of St. Francis with the animals, only instead of touching 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:52.440 a you know, petting a lamb, he's petting fire ants. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:57.840 If lambs could sting. Yes, so um Edward O. Wilson 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.000 h So, he moved onto Harvard in nine and he 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.040 joined the faculty there and again he retired in UH. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.040 But but he remains on as an honorary curator in 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.360 entomology and he's during the course of his career again, 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.480 he's written numerous books. He's received more awards than we 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.160 can list in this podcast, including the Pulitzer Prize, which 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.720 he I believe received at least twice. UH. He's received 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.680 the Ted Prize and the U S National Medal of 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.720 Science again just to name a few. Now, a lot 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.200 of Wilson's efforts outside of his scientific research over the 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.480 years have been focused on the idea of conservation and 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.240 preservation of nature. Yes, that we have this rich biodiversity. 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.200 Everything is connected, and we have to preserve it because 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.880 if you start you start pulling things out, you start 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.200 allowing things to go dark in this epic grid of 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:55.680 by a biodiverse um life, then you're gonna have cascading 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.400 collapses and you're going to You're going to to risk 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.199 tremendous damage to our ecosystem. He sort of reminds me 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.359 of the influence of somebody who I enjoyed talking about 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.040 last year in our summer reading episode, which is the 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:15.159 early ecologist Alexander von Humboldt sort of responsible for the 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:20.400 idea of ecology, both focusing on the inner connections between 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.760 things in nature. How an organism doesn't No organism is 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.000 an island, It doesn't stand on its own, and they 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:31.680 all have connected inter dependencies. And we we we threaten 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.280 natural life forms at our own peril. And I think 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:37.320 he frames this in two ways. He says, you know, 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:42.200 destroying natural habitats and destroying organisms that may in fact 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.720 be some kind of keystone species in a natural ecology 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.520 that threatens us materially, like these can have negative effects 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.359 on our health. It can lead to the spread of 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.480 new diseases, It can make resources harder to get, it 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.199 can cause all kinds of problems for us materially. But 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.119 he also emphasizes a lot just just the feeling of 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.439 pleasure we get from nature and how important it is 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.520 to our sense of well being and happiness to have 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.679 intact natural ecologies around us. And this is sort of 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:16.719 how he gets to the biophilia hypothesis. All Right, we're 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.480 gonna take a quick break, and when we come back 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:23.359 we will dive into the biophilia hypothesis and discuss what 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.080 it's saying. Uh, and also eventually we also get to 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:35.040 some criticism about it. All right, we're back. So Wilson 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.879 proposed this term biophilia meaning the love of life in 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.000 the short publication back in biophilia the human bond with 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:47.280 other species, and he defined this as humanities innate tendency 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.840 to focus on living things as opposed to the inanimate, 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.359 and in effect, he argued for in innate love of nature. 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.600 Now there you already see some tension in the definitions, right, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.240 because in one statement there it's talking about focusing on 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.720 other life forms and lifelike processes, and in the other 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.520 statement it's saying that we naturally love nature. Now, focusing 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.320 on things and loving them are different. And this is 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.280 going to be one of the problems people have raised 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.080 with the biofilia hypothesis is um that it may not 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.800 be exactly pinned down on exactly what the hypothesis is saying. 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.520 But for now we we should just try to explain 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.000 the way it's usually expressed by people who are in 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.159 favor of the biofilia hypothesis, and they tend to go 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.320 with the focus idea, right, that it's that we focus 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.879 on other living things and lifelike processes, where for some 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.240 reason we're way more interested in trees than we are 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.280 in rocks. Now. I should also add that the term 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.199 biofiliate itself was used earlier in the nineties sixties by 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.440 the German social psychologist Eric from to denote a psychological 0:19:55.520 --> 0:20:00.920 orientation towards nature. But uh, it was really Lee Wilson 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.960 who then took it and tweet the meaning and really 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.400 led to its primary usage today. Well, maybe we should 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.439 read a passage from Wilson to see what what he 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.520 has to say about the concept. He says, the object 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.320 of my reflection can be summarized by a single word, biophilia, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.080 which I will be so bold as to define as 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.560 the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.800 From infancy, we concentrate happily on ourselves and other organisms. 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.000 We learned to distinguish life from the inanimate and move 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.520 toward it like moths to a porch. Light. Novelty and 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.800 diversity are particularly esteemed. The mere mention of the word 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:43.119 extraterrestrial evokes reveries about still unexplored life, displacing the old 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.440 and once potent exotic that drew earlier generations to remote 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.240 islands and jungled interiors. That much is immediately clear, but 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.920 a great deal more needs to be added. I will 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.199 make the case that to explore and affiliate with life 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.960 is a deep and complicated process in mental development, to 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.840 an extent still undervalued and philosophy and religion. Our our 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.040 existence depends on this propensity. Our spirit is woven from it. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.159 Hope rises on its currents. Yeah, I like that, and 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:18.240 so I like that he's he's situating biophilia as a 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.840 sort as a hypothesis to explain something about our nature. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.000 But it also, I think for him takes on a 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.920 sort of propulsive meaning about like how we should act. 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:32.080 That if we act in accordance with with these natural 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.520 urges to affiliate with nature, we can sort of shed 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.040 this man conquers nature mentality that was present in a 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.240 lot of human history. And you might wonder, like, Okay, 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.560 so if throughout a lot of human history we've had 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.080 this mentality of you know, we've got to tame the 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.679 beast of nature, We've got to make it bend to 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.920 our will and defeat our predatory adversaries wild? Is that 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.399 is that tendency throughout human history a challenge to the 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.640 bio philly a hypothesis. I don't know, what do you think, Robert, Well, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.840 we'll discuss this a little bit more as we go. 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:11.280 But I do find it interesting that even in environmental circles, 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.280 even in um, in environmental movements, you see them, you 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:20.000 see individuals evoke this idea of mastery over nature. You know, 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:24.080