WEBVTT - The Biophilia Hypothesis 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:14.560 dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.520 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.080 Not too long ago we were talking about ticks, about 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.800 how it turns out you can get a tick on 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.000 your eyeball sucking the juice from within straight through the conjunctiva. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.360 It turns out you can get all kinds of acquired 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.720 diseases from ticks, like the acquired meat allergy syndrome, or 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.279 the of course lime disease. We all know about all 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.040 these other diseases. Of course, the woods are full of 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.880 not just small animals that can hurt you, but in fact, 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.880 if you want to go up to the Northwest or 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.159 somewhere like that, there might be bears that could be 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.640 a threat to you. And yet people want to go 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.200 to the woods. Well they're lovely, dark and deep, that's 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.400 the thing. I mean. I like to go to the woods, 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.279 and yet there's nothing in the wood that materially benefits me. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.440 There's no food there, there's no like mating opportunity there. 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:09.319 And it's kind of an odd thing to say, but 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.200 you know, there's no in a biological sense of the word. 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.520 Nothing there for me really except an experience, and yet 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.600 I seek that experience. I love going hiking in the woods. Yeah. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.840 I find the same situation with with my family. We 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.120 go out in these these little hikes, you know, in 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.520 the Atlanta area, and yeah, we're not we're not foraging 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.280 for berries or mushrooms or are hunting small prey. We're 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.200 just going out there and kind of breathing air, getting 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.880 a little exercise. And um, yeah, I mean you can 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.200 you could break it down into those tangibles and say, well, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.800 I'm getting some fresh air, I'm getting some exercise, I'm 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.479 you know, I'm occupying myself for the morning, I'm getting 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.560 away from my phone or something like this. But yeah, 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.120 but in terms of these like evolved needs, these basic 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.920 biological needs, they're not they're not necessarily being fulfilled. Yeah, 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.320 the woods, for some reason seem to give you pleasure. 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.760 It the thing you're seeking out, even though there's not 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.560 a really direct that. There might be indirect explanations, but 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.480 there's not a really direct explanation for why your body 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.560 would be sending you there. Here's another question, why do 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.760 we like pets? Oh yeah, I mean this is a question. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:18.760 My wife and I ask a lot about our cat 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.400 because she's kind of a nightmare. But we so we 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.239 always have these discussions where like parasites. Yeah, there, she's 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.600 living in our house, eating our food. Uh, and what 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.480 does she give back? Like, she's not she's not keeping 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.639 mice out of our our grain or anything. She's just 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.440 laying around and frequently attacking my feet and sometimes barfing 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.240 on the floor. But then but we still love her 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.720 for some reason, She's still enriches our lives somehow. Our dog, Charlie, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.600 is an absolute parasite. He sometimes can be so annoying, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.080 but we love this dog. This dog. He brings me 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.880 so much pleasure. I'm so happy to have this dog, 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.120 even when he's barking at me to take him on 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.000 a walk while I'm trying to work on something, or 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.440 or just eating a bunch of food that we have 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.200 to pay for. I mean, from a strict material point 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.880 of view, there's not really a reason to want to 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.080 have this thing in my house except that I love him. Yeah. Uh. 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:14.639 And you know, and I bet a lot of people 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:16.440 out there right now are thinking, well, I'm not a 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.200 dog person, I'm not a cat person. I don't like 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.880 to go into the woods. I would I would invite 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.040 you to expand these definitions because I feel like there 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.960 are certainly individuals out there who really don't want to 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.400 go into the you know, the North Georgia wilderness, but 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.200 they might be very attractive to, say, you know, the 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.680 desert environments of Arizona, or to other national parks, or 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.680 to the beach or you know, or to tropical islands 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.880 like some. So if your local outdoor environment doesn't call you, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.040 if specific outdoor environments don't don't call to you, then 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.800 there have to be there are probably other natural world 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.280 environments that that do ring your bell. I got one 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.080 more for you, Robert. Why do people plant flowers in 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.160 their backyard? Yeah? I mean what maybe you could say, okay, 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.560 planning flowers in the front yard could be some kind 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.920 of social thing where you're trying to demonstrate your I 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.360 don't know, wealth and leisure time or something like that. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.760 People plant flowers in their backyard people nobody can see 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.599 them except you, and so again it's there there appears 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.480 to they're getting some kind of pleasure from having these 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.400 plants that are growing, that they're taking care of, and 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.640 the plants don't provide food. They don't provide any material 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.800 benefit except that you look at them and it makes 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.320 you feel good. Unless you're growing edible flowers. Well you know, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.280 but wait, is that a thing? I thought? Edible flowers? 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.840 You can buy them at Healthful. You can seriously get 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.039 a whole container of edible flowers for like, you know, 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.240 eighteen pocks or something. Wait, people eat squash blossoms stuff. True, 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.120 they squash blossom, but yeah, a lot of people that 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:48.920 do grow flowers you're just growing them to look at 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.839 them or to appreciate, say the butterflies that are attracted 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.400 and buy them the or the various pollinating insects. Yeah. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.640 So we have all these weird relationships with light forms 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.520 and natural landscapes, with pet animals, with vegetation. And if 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.520 not a dog or a cat, you think of fish, think, oh, yeah, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.080 you know, snakes, reptiles, Yeah, the reptiles, whatever your fancy is, 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.040 even a even a weird pet like a scorpion or 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.680 a tarantula. And uh and you know, I'm not calling 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.200 you a weirdo if you have those, but you're probably 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.240 into the weirdness of it. If you do own a 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.200 pet scorpion, a tarantula. What about if you own pet ticks, well, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:32.120 then you're probably what a A A a partially mythological 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.960 Eastern warlord. Right as you call back to our ticks episode, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:38.599 that would be great to have a pit of ticks 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.960 in your house for when, you know, just to threaten 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.159 the children when they're being too unruly, or you just 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.080 have them as pets. And people are like, whoa, you 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.520 have a pit full of ticks. That's horrible, And you're like, no, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.560 I don't. I don't feed anybody to the ticks. I 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.080 just keep them around. I'll have to watch these little 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.880 guys crawl around. So we're presented with a question here. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.479 And the humans seek out all kinds of activities and 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.200 get pleasure from all kinds of activities that don't appear 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.480 to have any erect material benefit, yet we we just 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:07.200 like them. And so one reason for this could be 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.560 that it's some kind of cultural thing that we, you know, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.040 we grow up being taught to like walking in the 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.120 woods or to like looking at flowers, and that's possible answer. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.920 But also many of these things seem very universal, like 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.960 across different cultures, people have some kind of companion animal 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.120 relationship or they enjoy certain natural landscapes, they enjoy being 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.360 surrounded by certain types of plants, and so another way 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.159 of looking at this, apart from just cultural learning, could 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.480 be that there's some kind of biological instinct that connects 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.080 us to other forms of life, even forms of life 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.680 that aren't directly benefiting us by say, providing food or 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.800 providing shelter or something like that. And this brings us 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.240 to the topic of today's episode, which is a hypothesis 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.599 that's been around in biology and evolutionary psychology for a 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.320 few decades now, known as the biophilia hypothesis. And this 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.520 is mainly attributed to the work that there have been 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.280 multiple people working in this field now, but it's mainly 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.360 attributed to the work of the American biologist Edward O. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.080 Wilson also known as EO. Wilson. Now, Robert, you recently 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.000 went to like the E. O. Wilson Center. Is this 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.280 a place, uh from his hometown? Um, it's it's definitely 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.800 down from his stomping grounds, because Edward O. Wilson is 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.920 it was out Alabama, born in the nineteen nine and 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.920 he grew up in various Florida and Alabama towns. So 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.160 this is very much in his his stomping grounds. The 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.760 Edward Wilson Center is in Freeport, Florida, and um, I 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.160 and my family visited it earlier this month. Uh. And 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.920 it's named in honor of Wilson, and it echoes his 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.880 ideas and values. And he's he's been there, he's done, 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.040 he's he's visited the center, so he's he's he's very 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:54.960 much a part of it's it's ethos. I guess, I 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.760 guess you would say, so, what's this place like? It's wonderful. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.640 So my family was vacationing at greaton Each which is 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.960 close to Destin. But if you need a broader idea 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.360 of where it is, we're talking roughly halfway along the 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.200 coast between Pensacola and Panama City. And I know that 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.320 at times, if one is visiting Florida, you're not a 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.600 Floridian yourself. There's sometimes a hesitancy to uh to backtrack 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.640 away from the beach too much. But there there are 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.680 some I mean, far from from just this one location, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.000 there's some wonderful outdoor. Uh, you know, things to see 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.480 in the States, So so don't be afraid to explore 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.240 a bit. Uh. No, I know exactly what you're talking about. 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.320 Some people really love the beach. I really love the swamp. Yeah. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.840 One of my favorite places that have been to a 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.880 few times now is uh Coula Springs State Park in Florida. 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.480 This is where you have this wonderful deep natural spring. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.959 You have manateees coming in this rich um estuary environment 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.840 with protected regions. Is this where you saw the leaping fish. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:54.720 When we jumping off the leaping fish, they were just 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.240 leaping around like it was a Disney movie. It was fabulous. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.480 If you haven't caught that episode, that's from I guess 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.800 a year so ago. Yeah, but yeah, I go back 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:03.760 and check out our episode about jumping fish. That was 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.160 a more interesting topic than I expected. Yeah, that one 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.280 and and at times deadly. I'll make sure we linked 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:10.800 to that one on the landing page for this episode 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.320 is stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. But the 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.600 Edward O. Wilson Center, Yeah, so it's a wonderful indoor 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.880 outdoor educational center and it really does an excellent job 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.600 of relating biology to two young people. Most of the time, 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.240 during the course of the year it's it's only open 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.720 to school groups and whatnot. But during the summer June 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.240 and July. It's open to the public on Thursdays and Fridays. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:35.880 If you want to learn more about it, you can 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.559 go that E. O. Wilson Center dot org. Uh. But yeah, 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:41.600 it's wonderful. There's a giant bird when you first walk 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.000 in the door. They're giant animals to crawl on. There's 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.280 a there's an observable bee colony honey Bees. You can 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.240 check out and try and find the Queen. So if 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.319 it's the Edward Wilson Center, I would expect there to 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.640 be ants there right. There are ants. Yes, there's a 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.240 huge display on ants, a giant ant that you can 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.040 crawl on. Yeah. So it's it's it's really wonderful stuff. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:06.400 I recommend going like honey, I shrunk the kids scale. Yes. Well, 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.319 so before we get into the biophilia hypothesis, we I 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.360 guess we should talk about Edward Wilson himself because one 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.280 of the so he's got this book from nineteen eight four, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.680 I believe is from the nineteen eighties called Biophelia, where 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.840 he first articulates this idea. Now he would explore it 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.240 more in a later book. Um, but this book Biophelia 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.000 is a is a book I've read, and it's a 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.760 really enjoyable scientific memoir. A lot of what he talks 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.960 about is like his research on ants and his field 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.640 work in places like Surinam and Papua New Guinea. And 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.000 so he weaves together these themes from his life and 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.560 from his work and science and his thoughts about what 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.640 the role of science and society is. The the idea 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.679 that ties this all together is this idea of biophelia 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:56.000 are innate affiliation with or desire to focus on other 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.240 living life forms and natural landscapes or lifelike processes. Now, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.080 there's some ambiguity in there, and we can address that 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.680 ambiguity later and any problems that might cause for this 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.680 as a hypothesis. But he definitely has a personal way 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.319 of expressing his feelings about this idea, right. It very 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.280 much connects back to stories throughout his life. Yeah, so 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.600 it's important to note that Edward O. Wilson is he's 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.760 the real deal here. He is. He's he is an 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.719 acclaimed scientist, uh specifically and entomologist, and he is a 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.200 and he is a very accomplished author. Like he he 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:36.320 officially retired in but he's just continued to write books, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.439 uh like almost every year. I mean, his bibliography is 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.000 incredible and his books are good. He's one of those 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.640 science writers who is actually a very very good writer. 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.520 He's expressive and poetic, but he also gets to the 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.040 point I think he's one of the better scientists slash 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.839 science writers in America. Yeah, and then, and he's also 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.240 very relatable, especially when you see him, you know, in 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.280 person or a video or a Ted talk. He's he's 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.320 Alabama born, He's very folksy, and he describes himself as 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.560 being essentially still a child at heart, and he has 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.800 that kind of enthusiasm for nature. So I mentioned he 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.960 was born in an earlier biographical detail that often comes 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.560 up and he attributes to being what sort of steered 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.120 him into studying ants is that he was seven years 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.360 old and he blinded himself in one eye during a 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.760 fishing accident. You know what. He pulled up a fish 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.200 and the finn got him right, and a spiny finn 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.160 got him in the eye and blinded him. And so 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.040 he this led him to focus more, he says, on 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.400 little things, things that he could actually get up, you know, 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.960 get up close to with an eyeglass. So he turned 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.520 to ants entomology, there's a game is key area of research. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.800 He attended the University of Alabama and earned his bachelor's 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.520 and masters in biology, and he identified fire ants as 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.480 an invasive species and reported on the first US colony 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.000 of fire ants. That was while he was in college. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.160 In college, the early days for him. Um, and this 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.040 is we were just talking about this before we went 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.400 on the air. Here there's a video on YouTube and 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.599 it was I believe it. It is aligned with the E. O. 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.640 Wilson Center. But it starts off narrated by Harrison Ford 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.760 and then and then Attenborough comes in and talks about 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.840 how how how amazing Edward o' wilson is. So this 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.440 this video is weird for multiple reasons, and one of 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.320 them is that you hear Harrison Ford trying to sound 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.720 enthusiastic about something which I don't know if I've ever 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:31.440 heard before. The most chronically bored and unenthusiastic actor in 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.120 the history of cinema. And we love him for it. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.040 But he's he's talking about the greatness of the work 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.360 of Edward Wilson, and he still kind of has that 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.640 that lake onic, sad, not very excited edge in his voice. Yeah, 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.840 even though this is this is clearly like he's clearly 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.960 passionate about it, like you did this for a reason. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.839 But later on in the video, you're following Edward o'wilson, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.680 like recent Edward O Wilson, Old Edward O. Wilson wandering 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:01.120 around in the Florida wilderness, coming up to a fire 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.600 ant colony. He reaches down with his bare hand, stirs 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:06.320 them up, like scrapes the nest, and they all begin 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.400 to swarm. And then he sticks his hand in the 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:10.640 nest and lets them crawl in his hand and lets 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.800 them begin to uh to attack his hand and uh 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.079 and then he brushes them off. But it really demonstrates 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.640 his man his devotion to connecting with the natural world 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.120 and his fascination with the with these insects. Well, it's 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:31.360 almost deranged because he's he's like smiling gleefully as they're 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.840 all stinging and attacking the back of his hand. He's 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.400 got these hundreds of ants on his skin and he's 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.160 like each one of these bites is like a hot needle. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:42.960 But it it just shows you how, you know, how 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.400 fascinated he is with them like that he would have 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.720 this really kind of a holy moment, Like I kept 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.800 thinking of St. Francis with the animals. Only instead of 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.920 touching a you know, petting a lamb, he's petting fire ants. 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:01.800 If lambs could sting. Yes, so Edward O. Wilson. Uh So, 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.760 he moved onto Harvard in nine and he joined the 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.920 faculty there and again he retired in uh. But but 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.760 he remains on as an honorary curator in entomology, and 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.240 he's during the course of his career again, he's written 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.480 numerous books. He's received more awards than we can list 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.840 in this podcast, including the Pulitzer Prize, which he I 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.440 believe received at least twice. Uh. He's received the Ted 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.240 Prize and the U S National Medal of Science again 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.240 just to name a few. Now, a lot of Wilson's 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.960 efforts outside of his scientific research over the years have 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:41.720 been focused on the idea of conservation and preservation of nature. Yes, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.440 that we have this rich biodiversity. Everything is connected, and 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.840 we have to preserve it because if you start, you 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.160 start pulling things out, you start allowing things to go 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:56.720 dark in this epic grid of by a biodiverse um life, 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.080 then you're gonna have cascading collapses, and you're going to 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:07.200 you're going to risk tremendous damage to our ecosystem. He 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.520 sort of reminds me of the influence of somebody who 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.720 I enjoyed talking about last year in our summer reading episode, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.800 which is the early ecologist Alexander von Humboldt, sort of 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:22.240 responsible for the idea of ecology, both focusing on the 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.360 inner connections between things in nature. How an organism doesn't 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.080 No organism is an island, It doesn't stand on its own, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:34.440 and they all have connected inner dependencies. And we we 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.320 we threaten natural life forms at our own peril. And 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.480 I think he frames this in two ways. He says, 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.200 you know, destroying natural habitats and destroying organisms that may 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.360 in fact be some kind of keystone species in a 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.640 natural ecology that threatens us materially, like these can have 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.360 negative effects on our health, that can lead to the 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.800 spread of new diseases, It can make resources harder to get, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.200 It can cause all kinds of problems for us materially. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.400 But he also emphasizes a lot just just the feeling 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.639 of pleasure we get from nature and how important it 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.760 is to our sense of well being and happiness to 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.000 have intact natural ecologies around us, and this is sort 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:20.160 of how he gets to the biophilia hypothesis. Alright, we're 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:21.880 gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.760 we will dive into the biophilia hypothesis and discuss what 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.400 it's saying. Uh and also some eventually we also get 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:37.720 to some criticism about it. Thank alright, we're back. So 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.240 Wilson proposed this term biophilia meaning the love of life 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.080 in uh, the short publication back in biophilia the human 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.560 bond with other species, and he defined this as humanities 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.520 that innate tendency to focus on living things as opposed 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.439 to the inanimate and in effect, he argued for in 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.600 innate love of nature. Now there you already see some 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.600 tension in the definitions, right, because in one statement there 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:08.400 it's talking about focusing on other life forms and lifelike processes, 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.359 and in the other statement it's saying that we naturally 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.760 love nature. Now, focusing on things and loving them are different. 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.800 And this is going to be. One of the problems 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.480 people have raised with the biophilia hypothesis is um that 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.760 it may not be exactly pinned down on exactly what 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.040 the hypothesis is saying, but for now, we we should 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.480 just try to explain the way it's usually expressed by 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.480 people who are in favor of the biofilia hypothesis, and 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.679 they tend to go with the focus idea, right, that 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.440 it's that we focus on other living things and lifelike processes, 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.880 where for some reason we're way more interested in trees 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.720 than we are in rocks. Now, I should also add 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.720 that the term biofilia itself was used earlier in the 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.159 nineties sixties by the German social psychologist Eric from to 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:03.159 denote a psychological orientation tour nature. But uh, it was 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.359 really a Wilson who then took it and tweaked the 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.239 meaning and really led to its primary usage today. Well, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.800 maybe we should read a passage from Wilson to see 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.200 what what he has to say about the concept. He says, 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.720 the object of my reflection can be summarized by a 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.600 single word biophilia, which I will be so bold as 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.600 to define as the innate tendency to focus on life 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:29.320 and lifelike processes. From infancy, we concentrate happily on ourselves 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.119 and other organisms. We learned to distinguish life from the 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.760 inanimate and move toward it like moths to a porch. Light, novelty, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.479 and diversity are particularly esteemed. The mere mention of the 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:46.159 word extraterrestrial evokes reveries about still unexplored life, displacing the 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.320 old and once potent exotic that drew earlier generations to 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.480 remote islands and jungled interiors. That much is immediately clear, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.119 but a great deal more needs to be added. I 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.159 will make the case that to explore and affiliate with 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.040 life is a deep and complicated process in mental development, 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.760 to an extent, still undervalued and philosophy and religion, our 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:12.080 our existence depends on this propensity. Our spirit is woven 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.359 from it. Hope rises on its currents. Yeah, I like that, 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:21.359 and so I like that he's he's situating biophilia as 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.280 a sort as a hypothesis to explain something about our nature. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.439 But it also, I think for him takes on a 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.359 sort of propulsive meaning about like how we should act. 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.480 That if we act in accordance with with these natural 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.919 urges to affiliate with nature, we can sort of shed 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.479 this man conquers nature mentality that was present in a 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.679 lot of human history. And you might wonder, like, Okay, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:48.960 so if throughout a lot of human history, we've had 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.479 this mentality of you know, we've got to tame the 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.119 beast of nature, We've got to make it bend to 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:59.360 our will and defeat our predatory adversaries. Wild Is that? 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.840 Is that tendency throughout human history a challenge to the 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.080 biophilia hypothesis. I don't know what do you think, Robert, Well, 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.240 we'll discuss this a little bit more as as we go. 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:14.680 But I do find it interesting that even in environmental circles, 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.680 even in um, in environmental movements, you see them, you 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.399 see individuals evoke this idea of mastery over nature. You know, 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.520 it becomes this idea of saving the planet, positioning man, 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:32.680 is this as as not completely uh, you know, dishonestly, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.399 but positioning us as individuals with power over nature, and 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.160 therefore we should use our power over nature to rain 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.439 things in and gain control over the situation. I like 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.280 the way you put it there with about the idea 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.159 of saving the planet, Like why do what does it 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.080 mean when you talk about saving the whales versus not 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.679 hurting the whales? I mean essentially you're you're saying the 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.680 same thing, but they're starting with different assumptions. When if 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.840 you're say save the whales, it almost says like, you know, 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.840 we have two fates on a scale that we control, 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.080 and we can press one side down or press the 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.320 other side down, save them or kill them. But really 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.160 the idea is that on their own they'd be fine. 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.600 We are doing things to them to kill them, you know, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.399 it's not like they were naturally going extinct when we 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.560 found them. Yeah, so you could have you can have 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:26.800