Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science
Andreas Weber
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0865717990
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The disconnection between humans and nature is perhaps one of the most fundamental problems faced by our species today. The schism between us and the natural world is arguably the root cause of most of the environmental catastrophes unraveling around us. However, until we come to terms with the depths of our alienation, we will continue to fail to understand that what happens to nature also happens to us.
In The Biology of Wonder author Andreas Weber proposes a new approach to the biological sciences that puts the human back in nature. He argues that feelings and emotions, far from being superfluous to the study of organisms, are the very foundation of life. From this basic premise flows the development of a "poetic ecology" which intimately connects our species to everything that surrounds us—showing that subjectivity and imagination are prerequisits of biological existence.
The Biology of Wonder demonstrates that there is no separation between us and the world we inhabit, and in so doing it validates the essence of our deep experience. By reconciling science with meaning, expression and emotion, this landmark work brings us to a crucial understanding of our place in the rich and diverse framework of life-a revolution for biology as groundbreaking as the theory of relativity for physics.
Dr. Andreas Weber is a German academic, scholar and author. He is a leader in the emerging fields of "biopoetics" and "biosemiotics," and his work has been translated into several languages and published around the globe.
Vermeij has observed, the grand predators, often hailed as highly efficient killing machines, are not efficient at all. As warm-blooded animals they use up over 90 percent of the energy from food just to keep their body temperature at a constant level.7 These top predators are rather like the huge gas-guzzling cars of the 1970s — not efficient at all, but having pretty nice torque. All these considerations are equally valid for typical human qualities, whose supposed survival functions orthodox
cosmic laws. With tongue firmly in cheek, Stuart Kauffman has translated the three laws and their wholesale anti-organic notion into a language that is easy to grasp: “1. You cannot win the game. 2. You cannot break even. 3. You cannot quit the game.”16 For a long time it seemed quite enigmatic that organisms do seem to win, at least for the limited time of their individual lifespans. Living beings obviously are able to steer clear of dissolving into inert matter. Instead they multiply, create
encounter, the touch of every other being and the things that other beings produce. Organisms are focused on being in the right place and on avoiding the wrong place — the way the rose beetle senses that the inside of a rose is a good place for him and the paved road a bad one. What completely mesmerized me in that long past summer was the fact that I could see that concern. It radiated out in every tiny movement, in every gesture. It became clear that even if plants and animals do not have
existence again. Reality was given back in tiny fragments, and we made stumbling steps towards them. Riste’s teeth still chattered. Kull did not look concerned. He smiled kindly. The road had been very near all along; it extended behind the third row of trees, as if civilization had never lost sight of us. The professor’s car waited, with engine running, several yards away. Hot air hissed from the heating vents, which were turned to maximum volume. When we had not arrived, Kull had decided to
layer of organic substance the retreating sea has left on the sand. The silence is not broken, but nonetheless starts to speak. It is visible in the form of mysterious traces on the muddy ground of the water that has been set free for some moments. If we look carefully, we can see that everything has its unique form: the innumerable snails on the moist sand; the slowly pulsating sea anemones in the small pools; the crab ducking into its hideaway beneath a tuft of shining seaweed; the marine