Page 491 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

466 M.P. Mueller and D.J. Tippins

A Short History of How Environ Mentalism Came into Being

Now, we will provide a brief history of environmental sciences to further support
the claim that today’s environmentalism and thinking of the Earth in scientific ways
contributes to eco-mentalism. These examples are taken from Peter Bowler (1992),
a professor in the history and philosophy of science at Queen’s University Belfast.
He writes extensively on the history of the environmental sciences (e.g., biology,
ecology, geology, and meteorology). Bowler explains that when the environmental
sciences first emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they were considered
less responsive to the rigors applied in the labs of the physicist and chemist. He
notes that “one of the most important developments within the cultural framework
of modern science is the emergence of this awareness that Nature has a history that
determines its present structure” (p. 6, capitalization in original).
The beginnings of environmental sciences can be traced to natural theology, the
view that the natural world was divinely created by God. The natural theologists
viewed God as an intimate part of nature and they took for granted that the Earth
remained perfect or stable after humankind’s fall into sin (Bowler 1992). Initially,
the natural theologists did not want to see that the Earth has an “imperfect” or
uncertain history. As natural theologists wrestled with trying to find certainty and
stability in the natural world, they encountered a constantly changing and irreducibly
complex Earth.
The early naturalists were caught in the flux between their desire for certainty
and what they actually observed and experienced. The naturalists’ efforts to reduce
the natural world into certain categories resulted in the compartmentalization of the
disciplines. Naturalists would now favor science as the way of knowing the Earth.
Robert Hooke (1635–1703; Discourse of Earthquakes, 1705 as cited in Bowler
1992) was an early scholar to propose that the Earth had an uncertain, complex past
– lacking stability and divinity. Hooke pointed out that the fossils in the rocks were
once living organisms, uplifted by earthquakes, and revealed by erosion. He was
irritated by the naturalists’ spiritual views of God’s divinity in the natural environ-
ments. Hooke thoroughly challenged the religious sentiments, arguing that some of
the fossils in the rocks were once living and now extinct. This scientific narrative
went against the spiritual grain of the naturalists who were trying to make sense of
a perfectly created Earth that could not have extinct species.
Another scholar, James Hutton (1726–1797; Theory of the Earth with Proofs
and Illustrations, 1795 as cited in Bowler 1992) proposed that volcanism was the
primary mechanism of change for the Earth’s landscape. But unlike Hooke, Hutton
wrestled mightily with certainty: he was unable to accept an idea of a decaying
Earth that did not have the hope of balanced renewal, the “perfect workmanship of
God” (Bowler 1992, p. 133). Hutton postulated a new theory of the Earth: the idea
of perpetual balance between constant erosion and mountain building or uplift.
While the naturalists were starting to come to terms with the Earth’s changes and
complexity, they still needed to resolve their ideas with certainty in mind, which
stirred more conflicts. The beginning of thinking with uncertainty was there, but it
was still out of reach for those who desired to think of Earth in certainty.