Page 497 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

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

attach some degree of mystical significance to anything that has a bearing on the
survival of our genes, now or in the future, and this extends to the very edge of our
perceptions and the limits of rationality” (p. 184). A million years ago, too much
culture would have been detrimental for humans who needed to rely on their
instincts (i.e., genetically informed) to survive Earth’s many uncertainties. Today,
cultural mysticism succeeds because it allows humans to bend the rules of the
evolutionary process – however, “all species must fail eventually, especially the
very successful ones, or the whole system would grind to a halt” (p. 191). It is an
eco-science mentalism that humans now attach to everything, which serves as the
X-factor for Morrison to conclude that “Gaia is running like a Swiss watch,” in
other words, extraordinarily well.
The notion that we will continue to populate the Earth at existing levels and
make it unscathed requires a great deal of spiritual faith, environmentalism, or
schizophrenia. Unfortunately, our species is not exempt from the Gaia mechanism
that has effectively dealt with many species’ plagues during the course of Earth’s 4
billion year natural history. It takes a great deal of faith in the human spirit, science,
and technology to think it any differently. Morrison (1999) notes:

[T]echnology merely lures us deeper into the environmental trap. Meanwhile our myth-
based technoculture keeps us thoroughly bedazzled, entertained, and unable to comprehend
the magnitude of our blunder until all the exits are blocked and the consequences are
unavoidable. The denouement of our 2-million-year play will not dawn on us until very
late, however. We will have to wait until climatic disorder, rising sea level, rampant famine,
social disintegration, and a growing list of pandemics finally bring the human plague to a
halt for the full gravity of our predicament to sink in. Nevertheless the truth is creeping up
on us even now in a million microscopic forms. (p. 250)

Beyond the fact that humans are now spreading diseases more efficiently around
the world (e.g., jetliners, cars, rail), we are now contributing to the Earth’s climate
change. The massive reserves of methane that will be released if the Earth continues
to warm may not be taken seriously – due to our debilitating disease. The mentalist
ability to think of the Earth in certainty is what may eventually lead to the antici-
pated human population collapse. Certainty goes against the evolutionary process
of incremental change, irreducible complexity, and high uncertainty.
Jared Diamond’s (2005) work further supports Morrison’s thesis and provides
examples of why ancient civilizations collapsed. Civilizations collapsed because
they privileged particular ways of knowing, the mentalist disorder that led to their
ultimate demise. The scientific evidence that supports Morrison’s work makes for
a scary situation in which the “right” thing to do might be to continue with what we
are doing for the Earth. While it might be argued that Morrison defends genetic
determinism, he contends that the devastating overload on the world’s ecosystems
was triggered concurrently with the development of cultural narratives, which
diverged into diverse cultural memories, which impose rationality and certainty on
the Earth. These memories all have something in common: the capacity (and perhaps
NEED!) to consume and pollute, some in more effective ways than others, and yet
they are essentially the same for almost all cultures.