ANTHROPOLOGY VERSUS COSMOLOGY: A Schism in Cosmogenesis

Abstract

In 1962, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with a long career at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, changed hearts and minds across the planet when she published “Silent Spring,” one of the most famous environmental books ever written. Carson aimed to show that humans are part of the natural world, as vulnerable to damage as other elements of the ecosystem. “The most clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction,” Carson wrote. Silent Spring’s message raised awareness of how the environment could be damaged by widespread pesticide use. Eventually, Carson’s warning led the United States to ban the use of DDT, an agricultural pesticide that threatened birds of prey, including bald eagles, with extinction. By poisoning earth, we poison ourselves, whatever man does to the earth, it is done to him; man is a part of cosmology.