Have your mind blown by this amazing man. Life on earth can be more beautiful and symbiotic than we realize. You know what a lima bean does when its attacked by spider mites? It releases this volatile chemical that goes out into the world and summons another species of mite that comes in and attacks the spider mite, defending the lima bean. So what plants have -- while we have consciousness, tool making, language, they have biochemistry. And they have perfected that to a degree far beyond what we can imagine. Their complexity, their sophistication, is something to really marvel at, and I think its really the scandal of the Human Genome Project. You know, we went into it thinking, 40,000 or 50,000 human genes and we came out with only 23,000. Just to give you grounds for comparison, rice: 35,000 genes. So whos the more sophisticated species? Well, were all equally sophisticated. Weve been evolving just as long, just along different paths. So, cure for self-importance, way to sort of make us feel the Darwinian idea. And thats really what I do as a writer, as a storyteller, is try to make people feel what we know and tell stories that actually help us think ecologically.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:57:18 +0000
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