Summary Of Lewis Thomas On Societies As Organisms

1 I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals, since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher

In his book, The Great Influenza, John M. Barry speaks of the work of scientists with the sort of reverence and respect of one who understands the complexity and greatness of their work. He uses juxtaposition and conceit to present the adversity and nobility inherent to scientific research. In addition, he portrays this research as potentially thankless work.

Scientific work, I quickly came to realize, is humbling; it leads to introspection in its most fundamental form. My narrative is not one of defeat, but is rather one of ongoing failure. And this distinction is crucial to pinpoint: my mosquito bites are not signals of loss and finality, but are rather reminders that I am riding the constructive movement of scientific progress. It is only through the intellectual and ethical connections we form after learning from our many failures and building on occasional breakthroughs that we can understand the power of science and human collaboration. My growing number of personal failures, coupled with the knowledge of the long trajectory of my predecessors in their respective successes and failures, leave me with scars left from bug bites that have me constantly itching with a renewed faith in the scientific

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

The question of the correct ethical treatment of animals has been a topic of many heated debates. The basis of this discussion arises numerous premises that justifies the treatment of animals. Whether animal do in fact have a sentient? And what is distinctive about humanity such that humans are thought to have moral status and non-human do not? Providing an answer to the correct ethical treatment of animals has become increasingly paramount among society as well as philosophers.

The good of an “individual nonhuman organism” is realized to the extent that it is “strong and healthy” (Taylor 103). An entity is said to be “strong and healthy” to Taylor if it “possesses

Journal #9. Page 101- “The defining feature of the anthropocence is the transformative role played by our own species.”

History and literature have developed in a parallel manner, as organisms often co-evolve with each other. With the publication of Darwin’s groundbreaking work, the Origin of Species, a new group of people, the Social Darwinists, applied the theory of natural selection to social hierarchy. A most notable Social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer, coined the term “survival of the fittest”, implying that people in higher social groups were more “fit” to survive than those who were in lower social groups (Bannister, “Social Darwinism”). This idea of social evolution contributed to the dehumanization of people. More social theorists, scientists, and

A system’s self-organizing facade oftentimes disguises its ulterior motive of self-preservation as a form of emergent behavior. In Johnson’s essay, he observes an ant colony that appears to think and function in a nonhierarchial, self-organizing format to serve their queen ant. However, the colony functions in a genetically-coordinated fashion, “Their genes instruct them to protect their mother, the

This paper is an integrated critique of Richard Dawkins’, The Selfish Gene, and Jonathan Kozol’s, Savage Inequalities. The premise of my critique is to compare how these two books by two different authors on two different subjects can relate. I believe this is done by exampling how Dawkins describes the general make up of individuals and how they interact in their specific groups that they as a species have come up in over millennia and how Kozol describes that where you are born and raised has predetermined the path that you will be forced down in a cultural and more specifically educational since for the rest of your life. The bottom line is a place for everyone and every one in their place.

Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

Humans are the most unique species on Earth. We have gained the ability to things never accomplished before on Earth. We can control our environment, domesticate other species, and more importantly, form complex connections and societies with one another. However, it is widely debated about how we evolved from simple ape-like foragers to the meat-eating, community-building species we are today. In this paper, we will be looking at three authors: Richard Wrangham, Pat Shipman, and Frans de Wall. Each of which approach this question from different directions.

In his article “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer discusses the widely-held belief that, generally speaking, there is no more inequality in the world, because all groups of formerly oppressed humans are now liberated. However, it often goes without notice that there are groups of nonhuman animals that continue to face unequal treatment, such as those that are consumed or used as scientific test subjects. Singer’s article criticizes the belief that because humans are generally more intelligent than nonhuman animals, then all humans are superior to all nonhuman animals. Singer argues that intelligence is an arbitrary trait to base the separation of humans and nonhumans, and declares that the only trait that one can logically base moral value is the capacity to have interests, which is determined by a creature’s ability to suffer. Singer explains that in order to stay consistent with the basic principle of equality, anything that has the capacity to suffer ought to have its needs and interests recognized, just as humans’ needs and interests are currently recognized through what he calls “equal consideration.” In this paper, I will explain Singer’s notion of equal consideration as the only relevant sense of equality and why it applies to the rights of both human and nonhuman species that are

"Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming."