NHV: Response Paper 1
Assignment:On pages 24-25, Grove sets out three ideas that tool hold in Europe. Forget about the second one. The first (I’ll call it the ‘design’ idea) holds that all of nature was designed for the benefit of human beings, to support human life, to sustain human development. And that designer was God. The idea is that everything in nature is there ultimately for humans being and that all of nature, one way or another, benefits us.
The third idea (I’ll call it the ‘improvement’ idea) holds that human beings have built on and improved what was there in nature and that human civilization represents an advance and a development of nature. We have buildings instead of caves; we drive cars instead of walking; we use phones instead of yelling real loud.
On one page typed, 200-250 words, tell me what you think of the design-improvement idea. Do you like it in general’ If so, give me some examples to support the view that nature was designed for human beings and that human beings have developed and improved nature. If you don’t much like the idea, give me some examples of how nature seems not designed for human beings and how human beings, over history, have not developed and improved nature.
You can agree with the ‘design’ part and disagree with the ‘improvement’ part. You can disagree with the ‘design’ part and agree with the ‘improvement’ part.
Response:For the last 21 years, SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, has been scanning the skies, looking desperately for a signal that might indicate the presence of life other than our own. However, as astronomers learn more and more about our universe, there seems to be an unnerving trend that inevitably leads one to surmise that Earth is, and will be, the only planet to ever support human or human like life. It is rather uncanny that we are a precise distance from a medium size star to support a relatively stable temperature climate that facilitates rather mild winters (when compared to Pluto at -240�C) and decent summers (when compared to Venus at 400�C) that in turn supports liquid water. We are only one of perhaps a handful of planets to have an atmosphere that not only lets us breathe, but also shields us from the violent rays of the sun. To postulate that Earth was an accident and human beings just happened to develop successfully is inane.
The real question is what we, as humans, are doing on Earth. There really is no answer to this; at least not at this time. The best we can do is keep on living and hope that we find out. However, in doing so, we create a pseudo cause-of-living ideology: we exist to keep on existing. In doing so, we also must take care of Earth, lest we destroy it and ourselves.
