Biophilia

I found Edward O. Wilson's Biophilia Hypothesis very intriguing and dense. I've never thought about why I think bugs are gross, or why snakes are reviled by society, and according to Wilson, it's because of evolution. He defines "biophilia" as the instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. While I think that his data of how many species mankind has destroyed in the little time humans have been on earth are shameful and horrifying, I am not sure if I am ready to fully accept that every interaction with nature has to do with evolution, such as why rich people live near the water. However, his explanation of why people are scared of snakes was fascinating, and how mammals fear of snakes is connected to us affects myth and folklore. I mean, how else can you explain the box office success of "Snakes on a Plane"?

I appreciate Kellert's classification of values, but again, probably need to read a bit more about evolution and psychology in order to accept "man's love for natural colors, patterns, and harmonies…must be the result…of…natural selection through eons of mammalian and anthropoid evolution." (p. 46). Or that fear of the nature is limited to snakes and arthropods due to a negativistic experience of nature (p. 57). I think it could be related to evolution, but I would also not discount culture, as in living conditions in human domiciles. For example, I would say it's safe to say that I don't like rats. Not necessarily because I don't like nature, but because rats carry diseases and are swimming around in filth. So rats mean filth. I would draw the same analogy to bugs in a house. If I see a bunch of moths or fruit flies, that means that something is probably rotting. Bugs means rotting. Do I hate bugs because of evolution? Not sure. I can't decide if I don't like spiders because there are poisonous spiders in the world and that's my evolutionary drive kicking in, or because of the episode of the Brady Bunch where there is a tarantula crawling up Peter sleeping during their trip to Hawaii (which I would categorize as culture affecting me).

Regarding, the philia part of biophilia, I do agree that humans are inhererently connected to nature or want to be connected to nature somehow. And I'm sure that rich people love living near water because that's one less side of the house that you have neighbors on, and not just because evolution dictates it. Is evolution the opposite of culture? Perhaps each interaction with nature could be placed on the spectrum so it can reflect varying degrees of how much we can attribute between nature and culture.


However, I am quite interested in landscape and architecture (and landscape architecture) and how they work off of each other, and I've been investigating the location of the public housing development Lathrop Homes, which is located on the Chicago River. It is unlike many public housing complexes with respect to the architecture, the amount of greenspace that it possesses, as well as its location on the river. Maybe the builders during the New Deal had a touch of biophilia?

Lathrop Homes, Lawn

Lathrop Homes on the Chicago River

I suppose everyone has their own relationship with nature, and I wish I could experience outdoor nature more via hiking, etc. But I also enjoy photographer Gideon Barnett who investigates the indoor/outdoor relationship that people have with nature.


It was nice to read J. Malcolm Shick's commitment to aesthetics while teaching science. I wish more science teachers took a more well-rounded approach as opposed to hammering scientific facts into students' brains. It seems like Shick values that scientists must think creatively to solve problems. For some reason I can't seem to get Photoshop to draw a hollow circle, or else I'd display a ven diagram with art and science overlapping. It also works the other way -- I'm inspired by the clinical and thorough approach that scientists take with their experiments and adopting it for my MFA!