Nature and the Environment:
The Biological Revolution and
Modern Environmental Movements
The Making of the Modern World, Week 7
Lecturer: Elise Smith
OUTLINE
 Shift from Enlightenment conception of nature, where man
controls the environment and shapes it according to his
needs
 Challenge of accounting for natural diversity: are species
fixed or do they change? If so, what processes are involved?
 Darwinian revolution: all species (including humans) shaped
by the environment
 Growth of green movements: responsibility to maintain the
environment we depend on, to live in harmony with nature
 Challenges and criticisms posed by, and directed towards,
environmentalism
Great Chain of Being
• Religious organisation of species
• Dominant from Middle Ages to the
Renaissance
• Hierarchical (God, angels, man,
animals, plants)
• Species are fixed
• No fluidity/movement between
rungs
Linnaeus’ Taxonomy
• Taxonomy = classification system
• Comprehensive natural system
incorporating all living organisms…
including humans.
• Man included amongst the animals,
but still has higher intelligence, and a
soul.
Different types of humans:
Monogenism and Polygenism
Monogenism: One creation. All humans have a common
ancestor, and are a single species descended from a single pair.
All types have degenerated from perfect ancestors, and
physical differences are superficial (reversible) and the result of
gradual changes in response to climatic conditions. Orthodox.
Polygenism: Multiple creations. Different human types are
the product of separate creations on different continents.
Physical attributes are permanent and immutable. Different
groups are different species and cannot mix. Heretical.
Blumenbach’s Skulls
• Five human races based on cranial type (Caucasian,
Mongolian, Malayian, Ethiopian, American)
• The study of species focuses on skeletal differences.
French Biology
• Associated with Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris)—
Jardin des Plantes (1793)
• State-sponsored science: ability to gather vast collections
of specimens for study: plants, animals and fossils.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829):
-First Professor of Zoology
-Philosophie Zoologique (1809)
-Lamarckism:
-Organs change based on use
-These ‘acquired characteristics’
are transmitted to offspring
Comparative Anatomy
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
• Studies fossil record; proves extinction of species
• Form is related to function
• Four main categories of species based on
form (vertebrates, mollusks, articulates, radiates)
• System is based on branches, not hierarchical.
• Does not believe species can change.
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844)
• Thinks form is more fundamental than function
• A follower of Lamarck, but believes that environment,
not behaviours, triggers changes in species.
The Age of the
Earth
Principles of Geology (1830-1833)
by Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
• Biblical estimate is that Earth is ~6000 years old
• Lyell argues that the changes in the Earth (the building of mountains
and deepening of valleys, the creation of geological strata, etc.) have
resulted from minute changes over enormously long spans of time.
‘Uniformitarianism’
• Opposite of ‘catastrophism’ which argued that changes were sudden
and abrupt (allows for Biblical timeframe)
• Longer timeframe suggested by Lyell crucial to Darwinian evolution
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
 Educated at Edinburgh (medicine)
and Cambridge
 Naturalist on board the Beagle
(1831-6)
 Retreats to Down House, Kent for
the remainder of his life
 The Origin of Species (1859)
 The Descent of Man (1871)
 ….amongst many others!
The Origin of Species (1859)
 Lays out argument for evolution by process of natural
selection.
 Darwin’s innovation is to show how traits best adapted
to the local environment are most likely to survive.
 Competition and struggle between and within species.
 Advantageous traits passed down through reproduction.
 The environment determines which variants will thrive.
Reproduction ensures that these variations survive.
Man’s Place in Nature?
 Controversy: All species are subject to the same forces
of evolution—meaning humans are the product of
mechanistic processes, not divine creation. Challenges
religious view of creation.
 However, in some senses a holistic view of man’s
relationship with nature; we are adapted to our
environment. The species question is answered by
studying interactions in the natural world, not
specimens in museums.
Early Ecology
 Evolutionary theory emerges at a time where there’s
an interest in returning to nature and living in
harmony with it.
 Concern about environmental degradation as a
result of industrialisation.
 Rise of the Conservation
movement—preserving the
wilderness.
The Earth at Risk
 Post 1945 growing sense of environmental crisis.
 Fears about pollution, use of pesticides (Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson in 1962)
 A man-made crisis?
 Overconsumption, artificial chemicals,
toxic waste.
 Inevitable outcome of capitalism?
 The need for regulation and reform
Environmental Politics
 Is it possible to balance economic growth with sustainable
practices?
 Is it fair to put limits on the developing world when the developed
world is responsible for greater pollution and consumption?
 Where does environmentalism fall on the political spectrum?
 In some countries (esp. USA) opposition to environmental
protections often have economic and/or religious justifications.
(e.g. oil was created for man to exploit).
 However, conservation has traditionally appealed to
conservatives—environmentalism has many incarnations, not just a
critique of capitalist exploitation of natural resources.