Man and the Center of the Universe

I am currently reading "Ismael: An adventure of the mind and spirit" by Daniel Quinn. It was featured in book stores back in 1992 when I bought it and I am just now getting around to reading it after finding it on the bottom of a book shelf. (Amazing what packing your household belongings will unearth.)

The story premise is sophisticated, but the dialogue between the two characters and the character development is not, so I am a little disappointed. The theme appears to be all about Man seeing himself as the Center of the Universe and the problem with that premise.

Along these lines, I attended a lecture today by a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution who works with dingoflagellates and other small stuff in the marine environment. His research is all about the algae that causes algal blooms (i.e. red tides, etc.) in the bays and oceans. This research has uncovered through the years new knowledge that what was once thought as cellular parts of an algal organism is in reality a parasite that later emerges (Alien style) and takes over the algal organism. The speaker showed an actual video on this process and it does emerge exactly like the Alien did from the human gut!! (This is, of course, an oversimplification of his decades of research, as he has discovered lots more interesting stuff...but my point and I do have a point...)

Ok, what is my point here? Well, one of the questions from the audience was 'how can we use this information on algal parasites to control the growth of the "bad" algal blooms' and this question was coupled with another question about the new research on non-indigenous oysters also being introduced to the Chesapeake Bay for much of the same reason--control of algal growth. This scientist, in spite of his love of research and desire to culture the parasites and watch them interact with the algae, made a clear and important point. This control approach was all about treating the symptoms of the disease in our oceans and not preventing the disease.

And I guess my statement here is that mankind causes much of the earth's problems and then spends much intellectual effort trying to control the universe to fix these problems which he alone has caused. All he has to do is stop causing the problem in the first place.

(For those of you not into science, we need to control the agriculture runoff, cattle allowed to wade into streams, building and development inland, toilet flushing, car driving, global warming etc. and the algal problem in our oceans will diminish greatly. Of course, this does mean some economic sacrifice on our part--duh.)

The Bible says that man was put in dominion over the plants and the animals. I don't think so. They seem to get the rhythm of life without our interference. We are the ones that keep screwing up!

OK. Enough blogging. Just glad to get access back after days.