Sign-In
Cart
Tragedy in Mouse Utopia: An Ecological Commentary on Human Utopia
Paperback
Publisher Price: $18.70
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1412056330
ISBN13: 9781412056335
Publisher: Authorhouse
Published: Mar 16 2006
Pages: 212
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.48 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781412056335
Publisher: Authorhouse
Published: Mar 16 2006
Pages: 212
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.48 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
In 1968 John B. Calhoun, American behavioral ecologist, introduced eight mice into a technologically designed walled enclosure that fulfilled all the wants and needs of mice except migration in and out. Over a 41/2 year period the population exploded into a colony of 2200 mice, and then slowly and inexorably declined to extinction. Deprived of motherly love early in life, and denied access to social roles later in life, young mice grew up without knowing how to behave as mice. This book examines whether a similar fate could be in store for Human Utopia.
Part I compares the suicidal effects of runaway growth in Mouse Utopia to a similar sequence of events in Human Utopia. Part II describes our dependence on the Biosphere. Part III shows how the runaway growth of technology and population is creating havoc in our species and the Biosphere. How an inner life-force symbolized as the Sorcerer causes populations to self-destruct by satisfying internal desires beyond their useful times. As the Sorcerer's apprentices, we have been preparing the ground for a crisis of crises beyond human control. Part IV describes how the Sorcerer works and how to control his destructive traits. Political, spiritual and behavioral opportunities are identified that could be overlooked, misinterpreted or ignored in steering a course toward coevolution of humanity and the Biosphere.
Victor J. Crapnell: Interesting, yes; and scary!
Johnny Biosphere: This book is remedial reading fom some ecologists, most employees of enviornmental protection agencies, and most forward looking businessmen and politicians.
Economist Tom Muir interviews ecologist J.R. Vallentyne on Tragedy in Mouse Utopia: The Sorcerer Lurks Within 2006. Trafford Publishing, 2333 Government St. Victoria BC, V8T 4P4, Canada.
Muir: Dr. Vallentyne, you claim that the global course of Human Utopia since the 14th century has been following the 41/2 year march to extinction of a mouse colony provided with everything that mice could want. You seem to dismiss the magic of the marketplace. What about human innovation and invention? Men are not mice!
Vallentyne: My comparison is not between men and mice. It is between the behavior of mice and humans when both are driven to excesses by a runaway cycle of growth of technology and population. The marketplace accelerates the runaway cycle by feeding human desires rather than limiting human growth.
Muir: Yet another global treatise on this subject in addition to Malthus, The Club of Rome, and Global 2000??? Don't you think the public and political reaction will be to shrug and move on?
Vallentyne: Possibly, but I have added three new dimensions to the discussion: (1) a runaway cycle of intertwined growth of technology and population, jointly; (2) a change of context from an era of upward causation in which exponential growth is normal, to an era of downward causation in which continued growth is suicidal; and (3) the psychological-behavioral nature of the problem in both mice and humans. Malthus, it seems, is not yet entirely dead.
Muir: What makes you think that we may be on the brink of globally disastrous feedback from the Biosphere? I do not think that you are even close to evaluating the influence of different time scales in your analysis.
Vallentyne: Look around. Biospheric feedback is here now and increasing! Differences in timescales create the problem!
Muir: What do you have to say to the eternal optimist and the resigned pessimist?
Vallentyne: Nothing. Realists and pragmatists are needed.
Muir: If destruction takes place in 500 to 1000 years, who cares?
Vallentyne: Nobody - except humanitarians, environmentalists, most women and all children.
Muir: Does our global technological society have to crash? Isn't it possible that human society will ignore your work?
Vallentyne: My book poses these questions, but does not presume to answer them. My aim has been to identify contexts and probabilities that shape the answers.
Muir: You describe a Sorcerer within as a mastermind of the cravings behind The Seven Deadly Sins. Isn't that just a little bit far-fetched?
Vallentyne: Not at all. The notion of the Sorcerer has more in common with our perceptions of reality than science or psychology can ever convey. naming the mastermind of the cravings could be key to controlling the Sins.
Muir: Given the inability of individuals to overcome the inertia and change the direction of politicians, how can you possibly conclude that our only real hope lies in faith?
Vallentyne: Faith is not unique to religion. It is inherent in the nature of life. As Dostoyevsky noted in The Brothers Karamazov: To a realist, faith does not arise form miracles; miracles arise from faith.
Muir: Has Calhoun's experiment ever been repeated?
Vallentyne: Yes, it is being repeated right now; in Human Utopia!! For an update on Human Utopia, read Scott Wooding's insightful book The Parenting Crisis.
Muir: What is the bottom line of your book? What is the take-away message?
Vallentyne: At a personallevel: Do unto the ecosystems that you share with others as you would have others do unto the ecosystems they share with you. Politically: Put the concept of the Biosphere (or Ecosphere, if you prefer) into the charter of the United Nations.
Victor J. Crapnell: Interesting, yes; and scary!
Johnny Biosphere: This book is remedial reading fom some ecologists, most employees of enviornmental protection agencies, and most forward looking businessmen and politicians.
Economist Tom Muir interviews ecologist J.R. Vallentyne on Tragedy in Mouse Utopia: The Sorcerer Lurks Within 2006. Trafford Publishing, 2333 Government St. Victoria BC, V8T 4P4, Canada.
Muir: Dr. Vallentyne, you claim that the global course of Human Utopia since the 14th century has been following the 41/2 year march to extinction of a mouse colony provided with everything that mice could want. You seem to dismiss the magic of the marketplace. What about human innovation and invention? Men are not mice!
Vallentyne: My comparison is not between men and mice. It is between the behavior of mice and humans when both are driven to excesses by a runaway cycle of growth of technology and population. The marketplace accelerates the runaway cycle by feeding human desires rather than limiting human growth.
Muir: Yet another global treatise on this subject in addition to Malthus, The Club of Rome, and Global 2000??? Don't you think the public and political reaction will be to shrug and move on?
Vallentyne: Possibly, but I have added three new dimensions to the discussion: (1) a runaway cycle of intertwined growth of technology and population, jointly; (2) a change of context from an era of upward causation in which exponential growth is normal, to an era of downward causation in which continued growth is suicidal; and (3) the psychological-behavioral nature of the problem in both mice and humans. Malthus, it seems, is not yet entirely dead.
Muir: What makes you think that we may be on the brink of globally disastrous feedback from the Biosphere? I do not think that you are even close to evaluating the influence of different time scales in your analysis.
Vallentyne: Look around. Biospheric feedback is here now and increasing! Differences in timescales create the problem!
Muir: What do you have to say to the eternal optimist and the resigned pessimist?
Vallentyne: Nothing. Realists and pragmatists are needed.
Muir: If destruction takes place in 500 to 1000 years, who cares?
Vallentyne: Nobody - except humanitarians, environmentalists, most women and all children.
Muir: Does our global technological society have to crash? Isn't it possible that human society will ignore your work?
Vallentyne: My book poses these questions, but does not presume to answer them. My aim has been to identify contexts and probabilities that shape the answers.
Muir: You describe a Sorcerer within as a mastermind of the cravings behind The Seven Deadly Sins. Isn't that just a little bit far-fetched?
Vallentyne: Not at all. The notion of the Sorcerer has more in common with our perceptions of reality than science or psychology can ever convey. naming the mastermind of the cravings could be key to controlling the Sins.
Muir: Given the inability of individuals to overcome the inertia and change the direction of politicians, how can you possibly conclude that our only real hope lies in faith?
Vallentyne: Faith is not unique to religion. It is inherent in the nature of life. As Dostoyevsky noted in The Brothers Karamazov: To a realist, faith does not arise form miracles; miracles arise from faith.
Muir: Has Calhoun's experiment ever been repeated?
Vallentyne: Yes, it is being repeated right now; in Human Utopia!! For an update on Human Utopia, read Scott Wooding's insightful book The Parenting Crisis.
Muir: What is the bottom line of your book? What is the take-away message?
Vallentyne: At a personallevel: Do unto the ecosystems that you share with others as you would have others do unto the ecosystems they share with you. Politically: Put the concept of the Biosphere (or Ecosphere, if you prefer) into the charter of the United Nations.
Also in
Biology
The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution
Hockfield, Susan
Paperback
$17.05
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Paperback
$18.00
History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery
Kurin, Richard
Hardcover
$31.50
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
$27.00
The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All
Ashwood, Frank
Hardcover
$27.00
Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health
Khamsi, Roxanne
Hardcover
$28.50
National Geographic the Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals
Chadwick, Douglas H.
Sartore, Joel
Hardcover
$19.99
Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations
Hooper, Rowan
Hardcover
$31.50
Go Forth and Forage: A Guide to Foraging Over 50 of the Most Common Edible & Medicinal North American Mushrooms
Johnson, Whitney
Paperback
$23.74
The Biology of Trauma: How the Body Holds Fear, Pain, and Overwhelm, and How to Heal It
Apigian, Aimie
Hardcover
$26.96
The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Riskin, Jessica
Hardcover
$30.40
Cells at Work! Picture Book 1: The Great Bacteria vs. White Blood Cell Battle!
Makimura, Kumi
Hardcover
$13.29
Princeton Review AP Biology Premium Prep, 29th Edition: 6 Practice Tests + Digital Practice Online + Content Review
The Princeton Review
Paperback
$26.59
Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature: A Visual Masterpiece of the Natural World
Haeckel, Ernst
Hardcover
$48.74
Fungi Decoded: Adventures in the Mycosphere--Encounters with Thirty Fungi
Bunyard, Britt A.
Paperback
$18.99
Peterson Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America, Second Edition
McKnight Ward, Kirsten
McKnight, Karl B.
Rohrer, Joseph R.
Paperback
$24.69
The Whole Truth: The Hidden Agendas Behind Decades of Health Misinformation--And What to Do about It
Campbell, T. Colin
Campbell, Nelson
Hardcover
$26.55
Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
Henion, Leigh Ann
Hardcover
$28.50
Bioinspired: How Nature Made Us Modern, Drives Today's Technological Innovation, and Inspires a Future Worth Inventing
Stier, Samuel Cord
Hardcover
$33.25
Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression about Brain Damage from Childhood Vaccines
de Becker, Gavin
Hardcover
$31.34
Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us
Belluz, Julia
Hall, Kevin, PhD
Hardcover
$28.50
All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
Black, Sue
Paperback
$18.04
Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide: A Handbook for Psilocybin Enthusiasts
Oss, O. T.
Oeric, O. N.
Paperback
$18.00
A Year with the Seals: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea's Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures
Morris, Alix
Hardcover
$28.50
VAX Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life
Hoover, Deedee
Thomas, Paul
Paperback
$25.60
The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics
Olshaker, Mark
Osterholm, Michael T.
Hardcover
From $19.99
True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradis
McKenna, Terence
Paperback
$17.09
Fungi of Temperate Europe: Keys to the Basidiomycotes
Petersen, Jens H.
Frøslev, Tobias G.
Læssøe, Thomas
Hardcover
$90.25
The Aesthetic Revolution: Embracing Vanity and the Future of Fitness to Unlock Your Healthiest Self
Israetel, Mike
Hardcover
$28.50
The Gut-Brain Paradox: Improve Your Mood, Clear Brain Fog, and Reverse Disease by Healing Your Microbiome
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
$30.40
Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California
Siegel, Noah
Schwarz, Christian
Paperback
$33.25
Psilocybin Mushrooms: A Comprehensive Guide to Growing and Using Psychedelic Mushrooms
Madden, Michael
Paperback
$14.24
The Art and Science of Foodpairing: 10,000 Flavour Matches That Will Transform the Way You Eat
Lahousse, Bernard
Langenbick, Johan
Coucquyt, Peter
Hardcover
$47.45
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Hardcover
$28.50
The Little Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Guide to the Extraordinary Power of Mushrooms
Dorr, Alex
Hardcover
From $11.99
Regents Exams and Answers: Life Science: Biology, Second Edition
Barron's Educational Series
Paperback
$18.04
Mushrooming: An Illustrated Guide to the Fantastic, Delicious, Deadly, and Strange World of Fungi
Borsato, Diane
Hardcover
$23.70
The Molecular Diet: Precision Nutrition to Repair Your Genes and Supercharge Your Health
Gubler, Dan
Hardcover
$28.50
The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (Including Coronavirus) Are Not the Cause of Disease
Cowan, Thomas S.
Fallon Morell, Sally
Hardcover
$31.34
The Mushroom Hunters: A Hidden World of Food, Money, and (Mostly Legal) Adventure
Cook, Langdon
Paperback
$19.95
From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage
National Museum of Natural History
Hardcover
$18.95
Mushrooms of Cascadia, Second Edition: An Illustrated Key to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest
Beug, Michael
Paperback
$26.60
How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite
Wasowski, Matt
Balakrishnan, Chris
Paperback
$19.00
Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
Lents, Nathan H.
Paperback
$17.09
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
$20.89
Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic: Revised and Expanded Edition
Russell, Bill
Paperback
$23.70
The Life Machines: How Taking Care of Your Mitochondria Can Transform Your Health
Mochly-Rosen, Daria
Rosen, Emanuel
Hardcover
$27.55
The Mycocultural Revolution: Transforming Our World with Mushrooms, Lichens, and Other Fungi
McCoy, Peter
Hardcover
$17.05
The Ocean's Menagerie: How Earth's Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life
Harvell, Drew
Hardcover
$28.80
Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms
Rodriguez, Ashley
Hardcover
$21.80
Gut Check: Unleash the Power of Your Microbiome to Reverse Disease and Transform Your Mental, Physical, and Emotional Health
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
$30.40
National Audubon Society Wildflowers of North America: The Complete Identification Reference to Wildflowers--With Full-Color Photographs; Updated Rang
National Audubon Society
Hardcover
$37.95
Pull: How Gravity Shapes Your Body, Steadies the Mind, and Guides Our Health
Spiegel, Brennan
Hardcover
$28.50
The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters
Carroll, Sean B.
Paperback
$18.00
The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life
Willis, Jon
Hardcover
$24.70
Sea Wonders: The Octopus, the Cuttlefish, and the Squid
Colombo, Marco
Tomasinelli, Francesco
Hardcover
$18.95
Common Lichens of the Eastern United States: Easily Identify 58 Widespread Types
Barnharst, Tanner
Paperback
$9.45