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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 333.9516 EAN: 9780393330489 ISBN: 0393330486 Label: W. W. Norton Manufacturer: W. W. Norton Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 192 Publication Date: September 10, 2007 Publisher: W. W. Norton Studio: W. W. Norton Editorial Review: Product Description: The book that launched a movement: "Wilson speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks), proposing a historic partnership between scientists and religious leaders to preserve Earth's rapidly vanishing biodiversity. The Creation is E. O. Wilson's most important work since the publications of Sociobiology and Biophilia. Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, it is a book about the fate of the earth and the survival of our planet. Yet while Carson was specifically concerned with insecticides and the ecological destruction of our natural resources, Wilson, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, attempts his new social revolution by bridging the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of fundamentalism and science. Like Carson, Wilson passionately concerned about the state of the world, draws on his own personal experiences and expertise as an entomologist, and prophesies that half the species of plants and animals on Earth could either have gone or at least are fated for early extinction by the end of our present century. Astonishingly, The Creation is not a bitter, predictable rant against fundamentalist Christians or deniers of Darwin. Rather, Wilson, a leading "secular humanist," draws upon his own rich background as a boy in Alabama who "took the waters," and seeks not to condemn this new generations of Christians but to address them on their own terms. Conceiving the book as an extended letter to a southern Baptist minister, Wilson, in stirring language that can evoke Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," tells this everyman minister how, in fact, the world really came to be. He pleads with these men of the cloth to understand the cataclysmic damage that is destroying our planet and asks for their help in preventing the destruction of our Earth before it is too late. Never a pessimist, Wilson avers that there are solutions that may yet save the planet, and believes that the vision that he presents in The Creation is one that both scientists and pastors can accept, and work on together in spite of their fundamental ideological differences. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - "Meeting on the near side of metaphysics..." *Whenever I read Wilson, I'm reminded of those 19th century amateur naturalists (Selkirk, for example) who loved and marveled at the dappled world and were able to communicate their affection in writing that's an admirable literary genre in itself. Wilson, of course, is no amateur biologist. But his writing style is beautiful, and his sense of intimate wonderment at the various forms of life on the planet more accords with an almost gone mindset than with the laboratory, quantitative science of ... Read More Rating:  - The Evolution: An Appeal to Save Life On EarthIf the title of the book was like the title of my review, I would give the book 5 stars. I found the Biology and biography part of the book interesting. But the problem is that this book's proclaimed purpose does not match with its contents. It is about what the evolutionary biology and how to educate people about it, not really appealing to anyone to participate in saving the life except calling that someone as a pastor. Why pretending to appeal to someone when you insult them? Protecting the complexity ... Read More Rating:  - Hey Mr. Wilson!!Thanks for writing this book. It was truly inspiration for me. I don't write many reviews so I'm going to make this short and sweet. I'm about to start my last semester of college and will soon be receiving my B.A. in Psychology. However, I had no idea what I wanted to do with it afterwards. Typically students try to go to grad school, but I didn't know what field interested me enough to devote two more years too. Then I read this book and heard of Environmental Psychology. I've always been ... Read More Rating: - Tells it like it isDr Wilson is a master at explaining, in layman's terms, why we need to take care of the whole Earth, not just those organisms that are directly useful to people. This book should be required reading for all high school and college students. Rating: - A good, quick read.I like Wilson's view that science and faith can and should try to meet on common ground. I didn't get the feeling that Wilson is a racist, misogynist, or eugenicist, as has been alleged by others--just a helluva biologist! I found it fascinating that the total weight of all of the ants is as much as that of all of the humans. Also interesting is the % of undiscovered species, from which so many advances in medicine are waiting to be found.No Time To Kill Bruce A. Roth Daisy Alliance www.daisyalliance.org ... Read More |
