Earth Matters: The Earth Sciences, Philosophy, and the Claims of Community

by Frodeman, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780130119964
• ISBN10: 0130119962
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

For courses in Earth Science, Physical Geology, Physical Geography, Earth System Science and Environmental Philosophy. This collection of essays by scholars in both the earth sciences and philosophy discusses the connections between the earth sciences and contemporary culture, and the changing role of the earth sciences in society.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
PART I ROCK LOGIC: THE NATURE OF THE EARTH SCIENCES	1	(62)
Conversing With The Earth: The Geological Approach to Understanding	2	(9)
Victor R. Baker
Reading The Riddle of Nuclear Waste: Idealized Geological Models and Positivist Epistemology	11	(14)
Kristin Shrader-Frechette
Inhabitation and Orientation: Science Beyond Disenchantment	25	(10)
Bruce V. Foltz
The Modern Earth Narrative: Natural and Human History of the Earth	35	(16)
Richard S. Williams, Jr.
Messages in Stone: Field Geology in the American West	51	(12)
Christine Turner
PART II THE EARTH SCIENCES IN LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY	63	(88)
A Multi Disciplinary Approach to Managing and Resolving Environmental Conflicts	64	(15)
Brian Polkinghorn
Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity	79	(20)
Daniel Sarewitz
The Transparency and Contigency of the Earth	99	(8)
Albert Borgmann
Natural Aliens Reconsidered: Causes, Consequences, and Cures	107	(12)
Max Oelschlaeger
A Sense of the Whole: Toward an Understanding of Acid Mine Drainage in the West	119	(22)
Robert Frodeman
Nature and Culture	141	(10)
W. Scott McLean
Eldridge M. Moores
David A. Robertson
PART III PHILOSOPHIC APPROACHES TO THE EARTH	151	(54)
Earth Religons, Earth Sciences, Earth Philosophies	152	(13)
Carl Mitcham
Sacred Earth	165	(10)
Karim Benammar
Ecological Emotions	175	(14)
Alphonso Lingis
Four Ways to Look at Earth	189	(16)
Peter Warshall
Index	205

Excerpts

Preface SHIFTING PLATES: THE NEW EARTH SCIENCES 1. Changes are afoot within the discipline of geology. One sign of this shift is the controversy over what the field should be called. Do we stay with the traditional term,geology? Or embrace a new name, such asgeoscience,Earth science, orEarth systems science? I prefer the first term: despite its implication of referring exclusively to the solid Earth, geology contains hidden resonances. In ancient Greek,GeorGaiameantearthin the sense of the soil, but also Mother Earth, the sheltering source of life, as well as one's country or homeland. Geology may then be taken as the search for alogosofGaia- an account of Mother Earth, the planet that we call home. The point I wish to make, however, is not one of nomenclature, but to alert readers to what is at stake in this debate over names. For the Earth sciences (to use the most common term) today find themselves at the center of a number of societal changes - concerning the relation between science and community, the limits of science for solving the problems we face, and the creation of new, interdisciplinary models for problem solving. Earth Mattersprovides a forum for addressing these questions. The essays of this volume - all published for the first time - represent a wide spectrum of opinion on what the Earth sciences are and should become, and more generally, what our relation to the Earth is and should be. Written by scientists, humanists, and practitioners of public policy,Earth Mattersprovides support for a wide range of views concerning the role of the Earth sciences in society. The questions raised by these essays include: How has the role of the Earth scientist - and the scientist in general - changed in recent years? What new demands or obligations has society placed on science? Can science and technology resolve the environmental difficulties we face, or must we recognize the limits of scientific and technical solutions to our problems, and develop new approaches that combine the insights of the social sciences and the humanities with those of the sciences? Is our relation to the Earth exclusively defined in terms of utilitarian concerns, or is our response to the Earth as much a matter of aesthetics and theology as it is of economics? If the latter is the case, what consequences will this have for the future of the Earth sciences? Finally, how are we to understand the relation between scientific research and the needs of communities, whether on the local, regional, national, or international scale? 2. The idea of promoting this conversation about the Earth sciences and the needs of community has a particular background that it is perhaps useful to mention. First educated in history and philosophy, after a few years of teaching philosophy at the college level I became dismayed at the sterility of much academic philosophical discussion. Motivated by the desire to bring philosophy down to Earth, I returned to graduate school to pursue a master's degree in geology. In the course of this return to the status of a student, I became aware of serious philosophical discussions among Earth scientists themselves. These discussions fell into three broad categories. First, Earth scientists voiced concerns with the nature of the scientific method as it applied to their work. Although many geologists were successfully reducing geology to geophysics and geochemistry, others found that their work did not easily fit within the standard model for the scientific method. These geologists played a role closer to that of Sherlock Holmes, dependent on the interpretation of clues, rather than being able to test their hypotheses in the laboratory. The historical nature of geology, as well as the inability to duplicate in the lab the spatial or temporal scales of the field, meant that geologists relied