E. O. Wilson's Biophilia

I finally got around to reading The Creation by the Pulitzer Prize winning biologist E.O Wilson. The book is his plea to a generic Pastor of evangelicals who believe nature was given to us by God for our use and it is heaven that is the real prize. This goes against Wilson's feeling that we are but a humble part of nature and therefore must respect our delicate place. Something that caught my eye specifically was his definition of the word biophila. He explains an example in the fact that when asked, people from all over the world, if they had to choose, would select a living environment similar to the environment of early humans. When asks people stated, "they wish to live on a height looking down and out, to scan a parkland with scattered trees... closer to a savanah then to either a grassland or closed forest and to be near a body of water such as a lake, river or sea." He goes on to say that although not proven it does make a nice case of why so many people want to get back to nature and specifically, waterfront i.e. the representative vacation home. "...this interpretation holds that human beings today still choose the habitats resembling those which our species evolved during millions of years of prehistory. The distant forebears wished to be hidden in copses looking out over a savanna or transitional woodland, scanning the terrain for prey to stalk, fallen animals to scavenge, edible plants to gather, and enemies to avoid. A body of water nearby served as a territorial boundary and an added food source." It is true that some people wouldn't be caught dead in the "country". But there is something that rings true with why so many want a second or retirement home with these natural amenities. As a species we've been intimately tied with nature from our beginning. In our rise above, we've abandoned what allows us to exist here in the first place.