History, Biology and the Dance

There’s so much to chew on in Erica and Camilla’s post, Domestication, energy, geography…and how things came to be….The cattle staring at us from Erica’s blog page seem to agree.  I’m especially appreciative of the quote from Russel’s article: “To biology, history offers an understanding of the social forces that create selective pressures.  To history, biology offers understanding of the ways organisms respond to such pressure. Together, as evolutionary history, they offer an understanding of the ever changing dance between humans and nature.”  I like that this quote urges us to see history and biology as intertwined, ongoing, and in process.  Rather than the chicken-egg debate or before and after paradigm, or the civilization vs. nature perspective, evolutionary history invites us to examine an elegant, ever-unfolding dance.

Leave a Reply