Your example about Toxoplasma Gondii is about the importance of parasitic
protozoa and I think is one good place to re think about
anthropocentrism as most
of the life forms on this planet are not primates or in close systems
interaction
with primates. Yet we are obsessed by primates as part of the cultural
narcissism
you describe.
Ramon Guardans, in his essay " On Plant Physics: the silent power of waiting"
argues that we should look at plants and their functioning as a useful
way of re-thinking
http://www.imera.fr/images/stories/PDF/ramon_guardans.pdf
This paper is based on a remarkable book by Karl J. Niklas : Plant Allometry.
The Scaling of Form and Process (U Chicago Press 1994)
and introduces some of it to the reader. This paper argues that it
would be useful to pay
more theoretical, artistic, and scientific
attention to the way plants grow and reproduce, use resources and
dispose of waste over space,
time and scale. We shal
l argue that many aspects of our social behaviour are closer to plant
strategies over
the long range rather than shaped by
urgencies of ambitious predators , these exist but are just a part of
how change
in living lineages come about. Other forms
of interaction are relevant too.
Summarising and commenting on Niklas's work, we draw attention to some
distinctive
aspects of the physics and biology
of plants, regretting implicitly that not more of this work is in
progress and accessible
when considering long - term life processes
The consideration of these issues is also applied to comment on the praise
Charles Darwin deserves and how the poor man
has been abused.
Ramon, are you following this discussion ? maybe you would like to comment !!
Roger
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