Environmental history: mechanistic and organismic models compared

Environmental History

According to Oelschlaeger (1991), critics of Modernism "engendered an opposition between two rival ideas of nature," and the author summarizes those rival ideas in Table 3 on p. 129 of The Idea of Wilderness. The left-hand column displays three of the main tenets of the "nature-as-machine" view, with roots in the scientific method and Cartesian-Newtonian dualism. Human beings are not considered to be a part of nature but rather, as an objective observer of the "machine." Science seeks to break down the elements of nature into its smallest parts such as atoms or quarks. As distinct from nature, mankind also endeavors to control and command nature. Furthermore, nature's constituent parts have no intrinsic value; they are nothing more than cogs in a machine or wheels in a clock.

In the right-hand column, the author lists the three key tenets of the "nature-as-organism" viewpoint, promoted by philosophers like Spinoza as well as many of the Romantic poets. As an organism, nature includes humanity and humanity is integral to nature. Nature's parts are meaningful and possess intrinsic value according to the nature-as-organism philosophical perspective.

Oelschlaeger (1991) points out the conflict inherent in the distinction between these two views, creating what Ilya Prigogine described as a "tragic, metaphysical choice," (p. 128). The differences between the nature-as-machine and nature-as-organism viewpoints underlie many contemporary issues in environmental science and policy. Nature-as-machine and nature-as-organism are diametrically opposed, and the author subsequently represents the rift between these two stances in a diametric table. Listed in the left-hand column under the heading "nature-as-machine," the three key tenets of the nature-as-machine view include reductionistic atomism; external relations; and invariant repetition. Listed directly opposite, the three key tenets of the nature-as-organism view include synoptic holism; internal relations; and emergent novelty.

Nature-as-machine proponents reduce nature to its atomic or subatomic parts such as electrons or quarks: what the author refers to as "reductionistic atomism." Reductionistic atomism means looking at water and seeing two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. On the other hand, nature-as-machine proponents view nature holistically, and the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts," (Oelschlaeger 1991 p. 130). Water is a lake, an ocean, or a river. Oelschlaeger calls seeing the forest instead of the trees "synoptic holism." The synoptic holism integral to the nature-as-organism view opposes the reductionistic atomism common to the nature-as-machine stance. In other words, where the reductionist sees a bunch of quarks, the holist sees a bird.

The nature-as-machine proponent also thinks in terms of external relations. Individual parts of the machine interact with other parts as independent entities; thus, they can be removed and replaced without upsetting the balance of nature. This stance supports the view of humanity as external to nature. On the other hand, the nature-as-organism proponent perceives nature in terms of internal relations, and human beings are part of nature's internal whole. Individual parts of nature are interdependent and interrelated; one part cannot be replaced by another without consequence because of the essential integration of the organism. External relations allows clear-cutting of forests on the grounds that trees can be replanted; internal relations views the forest as an ecosystem and takes into account bugs and birds as well as trees.