Lorna Salzman is a professional environmentalist who formerly has worked with Friends of the Earth and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. In 2002, she was the Green Party’s candidate for President. In her svelte book, Politics as if Evolution Mattered, ATP charged, Hemingway simple prose, promotes the concept that Evolution is the foundation where, all 21 Century institutions and cultures super-structures of our society are built upon. She suggest, if properly interpreted and wielded, Evolutionary thought has the capacity of shaping public discourse in a rational, ethical beneficiary venue, more so, than the mass media, pop culture trends and political ideologies.
“The central dilemma of modern humanity is the failure to adapt our behaviors, institutions and objectives to certain realities which we ignore or defy through our faith in technology and religion. This defiance is at the root of our ecological crisis along with the delusion that the human species or society can be perfected”
She points an accusatory finger at four institutional perpetrators that rebuff juxtaposing ecological and evolutionary strategies for a safe, resource management: Intransigent ideology, technology, social justice and human ethics.
“Neither nature nor evolution can provide a moral guide for human behavior or technological and ethical choices. What they can provide is an impartial, scientific explanation of which choices are most likely to enhance welfare and survival, and which ones are more conducive to societal collapse or species extinction.”
It is no exaggeration to exclaim that the disciplines of biology, ecology, modern medicine and agriculture, etc., could not exist without Darwin. Without him, these would be forced to rely on random observations and anecdotal experience, mere trial and error, with all the inherent handicaps
