Anthropocentrism Essay

The Evolution of Anthropocentrism

Evolutionary theory throws humans into a tizzy. Driven by the need to amass knowledge, we find ourselves surging forward into the exploration of a story where the more we know, the less we can feature ourselves. Eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr contends that anthropocentrism and belief in evolution by natural selection are mutually exclusive (Mayr 1972). In other words, the Darwinian story of biological evolution rejects the notion of progress and replaces it with directionless change, thereby subverting the conception of human superiority on a biological scale toward perfection. Evolution by natural selection undermines the idea that humans are the culmination and ultimate beneficiaries of all nature. However, to say that anthropocentrism

Systems of knowledge are a means of exploiting nature to our reproductive advantage, but they are also a means of destabilizing our relationship with nature. Suppose humans reach a level of cultural evolution where accumulated knowledge illuminates a clear boundary at which anthropocentrism becomes anti-anthropocentrism. Will we be able to abandon Murdy's version of anthropocentrism and embrace a third incarnation of the phenomenon in which stewardship of our ecological support system becomes the human priority? Whereas other species are unable to step outside of the immediate ways in which they interact with the environment, culture allows humans to interpret these interactions and potentially to ensure reproductive success through protection of the support system rather than through an increasing capacity to exploit the system. Only a species with culture can achieve this systems level approach to survival, yet cultural inertia also continues to drive the unsustainable expansion of