Ignorance in its literal sense simply means absence of knowledge, as in the Latin, legal term ‘ignoramus’ – meaning ‘we do not know’.
Colin Tudge
If we want the world order to change for the better, a world that is fit for humanity and our fellow creatures to live in, or indeed one where it is possible to live in, then everything we do and think has to be conducive to that end.
The case for the prosecution seems open and shut. Viruses are life’s disrupters – nature’s spivs, gangsters, the ultimate parasites; dogging the lives of all other organisms through their single-minded yet mindless compulsion to replicate.
I suggest that we object to the word ‘artificial’ for two reasons.
We’re told, as a billion people remain hungry and human numbers continue to rise and the biosphere collapses around our ears (mass extinction, global warming) that we must curb population growth by whatever it takes, and that those who are left must curb their appetites.
We can never reach Utopia – the name means ‘no place’ – but it’s a fine ideal to keep in sight. Life perhaps should be seen as one long pilgrimage with perfection – ‘Utopia’ – as its goal. Progress towards Utopia ought to be what ‘progress’ really means.