Uncommon Ground

Uncommon Ground

Monthly Archive: October 2016

Terry Tempest Williams on wilderness

From The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks:

The legacy of the Wilderness Act is a legacy of care. It is the act of loving beyond ourselves, beyond our own species, beyond our own time. To honor wildlands and wild lives that we may never see, much less understand, is to acknowledge the world does not revolve around us. The Wilderness Act is an act of respect that protects the land and ourselves from our own annihilation.

The Wilderness Act

October 5, 2016 Outdoors 0 Read more >

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway on the nature of science and science policy

I read Merchants of Doubt several years ago. If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to buy a copy now (or check it out from your local library) and read it immediately. I was thumbing through some notes recently and ran across this passage that sums up the nature of science and its relationship to policy very nicely.

All scientific work is incomplete – whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, to postpone action that it appears to demand at a given time. “Who knows,” asks Robert Browning, “but the world may end tonight?” True, but on available evidence most of us make ready to commute on 8:30 the next day.

This is only one of many gems in Merchants of Doubt. Read it and share it with your friends and family.

October 3, 2016 Science policy 0 Read more >