anthropocene

is a disruption of the global hierarchy of sciences and an invitation to the human sciences who are now needed to understand what is going on with the 'human' influences.

properly understand 'nature' we need the social and human sciences.'For instance, one could claim that it disrupts the global hierarchy of sciences. After all, it comes as an invitation to collaboration from the 'hard sciences', from the apex of the hierarchy of sciences, to the human and social sciences. The invitation is also a declaration of the failure of the conventional natural sciences and sounds something like this: 'something is happening to the natural world and in order to understand this, we need to bring the activities of those beings called 'humans' into the picture. To properly understand 'nature' we need the social and human sciences.' This invitation comes, it seems to me, at an auspicious moment, namely a moment that you represent, Scott! It is a moment of fundamental ferment in genetics and molecular science in which symbiosis, co-evolution, and epigenetics emphasize the social and co-species nature of evolution. This type of approach, in turn, gels really well with what is happening in anthropology (and other social sciences) where there is also considerable interest in co-species symbiosis. So, my question is this: Does the Anthropocene, in spite of its polluted nature, not still represent an opportunity to break the two cultures of science (Snow 1961)'

is a hegemonically western legacy with a western logic. The notion of gia, a spatial phenomenon, is a possible antidote.

The Anthropocene grew, they noted (as you have also just highlighted), out of a particular view of the world that is hegemonically Western (Danowski et al. 2014). The Anthropocene, in other words, had a Western legacy and a Western logic. Meanwhile, the notion of Gaia, proposed by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis (Lovelock & Margulis 1974), was, so the conference organizers suggested, a spatial phenomenon, an autopoetic sphere that created its own stabilities and instabilities. As a spatial concept, Gaia seemed to open up to other ontologies and other worldviews and perhaps also to other potential solutions to the world's problems. Gaia was, so they felt, a better anthropological alternative.

is a story of unintended consequences and decay, not a story of human mastery.

the Anthropocene is not a story of human mastery at all, it is a story of unintended consequences and decay.

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Nils Bundt