Letters to the Editor
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Completely Hypersensitive
Reading this, Andrew, I felt as though you must have nerve endings poking out of your skin. Loosen your tie, sir. Yes, perhaps Wilson should not have stated that botanical gardens and zoos were the worst thing you can do for your children - I know that I have every intention of taking my son when he's old enough - but it was more a reflection of the loss of the sense of discovery than anything else. When a child walks through a zoo and sees neatly packaged animals with handy, taxonomy-labeled signs, he gains no real sense of appreciation for or connection to nature. Yes, he can see exotic animals from around the world, but I side with Wilson in the belief that it is infinitely more beneficial to take your child on a walk through the woods down the street (if you're blessed with such) and let him explore and discover in an immersed environment.
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Hyperbole
It's the worst thing you can do if you're a controlling egomaniac, because then the kids don't have to come to you begging for the names and you cease to be relevant.
Speaking of ceasing to be relevant....EO Wilson.
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Soccer Dad Says...
Give E.O. Wilson a break, wouldja? I mean, the guy's, like, nine hundred years old. He's just suffering from Cranky Old Man Syndrome. I dare you to spend half a century talking to ants and see if you can still be polite to humans.
And he does have a point. Kids should get their love of nature from being in it, not from being drilled on it. Same thing with pretty much every other subject. Imagine taking your kid to a Beethoven concert and continually saying to them, "Hear that? That's a bassoon!"
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Another enemy of learning: the field guide
I mean, come ON. Learning the names of stuff? Completely ridiculous! Enough of this taxonomy and labeling: We should all just transmit information to one another through our antennae.
In all seriousness, labeled trees are not the problem, unless they are the only trees you ever see. You can make that point without being an offensive ass. Unless you are E.O. Wilson.
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Crossover
Today "Broadsheet" has an article about women's rights and oil economics, and "How the World Works" is discussing motherhood and naturalism. At its best Salon is is a fecund greenhouse for thought that crosses the established limits of discourse — and part of that is cutting against the grain of narrow interest and subject-matter specialization.
Everyone has their "beat," of course, and its thin journalistic ice to talk about cross-pollenation. But it would still be interesting to see what happened if instances of clear crossover were treated as such.
Or maybe it turns out that 90% of the readership that reads one reads the other, too, and I'm just wishing for the bad old days.
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Wilson is being unrealistic
Even allowing for hyperbole (I think he'd agree there are worse things to do to a kid) I still disagree with Wilson.
The reason for all this compressed experience is that there is not enough time in one lifetime to learn it. It'd be lovely if you could leave a child in the meadow to look at bugs and they'd recapitulate everything from Aristotle through the scientific method, discover DNA by themselves, and go on to advance human understanding. The trouble is that it is not going to happen. To make any progress, we have to settle for the ersatz of symbolic knowledge.
Heck, it's a luxury to see a zoo or botanical garden. For reasons that escape me now, I was just reading about the fascinating life cycle of "social amoeba" before realizing that this is just the hip new name for what were called "slime molds" in my childhood reading. I'm not likely to chance upon one in my normal life, and I am enriched by knowing that such a thing exists at all. I would be more enriching if I had discovered it for myself, but I'll settle for something with a remote probability of really happening.
I agree that there are times when you shouldn't worry about the labels. You must also learn very early that they are merely labels; the trees were here before anyone thought to name them. But seeing the labels probably does no harm--going out of your way to torture kids with flash cards might but not a trip to the zoo.
I probably would have sided with Wilson way back. I now feel that I have not only the sense that he is wrong but a theoretical framework in which to understand why. The search for knowledge is a cumulative process and any human ought to feel lucky just to expand upon it incrementally in the course of one life. The only efficient way to accomplish this is to begin with what has gone before in compressed form. Wilson had to do this. He had to learn to read. He studied many books I'm sure. He absorbed assumptions without which he could not have begun to interpret his observations. It is just a pipe dream that you can send a child out there and "let the data speak." If that were true, the natural world would have been fully explored tens of thousands of years ago.
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Relax people
Andrew, I enjoy your work, but sometimes you folks at Salon come across like you have been locked in a cell with only TVs, internet as your contacts with the outside world. E. O. Wilson said what he said since "Soccer mom" is an established demographic, it is applicable to Soccer dads, Baseball Uncles and whatever combo you find. His point is that we should not teach our kids to know the names of everything, but to develop an interest in everything.
For example, during the '80s, when apartheid was still going on in S. Africa, I was talking to a friend about the ANC. I told him for the ANC to succeed they will have to renounce violence and be seen as peaceful and stable-minded people (like Desmond Tutu and Mandela) and not common thugs. He got bent out of shape with his liberal talking points. Being a liberal myself I told him to chill and said I was referring to their practice of intimidation, such as where they catch someone suspected of snitching, beat him up, then put a car tire around his neck, fill it with gasoline and set it on fire. To which my friend said, "Oh, I know, it is called necklacing and it is no big deal."
he knew the name for it, the label, but he had no comprehension of what it really meant. That is probably the sort of thing E. O. Wilson was referring to. Knowing the name of a plant or animal is useless, knowing its place, its context, its relevance is what matters. Like looking at the name and photograph of someone who died in Iraq, vs actually knowing that person. Big difference.
So your getting so caught up with words does not help anyone. Relax. The same goes for Joan Walsh and many of the folks here. Cheers.