The Myth of Nature's Perfection
We created the myth of perfect nature to console ourselves and feel comfortable and safe on the most hostile planet to human life, surrounded by dangers and traps where a non-indigenous human being would disappear and die if left alone in a forest, or in the middle of the ocean. We are not prepared for easy survival on Earth without our developed social apparatus for mechanical and organic solidarity called civilization and society; we are dependent on human communities to defend ourselves from Mother Nature.
For enchanting biologists, nature is perfect; they call this perfection ecological balance. Everything adjusts automatically, in an eternal magic that never becomes disorganized, except when man interferes.
This enchantment with the universe begins with the name given by the ancients: cosmos, or harmony. Nothing in the sky seemed to disturb the sun, the stars, the moon, the satellites. Every now and then a stone called a meteor or asteroid would fall, as if it were an anomalous event, bad luck.
As Galileo's first telescope began to reveal that harmony was apparent in the universe, with celestial bodies colliding with each other, stars exploding, falling planets disappearing, the blazing sun spitting deadly rays against the earth, such as deadly ultraviolet radiation, infrared, cosmic rays, alpha and beta particles, gamma radiation, and spitting out deadly electromagnetic pulses in solar flares that destroy the ozone layer, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, storms, hurricanes, venomous beasts, invisible viruses, poisonous plants, poisonous animals, carnivorous beasts, the struggle for survival, prolonged droughts, hot deserts of sand and salt, icy polar deserts, the earth is full of deadly traps that forced humankind to create a highly specialized and organized society to survive and protect itself from nature itself and from other humans.
Human society, in order to protect itself from nature, developed the sciences of calculation, accounting, biology, chemistry, and engineering, primarily to move beyond being a gatherer and hunter of opportunity and random fortune, and instead begin to modify the cycles of nature. Thus, it built shelters to protect itself from nature and animals, from cold and heat; it began to determine where and when plants could grow to harvest food; it began to domesticate animals for food and to satisfy itself with animal byproducts; it built roads, bridges, boats, transport vehicles, and machines to replace the speed, power, and precision of manual skills; it modified nature to cope with the four seasons; it created microclimates to live in ice, heat, and scarcity, making provisions for food and conserving and producing energy.
It almost conquered nature, tamed what was possible, and even managed to travel to the bottom of the sea, to the moon, flies precariously in the sky, and continues to fight against the powerful forces of nature such as electricity, tides, winds, gravity, magnetic forces, transforms nature by extracting petroleum derivatives, from plants, from rocks to make metals, chemistry synthesizes products and mixtures of substances that do not exist in nature in their natural state.
So, nature did not help human survival; it was the transformation of nature that guaranteed the survival of humanity through the knowledge transmitted to the next generation when writing and books were created to be the repository of knowledge, the record of information and relevant facts.
It was also the human act that preserved natural resources that could have become extinct, thanks to scientific knowledge, and the needs of the insatiable human need formed by desires.
There are two groups of scientists in humanity: those who see science as a religion, and those who are always challenging the limits of science.
Finally, the greatest myth: the myth of ecological balance. This has never been scientifically demonstrated, since millions of species of plants and animals have been cataloged, and more unknown species are constantly being discovered, such as the COVID-19 virus that suddenly put humanity in lockdown for a year, and billions of other completely unknown intra- and inter-specific correlations.
Seventy years ago, only here in Santa Catarina did a German biologist dedicate his entire life to observing, collecting, classifying, and studying millions of specimens and subspecies of insects, including butterflies—the well-known Fritz Plaumann—and we still don't know everything about the butterflies of Santa Catarina despite the 70 years dedicated by this entomologist from Santa Catarina.
Since then, the relationship of species with other species, biomes, the biosphere, the atmosphere, biomass, rivers, lakes, oceans—nothing can be properly cataloged and studied. We know almost nothing about the Amazon, and we have to listen to the imprecations of... Religious environmentalists who know almost nothing about leafcutter ants, great kiskadees, golden lion tamarins, the turtle species of the Tamar Project, the humpback whale species, and even then without systemic information about the interactions between species, interspecific interactions.
We are merely daring to discourse on the environment in its wisdom ignored by scientists, and we have decided that everything functions in perfect harmony, totally ignored and mysterious, before admitting total human ignorance about animal and plant nature and the Earth's climate, we have already decreed that everything functions in the most perfect rationality and transcendental, spiritual, and unknown order.
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