I’ve been reading Tim Flannery’s Here on Earth, and I can’t decide what to make of it. I enjoyed Flannery’s geological and ecological history of North America, The Eternal Frontier, and I assumed that this new work would be a larger scale version. The synopsis on the jacket seem to imply that as well.

But the book is a lot more idiosyncratic than that. It actually opens with a discussion of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Flannery seems to champion Wallace over Darwin, as he sees Wallace as a “big picture” man against Darwin’s reductionist science.

That sets the stage for a lot of the book, where he champions the obscure over the famous, and spends little space talking about the planet. For example, he champions James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypotheis through several chapters. (Oddly, he doesn’t mention Lynn Margulis, who helped develop the concept. Perhaps because Margulis didn’t push the idea as far as Lovelock did.) However, we end up with little more than a few pages about the nebular hypothesis and, y’know, the formation of the earth.

Then there’s a weird digression about memes – although, true to form, Flannery wants to use the older spelling “mnemes.” Flannery issues a stern warning about how Dawkins’ “selfish gene” theory and how it might lead towards selfish behavior. He contrasts that, by implication, with religion:

“Some mnemes , however, do prompt people to act selfishly, but such mnemes are decried in all societies. Indeed, our strongest moral and religious precepts are aimed squarely at destroying them. … I find it interesting that our leading Neo-Darwinian, Richard Dawkins, is now engaged in a crusade against religion. Will this crusade leave in its wake a society in which it is more likely that ideas about selfish genes will carry undue influence.”

Really? “… our strongest moral and religious precepts are aimed” at defeating selfishness?

This seems way too simplistic to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m an American, and I can’t help but think of all the sneering about the “works based gospel” I hear from Christian conservatives. Flannery praises philanthropists for donating money to good causes, but I’ve heard fundamentalists complain about how such people are trying to buy their way into heaven.

Paul Tillich pointed out that an idea doesn’t have to contain anything supernatural in order to be a faith. Certain kinds of Marxism required sacrifice for the greater good, and promised a workers’ paradise in return. How different is that from a prophet demanding that everyone put aside their own self interest and obey the will of God, with the Kingdom of Heaven being the final reward?

There’s also nothing inherently un-selfish about religion. While it usually points to something larger outside the self – God(s), heaven, spirit – it doesn’t always instruct believes to live in an unselfish way. Is there anything unselfish about Harold Camping’s passionate belief that one has to accept his interpretation of the Bible to get into heaven? Does this in any way lead to people leading more generous lives? In fact, it often leads to people separating from those who do not share their mnemes.