生命の未来 [単行本]

私たち人類はいつまで存在できるのか？

地球と人類の現在と未来を、圧倒的な知識と想像力で看破した、21一世紀の人類に贈る強烈なマニフェスト。

生命の総体、すなわち科学者にとっての生物圏、神学者にとっての被造物は、地球をおおう有機体の膜だ。スペースシャトルから横に見ても見えないほどの薄い膜だが、内部は複雑で、構成する生物種の多くがまだ発見されていない。その膜は、とぎれなくつながっている。エヴェレストの山頂からマリアナ海溝の底にいたるまで、この惑星のあたゆるところに何らかの生きもの暮らしている―そうした生物圏の膜が地球をおおい、あなたや私をおおっている。それは私たちにあたえられた奇跡だ。そしてそれは私たちの悲劇でもある。それが何であるか、それを味わい利用する最善の手段が何であるかを私たちが学ぶ前に、大きな部分が永久に失われていっているからだ。前著『知の挑戦』で宗教、科学、芸術などあらゆる系統の知を統合し、人間の本性を、解き明かそうとした知の巨人ウィルソンが“生命の未来”について発した強烈なマニフェスト、人類必読の書。私たち人類は、いつまで存在できるのか。膨張し続ける世界人口、永久に失われつつある生物の多様性―生命をはぐくむ地球上の生物圏は、急激に衰え始めている。私たちはいま、何を選択すべきなのか。　ピューリッツア賞を二度受賞した知の巨人が発する強烈なマニフェスト　人類必読の書　　　　　知の挑戦~科学的知性と文化的知性の統合~エドワード・O・ウィルソン著　遺伝的、脳科学から宗教、芸術まで、分断された知性を統合し、人間の本性を解き明かし、人類の未来を予見する“知の巨人”ウィルソンの集大成的著作。世界的ベストセラー。

膨張し続ける世界人口、永久に失われつつある生物の多様性―生命をはぐくむ地球上の生物圏は、急激に衰え始めている。私たちはいま、何を選択すべきなのか。ピュリッツァー賞を二度受賞した知の巨人が発する強烈なマニフェスト。

膨張し続ける世界人口、永久に失われつつある生物の多様性。バクテリアから動植物まで地球上のあらゆる生物の生態、現在の地球の危機的状況を鮮明に描き、ゆき過ぎた開発や資源の浪費に警鐘を鳴らす。

The eminent Harvard naturalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Wilson marshals all the prodigious powers of his intellect and imagination in this impassioned call to ensure the future of life. Opening with an imagined conversation with Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, he writes that he has come "to explain to you, and in reality to others and not least to myself, what has happened to the world we both have loved." Based on a love affair with the natural world that spans 70 years, Wilson combines lyrical descriptions with dire warnings and remarkable stories of flora and fauna on the edge of extinction with hard economics. How many species are we really losing? Is environmentalism truly contrary to economic development? And how can we save the planet? Wilson has penned an eloquent plea for the need for a global land ethic and offers the strategies necessary to ensure life on earth based on foresight, moral courage, and the best tools that science and technology can provide. -- Lesley Reed
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As EO Wilson's important The Future of Life reminds us, our own success as a species has been paid for by the wholesale destruction of other forms of life. The more we learn about our own prehistory, the more we realise that this has been going on for a very long time. On the other hand, the more we understand about the environment, the more we realise that the economic and industrial developments of the last couple of hundred years have given this age-old problem a new and terribly urgent spin.

The facts are incontrovertible. But how do we interpret them? Something exciting is happening. The old head-to-head between the economists and the environmentalists is giving way to a more sophisticated, constructive debate. Arguably, that debate entered the public realm with statistician Bjorn Lomborg's brilliantly argued and controversial The Skeptical Environmentalist, which presented hard data on the state of the environment. Things are bad, Lomborg argued, but they are not insoluble.

EO Wilson's moving and poetic book is, at its core, just as hard-headed. While adopting a much more eco-friendly tone than Lomborg, Wilson is guardedly optimistic, as he describes the ethical, political and economic thinking that may yet save the planet while providing for a just and equitable future for the world's teeming poor. The old head-to-head is dead. The Future of Life is a moving, impassioned and constructive future bible of the new environmentalism. --Simon Ings --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

Legendary Harvard biologist Wilson (On Human Nature; The Ants; etc.) founded sociobiology, the controversial branch of evolutionary biology, and won the Pulitzer Prize twice. This volume, his manifesto to the public at large, is a meditation on the splendor of our biosphere and the dangers we pose to it. In graceful, expressive and vigorous prose, Wilson argues that the challenge of the new century will be "to raise the poor to a decent standard of living worldwide while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible." For as America consumes and the Third World tries to keep up, we lose biological diversity at an alarming rate. But the "trajectory" of species loss depends on human choice. If current levels of consumption continue, half the planet's remaining species will be gone by mid-century. Wilson argues that the "great dilemma of environmental reasoning" stems from the conflict between environmentalism and economics, between long-term and short-term values. Conservation, he writes, is necessary for our long-term health and prosperity. Loss of biodiversity translates into economic losses to agriculture, medicine and the biotech industries. But the "bottleneck" of overpopulation and overconsumption can be safely navigated: adequate resources exist, and in the end, success or failure depends upon an ethical decision. Global conservation will succeed or fail depending on the cooperation between government, science and the private sector, and on the interplay of biology, economics and diplomacy. "A civilization able to envision God and to embark on the colonization of space," Wilson concludes, "will surely find the way to save the integrity of this planet and the magnificent life it harbors."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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One of the world’s most important scientists, Edward O. Wilson is also an abundantly talented writer who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. In this, his most personal and timely book to date, he assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever. Yet, rather than eschewing doomsday prophesies, he spells out a specific plan to save our world while there is still time. His vision is a hopeful one, as economically sound as it is environmentally necessary. Eloquent, practical and wise, this book should be read and studied by anyone concerned with the fate of the natural world.
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“Wilson, perhaps our greatest living scientist . . . offers the most powerful indictment yet of humanity as destroyer.” –San Francisco Chronicle Observer

“His book eloquently makes one thing clear: . . . we know what we do, and we have a choice.” –The New York Times Book Review

“The Future of Life makes it clear once again that Wilson is one of our most gifted science writers.” –The Washington Post

“[An] elegant manifesto. . . . [A] nuanced and evocative explanation of just why biodiversity matters.” –The New Yorker

“Wilson writes with a magisterial tone. . . . The Future of Life is the work of a man with deep convictions who is also utterly reasonable.” –Bill McKibben, The Boston Globe

“A critical report card for planet Earth, an urgent manifesto on global action, an eloquent plea . . . A literate, even poetic recounting of current scientific information that is readily accessible to lay readers. A more engaging and persuasive single volume on this crucial subject is difficult to imagine.” –Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“A no-nonsense appraisal of the problem of species extinctions and a pragmatic road map for renewal. . . . The Future of Life takes the reader on a fascinating and ultimately hopeful journey.” –San José Mercury News

“Our contemporary Thoreau, Wilson elegantly and insistently makes the case that to choose biodiversity is to choose survival.” –Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Wilson knows his subject too well. It behooves the rest of us to listen.” –San Diego Union Tribune

“One of the most clear-eyed pictures of how bad things have gotten.”–Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“The Future of Life offers an encouraging vision that solutions to the environmental problems facing humanity are within reach. . . . A refreshing change from the doom-and-gloom rhetoric that marked much environmentalism in the past.”–American Scientist

“A landmark new book.” –Houston Chronicle

“The biosphere’s Paul Revere defines the incalculable value and fragility of ‘the totality of life.’” –Outside

“Wilson is a member of an important but very rare species: the world-class scientist who is also a great writer.” –Nature

“A short book of breathtaking scope. . . . Wilson brings genuine authority to these weighty pronouncements.”–New York Observer

“[A] readable gem. . . . Wilson manages to avoid dark gloom while still cataloguing the damage we have wrought.” –Toronto Star

“Takes the reader on a fascinating and ultimately hopeful journey. . . . A concise primer remarkable in its breadth and clarity.”–Austin American-Statesman




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Edward O. Wilson is the author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, On Human Nature (1978) and The Ants (1990, with Bert Hölldobler), as well as many other groundbreaking works, including Consilience, Naturalist, and Sociobiology. A recipient of many of the world’s leading prizes in science and conservation, he is currently Pellegrino University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, Renee. --このテキストは、 ペーパーバック 版に関連付けられています。

ウィルソン,エドワード・オズボーン
1929年、アラバマ州バーミンガム生まれ。20世紀を代表する昆虫学者、生態学者、進化学者。1975年、『社会生物学』という大著で、アリから人間にいたるまで、およそすべての動物の社会行動を進化理論で説明するという画期的な統合化を果たした。人間の心的活動や文化的活動をも射程に入れた野心的な著作を次々と発表し、人間性が一皮むけば生物学で説明できるという衝撃を与えてきた。1993年の国際生物学賞をはじめ、2度のピュリッツァー賞など数々の賞を受賞。現在ハーヴァード大学の名誉教授であり同大学比較動物学博物館の名誉キュレーターでもある

山下 篤子
北海道大学歯学部卒業。歯科医師。大学病院勤務、保健所勤務などを経て、現在は翻訳業(本データはこの書籍が刊行された当時に掲載されていたものです)