"When we thought that factual nature matched our hopes and comforts - all things bright and beautiful, and all things made for our superior selves - then we easily fell into the trap of equating actuality with righteousness. But when we sense the different fascination of evolution's naturalistic ways, and of life's astonishingly rich diversity and history of change, with Home sapiens as but one contingent twig on the most luxuriant of all trees, then we finally become free to detach our search for ethical truth and spiritual meaning from our scientific quest to understand the facts and mechanisms of nature. Darwin, in defining the factual 'grandur of this view of life', liberated us from asking too much of nature, thus leaving us free to comprehend whatever fearful fascination may reside 'out there,' in full confidence that our quest for decency and meaning cannot be threatened thereby, and can emerge only from our own moral consciousness."
Stunning paragraph. A bit wordy, but Gould has the talent to capture some underlying insight that talented but not as whimsical writers grasp at, but can only reveal through indirection or rhetorical questions. From Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, "If you base your ethical, spiritual conclusions on science, what happens to your spirituality and ethics when the science goes the other way?"
Notice the difference?
As a pre-honeymoon, and a week before Hurricane Dean made landfall, C and I ventured to the wilderness island that is Dominica. It was wild, lush, rugged and steep. At one point, there was a 45 degree incline on the road to Trois Pitons National park. The locals were much nicer than in Barbados, while the Creole cuisine was unmatched. We stayed for a total of 5 days, one of which was spent recovering from our hike up to the Boiling Lake in the natural sulfur pools at our hotel -- one of the hardest day hikes we've completed. We stayed at the Papillote, a local wilderness retreat hidden in the valley just 10km from Roseau, the capital.
The roads were treacherous and within the first 4 hours of our arrival, I scratched the front bumper of our rental jeep significantly on the narrow, windy and hilly roads. An 18-wheeler almost demolished us on the way to our hotel.
It is said that of all the islands that Christopher Columbus would remember were he alive today, Dominica would be the one -- it remains unchanged over hundreds of years. This is due to active and conscious preservation of the island: two national parks span its length, one of which is a UNESCO World Heritage site housing the Trois Pitons mountains and the world's largest boiling lake.
One of the reasons we picked Dominica, however, was its world class scuba diving spots, but C got an ear infection the week before at another diving trip in Barbados, so we didn't experience Dominican diving at its best. More reason to come back, and come back we will!
There is so much the island has to offer in terms of outdoor adventure: a 13-day trail through the heart of the island is in the works, the endemic species, the history between the British, French, African slaves, Carib Indians and Amerindians in the region, and the natural, unprocessed cuisine. The last of these is believed to be the cause for Dominica housing the world's highest concentration of centenarians!
For pictures of our trip, click here. Enjoy!
