The Balance of Nature. What Can Be Learned from the History of the Earth and Life

Abstract

A prologue gives me an opportunity to introduce myself. I am a scientist, specializing in Earth History and Paleontology, now retired. In recent years, I have become interested in the interface between science and Christianity, more specifically the Theory of Evolution and Genesis. I had the opportunity to attend the Dialogue organized by the Giorgio Cini Foundation, to present some ideas and to observe how scholars from various disciplines and intellectual loyalties were diagnosing the present ecological crisis and what they were suggesting in order to cope with it. A concept that was often directly or indirectly evoked was the concept of balance, both in terms of diagnosis and in terms of therapy: is there a natural order or balance that is going to be altered, due to an unprecedented anthropogenic role played by human beings? How and to what extent can human beings restore a balance that seems to many irremediably altered?