Biocentric ideas understand nature as a source of equilibrium and harmony and man as one of the elements destroying this ideal. Contrary to this view, the Institute for Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) researcher Arcadi Navarro, dismantles erroneous ideas and introduces the necessary biological concepts for understanding life and the biological fundamentals of evolutionary biology.
In his book Contra Natura, or “Against Nature”, he encourages us to rid ourselves of prejudices and preconceived ideas and look nature in the eye to comprehend how it works. The researcher accepts that even the extinction of life as we know it, may be part of evolution and natural selection.
“Nature neither is maternal nor respectful nor sustainable; but neither is it hateful or stupid”
Contra Natura is an exciting read that hooks you from the prologue, where the author explains with intelligent irony that nature neither is maternal nor respectful nor sustainable, but neither is it hateful or stupid, and that idealising it or personifying it, is wrong. And human activity is part of nature and subject to the same rules as the rest of the living world. Contra Natura is a book that surprises and amuses, and forces us to rethink certain strongly-rooted concepts. What more can you ask of a book?
