History and Biology in the Anthropocene: Problems of Scale, Problems of Value

Abstract

In the age of the Anthropocene, history and biology seem to converge. Ethicist Clive Hamilton maintains that “humans have become a ‘natural’ planetary force.”1 Historian Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that anthropogenic climate change “spells the collapse of the age-old humanist distinction between natural history and human history.”2 As the divide between the humanities and the sciences melts in the heat of global warming, historians and biologists might reasonably be expected to envision the endangered human figure in similar terms. Accordingly, when asked who is threatened, these disciplines might now answer in chorus, producing a naturalized history, a cultured nature, and an embodied mind. Such a human figure would be recognizable in all corners of the university. Indeed, attempts at unification have been made by both historians and biologists. For instance, Ian Morris and E. O. Wilson have tried to reconcile disciplinary differences and create consilience on the ground, ultimately, of science. As Morris recently put it, “history is a subset of biology is a subset of chemistry is a subset of physics.”3 But I would argue that dynamic engagement between historians and biologists reveals multiple, often incommensurable truths rather than a single answer. History speaks to the issue of the Anthropocene not as a subset of biology but through critical engagement with it. A brief look at paleobiology, microbiology, and biochemistry shows that historians coming to grips with the Anthropocene cannot rely on our scientific colleagues to define “the endangered human” for us. Instead, biology's diverse branches produce radically different figures of “the human,” not all of them endangered by anthropogenic environmental change according to the criteria of societal well-being widely recognized by historians. Rather than simplifying the picture, engaging with biologists complicates the view of who is threatened by the transformation of key earth systems. Although I celebrate the increasingly sophisticated conceptualization of human reality and endorse efforts by historians and biologists to pool their resources in the face of climate crisis, the conclusion I reach is that it is impossible to treat “endangerment” as a simple scientific fact. Instead, endangerment is a question of both scale and value. Only the humanities and social sciences, transformed though they will be through their engagement with science, can fully articulate what we may lose. “Anthropocene” is admittedly a contested term, but I use it instead of “climate change” or “global warming” because they misleadingly imply that the threat is limited to atmospheric increases in methane and, especially, carbon. A more compelling and inclusive conceptualization of the problem is Johan Rockström and his co-authors' idea of nine “planetary boundaries.” As they argue, “Since the industrial revolution (the advent of the Anthropocene), humans are effectively pushing the planet outside the Holocene range of variability for many key Earth Systems processes.”4 These nine important earth systems range from stratospheric ozone to ocean acidification, from changes in land use and freshwater depletion to loss of biodiversity. Human-driven processes of many kinds and their synergistic interactions are transforming the planet and its inhabitants on all levels, from the macroscale of planetary warming to the microscale of industrial neurotoxins' effects on fetal development. In focusing on the Anthropocene in its full complexity, I am interested in sciences concerned with both macro and micro phenomena. Scale matters, of course, in history as well as biology. It generates controversy in both disciplines because defining the duration and size of a phenomenon determines much about our understanding of it. As all historians know, temporal words such as “big,” “deep,” and “micro” and spatial concepts like “the Orient” are golden apples of discord.5 Biologists, too, take sides on the basis of scale. Some take the long view, shrugging off the sixth mass extinction in 540 million years, while others fight for the survival of a single species.6 The contributions to this roundtable show that history and biology can come together productively on macroscales, as John Brooke and Clark Larsen demonstrate in orchestrating genetics, epigenetics, and cultural change over eons, or on microscales, as with the hormones triggered in Randolph Roth's violent offenders by sociopolitical conditions. In considering the Anthropocene, all scales matter, but it is not clear that they all matter equally to our discipline. We cannot rely on biology to give us the correct answer. Just as Lynn Hunt notes in her essay, “neuroscience does not provide a handy model that historians can simply apply to their research,” and the same is true for paleobiology, microbiology, and biochemistry. These three biologies produce visions of “the human” that are incommensurable with one another, as well as with the historian's usual conception of personhood and society. At some registers, “the human” appears not to be threatened at all. The first question, then, is which scales—and surely there are several—are best suited to historians' efforts to understand our global crisis.7 The second question has to do with value. Since there is more than one accurate way of describing the human figure, depending in part on scale, we must necessarily make choices about where to focus our attention, and these choices reveal our values. We will have to debate and define the figure of the human that we find most worthy of protecting. Some may resist this responsibility, seeking an objective answer revealed through science, but this is not something that science can provide. The diversity of human figures produced by different ways of knowing should not evoke dismay. Instead, it is a cause for rejoicing, since myriad perspectives in the humanities and sciences give us more conceptual tools. Biologists can help historians broaden our understanding of the human and demonstrate the possibilities and limitations within which humans operate; historians can help biologists understand the varied political and cultural values, economic systems, and multiplicity of ends that leave their imprint on land, air, water, and bodies. We can also help biologists present their findings in the ways most likely to have a desirable impact in an increasingly fragile and precarious world. My aim here is not to elevate scientific understandings above history's normative understandings of the human, nor to suggest that suturing biology and history is desirable or possible. On the contrary. My purpose is to point with wonder at the incommensurable yet accurate ways in which “the human” emerges in various disciplines, especially in the Anthropocene. As we work at the outer edges of our disciplinary zones, the dialogue should not only illuminate the contributions of various biologies but provide impetus for articulating more clearly history's distinctive modes of understanding. While some sciences such as evolutionary biology also reconstruct the past, “the discipline of history, by contrast,” as Reinhart Koselleck argues, “always performs a political function, albeit a changing one.”8 With the Anthropocene, our political function requires reexamination and rearticulation in conversation with scientists. For the question of how historians might understand the enormity of our species in the Anthropocene, we can look first to paleobiology. our as transforming the planet not for the but the We have the for from to the of our argues, “the our from and much our have such global is especially that the Holocene of human only about As Dipesh Chakrabarty in his one for the is to understand this figure of the this now the systems through a of from to from to Chakrabarty on the work of climate and who in a to point to our in the climate of the planet as a a in the only for of the species for on a global scale as Chakrabarty us to what and are in to and understandings of the human to this the and the the planetary in and the human species as the of climate But there the For in of the species is and his is that most will especially we for on the million which produced than maintains that the not a we also that many and our made it through of course, on how define the of climate a a in atmospheric to million with increases of to to and an with and of to to argues, the human species is here to that a of may us with our from the age for from the of the of most historians and that warming the planet might be a his not only will we be but we will be on the the of the of “the for historians and it is not because it for the climate to human Instead, argues, “the is not something humanist historians can understand through in where is of or in where not on the but on our the of the While may work for the of from with is a of as to one of or The temporal and spatial scales of the of and by who in part to produced by in the of For most it is only on these scales that political and can be For one survival is not most their or political For another, “the the important distinction between who cause and from climate change and who The of species for humanist historians such as Chakrabarty a important in the but to provide both the sciences and to on our is one we can in engaging this the of scale and in between history as a of we with many and history as the of While and put on the historian's in ways because of the of such as and our by at the human on a of human and the idea of “the human” as a single species and us instead as a of while the industrial our our about the of “the human” in the ways we and to the world. For historians to understand what it to be human in the Anthropocene, the scale of because the is changing In to the and his these of to to to where they as long as they their with science most on our in to an in this view, historians the and instead on as in and of to historians they to be that human But has the between our and our is not best as one between and or to we are one of With the of the in the of the of put at for human by the science “the by many at the in what of as are not human a different way by the of human of human by to though this it the of the are to human that they make only to of the of a to the the reveals that are nor our and the Instead, they are more than are for by most on this micro In of more for human survival than humans the human some that the human some million or more than human We would not not only in our processes but also in our this distinction producing of the same of that the function of the For all then, the distinction between and human and has on this scale. like a of to like a and to systems and his and like a of our made by the within in the of A is not an but a would that and his are not as and the in the and the our like our can change their Just as the may the by of the have been to the of in But instead of or these their with a that them is a matter of than of For view of the human different from by paleobiology. With paleobiology, the species is an in the of and On this there are humans and with the human species in the Anthropocene as a global the of the planet over of But through the of microbiology, “the human is A view of “the human” historians to with the idea that is as a of and as an of multiple, and as and political of and a to “the human” not on this an that would us to the of is It by historians of since leave in and because of the they can the the of produced or with these of as a or a how might this our understanding of human what does it on who is endangered by climate The question of human because in this from more than we While about of our human is our may have as as of their in the of human this is of are and of have a different than on a it is not as clear that we are “the same as branches of biology and most define us. on this microscale can in ways that to historians as social and political and For instance, when to the that have to and from the their findings and as while them from and The as the political and in the this one historians can help biologists. in and to be of the dynamic between and historians can such as rather than might be a way of the of rather than that the rather than the political for may between and it not be both for science and for its political and a of these and the findings in a way likely to be in a precarious I am not of course, that these findings are or should be but that dialogue between the disciplines will of to that of and of by The second problem to historians in the Anthropocene human because in some on this scale are not The is that can to environmental in his that his such as not make an for the on his by the by is The of our where more than the of our is of the true of might have a a more to than would the of of our the and produce an The part of us with such that the of in the can These are by a different evolutionary or can with an in many at with the of by which in are like with the to on a to with that the of species is The of this with differences in evolutionary is that the part of us more than the part of us and can more to environmental a part of us might be of with more water, and than of us a different of what might be in this “the is not an to be but a an of and As this may not be threatened in the Anthropocene in the same way that historians have “the human” to be threatened by and for natural On the with here and also with as we is not the species it is to nor is it the of these in the same the point of the widely visions of “the human” by and is not to historians from engaging with but to argue for a of our to scales and values. the question is how to use biology to our and our possibilities in the Anthropocene, the will rearticulation of our The in in an more of than human of a by from the in is because it the from the the from the the effects of a and there an of this is it, a the is made In how this the and of a who her to its only years, in to her of of the of and the of fetal a in which in her that the on her is her to what is her to it from the of it from her to the it, it her with her also they in its The of the to an of that the can and economic and in the and of it, human and and the of a clearly show is a that should not With the of the divide between the and its is not as clear as the or the of historians of and others have come to that we must what and “the idea that and are In many there is not a between and of a by The in the of our through and As “Since the of has more than The now a global of is to the of and of and more than different industrial make their way our and are with industrial In the same speaks of our and that the humans are transformed the more than in use in the notes an in “the has been to and for only of us who have the in when by of and As scale is more have been the planet more than point about scale is important because long the some in where such as and human in the the industrial our more more more and the in of and in of the in in who has in the since has been to the and and of the have some the the from and the for a as the such as and the as that are in and it is not the of that is of shows that such as the in (the to to and some are more in than in because more the natural While of hormones cause the to can especially in The of in which we now human at and in Just to take a of the most by to in that to the to function in in and and the all not have to while on the of of many that than of the are now all on the planet has been transformed by the of the Anthropocene. our is that there is not one of human but and of human with is not in such as but and with The idea that there a between “the and “the that be by in or by choices as we have come to understand the of and As argues, humans do to the natural its way our with and in what our its way the often with Since the is now radically the is radically of the the processes for our and our has been by it would be simply to suggest that our discipline has not to the of this human at the we have yet to the to our discipline by transformation and by its effects on and History as Chakrabarty and many others argue, on the of a of that us to understand not what but also how and it to is in part The figure of “the human” in it has been as it it this of and that and have a that simply cannot be social are point is to do different in different But the of our our as by this are now with the problem of how the of might the of our and it not that the now us from human and from our more While both and human as to biochemistry a The of the is the processes by historians through the work of The only the of the between and and the some to yet and rather than At the at which is with it is to that there are not not in our processes and history yet the has been how do we would we be to these the range of human and different to In these we what we may be in of and human and also what we nor yet On the we are our who is the endangered by the industrial processes producing climate this there may be the view that the human is part and of its would suggest that to is yet nor In in some the of human is as a to climate In the of the that should of global transformation be can to a range of and The scales of both macro and and the of to that we change our While historians may have with the figure of the human as on we not transformation as or of human possibilities on the of the of social and political values, and an understanding of the of For historians concerned with as with and microbiology, of scale and of us to articulate the for our more what can historians interested in the Anthropocene from The answer is much of it to our of the human and, as argues, to our of and for a with the sciences, which are now as “the of the rather than the of this the for and in by historians and and the in the History and of on Earth with which John As in all true is science the humanities and as a of it will not be for of us. as of the of the disciplines and and made an for history a not from science Instead, we can use the engagement with to articulate the scales and as a yet are important I to make about this the first to do with reality and the second with values. reality may be and in many on scale. of the of the sciences in limited has in a different and a different to historians. As it, is one biology in this For concerned with the Anthropocene, various understandings and broaden our conception of what is at our in the global on different in paleobiology, are an increasingly species over of in microbiology, are a of many species in of and in are a of the brief science “the human” as by most historians. In biology to history's political of the as well as to history's of about and with biologists us of the of all that we are and With we the of the economic to a and With we the of our age of and the scale of our use of and its for With we to through the like through his or with of Biologists work on many and in engaging with historians to the human on different scales as as species over as with and as by industrial may be in many true yet incommensurable But these also us of the of it to the Anthropocene, according to much of the work in paleobiology, microbiology, and humans will our species the heat of the we are to the heat to for that some of us will resist and to environmental the extinction that of environmental will produce and but likely for yet this is what most historians and most when they about environmental It is not survival that history us to nor that history us to about are of in cultural and and true to the that they are rather than are not to the of that are to the As argues, “the of the it may cannot us how we should or what our should these of and to such different of human as and can help us to a we have made our on to biology for to of and they often For instance, recently on a natural in h

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