In a recent interview Prince Charles warned:
“unless we take trouble and nurture, pay our respect and reverence to nature, she’s a great deal more powerful than we are”.
and advised:
“That’s why it’s so important, I think, to work in harmony with nature rather than thinking somehow we can ignore, dominate, separate ourselves from nature.”
Prince Charles talks about ‘nature’ as though it was a rather testy goddess who needs to be propitiated. Personally I’m extremely pleased we can dominate certain aspects of nature and, at least selectively, separate ourselves from nature too. Of course sometimes our interventions may have negative, unforeseen consequences. But it doesn’t seem helpful to view such problems in a fearful and superstitious light.
One of the most obvious ways in which humans have dominated nature with some very good results is medicine. Readers may remember that a charity associated with Prince Charles successfully lobbied an NHS website with the result that information pointing out homeopathy was not supported by scientific evidence was suppressed. (There is no suggestion that he had any personal involvement with the lobbying.)
Going back to the comment I first quoted, to ‘take trouble’ with nature might include carrying out some proper scientific research. Prince Charles also cautioned:
“We need to think about what kind of world we’re handing on to our successors, particularly grandchildren”
The world’s important – but so are the grandchildren – and here is a report from the Quackometer on the worrying failure to regulate homeopathic ‘vaccines’ aimed at children.
