The dawn of a mindful universe A manifesto for humanity's future

Dartmouth College physicist Gleiser (The Island of Knowledge) comes up short in this underwhelming call to "reinvent ourselves as a species." To unite humanity in the fight against climate change, he urges readers to view themselves as sharing a "spiritual connection" with all other life on Earth, suggesting that the planet's unique status in the universe makes it "a sacred realm that deserves respect and veneration." He laments the pragmatic focus of the "orthodox scientific worldview," positing that Copernicus's discovery that Earth isn't the center of the universe led people to disregard the planet as "irrelevant in the big scheme of things" and that Isaac Newton's mechanistic explanations of the laws of motion and gravity undermined humanity's reverence for the natural world. Unfortunately, Gleiser's plan for a brighter future, which hinges on forging a "spiritual reconnection with Earth and the biosphere," is vague and simplistic, and his assertions of humanity's need for "engagement of body and mind with the land" do little to clarify what such a reconnection would look like. The hazy bromides grate and Gleiser isn't persuasive in claiming that learning to appreciate the rarity of life in the cosmos will suffice in making people better stewards of the environment. Earth deserves a better defense. (Aug.)

A cosmologist warns humanity to get its act together. Gleiser, a professor of natural philosophy, physics, and astronomy at Dartmouth, has written multiple books exploring philosophical questions that arise from our knowledge of the universe. Unhappy with humans' continued plunder of Earth, the author searches for an explanation and finds it in the Copernican revolution. Rewinding the clock, he notes that ancient cultures lived in harmony with nature. Eventually, however, humans looked around and concluded that they lived at the center of the universe and that all of Earth's resources were subservient to their needs. Furthermore, creation myths and religions gave humans a superior position. Although early Greek philosophers were the first to explain the natural world without the necessity of divine intervention, this didn't catch on until well after 1543, when Copernicus revealed that "the Earth was not the center of everything, but a mere planet orbiting the Sun, like all the others." The view that there is nothing special about the Earth led to a "profound identity crisis that threatens the future of our species and of many of the creatures with which we share this planet." While Gleiser never explains how this disappointment connects to the ongoing abuse of our planet, few readers will object to his plea to stop viewing Earth as an ordinary planet and celebrate its uniqueness. As far as we know right now, it is the only place in the universe that shelters life. Humans are the only species capable of understanding this, and "our emergence on this rare planet marked the dawn of a new cosmic age: the cognitive age, the age of a mindful Universe." The author offers a fine lesson in cosmology, including the spectacular 21st-century discovery of billions of sunlike stars with planets, details about the search for alien life, and a history of the "rare and precious" life on Earth. A passionate appeal for "biocentric values that reflect our spiritual reconnection with the Earth." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.