Four High School Science Teachers Talk about Nature

Mr. Bradford
Nature is the living and non living components of the world around us - even the universe - apart from the works of man but including man. Nature has been here forever and it will always be here whether man is here or not. We are all interconnected in Nature by both natural and artificial mechanisms. We, as a species, are all part of the same natural world and we all have an effect on each of the other components and species of the natural world. Nature in its natural state is pure and perfect. It can improve itself but it cannot be improved by the works of man. Purpose in Nature means the struggle for survival. It does not mean there is a god who gives purpose to Nature and directs Nature by will.
        Nature is ever-changing. If man weren't there, beavers, for example, would still change Nature! Plants invading the land have changed Nature. There are many different aspects to Nature. The more diverse Nature is the more it is the way it should be. For example, in the ideal forest, in my mind, there is a wide variety of plants and animals, all different kinds of trees. Whenever that ideal forest is altered by man, there seems to be less and less diversity among those types of organisms in Nature. Nature, however, is more powerful than the minds of people who are trying to conquer it. Eventually, Nature will win out and so far it has won out, because man has yet to conquer all of Nature and I think that... because of its complexity, because of its mysteries, because of its unsolvable Nature, it remains to be powerful, more powerful than man. Glenn Canyon Dam is an example. The dam has permanently altered an aspect of Nature. Man conquered that section of that river, but he has not conquered the entire river. Eventually the water will flow over that dam and destroy it, so Nature will be more powerful than man, in the long run.
        Due to the diversity in Nature, Nature is very complex. All of the various components of Nature are working together, and in some cases working apart. It leads toward the complexity of Nature. It makes it very hard to figure out. It makes Nature mysterious. Nature is mysterious because it is so complex, the diversity of it makes it mysterious. There is a lot that is not known about Nature. No one will ever know everything there is to know about Nature and that is part of its appeal; because it is so mysterious. Not only will nobody ever know everything there is to know about Nature, hopefully no one ever will.
        To me, the mysterious Nature of Nature is one of its better qualities. Things that are completely discovered are no longer interesting. For example, you have a cube of metal that everybody knows every single ingredient in it. Well, there is no mystery to it. There is nothing appealing about that anymore because there are no questions to ask about it. If everybody knows everything there is to know about that cube of metal, it looses appeal to me and I am sure that it looses its appeal to the people investigating it. If things don't have questions associated with them, there is no mystery. If there is nothing to ask about it anymore, it looses its intrigue, its interest. The mysteries of Nature are hopefully unsolvable. I don't want to solve all the mysteries of Nature. I hope nobody ever does. The appeal is like being lost out in the forest, so to speak. You want to be out there away from anything that is solved, you want to be in an environment where everything is still interesting to you.
        We know some things about Nature. We know, for example, that in Nature you will find examples where the progression of an organism is a direct result of the purpose of that organism - where the purpose of organisms is just to survive or to carry on their genetic traits through generations. Certain laws of physics can be applied to just about any part of Nature so there is some predictability in Nature. Water will evaporate. It will rain. You can predict certain population outcomes based on certain criteria like the amount of rainfall. We know these things from science. A scientist makes observations and collects data. He experiments with controlled experiments. He makes observations without experiments. He experiences Nature. He lives in it. There are a number of ways to study Nature. Scientists, in general, probably do more of it than anybody else. I think there are a lot of biologists who have made it their life's work to study Nature. They do it better than anybody else. I think everybody should do experiments, either in their head or scientifically -on paper, in Nature, wherever. It should be done. Does everybody actually do it? No, they don't, and that is part of the problem of why Nature is being destroyed.
        It is important, therefore, to understand how things work in Nature because we are effecting Nature all the time. For example, we effect one thing and it effects several other things that will have an effect on me or other parts of Nature. This indirectly affects me again. It is important to me to have people understand how Nature works so that they can prevent effecting it more than they do. Nature is difficult to understand - remember, it is very diverse. People think that they understand Nature and so they go ahead and affect it the way that they want to. They predict that they won't affect anything else, but in fact, they do. So, I think that it is important to understand how Nature works, as best we can, so as not to destroy it. I think everybody should study Nature, I am not sure that everybody does do it. Scientists probably do more of it than anybody else.
        Nature, however, is really not knowable. If Nature were knowable it would mean that you would be able to predict anything about Nature. You would know all the components of Nature, what effects it has on other components. Well, you can predict a certain amount of Natures' outcome, but overall, Nature is unpredictable. If we destroy this insect, for example, because it is hurting some tree or some plant that we care about, I don't think that we will ever be able to predict how we have effected Nature as a whole. You can't predict what effect one aspect of Nature will have on all of the other components of Nature. So, it is unpredictable in that regard.
        In my mind the work of god is pure. It is perfect and it can't be improved by man in anyway. It can be improved by the works of Nature itself. God-like things are perfect. They can't be improved by works of man, but can be improved by the works of Nature itself. Nature is pure and diverse, that is, unaltered Nature. Pure Nature is Nature unaltered, and so the more diverse Nature is, the more unaltered it is. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases where that isn't true, but the ideal Nature should be pure and diverse. Because man has shown that he can change certain components of Nature, I am concerned about pollution and the damage that it does to Nature. Right now there is overwhelming damage being done to Nature - the effects of man on Nature in our lifetime are pollution, destruction of rainforest, the damming of rivers, the dredging of the oceans, and the pollution of our oceans, the killing of species, and so on.
        Nature is beautiful, as I see it. That is what draws me to Nature in the first place, how beautiful it is. The simple beauty of being pure, the kind of plants and animals that are out there, the landscape in its natural state, all kinds of simple beauty to it. Purity and diversity have an internalized beauty to me. When it is pure and when there is great diversity out there, then it is more beautiful to me. So, those things have to be in place first, possibly before I consider it to be beautiful. Nature is living. Nature is composed of living things organisms, and the living part of Nature is probably what attracts me to Nature in the first place. So the living part of Nature is what appeals to me - plants and animals, any kind of plants or animals. Even though I would consider rocks and volcano's a part of Nature, the living part of it appeals to me more. There are some beautiful rock formations and so on, but the living parts of the landscape is what is most beautiful. The appeal for me is an internal sense of peacefulness when I am around Nature.

Ms Jackson
Nature is the living world that we live in and it is more of the man-made kind of things based on what we understand about the laws of Nature. I think that Nature is predictable. I think that it is logical. I think that it is explainable. As scientists, we come up with laws of Nature or theories of Nature to be able to predict behaviors and therefore, based on what we know, and the experiments that we have done, we can now, either change or know that we can't change an event, but that maybe we can predict that the event is going to happen. And we can predict those things because they are orderly, there are certain patterns that we can find, and yet at times they can be very complex. But I think Nature, you can understand it, you can know it,
and you can predict it. I think that if we study it that Nature is not difficult to understand. For instance, I am not a real biology type person, but I like watching those shows and they show patterns of things having these five sides, so I guess that if you are to get a new plant, then you could categorize it, because of those sides, but basically, from the physical science side, a lot of, if you are going to... gravity is, and you throw a ball, then you can predict what is going to happen because it is logical... I think that is what I'm thinking of when I think orderly... I think logical. If you were going to use lenses, and you know how light is going to go into the lenses, then let's say, with a telescope, you know that you need to use a lens to get the image and then the lens to invert the image, and so how you know how to use it, because of what it does. It is very logical to me.
        There are limits to knowledge, however. We don't know a lot about genetics. That seems to be real prevalent today. What they are trying to find out, like pre-birth testing. How can we find out if you are going to have a disease or even if you are alive, are you going to be predisposed to having cancer or to having diseases... so, we don't know everything, but we have enough information to keep trying. And I think that we have the space shuttles that go out, we have the satellites that go out and we try to learn more about space, but there is still a lot that we don't know, but based on what we do know, we have a direction that we can go in. The future is an interesting question. I am a fan of Star Trek. It would be nice to know that we could have space travel and that we could actually achieve that, but I think, I don't know, I feel like we know and awful lot. I feel like, that, even though we don't have all the answers, we have so much, ways of finding out answers. I think we have that base of knowledge, so I think, I feel that we know an awful lot. I think we would definitely be up towards the 80 percentile of knowledge. This knowledge, I think, has come from a variety of sources. I think that there have always been scientists studying things and that has been formally or informally, and I think that, for instance, on this sort of thing, like how to reuse energy, or how to get restorable energy, I think that's coming from scientists, but it is also coming from business, because they need to find a way. So, they're a source. They are using scientists, they are using people that are engineers, along those lines, but they're the ones that are promoting as well as the government. So, I think that the sources are coming from, and I think that people may be in their own houses, if they can come up with something that works a little better. So, I think that it is kind of a variety, but I think that science has a lot to do with that.
        We use the resources of Nature. We use trees. We use coal. We use oil. We eat plants. This is why we study Nature, because... that we do use it for so many things... resources each day. It's the things that we use. It's the things that we interact with. Without the things of Nature we cannot enjoy the lifestyle we have today. I think that a lot of things that we make... I don't know all about what materials things are made of, but I know that a lot of things come from... we have leather, we have wool, so I think that because we know and understand the laws of Nature, we can now build all of this electronic equipment that we use. This is more for the laws of Nature, like radio waves, TV waves. That is why it is important to understand how things work in Nature... so that if you want to grow something, that you understand how to grow that better. If you want
to use any laws of Nature, for instance how to make... a lot of these are man-made materials, but then you are using laws of Nature, of how to get solid-state equipment and get the electrons to move, or get the radio signals to go. So, Nature is something that should be studied so that we can learn more about it. This is what scientists do. Lots of scientists are doing that. I think little kids do it, and I don't know if they really add to our understanding, but I think that it is a natural thing for kids to do to just start looking at the world around you, and then taking things apart at your house, and finding out how they work. So, I think that it starts with kids... and everybody has a little bit of it, but then some people make it their formal career like scientists.
        We need to be aware of what is around us and how we fit into the whole thing. I am a scientist, for one thing, and with so much new knowledge, with so much resources, with genetic engineering that is going on, I think that we need to be better equipped citizens to be better to make decisions on whether or not this is something that we want to do or not do, and if we don't know, where we, as mankind, fit into this... then what is the good of making better people, more people, if there are no resources for all of these people? I mean everyone wants to live longer, but there is a purpose for dying. So, that sort of thing... so that we have new people! You know what I'm saying... it's just that we need to see where we fit into all of this, and we can use all of the laws of physics to go travel everywhere that we want to go, but why would we want to do that? Do we want to have more people so that we can live other places, you know... do we have room for them... but where do the resources go? I don't know if this is true or not, but somebody just told me yesterday that when you used to be able to eat one apple and get all of the minerals you need, now you have to eat five. I don't know if this is true or not. It was an interesting comment, so it made me think. Their theory was that there is not as much nutrients in the soil. So, this goes into the fact that we're (we are all part of Nature) endangered. We're full of resources. We're exploiting it. We're not either using what we have properly. We're over-using other things and obviously pollution is a problem. Resources are exploited. Nature is polluted and endangered because of those reasons.
        But we have all those resources, this material (or matter which is just what, everything that has mass is), and hopefully we can restore it and then we'll have all this matter that will matter to us! I just went to an energy seminar about restorable energy sources, and they are talking about trees, and how we could plant trees, and with the science that we know now, how we can make trees grow really fast or really tall, and how we can use more trees. I think that Nature is reliable. I think that you can count on having what we have, at least for in the short term. That sounds like… and I do, I have hope... and I guess that I have hope that there is… I think that there is a large awareness of what is happening with Nature. So, I don't have this fatalistic kind of attitude about Nature being doomed. I don't know if it is human Nature, or not, or optimism, or... I don't think that I am a necessarily optimistic person. I try to be realistic, but I'm not... I don't know... I would hate to feel doomed, to think that down the road, somewhere, that all is going to blow up! I think that people... I can't help but feel that people will try and preserve Nature, but I don't know that Nature will always be as it is now. I don't know what to do. I don't think in my lifetime… I think in my lifetime that it will be the way it is. But I also think that I don't know enough as a citizen, exactly what is going on. I
know that there is a concern about ground water, for example, and whether it is being regenerated enough for us. I don't really know what the studies there are about our increasing population and what we are using of water, and how exactly we are restoring it. Nobody is really yelling real loud about it, so that gives me hope. We would be in trouble if our water was polluted. We would have severe problems. If we were running a plant that, not necessarily a nuclear plant, but something that had highly explosive chemicals, and it blew up, it would hurt people. So you need to know that this is not only pollution, but anything that you are dealing with that could be harmful to Nature. Hopefully by knowing about Nature, you are protecting it and you know what it needs to thrive in the living kind of sense. In the technical kind of sense, the laws of Nature, you are not abusing it, so that you end up destroying what it is that you are trying to promote, which is hopefully life on earth. So, I think that people like to know things about Nature. The scientists come up with stuff and then later on somebody finds a use for it that could be harmful, but that is why you need to protect it. I think that people are always going to know dangerous things. So, I am hoping that there is a balance between use of resources and protection just because this awareness of Nature keeps being raised, and people keep coming up with solutions.
        I think because we live in the world, we have to appreciate it and I think that most people do. We all appreciate... I've lived in a variety of places. I have lived around a lot of mountains, around the Alps and I've lived in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains of Virginia, and it has taken me a while to appreciate the beauty of Arizona... just in a natural setting, and I think Nature is beautiful. I think about Nature everyday in one way or another. If it's not the laws of Nature, driving with my kids and I am pointing out the moon to them in Arizona, and like I've said that I have lived a lot of different places, and the sunsets here are the most beautiful sunsets, and I know why we see those sunsets, but it is just nice to enjoy them. I also think that science is beautiful in the fact that you can repeat patterns and that you can find these things that are logical and I just like that. That appeals to me. Because of the physics and the refraction of light you can understand a beautiful sunset.
        But I think that Nature itself is pure. I think that if there is nobody that is interfering with it, that it seems like it takes care of it's self. There is a cycle that it goes through. I think that it can be very peaceful, on one side, and of course, like that one picture of a volcano erupting, it can be not so peaceful. But, I think that it is sacred and holy, just because we should take care of it, and we should respect it. Nature brings out emotions and I think that because of that we should respect it, definitely from a religious side as well. And I think that, you know, and that goes for our own bodies... everything. That's because that's more of a religious side, that we should take care of everything. I think that we should protect Nature... you know there is that saying that we are just borrowing the earth from our children, they're not giving it to us
        There are other aspects of Nature. I think that there is a lot of living things in Nature. Not everything about Nature is living, especially if you are talking about laws of Nature, that is something a little bit different, but Nature is all centered around living things. I think that it is exciting to study Nature. It is very diverse in terms of, if you look at the chemistry of it or the physics of it or the biology of it or the enjoyment of it, just
how those things tie together. Nature is not always peaceful. That is things like earthquakes, things like... and these are things that we can maybe predict but not control, maybe minimize damage. Things like, maybe something falling out of the universe, the sky, like a meteor. Things that are frightening and they're dangerous because they could hurt people. They are powerful enough to have that kind of effect, and I think that the confusion comes from the fact of why, especially when someone that you like is hurt. If it is a devastating thing, you just wonder why that happened. So, an earthquake is not confusing in the sense that it happened, because you could be able to predict that, but just... Oh gee....you have this disaster and that is sad.
        On the other hand, I think things happen in Nature because of purpose... this I think is a religious view... that, not necessarily a fatalistic view, that you have no control, but that there is a destiny, that there is... as an individual, I'm contributing to it, but I'm not the biggest part of it, of human kind that there is. I think there are purposes. Animals have instincts... Humans are different than animals in that we seem to be able to reason and really take control, and again I don't have a real biology background, but I observe those things, or watch shows on them, and so they have these cycles of their life which must have some purpose and it has a purpose for the food chain and how they are all, the whole huge, inter-related processes, so I think that when one... supposedly... I think that I read this, that when one animal gets killed, it's usually the weakest one, and so that they are promoting the stronger one, so that would be a purpose, and that is one of those things that happens in Nature, because of purpose. Now, when man seems to get involved, I don't know that their purpose is to only... we help all our sick people, and then we... through other things... maybe through Nature, but maybe through our own design, then we harm them as well. It's not everywhere that we see that, but I think that it is the way it is meant to be. I think that the whole inter-relatedness of us and our world, is that... like okay we do have a purpose, some bigger picture, and I think that we are playing that part, but I don't know what it is going to lead to. There is no "lead-to" where we are all taking care of each other and we are somehow living in a balance, or are not. I don't know how it will end up. I do know that... I know that all things want to continue living, so that they all reproduce and that seems to be real important in Nature, for plants, people, and animals. I know that we need to use our resources wisely, that is real important, and that is about all I can think of now.

Mr. Hess
Nature is orderly and understandable. The tides and the rotation of the earth, the seasons and so forth are examples of order in Nature. That the planets and the stars are governed by physical forces and any deviations are simply because we have not yet discovered the other part of Nature's orderliness. According to chaos theory, even things that appear to happen randomly have patterns. I think that everything has patterns. We haven't necessarily discovered those patterns, yet. As a science teacher, I feel that with enough scientific knowledge we all things are understandable. I think it is very important to know how matter interacts with matter, and therefore how that influences everything else around, for example, how living things work, how it rains, how the stars are made, and how they are formed, the whole thing. I think that the more we understand about matter itself, and the more we know about how to make things, the more predictable Nature will be. Scientific or reductionistic thinking is very powerful. I feel that once we know enough about the minutia of the world, breaking it down by using the scientific method, scientists tearing it apart and analyzing the parts of Nature and seeing how they interact, that we will be able to predict just about anything about Nature.
        I think there is probably a limit to predictability in Nature. I think Nature has unpredictability because it is so changeable. Weather is a prime example of that. We can't predict the weather more accurately more than, at the most, two days ahead of time. That is because there are so many things that change within this thing that we call weather, that effect local weather patterns. I think that it is probably the best example of something unpredictable. I think that Nature is always changing and that is why we are having a lot of natural disasters. Nature is changeable and we just can't predict that too well - when a hurricane will strike or when a tornado will strike.
        I think unpredictability, however, comes because we don't know enough about Nature to predict everything about it right now. This has emotional consequences. We have emotions of fear and peace and I think that fear stems mainly out of the unknown. Man is frightened when he perceives what is going on around him and he doesn't understand it. If events are predicted then there is a very peaceful type of feeling. I don't think that Nature is inherently dangerous or confusing either, because that is man's definition of what is maybe the unknown part of it. What's dangerous about Nature or about the natural world is that we can't predict when things are going to happen, when we are going to die, for example. Eventually, however, all Nature will be explainable.
        One of the reasons why we don't yet understand enough about Nature, is because the extreme, complex, and diverse type of systems that are involved with it. But I am an optimist as far as it's understandability, as far as that is concerned. Our current state of being is that there are unpredictable events in Nature. Our ultimate state, the end point, is basically knowing very much. Weight wise, we are probably more tilted toward unpredictableness because I think that we are in the infancy of understanding the world around us. I am optimistic that we will eventually know much more. As knowledge grows, we will change the changeability and the unpredictability of Nature. It all will decrease significantly. I have a great faith in man's ability to understand things and take things apart, to get to the bottom of the solutions and things. I think that with that
knowledge and the yearning for knowledge, whatever is the problem, we will basically be able to know and being to predict.
        It is important to study Nature for three reasons. First, the mere fact of knowing things about Nature is worthwhile itself. Nature is an everyday part of life and I think about it a lot and how things work and how things interact with each other. Nature is beautiful. I see it most in the way things work so well together. I think that I see beauty in Nature more with living things than with anything else. It is the vastness of things that could go wrong in a living organism, and yet it lives. Nature is made of matter. That matter gives us the resources we need whether it is living resources or material resources. Material resources are the raw materials that we can use to build things or to develop technology. Thus, the second reason to study Nature is that the more we know about Nature, the more we can control it and use it or exploit it. The third thing is the more that we can do that, the better our lives are going to be - and, this is sort of a tribute to Man's intellect. You know, how to use what's here.
        I don't think that the natural world will ever be any of these things, endangered, restorable, or doomed. It will never be endangered. It will never be restorable because there is nothing to restore. It can't be doomed because, whatever doomed means, the natural world will exist. Whether man continues to exist or not, it really doesn't matter too much. I think that the natural world will always be there, whatever form it is in. No, Nature doesn't, as an entity, and there is no such thing as Nature as an entity, need protection. It doesn't need protection. That is man's need in life. We need to protect Nature so that Nature can provide us with the materials we need. So, if you put man into the equation, like if the equation says that man needs to be on this planet, then this is what we need to do. If we are not concerned with that, then we shouldn't really worry about what we do with Nature.
        I think that it needs to be protected, however, simply because I think that there is enough enjoyment in Nature itself, or different parts of Nature, that the beauty of Nature needs to be protected. I think there is a bigger story, though, about why we need to protect and know about Nature. This is such a bigoted statement, but we need to protect the human race. We need to know enough about the ecosystems, so that we can say, "yes, these animals can become extinct because they are not really important." So, those two sides of myself battle each other because I think that there is a lot of beauty in Nature and I think that it is very enjoyable to have these diverse animals. But, I also think that we also need to be realistic and know that we are not going to be able to protect all of the animals. We need to know what animals are necessary for us to enjoy the same quality of life that we now know.
        I also have some other thoughts about Nature that are really completely separate from what I have said so far. These thoughts are extremely important because I think that there is a need in man's life for a purpose. Nature or the natural world is everything. Well, it's the universe, including man, and everything man does, and everything in the universe; but, the natural world is not everything that exists. I think God exists and He is part of the natural world, but at the same time, not part of it. I think that the natural world is a subset of God, and not the other way around. I think that Nature can remind us of the spirituality, our own spirituality... I don't think that Nature has a spiritual quality in
itself. I don't think the world around us or the universe has any spiritual qualities. So, God is sort of the wrench in that perfect definition, Nature or the natural world is everything, but a necessary part. It is a necessary wrench because the rest does not work without that. Basically, I am talking about this unknown variable called Man and all his ideas. Divorced from pure science and pure fact there is also something called faith which is what defines sacred and holy and mysterious. Although I think we will eventually understand a great deal about Nature, I also don't think that we can every discount the idea that there will always be a need in human lives, where things are sacred and holy, with holy perceived as mysterious, as well. Even if things aren't mysterious any more, I think that man will invent new things to have as mysterious.
        I definitely think that there are parts of everything that are separate from, not Nature, or the natural world, but definitely from what I perceive as what science can uncover, and maybe part of that has to do with man's need and wanting for, and maybe personal discovery of things that are holy and sacred, or mysterious. That is sort of an unknown variable, that sort of sits out there. These aren't products of man's interaction with that part of the natural world. Things become holy because they are a part of the natural world that doesn't fit into a nice little formula, but is somewhere out there that we haven't tapped into. Maybe that is knowable, maybe that is predictable, eventually, but it can't be broken down by using the scientific method.

Mr. David
The natural world is the environment and world around us that is here naturally, without being effected or changed by man. The natural world is what is here that hasn't been changed or influenced by man. I think it is sort of the raw material that we've come upon in our activities. It is sort of altered and changed, but I think the natural world, by calling it natural, you're saying that it is something that has not been altered by man. So when I think of the natural world, I think it includes everything that was here, that we come in contact with, or that we are in contact with. Its all just part of everything that is there. Now that I think about it, I would consider the natural world to include the world, the physical part that we see, and whatever it is that may be behind it, that is created or is driving it - all the parts of it, the parts we understand and the parts that we don't understand. Some might say
that they see the work of God in Nature. I would say that you see something beyond the work of man, that's even a higher level.
        Nature has many aspects. It is alive and it is always changing. It has a mind of it's own and in some ways things happen, because it is alive. Just the way that the earth moves and shakes, way that the oceans tend to move and the whole relationship between the earth and the universe. The way that living things have come out of all that, or part of it, to interact with the earth and universe. I think that the fact that it's alive really is a big part of what makes it the natural world, or at least my concept of it. I am not using "alive" in the technical living things sense, but I think in terms of how matter (Nature is material as well) interacts. I think that it is alive in the sense that, even though it may not technically be alive, I think that when there is heat and there is energy, things are moving and flying, that in a way is a kind of life. Nature is dynamic... movement and change and all life, when you look down to the molecular level, it really is just non-living, material molecules that are organized in complex ways. So, it is hard to draw the line, when you get to that level, as far as what is alive and what isn't. So, that's partly what makes it mysterious. Nature is alive and it is material.
        Nature is orderly and chaotic, predictable and unpredictable - these pairs are sort of needed in order to define each other. Things wouldn't be predictable if you didn't know what unpredictable was. Things wouldn't be orderly if you didn't know what chaotic was. It is sort of a ying-yang relationship between the two I would call this just the dualistic Nature of reality. A storm in the ocean might be considered chaotic, but then as you watch the ripples of the waves that are flowing away from it, there is a sort of orderliness to that. Weather is unpredictable. You can't predict what's going to happen, but you can predict the consequences of it. The resources that Nature contains is kind of unpredictable, because we don't really know what resources are there. The fact that you use the resources of Nature means it is more predictable. But, it is so powerful that we can't really always predict what Nature will do or control it. You can predict that you are going to have certain consequences, however. It is also powerful. In relation to man, Nature is powerful because it controls whether life can exist on this planet or not, or any particular place. And we are real limited in our environments that we are able to occupy and so in that sense, Nature has a lot of power over us.
        There is a lot of diversity and complexity in Nature, and there is also the fact that it is just there. It's all just part of everything that is there. You can look at it all as being part of one thing, or you can look at it all as being different and complex in different aspects of it. It is incredibly complicated. The closer you look the more complicated it is and in order for it to function as simply as it appears to us, there must be a lot more to it than we know. I think that it is important to understand that there is more to Nature than meets the eye. It is interesting to see how Nature works and just how complicated it really is. By observation and by looking at things and watching them over a period of time, you begin to notice patterns that allow you to make predictions. But it seems like a lot of predictions, once you make them you find that they... well, the rules tend to get broken, or you get more information at a
higher, finer, more detailed level and you realize that there are other things going on that you weren't predicting. I don't see these aspects of Nature as being balanced. I think that it is just different aspects of the same thing and that the pairs both have to be there in order for Nature to be what it is, to define what it is.
        I like the word beautiful. I think that there is a lot of beauty in Nature, even though it is not always beautiful to man. The whole aspect of Nature and I guess that I have an instinctual connection to that, that it is sacred, and just deals with something very special, you have to respect it. I think that beauty is the more aesthetic reason to appreciate Nature and I think that aesthetics can provide reasons for studying Nature, too. But, I think that beauty and emotional response are more in the aesthetic realm, just pleasing to see how Nature works, seeing that it is mysterious, that it allows a curiosity about how it works to admire the beauty of Nature and it's simplicity, and just… Well, I enjoy Nature.
        Some people might say they see the work of God in Nature, that is to say that you see something beyond the work of man, that's even at a higher level, and to appreciate that is one of the aesthetic things that we like about Nature. I have an instinctual connection to sacredness of Nature. It just deals with something very special about Nature, and you have to respect Nature. As I said before, I think that it is important to understand that there is more to Nature than meets the eye. We need to treat it as being sacred, because of that. I think that Nature is our home and it gives us life, and everything, that people consider it to be very sacred and holy, and those are definitely the perceptions that we have as being a part of Nature, and it kind of grows out of that, I think. These ideas are religious and philosophical and emotional, all three! I think that people have real strong emotional ties to Nature, in a lot of ways. There is a lot of variations on how people consider it to be sacred or holy, but I think everybody does, in some sense. Just about everybody has some connection to that, although I think that when people have self-interest at stake, they tend to ignore those aspects of the natural world, to meet their own needs. Everybody has a sort of innate appreciation for life and for the natural world. I think that a lot of our religious belief has to come from this aspect of Nature, its beauty and mystery and sacredness, which is that part that we can't... or we don't understand at this point, and that it makes us think that there must be something beyond our level of understanding, from where Nature must have come. You wonder about how it all got started and where it all came from? Its very religious, emotional, and philosophical too.
        I am look at the natural world as something that is physical, more physical, and it is happening around us, but if there is a God behind it, that is creating it, then that might be something that is at a different level, that I don't understand in my own reach. From what we know about energy and physics and everything, I think that there is potentially other realities or perceptions, or things that are happening, that are beyond this natural world that we are perceiving. I think that there could be things that I just don't know about. I do think Nature is more than material. I think that there is something driving Nature and causing it to evolve the way it has changed, and to say that Nature is only the stuff that you are looking at,
is... may be missing part of it. I think that there must be some purpose for things to become what they become, in terms of living organisms, and what is driving it, I don't know. To say that everything is driven by a purpose is, I think, sort of a human perspective. I think that it is an assumption to say that everything results because of a purpose. I think that is possible that things happen because of chance, too. Purpose sort of denies the whole role of fate and chance, that things can happen just because they happen to work out that way! So, I think that you have to have an element of chance in Nature, it is just not purpose. Maybe in terms of any purpose that there might be, there is God, but in terms of being exclusively because of purpose, I just don't think that Nature is playing out according to some divine purpose or that it is all laid out. I think that there is a definite element of chance.
        I do think about Nature quite a bit. Just wondering about how things work. When I see a bird fly around, I wonder how its eyes are so quick, how it's wings can move that fast, how quickly it perceives the world as it moves around. I wonder where crickets come from or cockroaches... something that I am in contact with constantly, everyday, and I tend to think about it because of that. Living, mysterious, and exciting. These are terms I most closely associate with in the natural world and how it appears. It's alive. It's mysterious and we don't understand it, and it's exciting. I tend to look at the natural world as being mysterious - that there is a lot that we don't know about it. It is exciting. I guess just because it is interesting to see how Nature works, and just how complicated it really is. I think that the more we know about it, the more enlightened we will be about ourselves and the world we live in, and the better chance we will have that we will be able to be more reasonable about our decisions that we make, and I think that kind of knowledge is hopeful and peaceful. And just from the basic scientific reasons, you never know what you're going to find when you go to study something, and just from past experiences, we've found that by looking closer, and with more detail, we discover more about how we, as humans, are constructed and how we relate to Nature and we're able to improve our quality of life because we are understanding Nature better. So, you can study it, I think, in many ways, and it is so amazing and interesting, to see and to experiment, that any curiosity that we have about it is a good enough reason to go and study it. There are aesthetic reasons. It is just pleasing to see how Nature works. I think that scientists are most involved in the study of Nature, as far as observing and trying to measure what is going on in the world, in turn to predict how things will change and what will happen. I think that is one of the functions that science really fulfills as far as a human enterprise. The studies themselves, I am optimistic about. How the studies are used, they are subject to all the human shortcomings and problems, but as far as doing the studies I am optimistic. I think that we have always got more to learn and that we can learn a lot from Nature.
        Because of our dependence on Nature, just our existence, we need to study Nature, to learn more about it. We need to understand how things work in Nature because it is an important resource for us, to get our water, energy, food, and materials for making things from Nature. The resources that Nature contains is
kind of unpredictable, because we don't really know what resources are there, that we can use. Because of that, we need to understand it as much as we can, so that we can protect it. It needs to be protected... and keep it so that it can maintain us and maintain civilization. Man has an impact on the natural world. Because the world is full of resources and powerful, man has also polluted and exploited it, even though it is powerful, and has taken the resources and used them for his own purposes and things. Although I think everybody has a sort of innate appreciation for life and for the natural world, when people have self-interest at stake, they tend to meet their own needs.