Abstract
This paper examines the environmental ethic that is implicit in three different interpretations of evolution that are intended for the general public and that attempt to explain the past and future developments of the world’s cultures. The three interpretations include: (1) the computer-futurist thinkers who claim that we are entering the post-biological phase of evolution and that the diversity of cultural knowledge systems is being replaced by a global intelligence; (2) the genocentric interpretation of evolution articulated by E. O. Wilson, which also represents evolution as a linear process leading to the extinction of non-scientifically based cultures; and (3) the Brian Swimme/Thomas Berry interpretation (The Universe Story) that adapts the mainstream account of evolution to account for religious themes—but is still based on western cultural assumptions about the linear nature of progress and the need to abandon the mythopoetic narratives of other cultures in favour of the theory of evolution. The paper also considers how the three interpretations reinforce the “survival of the fittest” ethic that underlies the current efforts to globalize the western technology/consumer-dependent lifestyle.
