sounds like he has a religion and beliefs.
I was born into a country which did not tolerate religion and I have not found any religion I could "agree" with. I use agree here but my english is not good enough to find a better word in it's place.
There are many fundemental religions which make everything about humans and this world here and now is a testing for good and evil souls. I can not accept that a divine god would be more cruel than humankind. The universe is beyond description an overkill in size for it to be all about humans, we can never visit all of it and as such a divine god would have known that so why make it so large? It seems implausable that god is all about humankind that sounds more like human ego.
I believe in many of the sort of buddist aspects of life that we should make the minimum ecological impact we can and I did find common ground with you on some of your alternative ideas.
However I am also very aware of the dangers science can throw up and some of the most testing and dangerous times will be in the next few years.
There is an area of science that has drawn great interest in the last two years which alarms me greatly called synthetic biology (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology)
I think as scientists we sort of accepted a view that DNA was special and in some ways we associated life with DNA.
Two years ago we created XNA which is artificial DNA and we currently have 6 types and with gold nanoparticles about to join them we will now have 7.
What alarmed me was in March this year that XNA can be engineered to evolve and that changes everything and makes this field extremely dangerous.
http://io9.com/5903221/meet-xna-the-first-synthetic-dna-that-evolves-like-the-real-thinghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17769529This area is going to pressure on what is defined as "natural" what is defined as "life" and even defining what is "safe" in this area is very very challenging.
The problem is because few layman understand the implications and many religions won't accept the idea of evolution and a loser definition of life those who should be providing the moral and ethical guidance on the area are instead silent.
I have read many books, papers and discussions around the birth of the atomic age and this area has spooky similarities.
When you see research such as
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18953034You consider that talk about "They also plan to incorporate a simple "brain" so it can respond to its environment and replicate more advanced behaviours like moving towards a light source and seeking energy or food."
Now think that could be setup to evolve it gets very alarming.
Rarely in science would you see this response
On March 13, 2012, over 100 environmental and civil society groups, including Friends of the Earth, the International Center for Technology Assessment and the ETC Group issued the statement The Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology which call for a worldwide moratorium on the release and commercial use of synthetic organisms until more robust regulations and rigorous biosafety measures are established. The groups specifically call for an outright ban on the use of synthetic biology on the human genome or human microbiome.
The ability for XNA to evolve changes eveything.
