The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not. - Aldo Leopold

Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciation how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the work of aeons are stolen from under our noses.