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I am more than a little in doubt that our environment is more defined by what human have done, than by nature.

From adolescent scatter-brains to the patternless structure of cities I am beginning to suspect that things are not always what they seem. “I don’t understand why my students act so crazy.” “I don’t see any predictable patterns in the structure of Philadelphia.” Does this mean these phenomena are unknowable? What could possibly explain the observations? What we see today may not have an obvious explanation based on today’s observations, but with the right perspective those explanations are not beyond our discovery.

Take for example, one of the first activities of the institute when we looked for patterns in human settlements and we identified several influences of population density. We recognized that not many people live in deserts. People need water – predictable. Then we recognized that the majority of human populations are located on coasts and large waterways – makes sense. Then we wondered about Las Vegas – not predictable. What else is at play? Considering what we have learned from Jeff Cohen one might say humans once were constrained by nature and geography, but since the steam engine and subsequent libratory technologies humans are now less driven by nature and more influenced by other human forces – enterprise, greed or perhaps philanthropy – human nature?. So, driving forces change over time, but the range of possibilities is constrained by nature.

What about patterns of behavior in the children we teach? Why, as Kim Kassidy put it, does a child one day turn from a competent angel to a “pseudo-stupid” alien? Again, change over time. Can we know the driving forces? From the point of view of the teacher it may seem that our students have dubious motives for their actions. But how does nature/cognitive development inform us about adolescent behavior? Elkind’s theory would lead us to re-examine assumptions about our students’ motives. Where a teacher once saw a randomly acting alien, there now is a very confused inchoate adult mind trying to emerge. Students are not necessarily acting out of spite or questionable motives, but may just be confused as they are trying out new ways of thinking abstractly. Again we see nature constraining or limiting the range of explanations.

So, the environment may be an artifact of humans but it is constrained by nature, not to say anything about human nature.