Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling & the Metamorphosis of Science

The disconnection between humans and nature is perhaps one of the most fundamental problems faced by our species today. The schism between us and the natural world is arguably the root cause of most of the environmental catastrophes unraveling around us. However, until we come to terms with the depths of our alienation, we will continue to fail to understand that what happens to nature also happens to us.

In The Biology of Wonder author Andreas Weber proposes a new approach to the biological sciences that puts the human back in nature. He argues that feelings and emotions, far from being superfluous to the study of organisms, are the very foundation of life. From this basic premise flows the development of a “poetic ecology” which intimately connects our species to everything that surrounds us—showing that subjectivity and imagination are prerequisits of biological existence.

The Biology of Wonder demonstrates that there is no separation between us and the world we inhabit, and in so doing it validates the essence of our deep experience. By reconciling science with meaning, expression and emotion, this landmark work brings us to a crucial understanding of our place in the rich and diverse framework of life-a revolution for biology as groundbreaking as the theory of relativity for physics. 

Dr. Andreas Weber is a German academic, scholar and author. He is a leader in the emerging fields of “biopoetics” and “biosemiotics,” and his work has been translated into several languages and published around the globe.