Fact

Nature tends toward homeostasis. We can either find a way to work with it or try to fight against it. Because nature is such a powerful force, it seems like the more difficult path is to fight it.

It isn't nice to mess with mother nature.

Yes in whole agreement with that. And don't even get me started on the meaningless organic movement.

But in one other sense, not really the one the article is about, nature is not neutral, and that is, in the sense that the study of it, as a learning experience, leads to greater understanding and less misunderstanding than does the study of gods.

The word "natural" has always been an odd one for me. Uranium is natural, so is cyanide. "Natural" seems like more of a marketing term.

"Like gods, a nod to the natural may have gotten us this far but may no longer be needed." ??

We are part of nature and if we disrupt it we pay the consequences , eg corona virus and global warming.

Physics and matter simply doesn't care. It is that simple.

For a lot of folks the term "natural" is more of a dogma than well thought out decisions. The article illustrated that very well.

I agree wholeheartedly with the article. Actually everything in the universe is natural. The sister of “natural” is “organic”. If someone tries to sell me a food by saying that it is organic, I reply that I am allergic to organic and eat only inorganic foods.

There is one exception that I know of. Natural peanut butter, made with only ground roasted peanuts, is absolutely superior to the regular kind. That’s because normally the oil is taken out and replaced with a cheaper oil.

Natural peanut butter costs more but is extremely good, and peanut oil is perhaps the healthiest oil there is.

I agree. This means also that there is no such thing as good or evil.

This article is well considered ... thanks for the share!

I've seen the reflexive, yet unsubstantiated reaction to GMOs, similar in some respects to the anti-science positions in other arenas. Since leaving my faith and discovering the lectures of Robert Ingersoll, I have come to view nature as neither (and both) benign nor/and cancerous. A planet-killing asteroid or a massive solar eruption could render the planet uninhabitable, and nature doesn't care. As Ingersoll so eloquently observed:

"Nature, so long as we can discern, without passion and without intention, forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. She neither weeps nor rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the attitude of prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence."
The Gods, 1872