Arguments by analogy are fallacies. Almost any analogy between any two things contains some grain of truth, but one cannot tell what that is until one has an independent explanation for what is analogous to what, and why. The main danger in the biosphere–culture analogy is that it encourages one to conceive of the human condition in a reductionist way that obliterates the high-level distinctions that are essential for understanding it – such as those between mindless and creative, determinism and choice, right and wrong. Such distinctions are meaningless at the level of biology. Indeed, the
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