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Biodiversity did not exist before 1980. It is a term coined by Harvard zoologist
E. O. Wilson to measure the relative number of species in different
environments he was studying at the time. It is only a word, but
has now taken on an enormous matrix of meaning, more social than
scientific. Biodiversity has become a cultural meme.
For the project to be truly successful, it must rise above the rhetoric of
the moment. The project will be a forum for insightful critical discussion of
the wide diversity of ideas about nature, about biodiversity, and about our
role in the natural world.
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