ABSTRACT
Biocentrism is a teleological view of nature, and those who think this way cannot, even in principle, distinguish fact from value. To understand a thing, according to this perspective, is to know how it ought to behave in nature. The attitudes of a generation that had rejected scholarly objectivity as irrelevant now infused journalism, whose tradition was one of political neutrality. Commitment to a cause collided with a heritage of detachment, and journalists did not know what to do. This chapter explains how some biocentrists left the Earth First!ers movement and became missionaries with a zeal that would not accept rejection. Their mission was "increased public awareness of natural ecosystems, particularly for their own inherent merit beyond their value to humans, was spreading. Biocentrism, the ideology that the earth and not humans is the center of all that is important, was coming of age."
