Dr. Jonas Salk - A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future

Also by Jonas Salk

Man Unfolding

The Survival of the Wisest

Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason

Copyright 2018 by Jonas Salk and Jonathan Salk

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any fashion, print, facsimile, or electronic, or by any method yet to be developed, without the express written permission of the publisher.

City Point Press

286 Curtis Avenue Stratford CT 06615

www.citypointpress.com

Hardcover ISBN 978-1-947951-04-4

eBook ISBN 978-1-947951-05-1

Cover and book design by Courtney Garvin

ebook production by BNGO Books

To the children of Epoch B,

their children,

and all the generations to follow.

The first edition of this book was made possible, in part, through the support of the United Nations Population Fund. The revised edition has received the support of private donors to the Arizona Community Foundation Collaborative Fund.

Any authors proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation and to the World Population and Human Values Fund of the Arizona Community Foundation.

Jonas Salks wish was that his ideas would continue to be disseminated so that, like a vaccine, they might have the most positive effect on the greatest number of people.

Jonas Salk, who died in 1995, was in the mid-1950s the developer of the first effective vaccine against poliomyelitis. He went on to found and help design the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, now a renowned center for basic biological research. What few people know is that in the last third of his life, he devoted much of his time and creative energy to the development of an evolutionary philosophy based on biological and natural principles. His wish was that these ideas would have the effect of giving people a scientific basis for hope and provide opportunities to enhance human well-being throughout the world.

An inescapable reality is that there are now too many humans on Earth for us, or the planet, to handle well. Population growth, a burning topic some years ago, has somewhat faded from public prominence in recent years. This small but compelling book is a welcome and timely reminder of the issues of overpopulation, with a fresh look at the ways we can approach this reality.

The burgeoning world population of humans has commonly been framed in Malthusian terms, emphasizing Darwinism with its brutal selection of the fittest as an inevitable, and perhaps only, consequence of an overcrowded world. Jonas Salk took seriously, throughout his life, the overarching guideline called Tikkun olam (Hebrew: ) literally translated as repair of the world, alternatively meaning construction for eternity). Tikkun olam is a concept in Judaism that has been taken to mean aspiration towards actions and behaviors that are constructive and beneficial. Jonas Salks better-known life work, development of the polio vaccine that has been a life saver, literally, for millions around the globe, can be regarded as a remarkable exemplar of Tikkun olam. But Jonas Salks legacy should rightly be broadened beyond even this, because the way he thought about the looming human population problem was to envisage a new era to which humanity could aspire.

In short, as is elegantly unfolded in this book (co-authored by Jonas Salk and his son Jonathan Salk), Jonas Salk envisioned that an inflection point in human population growtha transition from exponential rapid growth, to slower and, eventually, zero population growthwould also usher in an inflection point in human social behaviors and mores, leading to a much more collaborative ethos and way of doing things. Rather than our latter-day humanitys central focus on competing in order to gain ones own individual betterment and achievements (defining what Salk dubs Epoch A), individuals would evolve toward ways more attuned to thinking beyond that, through expanding into wider and more generous frames of mind and spirit to encompass the needs, well-being, and attainment of many more, across more societies (Epoch B). Through use of simple diagrams and the building up of ideas, the book draws us gently but implacably into this vision.

Salk certainly is onto something here. While he was ahead of mainstream thinking at the time of the publication of the first edition of this book (1981), many of his ideas are already echoed much more commonly than they were then. As we look around us, in more recent years we see such trends at play in many arenas. Witness the evolving views of corporate leadership toward being more team- and participant-driven, rather than dictated by a sole top-dog figure. More and more academic learning and research are accomplished through fruitful interactions among multiple individuals, rather than solely through the lonely genius. And, sine qua non, we are realizing that to tackle shared world problems such as planetary climate challenges, individual, local, and national barriers get in the way. Thus, we will keep needing more worldwide, Paris Agreementlike, movements.

The extent of Jonas Salks legacy deserves to be appreciated in full. As this book presages, his help in ameliorating humankinds scourges may yet turn out to be not confined to the near-eradication of polio. This elegant and hopeful book is small, but far from small in its vision and aspiration for humanitys betterment. We will all be better off if we listen to it and heed it.

Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD

February 2018

In this time of conflict, we are seeking a pathway into the future.

Half a century ago, thinking about the future of humanity, my father, Jonas Salk, had a realization. He looked at human population growth, which appeared to be increasing without limit, and reasoned that its growth would likely slow and reach a plateau. In doing so, it would form an S-shaped, or sigmoid, curve, similar to that of a population of fruit flies in a bottle.

From the image of that curve he developed a set of diagrams depicting our past and future and suggested that we are at an epochal transition in human history and human social evolution. He perceived that we are moving from an era dominated by limitless growth, competitive strategies, short-range thinking, and independence to one characterizedby awareness of limits, cooperation, long-range thinking, and interdependence.

The diagrams were first published in 1973 in his book The Survival of the Wisest. In 1981 he and I wrote World Population and Human Values: A New Reality, a short book expanding on those diagrams and ideas. We introduced images and a way of thinking that we hoped would provide a framework for understanding the nature of our time. In the decades since, I often noted that many of the changes we foresaw were coming to pass. Several years ago, a young architect and designer, David Dewane, came across the book and called me to see if I would like to revise and republish the original. I said yes, and the book you are holding is the result.