Thus, man is the only sentient being that engages in agriculture, and agriculture necessarily involves the destruction of some species to favor others. As earlier noted, animals and plants constantly work together. Sometimes they will destroy each other for food, but none besides man will destroy other species solely to make way for a favored plant or animal, as the farmer does when he clears fields, or the gardener does when he pulls weeds. Thus, in agriculture, man has attempted to usurp the natural design of the world, and to remake it in the design he favored. The agricultural act is an attempt to redesign the world, or to play the role of God.
In sum, the destruction of the diversity found in nature (the "or") had its roots not in the industrial revolution or some other modern event but in the development of of agriculture some 15,000 years ago.
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