Visiting Biosphere 2 makes me realize that we know so very little about the world in which we live, yet our actions and decisions are based on imperfect snippets of data that we extrapolate and codify and then etch into stone. We think we know more than we really do. We think we can control and predict, yet all we seem to be doing is shift a delicate balance further out to the edges where implications and consequences that were once inelastic become elastic and magnified in its environmental impact. Biosphere 2 is a poor but necessary replication of the original biosphere 1, the Earth. Poor because we can never replicate the complex systems that nature has evolved, not even with half a billion dollars and counting. Necessary as it is the closest thing we have for research and testing, the collection of data which fuels the computer models that fan the flames of our understanding of the very fragile planet we live on.
It occurs to me that the biggest mistake we can make is to think we can definitively know something. When we fall into that trap we shut the door on inquiry, we blind ourselves to the possible yet less probable, we stop reconizing that error allows us to grow and learn, and we fool ourselves into a false sense of security.