Walks in the park put down to biological urge: Our response to nature may be genetically determined rather than learnt. Steve Connor reports

A STROLL through a park, a trip to the seaside or ramble across open countryside; a typical bank holiday fulfils a deep-seated biological urge inherited from our Stone Age past, according to a scientific hypothesis that is gaining support.

The love of nature - biophilia - whether expressed in the environmental activism of Greenpeace or the poetry of Wordsworth, is not a mere whim of culture but determined by our genes, according to Professor Edward O Wilson, a Harvard biologist and father of sociobiology - the study of the biological basis of social behaviour.

'The biophilia hypothesis is that such enjoyment and attraction to nature is not purely cultural but is, in part, inborn, having originated in the hundreds of thousands of years in which humanity evolved a large brain and a capacity for culture,' Professor Wilson said. 'It was during that long stretch of time that human beings were intimately associated with nature and dependent upon an understanding of it in order to survive. The hypothesis says we need nature because of our heredity and that the need is inborn and psychological.'

Professor Wilson first suggested the biophilia idea 10 years ago but it is only in the past year or so that a group of about 20 academics in fields ranging from biology and anthropology to psychology and philosophy has suggested ways of testing the hypothesis.

The notion that the love of nature is innate may not seem novel, he said, but it has the potential to revolutionise architecture, urban design, and social policy. 'While the average person probably believes our love of nature is inborn, a great many social scientists and policy-makers do not understand this. Instead they think that whatever human beings like and seek is determined by their culture and their upbringing. The biophilia hypothesis suggests this is not the case.'

The design and layout of many of the royal parks in London could be the result of an innate affiliation with the sort of landscape typical of an African grassland savannah, where early man spent thousands of years evolving intelligence and social behaviour, Professor Wilson said.

'The savannah environment is conspicuous in western culture. Royalty converted pieces of England into little savannahs and dotted them with large animals, copses and scattered trees, and generally the trees they selected were the low, squat, branching trees with highly divided leaves typical of a savannah.'

Building lakes in parks could also be partly explained by our innate love of water, he said. 'Being near water adds to the margin of safety, by providing a source of drinking water and a perimeter against enemies.' Hospital data supports the biophilia hypothesis, Professor Wilson said. 'Patients recovering from surgery recover more completely and more rapidly when given views of nature with few or no human beings in. This has become a principle that is now being used in hospital construction in the United States.'

Just as a love of nature may be inborn, a fear of certain natural objects - biophobia - could be explained by a similar mechanism. 'Biophobia alludes to our propensity to develop not just aversions but deep-seated phobias to snakes, spiders, wolves, rats, running water, cliffs and high places. They are easily acquired and difficult to eradicate.

'We seldom develop true phobias for objects that are really dangerous in the environment, such as knives, guns, automobiles or electric sockets.'

Professor Wilson is not proposing a single gene for biophilia. 'I'm suggesting there are genes which provide a predisposition to learn certain things. The perfect example of this is the almost certain hereditary predisposition to acquire phobias against snakes, heights and the like. Most human beings have those genes; it doesn't automatically mean you acquire those phobias.'

Professor Wilson welcomes the call to test his biophilia idea. 'It is only a hypothesis. It has some supporting evidence but is far from being proven.'

(Photograph omitted)