botanizing

Photograph of the End

The photograph of the end of the civilization has been lying on my kitchen counter for nearly a week.  I didn’t put it in the recycling with the rest of the newspapers; instead, I let it lie and looked at the photograph as I would pass.  This photograph is on the cover of the Wednesday, December 27th, New York Times.

The Reuters photograph taken by Akintunde Akinleye is from the aftermath of the pipeline fire in Lagos, Nigeria. Billows of black smoke have filled the sky and the landscape has been charred.  Buildings still partially stand among burned poles.  Sheets of tin lie in a heap.  Amid all of this there is one man, who holds a bucket.  The caption for the photograph tells us that the man has washed the soot from his face, but his gesture, holding his hand over his eyes, is ambiguous and rather than an act to restore his sense of well-being, it could as easily be a sign of exasperation, of finality.  The arms of the man, one extended and the other bent to his forehead echo the only other living thing in the photograph, a small, thin tree, with one of its two main branches bent like an elbow that sends its upper branches laterally, but all of the tree’s upper branches merge into the black sky.

As I looked at the photograph the past few days, I thought about science fiction for its portrayal of apocalypse and, of course, for the sake of fictional development, the few survivors who leave Earth or are left to face survival on Earth.  Science fiction has its roots in the real world and its branches extend toward the brightest lights of imagination, but its trunk is made of our fears.  The apocalyptic narrative of some science fiction seems to me concatenated in this photograph from the pipeline fire.

I don’t have an apocalyptic vision, but this photograph has the evocative power to push one’s senses well beyond the effects of a single catastrophe.  It’s the isolation of an individual, left with disheveled tin, representing the metal so important to what we have regarded as the development of civilization, among the burned remains and the blackness of the containing sky. It’s the limitation of natural resources—a world where poverty and population pressures have pushed housing to cover the landscape, where nothing is left but a scrawny tree with branches as black as the sky.  It’s difficult to look at this photograph without thinking that it stands for our ruin, the overwhelming of place and people, ecologically limited, tipped by catastrophe to an end.

It is emblematic, again beyond the horrible situation of the pipeline fire, that the photograph of the end of the civilization is set in Africa, a place where population density, poverty, and disease shadow every possible opportunity.  I wonder whether Africa is the model for the end.

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[After writing this bleak-sounding post on New Year's day, I should perhaps resolve to write only happy posts for the next week.]

Translating from ingLish

“I think the national anthem oughta be sung in ingLish,” the President stated forcefully at a news conference on Friday. 

The President’s statement requires us to translate from his dialect and calls attention to the great variety that exists within English.  His statement is also a good way to highlight May as “World in Translation Month”—its slogan is “Reading the World.” 

I wonder whether the President enjoys reading literature in translation.  One of my favorite novels in translation is set in the President’s Texas—it’s The Tennis Players by Swedish author Lars Gustafsson.  Desperate alchemy, a quest for richness, paces the fanciful novel that is set against a local production of a Wagner opera and uses Nietzsche to understand the art of life in the random violence of Texas.

Translation is like extending a friendly, welcoming hand to someone—it’s an act I value. Translations not only allow us to see into other worlds, but also permit us to extend our world to other people. 

I wonder whether there might be some value in making translations of our national anthem.  To encourage the singing of translations of “The Star Spangled Banner” could be a way of demonstrating to others some of the experiences that have been important, at least symbolically, in our development as a nation.  Encouraging artists to sing our national anthem in translation could serve as a positive symbol of our interest in communicating with the rest of the world.

Idaho

I.
At a camping area on the Salmon River, two guys were hugging.  Actually, one was doing the hugging; the other stood like a steel rod and held his arms straight out from his body.  The steel rod had been a Marine and the other guy, who was much bigger, supposedly hated him.  At least the Marine kept yelling that the big guy hated him.  The big guy declared his fondness and yelled, “Hug me!”  When their voices became especially shrill, the Marine’s dog barked.  Its name was Private.  “Private, stop,” the Marine barked.  There’s no need to say they were very drunk.  Their yelling was slurred.  Their music—old, metallic rock and roll that was only vaguely familiar to me—was loud, and they yelled their conversation over its volume.  That’s how I heard most of it—I was camped some 50 yards away.  I had arrived at dusk and didn’t want to drive further downriver to find another campsite.

The Marine began to scream about the war in Iraq.  “F___ the liberals,” he screamed.  “F___ ‘em all!  F___ the Geneva Convention!”   His next words were lost in the barking of Private, but his sentence ended with “ . . . till the day that Christ comes.”  He then screamed his plan to win the war in Iraq, which involved only the 101st Airborne and carpet-bombing, the way he said that World War II was won. 

I looked up—wondering whether an old Flying Fortress piloted by Jesus might be making targeted strikes on liberals as well as Iraq—and then climbed into the back of my truck, where I closed the canopy door against the rage at least for the night.

II.
There’s a spot on Interstate 84 in southern Idaho between Boise and Twin Falls where the only stations that aren’t playing top 40 hits are preaching Christian sermons.  Between sermons, one station offered a story on global warming.  “Fears about global warming,” the story reported, “are caused by evolutionary biologists.”   Creationist radio likes to blame evolutionary biologists (or ‘Darwinists’ as they usually typologize us) for every social problem in America, but I had been unaware we were to blame for fears about global warming.

“Evolutionary biologists believe in uniformitarianism,” the story claimed.  Uniformitarianism, they reported, biases evolutionary biologists to believe global warming and climate change will occur.  I enjoy the way that creative creationists grab an old idea and twist it in a new way. 

Uniformitarianism comes not from evolutionary biology but from Victorian era geology, especially that of Charles Lyell.  I suspect it was Lyell’s connections with Charles Darwin that led some creationist to graft uniformitarianism onto evolutionary biologists.  Lyell’s geological writings influenced profoundly the young Charles Darwin’s early natural history studies, and Lyell would later become an important supporter of Darwin.

Lyell’s uniformitarianism in its details has been left to the history of geology.  It’s a stretch to suggest that it plays anything more than a general role in contemporary theories of evolutionary processes.  It is, however, interesting to watch creationists graft historically rejected ideas on contemporary evolutionary biology in their attempts to redefine the science and slur its image before the public.

While uniformitarianism in its early details persists only as historical relict, there is a premise of uniformitarianism that remains important not just in evolutionary biology but also in all science.  Part of the rationale of Lyell’s uniformitarianism was that past and present geological processes were largely the same.  Thus, for Lyell, one could study contemporary geological processes to understand rocks, strata, and mountains formed in the past.  That basic logic—that historical processes were largely the same as contemporary processes—guides scientific reconstructions of the past (which evolutionary biologists as well as climatologists do) and allows us to make predictions about the future because we assume that past and present processes will be active in the future.  Lyell’s science was materialistic—it was centered in physical laws and repeatable processes—which is anathema to creationists who demand exception for divine interventions.  The creationist report on global warming didn’t address directly why we should reject the general idea of uniformitarianism but implied that it was inconsistent with Biblical interpretation.

There was no need to fear global warming, the creationist story explained, because God controls Earth.  The Earth has experienced only one catastrophe—the flood reported in the Bible—in its entire history of a few thousand years.  Yes--since Earth is only a few thousand years old, not the few billion claimed by evolutionary biologists, global warming would not result in long-term change.  The only catastrophes the Earth will face in the future, the story stated, are those God produces, and humans will be powerless to counter those God-given catastrophes.  Thus, the report concluded, there is no need to worry about global warming. 

Go forth to cut forests and burn fossil fuels as fast as possible.

Science for Congress

The Science Times section of yesterday’s New York Times provided an article by Cornelia Dean about Congress and science.  The article quoted Daniel Greenberg, author of Science, Money and Politics, as suggesting that many congresspersons could not answer ten basic questions about science.  He was further cited for blaming “politics” for Congressional failure “to take good action on science issues.”  Most votes on science issues he indicated follow voting along party lines.  We might interpret that to recognize that basic science relies heavily on funding from the federal government, and one party tends to vote against federal funding.

The article focused primarily on a briefing for Congress organized by Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican, to fight misunderstanding of science.  As the Times suggests “there is growing concern that Congressional misunderstanding can produce misguided policy.” The topic of the briefing was “how science works.”

What I found most interesting in the article was the discussion of Donald Kennedy, a biologist and the former President of Stanford University who is currently the editor of Science magazine, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Science magazine includes an editorial in each issue and many have been written by Dr. Kennedy.  He has not refrained from discussing the potential environmental consequences of global warming and has addressed the dangers of federal government inaction on climate change issues.  The Times reported that Dr. Kennedy’s editorials on climate change led Robert Ferguson of the Center for Science and Public Policy to send by e-mail “critiques of Dr. Kennedy” to congress to “decide if attending the event is worth your time.”  Materials on the website of the Center for Science and Public Policy appear to be dubious about hypothesized effects of global warming and anthropogenic climate change.  The Times reported that Robert Ferguson “presents briefings to Congress.”

Here are Dr. Kennedy’s insights for Congress, as reported by the Times: 
1.  Experimental replication—the observation that results are repeatable—constitutes truth in science. 
2.  Peer review, the editorial policy of having scientific peers review research reports prior to publication, does not guarantee truth.  This is because peer review does not involve repeating the experiment; it is simply a check on the sense of the report as it is written.
Both are good points for Congress to understand.

The Times reported that the congressional aides and one Democrat senator who attended were pleased with the educational opportunity of the session.

The article:  Cornelia Dean, “Where Science and Public Policy Intersect, Researchers Offer a Short Lesson on Basics.”  The New York Times, 31 January 2006, p. D3.

Pew Center Survey

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released on Tuesday the results of a survey on religion and political parties in the U.S.  Part of the survey focused on evolutionary biology and attitudes about teaching creationism in public schools.

Disbelief in evolution and acceptance of divine creation were found most commonly among “conservative Republicans”—60% of whom “believe that living things have always existed in their present form, while just 11% say that evolution occurred through natural processes.”  Only 29% of “liberal Democrats” are reported to hold creationist views.  Fifty percent of those who believe that life has existed only in its present form have only a high school education or less, while 40% of college graduates “accept the natural selection theory of evolution.”

The survey reported that 64% of Americans “are open to the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in the public schools, and a substantial minority (38%) favors replacing evolution with creationism in public school curricula.”  The survey reported support for “teaching creationism along with evolution is quite broad-based, with majority support even among seculars, liberal Democrats and those who accept natural selection theory.”

I’m curious what the public wants taught in science courses about creationism.  We could teach why creationism is not science, and this would be valuable.  Myths, such as the Biblical story of creation, cannot be tested—they exist beyond the realm of science.  In contrast, models for the absence of evolution—such as Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium—are a common part of basic biology curricula in colleges and probably should also be taught in high schools.  We need to recognize, however, that models for the absence of evolution and tests for whether the parameters of those models are met—which are science—are far from teaching creation myths in a science curriculum.  Let’s teach creationism in comparative literature or folklore courses, which are more the domain for the study of myths.

Public knowledge of science

My trawl of the New York Times today turned-up a profile of Jon D. Miller (Scientist at Work Column in the Science Times section), whose research at Northwestern University addresses public knowledge of science.  The report—on public knowledge of science, not on Miller himself—is gloomy.   Among the results of Miller’s research reported by the Times is “one adult American in five thinks the sun revolves around the Earth.”  While I can shake my head in disbelief that 20% of Americans misunderstand the basic structure of the solar system, Miller’s research indicates “only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are ‘scientifically savvy and alert’” and the rest “don’t have clue.”

No to evolution in National Parks?

The New York Times reported today (Felicity Barringer:  “Top Official Urged Change in How Parks are Managed”) on revisions to National Park management proposed by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Interior appointed by the Bush administration.  Among the revisions in Mr. Hoffman’s proposal, the Times indicates, were greater opportunities for snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle use in the National Parks.  Mr. Hoffman, reported to be a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney when he served in Congress, also proposed changing educational programs in the Parks.  His proposals, the Times reports, “would have eliminated virtually every reference to the theory of evolution.”

For now, it appears, the Park Service has scraped Mr. Hoffman’s proposals, but this bears watching.  As evolutionary biology disappears from K-12 education, institutions like the Park Service remain critical for public education about the natural world.

Let us praise Verlyn Klinkenborg

This former Iowan’s prose has the elegant rhythms of rolling cornfields.  In an Editorial Observer piece in the August 23rd New York Times, Klinkenborg reaches-out gently to understand the difficulties that some may have when faced with the immensity of questions about the origin of life and its subsequent evolution.  Klinkenborg writes:

“One of the most powerful limits to the human imagination is our inability to grasp, in a truly intuitive way the depth of terrestrial and cosmological time.  That inability is hardly surprising because our own lives are so very short in comparison.  It’s hard enough to come to terms with the brief scale of human history. But the difficulty of comprehending what this is on an evolutionary scale, I think, is a major impediment to understanding evolution.”

Kinkenborg takes the misapprehension of time as a major error that has led astray those who wish to deny evolution.  He writes:  “Nearly every attack on evolution—whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution—ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.”

Evolutionary biologists have often been criticized for arrogance and lack of sensitivity to the concerns of the lay public in the face of the creationism onslaught—what I find especially compelling in Klinkenborg’s essay is the absence of arrogance when he writes “Humans feel much more content imagining a world of more human proportions, with a shorter time scale and a simple narrative sense of cause and effect.” 

While the essay is full of empathy it also has the bright light of rationality—the high quality of enlightenment thought that seems all but gone from public discourse in faith-based America.  For Klinkenborg speaks clearly, quieting metaphors, when he makes critical points about Intelligent Design—he writes:  “Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science.”  He goes on to say that the vast numbers of Americans who believe the creation myth as presented in Genesis “isn’t a triumph of faith”—it is instead “a failure of education.” “The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design,” Klinkenborg emphasizes, “is to deepen that failure.”  And that is why scientists and teachers must work against the insidious intent of the Intelligent Design movement and the advocates it has at all political levels.

Senator Frist for witchcraft?

The New York Times reported today that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist supports the teaching of intelligent design (ID) in public schools.  The Times article is brief but quotes Senator Frist as supporting the teaching of ID along with evolution “so people can understand what the debate is about.”  The Senator’s website, which includes a narrative of his current “Tennessee Listening Tour,” on which he made his comments about ID, doesn’t yet provide details on his views about evolution or, more generally, science and religion in public schools.

The teaching of ID as part of science curriculum would be similar to teaching witchcraft in medical schools.  One wonders whether Senator Frist, a medical doctor, would also support teaching witchcraft to our future doctors.

Hearing creationists. II. A panel with people of faith

Near the end of the school year, I was invited by a resident assistant in one of our campus dormitories to participate in a panel discussion of evolution and creationism for the students in the dormitory.  Two other evolutionary biologists also participated as well as a Lutheran minister, Catholic priest, two Seventh Day Adventist ministers, a creationist chemical engineer, and a latecomer, let’s call him “the late creationist.”

After we introduced ourselves, the late creationist went to a big white board and began to lecture us that the Big Bang was unviable, that evolution violates both the first and second law of thermodynamics, and that no evidence contradicts the six-day creation recounted in the Bible.  Unfortunately, he presented no evidence for the six-day creation, the inviability of the Big Bang, and didn’t explain how evolution violated any laws of thermodynamics.  The late creationist’s lecture reminded me of the patent medicine hucksters enacted in 1950s movies:  beyond his big sound, his spiel lacked soundness.

The panel was not to be a debate, and we didn’t ask the late creationist to explain the first and second laws of thermodynamics and why he considered evolution to violate them.  After the late creationist’s lecture, the moderating resident assistant brought the panel back to its focus—to answer students’ questions about evolution and creationism.  The students asked great questions about evolution.  What I thought was most interesting about the questions was that reflected the creationist perspectives that now get considerable, uncritical attention from the media.

As the panel members spoke in response to student questions, I was struck by the difference between the evolutionary biologists on one hand and the clergy and creationists on the other.  The evolutionary biologists provided examples and explained processes of development, heredity, evolution, and fossilization.  The creationists told personal stories. The chemical engineer spoke of learning about fossils and evolution from his father and his subsequent conversion to faith.  His argument for creationism was personal testimony of faith in a god and disbelief that chance events could result in complex life.  His only argument against evolution during the discussion was that there was zero probability he could see for the origin of life.   Probabilities for the origin of life may be low—but those probabilities on Earth were (are) clearly above zero because of the preferential bonding properties of certain atoms, the self-assembly of some molecules, and ultimately the capacity of molecules to convey information.  What astounded me about the chemical engineer’s statement of probability was its ignorance (or neglect) of the basic chemistry of life and how we might calculate probabilities.

The Lutheran minister and Catholic priest were clearly uncomfortable with the creationists’ rejection of evolution as a means of explaining the diversity of life.  They accepted that science provides us with a good understanding of the diversity of life.  What the minister and priest couldn’t relinquish to biology (or maybe I should say ‘to chemistry’) was the beginning of life. 

When the resident assistant contacted me about participating in the panel, I had both great interest and reluctance—the latter because debating creationism with creationists is akin to beating one’s head against concrete.  Creationist arguments are rhetorical rather than logical and evidence-based—but their (un)sound bites are amenable to the format of scoring rhetorical points in debate, if not to logical tests.  There’s also the problem that a general audience, even one of college students, is unlikely to have high scientific literacy or knowledge of biology.  Understanding evolution, without some scientific literacy and knowledge of biology, is not likely to be conveyed in debate; one would prefer to see students in courses on evolutionary biology where its processes and problems can be described and discussed.  One would also like to see those students in courses on the anthropology of religion and the psychology and literature of myth for we will gain from a broader understanding of religion.

From its repetition during the discussion, the clause “for people of faith” continued afterward to ring in my ear.  As a preface to any statement made by the clergy or creationists on the panel, it was effectively self-absolution from logic and scientific knowledge.  This clause is the rupture we face:  for people of faith in any particular dogma or myth, discussions of ideas may have no consequence—faith is an abyss for challenging ideas.