The Flag of the World

Earlier this week, I complained about the ritualistic, religious approach to global warming. Well, I’m still cranky about it. I have two examples of this pervasive danger that is, in the long run, going to do a great deal of harm to the environmental movement.

For years, I’ve wondered why in the world environmentalists haven’t supported large-scale engineering projects to prevent global warming. If it really is such a danger, why aren’t we creating massive carbon sinks out of cyanobacteria or genetically engineered green algae or something? Or, as these guys suggest, we could blow a mountain of dirt into the stratosphere. I happen to think carbon sinks sound a little safer, myself.

But what’s the response from the climatically obsessed to this scheme? As Glenn Reynolds points out, it’s downright religious:

Questions of usefulness and necessity aside, grand-scale sun-blocking schemes feel dubious in part because they challenge our intuitive sense that large-scale wrongs can be atoned for only with equally large-scale sacrifices. Drastic emissions cutbacks require drastic lifestyle changes, like taking shorter showers and scrapping the Hummer. Such changes feel right because they’re a little painful; putting the squeeze on ourselves is suitable penance for the collective sin of spewing tailpipe fumes into the atmosphere for the past 100-plus years.

Geoengineering, by contrast, seems like an undeserved dispensation.

Martin Luther, eat your heart out. But to me, the religious language alone isn’t the most remarkable part.

The remarkable thing is to consider what, exactly, the “collective sins” are that we are being punished for. Does anyone think that by “tailpipe fumes,” the writer is referring to the colorless, odorless gas that is produced by all animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms during respiration? Of course not. She’s talking about the unburned hydrocarbons and nitrous oxides that foul the air (1.1 & 1.2 in this list). But of course, nobody’s claiming that these things are what cause global warming. Global warming is merely the excuse that forces us to do “penance”.

My second example comes courtesy of CNN International. It’s the only channel all in English that we get, and thus I watch it far more than I would otherwise. In some ways, it’s instructive. Take, for example the incessant commercial for CNN’s “Eco Solutions” segment. Consider this little chant that we are treated to every hour or so:

Industrial revolution (image of gears)
Worldwide earth pollution (image of factories belching smoke)
Mother Nature’s retribution (image of a hurricane)
Conservation evolution (image of the holy icon)
Mankind tries to make restitution (image of flowers)

Did you catch that? We must offer up restitution to Mother Nature, lest we perish beneath her retribution! There are more ridiculous reasons to buy a Prius, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

The whole “religious fervor” thing has been a clever marketing strategy for global warming activists so far. But if this stuff ends up being anything more than a blip, there could be a seriously brutal backlash.

So, yesterday, people all across the world turned their lights out. Not to save money on electricity, which would be rather sensible, but rather to prevent global warming. Here in Rio, where we lose our electricity accidentally frequently enough, there was no such nonsense.

In Seattle, things were particularly silly, but also particularly telling. To begin with, there’s the hilarious fact that, as Sound Politics notes, this “lights out” day came on a day of record lows. This is a bit more than a “meaningless data point,” as it comes at the tail end of one of the coolest winters in the last decade (here in the southern hemisphere, it’s been one of the coolest summers). There are those who think we’re going to be in a cooling trend for a while now. How will the global warming folks react? Probably by ignoring it, as they have so far this winter, or by blaming it on “climate change,” which conveniently enables them to change their stance not one iota.

But wait, there’s more! And here’s the really telling part–Seattle’s lights don’t get their power from burning hydrocarbons! Essentially all the power in Western Washington comes from those beautiful hydroelectric dams. The media apparently decided to ignore that in their coverage of the event. But this is incredibly important! If the concern really is that burning hydrocarbons releases too much carbon dioxide into the air, then Seattleites should be holding Hydroelectric Parades in the streets! Sure, we lose some salmon, but what is that to the death and devastation that will be wreaked upon the globe if we keep pumping all the carbon we can into the atmosphere, right?

Instead, Seattle demands the breaching of dams (not the dams Seattle City Light operates, though) on one hand, and then pretends the dams don’t exist on the other.

But it’s pretty clear that, for Seattle, at least, the “Lights Out” hoopla had nothing to do with greenhouse gas. So, what is it all about, then? Different things for different people, I imagine. For some, it’s a useful political club against political opponents. For others, it’s basically a religion, and this is a ritual with meaning even if it is devoid of effect (and yes, there are church and state issues here). For a few, there’s a specific neo-luddite agenda here–these are the scariest ones. And for still others, their reputations, jobs and/or funding depend upon the concept of global warming remaining in the public eye.

I have no doubt that there are people with serious concerns about the human impact on the global climate. But none of them had anything to do with the ritual that took place in Seattle yesterday.

UPDATE: Google, step right up–you’ve proved yourselves similarly opportunistic. Less then a year ago, they observed that blacking Google out would actually increase energy output. And yet they took part in the ritual anyway.

In May, the Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang “shook up” stem cell research by announcing that he had cloned 11 embryos from human adults & children, from which he harvested stem cells . It was hailed as “a scientific revolution of the first rank,” and used as evidence that the Bush administration was wrongheaded about its limits on human cloning.

Of course, now it turns out that it was all a Photoshop fake. Is anyone particularly surprised? Some may be, but not your humble author. If a person is going to completely ignore* the ethical problems with harvesting cloned humans, then it’s hardly surprising when they ignore other ethical boundaries as well.

This isn’t Hwang’s first ethical problem, either. Just a few weeks ago he stepped down over revelations that he had lied about the source of some of the human eggs he used. And even back as May, he was given “a D-minus for ethics” by a panel of bioethicists–for yet another seperate problem.

Of course, it’s true that the vast majority of researchers who work on cloning embryos haven’t been exposed as liars and cheats. But that doesn’t change the fact that the biggest breakthrough in embryo cloning and harvesting was simply a lie.

What’s most interesting is the way Hwang intended to get away with it. He appears to simply assume that his process would eventually work consistently, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t make it do so, and regardless of the many scientific problems with using cells from embryos theraputically. This is at least as “faith-based” as anything an Evangelical Christian has ever done. We all have faith in something–the question is, what?

*I’d like to draw a distinction between those who struggle over the issue and then decide that harvesting cells from embryos is legitimate science, and those who ignore the ethical problems, such as Hwang seems to have done. They’re both wrong, and should be opposed–but the latter are the ones likely to ignore other ethical boundaries as well.

Have you heard? Scientists are under pressure to forgoe certain research techniques because of ethical considerations held by a politically active group with strong beliefs.

Stem cell research using embryos?

Nope–all kinds of research, using animals, in Europe:

A leading animal rights organization in Europe has given a cautious thumbs-up to a pledge made by industry groups last week to help the European Union expedite the search for new alternatives to animal testing.

At a meeting in Brussels hosted by the European Commissioners for Enterprise and Research, Günter Verheugen and Janez Potočnik – along with groups representing the chemical, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, soap and detergents, animal health, and crop protection industries — signed a joint declaration on the “3 Rs”– refining, reducing and replacing the use of lab animals.

“We think it is a very promising initiative,” said Marlou Heinen from the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, an umbrella group for some 19 animal welfare organizations. “But we see it very much as a first step—whether it will be an actual success will very much depend on how this is going to be implemented.”

The ultimate goal of the partnership is to eliminate the use of animals in testing altogether, Verheugen said in a statement. “We do not only wish to reduce animal testing, but also want to bring it to an end in the long run.”

I don’t have a huge problem with this, in the abstract. Societies have the right to draw lines in the sand regarding appropriate & inappropriate scientific techniques.

On the other hand, I hope I am never in a society that places a higher premium on animal life than on human life, in any stage of development.

I grew up always planning to be a scientist. I’ve got a biology degree. I’m not a scientist today, but scientists pay my salary. And yet, because I oppose scientific research that destroys embryos, libertarians such as the esteemed Professor Reynolds would call me an “anti-science type.” Kind of odd, if you ask me.

Reynolds, and as he points out, Virginia Postrel, recognize that the right, where I reside, doesn’t contain the only, or even the most dangerous “anti-science” types–and certainly not the most restrictive.

Of course, none of these people are really anti-science. There are anti-embryo destruction people, such as myself. There are anti-genetically modified food people, who I think are tragically wrong, and anti-animal experimentation people who I think are nuts. We’re all fine to use science–and the products thereof–except in certain circumstances. Namely, those we consider to be morally reprehensible. I would assume that the same is true for both Reynolds and Postrel–I don’t know their position on digging up corpses for experimentation, experimenting on prisoners or, on a less extreme note, privacy restrictions on clinical studies, but I would assume that they both draw the line somewhere. And when they draw that line, they are admitting that ethical considerations must be brought into consideration when we talk about the boundaries we, as a society, permit science to work within.

Science is simply a tool, much like a hammer. There are all sorts of things it is good and legal to do with a hammer, and those it is not. Those who push for laws against smashing people’s faces or people’s windows with a hammer should not be called “anti-hammer extremists.”

Lots of people are really angry about the potenial that some form of intelligent design might be taught in public schools. Unsurprisingly, one of these people is Richard Dawkins, who claims it “would have disastrous consequences.”

That’s kind of an odd statement to make, when you consider the words of Phillip Skell, who asserts that “Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology”:

Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

Go read the rest. The fact is that every experimental biologist could today turn into 7-day creationists, and nothing of importance would change.

So, why do folk like Dawkins rage so at the notion that some people don’t buy into Darwinism? It’s not about the science, certainly. It’s all about the philosophy.

Via Jim Miller, I see that a new cloning milestone has been reached, as the first wild animals have been cloned. The Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species have cloned eight African wildcat kittens in the past month. Wildcats are not endangered, but that’s clearly the direction this is going. It’s been my hope since the birth of Dolly that this is the sort of use cloning technology would be put to. It’s very gratifying to see that it’s on its way.

Despite not being fully on the Intelligent Design bandwagon, I disagree with Ed Larson as heartily as Glenn Reynolds agrees with him (though like Glenn, I do recommend his book). Larson asserts:

Intelligent design, despite its proponents’ claims to the contrary, isn’t modern science. It’s part of that rebellion against it. Scientists look for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Their best explanations, if they survive rigorous testing, become scientific theories.

Intelligent design, in contrast, is a critique of all that. Its proponents may challenge the sufficiency of evolutionary explanations for the origin of species but they have not — and cannot — offer testable alternative explanations. The best they can offer is the premise that, if no natural explanation suffices, then God must have done it. Maybe God did do it, but if so, it’s beyond science.

In particular, the idea that if God did something, it’s beyond science is a bizarre limiting of science. If God came down from heaven and created a 12 foot obelisk of an unknown metal to appear in the middle of downtown New York, according to Larson’s version of science, scientists studying the object would have to invent some sort of naturalistic explanation for its creation, no matter how absurd. After all, if God did do it, it’s beyond science.

This stems, I think, from a misunderstanding of the term “supernatural.” Supernatural does not mean unnatural, or extranatual. God is outside nature, but He is also within it. German for supernatural is “übernatürlich,” or literally, “over nature.”

The work of God in nature is just as open for scientific exploration as the work of you or I.

On a related note, I do hope that Intelligent Design proponents do more than simply assert that a Designer was involved, ergo we cannot know any more. Clearly, there are implications to the Design hypothesis that can, contra Larson, be tested, and they should be explored.

Wednesday morning, somewhere above the atmosphere, an Stephen K. Robinson will become the first ever astronaut to perform a “safety oriented repair during a mission.” It is remarkable to think that, for the forty-plus years we have been putting people into space, we’ve never done any such repair work up there.

Even though this is a minor repair (we’re talking about trimming pieces of fabric an inch and a half long here), and one that probably is not ultimately necessary, it’s good that this is happening. If mankind is ever to make space a permanent home, these sorts of repairs will necessarily become commonplace. But the first one happens Wednesday morning. It’s not the most spectacular ‘first’ in space, but it’s remarkably important.

We just honored the work of James Doohan for portraying a man who, almost weekly, performed “safety-oriented repairs” while in space, and for the first time, it’s really happening. Come Wednesday Stephen K. Robinson, in many ways, will be the first true Montgomery Scott. I just hope, for sentiment’s sake, he multiplies his repair estimate by a factor of four.

The Boston Globe this weekend ran a long, silly article bemoaning the fact that America refuses to utilize the metric system. Oddly enough, while they note the widespread resistance to the metric system, they neglect to present any real reasons the metric system is a ridiculous way to do day to day life, demurring that “this is an issue in which emotion matters as much as, and perhaps more than, reason.” But only, apparently, on the anti-metric side.

The English system developed over centuries, the product of many years of trial and error. The measurements that people liked, such as the foot, the yard, the pound. Measurements that people didn’t like generally went by the wayside–baths, amphoras, furlongs and such. The metric system is, on the other hand, as Raoul Ortega puts it in the comments to this Brothers Judd post, “is an abstraction whose beauty lies in its indifference to the way human beings actually live their lives or feel comfortable measuring things.”

Very true. Consider, how many things in life are a meter long? How many things weigh a kilogram? Why would anyone but a doctor or scientist ever need a milliliter of anything? On the other hand, a foot is a very easy measurement to eyeball. A pound is the perfect size for a burrito. A gallon is the amount of liquid that can be carried comfortably. The worst piece of the metric system, of course, is Celsius. Sure, it’s great for boiling water. But if I want to know how warm it is outside, the rough 1-100 scale of the Fahrenheit system works much better than the -18-38 scale of Celsius. The rather important gradiations between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit are summed up in half as many data points. It’s like counting on your fingers with mittens on.

Suffice it all to say, there is wisdom in the sum of our ancestors’ actions that gave us the “English” system. The metric system, built by scientists, is a great tool for scientists. But it’s kind of ridiculous to use it for baking, driving or checking the weather.

If I had any artistic talent whatsoever, I would draw an entertaining picture based on this nigh-incomprehensible letter to the editor regarding the recent anti-cloning editorial by myself and Seth Cooper. If this is the highest caliber letter to the editor the Herald recieved regarding the editorial, than those who agree with me have nothing to fear:

I read the thinly disguised guest commentary by Seth Cooper and Timothy Goddard [Thinly disguised as what?], with their unopposed views on cloning and stem cell research [As opposed to all those “opposed views” that typically appear on the editorial page?].

As I read the article, my first thoughts were that these people must be religious freaks in sheep’s clothing [How dare they behave like sensible people? We know they’re really slavering snake handlers with wild eyes and bad teeth!]. A query on the Internet substantiated that [Uhh…I think you mean ‘confirmed that.’ A thesaurus is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.] indeed they are from the God Squad [Quickly! To the God Squadmobile!], trying to impose their views on us liberals [Because only liberals read the Everett Herald! Rar!].

If God gave each of us a soul, why should we presume that he would give clones a soul? [Huh? Now who’s the religious freak?] If he did, and you were cloned, would you then only have a fractional portion [Is there another kind of portion that’s not fractional that I should know about?] of your original soul? Will Dolly the sheep and her mother now go to sheep half-heaven? [Does anyone know what this guy is talking about?]

Life is for the living, and if gathering cells from soulless embryos will help someone in need, then go for it. And if we do happen to hatch a few soulless clones, good for that, too. We can use them to do the jobs that the illegal immigrants won’t do. [Is there a widespread desire among ‘us liberals’ for an underclass of soulless clones to clean our sewers? Because if there is, that’s really disturbing.]

Please, don’t run one-side commentaries. [Yes, we demand two-side commentaries! Possibly nine-side commentaries!] They’re as misleading as Rush Limbaugh. [Look! Random conservative boogey-man jammed in at the end for effect! Anncoultertomdelayseanhannitybarrygoldwaterherberthooverattillathehun!]

Ron Larsen
Everett

Sadly, “a query on the Internet” was fruitless in substantiating whether or not Mr. Larsen is from the Secular Squad, trying to impose his views on us conservatives. Thus, I cannot email him to find out what in blue blazes he was talking about. For his sake, I hope this was just a very poor editing job on the part of the Editorial Page, because–wow.

As Seth noted today, the Democrats in Olympia are still trying to push cloning through. Do us a favor and call up your State Senator, asking them whether or not they agree with Ron Larsen of Everett that we should “hatch a few soulless clones” so they can “do the jobs that the illegal immigrants won’t do.”

Seth Cooper and I have an editorial in today’s Everett Herald regarding EHB 1268, which would legalize human cloning–as long as the clones are killed. headlined State cloning bill would set too dangerous a precedent. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but a quick skim implies that it escaped the editor’s pen relatively unscathed. Here’s a teaser:

The action-fantasy film “The Matrix” described a nightmarish future filled with fierce kung-fu fighting. Human beings were no longer born, but grown and used as energy-producing batteries to power a race of sentient machines.

The movie was entertaining science-fiction, but a disturbing scenario is now playing out in Olympia, where pending legislation would legalize the creation of human life for the sole purpose of destruction for its raw materials. The creation of human clones could be on the fast track in Washington .

As they say, read the whole thing.