It really is like playing God to the astronomy community: “The future of X-ray astronomy now looks bleak,” declared an esteemed former colleague (and X-ray astronomer) on Facebook. By allotting only $180 million¹ over the next decade for the proposed X-ray telescope IXO, research in this highly energetic range of electromagnetic frequencies has been put on hold. As Julianne Dalcanton pointed out at Cosmic Variance:

The real bummer about these recommendations is that entire subfields of US astronomy are pretty much shut out of the only environment where they can operate. X-ray, UV, and high-resolution astronomy . . . are fundamentally space-based enterprises, and when Chandra and HST [Hubble Space Telescope] shut down, there will be nothing left, and nothing in the pipeline for a decade or more.

In other words, thanks to our atmosphere, which protects weaklings like us from dangerous radiation like X-rays and ultraviolet rays, we won’t be seeing anything new in these wavelengths anytime soon. Bleak, indeed.

Meanwhile, cosmologists like me won big: not only was Cosmic Dawn (the early stages of the universe’s existence) selected as one of three major research priorities for the next decade, but also the number one priority for space-based missions/telescopes is the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which will be tasked with hunting for a better understanding of the mysterious cosmic acceleration, thought to be caused by something (we really don’t know what) called Dark Energy. As a bonus, the capabilities needed for chasing down answers about Dark Energy can also be used to hunt for Earth-sized worlds in other solar systems, and WFIRST will be charged with that mission as well.

Of course, the 225 page report does more than excite cosmologists and deflate X-ray/UV astronomers. Ground-based optical observers have a lot to be excited about, as do theorists and experimentalists hoping to detect gravitational waves in the next two decades as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) received a tentative endorsement from the committee. Allotments were made for smaller missions as new discoveries require them, and this allows us the flexibility of pursuing research in an unpredictable but exciting area: the whole Universe.

Looking at another set of winners, the chapter on Astronomy and Society introduced topics previously covered in Astro decadals, but never in such great detail or with such explicit recommendations. Growing US astronomy over the next decade and indeed over the decades following it requires ensuring that enough Americans pursue education and research in the field. They note the dire need to accelerate the recruitment and retention of Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans into astronomy and astrophysics. While this issue was touched on in the previous decadal, this is really the first one to forcefully make this point:²

Black Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans constitute 27% of the US population . . . This cohort accounts for only 4% of astronomy PhDs awarded in the US and 3% of faculty members. To achieve parity would require increasing the annual rate of minority PhDs in astronomy from around 5 to a sustained value of 40 over a period of 30 years . . . Failing to tap into such a large fraction of the population is hurting the country through not accessing a large human resource.

Indeed, if the US wants to maintain the current numbers of people involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields (often referred to simply as STEM), then underrepresented people of color have to be integrated in much larger numbers, simply because of changing demographics. Otherwise, we are looking at a future where Americans just don’t do science.

I’ll leave it to the reader to guess at what that would mean for the American economy. Noting that astronomy is often the gateway (drug) to science for impressionable young people, the report emphasizes that ongoing support for the diversification of astronomy is essential to preparing the US for our technological future. The report goes on to mention my two favorite science organizations, the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists. By the way, despite this focus on the future of American science, this survey had a notable international flavor, including international members of the committees involved in putting it together.

What is clear from listening to the press conference, reading the blog responses, and looking at the actual report is that, like anything else that involves large sums of money and a lot of people, everything still seems to come back to politics, or human error. I think they may be the same thing, or at least very much related. Was the committee right to gamble on cosmology, largely at the expense of everything else? Or did they do that because Adam Riess, a lead discoverer of cosmic acceleration, was on the committee that made programming recommendations? Perhaps it’s not Adam, but public perception – cosmology is wildly popular right now. Either way, it’s felt that the committee did not always make the most scientific evaluation possible, and I’m willing to believe that.

It’s also clear that things might have been different if certain evil people and organizations, ahem Goldman-$achsholes, hadn’t crashed the economy, leaving us fighting even harder for the budgets necessary to do large-scale astronomy exploration. Even as we practitioners of the scientific art dream big, Congress and the President will continue to spend trillions on unpopular wars while asking the rest of us to tighten our belts. As a scientist, I know I’ve felt this the least, and one thing I can do is try to lighten the load as a cosmologist by helping others to dream of something bigger than bombs, reminding everyone that the Universe outside of this struggling planet is a glorious, beautiful and fascinating place. Or, as the committee wrote:

The universe has always beckoned us. Over the course of human civilization, the night sky has provided a calendar for the farmer, a guide for the sailor, and a home for the gods. Astronomy . . . has revealed that the sky visible to the naked eye is really just a hint of a vast and complex cosmos, within which our home planet is but a pale blue dot.

In truth, this decadal marks an important personal moment for me. As of September, I will be one of the 5 or 6 Black North American PhDs in astrophysics this year, and I will also be one of the first on the scene preparing the WFIRST project for its jaunt in space. That’s exciting, and I hope my excitement will be contagious.

2 This may have something to do with the fact that for the first time white men were not an overwhelming majority on the committee, but that’s just my personal theory.

X-ray shot via NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Flickr account

A major point to understand is that there are two purposes for fuel. The first is fuel for energy needs other than transportation- home heating and cooling, electricity, manufacturing. These needs are in some ways more easily met, because the fuel itself doesn’t need to be portable. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectricity, coal, petroleum, and natural gas are fuels currently being used for non-transport needs.

The other purpose is of course transportation, for which we use gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

First I’m going to talk about non-portable fuels.

Solar

The energy of the sun is 100% renewable, not ownable by any one country or corporation, available all over the world, and harmless to harvest. The only drawbacks to solar energy is that harvesting it requires a large capital investment in solar panels, and that solar energy is so far not useful for transportation fuel.

Solar panels are made up of photovoltaic cells. These cells use diodes to separate electrons from photons, and that separation generates electricity. The solar panel then stores the electricity. Solar panels are excellent for non-transportation fuel use. In the past a large number of photovoltaic cells were needed to generate a small amount of electricity, but the technology has obeyed the “make it small” maxim of the last decade and gotten thinner and more efficient. Germany has utilized solar electricity to great effect, offering incentives to consumers and manufacturers. It is now one of the largest users and producers of solar panels- all this despite being a country notorious for its bad weather. Imagine how well the US, with its large areas of temperate or desert climates, could use solar energy.

Recent legislation, including the Wall Street bailout bill, have increased incentives for individuals to start using solar panels at home. A homeowner can now get a tax rebate of up to one third the price of their new solar system. These tax incentives will help an already-growing industry. Some companies that are making solar systems are Q-Cells, Nanosolar, and SunPower. The more solar energy is utilzed, the less we will need fossil fuels for generating electricity.

Wind

Wind power is another energy source that is renewable, not ownable, and almost harmless to harvest. It is not quite as universally available as solar, though, and a big objection to it is the “not in my back yard” ugliness and space sucking of wind farms.

Windmills are a very old form of energy harvesting, having been in use since the 1400s. Wind turns the turbine, which creates electricity, which is then stored. Wind farms are common in several states with large expanses of open land. Unfortunately federal legislation has hampered the development of wind power to some extent by requiring extensive environmental impact reports, and by not providing the same tax credits and incentives that the ethanol and oil industries have enjoyed. Like solar, wind energy can only be utilized with a large capital investment, so without tax incentives it has been difficult for the wind industry to build momentum.

Geothermal

Geothermal energy uses water made into steam by the heat of the earth’s core. Geothermal energy is renewable and very clean. Unlike wind or sun energy, though, it is ownable because it can only be accessed by drilling deep wells to access the heat inside the earth.

Geothermal energy is primarily in use in the western US, especially Alaska. These states have more readily available sources of earth-heated water.

Geothermal energy requires a large capital investment, but is very efficient once developed. The US Department of Energy has a geothermal energy program as part of its Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy department, which works in partnership with private industry to develop energy resources. Geothermal technology is still evolving, and in the coming years we may see it get even more efficient as the ability to extract heat directly from the earth’s magma develops.

Hydroelectricity

As the name implies, hydroelectricity is power generate by moving water. A dam holds the water of a river back, and slowly releases it through a turbine. The technology is relatively simple, and is widely used in areas with both high precipitation and natural landforms that allow for water pressure to build behind the dam. This form of electricity is very clean emissions-wise, but very damaging to the water systems the dams are built on. For example, the Hoover Dam dried up the once-mighty Colorado river, which had flowed all the way to the Gulf of California. Hydroelectricity is therefore controversial- while it is much cleaner than other sources of energy, it is derided by environmentalists and conservationalists.

Now we move on to the much more difficult energy problem: transport fuels. There have been different approaches to this issue: creating new, renewable, clean-burning fuels that are chemically unlike existing fuels (vegetable oil diesel and pure ethanol being examples), or creating fuels very similar chemically to existing fuels using renewable sources and without the negative side effects of petroleum-based fuels (such as biodiesel).

It’s become apparent that to significantly dent our reliance on petroleum, we will need fuels that mimic gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as closely as possible in terms of performance, availability, and engine requirements. If consumers and industries have to buy new engines or convert their old engines, they won’t switch over until it’s absolutely necessary. If they have to go to special fueling stations, or find fuel themselves, they won’t switch. Furthermore, something like jet fuel has very stringent specifications for freezing point, vapor point, and density.

So let’s go over the options.

Ethanol

Ethanol is alcohol. It is the same stuff that gets us drunk. In fuel form, it is denatured (basically made unpotable). It, like gasoline, is flammable and explosive. It produces less ozone than pure gasoline, but the same amount of other greenhouse gases as gasoline- so switching to ethanol would not reduce our global warming problem by very much at all. Ethanol is not being used by itself as a fuel, but is being mixed with gasoline in many places. E85 is 85% gasoline, 15% ethanol. Gasahol is 90% gas, 10% ethanol.

There are a number of methods (straight fermentation, cellulosic) and feedstocks (corn, sugarcane, switchgrass) for producing ethanol. It would require a whole article to explain these methods, so I will save that for another time. All of these methods require significant amounts of energy (currently petroleum energy) to produce, granting ethanol an unfavorable EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) ratio. One major problem with corn ethanol, which the US government has been backing, is that corn does not have much sugar in it, so to get enough sugar to make ethanol, a lot of waste is produced. Cellulosic ethanol begins to address this issue, but it is still in development, and the EROEI will still not be terribly favorable once cellulosic methods are viable.

Corn and sugarcane ethanol also bring with them the problem of using food as fuel in a world where people are starving. Switchgrass is inedible, but an acre of switchgrass is an acre that’s not being used for food. The corn ethanol industry has already had a real impact on the price of food in countries where corn is the primary staple, such as Mexico. If corn were our main source of fuel in the US, millions, perhaps billions, of people would have to find a new staple food.

All of this adds up to a losing bet, which is unfortunate because the US has poured millions into ethanol in the form of subsidies and minimum percentage requirements.

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is diesel fuel made by separating glycerin out of vegetable oil using transesterification. Biodiesel has a specific, legally defined chemical makeup, which is not to be confused with green diesel or raw vegetable oil (RVO) fuel. Soybean oil is a common source of biodiesel.

Biodiesel is already being sold at some fueling stations. Gas stations in Oregon have biodiesel pumps. It works in any diesel engine, and it has lower emissions than petrodiesel. It biodegrades, and is almost totally nontoxic. It is also much more energy efficient than ethanol, having a much better EROEI. Sounds dreamy right? Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks.

Biodiesel freezes at a much higher temperature than petrodiesel, making it useless for transport in very cold weather- like anything lower than 23 degrees Fahrenheit. So it can’t be used in its pure form for trucking in the winter in most parts of the US, and of course trucking is the biggest use of diesel.

The other big disadvantage is that food crops are needed to make biodiesel. Unlike cellulosic ethanol, which can be made with the inedible parts of plants, biodiesel must be made from food people could otherwise eat. This problem with food vs fuel has been well publicized, and it is a serious moral dilemma that the Western world is finally having to face.

Raw Vegetable Oil

This is when you take filtered vegetable oil like the kind you can buy in a store and use it to fuel a diesel engine. The engine has to be modified first (directions are available online). Emissions are significant, but no worse than petrodiesel. This is a great option for people who have a diesel engine, the technical know-how to convert their engine and keep it running, and a cheap or free source of vegetable oil. Some cities, such as Half Moon Bay, California, have co-ops that work to convert cars and source vegetable oil.

Green Diesel

Green diesel is diesel made from vegetable or animal oils using a process called hydrocracking. Basically the oil is heated in the presence of another chemical. This separates the glycerin from the fat. This process produces a diesel with a much lower freezing point than biodiesel. In fact, the freezing point is so low that energy company Neste is beginning to test it for jet fuel.

However, the ol’ food vs fuel debate is still a huge problem for green diesel.

Proprietary Strain Fermentation

This is a process currently being developed by three Bay Area companies- Amyris (full disclosure: they are my employers), LS9, and JBEI. These companies are competing to breed a microbe that will eat feedstock and produce fuels comparable to jet and diesel. None of these companies yet had products on the market. Their goals are to make fuel cheaper, more plentiful, with fewer emissions, and with less impact on the food market. It remains to be seen if they will succeed.

For insightful, objective analysis of the energy industry, I encourage you to check out Robert Rapier’s i-r-squared.blogspot.com.

Further Reading:

solarpanelinfo.com

awea.org

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/index.html

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/hydro.html

www.oaklandtribune.com

www.journeytoforever.org

www.biodiesel.org

www.i-r-squared.blogspot.com

One of the most famous images associated with Charles Minard is his temporal map (pictured above) which details the ill-fated march of Napoleon into Russia in 1812-1813. It is no accident that one of the first complex information graphics schematized a military campaign, considering the longstanding tradition of technological and informational innovation being spurned by the gears of war. This particular cartographic enterprise has become of of the signature images of information visualization and can often be found within the first several slides of any introductory presentation on the topic. However, instead of submerging into a detailed analysis of the techniques and methodology of Minard in this visualization, a more fruitful discussion would be to instead dwell on the fact that this image was produced to document and represent a military campaign. Given that technological innovation is implicit in warfare, it only follows that the military is a key area of interest to any historical analysis of information visualization.

Of the many battles that took place between the United Kingdom and Germany during WWII, the Battle of the Beams was one of the most decisive. This conflict pitted nascent British and German radar technology against one another with aerial dominance of the skies over England hanging in the balance.

Radar was first developed by the German inventor Christian Huelsmeyer for the purpose of collision avoidance in nautical navigation. Huelsmeyer publicly demonstrated his system in 1904 and it operated by firing radio waves at targets and detecting their reflections. Over the next two decades, European and North American scientists would further develop this research and the range of radar systems extended from several to 25 miles. By the onset of the war, radar was emerging as a viable tactical tool. The crux of British-German radar warfare emerged from the German air force’s utilization of the Knickebein and X-Gerät signal transmission systems to enable nighttime bombing runs over Britain. The Luftwaffe bombing raids were executed with surgical precision and this presented a sea change in aerial warfare to which the British military had to respond. Fortunately for Britain, a rudimentary radar network had been implemented before the onset of the war and it was able to serve as the cornerstone in a comprehensive British defense strategy that would ultimately “out-visualize” their German opponents.

In 1937, a prototype radar network was set up along the perimeters of Great Britain. Dubbed Chain Home, the system consisted of a line of transmitter stations positioned at 50 mile intervals around the perimeter of the United Kingdom. Led by scientist Robert Watson-Watt the British military capitalized on this system to develop state-of-the-art methods for enemy detection and fire control. This advanced mapping of the airspace over the United Kingdom acted as a force-multiplier allowing the British defenses to concentrate the aircraft where they were needed most and coordinate supporting anti-aircraft fire. Chain Home was monitored by oscilloscope display units and the operation of this system is described in wikipedia as follows:

When a pulse was sent out into the broadcast towers, the scope was triggered to start its beam moving horizontally across the screen very rapidly. The output from the receiver was amplified and fed into the vertical axis of the scope, so a return from an aircraft would deflect the beam upward. This formed a spike on the display, and the distance from the left side—measured with a small scale on the bottom of the screen—would give the distance to the target. By rotating the receiver goniometer [a tool for measuring angles] connected to the antennas to make the display disappear, the operator could determine the direction to the target… while the size of the vertical displacement indicated something of the number of aircraft involved. By comparing the strengths returned from the various antennas up the tower, the altitude could be determined.

This imaging technology provided the British forces with an early warning system by generating realtime data tracking German aerial activity over, or approaching, the United Kingdom. These types of radar-based defense networks have been described as “electromagnetic curtains”, an upgrade to the medieval notion of fortification in which brick and mortar are bolstered and extended by telecommunication infrastructure (see Manuel de Landa’s War in the Age of Intelligent Machines for an excellent critical reading of the history of the technology).

Parallel to the development of radar, British military engineers also implemented identification, friend or foe (IFF), which utilized an early version of RFID technology to distinguish friendly from "other" aircraft on a radar display. This kind of "tagging" and related RFID technology (along with the ubiquitous database) is now a driving force of contemporary inventory management.

The technological developments outlined above provided Britain with the strategic edge it required to turn the tide in the air war against Germany. Oscilloscope based radar system would eventually give way to the Plan Position Indicator (PPI) display (pictured above in a contemporary meteorological context), which is now universally associated with radar technology.

This post originally appeared on Serial Consign. View it here.

This latest installment of Preserving Our Independents doesn’t feature an official small publisher (as has been the case in past installments) but rather a small publishing venture. And just like the presses previously featured, this project uses a DIY approach to pursue admirable initiatives.

Are you aware of the incredible adaptations of cephalopods? Or that scientists have discovered a special virus that kills harmful bacteria in hot dogs? Do you know that people use different sets of muscles to create fake smiles and genuine smiles? Maybe these facts are new to you; maybe you learned some of them in school. Or maybe you were riding the train the other day and happened upon a little zine that cleverly explained some of these scientific curiosities.

In the latter case, you might have stumbled upon a publication from the Small Science Collective, a public education project that aims to put scientific information in the hands of non-scientists. The collective accomplishes this by publishing one-page zines and pamphlets on a range of enlightening topics—everything from smiles and cephalopods to stem cells and pheromones—and then distributing them in public spaces: at coffee shops, on park benches, inside the sugar packet containers at restaurants, between the pages of in-flight magazines.

The zines are written and designed by Small Science Collective founder Andrew Yang, as well as fellow scientists, friends, and his students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Yang teaches courses in biology and the intersection of art and science. The idea originated when Yang was a student himself, and he kept finding Chick tracts—little illustrated booklets designed to be evangelistic tools—popping up around campus, particularly in the building where he was doing his graduate studies in evolutionary biology.

“I think the cleaning staff might have been putting them around surreptitiously—trying to convert our wayward souls to their view of things,” Yang says. But while he took issue with the content and intent of these booklets, he still considered them interesting on an aesthetic level. “Although the tracts can be pretty ridiculous, I have never picked one up that I haven’t read through. As little comics, they are really compelling and kind of beautiful objects,” Yang says.

Yang already had an interest in zines and handmade brochures as a way of disseminating ideas, but he was frustrated that science information wasn’t being disseminated as widely or earnestly as these religious stories. Yang began discussing these issues with a friend, astrophysicist Jeff Oishi. Both wondered how useful, interesting, and educational science could be communicated. “Science as an institution does a very bad job at educating people about its concerns, its findings, and how science works,” Yang says. “It strikes me as strange that as significant as it is, science doesn’t penetrate the everyday lives we lead, and…is often restricted to very formal venues, like the textbook, the museum, the standardized font.”

For these reasons, Yang eventually started making science zines with his students at the Art Institute. In this way, students who were already adept at combining visual and narrative content and thinking about ideas creatively could learn about science topics by actually communicating about science.

“There is this whole other issue about who gets to communicate science, how experts and teachers appear to be the ones exclusively with that authority,” Yang says. “But that lack of personal agency is so much of the problem of why people don’t engage with science or technology and feel helpless and daunted by it.”

The one-page zines certainly encourage engagement and discovery, and they do so with a sense of wonder and often a sense of humor. Some zines are typed; many are handwritten. Some contain field drawings and illustrated diagrams; others incorporate old sepia-toned photographs, comics, and collage. All of them present facts and scientific tidbits in an entertaining, easy-to-understand format.

There’s a zine about evolutionary biology called Snake Legs and Wisdom Teeth, which was designed to look like one of the aforementioned Chick tracts, and a publication titled simply Ants, which shares facts about such fascinating types of ants as the honeypot ant, leafcutter ant, and weaver ant. The Mini Book of Sexual Selection explains different traits in animals that contribute to their reproductive success, and Hole in Yer Head identifies the various uh, holes in our heads that make sensory experience possible.

Whatever the topic discussed therein, each zine attempts to explain scientific concepts and discoveries to people who might not otherwise be exposed to (or independently pursue) such information. In so doing, the collective hopes that everyone, particularly non-scientists and non-specialists, will feel empowered to learn more. “When folks spot me on the train dropping [the zines] around, it starts conversations and sparks curiosity,” says Yang. “In that sense, it isn’t exclusively an ‘anonymous’ format; it also provides a lot of opportunity to connect with people.”

And that’s what this publishing venture is all about: starting conversation, sparking curiosity. Via simple, easily distributable zines and pamphlets, the Small Science Collective is helping people more actively engage in their world. For copies of the zines, visit the SSC website and simply download, print, and fold the publications of your choice.

In Part One of this serial, I set the stage for the need to understand the biology of capitalism. Here, in Part Two, I will explore the foundational theories of Thomas Malthus, and I will situate them in their historical context. Then to conclude, in Part Three, I will offer a reading on the effects of his ideas in contemporary policy making that effects issues ranging from humanitarian aid to public policy as well as naturalized understandings of capitalism and its effects.

credit: ]]> http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/03/the-biology-of-capitalism-scarcity-poverty-and-population-part-2/feed/ 0 http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/03/the-biology-of-capitalism-scarcity-poverty-and-population/ http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/03/the-biology-of-capitalism-scarcity-poverty-and-population/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:05:59 +0000 Chris Kortright http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/03/21/the-biology-of-capitalism-scarcity-poverty-and-population/ Part 1: Biology and Capitalism In the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote, “a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought …”. This is a fitting description of the struggle for survival in the present structures of political and economic alienation that most humans face confronting late (or neo-liberal) capitalism. I think this metaphor works better than the “nature, red in tooth and claw” evolutionary imagery (animal against animal) that has become the center of evolutionary and capitalist economic theory for over 200 years. We have been taught that capitalism is rooted in natural selection–by this I mean that the relations necessary for the functioning of capitalism are the same relations that are central in the evolutionary process. Dendrites merging credit: neurollero Thus, I argue there is a biology of capitalism. In this three part serial I hope to explore the connection between biology and capitalism; the rise of this theoretical connection; and then the political and policy implications of this connection. We are taught about this connection when we read biology and economic textbooks; watch the Discovery Channel, the Animal Channel, Nova or CNN, Fox News, listen to NPR, or go to natural history museums. This connection, offered as a lesson in biology, can be found in the teaching of biologists such as Richard Hawkins, E. O. Wilson, Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin (whom I will address in more detail in part 3); the theories about hunter/gatherer subsistence strategies argued by archeologists like Lewis Binford; and in the arguments of gendered differences in mate selection, reproductive strategies and genetic fitness ingrained the theories of evolutionary psychology propagated by Steven Pinker and Robert Wright. This biology of capitalism got its staying power and strength by the powerhouse writings of Charles Darwin, but its roots are in the philosophy of 19th century British cleric and economist Thomas Malthus. To understand issues ranging from contemporary capitalist practices to large-scale humanitarian aid, it is important to revisit and discuss the works of Malthus. But wait! Before your eye begins to wander across the webpage, preparing to click onto a different article, I ask for your patience. What follows is not an exploration of the philosophical wanderings of some obscure 19th century personality. It is an investigation of the ways in which biological theory and economics have collided each informing the other in very tangible ways, which affects our lives today some 200 years after the fact. The interweaving of biological and capitalist theory has a long history, and this interweaving is more than just metaphor-it has very real material effects. The result of these interweavings has been a set of ideas that naturalize capitalism, so as to justify exploitation and eliminate the ability to think beyond capitalism. But these ideas do more than just naturalize capitalism, they are a justification for poverty; they propagate the myth that overpopulation is the central cause of issues in the global south; they justify arguments against AIDS and famine relief in Africa; they justify forced sterilization and propagate funding that pays poor women (exclusively) to become sterile; they justify and legitimize the portion of the Sierra Club that argued for anti-immigration policy, against poverty relief and against issues of environmental justice; and they rationalize the recent controversy over Professor Watson’s statement on Africa. The combined effect of these incidents has had a devastating effect on billions of lives. So, let’s go back to the biology. Darwin based his theory of natural selection on Malthus’s theory that population growth will always outstrip food supply and lead to the overt (bloody) battles leading to disappearing resources. This view of population (and biology) mirrored the view on the emerging industrial capitalist cities that Malthus saw-mass migration from the countryside lead to polluted and crowded cities as a result of such acts as the enclosures (which I will discuss in part 2.) Darwin moved from this imagery and maintained a view of ecology centered on a world stuffed full of competing species-so balanced and crowded that a new species could only gain entry into the world by literally replacing-destroying-a former inhabitant. Both Darwin and Alfred Wallace independently developed the theory of natural selection-each credited theoretical foundation and inspiration from Malthus. Both theories were based on their experiences with natural history in the tropics. It was in the tropics that they evoked Malthus’s crowed slums of the industrial city and articulated it ecologically-the biological density of the islands offered this same competition of body against body. Darwin acknowledged in Origin of Species that both forms of struggle mentioned in the opening (the plant in the desert and the animal versus animal) existed, but due to the influence of Malthus, he chose to emphasize the competition between species after his field experiences in the tropics. Indeed today if you ask someone to explain evolutionary theory they are likely to say it about competition between species for survival. If one of the most influential theories of our time and the founding of our present understanding of biology is based on the work of this 19th century economist, what was his theory? In Part Two, I will investigate Malthus’ theories while historically situating his ideas about carrying capacity and population in relation to the rise of capitalism. Then, in Part Three (appearing Thursday the 27th), I will explore the direct effects his theory has had on ideas of genetics, ecology, humanitarian aid and public policy. The Biology of Capitalism: Part 2 The Biology of Capitalism: Part 3 (Goes live Thursday, March 27) ]]> http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/03/the-biology-of-capitalism-scarcity-poverty-and-population/feed/ 2 http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/02/progressive-imperatives/ http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/02/progressive-imperatives/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:48:07 +0000 Chris Kortright http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/02/20/progressive-imperatives/ Change has been one of the key mantras of this coming election, and genetics has become a hot button issue over the past few years in electoral politics in general. We see genetics emerge in debates about stem cells and the future of certain forms scientific research in this country under the pressure of religious fundamentalists (see this White House Statement and New York Times Op-Ed). The Senate has passed three different bills concerning stem cell research. The Senate passed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, making it legal for the Federal government to spend Federal money on embryonic stem cell research that uses embryos left over from in vitro fertilization procedures. President Bush vetoed this bill. Then they passed a bill making it illegal to create, grow, and abort fetuses for research purposes. The last bill would encourage research that would isolate stem cells without the destruction of human embryos. Congressman Ron Paul introduced the Cures Can Be Found Act, with 10 cosponsors. With an income tax credit, the bill favors research upon nonembryonic stem cells obtained from placentas, umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, humans after birth, or unborn human offspring who died of natural causes. Bush vetoed another bill, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, that would have amended the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research. I have a close friend who spent many years researching the genetic structure of both HIV1 and HIV2. As the primary elections began, he looked at me in a mix of fear and self-loathing as he stated, “I never thought I would say this, but I want to vote for Al Gore. I want someone who understands science to be running the country. I mean you can pass a law telling me I can’t research on stem cells and you don’t even fucking believe in evolution? We live in an anti-science religious state, man!” I nodded in agreement with the “anti-science religious state,” but couldn’t go as far as ever thinking I would vote for Al Gore. Genetics does also hold gigantic implications for the progressive politics as well. The right does not hold a monopoly on a specific genetic-politics. We see this in debates over Genetically Modified crops, pharmaceutical research, health care and insurance coverage (specifically people getting denied health care for genetic reasons.) And we have started to see a reemergence of genetic inscription of race, which is apparent with GenSpec marketing race specific vitamins. Genetics are everywhere in politics today, but I want to think about a different way that genetics is being used politically. This form of a genetic-politics determines how we can do politics, what changes are possible and how we behave as human beings. Back when I was 17, I worked at a gigantic national chain video store. One day while smoking a cigarette on break with one of my managers, he looked over at me and said, “I don’t understand how you can work in the service sector and still have radical politics. People are just assholes. We see it everyday. People treat us like shit because it is human nature to be greedy and mean.” 16 years later I still have my politics and I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. There is an inherently sinister notion of defeatism in this sentiment. I recognize that this Hobbesian notion of human nature is not new, but more recently these ideas of “human nature” have become understood in genetic terms. Human behavior and human potential is being explained and understood as genetic, which of course makes sense to us on may levels. Most people in US have some faith in science (even if the present leadership doesn’t). Secondly, and more important, the behavior that is usually described genetically is so naturalized to us, as Americans, that we just believe it is “nature.” What becomes geneticized is the economic, political and gender inequalities that are inherent in the present late capitalist, liberal democratic and patriarchal system. This is scary because these inequalities become inherently human and determine our behavior making change not up to us but up to natural selection (as if it had a design), but as the advocates (both academic and popular) argue it is precisely these behaviors of exploitation that have created us as homo sapiens sapiens (i.e. human.) The argument goes: Social relations and human behavior is the product of self-interested competition between individuals. The genes of these individuals calculate their interests in the logic of cost-benefit analysis; its goal is the proliferation of genetic endowments through natural selection. As I said above, there is a faith in science. Even many of the scientist and individuals who oppose Intelligent Design have a design of their own. In this logic, natural section has a plan and genes are rational actors that think like stockbrokers. Many evolutionary biologists and social scientist have fought long and hard against these conceptions of evolution and genetics (see Susan McKinnon and Steven J. Gould’s critiques of evolutionary psychology as well as Marshall Sahlins’ critique of sociobiology), but the image works so well that we, as Americans, believe that the logics of hierarchy and capital exploitation can be explained biologically…absolutely in nature. So social change can only go so far until the unnaturalness of progressive politics fall apart. To go further into these genetic theories, it is believed that people are driven to maximize their own reproductive success. They invest first and foremost in their own genetic children and do not want to waste resources on children and people who are not genetically connected to them. Any other forms of social relations and solidarity are seen as fundamentally unnatural, or more precisely impossible. This behavior can only be explained through a self-interested form of sharing called reciprocal altruism, which means people only show solidarity if there is a material benefit to them. Within this logic, politics becomes a matter of choosing the candidate for the maximization of benefit that I will receive from the next government. If we go back to the story of my friend, we can see that only certain political moves become thinkable; in this case voting for Al Gore becomes an act of depoliticizing politics, but it is the only act that seems natural. This theory of science has devastating effects on the possibility of thinking and practices other ways of social and economic organizing. It restructures how we understand and practice community, family, gender and the production and distribution of necessities … and yes, it destroys any notion of significant social and political change. ]]> http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/02/progressive-imperatives/feed/ 1 http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/01/getting-physicists-to-invest-in-caring-not-killing-who-takes-responsibility/ http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/01/getting-physicists-to-invest-in-caring-not-killing-who-takes-responsibility/#comments Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:08:52 +0000 Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein http://www.isgreaterthan.net/2008/01/30/getting-physicists-to-invest-in-caring-not-killing-who-takes-responsibility/ And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? For eight and a half years now, I have ridden the tide of ample funding for “basic” research in physics and astronomy. From the well-funded Harvard Physics Department and the mostly Federally funded Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA to the National Science Foundation-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates hosted in the summers at the University of Chicago Department of Physics, I’ve never been wanting for funding to engage in research. By the time I was a twenty year old baccalaureate, I had cleaned up raw images of supernovae taken by Hubble, built a component for the Tevatron at Fermilab, observed masers (lasers in the radio frequencies) with the Very Large Array (featured in the film “Contact”), built lasers for Lene Hau’s slow-light experiments, assisted in the development of a theory about extrasolar planetary atmospheres and studied the structure of Active Galactic Nuclei (thought to be home to the universe’s most massive black holes). In 2003, I arrived at UC Santa Cruz to begin a Phd in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the department seemed to have more research money than students to give it to. There was an amazing array of research areas to choose from, all lead by top faculty in their respective fields. As far as I was concerned, I was in the money. But, I learned quickly that one cannot always assume that the money comes from savoury sources. During the introductory research tutorial, one faculty member bragged to us neophytes that one of the observatories managed at Santa Cruz would soon have a planet-finding telescope. How did they get the start-up money for it? He proudly told us, “We piggy-backed on one of Bush’s post-9/11 defense bills.” I am willing to concede that at least the money isn’t going to be spent on Iraq or Afghanistan. Still, it was hard for me to understand taking pride in a victory that was essentially shared with George Bush’s war machine. This is not the only way Santa Cruz has touches bases with that realm. UCSC manages all of the University of California’s Observatories (UCO), including the Keck and Lick telescopes, which have been testing grounds for the civilian use of a military technology: adaptive optics (AO). Thanks to AO, ground-based telescopes can be just as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope. UC Santa Cruz is now the headquarters of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Adaptive Optics (CfAO), which has ties to Lawrence Livermore National Lab, a facility with a long history of weapons building. These ties are more than informal – at least one member of the CfAO faculty has a cross appointment at Livermore. In essence, the continued development of AO is now a joint venture between civilian and military scientists. Does that mean that we should stop doing research in adaptive optics? This is a question I was forced to ask as, more than once, astronomers from my department clashed with campus anti-war activists over the CfAO. I was caught in the middle. I grew up in a household where we did not watch GI Joe or play with guns because having the power to take someone’s life is not a game and not to be glorified. In February 1991, my family was outside of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, protesting Bush Sr.’s Gulf War. On September 13, 2001, I was sitting in Phillips Brooks House, home to all community service organizations at Harvard, discussing how to oppose impending US military aggression against Afghanistan. On a cold day in March 2003, I spoke to thousands of people at Government Center in Boston about my opposition to the newly-begun war in Iraq. There is no question that I have consistently stood for investing in caring instead of killing. And so had many of the astronomers around me. Conversation on the grad student e-mail list regularly turned to how strongly we felt that the wars, both of them, were wrong, to how strongly we all disliked Bush and how immensely dreadful America’s response to the fall of the Twin Towers was. The faculty was no different. At the daily morning coffee break, they regularly expressed their fears and anxieties about what was happening. In effect, these people were not (and are not) warmongers. They weren’t in a rush to “shock and awe the A-rabs.” They were people who loved looking up at night and being able to tell a true story about what they saw, people who thought lasers were fascinating, people who had an intuitive relationship with optics. Additionally, the vast majority of them were people who loved sharing this vision with the outside world: the CfAO’s extensive outreach programs from elementary school through undergraduate are impressive and well-supported by both grads and faculty in the Astronomy Department. Naively, it seems like these are the sort of people we should celebrate: people who show passion for understanding the natural world and a desire to spread that joy and the hope that comes with understanding how small and insignificant and precious and unique we all are as a race and as individuals. But the activists had a point. The CfAO was a grey zone. Much as the astronomers might prefer their research to be entirely civilian and entirely useless to the military, most likely that isn’t the case. Another tough lesson that I had to learn about funding was that it’s damn hard to get some if you’re not doing research that is considered “useful.” Although I’ve developed a sensibility about its meaning, the interpretation of the word in physics and astronomy research remains ambiguous. It seems to follow the tide of Congressional opinion about what should be supported. Traditionally this has meant research that it is in the “National Interest” to support. This is considered to be research that either: A. gets us ahead by making us look cool in the reignited Cold War (a rhetoric now being applied to competition with China, and to some extent, the EU,) or B. enhances our military prowess through better surveillance, better weapons, better planes, etc. II. And we may ask ourselves, my God! What have we done? It’s impossible to talk about either option without mentioning the hideous blight on human history that is the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project. In the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the awesome power of physicists to radically impact the world was recognized. The National Science Foundation (NSF), a Federal agency, was founded to provide funding for research in the “National Interest.” Because it had become clear that high energy physicists could provide their nation with new weapons, an infusion of money via the Department of Energy went into research on high energy physics. These researches lead us to tremendous developments in particle physics, thus contributing to our fundamental understanding of the universe. The number of people (well, white men mostly) earning PhDs in physics swelled. Groups like the JASONS were formed by Manhattan project scientists and the Department of Defense, and physicists became an integral part of the state apparatus. Simultaneously, the Cold War raged on and astronomers found a deep well of funding in the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Terrified that the Soviets might get to take over space first, the Eisenhower administration threw money at the space program. We’ve all heard about the space race, so I won’t get into the details. Needless to say, forty years later, the NSF and NASA are funding giants. I hope at this stage the picture is becoming clear. The history of funding in physics and astronomy is fundamentally tied to the history of what Eisenhower termed the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). And so far, I have talked about it in fairly calm, unaffected terms. This is something that we are trained to do in the academy, particularly in the sciences. Still, what I have written about here is a highly emotional issue, not just for science’s victims but for scientists as well, one that I have shed many tears over. One that I have crawled into bed afraid to pick up my textbooks over. When I was ten, I knew that scientists had the potential to do evil, but I couldn’t help getting the Call. In the same way that some people must paint and others must play music, I just have to understand the amazing fact of this elegant relationship between mathematical descriptions and the reality of our world. For me it has remained a child-like love, and this is in part what has caused me tremendous pain. Struggling with this has made me realize that the question, at this stage anyway, isn’t whether science is evil, but how the people doing it choose to use it. And that comes back to a question of values and choices. I’d like to think that if I were given the option of building an atomic weapon and never doing physics again, I’d quit. But I’m different: my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all activists. I grew up thinking in fairly anti-capitalist terms, believing that nothing ever comes before people. I learned something about this way of thinking, though. Generally speaking, it isn’t welcomed in the physics community. I receive accusations of being unfocused because faculty know I spend my free time on social justice struggles. My friends who go rock climbing or skiing in their free time don’t hear the same messages. I’ve been asked what is more important: my work with the National Society of Black Physicists or my research? Honestly, this is a crazy question. But to the world of physics, I am not cut out to be a physicist because I think it’s a crazy question. In other words, the physics community frequently weeds out the “carers”, the people who place value on caring above all else. This is probably one reason it is doing worse than almost any other field at gender and ethnic integration. This is also another reason that it is so easy for physicists to be recruited into the defense industry. We are taught that to be successful means we put our conscience down, that we let our role as guardians for each other and humanity take a back seat. The few exceptions to this rule are the ones physics couldn’t ignore. Albert Einstein was an ardent anti-racism activist who could safely speak out because he was a Nobel Laureate who had made profound contributions to fundamental physics. But most of us won’t do something that stands out as strongly as relativity did. Does that mean we are not allowed to have a conscience? Many will be watching closely to find out what the answer is in the area of optical engineering where Paul Cottle recently quit his job because he objects to the sale of his Canadian-owned employer to a US-based arms maker responsible for weapons such as the infamous cluster bomb. III. And you may ask yourself, where does this highway go? Okay, so what is my point? My point is that as long as the funding for physics and astronomy is tied to the MIC, there will be a problem. And there will be physicists who love their physics and have learned that to succeed, they must love it above humanity. This comes back to my story about the astronomers at the Center for Adaptive Optics. The activists who gave them a hard time might have had a point, but they failed to understand one related to it: people are stuck in this funding system. What has the anti-war movement done to help us out? Physicists have always been forced into a black or white position: either you are doing something awful, or you are giving up your passion. Why does it have to be either/or? What if the people pursuing quantum mechanics had just quit? You might not be reading this blog on a computer. Yet physicists are often targeted, with little understanding about the political and economic context in which they develop and work. Right now, the funding model for physics (in the US) is inextricably tied to its ability to create weapons of mass destruction (which so far have only been used by the US). But, please remember that it is so much more than that. It is an inspiration. People love to hear about the cosmos, and they love the glory of having specialists, scientists, who work painstakingly to find out the details and relay them back to the rest of humanity. Those of you who are old enough will remember Carl Sagan’s TV series “Cosmos,” which was watched by tens of millions of people when it first aired. Humans just want to connect to the cosmos, even if it’s not what they think about every day, all day. Moreover, physics inspires the youth who become our engineers, the people who build the world around us. I am honored to be part of this process of discovery and to be one of those tasked with “bringing home the physics bacon.” This is why I am writing to you, as a physicist, to ask for help. We need more no-strings-attached funding. Help us push to fund science for the reasons that you care, not the reasons that George Bush and Dick Cheney care. Organize to direct civilian funding to groups like the National Society of Black Physicists, so that they are in a position to choose not to take support from the CIA, FBI, and US Military without having to cut back on their services. In other words, claim physics for the people! Obviously, physicists also need to start taking responsibility. In the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many came together to form what has become the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which sought to keep an eye on the destructive impact of physics. But this legacy of social commitment is forgotten history in our community. Remembering is crucial, as is doing more. It’s important to ensure that the Paul Cottles of the world feel safe standing up to the war machine and saying no. This means that faculty are responsible for not only teaching physics to budding physicists, but also for reminding them of their ethical duty. As my father said to me at my college graduation, “You’ve been given a lot of power. Now, use it properly.” It’s time for all of us to admit the power we have in the state and military apparati and use it to make peace, not war. Moreover, science education needs an adrenaline shot. We ought to value our duty to communicate and share with the non-specialist public, to follow in the footsteps of great humanists like Carl Sagan. We need to start looking up, not down, to those who choose to teach. Organizations like The Algebra Project seek to build a bridge between math education and community development. It’s time for the scientific community to throw its support behind such projects. We must participate in making access to quality education a right, not a privilege. As more seemingly endless wars pop up on the horizon, now is the time to reconsider what matters and who the real heroes are. We live in an era of tragic and perverse values that allows the carers to be framed as failures. From the girl who wants a ‘Women in Physics’ club to the guy who wants to teach summer physics programs for kids, we’re taking punches from all sides for who we are, for wanting to bridge the gap between doing physics and realizing our duty as members of humanity. Meanwhile, scientists who choose to assist the military are considered American Heroes. I cannot imagine a more false idol for our community. The true heroes are the physicists who not only commit to good research and good teaching, but also to refusing to kill. Physicists like pedagogy activist, researcher, and anti-war protester Sanjoy Mahajan are all too rare, particularly in the United States. The burden of this failure rests on all our shoulders. Acknowledgments: The title of this article was inspired by the The Global Women’s Strike. Section titles come from “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. ]]> http://isgreaterthan.net/2008/01/getting-physicists-to-invest-in-caring-not-killing-who-takes-responsibility/feed/ 14 http://isgreaterthan.net/2007/10/essential-science-pic-of-the-week/ http://isgreaterthan.net/2007/10/essential-science-pic-of-the-week/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:36:43 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=408 From Wikipedia: The Richat Structure, a prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of Mauritania near Ouadane, has attracted attention since the earliest space missions because it forms a conspicuous bull’s-eye in the otherwise rather featureless expanse of the desert. Described by some as looking like an outsized ammonite in the desert, the structure, which has a diameter of almost 50 kilometres (30 miles), has become a landmark for space shuttle crews. Initially interpreted as a meteorite impact structure because of its high degree of circularity, it is now thought to be a symmetrical uplift (circular anticline or dome) that has been laid bare by erosion. Paleozoic quartzites form the resistant beds outlining the structure. via ]]> http://isgreaterthan.net/2007/10/essential-science-pic-of-the-week/feed/ 0