Thursday, May 31, 2007

Yeah, Word

May 31, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor


What I Think About Evolution









Washington


IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect
that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or
subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised
earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential
debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they
did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I
think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and
with the seriousness it demands.


The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not
unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily
believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour
days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution
and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction
between science, faith and reason.


The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between
faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any
contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason,
seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how
it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of
science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different
questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual
order and the material order were created by the same God.


People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that
God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every
question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see
more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by
providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than
that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human
suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go
together, not be driven apart.


The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If
belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small
changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the
past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means
assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the
world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.


There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of
punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today.
Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a
unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random
mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the
realm of philosophy or theology.


The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision
of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many
believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that
dismiss the possibility of divine causality.


Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am
happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of
evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the
world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I
believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of
creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a
manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science
or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind
theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of
design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.


Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people
of faith can also bring a great deal to the table. For this reason, I
oppose the exclusion of either faith or reason from the discussion. An
attempt by either to seek a monopoly on these questions would be
wrong-headed. As science continues to explore the details of man’s
origin, faith can do its part as well. The fundamental question for me
is how these theories affect our understanding of the human person.


The unique and special place of each and every person in creation
is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any
theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and
intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person,
regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a
purpose.


While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the
nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with
certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and
reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those
aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome
addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine
this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology
posing as science.


Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.




Sam Brownback is a Republican senator from Kansas.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

What we should do, or at least a good attempt at delineating such

Op-Ed Contributor



How to Win the Energy War


















Published: May 23, 2007













With gas prices hitting yet another
all-time high, consider this: while history is littered with examples
of countries that were forced to change their domestic and foreign
policies because of the lack of a natural resource, there are very few
notable instances of nations that had the ability to eliminate such a
vulnerability but didn’t. America’s current energy condition, however,
is a spectacular example of such a failure. Consider four facts:










Jim Frazier








No. 1: The United States is very vulnerable to the interruption of its imported oil supply.

No. 2: This dependence on oil has a huge effect on our foreign, military and economic policies.

No.
3: America could have reduced its vulnerability if it had taken
decisive action after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. (In 1973 America
imported 35 percent of the oil it used; today that figure is greater
than 60 percent.)

No. 4: We have never adopted a credible plan to reduce our dependency principally because of a lack of political will.

Back
in 1975, President Gerald Ford used his State of the Union message to
inform Americans how dangerous our growing dependence on foreign oil
was: “We, the United States, are not blameless. Our growing dependence
upon foreign sources has been adding to our vulnerability for years and
years, and we did nothing to prepare ourselves for such an event as the
embargo of 1973.”

But he did more than fret. He had a plan.
“Within the next 10 years,” he announced, “my program envisions 200
major nuclear power plants, 250 major new coal mines, 150 major
coal-fired power plants, 30 major new refineries, 20 major new
synthetic fuel plants, the drilling of many thousands of new wells, the
insulation of 18 million homes and the manufacturing and sale of
millions of new automobiles, trucks and buses that use much less fuel.”

It
was clear that President Ford’s initiatives would materially reduce
dependence on oil imports, but would also increase consumer energy
costs and raise important environmental problems. Liberals complained
about “excessive” new energy production efforts, and the right about
the heavy hand of government.

While the Congress debated, the
normal oil supply from the Middle East resumed and prices came down.
Congressional economists put forward new arguments on what they
believed to be the appropriate pricing of crude oil as reasons to avoid
the harsh medicine President Ford advocated.

But there were two
major flaws in these pricing models, which have bedeviled our energy
policies ever since. First, OPEC has a very different idea of what is
“appropriate.” Second, the normal laws of supply and demand did not
apply. Supply is determined by how many barrels of oil producers are
willing to pump, refine and transport at any given time. And this is
affected more by international politics and less by international
economics.

The price volatility caused by this unique market has
long caused business to limit its investment in new, higher-cost energy
supplies. In response, the Ford administration studied various ways to
institute a floor price for oil and guarantee an annual price
escalation over 15 to 20 years. The thinking here was that if business
could depend on a predetermined escalation of prices, it would make the
necessary investment in production and conservation technology.
Interesting concept ... but again the liberals roared with outrage and
the conservatives laughed at such meddling with the economy. The idea
went nowhere.

A few modest measures from the Ford program were
passed by Congress, including the strategic petroleum reserve, which
stockpiles oil in case the Middle Eastern spigot gets shut off, and
having retailers label appliances for energy efficiency and automobiles
for mileage. But, obviously, this was far short of what was necessary.

In
a fit of frustration, I asked Senator Henry Jackson, the Washington
Democrat who headed the Senate Energy Committee, what we needed to do
to reawaken Congressional interest. He asked me if I knew how to start
another Arab embargo. He was right. Without a crisis, a real national
energy program could not get past normal political paralysis. The Ford
initiative was the last real national attempt to reduce our
vulnerability.

Jimmy Carter talked the talk, calling our energy
situation the “moral equivalent of war.” But his only real
accomplishment was the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, which was supposed
to spearhead research into energy alternatives but quickly became a
multibillion-dollar boondoggle.

Ronald Reagan offered a package
of tax incentives for domestic oil and gas production and, wisely,
dismantled the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, but that was about it.
George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and now George W. Bush followed with
proposals to open more public land for domestic oil production, to
create tax subsidies for ethanol, to mandate more fuel-efficient
automobiles and other research and development programs — none of which
can or will have a substantial impact on oil imports.

So here
we are, 30 years later, with oil prices higher than ever and greater
dependence on imported oil. Since one of the current presidential
candidates will inherit this mess, shouldn’t we ask each of them to
spell out the details of his or her energy plan? I’ll lay out some
ground rules. Any credible strategy needs to reduce oil consumption and
increase other energy supplies. All of the measures in the plan need to
add up to a significant reduction in imported oil in the relatively
near term, say, within 10 to 12 years.

I have a few
suggestions. First, gasoline prices must send the right signals to
change consumer driving and car-buying behavior. For many years there
have been arguments about a gasoline tax of 10 cents or 20 cents per
gallon. And now we are seeing price changes in that range from week to
week. But the driving public believes that such price increases are
temporary, so driving behavior doesn’t really change. And long-term car
purchase decisions aren’t based upon perceived short-term price
fluctuations.

To ensure that price signals are consistent and
clear, we could levy a truly substantial gasoline tax — something like
50 cents per gallon to start, followed by 50 cent increases in each of
the following three years — with rebates for lower-income taxpayers.
The revenue from this levy could be used to pay for tax credits for
fuel-efficient autos. We should also have automakers improve their
corporate average fleet economy — commonly called CAFE standards — by
at least 4 percent per year. Increasing tax incentives for the
production and purchase of alternative-fuel vehicles would also help.

The
other major way to wean us from oil is to resume construction of
nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy is the cleanest and best option
for America’s electric power supply, yet it has been stalled by decades
of unproductive debate. Our current commercial nuclear power plants
have an outstanding record of safety and security, and new designs will
only raise performance. How can Washington help? One thing would be
federal legislation to streamline the licensing of new plants and the
approval of sites for them.

The basic elements of a responsible
energy policy are not complicated, but the politics are horrendous.
Still, we can’t continue to throw empty rhetoric at the issue, using
the oil companies as political punching bags and relying on our troops
to keep the oil flowing.

I once told President Ford that some
of our energy proposals were angering both Democrats and Republicans.
His reply: “We must have it just right!” If only the presidential
candidates could show the same sort of courage.

Frank
G. Zarb, the managing director of a private equity firm, was the
assistant to the president for energy affairs in the Ford
administration.

Monday, May 7, 2007

No God But Money: What Religion Is Really Up To = Fucking You Over, Even When You Are Faithful

May 7, 2007



As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists









SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 2 — In the early 1980s, when Pope John Paul II wanted to clamp down on what he considered a dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement in the Roman Catholic Church, liberation theology, he turned to a trusted aide: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.


Now Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI,
and when he arrives here on Wednesday for his first pastoral visit to
Latin America he may be surprised at what he finds. Liberation
theology, which he once called “a fundamental threat to the faith of
the church,” persists as an active, even defiant force in Latin
America, home to nearly half the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.


Over the past 25 years, even as the Vatican moved to silence the
clerical theorists of liberation theology and the church fortified its
conservative hierarchy, the social and economic ills the movement
highlighted have worsened. In recent years, the politics of the region
have also drifted leftward, giving the movement’s demand that the
church embrace “a preferential option for the poor” new impetus and
credibility.


Today some 80,000 “base communities,” as the grass-roots building
blocks of liberation theology are called, operate in Brazil, the
world’s most populous Roman Catholic nation, and nearly one million
“Bible circles” meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the
viewpoint of the theology of liberation.


During Benedict’s five-day visit here, he is scheduled to meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
canonize a saint, preach to the faithful and visit a drug treatment
center before addressing the opening session of a conference of Latin
American bishops that will discuss the future of the church in the
region where liberation theology originated, prospered and drew so much
of his censure. Some liberation theology supporters will be present,
others will be at a parallel meeting, and all have been cautioned not
to be too aggressive in pressing their views.


In the past, adherents stood firm as death squads made scores of
martyrs to the movement, ranging from Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero
of El Salvador, killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass, to Dorothy Mae
Stang, an American-born nun shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in
February 2005. Compared to that, the pressures of the Vatican are
nothing to fear, they maintain.


“Despite everything, we continue to endure in a kind of
subterranean way,” said Luiz Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a
55-year-old teacher active in the movement for nearly 30 years. “Let
Rome and the critics say what they want; we simply persevere in our
work with the poor and the oppressed.”


On a cool and cloudy Saturday morning in late April, evidence of
the movement’s vitality was plain to see. Representatives of 50 base
communities gathered at the St. Paul the Apostle Church on the east
side of this sprawling city, in an area of humble workers’ residences
and squatter slums.


With four priests present, readings from the Bible alternated with
more worldly concerns: criticisms of government proposals to reduce
pensions and workers’ rights under the Brazilian labor code. The
service ended with the Lord’s Prayer and then a hymn.


“In the land of mankind, conceived of as a pyramid, there are few
at the top, and many at the bottom,” the congregation sang. “In the
land of mankind, those at the top crush those at the bottom. Oh, people
of the poor, people subjected to domination, what are you doing just
standing there? The world of mankind has to be changed, so arise
people, don’t stand still.”


Afterward, discussion turned to other social problems, chief among
them a lack of proper sanitation. A representative of the left-wing
Workers’ Party discussed strategies to press the government to complete
a sewer project. Congregants agreed to organize a campaign to lobby for
it.


In other areas here, liberation theology advocates have strong
links to labor unions. At a May 1 Mass to commemorate International
Labor Day, they draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled
“imperialism” and “privatization” and applauded when the homily
criticized the government’s “neoliberal” economic policies, the kind
Washington supports.


“We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action,”
said Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base
communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here.
“We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and
work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the
Gospel.”


Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has
consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been
active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized
governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.


Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the
needs of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church
into the temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have
repeatedly announced the movement’s decline or disappearance.


Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul
II’s reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged abortion
and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to reject
Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the
eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.


That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political
activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once
called the movement a “fusing of the Bible’s view of history with
Marxist dialectics,” and other critics complain of what they see as its
emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus’ name over individual
faith.


As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: “This conception of
Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of
Nazareth, does not tally with the church’s catechism.”


Certainly at the upper levels of the church hierarchy, liberation
theology has been forced into retreat. Bishops and cardinals who
supported and protected the movement in the 1970s and 1980s have either
died or retired, succeeded by clerics openly hostile to such
communities and the values they espouse.


“Base communities can only thrive in areas where there are bishops
to encourage them,” said Margaret Hebblethwaite, a British religious
writer whose books include “Base Communities: An Introduction” and “The
Next Pope.” “If you take away the support of the bishop, it becomes
very difficult for them to get anywhere.”


But the movement remains especially active in the poorest areas
like the Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and on the
outskirts of large urban centers like this one, the largest in Brazil,
with nearly 20 million people in the metropolitan area. Hoping to draw
less attention and opprobrium to themselves, some of these groups
simply say they are engaged in a “social pastorate.”


Sparring between liberation theologians and Benedict — whose own
theology was formed in reaction to the reach of Nazi ideology — has
been long and bitter. In 1984, as the Vatican official charged with
supervising questions of faith and doctrine, he declared that “the
theology of liberation is a singular heresy.”


More recently, he said, “it seems to me we need not theology of
liberation, but theology of martyrdom,” and argued that the movement
will become a valid theology “only when it refuses to accept power and
worldly logic” and instead emphasizes “inner liberty.” But that was
when his job was to carry out John Paul’s orders, and there is
speculation here that his views may have softened somewhat.


That helps explain some of the theological maneuvering that has been going on in Latin America recently.


At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions
on the liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff
of Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born
in Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Father Sobrino, in March,
Pedro Casaldáliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to
liberation theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to
reaffirm its “real commitment to the service of God’s poor” and “the
link between faith and politics.”


That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative
theologian whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations
here. “In spite of having received the Vatican’s cordial warning, you
continue to be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of
liberation, which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and
subverts the gospel of salvation,” he wrote.


At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed
archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two
opposing viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using
“Marxism as a tool of analysis,” he also praised liberation theologians
for redirecting the church’s mission here to focus on issues of social
injustice and poverty.


He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are less sure.


“The force of Latin America’s harsh social reality is stronger than
Rome’s ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal
of vitality,” Mr. Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy
in 1992, argued in a recent interview. “It is true it doesn’t have the
visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but
it is very much alive and well.”

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

May 1, 2007



In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia









LITCHFIELD, Conn. — “This
guy’s the champion,” said Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist,
leaning over the nether regions of a duck — a Meller’s duck from
Madagascar, to be specific — and carefully coaxing out his phallus.


The duck was quietly resting upside-down against the stomach of Ian
Gereg, an aviculturist here at the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl
Sanctuary. Dr. Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University and the University of Sheffield, visits the sanctuary every two weeks to measure the phalluses of six species of ducks.


When she first visited in January, the phalluses were the size of
rice grains. Now many of them are growing rapidly. The champion phallus
from this Meller’s duck is a long, spiraling tentacle. Some ducks grow
phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will
disappear, only to reappear next spring.


The anatomy of ducks is especially bizarre considering that 97
percent of all bird species have no phallus at all. Most male birds
just deliver their sperm through an opening. Dr. Brennan is
investigating how this sexual wonder of the world came to be.


Part of the answer, she has discovered, has gone overlooked for
decades. Male ducks may have such extreme genitals because the females
do too. The birds are locked in an evolutionary struggle for
reproductive success.


Dr. Brennan was oblivious to bird phalluses until 1999. While
working in a Costa Rican forest, she observed a pair of birds called
tinamous mating. “They became unattached, and I saw this huge thing
hanging off of him,” she said. “I could not believe it. It became one
of those questions I wrote down: why do these males have this huge
phallus?”


A bird phallus is similar — but not identical — to a mammalian
penis. Most of the time it remains invisible, curled up inside a bird’s
body. During mating, however, it fills with lymphatic fluid and expands
into a long, corkscrew shape. The bird’s sperm travels on the outside
of the phallus, along a spiral-shaped groove, into the female bird.


To learn about this peculiar organ, Dr. Brennan decided she would
have to make careful dissections of male tinamous. In 2005 she traveled
to the University of Sheffield to learn the art of bird dissection from
Tim Birkhead, an evolutionary biologist. Dr. Birkhead had her practice
on some male ducks from a local farm.


Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before.


“So what does the female look like?” she said. “Obviously you can’t
have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a
garage to park the car.”


The lower oviduct (the equivalent of the vagina in birds) is
typically a simple tube. But when Dr. Brennan dissected some female
ducks, she discovered they had a radically different anatomy. “There
were all these weird structures, these pockets and spirals,” she said.


Somehow, generations of biologists had never noticed this anatomy
before. Pondering it, Dr. Brennan came to doubt the conventional
explanation for how duck phalluses evolved.


In some species of ducks, a female bonds for a season with a male.
But she is also harassed by other males that force her to mate. “It’s
nasty business. Females are often killed or injured,” Dr. Brennan said.


Species with more forced mating tend to have longer phalluses. That
link led some scientists to argue that the duck phallus was the result
of males’ competing with one another to fertilize eggs.


“Basically, you get a bigger phallus to put your sperm in farther than the other males,” Dr. Brennan said.


Dr. Brennan realized that scientists had made this argument without
looking at the female birds. Perhaps, she wondered, the two sexes were
coevolving, with elaborate lower oviducts driving the evolution of long
phalluses.


To test this idea, Dr. Brennan traveled to Alaska. Many species of
waterfowl breed there, with a wide range of mating systems. Working
with Kevin McCracken of the University of Alaska and his colleagues,
she caught and dissected 16 species of ducks and geese, comparing the
male and female anatomy.


If a male bird had a long phallus, the female tended to have a more
elaborate lower oviduct. And if the male had a small phallus, the
female tended to have a simple oviduct. “The correlation was incredibly
tight,” Dr. Brennan said. “When you dissected one of the birds, it was
really easy to predict what the other sex was going to look like.”


Dr. Brennan and her colleagues are publishing their study today in the journal PLOS One.


Dr. McCracken, who discovered the longest known bird phallus on an
Argentine duck in 2001, is struck by the fact that it was a woman who
discovered the complexity of female birds. “Maybe it’s the male bias we
all have,” he said. “It’s just been out there, waiting to be
discovered.”


Dr. Brennan argues that elaborate female duck anatomy evolves as a
countermeasure against aggressive males. “Once they choose a male,
they’re making the best possible choice, and that’s the male they want
siring their offspring,” she said. “They don’t want the guy flying in
from who knows where. It makes sense that they would develop a defense.”


Female ducks seem to be equipped to block the sperm of unwanted
males. Their lower oviduct is spiraled like the male phallus, for
example, but it turns in the opposite direction. Dr. Brennan suspects
that the female ducks can force sperm into one of the pockets and then
expel it. “It only makes sense as a barrier,” she said.


To support her argument, Dr. Brennan notes studies on some species
that have found that forced matings make up about a third of all
matings. Yet only 3 percent of the offspring are the result of forced
matings. “To me, it means these females are successful with this
strategy,” she said.


Dr. Brennan suspects that when the females of a species evolved
better defenses, they drove the evolution of male phalluses. “The males
have to step up to produce a longer or more flexible phallus,” she said.


Other scientists have documented a similar coevolution of genitals
in flies and other invertebrates. But Dr. Brennan’s study is the
clearest example of this arms race in vertebrates.


“It’s rare to find something so blatantly obvious in the female
anatomy,” Dr. Brennan said. “I’m sure it’s going on in other
vertebrates, but it’s probably going in ways that are more subtle and
harder to figure out.”


To test her hypothesis, Dr. Brennan plans to team up with a
biomechanics expert to build a transparent model of a female duck. She
wants to see exactly what a duck phallus does during mating.


Dr. Brennan also hopes to find more clues by studying phalluses on
living ducks. At the waterfowl sanctuary in Litchfield, she is spending
the year tracking the growth and disappearance of phalluses in ducks
and geese. Hardly anything is known about how the phallus waxes and
wanes — not to mention why.


“It may be easier to regrow it than to keep it healthy,” Dr. Brennan
said. “But those are some of the things I may be able to find out. When
you’re doing something that so little is known about, you can’t really
predict what’s going to happen.”