Friday, Febuary 12, 2010
It's not the things I forget that worry me so much as the things I remember
perfectly that never happened. So it was last week when I commented in
passing that Apollo 11 relied on vacuum-tube electronics; of course, it did
not. I am unable to explain my lapse. My thanks to those who straightened
me out.
A Special Section of Science magazine this week is devoted to the problem
of feeding "an expected population of 9 billion in 2050." Expected by whom?
In the last 40 years the population has doubled. If it doubles again in the
next 40 the population would be closer to 14 billion. In the entire issue
of Science I did not see a single mention of population control. In 1798,
the Rev. Robert Thomas Malthus, British scholar and clergyman, observed
that animals typically produce far more offspring than are required for
replacement. This helps to ensure survival of the species, as Darwin noted
50 years later citing Malthus. To avoid excessive population, Malthus
urged "restraint," but the reproductive instinct is far more powerful than
Malthusian logic. I cannot do better than to once again quote Norman
Borlaug's acceptance speech on the occasion of winning the 1970 Nob Peace
Prize for the Green Revolution. It bears repeating: "We are dealing with
two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the
biologic power of human reproduction. Man has made amazing progress
recently in his potential mastery of these two contending powers...there
can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the
agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for
population control unite in a common effort." This, it is clear from the
Special Section, has not yet happened.
Bruce Flamm, obstratician and skeptic, fought a millionaire
fertility/prayer clinic operator through the California court system and
won. The case involved the notorious "Columbia prayer study," in which it
was claimed that prayer increased the success rate of fertility treatments.
Flamm demanded the study be withdrawn. Qwang Cha, the millionaire clinic
operator, lost at every level but kept appealing the judgment in the belief
that Flamm must inevitably fold. Bruce Flamm doesn'€™t fold. Last we the
California Supreme Court refused to consider the Appeals Court decision
against Cha.
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