ERIC MICHAEL JOHNSON
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"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."
- Charles Darwin
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Aug 31, 2007

Bonobo Decides on Names for Swans

An ape is showing researchers just how smart primates can be.



Panbanisha, a bonobo at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, has given names to two trumpeter swans nesting at the center. It's an achievement researchers say shows how important collaboration is to learning.

The ape trust focuses on helping primates communicate through computers and symbols.

The latest project began in the spring when the swans were released on the trust's lake. It took months of work to motivate Panbanisha to name the birds.

Researchers made references to the swans while communicating with the bonobo -- showing the ape they were interested in giving them names. They displayed pictures of the swans, played videos of them and took Panbanisha on a walk to find them.

Abstract symbols were developed to help the bonobo distinguish between the three male and female names under final consideration.

And finally this month, Panbanisha made her choices: Morgan and Olivia.

Source: Monkeys in the News



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Gorilla Protectors Murdered in Congo

Violence continues in endangered gorilla sanctuary


Congolese Park Rangers risk their lives to protect the endangered gorillas.

Suspected Rwandan Hutu rebels killed a park ranger in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest attack on guards who protect rare mountain gorillas in a national park, officials said on Friday.

The attack late on Thursday on the ranger station at Kabaraza, 95 km (60 miles) north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, followed the killings of five of the endangered gorillas in recent weeks in the Virunga National Park.

"Around 2300 hours, a ranger on night watch heard noises coming from some of the rangers' houses. He went there to find out what was going on and was shot in the belly," Robert Muir of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, which supports the protection programme for the Virunga gorillas, told Reuters.

The ranger died from his wounds, and a worker at the camp was injured by a bullet in the neck. Houses were looted.

Other rangers who drove the attackers off said they spoke Rwandan and were believed to be members of the largely Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group which operates in eastern Congo.

Several rangers have been killed in Virunga, Africa's oldest national park located near the intersection of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Conservationists are fighting to save the estimated 700 mountain gorillas who remain in central Africa.

Thursday's attack came in the same turbulent area of eastern Congo where government troops have been battling soldiers loyal to a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda.

On Thursday, thousands of civilians fled the fighting which has shattered a seven-month-old truce signed by Nkunda and dampened hopes of stabilising eastern Congo after landmark national elections held late last year.

The recent slayings of gorillas shocked conservationists, who suspect the killings are linked to a power struggle between local government agents trying to save Virunga and those engaged in the illicit trade in the charcoal made from its trees.

Under Congo's late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Virunga was a major tourist draw, but years of insecurity and the 1998-2003 war that killed an estimated 4 million people, mainly through hunger and disease, have led to a dwindling number of visitors.

Source: Reuters


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Aug 30, 2007

Blog Carnival Roll Call

There are two science carnivals up that you won't want to miss.


An image blatantly stolen from PZ Myers sums up my enthusiasm.

Tangled Bank #87 - the mixed bag of science related gems, is posted at Balancing Life.

Four Stone Hearth #22 - the four-field anthropology carnival, is posted at Hominin Dental Anthropology (yeah, it was posted yesterday, but I missed it).

Some terrific stuff to check out:

For history of science buffs don't miss Sunil's post On the Shoulders of Giants.

A fascinating exploration of aquatic animal's intuitive understanding of physics was posted by Andre at Biocurious.

Primatology.net has an excellent review of the latest fossil ape discovery from Ethiopia.

But those are just my favorites. Check them out for yourself.


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Aug 29, 2007

Thirsty for Love, Or: Beetlemania

File this under "I didn't need to know that."



In a disturbing parallel to human mating practices, female beetles are more likely to mate if the guy offers to buy them a drink. In the current issue of Animal Behaviour (subscription required), Martin Edvardsson has found that female beetles are 40% more likely to mate if they’re thirsty. As reviewed in Science Daily:

Female beetles mate to quench their thirst according to new research by a University of Exeter biologist. The males of some insect species, including certain types of beetles, moths and crickets, produce unusually large ejaculates, which in some cases can account for around 10% of their body weight. The study shows that dehydrated females can accept sexual invitations simply to get hold of the water in the seminal fluid.

So-called “nuptial gifts” are a common tactic by male insects to attract mates. Females of the majority of insects (including the eusocial ants, bees and wasps) mate with multiple males and improve their reproductive success by as much as 70%. As reported in an earlier study in Animal Behaviour (pdf), “the evolutionary maintenance of polyandry in insects can be understood solely in terms of direct effects [i.e. reproductive success].” This has led to sperm competition, a kind of sexual selection, among males in order to improve their chances of fathering some of the eggs. However, in this case we’re witnessing out-of-control sexual selection that puts the peacock’s tail to shame.

Just to put this into perspective (and create a disgusting image that will stick with you all day), 10% of an insect’s body weight would be the human equivalent of filling a 2.4-gallon bucket for your partner’s refreshment.

This isn’t even the most outlandish tale in the annals of insect sexuality. The ejaculate from Drosophila melanogaster (the common fruit fly) is twenty times longer than it’s body length.

Enjoy your lunch!


Drosophila melanogaster after a bit of fun.

Special thanks to Jim for the tip!

References:

Arnqvist, G. & Nilsson, T. (2000). The evolution of polyandry: multiple mating and female fitness in insects. Animal Behaviour 60: 145-164. doi:10.1006/anbe.2000.1446

Edvardsson, M. (2007). Female Callosobruchus maculatus mate when they are thirsty: resource-rich ejaculates as mating effort in a beetle. Animal Behaviour 74(2): 183-188. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.07.018




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Aug 28, 2007

The Downstream Effects of Biopiracy

Dutch primatologist gets caught up in economic blowback.



As I recently highlighted, primatologist Marc van Roosmalen was sentenced to 16 years in Brazilian prison for alleged “biopiracy”. The case outraged scientists around the world and Roosmalen’s lawyers were able to have him released from custody pending appeal.

An article in today’s New York Times details his conviction and why Brazil has been so harsh in it’s laws regulating the nation’s biological inheritance. As the Times reports:

Fears of biopiracy, loosely defined as any unauthorized acquisition or transport of genetic material or live flora and fauna, are deep and longstanding in Brazil. Nearly a century ago, for example, the Amazon rubber boom collapsed after Sir Henry Wickham, a British botanist and explorer, spirited rubber seeds out of Brazil and sent them to colonies in Ceylon and Malaya (now Sri Lanka and Malaysia), which quickly dominated the international market.

In the 1970s, the Squibb pharmaceutical company used venom from the Brazilian arrowhead viper to help develop captopril, used to treat hypertension and congestive heart failure, without payment of the royalties Brazilians think are due them. And more recently, Brazilian Indian tribes have complained that samples of their blood, taken under circumstances they say were unethical, were being used in genetic research around the world.

Such biopiracy is widespread around the world. As genes and chemicals derived from the world's biodiversity have allowed companies to make fortunes, the rush to control those resources has been fierce. Indian physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva has written about how such policies have taken advantage of poor countries in her book Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge:

“At the heart of Columbus's "discovery" was the treatment of piracy as a natural right of the colonizer, necessary for the deliverance of the colonized. . . . Biopiracy is the Columbian “discovery” 500 years after Columbus. Patents are still the means to protect this piracy of the wealth of non-Western peoples as a right of Western powers.

Through patents and genetic engineering, new colonies are being carved out. The land, the forests, the rivers, the oceans, and the atmosphere have all been colonized, eroded, and polluted. . . Resistance to biopiracy is a resistance to the ultimate colonization of life itself – of the future of evolution as well as the future of non-Western traditions of relating to and knowing nature. It is a struggle to protect the freedom of diverse species to evolve. It is a struggle to protect the freedom of diverse cultures to evolve. It is a struggle to conserve both cultural and biological diversity.

Dr. Shiva has become an international spokesperson for those who have been taken advantage of in this new rush for biological gold. For example, attempts by Texas-based Rice-Tec to patent Basmati rice (a variety developed though thousands of years of Indian agricultural innovation), was thwarted largely due to her group’s efforts. An ongoing campaign is challenging Monsanto’s patenting of seed and preventing poor farmers from saving and sharing their seed as they’ve done for centuries.

While much of the commentary surrounding Dr. van Roosmalen's arrest has been focused on the draconian laws of the Brazilian government, what has been lost is why Brazil initiated such harsh laws in the first place. Western countries have been stealing the region's natural resources for five hundred years. The people of Brazil are understandably peeved and less likely to trust Western scientists.

Lawyers for Dr. van Roosmalen, a naturalized Brazilian citizen who was born in the Netherlands, say he is in large part a victim of the xenophobic sentiment attached to fears of biopiracy. They note that he was tried as a foreigner, initially denied habeas corpus and the right to appeal the verdict against him, given a near-maximum sentence despite being a first-time offender and sent to a notoriously harsh prison.

. . .

Edmilson da Costa Barreiros, the federal prosecutor in Manaus who argued the case against Dr. van Roosmalen, did not respond to requests for comment. But an article in A Crítica, the main newspaper there, quoted him as having urged that the scientist be made to “serve as an example so that others will see that you cannot do as you please at a public institution.”
Dr. van Roosmalen has clearly been improperly convicted for his work on behalf of science and conservation, work that all Brazilians ultimately benefit from. However, rather than quickly condemn the country for their "backwards ways" it might be wise to take a good, long look in the mirror to understand why such reactions would have arisen in the first place. Dr. van Roosmalen, it seems, has been ensnared in what the CIA refers to as "blowback," the unintended consequences of imperial actions abroad. We would be less hypocritical if we acknowledged these abuses as we continue our campaign to have Dr. van Roosmalen cleared of his charges.

Foundation to help Marc van Roosmalen

Petition for the UK government to pressure the Brazilian authorities



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Monkeys Use "Motherese" With Infants

Human universal now extended to non-human primates.



Humans aren't the only animals to use baby talk when speaking to offspring—rhesus monkeys also go "gaga" over babies, new research says.

Puerto Rico's female rhesus monkeys make unique vocalizations to interact with infants to get their attention, the study finds.

"These female monkeys are definitely excited about looking at babies, and their vocalizations convey that excitement," said study co-author Dario Maestripieri, an associate professor in comparative human development at the University of Chicago.

One particular monkey sound, known as a "girney," seems especially designed for infant ears.

"When infants are around they use [the girney] a lot more, and they also do other things like wag their tails to the babies—which they don't do in other circumstances," Maestripieri said.

Maestripieri and colleagues published their findings in the current issue of the journal Ethology.

Musical Motherese

Baby talk, also called "motherese," is practiced by people all over the world.

No matter what language they speak, people baby-talk in the same way, with a raised pitch and a swooping, sing-song style.

Everyone does it because babies respond to it, and scientists believe the practice has a useful biological origin.

But those looking for a monkey motherese translation will be disappointed.

But the sounds appear to serve a key purpose.

"They don't have a meaning linked to a representation of an item or object, but they may perform a very important social function to bring individuals together," said Lisa Parr of Yerkes National Primate Center at Atlanta's Emory University. Parr was unaffiliated with the research.

For instance, adult females use motherese to speak to infants other than their own.

This makes the infants' mothers more receptive to social overtures, such as grooming. It also promotes social interaction among the group's females.

Though it may seem odd that monkey moms don't use motherese on their own offspring, it may be that they simply don't need to.

"Moms carry their own infants on their chest almost all the time," study co-author Maestripieri said.

"So [their babies] are not as novel to them as they are to other females. They also don't need to do anything special to get their attention because they are almost constantly face-to-face."

Parr said the study is one of the first of its kind.

"In terms of auditory signals this may be one of the first articles that speaks directly to the verbal communication between adults and infants," Parr said.

Source: National Geographic



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Aug 27, 2007

Cognitive Science Carnival Today

Encephelon #30, the cognitive science blog carnival is up at Neurofuture. Some of the best science bloggers on the net offer news and analysis about what's on their (and everyone's) mind.

Check it out.

The next edition of Encephalon (make submissions here) is scheduled for September 10th, to be hosted by Dr. Deborah Serani.


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Religion, Secularism & Politics in the 21st Century

Center for Inquiry hosts conference in November



Renowned speakers, scholars, and media personalities will meet to discuss the future of reason and secularism in an America and a world increasingly divided by religion. Join Christopher Hitchens, Alan Dershowitz, Peter Singer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Wendy Kaminer, Ann Druyan, an unannounced Very Special Guest, and many others for this historic event.

Themes will include:

* The Age of American Unreason
* The Next Islamic Enlightenment
* Science and the Public
* Student Freethinkers Speak Out
* Secularism through History: from Spinoza to JFK

With the Atheist Alliance International Convention in late September, looks like there will be plenty of time to get in some good heathen networking before Christmas.

Learn more and register at the Center for Inquiry website.


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Aug 26, 2007

"Intelligent" Design and Magical Thinking

You Sunday Skepticomic from The New Yorker.



To view last Sunday's comic click here.


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Aug 24, 2007

The Feeling of What Happens

Science, Faith and Nature's Error


The "Revelation" as described by St. John, though likely inspired through the
use of hallucinogens (see The Mystery of Manna).


The title for this post comes from a terrific book by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, but I think it's appropriate for a discussion on faith, feeling and reason. Sam Harris' recent editorial in the journal Nature has effectively gotten people talking about religion, science and what, if anything, each should have to do with the other. In a recent discussion with a fellow blogger it was argued that Harris' inclusion of Christian geneticist Francis Collins in his critique of Nature's editorial staff was improper, effectively undermining his argument.

[R]ather than challenge Collins directly, he lumps Collins with Islamic fundamentalists and the Catholic Church as part of a giant "force of unreason" based on views and positions that Collins adamantly opposes. Sounds rather weak to me.

Firstly, while I'm sure there is much that my friend and I could agree upon, I'm afraid that the issue of religion is one area where we significantly differ. Also, it should be noted, Harris said nothing about "Islamic fundamentalists" but was instead criticizing an earlier argument that claimed moderate Islam constitutes an "intrinsically rational world view." In this way he's only comparing moderate Christianity (via Collins) to moderate Islam. I hope we can both agree on that much.

However, whether the issue is Collins' defense of Christianity, a scientific defense of Islam, or an argument from the Pope or President Bush in defense of their religious views, it is all the same issue. They have already come to their conclusions and are simply fitting the facts to their beliefs. They feel the truth of their convictions and that, as they say, is that. Christianity and Islam may indeed represent an "intrinsically rational world view," but only if you accept the premises they are based upon. It therefore comes down to the evidence for or against this initial premise that forms the foundation for everything that follows. Islam is no different than Christianity or Hinduism or Scientology in the sense that it relies upon a revered text (or texts) and the word of authority instead of evidence. Perhaps more importantly, it relies upon a feeling in its believers. But one can feel something powerfully and it can have no basis in reality. It doesn't matter whether one person feels it or a million people feel it. It doesn't make a false reality any more true.



An example would be phantom limbs. A common experience of amputees is to still feel their missing arm or leg years after their accident. They can feel the sensation of opening and closing their hand but, when they open their eyes nothing exists. Their phantom leg will try to get out of bed and pull the frightened person along with them only to bring them crashing to the floor (this is a true case reported to Dr. V.S. Ramachandran in his book Phantoms in the Brain). One could make the argument that a spiritual limb still exists even after the physical limb has been lost. If you accept the premise that we are spiritual beings animating the physical world this is actually a fairly logical conclusion. However, the reality is that this phenomenon is the result of neurons in the somatosensory cortex for that limb which continue to fire and thus create the sensation of a false reality.

It's not too much of a stretch to link such phantom limbs with a feeling for God. What's more likely? That an invisible world exists that controls our destiny (but that people around the globe interpret in vastly different ways) or that all humans have similar neural networks that, under certain circumstances, engender a feeling of the divine? A great deal of work has been done in just this area. A terrific book in this field is Why God Won't Go Away. Among other fascinating discoveries, it demonstrates how Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns both invoke the same brain regions when they tap into the "oneness of the Universe" or "make contact with God" depending on their various interpretations of the same experience. Through their training and dedication in meditation or prayer they in effect "trick" their mind into creating a false reality.

Other individuals, such as those with temporal lobe epilepsy, have these false realities thrust upon them. Just like epilepsy of the motor cortex that results in spasmodic activation of the muscles, temporal lobe epilepsy causes the same repetitive firing of neuronal circuits but in a region of the brain central for our concept of space and time. Such individuals report ecstatic experiences of being in touch with the divine, or of receiving God's revelation if they were previously religious.


Artist depiction of Ellen G. White experiencing a vision.

To give just one well documented case, Ellen G. White, the founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, experienced powerful visions of "revelation" for most of her adult life following a serious head injury. As she described in her voluminous writings:

"I would say that when the Lord sees fit to give a vision, I am taken into the presence of Jesus and the angels, and am entirely lost to earthly things. I can see no farther than the angel directs me. My attention is often directed to scenes transpiring upon earth.

At times I am carried far ahead into the future and shown what is to take place. Then again I am shown things as they have occurred in the past."

Dr. Molleurus Couperus argued, in a study later published in Adventist Times, that the most likely explanation is that these visions were the result of partial-complex seizures such as would occur in temporal lobe epilepsy.

1. Ellen was a healthy normal girl, both physically and emotionally, until at the age of nine, she was hit by a stone on the nasal area of her face. She was unconscious for 3 weeks, indicating a severe brain injury; and was not able to remember anything about the accident or its aftermath. The type and location of her head injury, and the resulting period of unconsciousness and amnesia, made it likely that she would ultimately develop epileptic seizures.

2. Her dreams and visions began at age fifteen, some six years after her accident; and they continued throughout her life. When Ellen's vision experiences are compared with the seizures of temporal lobe epilepsy, they are found to be typical of partial complex seizures.

3. Following this, her behavioral traits were compared with those of temporal lobe epileptics and found to be similar.

Ellen White's visions were no more outlandish than those of past mystics (in fact, epilepsy is a likely candidate for the visions of Muhammad). The only difference is that her experiences and behavior were well documented and can be carefully compared to current neurological case studies. A further argument in favor of the view that the divine is an internal state is that people in cultures all over the world shock their systems through fasting, rhythmic prayer, chanting or even with hallucinogens in order to trick their brains into a mystical experience.



Most people aren't dedicated enough to train their neural pathways such as monks or nuns nor are they afflicted with what could be viewed as either the blessing or curse of temporal lobe epilepsy. But most people are raised in a tradition initiated by others who swear that their internal fantasy must be everyone's reality. Moses, Muhammad, Jesus, Siddhartha, Martin Luther, Joseph Smith, Ellen White, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and many other religious figureheads, both real and mythical, reported fantastic visions not available to most of us (though there is good evidence that Joseph Smith was merely a con man). We believe their visions because, well, we prefer to. It gives us hope. Provides meaning. We don't have to pay attention during biology class. Plus there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, sometimes millions of others that also believe in their visions. Charismatic authority figures spend their lives devoted to spreading these visions to others -- even those who never experienced such visions themselves but always longed to find that same connection. However, all of this just reinforces what is ultimately nothing more than someone's feeling.

So regardless of Francis Collins' credentials as a good scientist (and I wouldn't doubt his ability for a moment) his logic that God exists is based purely on rationalizing a feeling he once had in front of a winter waterfall. Cloaking this feeling in the language of science doesn't give it any more legitimacy, in fact it often led to tangled logic. Collins can believe whatever he likes about his experience, as can anyone. We all live with our private fantasies to a certain extent. However Harris' point is that in the admirable attempt to be inclusive, Nature's editors were foregoing their primary role as skeptical inquirers of sound science. Should they favorably review the next book on astrology if it also includes a reasonably good description of cosmic evolution? I think the point Harris makes is a good one and something we should seriously consider as scientists and citizens. We've seen how effectively faith has led the way in foreign policy decisions. Perhaps a return to reasonable arguments based on solid evidence would be a wiser course for the future.


For a background of my personal experience with religious belief see my post Calculating Faith.


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Scientists Should Unite Against Threat From Religion

In the current issue of Nature, Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation) penned this critique of the Nature editors' inclusion of religious apologists.




Correspondence

Nature 448, 864 (23 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448864a;

Published online 22 August 2007

Sam Harris
http://www.samharris.org


Sir

It was genuinely alarming to encounter Ziauddin Sardar's whitewash of Islam in the pages of your journal ('Beyond the troubled relationship' Nature 448, 131–133; 2007). Here, as elsewhere, Nature's coverage of religion has been unfailingly tactful — to the point of obscurantism.

In his Commentary, Sardar seems to accept, at face value, the claim that Islam constitutes an "intrinsically rational world view". Perhaps there are occasions where public intellectuals must proclaim the teachings of Islam to be perfectly in harmony with scientific naturalism. But let us not do so, just yet, in the world's foremost scientific journal.

Under the basic teachings of Islam, the Koran cannot be challenged or contradicted, being the perfect word of the creator of the Universe. To speak of the compatibility of science and Islam in 2007 is rather like speaking of the compatibility of science and Christianity in the year 1633, just as Galileo was being forced, under threat of death, to recant his understanding of the Earth's motion.

An Editorial announcing the publication of Francis Collins's book, The Language of God ('Building bridges' Nature 442, 110; doi:10.1038/442110a 2006) represents another instance of high-minded squeamishness in addressing the incompatibility of faith and reason. Nature praises Collins, a devout Christian, for engaging "with people of faith to explore how science — both in its mode of thought and its results — is consistent with their religious beliefs".

But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains... the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ."

What does the "mode of thought" displayed by Collins have in common with science? The Language of God should have sparked gasping outrage from the editors at Nature. Instead, they deemed Collins's efforts "moving" and "laudable", commending him for building a "bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of US academia and the so-called heartlands."

At a time when Muslim doctors and engineers stand accused of attempting atrocities in the expectation of supernatural reward, when the Catholic Church still preaches the sinfulness of condom use in villages devastated by AIDS, when the president of the United States repeatedly vetoes the most promising medical research for religious reasons, much depends on the scientific community presenting a united front against the forces of unreason.

There are bridges and there are gangplanks, and it is the business of journals such as Nature to know the difference.

I followed up on this editorial with my post The Feeling of What Happens.


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New Life in the Congo

After recent Gorilla tragedy, the birth of a new baby offers hope



Conservationists announced the birth of a critically endangered mountain gorilla in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park. The newborn marked a positive development for the embattled apes in the park -- nine out of its 100 gorillas have been killed this year by poachers, including five last month.

WildlifeDirect called the birth "a key step toward the survival of this critically endangered species."

The baby gorilla, a male, was born to the only female in the Munyaga Family, according to WildlifeDirect.

The newborn gorilla is expected to spend its first few months of life in constant physical contact with its mother, usually riding on its mother's back or being carried. Infant gorillas begin to walk at around four or five months and start to feed on plant parts at four to six months.

The gorillas live in Virunga National Park park, which sits near the border with Rwanda and supports roughly 380 of the world's remaining 700 mountain gorillas. Another 320 mountain gorillas are found in neighboring Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.

Mountain gorillas are generally well-protected relative to the more common lowland gorillas in other parts of Africa. As such, the July killings of five mountain gorillas sparked international outrage and led the U.N. to send a team of investigators to the region which is recovering from a decade of war. Rangers believe illegal charcoal harvesters from Goma are to blame.

Conservationists say gorillas can bring benefits to the local economy. In Uganda's Bwindi, well-trained guides lead small and carefully supervised groups of tourists who pay more than $300 each for a permit to see the gorillas. The efforts have provided some compensation for communities around the park who have had to give up their right to cut timber and harvest game from the protected forest.



WildlifeDirect, founded and chaired by renowned conservationist Dr Richard Leakey, promotes wildlife protection through blogs by rangers and conservationists. The WildlifeDirect website allows visitors to donate money directly to conservation efforts in the wild.

Story from Mongabay.com


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Aug 21, 2007

The Origins of Forbidden Love

Sexual equality, double standards and social scale



In my article Eye of the Beholder I described the latest study demonstrating that women tend to be most likely to cheat on their partners in heterosexual relationships when they’re at the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle.

In response Paul asked the question:

As you point out, these findings are consistent with the well supported notion that women (along with men) evolved more than one reproductive strategy. What puzzles me is why societies are more forgiving of the male who "cheats" than of the female who "cheats" -- a double standard that seems almost ubiquitous?

This double standard has not only been ubiquitous, it has been downright murderous in its application throughout history. However, this is not the case in every society. There is something very specific about which societies consistently demonstrate this double standard and which don’t.

In many indigenous societies sexuality is considered a healthy activity and marriage is a flexible social arrangement that can be initiated or terminated by either sex. For example, among the Vanatinai people of the New Guinea Highlands, Lepowsky (1990:190) writes “sexual activity is regarded as a pleasurable activity appropriate for men and women from adolescence to old age.” Divorce may be initiated by either husband or wife, and is most frequently the result of laziness on the part of the husband or because of the wife’s infidelity. However, infidelity is apparently common enough that Vanatinai marriage rules make any children born to outside fathers the husband’s kin.

This is mirrored among the Australian Aborigines of the Darwin Hinterland. Sansom (1978:100) found that “marriage does not stand for the containment of sexuality within the relationship. It is expected that all husbands and all wives will want lovers.” However, an infidelity that becomes too serious and involves economic favors can frequently lead to bitter argument or divorce.


Yanomami Woman. In many indigenous societies women's sexuality
is not controlled based on male interest.


Even among the Yanomamo, a group regarded as the definitive example of a traditional society in which a man’s dominance status correlates with his reproductive success (high ranking men have multiple wives, low ranking men are bachelors), the picture is not as clear as some would like to believe. Anthropologist John Peters contacted the Shirishana Yanomana during a period when there was a shortage of women and found there were nine polyandrous marriages (one woman with several men) and five monogamous ones (Peters & Hunt 1975).

This flexibility of monogamy and the sexual freedom among many indigenous women today was likely a condition for indigenous groups in the past. As demonstrated by the Montagnais of Northeastern Canada in the 1600s, French Jesuit Paul le Jeune reported with consternation that:

“The inconstancy of marriages and the facility with which they divorce each other, are a great obstacle to the Faith of Jesus Christ. We do not dare baptize the young people because experience teaches us that the custom of abandoning a disagreeable wife or husband has a strong hold on them” (Leacock 1981:50).

Likewise, polygamy (marriage to many partners) was another right that women and men took for granted and which the Jesuits weren’t able to convince the Montagnais to abandon. Perhaps the most telling difference between the sexual standards of indigenous and Western societies came when a Montagnais man objected to le Jeune’s preaching. According to le Jeune:

“I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love any one else except her husband, and that this evil being among them, he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, 'Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.'"


The Montagnais of Northeastern Canada demonstrated greater sexual
equality as reported by missionary Paul le Jeune in the 1600s.


In contrast to tribal societies, the rise of states and the development of religious law initiated a starkly different vision for women’s sexual choices. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism each share a fundamental concern over the punishment for a woman’s sexual freedom. Whereas any “man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife [both] the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death,” (Leviticus 20:10) any unmarried woman who has sexual relations with an unmarried man shall be brought “to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die” (Deuteronomy 22:21).

In fact, the only sexual relationship outside of marriage that does not end in death for the woman is in the case of rape. In that event, if the woman is married, “the man only that lay with her shall die” but, if she is a virgin, “the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her” (Deuteronomy 22:25-29). The main interest in all of these cases is the paternal interests of kinship and never the interests of the woman in question.


Iranian woman symbolically protests the penalties
imposed by Islamic law for women's sexuality, a
reality common in the history of most religions.


The Bible views women as being half as valuable as men, which is directly comparable to the Qu'ran. There are also direct parallels in punishing women's sexuality. For example, there is no punishment for men in the event of rape except under the categories of "adultery or fornication." In which case “scourge ye each one of them with a hundred stripes. And let not pity for the twain withhold you from obedience to Allah” (Surah 24:2). However, if a married or unmarried woman is “guilty of lewdness,” which Ali (2003:189) defines as adultery or fornication, “confine them to the houses until death take them or until Allah appoint for them a way [flogging for fornication and stoning for adultery]” (Surah 4:15).

The Manu Smriti, the most authoritative books of the Hindu code, or dharma, proscribes that “When a woman, proud of her relations or abilities deceives her husband with another man, then the king should ensure that she be torn apart by dogs in a place much frequented by people.” (Manu VIII:371). Such punishment is necessary because “It is the nature of women to seduce men in this world; for that reason the wise are never unguarded in the company of females” (Manu II:213). The Artharva Veda dictated that if a woman was found guilty of a carnal crime her generative organs were to be cut off and she was ultimately sentenced to death (Arth IV:13).

This stark contrast between indigenous and state societies can be understood as power relationships between the sexes that change as the result of social scale. Anthropologist John Bodley (who I’ve had the pleasure of working with directly) wrote in his groundbreaking work The Power of Scale that:

“The size of human societies and cultures matters because larger societies will naturally have more concentrated social power. Larger societies will be less democratic than smaller societies, and they will have an unequal distribution of risks and rewards” (Bodley 2003:54).

As I touched on in an earlier post (The Evolution of Metapopulations and the Future of Humanity), the invention of agriculture and the subsequent choice by some societies to remain sedentary lead to the unequal accumulation of private goods and the need for a ruling elite to mediate property disputes. This ruling elite frequently identified themselves as an embodiment of the state itself (and often with divine authority). While smaller scale societies would manage any dispute or crime communally, state level societies defined all crimes as crimes against the state (for example, hunting wild deer on the King’s land would be construed as “poaching the King’s deer”).

Males of most species use their larger physical size, or sexual dimorphism, to increase their reproductive success. But females generally have opposing strategies when their reproductive interests are different. Whereas indigenous societies are often more egalitarian, early state level societies codified human sexual dimorphism into law and viewed paternity rights in the same category as property rights because inheritance was of greater concern. With the power of the state to punish any violation of the law, women were relegated to the status of chattel and their sexual choices were constrained by the threat of capital punishment. It has only been with the rise of secular democracies, and the reduction of religious authority, that women have begun to reclaim their sexual freedom. The last thirty years has seen the largest rise in women’s economic and social power in human history (mostly confined to the West). It’s not coincidental that women have also seen the greatest freedom from sexual coercion and control during this same period. There is a great deal of work that needs to be done and, at the same time, there are still strong proponents in favor of moving backwards.


Which culture is more guilty of imposing sexual roles on women?

While greater female sexual equality doesn’t exist in every indigenous society, it would appear that social and environmental factors are crucial. Likewise, as David Schmitt reviewed in his analysis of 48 countries, environmental influences such as the ratio of men to women are strong predictors of sexual dynamics (Schmitt 2005). As Schmitt also reported, most women prefer stable monogamous partnerships. Sexual equality means a woman's right to enter and leave relationships with the same freedom as men. So we shouldn't confuse sexual equality with promiscuity. One could make the argument that, whereas many women in the Middle East and North Africa are subject to one form of patriarchal control and denied sexual equality, women in the West are subject to another form and are made to feel like they must be sexual objects for male gratification.

So, I would argue, the double standard we witness today is actually a cultural holdover from this long tradition of patriarchy. While it may have gotten its start as the result of our evolutionary history (males being larger than females) it has been exaggerated and enforced as the result of male-dominated cultural practices. However, this condition is by no means permanent.


References:

Ali, A.Y. (2003). The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an. Amana Publications, Beltsville, Maryland.

Bodley, J.H. (2003). The Power of Scale: A Global History Approach. M.E. Sharpe. New York.

Leacock, E. (1981). Myths of Male Dominance. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Lepowsky, M. (1990). Gender in an egalitarian society: a case study from the coral sea. In Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in Anthropology of Gender. Sanday, P.R. & Goodenough, R.G. (eds). University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

Peters, J.F. & Hunt, C.L. (1975). Polyandry among the Yanomana Shirishana. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 6:197–207.

Sansom, B. (1978). ‘Sex, age, and social control in mobs of the Darwin hinterland’, in J.S. La Fontaine (ed.), Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation, Academic Press, London.

Schmitt, D. (2005). Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28:247-311.



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Aug 20, 2007

Move Over MTV, Science Just Went Live

SciVee brings the latest science to your desktop



John Hawks just brought this to my attention. This looks incredibly cool and is just getting started. Following up on the Public Library of Science public domain journals, now scientists can upload videos presenting their cutting edge research at a free online conference.

As they explain at the SciVee website:


SciVee, created for scientists, by scientists, moves science beyond the printed word and lecture theater taking advantage of the internet as a communication medium where scientists young and old have a place and a voice.

The only hitch, as of now, is that you have to be published in one of the PLoS journals in order to upload your video presentation. Nonetheless, this is just one more way that science can be made more accessible to the public. Of course, now that our conference presentations will reach an audience larger than 30 we'll have to seriously work on our public speaking skills.


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A Three Million Year Walk Through Egypt

New hominid footprint has Intelligent Design advocate stumped


Zahi Hawass_________________Cast of fossilized footprint________

This is very confusing. The Scubaredneck (seriously, that's his name) writing at Uncommon Descent posted this article about a new fossil footprint in Egypt that might be older than the earliest evidence of Australopithecus afarensis. But he just posted the story as is from Reuters. Did he forget to inject his Intelligent Design message to show they’d predicted this all along? Is there something significant about Egypt having evidence of hominids earlier than Ethiopia? Are they changing their tactic to suggest that evolutionary anthropologists have been too conservative in their estimates about the age of A. afarensis? I really don’t understand why this would be posted on William Dembski’s page. Can someone explain it to me?

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists have found what they said could be the oldest human footprint in history in the country’s western desert, the Arab country’s antiquities’ chief said on Monday.

“This could go back about two million years,” said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. “It could be the most important discovery in Egypt,” he told Reuters.

Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis.

Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.

Khaled Saad, the director of prehistory at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where the footprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of an ape-man, found in Ethiopia in 1974. (emphasis added by The Scubaredneck)

He probably thinks that Reuters' use of the word "human" means modern humans. I can see him grinning with excitement as he posted the story. If only a dinosaur footprint had been just next to it he might have had an aneurysm.

In all seriousness, the indentations at the heel and big toe are consistent with the footprints from Laetoli and could be further evidence of early hominid bipedalism. This would provide additional evidence that our ancestors walked upright before large brains had evolved. However, the assessment that this dates from earlier than 3 million years ago was based purely on one person's interpretation prior to a full analysis (notice how there were two age estimates in the same article), so I look forward to this evidence being presented in a journal. Because, unlike the Intelligent Design advocates, I don’t take random media clips as evidence for anything.



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Two More Gorillas Found Dead

Good news of baby Ndeze's success marred by tragedy



Earlier this week I linked to a story showing that the baby of one of the four murdered gorillas (one of whom was also pregnant) is currently in stable condition. Yesterday conservationists in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo discovered the remains of two more adult gorillas with one of their infants almost assuredly lost as well. This brings the death toll to nine this year. As I highlighted before, with only 700 mountain gorillas alive in the wild the loss of these individuals now represents the equivalent of 85 million people, or the entire population of Germany.

According to Reuters:

"Effectively, this means that not only are there six that are now dead, but there will now be a group of 12 gorillas that may not carry on into the next generation, said Gerard Collin, a consultant with the UNESCO team.

So far this year, nine mountain gorillas have been killed in North Kivu.

Two adult males, known as silverbacks because of their grey colouring, were killed and eaten by rebels living off the land.

A third, a female, was shot in the back of the head in what conservationists said was an "execution-style" killing. Rangers found her baby clinging to her body, suggesting she was not killed for bush meat or the lucrative trade in primate infants.

Some conservationists say they suspect the killings are linked to a power struggle between local government agents trying to save Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, and those engaged in the illicit trade in charcoal made from its trees.

For those of you able to help, donations can be sent to the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund.


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Aug 19, 2007

Point of Inquiry with Chris Mooney



ScienceBlogger Chris Mooney (The Intersection) is featured in the latest interview at Point of Inquiry. His book Storm World, centers on the increasingly large storms that we can expect as a result of the climate crisis and the political forces that are opposing policy change.


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Ever Considered Being an Evangelical Atheist?

From John Safran vs God

For those of you who haven't heard of Australian comedian John Safran, this bit where he travels to Utah to inform Mormons about the good news is not to be missed.




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A Brief History of Religion

Your Sunday Skepticomic from David Horsey



To view last Sunday's comic click here.


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Aug 18, 2007

The Boneyard #3

The Boneyard paleo-carnival is up at Laelaps. Get your osteology on!


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Bonobos "Red in Tooth and Claw"

Bonobos are not totally peaceful, but reports have been greatly exaggerated


John Hawks has a great review of the commentary following Ian Parker’s New Yorker article "Swingers" on bonobos as well as Frans de Waal’s response in eSkeptic. I’ve previously commented about this issue here and here. However, I disagree somewhat with my fellow anthro blogger that de Waal is accusing Parker of having a political agenda. De Waal points out that conservative pundits picked up on this article in order to, following Parker’s phrase, “use the species as a stick to beat” their ideological drum. What de Waal points out is that Parker was merely “sexing up” his article to raise a little controversy.

Parker presented his trip as a fact-finding mission that had unearthed revolutionary new insights. His message was that bonobos are killer apes, just like their cousins, the chimpanzees. The animal kingdom remained “red in tooth and claw,” as it ought to be.

Yet, the most striking cases of bonobo aggression that he reported have been known for decades, and actually didn’t come from the natural habitat, even less from first-hand observation by our brave explorer.

Challenging a widely held view, even without anything dramatically new to report, is a standard journalistic hook in order to generate audience interest. Whether Parker intentionally chose this tactic or whether it just seemed to be the most exciting way to tell the story isn't all that important. It was a beautifully written piece on the difficulties of fieldwork which ultimately contained flaws about bonobo social behavior.

Parker quotes primatologists Gottfried Hohmann and Craig Stanford (two researchers I greatly respect) in such a way that it implies de Waal has been wrong in his interpretations since he’s never done field work himself. Stanford had some of the most critical statements but, since he’s never done fieldwork with bonobos either, these aren't as relevant as Hohmann's. However, while Hohmann has published some exciting field results showing that bonobo behavior could be more flexible than previously thought, his findings do not contradict de Waal’s interpretations.

For example, Parker takes issue with de Waal's statement that:

“Who could have imagined a close relative of ours in which female alliances intimidate males, sexual behavior is as rich as ours, different groups do not fight but mingle, mothers take on a central role, and the greatest intellectual achievement is not tool use but sensitivity to others?”

Taking each point individually, compare that with the following statements from Hohmann's publications:

1. “Aggression by males against females was rare and was almost never followed by mating between aggressor and target. Female aggression against males occurred frequently but appeared to be independent of mating behaviour.” Behaviour (2002).

2. “Why females of the two Pan species differ in their [genito-genital] displays of social status remains a challenge for future research. The finding that bonobos perform this behaviour so regularly indicates that social status is an important issue for the females of this species. Because of their frequent use, dyadic performance, spatial variability and behavioural plasticity, we suggest that genital contacts can be used to investigate the quality and dynamics of social relationships among female bonobos.” Animal Behavior (2000).

3. “Bonobos show an opportunistic and promiscuous mating behaviour, even with mates from outside the community.” Proceedings: Biological Sciences (1999). Also see Primates (2001) for a short communication involving tolerance of strangers.

4. “The lasting bonds between mothers and sons may be a substitute for male coalitions serving rank acquisition in chimpanzees.” Behaviour (1999).

Other than de Waal's final comment about intellectual achievement (which is a value judgment, even though bonobo empathy has been shown to be greater than chimpanzees) the two researchers don't differ substantially on these points. Parker didn't include this common ground but opted to create a wedge between Hohmann and de Waal. This opened the door for political pundits to declare victory that the bonobo "myth" had been disproved (which shows what standard of evidence they embrace).

However, it's important to point out that new field data has provided more complexity to the social lives of bonobos (and of chimpanzees as well). The excellent book Behavioural Diversity in Chimpanzees and Bonobos (of which Hohmann was a co-editor) shows how different environmental conditions bring out different sides to these species. An in depth review of this book can be found here.

Fortunately, and with all criticism aside, any discussion about bonobos can only aid in the conservation of this critically endangered species as it will activate their strongest base of supporters and bring them to the attention of others who may have never known there was more than one "chimpanzee." I also salute Parker’s dedication for taking such an arduous journey to watch bonobos personally, as brief as that may have been.

However, John Hawks is absolutely correct that Parker's misrepresentations are minor compared to some other blunders in science journalism. It's important for researchers to continually challenge those interpreting scientific results for the public so that such misrepresentations will be minimized.

Currently Gottfried Hohmann and Frances White are conducting field work in the region (I conducted an interview with Dr. White earlier about bonobo behavior). It will be exciting to learn what new insights are discovered about our evolutionary cousins.


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Aug 17, 2007

The Evolution of Metapopulations and the Future of Humanity

Or: Who's Your Neighbor?



Earlier I put out a call for evolutionary questions, and several of you responded. I will answer them all in the next few days. First off, ETBNC asked:

It's my understanding this species [Homo sapiens] lived in relatively small social groups (of a few dozen) for at least 95% of its existence as a species. For the last 5% of its history these homo sapiens have been trying to live in increasingly large social groups, as much as 6 or 7 orders of magnitude larger. Since homo sapiens is known to be able to modify its behavior patterns in, um, "interesting" ways, such discontinuity isn't that remarkable.

My hypothesis is that small social groups are still the default behavior for the species homo sapiens. . . . Does that seem like a reasonable hypothesis to you?

It is my view that this is absolutely correct and it has important ramifications for modern human existence, which I'll discuss. The earliest evidence for Homo sapiens in Africa is from about 200,000 years ago. The earliest large-scale societies are from about 10,000 years ago. This means that 95% of our history was spent in small, mobile groups living as hunter-gatherers. However, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo habilis and the Australopithcines would likely have lived in similar small groups. If we include the rest of our family as part of the human lineage than small groups would have been the norm for 99.9975% of our existence. And if we include our common ancestors with great apes then we might as well round up and conclude that human civilization has simply been a calculation error.

This raises two provocative questions: 1) Why after so long did humans begin living in large sedentary groups? and 2) What does this mean for our modern experiment in group living? The answer to the first question is simple: farming. The most recent ice age lasted from around 70,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE. According to genetic evidence, humans first migrated out of Africa between 59,000–69,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found the first evidence of farming and sedentary, long-term habitations from around 10,000 years ago (and most famously in the region known as the Fertile Crescent). These independent pieces of evidence strongly suggest that the ice age played a significant role in some human populations' original migration and subsequent discovery of agriculture. As Jared Diamond has brilliantly summarized in his Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs and Steel, agriculture then only had to be discovered independently a few times before it could spread across entire continents within a few hundred to a thousand years. Why agriculture wasn't struck upon earlier than 70,000 years ago is an interesting question, which I can follow up on if there is any interest.

However, agriculture proved to be a radically different way of interacting with the natural world, and it's easy to understand how our ancestors could find it so attractive (and also addictive). Up until this time food had never been an issue, that is, if you were hungry you went out and found food. You followed the migrating herds. You lived along rivers teeming with fish. You collected seeds, and grasses and tubers. On occasion there would be a shortage and many of your loved ones wouldn't make it through the winter, but in general a relatively small proportion of your time was devoted to food preparation.

Agriculture required remaining fixed to a certain area. It required daily toil to plow, plant and harvest the crops and, on top of that, there were constant pests and diseases that could decimate what you'd sown. But it offered control. You could store food and ride out long periods of inclement weather that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. It was a devil's bargain and some groups accepted. As Daniel Quinn suggested in his novel Ishmael, the early conflict between the hunter-gatherer way of life and that of the farmer may have been passed on to us through the myth of Cain and Abel.

These sedentary agricultural communities also allowed enormous population expansion. With a controlled reserve of food more people would survive. The population would expand and more food would be grown to compensate. For the first time in human history, people began to be surrounded by strangers in their own community.

But what does this say about human destiny? If our natural habitat is one of small, migrating groups how are we able to live in cities numbering in the millions? Answer: just barely. The most recent World Bank data demonstrate that only a tiny percentage of us live relatively decent lives, economically speaking. 84% of the world population currently lives on only 16% of the world's combined income. To put that into perspective, the richest 1% in the world today makes an average of $24,000 a year. When we think of the super rich we shouldn't think of Bill Gates, we should think of kindergarten teachers.

We are also living amidst a community of strangers. How many of your neighbors have you met? Where are they originally from? What did their parents do? My guess is that most people reading this don't know their neighbors very well at all. This is important when combined with such extreme inequality. Ethical behavior that was honed through group living (see my post on The Evolution of Morality) and that people would normally demonstrate towards a friend or loved one, doesn't apply as strongly towards a stranger. There are very few costs associated with cheating someone in a business transaction if you're unlikely to ever see that person again. This has necessitated blind laws (such as mandatory minimums and three strikes) in order to punish bad behavior that, in our hunter-gatherer days, could have been decided upon as a group. The earliest laws such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments decreed that death was to be the punishment for most infractions. That we've improved remarkably in our clemency isn't so much a testament to our own beneficence as it is a demonstration of just how off balance human civilization has always been.

So the answer is we're managing, but only barely. However, if the history of human civilization is any guide (think Angkor Wat, think Chichén Itzá), once the human population outstrips the landbase needed to support it then collapse is imminent. As I wrote earlier, we are seriously outstripping our global landbase and we're accelerating. It's going to be a wild ride.



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