Category Archives: Science and Society

Interview with Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Laureate in Chemisty (in Greek)

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Jean Marie Lehn

Jean Marie Lehn

This is an edited transcript of an Interview of Jean-Marie Lehn taken by George Zarkadakis in Athens on 3/05/2006)

Ο Jean-Marie Lehn γεννήθηκε στη μεσαιωνική πόλη Rosheim της Γαλλίας το 1938 και στα νεανικά του χρόνια αμφιταλαντεύτηκε να επιλέξει ανάμεσα σε πανεπιστημιακές σπουδές στη φιλοσοφία ή στη χημεία. Τελικά επέλεξε τη δεύτερη και το 1987 κέρδισε το Βραβείο Νόμπελ Χημείας για την έρευνά του στη μοριακή αναγνώριση, δηλαδή τον τρόπο που ένα μόριο-δέκτης εκλεκτικά αναγνωρίζει και προσδένεται σε ένα υπόστρωμα. Σήμερα ο Jean Mari-Lehn είναι Διευθυντής του Εργαστηρίου Υπερμοριακής Χημείας, στο Ινστιτούτο Επιστημών και Υπερμοριακής Μηχανικής του Στρασβούργου (ISIS).

ΓΖ: Τι είναι η ζωή;
L: Δεν υπάρχει μεμονωμένη χημική ουσία που να μπορεί να θεωρηθεί έμβιο ον. Το ζήτημα είναι ποια, ποιο είναι το όριο πέρα από το οποίο ξεκινά αυτό που λέμε ζωή. Η απάντηση είναι οι ιοί. Οι ιοί είναι σαν ένα σακούλι γεμάτο πρωτείνες, το οποίο ωστόσο διαθέτει γονιδίωμα. Όταν ο ιός είναι απομονωμένος θεωρείται νεκρός γιατί πολύ απλά δεν μπορεί να πολλαπλασιαστεί από μόνος του. Όταν όμως προσβάλει κάποιο κύτταρο παίρνει από αυτό τα ένζυμα που είναι απαραίτητα για τον πολλαπλασιασμό και αναπαράγει τον εαυτό του. Τότε θεωρείται ως μορφή ζωής. Μόλις όμως αναπαραχθεί και βγει από το κύτταρο, αυτόματα χάνει την ικανότητα αναπαραγωγής και θεωρείται απλά ως ένα σύνολο μορίων.

ΓΖ: Η ζωή είναι πληροφορία;
L: Το γονιδίωμα είναι η πληροφορία. Ο ιός έχει μια δεδομένη δομή. Για να αναπαραχθεί αυτή η δομή, δηλαδή για να «ξαναφτιαχτεί» ο ιός, χρειάζεται η πληροφορία του γονιδιώματος. Στο DNA, για παράδειγμα, η πληροφορία είναι αποθηκευμένη με τη μορφή τεσσάρων γραμμάτων. Η ακολουθία και οι αλληλεπιδράσεις μεταξύ των γραμμάτων είναι αυτό που λέμε γονιδίωμα.

ΓΖ: Η εξέλιξη είναι μονόδρομος;
L: Όχι, πολλές διαδρομές. Οι προβιοτικοί χημικοί πιθανολογούν ότι η ζωή προχώρησε παράλληλα σε πολλές διαδρομές. Αυτό που συνέβη όμως ήταν το εξής: όταν μια μορφή ζωής ήταν επιτυχημένη συνέχιζε να εξελίσσεται Αντίθετα οι υπόλοιπες σταδιακά εξαφανίστηκαν. Αν η ζωή βρεθεί σε εξελικτικό αδιέξοδο δεν μπορεί να γυρίσει προς τα πίσω, προς το σημείο εκκίνησης, και να διαλέξει άλλο δρόμο εξέλιξης. Έτσι μπορούμε να πούμε η ζωή ήταν ένας συνδυασμός άτακτης και αυτοβελτιούμενης εξέλιξης.

ΓΖ: Τι είναι η «υπερμοριακή χημεία»;
L: Η υπερομοριακή χημεία ασχολείται όχι με τα μόρια των χημικών ενώσεων, αλλά με τις αλληλεπιδράσεις μεταξύ των μορίων μέσα στις χημικές ενώσεις. Η υπερομοριακή χημεία είναι η χημεία που μελετά με ποιες διαδικασίες τα μόρια αναγνωρίζονται μεταξύ τους και γιατί δημιουργούν επιλεκτικούς χημικούς δεσμούς.

ΓΖ: Ποιες είναι οι μεγάλες προκλήσεις της χημείας τον 21ο αιώνα;
L: Αυτό που προσωπικά με ενδιαφέρει είναι η έρευνα γύρω από την οργάνωση της ύλης, η μετάβαση από ένα μεμονωμένο μόριο σε πολύπλοκες μορφές ύλης. Ένας άλλος ενδιαφέρων τομέας της χημείας είναι η κατάλυση, δηλαδή το πώς θα δημιουργήσουμε χημικές αντιδράσεις οι οποίες θα είναι πιο αποτελεσματικές και ταυτόχρονα θα απαιτούν λιγότερη ενέργεια. Επίσης η νανοτεχνολογία, η σύμπραξη χημείας και φυσικής, και η προσπάθεια να ελέγξουμε τις κινήσεις των μορίων ώστε να κατασκευάσουμε μικρομηχανές με μοριακό μέγεθος.

ΓΖ: Πολλοί άνθρωποι θεωρούν τη χημεία συνώνυμη με τη χημική ρύπανση…
L: Καταρχήν να ξεκαθαρίσουμε ότι παράγουμε χημικές ουσίες επειδή ο κόσμος τις χρειάζεται. Αν για παράδειγμα οι άνθρωποι δεν οδηγούσαν αυτοκίνητα δεν θα είχαμε τόση πολύ ρύπανση. Οπότε ας σταματήσουμε να χρησιμοποιούμε το αυτοκίνητό μας αλόγιστα. Αν δεν θέλουμε να το κάνουμε αυτό, τότε πρέπει να δεχτούμε τις συνέπειες των πράξεών μας, δηλαδή την ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση. Επιπλέον η χημεία ενοχλεί επειδή μυρίζει. Πράγματι, οι άνθρωποι είμαστε ζώα και η αίσθηση της όσφρησης είναι πολύ σημαντική για τα ζώα. Για παράδειγμα, αν βλέπαμε ένα κατακόκκινο σύννεφο το οποίο δεν ξέραμε ότι ήταν τοξικό και δεν μπορούσαμε να το μυρίσουμε, τότε όχι μόνο δεν θα μας ενοχλούσε αλλά μάλλον θα μας γοήτευε κιόλας. Πάντως τα τελευταία 30 χρόνια έχει γίνει μεγάλη πρόοδος στον τομέα της ρύπανσης. Και μπορεί να γίνει ακόμα περισσότερη αρκεί να είμαστε πρόθυμοι να πληρώσουμε. Ένα εργοστάσιο που θα εγκαταστήσει φίλτρα και θα χρησιμοποιήσει αντιρρυπαντική τεχνολογία θα πρέπει να ξοδέψει πολλά χρήματα. Προφανώς το προϊόν που θα βγαίνει από τη γραμμή παραγωγής θα είναι ελαφρώς ακριβότερο και το κόστος αυτό θα μετακυληθεί στον πελάτη. Σε κάθε περίπτωση όμως πρέπει να ξεκαθαρίσουμε ότι με όρους τοξικότητας η φύση παράγει πολύ πιο τοξικές ουσίες απ’ ότι ο άνθρωπος. Για παράδειγμα, υπάρχουν φυτά που χρησιμοποιούμε, μετά από κατεργασία βέβαια, ως φάρμακα και τα οποία είναι τόσο τοξικά ώστε στη φύση είναι άκρως δηλητηριώδη.

ΓΖ: Βλέπετε να αλλάζει ο χάρτης της επιστήμης με την είσοδο νέων «παικτών», όπως η Κίνα ή η Ινδία;
L: Η επιστήμη είναι επιστήμη. Δεν έχει σημασία αν γίνεται στην Ανταρκτική, στην Αλάσκα ή στην Νότια Αμερική. Αυτό που ίσως αλλάξει είναι το επίκεντρο των επιστημονικών ανακαλύψεων. Η Κίνα και η Ινδία διαθέτουν λαμπρούς επιστήμονες και σίγουρα θα καταλάβουν δεσπόζουσα θέση στην παγκόσμια επιστημονική κοινότητα. Αναπόφευκτα η Ευρώπη θα περάσει σε δεύτερη μοίρα εκτός αν προσπαθήσουμε πολύ σκληρά. Αν δεν φτιάξουμε το σύστημα μας, θα μετατραπούμε απλά σε τουριστικό προορισμό και τίποτα παραπάνω. Επιπλέον πιστεύω ότι αν και στην Ευρώπη εδραιώθηκε ο ορθολογισμός, δεν έχουμε καταφέρει να τον περάσουμε στην κοινωνία. Για παράδειγμα πληροφορήθηκα ότι στην Ελλάδα δεν διδάσκεται η θεωρία της εξέλιξης των ειδών στα σχολεία. Αν αυτό ισχύει τότε υπάρχει πρόβλημα. Αντίστοιχα φοβάμαι την άνοδο του φονταμεταλισμού στην Ευρώπη. Η εντύπωση μου είναι ότι οι Κινέζοι εξαιτίας της κουλτούρας τους δεν έχουν ισχυρό θρησκευτικό φονταμεταλισμό, αντίθετα είναι πιο πρακτικοί.

ΓΖ: Πώς θα εξηγούσατε την αβεβαιότητα των επιστημονικών ανακαλύψεων σε ένα κοινό που αναζητά τη βεβαιότητα;
L: Οι άνθρωποι οδηγούν το αυτοκίνητό τους και πιστεύουν ότι σίγουρα θα φτάσουν στον προορισμό τους. Ξαφνικά όμως ένα δέντρο πέφτει στο δρόμο ή σκάει το λάστιχο και τότε… Η βεβαιότητα, το 100%, δεν υπάρχει πουθενά στη φύση γιατί λοιπόν να το απαιτούμε από την επιστήμη;

Victorian scientific romance and robot apocalypse

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The 1800s must have been a great time to live. They mark the beginning of many things we take for granted today; most notably democracy, technological and scientific innovation, globalization and international trade. The British Empire was at its height, people started moving with steamships and trains across continents, and inventions like the telegraph and the telephone allowed news to travel faster than ever.

History must have seemed to take a whole new course, unimagined by people who lived only a few years earlier. Writers such as Samuel Butler, H.G. Wells, William Morris, and others pondered upon the question of progress, and a new literary genre was created that mixed fantasy, satire and allegory: the scientific romance. A few notable books of this genre are “The Time Machine” (1895) by Wells, “News from Nowhere” (1890) by Morris and “Erewhon” (1872) by Butler.

Samuel Butler

In Erewhon (an anagram of “nowhere”) Butler describes a utopian society that had become industrialized long before Europe and had opted to banish machines. This was because in Erewhon machines were deemed to be dangerous. Butler expanded on the idea in his “Book of Machines” where he claimed that Darwinism applied to machine evolution, and therefore it was inevitable that machines will ultimately develop consciousness. Butler claimed that  ”it was the race of the intelligent machines and not the race of men which would be the next step in evolution.” Frank Herbert, the author of “Dune”, as a back-story coined the term “Butlerian jihad” to describe an event 10,000 years before the events of Dune, where thinking machines were outlawed.

Butlerian Jihad

There is a cautionary tale in Victorian scientific romance, something that resonates vividly in our post-industrial age . The 21st century arrived awkwardly  The events of 9/11, as well as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, colored the first decade of our century with the shades of two unnecessary wars that polarized politics. The economic crises of 2008 and the current crisis in the eurozone have shifted public debate towards a refutation of capitalism.

Whilst all this take place in the forefront of public awareness an immense technological revolution brews quietly in the background. This revolution is all about intelligent machines. They may not have arrived at the level of consciousness yet (but who can really tell?) but they control our planet and our lives already. Our financial and commodity markets, our defense systems, our industries, our infrastructures are all controlled to a greater or lesser degree by autonomous computer programs.

In October 2011 a major military exercise took place across NATO countries in preparation for future cyberwar.  NATO scenarios assumed a cyber attack from a hostile country or terrorist organization. But, what if the “attack” comes as a rebellion of our “mechanical slaves”?  How could we tell the difference?  And what could we possibly do to defend ourselves then?

In defence of Watson

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Nobel laureate James Watson was attacked on  April 14th  2011 whilst giving a lecture at Patras University. Hooded youngsters invaded the lecture theatre crying “racist!”. One of them  jumped on the stage yielding a stick and attacked elderly Watson. The Nobel laureate escaped unharmed thanks to students and academics who rushed to his rescue.

I condemn this fascist incident which has to do with a twisted and quite insane idea that prevails in Greek Universities with regards to “asylum”; meaning that anyone within University grounds has immunity from the law, including criminal activities such as attacking someone with intent to cause harm, or even kill.

However, and because there will be many in Greece and elsewhere who apart from condeming the attack they might also accuse Watson for racism, let me remind what has happened; and then let me explain my take on this,

Watson had told the Sunday Times a couple of years ago that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa“ because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really.” The world media reacted violently against those comments, the result being that Watson is being branded a racist and widely discredited. His response to the uproar has been: “To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”

So what did Watson really mean?

An undeniable and mysterious fact has been that during the half century or so in just about every industrial society average IQs have risen dramatically. This cannot be evolutionary. It takes many generations for evolutionary effects to take place and fifty years are simply not enough. So what has gone on? Many candidates: better diet, better education, even television aka the information revolution. All in all, what the findings mean is that Europeans and Americans – let us say predominantly “white people” (although black people in western societies are also included in those measurements) – were more “stupid” fifty years ago. This ‘stupidity” had nothing to do with the color of their skin. It is related to the level of social and economic development in the west. What Watson tried to say was that the same truth applies to Africa today. Africans’  measurements of intelligence (and not intelligence as a “natural” given whatever that may mean) are low not because they are black but because they are poor and uneducated, like us white ones were fifty years ago. His point is very poignant. When smart white people at the IMF and the World Bank develop their smart white policies to cure the ills of Africa, and then expect the Africans, at their present level of socio-economic development, to implement them, they are wasting valuable resources. Measures for Africa must be customized to reflect the situation on the ground. Imagine a World Bank expert on a time machine, flying back to Washington DC at the turn of the 20th century and expecting to implement modern policies in the all-white America of 1900s. I would dare to guess that our well-meaning time traveler will not be understood – by those white “stupid” folks, who would find it impossible to heed to our time traveler’s advise.

So why Watson did got so misunderstood? Because of two things. Firstly, because of media hysteria on anything that touches upon race and gender. Secondly, because when a scientist speaks to the media must tread very carefully. I have met many scientists in my life who thought that science communication in the media simply means “talking about science”. Well it does not, folks! It means, first and foremost, understanding the difference between a newspaper and a science journal. In the latter you have time to expand, retort, debate. In the former you do not. Elementary, dear Watson…

Eugenics in the 21st century

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Synopsis for a Café Scientifique delivered in Thessaloniki)

Eugenics was a liberal vision because, at the time of Sir Francis Galton, it was radical and against the Victorian class system. By going beyond the class structure, eugenics envisioned a future world of enhanced humans irrespective of class background. It was a truly egalitarian vision inspired by Darwinism and aiming for a balance between nature and nurture.

Following the destruction of the European class system after the carnage of WW1, egalitarian ideas were split between the Left focusing more on the “nurture” side of the argument and the Right corrupting the “nature” side and replacing it with “race”. Liberalism – expressed in the few remaining parliamentary democracies – found itself in the uneasy middle, a follower rather than a leader, a defender of its hijacked ideology.

The extreme Left in Soviet Union and the extreme Right in Nazi Germany were responsible for genocide; the former in “re-education gulags” the latter in “concentration camps”. It was thus that eugenics got a bad name, particularly from the Nazi atrocities which were linked to eugenics during the Nuremberg Trial. The line of the defence for the Nazi criminals was that they did little else compared to what the Americans were doing in their own country by means of forceful sterlization programs. The irony is, of course, that the Nazis while exterminating the Jews were aiming to destroy not an “inferior” race but an antagonistic one, a people who despite their small number had contributed immensely in the European civilisation. Race was a pretext; and this is why a big number of European Christians eagerly joined the Nazis in the slaughter.

Egalitarianism was redefined by the European Left after the war as in direct opposition to eugenics – conveniently forgetting the millions that were dying in Siberia.

But the idea has refused to disappear, because it bods with the fundamental value system of most human beings, i.e. the enhancement of our abilities. In the 21st century eugenics is not used as a term anymore (in order not to elicit negative reactions), but the idea is there, alive and well, manifesting both in technologies that intervene in the genetic make-up of the unborn (“designer babies”), as well as in technologies that may enhance already born humans. How many of us would refuse to becoming cleverer, stronger, healthier, younger and more sexually potent?

The dilemmas of enhancement

There are at least three major moral and political dilemmas that I would like to discuss. The first has to do with the control of the eugenics technologies. Should one support the liberal, free-market economics model, where private companies sell the technologies to the consumers? Or should one involve the State? And to what degree? The dilemma is obvious. If we follow a free-market approach we may arrive at a new class system, where the ultra rich will be able to use the expensive technology to enhance themselves and their offspring. We may end up with a superhuman class, the “GenRich” as it is often called. If we make eugenics a state-controlled commodity, then we uneasily reproduce a totalitarian scenario for the future. One must not forget that the Nazi party was a socialist one.

The second dilemma that I would like to discuss has to do with the technologies themselves. Both pre-natal genetic interventionism and post-natal enhancement (genetic or otherwise) have merits that need to be discussed. For example, in the case of post-natal enhancement how much down the road to becoming cyborgs we go? Finally, the third issue for discussion would be our motivation for human enhancement. One may argue that this is obvious: self-interest. One wants to be an enhanced person because it improves his or her competitiveness in the world. It is precisely the meaning of competitiveness that needs to be discussed. In a planet heading for an environmental tipping point competitiveness may not be the correct strategy, but collaboration. Altruism should be enhanced at the expense of selfishness. But, assuming a genetic disposition for those two social traits, how much does it matter which trait to select for? Is human behaviour governed by genetics? Or is it a result of framing the right game, as many game theorists would argue? And if so, what other reasons we may have for human enhancement? Colonizing another planet may be one of them. For example if humans are ever going to survive on Mars they will have to genetically change; the gravity of the planet is less and its atmosphere (even after terraforming) thinner. Is Eugenics the correct strategy for space colonization?

A Wh(ITER) elephant?

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Imagine a machine that you can throw in a few grams of hydrogen – which abounds in the Earth’s oceans – crank it a few times, and harvest massive amounts of cheap energy. And all that thanks to fusion, a physical process where the nuclei of two elements (for example deuterium and tritium, which are kinds of hydrogen) fuse together to produce a new element (helium). The new, fused, nucleus is somewhat less than the sum of the two original nuclei, and the residual mass becomes energy (called “thermonuclear”) according to Einstein’s famous formula E=mc2. And that’s all the physics you need to solve Earth’s energy problems!

Fusion sounds too good – and because it is also true – it has led to ITER, the “International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor”, a 10billion dollar megaproject, jointly funded by the EU, Russia, US, Japan, South Korea, China and India. ITER’s long and turbulent history began in 1985 as a political-cum-scientific gesture towards easing Cold War tensions. The West and the Soviet Union, each one having developed their own thermonuclear technologies, decided to put them together for the benefit of all mankind. The Soviet Union collapsed but ITER survived. After much politicking and dramatic bargaining over the ensuing decades, its location has been finally decided: Cadarache, near Marseille.

ITER will take 10 years to construct, and 20 more years to operate. It will build upon experience gained from previous experiments, such as JET (The “Joint European Taurus”), and will test new ideas and designs for a reactor. Although the science is well-known and straight-forward, the engineering is a daunting task evermore. For nuclear fusion to occur elements have to be stripped off their electrons. This state of “electron-less” matter is called “plasma”. The Sun is a fireball of plasma and its radiant energy is theorized to be the result of naturally occurring fusion. Plasma only exists in extremely high temperatures and therefore no material container can contain it. So engineers must develop something “immaterial”; a magnetic field powerful enough to hold plasma at 100 million degrees centigrade. By 2018 the hope to fuse half a gram of hydrogen, sustain the generated plasma for 400 seconds, and produce 500MW of energy. (By comparison, in 1997 JET managed to sustain plasma for half a second only and produce 16.1MW). Commercial thermonuclear reactors are envisaged by 2050.

The promise of ITER is environmentally benign, widely applicable, essentially inexhaustible electricity. Criticism from environmental groups focuses mainly on safety and waste disposal; however safety is inherent in fusion reactors (if plasma cools, even slightly, reactions stop at once) and the only waste is water. Fusion reactors may become radioactive but much less so than commercial nuclear reactors currently in use; and tested technologies to safely manage decommissioning already exist. Indeed, faced with the huge challenge to drastically cut down on greenhouse emissions, thermonuclear energy seems god-sent. Economic growth, which lifts people out of poverty, increases prosperity and guarantees peace, is based on the assumption of cheap, renewable, and widely available, energy resources. Such resources do not exist on our planet. Solar, wind and hyrdo cannot keep pace with the required rates of economic growth. Thermonuclear, with its zero emissions, inherent safety, minimum waste management overheads, and Mega-watt energy output is seen, by ITER’s supporters, as the only real alternative.

Nevertheless, serious scientific skepticism points to the fact that, although the uranium-fission bomb that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 has found peaceful use in nuclear reactors, the hydrogen-fusion bomb of 1952 has not. Containing the plasma at 100 million degrees for any economically meaningful period, may be an impossible engineering feat. Furthermore, the prevailing theory that the Sun is a gigantic fusion reactor is currently in dispute because it does not comply with new measurements of solar radiation. NASA is scheduling missions to investigate alternative explanations for the Sun’s mysterious energy cycle.

Could ITER be a White Elephant? A multi-billion megaproject which will result in nothing but water?

Questions such as these have led the US to vacillate in and out of ITER, and Canada to let go for good. The current political climate does not help either. The reasoning behind any “blue-sky” exploration smacks against the “precautionary principle”, an idea dominating contemporary political discourse. In a risk-averse society, playing with an expensive toy full of radioactive plasma may sound like an abomination. And yet we humans have managed to survive thus far by taking risks, by going out there and hoping to discover something new. Stifling potentially vital innovation on the grounds that it is “very difficult” to produce any results, or that it may incur “risk”, may be a far more dangerous proposition.

This article was commissioned for the Athens News

Our post-scientific era

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Counterknowledge, the corpus of pseudofactual narratives that dominate much of today’s discourse, shocks many in the scientific community. I often talk to scientists who cannot comprehend why intelligent people, some with science degrees, are so gullible that they take homeopathy drugs, read their horoscopes and believe that aliens frequently visit our planet aboard UFOs. Richard Dawkins has been prominent in forging a camp of polemical atheists who, presumably fed up with counterknowledge, have raised their intellectual arms against the resurgence of religion. Meanwhile, creationism gains ground in the west and is the dominant belief in the Muslim world as well as among Muslims living in western countries. I am told that the President of China has been reported claiming that Chinese vessels circumnavigated the world in 1421 and established colonies in South America. Is the world going crazy? It seems to me that the world has entered a post-scientific era. The Enlightment project, still unfinished, is on the defense everywhere. A medieval mentality had returned whereby belief is more important than fact, where connections and patterns between disparate things are put together in order to “prove” the most incredible things. The media, applying the only filter they care for (i.e. ratings) propagate these narratives and thus legitimize them further. The results range from comical to tragic. People in South Africa have been dying of AIDS because their ex-President believed that the disease is not caused by a virus but by social conditions. Scientists have a new social responsibility. They cannot hide in their labs, watch the other way, delegate the issue to politicians. If they do, soon there may be no labs. If the trends of today are left unchecked, then in the not-so-distant future tax money may be diverted to building astrological observatories and laws may be enacted that require the ritualistic blessings of “enlightened” beings in order for society to function. Dawkins has been criticized for causing a “polarization” between science and religion. My opinion is that he has not caused anything of the kind; he has simply shown to the rest of us that such a polarization already exists and we should wake up and do something about it. The future could well be of a world in possession of nuclear technology and the lack of rational thinking. Imagine the Crusaders attacking medieval Jerusalem with atom bombs and you’ll get the picture. This is the definition of a nightmare.

The roots (and futility) of conservation

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The modern idea of conservation was born in 19th century evangelical United States and has its roots in literary – i.e. anti-evolution – Christian ideas about life on Earth and the age of our planet. According to these ideas, life on Earth is static and does not evolve. It was created ex nihilo by an omnipotent designer a few thousand years ago. The last of the Designer’s creation, mankind, was bestowed the obligation of presiding and preserving Earth’s Garden of Life, God’s Creation. Hence, the creation of Yellowstone, the first national natural park of the world, was vociferously argued by Theodore Roosevelt on the basis of Christian duty, thus swinging the republican vote in favor of spending a considerable sum of federal money on the project.

Since then, natural conservation has an aura of sanctity about it. This sanctity has an appeal for many, and brings together very disparate groups of people under one umbrella, namely the “saving of the planet”. Such a premise is misled, unscientific and dangerous.

I have already argued the reasons for being misled. It is unscientific because to try to “preserve” a dynamic system such is life on Earth is simply futile. It is like trying to preserve a sunny day for ever. The difference is one of time scale only. Our “sunny day” is the Pleistocene (plus Holocene – for those who like making the distinction) Era. We, today, see the world in an evolutionary, geological and climatic snapshot of its last 1.8 million years. However, the film reel so-far is 4.5 billion years, or 4,500 million years. “Conservation”, in the sense that is currently dominant, is the unscientific attempt to stop the film of evolution.

That is why conservation can be also dangerous. The current climate debate is an example. The idea that humanity can somehow “stop” the planet getting warmer, and somehow” return” to a pre-industrial time of low CO2 levels, is not only unscientific and futile, but diverts considerable global resources to the wrong kind of project.

So what can the “right” project be? Certainly not to lay waste on Mother Earth by polluting the air, the ground and the sea, and killing every living species! The idea of conservation must undergo serious scientific overhaul. The emphasis should shift from static to dynamic, and should encompass three main action areas:

Increase our understanding on Earth’s systems and their interplay. Instead of studying systems separately, we need a cross-disciplinary approach to include the concurrent study of geological, climatic (i.e. atmospheric and oceanic), space and life feedback systems.

  • Develop monitoring systems to observe and measure human interference with Earth’s feedback systems.
  • Develop technologies that can support a comfortable and healthy life for all human beings, which operate in harmony with Earth’s feedback systems.

The current political, and dominant scientific, agenda must change.