From Hiroshima to Today
This is a Convocation Lecture given at Monmouth College on 18 November 2003. It was given in the context of Technology and the Human Condition and is still relevant today.
{ Category Archives }
General Interest
Climate Change, Energy, and National Security
A talk given on 18 May 2010 at the 4th International Conference on Climate Change.
Are U.S. Nuclear Weapons Reliable?
An exchange in Nature on the reliability of of U.S. nuclear weapons and the need for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).
Global Warming: A Blessing in Disguise
USA Today Magazine (November 2009)
“The real tipping point for civilization is the beginning of another Ice Age–not a world a few degrees warmer.”
The Demystification of Emergent Behavior
Emergent behavior that appears at a given level of organization may be characterized as arising from an organizationally lower level in such a way that it transcends a mere increase in the behavioral degree of complexity. It is therefore to be distinguished from chaotic behavior, which is deterministic but unpredictable because of an exponential dependence on initial conditions. In emergent phenomena, higher-levels of organization are not determined by lower-levels of organization; or, more colloquially, emergent behavior is often said to be “greater than the sum of the parts”. This essay is intended to demystify at least some aspects of the mystery of emergence.
Initiatives to Enhance Nuclear Stability and Non-Proliferation in the 21st Century
Physics & Society Vol. 38, No.3 (July 2009). Coauthored with George S. Stanford.
Three initiatives that the Obama Administration can undertake that would greatly increase nuclear stability and enhance the non-proliferation regime for many years to come.
Falling into the Afghan Trap
USA Today Magazine (May 2009)
The U.S. is bogged down in tactical responses to Taliban initiatives. Little by little, the Soviet experience is becoming more and more relevant.
When the Stars Begin to Fall: The Waning of the Enlightenment
Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism Vol. 17 (1), Spring-Summer 2009
Creationism and Science
As fundamentalist religious thought strengthens its hold on U.S. politics, and increases its role in politics around the world, enlightened values that form the very foundation of modern society are coming under attack. In the United States the wedge issue being used by fundamentalists is a pseudo-debate over creationism and Darwin’s theory of the descent of man.
The Problem of the “Prebiotic and Never Born Proteins”
It has been argued that the limited set of proteins used by life as we know it could not have arisen by the process of Darwinian selection from all possible proteins. This probabilistic argument has a number of implicit assumptions that may not be warranted. A variety of considerations are presented to show that the number of amino-acid sequences that need have been sampled during the evolution of proteins is far smaller than assumed by the argument.
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Truth, Faith and Reason: Pope Benedict XVI’s Lecture at the University of Regensburg
Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism Volume 16(1) Spring-Summer 2008.
Pope Benedict XVI interleaved two themes in his talk at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006. These are discussed here in two separate parts: Truth, Faith, and Reason and The Dialogue of Cultures. The first addresses the Pope’s proposal to expand scientific reasoning to include the “rationality of faith”; and the second with the threat of radical Islam, and whether a “dialogue of cultures” is possible if the West persists in its belief in what the Pope calls a “reason which is deaf to the divine”. Truth, Faith & Reason