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.”
{ Category Archives }
General Interest
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
Goracle Gushings on Faith-Based Science
USA Today Magazine (January 2008) Goracle PDF
“We are about to waste an enormous amount of money and effort on carbon mitigation without lowering CO2 emissions one whit. The Goracle and his fellow travelers will carry the day.”
AL GORE won an Academy Award for his skillfully done film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” It was well-deserved. Had he given as good a performance during his campaign for president, he would have won in a landslide. As environmental drama, it only can be compared with Michael Crichton’s novel, State of Fear. Both have elements of scientific and political fact, and both are excellent fiction.
America’s Left Has Taken a Wrong Turn
USA Today Magazine (May 2007) (PDF)
Socialism, the Left, and its future in the United States.
The Left in the US is in crisis. It has lost the broad support it once enjoyed in the working class and finds itself captive to the past—or, worse yet, to an impotent radicalism. It no longer offers working people a political outlet for their interests, but only a means of protest about issues that are not central to their lives.
Recycling Nuclear Waste
American Physical Society Special Session on Nuclear Reprocessing, Nuclear Proliferation, and Terrorism (15 April 2007)
Coauthors: William H. Hannum and George S. Stanford
In the public mind, the foremost reservation about nuclear power is, “What can we do with the waste?” Fortunately there is an answer: We can use the worrisome, very long-lived components as fuel in the right kind of reactors, and then the rest becomes manageable. Will this lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons or to an increase in the threat of nuclear terrorism? Not necessarily. Prudent recycle of nuclear waste will actually reduce these threats—while also reducing the time that nuclear waste must be sequestered to a few hundred years instead of thousands.