Gerald E. Marsh » General Interest

From Hiroshima to Today

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:35:53 +0000

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.

MONMOUTH COLLEGE LECTURE

Climate Change, Energy, and National Security

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:29:39 +0000

A talk given on 18 May 2010 at the 4th International Conference on Climate Change.

2010 International Conference on Climate Change

Are U.S. Nuclear Weapons Reliable?

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:17:59 +0000

An exchange in Nature on the reliability of of U.S. nuclear weapons and the need for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

Nature 12Nov09-Warheads

Global Warming: A Blessing in Disguise

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:11:31 +0000

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.”

USA Today Mag-Nov09

The Demystification of Emergent Behavior

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:25:20 +0000

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.

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Initiatives to Enhance Nuclear Stability and Non-Proliferation in the 21st Century

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:14:43 +0000

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.

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Falling into the Afghan Trap

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:28:21 +0000

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.

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When the Stars Begin to Fall: The Waning of the Enlightenment

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

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.

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The Problem of the “Prebiotic and Never Born Proteins”

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:42:36 +0000

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

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0000

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