A Warm Opportunity

Adapted from article first printed in Kansas City Star, entitled "Improving Our Climate is Our Responsibility."

We can hope the Democrats will do better now that they control Congress. But have we learned nothing these past several years? To relinquish our responsibility as participating citizens invites catastrophe, regardless of which political party controls Congress or the White House.

The last six years, certainly at the national level, have been largely a failure as far as climate change and the creation of an energy policy are concerned.

Global warming is now before the U.S. Supreme Court: Twelve states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for not doing what these states think it should be doing, namely, establishing limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are emitted by new cars.

The EPA claims it has no authority to set any limits. Congress cannot avoid taking up this issue soon.

What the Supreme Court ultimately ends up deciding could influence decisions as far away as China and India, where one-third of the world's population lives, and where an environmental disaster is now unfolding.

This is about much more than what gases flow out of tailpipes or even the definition of global warming itself. It does, however, have a lot to to with how we might imagine our country 10 years from now, possibly 50 years from now, as well as the kind of planet we might like to live on.

The global warming debate has shifted on many levels. Even critics within the fossil fuel industry are acknowledging the possibility that global warming is real, well, sort of. There are still those who say climate change is cyclical; it's just getting a little warmer right now, that it's all perfectly "normal."

Others say we really don't know to what extent humans are contributing to global warming ... therefore, we need to study it a bit longer. We don't want to make any hasty decisions.

At the same time, there are climate experts who now believe it's already too late to stop or even slow down the warming process. We'd better learn to adapt to it; we'd better develop some drought-resistant corn, these scientists are telling us. And we'd better accept the idea that our planet may not be able to support six billion humans. Perhaps in the not to distant future we may only be able to see Miami Beach through a glass bottom boat, if ocean levels rise too much.

A few scientists have suggested such things as putting giant sun deflectors around the planet or shooting massive amounts of sulfur particles into the atmosphere to cool down the planet. Some of these projections and theoretical scenarios are genuinely unpleasant.

The not-so-simple fact is that we don't exactly know what will happen to the climate 50 years from now, let alone 100 years. It would be nice if nothing bad ever happens. I have two granddaughters who will likely be around for most of the 21st century.

In the meantime, an opportunity does present itself here in our own backyard. Kansas City has established a Climate Protection Planning Process, along with 250 other cities throughout the United States. A steering committee will make recommendations to the mayor and the City Council sometime in March or April, regarding energy use, transportation needs and overall environmental direction.

The next public meeting is Dec. 21. We can choose to make a difference. We can decide to have our voices heard. We can actually participate.

Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, once said, "Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has." Peace.

Howdy Doody's Environment

Adapted from article first printed in Kansas City Star, 5/13/06, entitled "Would Howdy Doody Recognize Our Planet?"

It's Howdy Doody time in America.

Howdy, the television star of the 1950s "Howdy Doody Show," was a marionette with a perpetual grin on his wooden face. It was television in its early days, silly, inane, and loved by adults as well as children. Unfortunately, we can't live in Doodyville.

Environmental deterioration in all its complexities is the colossal monster in the room. It is a heartland problem. It is a global problem. The beast is not Iraq, immigration, port security, outsourcing, high deficits ... or rising gas prices.

Water is a good place to begin. The hottest year on record was 2005. In Somalia, millions of people are surviving on the equivalent of three glasses of water per day for drinking, washing and cooking. In many cases, children have had to drink their own urine.

In Missouri, droughts struck in 2002 and 2003, affecting livestock farmers, as well as hurting important cash crops such as soybeans. Might it be worse the next time?

The U.S. Geological Survey reported recently that all the rivers and streams it surveyed in the U.S. between 1992 and 2001 contained pesticides.

About 12 percent of Kansas' total surface waters are damaged according to the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

A public interest group has stated that between July 2003 and December 2004 more than 500 facilities in Missouri and Kansas exceeded Clean Water Act standards at least once because of assorted pollutants, including oil, grease, nitrogen, ammonia and fecal matter, in fishable and swimmable waterways.

Large factory farms in parts of Missouri have contributed to serious water pollution due to increased nutrients and bacteria (as well as dead zones along the Gulf Coast). Worldwide, agriculture is probably the biggest threat to the planet's freshwater resources.

In Kansas about half of original wetland acreage has been drained for agriculture or development. A loss of wetlands worsens flooding, endangers drinking water and could hasten the arrival of bird flu. Wetland loss in Missouri is about 80 percent.

Missouri ranks high in the nation for cancers caused by industrial pollution. A recent study at the University of Southern California found that high ozone levels might be connected to lower sperm production. Those bad ozone days will be with us shortly.

Do you have children or grandchildren? It's expected that 9 billion humans will inhabit the planet by 2050. Conversely, the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that between 15 percent and 37 percent of plant and animal species could be destroyed worldwide by 2050, including species in Kansas and Missouri.

Clearly the hysteria over such things as gay marriage seems to resonate in this part of the country. But issues like this do serve a purpose--they easily divert the electorate's attention away from serious matters, such as taking responsibility for our environmental well-being, as well as electing competent representatives.

Sadly, Kansas and "intelligent" design go together like a horse and carriage. But not to be outdone, a measure before the Missouri legislature promoted constitutional amendments on Christianity and "tablets" on public property. Poor women are apparently not going to get access to any family-planning assistance in the Show Me State, and the word "contraception" may soon be whispered only in Missouri darkness. Benightedness has come to be a social virtue.

At the national level the four senators representing Missouri and Kansas are environmentally oblivious--putting it kindly. Over the years they've opposed, among other things, improved fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. They have consistently rubber-stamped the usual subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry, applauded the idea of using taxpayer money to cut logging roads through our national parks, and stood by as President Bush and friends pushed to weaken air and water quality standards.

Anyone interested might look into the servile attention that Senator Kit Bond of Missouri has devoted to Briggs & Stratton, a manufacturer of lawn mower engines, a significant source of air pollution. It's in the public record.

But we still have choices. It begins in November. No longer can we afford more string-puppets from Doodyville.

Keeping Our Republic

Adapted from article first printed in Kansas City Star, 3/4/06, and entitled "Has U.S. really changed much since 1800s?"

He's quoted from one end of the political spectrum to the other. But few Americans have likely heard of him. His views are used to support a variety of positions regarding the judicial system, the press, class structure, racism, money, and the role of government.

Alexis de Tocqueville, after more than 150 years, remains one of the most perceptive observers of America and its people. This French aristocrat traveled through the United States in the 1830s. He later wrote Democracy in America, a two-volume study of Americans and their political institutions.

In 2006 the political party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (the Republicans) has morphed into something quite extraordinary, it seems to me. In the process of "transforming" itself, it now runs an American government that is arguably the most incompetent and corrupt in more than 75 years. Is it merely God punishing the United States for its sins, as at least one television evangelist has offered? I think not. It's far less ethereal.

In the 1830s de Tocqueville saw a contradiction in America. He believed a power of the majority was needed to maintain democracy, but at the same time he worried that a "tyranny" of this same majority could also destroy democracy.

This paradox he suggested could survive by maintaining a carefully constructed system of checks and balances, which we learned in school--or should have--meant our three separate but equal branches of government. Still, de Tocqueville warned, "even then the tyranny of the majority may not be unavoidable."

Today, two of de Tocqueville's observations seem to me to be especially thought provoking, keeping in mind they were made when our country was less than 50 years old. He observed that Americans had a "common knowledge" about public affairs. In other words they were astute, involved in public life, and politically aware. This quality he believed was essential for a working democratic system.

The second observation, perhaps more curious, was that de Tocqueville wondered about what he thought might be the tyranny of opinion. He said he could not think of another country with "less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion" than America. He believed that democracy could very easily have a leveling or flattening effect on intellectual and individualistic distinctions.

What might de Tocqueville have to say about America today? Would he think of us as politically astute? Would he be impressed by our civic gravitas and our involvement in public life? Is it possible, however, that de Tocqueville would view us as gleefully ignorant, intellectually shallow, and easily manipulated? We'll never know of course.

Are we today, as de Tocqueville once observed long ago, a country with less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion? Do we not have an abundance of "discussions" today? After all, we have thousands of newspapers and magazines; we have dozens of television news channels providing us with endless arguments and debates.

But is it possible that we Americans have created one of the most successful illusions that any society has ever devised? Do well-coifed info-entertainers on television actually tell us anything we haven't heard numerous times in one form or another. Does the endless supply of the same talking heads, which appear on one channel after another, really give us a fresh perspective about much of anything, regardless of whether or not they call themselves liberal or conservative? Do the majority of the mainstream newspapers ever step beyond the same, safe, smug orthodoxy?

Is it conceivable that de Tocqueville would say that we are today merrily indifferent to any new ideas ... merely frightened of them ... or possibly unaware of them? We'll never know of course.

John Adams, one of our Founding Fathers, said, "Gentlemen, you have a republic if you can keep it." To me it remains in doubt whether we can.

More ominous are the words of Patrick Henry: "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be secure, when the transactions of their rulers [representatives] may be concealed from them."

America is now becoming, and we all should be extremely worried about what it may ultimately become.

Musings of a Member by Thoral Ibn Said

Elephants Redux

Professor Ivan Kurtz of Moscow University, a respected mibo-ethnologist, recently presented a novel hypothesis regarding the future of our species. His published paper entitled "The General De-Evolvement of Homo Sapiens" will be presented to the National Academy of Science in November.

The late Stephen J. Gould, the well-known evolutionary biologist, said in his book A Full House that we humans are here by the "luck of the draw." For Gould, it has nothing to do with any grand design or evolutionary mechanism. Evolution has been full of "fits and starts," frequently leading to evolutionary dead ends.

Gould believed it was pure arrogance on our part to think that evolution has traveled in a steady, predictable direction toward human life. And, if it could be done all over again, it's unlikely the universe would come up with anything remotely resembling us.

In Professor Kurtz' view, Homo sapiens may in fact be reaching some sort of evolutionary "brick wall." His paper also suggests that the speed at which we humans could be arriving at this dead end might be increasing by a factor of two every 24 months!

While it would be impossible here to cover all of Kurtz' paradigm, a brief review of his two principle concepts are worth mentioning. The first he calls the survival/fear constraint. Kurtz believes all living organisms, including something as supposedly "simple" as bacteria, create a kind of knowledge log, which acts as an internal gyroscope, keeping the organism's survival instincts focused.

Professor Kurtz has developed a numbering system from one to ten. Number one represents a species that possesses total fear of almost everything. Number 10 represents a species that lacks essentially all fear. It can be assumed in Kurtz' model that no species is a perfect 1 or 10, as that would make its survival virtually impossible.

Predators in general cluster closer to 10 because they are hunters and, if not completely carnivorous, will eat meat from time to time. For example, Kurtz assigns the number 8.6 to a lion and an 8.0 to a cheetah. The cheetah gets a lower number than a lion because of a weaker jaw and a "kill" rate of only one in five attempts, a lower percentage than a lion.

An elephant, on the other hand, is assigned a number 6 because it is not carnivorous and has a highly developed sense of group responsibility to its own immediate herd and its species. In general, species that fall in the middle of the scale are more willing to integrate into their environment.

In Kurtz' classification scheme, only humans go above 8.9. As well, unlike any other species, they fall into a range of between 9.0 and 9.5. Without going into lengthy detail, the broad factors the professor uses for assigning numbers for humans include population expansion and habitat destruction; environmental degradation attributable to humans; species cooperation; and human belief systems.

Professor Kurtz has concluded that Homo sapiens have a low fear threshold because of a poorly developed internal gyroscope. According to Kurtz, because of the primitive alarm mechanism of humans, our survival as a species is uncertain.

Of particular interest is the possibility we may be actually reverting or "retreating" back to a state we had passed through at least 40,000 years ago. If this hypothesis proves to be true, it would make our species truly unique.

But an even more astonishing possibility may be presenting itself, at the same time, according to the professor. The reason Kurtz has used a range of numbers for humans is because he is strongly suggesting the possibility--admittedly tenuous right now--that we could be at the beginning stages of creating a new species, one that is related to us.

In a worldwide population of 6.5 billion people, the professor estimates, using his classification model, that possibly from one to two million individuals are consistently exhibiting a more highly developed internal gyroscope, thus the reason for a number in the range of 9.0.

The second principle is called the revelatory/egoism constraint. Simply stated, the essence of human character is a profound belief in magic, which can be interpreted as a deep-seated need for spirits and gods. It is virtually impossible for our species to see things as they are and not as they believe.

But what Professor Kurtz is suggesting, is that a new species could be in the incipient stages of branching off from Homo sapiens; this new species is more willing to accept things as they actually are!

The revelatory/egoism constraint says that humans have a near pathological confusion between self and other. In other species this separation occurs at least by the time of puberty. At birth all species make no real distinction between self and other--or between wanting and getting--but they eventually outgrow this egocentric confusion. Not so for humankind.

Kurtz maintains that while "words" certainly influence behavior or can direct people to particular courses of action, words themselves possess no power whatsoever. Rational or objective thinking can only take place when humans are able to grasp the subjective nature of thinking. Thought has no "actual" power. You may hear voices emanating from the ether late at night, but whether or not those voices exist in the external world is another matter. (As an aside, Kurtz claims that the United States--among all developed nations--is currently showing the steepest negative rise in the revelatory/egoism constraint paradigm.)

Allison Harper's book Public Buffoonery, Welfare Capitalism, and the Political process in America offers both an amusing and a serious commentary on the changing American politician and revelatory decision-making. It is worth reading, especially in light of professor Kurtz' contentions.

Finally, in an interview in Rypin, Poland two months ago, an American reporter with the Fox News Network, asked Professor Kurtz what one piece of advice he'd give to humankind. The quiet, soft-spoken professor hesitated for just a moment and then said to the young blonde reporter, "Look for a pink elephant at dawn." Before the confused reporter could ask for clarification, Professor Kurtz hobbled up the steps of the zeppelin EMU and disappeared.

Musings of a Member by Kerchief Davroten

Bits & Pieces of the 1920s

We still remain fascinated with the 1920s, the decade from 1920 to 1930. The Jazz Age, The Roaring Twenties, the era that produced bathtub gin, gangsters and flappers, the age that brought us both larger-than-life heroes and villains. The period begins with women getting the right to vote and a social experiment called Prohibition. It ends with the crash of financial markets and the beginning of a worldwide Depression, leading us eventually to the most devastating war in human history. All this was the 1920s.

Let's Ankle Sheba

They're all desperadoes, those kids, all of them with any life in their veins; the girls as well as the boys; maybe more than the boys. Warner Fabian

The 1920s was the first decade in American history to define a "youth" culture, with its own distinct style and language, separate and apart from the older generation, but ultimately exerting considerable influence upon it. A sampling of this new vocabulary listed below contains many of the words that are still in use today.

ankle: to walk
bearcat: a "hot" or passionate girl
coffee varnish: illicit liquor often poisonous
dewdropper: young male who doesn't have a job and sleeps all day
Ethel: an effeminate male
floorflusher: an avid dancer
gams: legs
hooch: booze
iron one's shoelaces: to go to the restroom
jack: money
mooch: to leave
nookie: sex
ofay: a black expression for whites
petting pantry: movie theater
razz: making fun of
sheba: one's girlfriend
torpedo: hitman or thug

and some more...

blind pig---------------------- lower class establishment where drinks were cheap, but possibly made from liquor that might blind or even kill you.

It------------------------------a word coined to define a woman who had animal magnetism or strong sexual attractiveness.

________________________

Some very old English words

pudibund: modest, bashful, prudish
clyster: an enema, using warm water or gruel
kintra-cooser: a human stallion; has his way with rural girls
burke: to kill, to murder, secretly and without noise
________________________

A conundrum is an amusing comparison between things quite unlike; the answer is frequently made out by a play upon words.

a. Why is a lazy man like a magician? Answer: He works by spells.
b. What fish has its eyes nearest together? Answer: ?
c. Why is hope like a decayed cheese? Answer: ?
d. Why is a politician like a stray dog? Answer: ?
[answers next time]
_________________________

Any suggestions, thoughts or ideas?

CHAPTER THREE: Louis XIV Knows Weeds

continued from 11/21/05

At the core of the Greek viewpoint rested a passionate conviction in the worth and importance of man as an individual. He was to be valued for his own sake, not merely as a tool for some all-powerful entity. While sculpture in China in fifth century B.C. commonly depicted animals, hardly ever was a human form created. In Greece in the fifth century B.C. what was most commonly represented was a supremely confident human.

Deductive reasoning developed in Greece near the end of the seventh century B.C. In the sixth century a number of schools were established that were neither religious institutions nor government controlled. Wealthy merchants likely started them. Both within and outside these schools debate, argument, persuasion, and competition were highly valued by the Greeks. This, it seems to me, encouraged, developed and laid a foundation for what we call today scientific inquiry. Was this occurring anywhere else in the known world at the time? Possibly, but I don't believe to the extent that it was transforming the Greek world.

The Greeks, from the very beginning, thought the universe was ultimately understandable, and science was about how things worked. It was less to do, for example, with what heaven (the stars) wished for and more to do with the mechanics of the stars--how it worked.

The West by the seventeenth century relied increasingly on inductive reasoning, that is obtaining data, making measurements, and then stating certain assumptions. In other words, reasoning from the particular to the general, the opposite of deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning had been used by many non-western societies for centuries, but now in Europe the inductive reasoning process in science was becoming firmly established and would be a central part of the scientific method. The consequences of all this would become apparent to westerner and non-westerner alike within a hundred years.

Science remains both foreign and strange to most people in the world today, not only in the developing world but in countries like the United States as well. I think it's because science is first of all difficult and second because subjectivity is not part of its method, contrary to what a few people inside science might desire and what a lot of people outside science want and believe. While there have been periodic "moments" when science was encouraged and praised, throughout most of human history it has "hung" by a thread. It still does, in the United States as much as anywhere else.

If you consider some of the world's best-known spiritual leaders, for example Buddha, Muhammad, and Jesus, their teachings and beliefs are based on personal visions. The starting point of these beliefs is "supernatural." But it is not just the numerous prophets from antiquity. Carlos Castaneda, a New Age superstar in the 1970s, had revelations while sitting with his mentor Don Juan in the Mexican desert, consuming peyote cactus and other hallucinogenic drugs. Castaneda claimed he talked to the animals and sometimes became a crow--literally.

In 1972 UCLA awarded Castaneda a doctorate in anthropology. His books were immensely popular, several of which I read and enjoyed. He died in 1998. Kathryn Lindskoog in her book Fakes, Frauds, and Other Malarky said, "The next time you come close to a crow, try calling out 'Hello, Carlos!' If you are high enough on peyote, you might hear the bird answer." A harsh criticism perhaps, but it's hard to disagree with the proposition that the number and variety of religions and beliefs are only limited by human imagination.

Science believes that knowledge (according to most scientists) can only be determined from objective investigation and is--most importantly--accessible to all. The one thing that science can not do is promise personal salvation or eternal life, the concern that has preoccupied most of us for at least the last 20,000 years.

Those men in the eighteenth century, who wore stockings, wigs, and placed a pinch of snuff on the back of their hands, often seemed like vacuous dandies, without an substance whatsoever. Many were. The women with the elaborate coiffures, pale skin, and beauty mark on their cheek may have appeared as beautiful creatures with not a serious thought in their heads. This was certainly true of some.

But the eighteenth century was about much more than elaborate dance steps and endless balls. It was also a period of remarkable intellectual activity, curiosity, a time of optimism and hope, where so many of the best and the brightest believed that the world could be improved by human effort and good will.



The weed made a dramatic re-emergence in the eighteenth century, thanks to the "power" of nature. The pastoral movie sets so popular among Europeans, especially the English gentry, provided new opportunities for the weed. While still not especially welcomed near the house, the weed was frequently encouraged among the rustic landscape away from the house. For that matter it was positively desired if it enhanced the natural setting.

Travel was one of the numerous opportunities available to the weed in the eighteenth century. Other parts of the world were being discovered, and immigration to places like America and Australia increased significantly. Plants, no less than humans, are keenly interested in survival, propagation, and moving to new places. And like humans, the effects of travel are salutary for some and bring misery to others. Some prosper and some do not.

Advances in botany and horticulture created new opportunities, including the possibility that some plants, which were once classified as weeds, would now be welcomed into the community of plants. There were reasons for optimism in the eighteenth century

But, as we learn in the next chapter, progress is not always positive for the weed or humans for that matter. New technologies and new ideologies threaten the very existence of many plants. And finally, a new set of Truths arises.
to be continued....

CHAPTER THREE: Louis XIV Knows Weeds

continued from 11/06/05

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto speaks of the "retreat from truth" that unfolds in the eighteenth century. Certainly many conservatives in the United States today rail against what they call the cult of relativism. Other critics have referred to the "totalitarian tendencies lurking in the Enlightenment." Of course the established order in the eighteenth century also leveled harsh criticism against the philosophes as well.

The philosophes, a French word but used to refer to all the European intellectuals who called for a "new" perception, wanted to shake up society. They declared that science was the way to understand the natural world; man did not need paternal authority or control. It was time they declared that humanity think for itself. They advocated freedom of speech, the press, and above all, personal liberty. They pushed for judicial and prison reform. Their dislike of organized religion ranged from mocking amusement to outright loathing. This was the intellectual stew of the eighteenth century, which set in motion the ideas, the political beliefs, and the actions of the nineteenth and twenty century.

Fernandez-Armesto cites Rene Descartes, although living in the seventeenth century, as the likely starting point for the mortal wounding of truth. Descartes of I think, therefore I am fame unintentionally, according to Armesto, ended up not locating truth but creating a sort of religion of the individual.

From there, the philosophers of the eighteenth century proved the existence of themselves and little more. This worked well enough for a while, i.e. striving toward perfection and progress and pursuing happiness, but it came to a bloody and violent end in the streets of Paris during the French revolution, and made it virtually impossible for the United States to remain aloof from the outside world.

The views of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others can be debated and discussed among historians, philosophers, and anyone interested in ideas, but one point he makes is worth keeping in mind for later on: It is that without some notion of truth people are more easily responsive and likely accepting of lies.


Science was placed on a pedestal in the eighteenth century by many of its most enthusiastic supporters; unfairly as they eventually discovered. But for a short while it was probably one of the most open and receptive periods in history for scientific endeavors.

If we consider the inventions related to agriculture alone, the list is impressive. In addition to Jethro Tull's seed drilling machine, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, there was beet sugar extraction, the threshing machine, the cotton gin, the winnowing machine, and the steam pump.

In 1749 David Hartley published Observations on Man, His frame, His Duty, and His Expectations. This was the beginning of modern psychology. Names like Voltaire, Hume, Adam Smith, Montesquieu appeared in this century, contributing to the modern beginnings of sociology, economics, political philosophy, and social criticism. And of course there was Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism.

The greatest good for the greatest number ended up being the common motto of Utilitarianism, a movement that captures the spirit of the eighteenth century as well as any other. Bentham was interested in the perfectibility of both man and society, but he had little interest in vague ideas or concepts that seemed to arrive from nowhere. He was never a big supporter of Rousseau. His accomplishments are too many to list here, but through his efforts improvements were made in the prison system, the legal system (getting rid of usury laws and imprisonment for debt), public health, education and others.

Science meant freeing the mind from what was thought of as religious superstition. The view from the pulpit, divine inspiration, revelation, the "truth" of the book were now placed separate and apart from what was referred to as science. The response that "God works in mysterious ways" was simply not enough. This is not to suggest that all people who believed in science in the eighteenth century were also atheists or agnostics, only that they were untroubled about keeping the two kingdoms separate.

Although part of the late seventeenth century, a man like Isaac Newton was the personification of what a scientist was supposed to be about. (Newton was also devoutly religious and a believer in alchemy.) It was Newton who said the universe could be understood by careful analysis, observation and, most importantly, through mathematics. There was a certain logic therefore that Deism would establish itself and become popular among many of the educated in both Europe and America.

Deism was a religious philosophy; it accepted God as the creator of a remarkable universe, who set the workings of earth in motion like a "clockmaker," to use a common metaphor of the period. Religious truth could be discovered by the powers of reason many deists believed. The deists tended to downplay the "miracles" in the bible as well as literal interpretations. Both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin subscribed to the ideas of the deists.

The late nineteenth century retreated from a lot of the curiosity and the interst expressed in the eighteenth century about other cultures and civilizations. The West developed a general belief that the rest of the world had contributed virtually nothing to scientific knowledge and was incapable of conducting scientific research, at least by the standards thought acceptable in Europe and America. It was the "uniqueness" of ancient Greece that made the West "superior" claimed these same people--and made science possible.

Today, it sometimes seems that the pendulum may have swung back to another extreme. I recall reading somewhere, for example, that Greece had supposedly "stolen" Egypt's culture! Did the Egyptians have it hidden in a pyramid? Idiocy is idiocy is idiocy.

The West should be forever grateful that during Europe's Dark Age the Arabs preserved the ideas and discoveries of antiquity and went beyond many of them. The Chinese invented, among other things, the magnetic compass, gunpowder, as well as paper and printmaking. The Indians may have had a good idea that the orbit of planets was elliptical possibly a thousand years before Kepler. Perhaps even more significant the Indians might be the ones who discovered zero, no minor achievement in human history. The Mayans in Central America had a sophisticated understanding of the movement of the stars and the planets. And Babylon had some remarkable mathematical achievements long before the Greeks contributed anything. There are numerous examples throughout history.

The science writer Dick Teresi has stated that discovery, investigation, and science were occurring in a number of countries well before Greece ever appeared on the scene; it continued well after classical civilization collapsed in the West in the fifth century A.D. He also believes that science is still science, regardless of the motivations or reasons for pursuing it. In this he is responding to those western critics who say non-western science was not "pure." While much of science was pursued for religious purposes or to assure an emperor or a pharaoh that all was right with his or her place in the universe, it still resulted in some remarkable discoveries and achievements.

However, what happened in Europe, and America, in the eighteenth century was--if not unique--extraordinary, in my opinion. What the West did have was an idea, which they could call upon. This was an underpinning that allowed science to move ahead and withstand assault from those who regarded it with unmistakable hostility. And this idea, as far as I can tell, came from only one country, Greece. Whether or not you choose to call Greece part of the West, a Mediterranean culture, or place it in the North Africa sphere, it is where something quite unusual occurred.
to be continued....