Writing – Page 43 – a sibilant intake of breath

The Greatest Show on Earth

Despite the overwhelming evidence for evolution, Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is depressingly necessary. Even in rich countries with good educational systems, large numbers of people believe patently false things about themselves, life, and the universe: among them, that the planet is less than 10,000 years old, that all life forms emerged simultaneously in their present forms, and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Dawkins refutes all of these claims with logic and scrupulous evidence: considering the fossil record, embryology, molecular biology, artificial selection (such as plant and animal breeding), and other demonstrations of how life and our planet have changed together. While some of the content is technical, this is a strong book for many audiences, from those already well versed in evolutionary theory and the evidence for it to those wavering and looking for more information to develop their own understanding.

Having personally read almost all of Dawkins’ books, this one nonetheless contained a lot of new and interesting information (as demonstrated by the string of posts it prompted while I was reading it). As ever, Dawkins is skilled at using analogies and examples to illustrate complicated concepts – a talent he shares with the best of science writers. The subject matter of this book also gives him the solid grounding necessary to come across as justifiably passionate, rather than the somewhat abrasive persona he sometimes projects when discussing topics less closely married to empirical evidence. Along with The Selfish Gene and Unweaving the Rainbow, I think this is Dawkins’ best work.

The evidence for evolution is truly overwhelming. The truth of it is shouted out by the embryological development of animals, by the common elements in the developing biochemistry of nature, by the genetic linkages between all species, by fossil records and isotope ratios, and by observations of evolution across human timescales, such as when bacteria evolve to resist antibiotics. Dawkins touches on all of these, using illustrative and often unusual examples. Even those who have studied a lot of biology are likely to find many of them novel and engaging. All this makes it rather tragic that there are still educational institutions that shrink from teaching it, or insist on presenting it alongside theories for which there is not only no evidence, but excellent evidence contradicting key tenets, such as the fact that the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. Quite simply, students learning biology in a way not infused with evolutionary theory are being an inferior education and needlessly blinded when it comes to the true character of the world. Hopefully, Dawkins’ continued advocacy will help play a role in resisting that insidious phenomenon.

My one complaint about the book is that the hardcover edition seems to have been cheaply printed, on rough and fast-yellowing paper. A book that goes to such lengths to be a celebration of the wonderful character of life on Earth ought to display it all in a somewhat more splendid way. That said, I can appreciate how the advocacy agenda of the text favours a $25 printing, rather than the $50 kind usually associated with slick glossy nature books.

Prior posts inspired by the book:

Now a historical authority

People talk about how the internet and Wikipedia have made the collection and categorization of information more democratic, but the point is really driven home when one of your blog posts gets used as a reference by the Hungarian version of Wikipedia.

I don’t know what the Hungarian text says, but there must surely be a more authoratative source than my blog regarding how George de Hevesy hid the Nobel Prize medals of James Franck and Max von Laue by dissolving them in aqua regia.

This page on the Nobel Prize website discusses the events in question.

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood is a parallel story to her prior novel, Oryx and Crake. Set in two time periods with two narrators, it fills in a bit more of the dystopian world she created: one where the bulk of the horrors presented emerge primarily from the exploitation of genetic engineering and a return to gangsterism and anarchy. Climate change is part of it all, but definitely doesn’t have a prominent role among the causes of human downfall. While the book does expand the reader’s view into that world in interesting ways, it is ultimately less satisfying as a piece of speculative fiction. Nonetheless, it is well worth reading, for those interested in imagining the ways in which humanity might continue to develop.

In some ways, this is a female retelling of the previous story. The two narrators are both women, separated by a generation, and most of the key happenings centre around their treatment as women and engagement with other woman. This world certainly isn’t a pretty one, in that regard, with almost all men as enemies and a terrible lack of personal security for almost anyone. This is a book that will have parents enrolling their daughters in karate lessons and, perhaps, rightly so. Being able to defend yourself is clearly important, when the future is uncertain. At the outset, the two narrators can be somewhat hard to distinguish, but as the book progresses at least one of them develops a distinct and interesting perspective and approach.

The Year of the Flood incorporates many of Atwood’s favourite issues and motifs of late, including sex, debt, religion, corruption, and the nature and corporate manipulation of human desires. Along with being interweaved with Oryx and Crake, this book is connected with Atwood’s recent non-fiction writing on debt. It certainly explores the question of ecological debts and the responsibility of human beings towards nature. In Atwood’s world, humanity has filled the world with splices and custom creatures, while allowing almost all of the planet’s charismatic megafauna – from gorillas to tigers – to become extinct. The God’s Gardeners, the cult the novel focuses on and whose hymns it reproduces, have beautified the environmentalists of the 20th and 21st centuries, despite how their efforts have apparently failed, at least insofar as conserving nature goes. Humanity has certainly been able to endure as an industrial and consumerist society in Atwood’s world, which means they must have learned to be more effective than we are at securing resources sustainably and disposing of wastes likewise.

The novel’s plot involves rather too many improbable meetings – so many as to make Atwood’s fictional world extremely small. People run into members of their small prior groups far too easily, and sometimes make implausible jumps from place to place. In some cases, connections with characters from the previous novel feel trivial and unnecessary. A few of the motivations of the characters are unconvincing. All in all, this book rests against the structure of Oryx and Crake, sometimes adding to it in interesting ways, sometimes stressing the integrity of the amalgamation. The strongest portion of this novel is definitely what it reveals about the dynamics of small community groupings in times of danger. When it comes to broader questions about society and technology, it tends to treat those as already covered or not of enormous interest.

The plausible nature of Atwood’s dystopia remains disturbing. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine some of the elements of these stories not coming to pass within the next few decades. In particular, it seems all but certain that we will use new genetic technologies to go even farther towards exploiting animals, building on the already impressive record modern factory farms have on that front. One prediction I have doubts about – but which is common in science fiction – is the decline of the power and influence of states. Sure, corporations have become powerful; nevertheless, governments push them around easily and frequently when they have a strong reason for doing so. To a considerable extent, corporate power is reflective of the fact that many states find it agreeable to delegate at this time.

Even so, Atwood’s depiction of relative security inside corporate bubbles and relative insecurity outside is one with considerable contemporary relevance, when it comes to the kind of societies and situations in which people find themselves today. The contrast is revealing both in terms of the impact on the lives of those on either side of the divide and in terms of suggesting what kind of political, economic, and military structures exist to maintain the distinctions between outsiders and insiders, safe lives and unsafe ones.

The novel is also disturbing in terms of the acquiescence of aware consumers towards the monstrous things the corporations populating this universe are doing. If people today are mostly happy not to think twice about what is in a Chicken McNugget, would they really go along with the blatant recycling of corpses into food in the future? The degree to which Atwood’s world doesn’t grate too much against our aesthetic expectations is suggestive, in this regard. We now expect corporations to largely get away with whatever they think people will tolerate, and we expect little from one another when it comes to outrage.

All told, the book is an interesting expansion upon Atwood’s previous novel, but it does not match the original in terms of the importance of the message or the crafting of the story. In that sense, it is akin to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow: set around the events of his magnificent Ender’s Game, and told from a new perspective. While it provided some pleasing new details for fans of the series, it was an engaging but secondary contribution.

Environmentalism and ‘breathing underwater’

The Walrus recently published an article entitled: “The Age of Breathing Underwater.” Written by Chris Turner, it relates to a number of previous discussions here, such as the recent one about being unimpressed with humanity, when it comes to behaving sensibly about climate change.

It begins with a lengthy discussion about some of the life in coral reefs: one of the ecosystems most profoundly and immediately threatened by climate change. Indeed, even with some pretty aggressive mitigation, most will probably perish during the lifetimes of those reading this, as the result of both rising temperatures and increasing ocean acidity. The article quotes scientist J. E. N. Veron saying that by 2050 “the only corals left alive will be those in refuges on deep outer slopes of reefs. The rest will be unrecognisable — a bacterial slime, devoid of life.”

The article also discusses environmental activism, science fiction, the prospect of geoengineering, the concept of ‘resilience’ in a threatened world, and what it means to be alive in the Anthropocene – the era in human history characterized by the impacts of human beings on physical and biological systems. It makes the strong point that we can somewhat reduce the eventual impact of climate change by working to diminish other stresses; reefs threatened by warm and acidic water don’t need dynamite fishing and oil drilling to help drive them to extinction. The same is surely true of terrestrial ecosystems. Resilience is also something that can be built into human systems – the ability to stretch and change without breaking. From my perspective, that is one huge limitation of the ‘survivalist’ approach to surviving climate change. Your little armed colony might be able to sustain itself under present conditions, but it isn’t necessarily very flexible, when it comes to adapting to whatever the future will bring.

The ‘underwater’ metaphor is an interesting one. The author points out that the human capacity to remain underwater for extended periods depends fundamentally on the whole enterprise of modern industry. The author points out that we’re not really trying to save reefs anymore: we’re trying to save the ability of human beings to do things like SCUBA dive. That ability can only be maintained if we maintain an industrial society, while transforming its energy basis. The article’s conclusion addresses this, but is somewhat underwhelming. While renewable forms of energy are surely a huge part of the solution, putting solar panels on top of buildings won’t be anywhere near adequate. We need comprehensive plans of the sort David MacKay has cooked up. Making the transition from surviving underwater using a set amount of compressed air (akin to fossil fuels) in a tank to living in a self-sustaining colony (akin to renewables) requires appreciation of scale and logistics. A few houseplants are not going to do it.

In any event, the whole article is worth reading and responding to. My thanks to my friend Ann, for pointing it out to me.

Generation of writers

The internet is often accused of dumbing people down, particularly young people. At least one result from the Stanford Study of Writing seems contrary to that, and is discussed in Wired:

Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they’d leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

It’s hard not to find that rather encouraging, even if electronic forms of communication are sometimes gaining ground at the expense of real-time socializing. I think there is special value in written forms of communication, not least because they put more of an onus on the person expressing themselves to do so in a clear and comprehensible way.

I found this via Metafilter.

Right about obstacles, wrong about consequences

I was recently reminded of a common but worrisome mental phenomenon, when it comes to how people react psychologically to the challenge of climate change. They have a strong understanding of the basic political dynamics at work – short term versus long term, special interests versus the general interest, money talks, etc – but lack an appreciation for just how bad unmitigated climate change would be. They are cynical about the prospects for an appropriate political response, but not seized with the importance of producing one despite the difficulties.

As mentioned before, the business-as-usual case is 5.5°C to 7.1°C of temperature increase by 2100, with more to follow. Accompanying this would be ocean acidification, changes in precipitation patterns, and other impacts. This is a more significant difference than exists between our present climate and that of the last ice age, when much of North America was covered with kilometres of ice. In the somewhat understated language typical of scientists, the head of the Met Office has said that warming of this scale would “lead to significant risks of severe and irreversible impacts.” That isn’t a worst-case scenario, but rather their best guess about where we will end up unless we change course. It should also be noted that there are positive feedbacks not incorporated into models such as that of the Hadley Centre: notable among them methane from permafrost. With such feedbacks factored in, a significantly worse business-as-usual warming profile is possible.

In practical terms, it is challenging to converse with people who have this pair of outlooks. Their cynicism about politics is largely justified, and they are right to see climate change as a problem of unprecedented complexity and difficulty. Trying to make them aware of just how dangerous climate change could be is challenging, because it is easy to come off sounding like you are exaggerating things. People just aren’t psychologically prepared to accept what 5°C of warming could plausible do to human civilization, even within what are now rich states.

What communication strategies have the most promise for getting people to accept the dangerousness of climate change, and subsequently the need to push hard against the political status quo, so as to produce timely change? This isn’t an issue where we can roll over and let special interest politics win. The future of the human race is quite literally at stake.

“Write for yourself, edit for your readers”

This great bit of advice comes from Copyblogger. When it comes to the proper use of language in online communication, I think the key issue is one of respect. Being respectful of your readers means taking care to express yourself well, as well as avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes. Taking a slapdash approach to editing suggests that you value a few seconds of your own time more than the time of everyone who will subsequently read whatever you are producing. From my perspective, that is rather rude.

Other good resources include George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” This includes concise and excellent advice on how to improve prose (apologies for the inappropriately gendered language):

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

What am I trying to say?

What words will express it?

What image or idiom will make it clearer?

Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

Could I put it more shortly?

Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

These basic ideas can also be reformulated as six ‘rules:’

Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These apply just as much to corporate, government, and academic documents as they do to blog posts or personal letters.

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

I became aware of Fred Burton through the free weekly defence briefings put out by STRATFOR, his current employer. They stand out from other media reports, both as the result of the details they focus on and the thrust of their overall analysis. While I wouldn’t bet heavily on them being entirely correct, they do play a useful counterbalancing role when read alongside media stories that are generally rather similar.

Ghost describes Burton’s history with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) between 1986 and 1993, with an epilogue in 2004. Burton’s work involved collecting intelligence, investigating plots and attacks, protecting diplomats, and so forth. He goes into detail on several of the investigations he was involved in, including the assassination of Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and the capture of Ramzi Yousef. He also describes some of the tactics and strategies employed by the DSS, as well as by other law enforcement and intelligence agencies. These include the operation of motorcades, cover techniques, and countersurveillance: a tactic he claims special credit for deploying in the protective services.

The book’s greatest strength lies in the details it includes, on everything from the character of different intelligence agencies to equipment used to various sorts of tradecraft. While the breathless descriptions can sometimes feel like the content of a mediocre spy novel, the detailed technical discussions offer insight into how clandestine services actually operate. Of course, it is virtually certain that security and secrecy led to parts of the book being incomplete or distorted. Still, it has a candid quality that makes it an engrossing read. One interesting perspective offered is on the connections between different states and terrorist groups: particularly the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah; between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, and various terrorist groups; as well as the ways in which modern terrorist tactics evolved from those developed by Black September, the group that carried out the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

At times, the book’s language is overwrought, especially when Burton is discussing the innocence of the victims of terrorism and the ‘evil’ nature of those who commit it. His reflections on his own ethical thinking may be genuine, but seem somewhat hackneyed and unoriginal at the same time. He never portrays American intelligence or police services as having any flaws, with the exception of when bureaucrats get overly involved and stop brave and effective agents from doing their work well. No consideration is given to the abuses that can occur when effective oversight is not present. Burton is also unrelentingly hostile towards the media: accusing them of offering superficial analysis and being eager to divulge information that undermines the clandestine efforts of intelligence organizations. The book is also a bit too well sprinkled with cliches, such as decisions being made and information being assessed ‘above Burton’s pay grade.’ In general, Burton seems a bit too willing to assume that all US intelligence agents are working on the side of the angels and that oversight and accountability can only hamper their efforts.

One interesting passage mentions how little time was required to circumvent the encryption on Yousef’s laptop. This makes me wonder what sort of algorithm had been employed and how it was implemented, as well as the techniques used by those breaking the encryption. I suspect that the actual encryption algorithm is not what was overcome, at least not through some brute force means. It is far more likely that they were able to compromise the password by comprehensively searching through the data on hand, including temporary files and perhaps contents of RAM. It does you little good to have a hard drive encrypted with AES-256 if it is possible to recover or guess the key in a short span of time.

In general, the book is one I recommend. It has a good authentic feel to it and includes some unusual perspectives and operational details. Burton’s personal dedication, as well as that of the agents he serves with and admires, is both convincing and commendable.

Defining timeframes

For the sake of clarity, I am going to try to use the terms ‘near,’ ‘medium,’ and ‘long’ term in a consistent way in future posts about climate change:

Near-term: within the next ten years
Medium-term: within the next fifty years
Long-term: within the next hundred years

For instance: developed states need to establish strong domestic carbon prices in the near term. In the medium term, they need to get very close to carbon neutrality (perhaps with emissions 95% below 1990 levels). In the long term, the entire planet needs to be basically carbon neutral.

When referring to phenomena where the relevant timescale is different (shorter, for politics and quantum mechanics; longer for geology), I will try to use numerical estimates rather than the near-medium-long descriptions.

‘Sexy’ studies, the media, and scientific certainty

A post on RealClimate identifies some problematic aspects of science reporting, such as how the media preference for new and surprising information means that spectacular and unreproduced studies can get more attention than those that have been carefully examined and replicated:

The more mature and solid a field, the less controversy there is, and thus the fewer news stories. Ironically, this means the public is told the least about the most solid aspects of science.

The whole post is worth reading.

The consequences of this tendency are probably pretty serious. For one thing, it makes science seem less credible than it otherwise would. One day, scientists say red wine is good for you, the next day they seem to say something else. We would all be better off if the most authoritative studies, such as the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the systemic reviews undertaken by the Cochrane Collaboration, were represented as such in the mainstream media, as well as if individual unconfirmed studies were described with an appropriate focus on methodology, and an awareness that those studies which are new, surprising, and contradict well-established hypotheses are often later shown to be incorrect or of limited application or importance.

I also like the rule of thumb the post attributed to Richard Feynman: “the last data point on any graph should be discounted because, if it had been easy to obtain, there would have been another one further along.”