Unfinished business

For Darwin's anniversary we published a three page essay about why his revolution in thought was unfinished. This essay was drafted last year, and at the time had rather a different ending. It basically aired the same point argued by Stephen Jay Gould, that life is just an accident and if you replayed evolution with just a few things different, the outcome (humans, for example) would be different.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a science breakfast with Prospect magazine towards the end of the year with a number of other science journalists and writers. We were asked to talk about some of the ideas we thought were important over the following twelve months and I explained what I had in mind for the Darwin anniversary. Alun Anderson, the former editor of New Scientist, was also at this breakfast. He asked me if I had read Simon Conway Morris's book. I had not. He said that Conway Morris has a very different idea about how evolution works.

I followed this tip up, and picked up a copy of the 2003 book: Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. I will not tell you a lie and say that I have read all of it, but the parts I have paint an exciting and new picture of how evolution might work. I revised the Darwin piece to take account of this new idea, and The Economist asked Professor Conway Morris to record an audio interview. I heartily recommend the podcast. If you have even a passing interest in evolution, Professor Conway Morris is a fascinating individual.

I've also got a couple of broadcasts coming up on Marketplace, a programme on American Public Media, on the subject of Darwinism, business and the markets.


Updated 13th February, 2009: Marketplace broadcast: Why the markets are not Darwinian.

Unfinished business
Charles Darwin’s ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not yet complete. Feb 5th 2009

Podcast with Simon Conway Morris, a paleontologist from the University of Cambridge.

Daily chart, belief in evolution.

PETA's dangerous new campaign

Just hot off the press, this story has just gone live about PETA's campaign to rebrand fish as cute and cuddly, and what it means for children's health. I'm expecting one or two comments on this story.

Green.view: Deep-fried kittens

Jan 26th 2009
PETA's dangerous new campaign

PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS (PETA) claims 2m “members and supporters”, making it the world’s largest animal-rights organisation.

Much of its popularity likely derives from some important work it has done improving the welfare of farm and research animals around the world. But there is another side to animal-rights organisations. Many of them, PETA included, advocate that animals should not be regarded as property (no pets), and should not be used for food (even milk, honey and fish are out), clothing or research. Those who take such a hardline view are a distinct minority. (More...)

Rethinking tropical destruction

A debate has emerged about the true extent of biodiversity loss on the planet within the Smithsonian. This is because secondary growth forests turn out to be far better homes for biodiversity than had been thought.

Second life

Jan 15th 2009
Biologists debate the scale of extinction in the world’s tropical forests

A RARE piece of good news from the world of conservation: the global extinction crisis may have been overstated. The world is unlikely to lose 100 species a day, or half of all species in the lifetime of people now alive, as some have claimed. The bad news, though, is that the lucky survivors are tiny tropical insects that few people care about. The species that are being lost rapidly are the large vertebrates that conservationists were worried about in the first place. (more...)

Reader Ranko Bon, in Croatia, asks "One wonders whether biodiversity can be meaningfully measured in percentages though."

Also see these two related reports at Scidevnet. The second piece talks about the biodiversity value of agriculture, which was another theme in a recent biodiversity meeting at the Smithsonian, and in a previous piece in The Economist about the value of betel nut plantations.

One picture that is emerging from many of the ongoing discussions is that protecting biodiversity requires landscape-level management, where you plan your protected areas, buffer zones where sympathetic agriculture happens, biodiversity corridors and stepping stones to allow species to move from one part of the landscape to another. A stepping stone is a series of pieces of habitat that let airborne animals move from one piece of habitat to another.


'Comeback' forests rich in biodiversity, say scientists. Tropical forests that grow back following deforestation are unexpectedly rich in plant and animal life that can help conservation efforts.

Traditional coffee farms 'improve tree biodiversity'. Shade-grown coffee farms are rich in native tree species and are important corridors of genetic diversity linking forests, say researchers.

Mars rising, and the moon on the wane

Its been a good few months before we reminded the world just what a waste of money NASA's human spaceflight programme is and how there are better ways to explore.


Mars rising?

Jan 22nd 2009

Why NASA should give up its ambitions to send men into space

AS LONG as people have looked up at the night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the universe. Of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane in the Martian atmosphere has therefore excited the hopes of exobiologists—particularly as the sources of three large plumes of the gas now seem to have been located. These sources are probably geological but they might, just, prove to be biological.

The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or machines? Since America is the biggest spender in space, its approach will heavily influence the world’s. George Bush’s administration strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is likely to have different priorities—and so it should. ... (More)

Out with the old, and in with the new

This is our first full week back at Economist towers. Last week we ran a weirdly stunted issue, very short on pages and very short on time to produce it. The entire issue was put together on a single day at the end of December, in order to avoid the bank holiday shut downs at various printing presses.

So everyone is back this week and it is a struggle to get into the editor's office for the Monday morning meeting. The talk is of recession, stimulus, manufacturing, Obama, and of course Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.

Over in the science section, we don't often have much to contribute on such worldly and weighty matters, but this week I wrote a lead note looking at Obama's science appointments and what they signal for the new administration. The bottom line is that Obama will be taking scientific information seriously, and it will become an important part of policy making. There will always be a tension between politics and science, but acknowledging the existence of data is a good start.

Looking ahead, if science is now part of policy making this will inevitably raise the profile of scientific information more generally, as well as scientists and science news.

If politicians are asking about what the science says when they form policy, it also means that when scientists discover, invent or achieve things people will also ask well if this is the science, what should the policy be?

While journalists are keenly aware of self-censorship, having a US president that refused to accept scientific data within the context of many an argument could not help but shift the news agenda. Science correspondents and journalists had less to contribute because the arguments were drawn on political lines rather than scientific ones. So for years the arguments about climate change have been booted into the political realm. Reports, facts, scientists have been suppressed. And it is very difficult to report on what isn't there.

Hopefully times are changing. That doesn't necessarily mean that scientists are going to get everything their way. If they assume that, they are in for a big disappointment. Scientific fact is only part of policy making. And there are probably some profound shakeups coming in research funding, as priorities change and economic hard times bite.

But arguing over scientific facts will be so much more satisfying. I am looking forward to 2009.


Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth

Barack Obama is making good his promise to welcome scientists into his administration
Jan 8th 2009


My second story takes a brief look at the new marine reserves announced by Bush. For a fuller take on this story, check out the weekend edition of The Economist website. Next week's green.view will take a look at green New Year's resolutions.


Green Bush

The departing president tries to burnish his environmental halo
Jan 8th 2009

2009: International Year of the Boffin?

Another year has whizzed passed at Economist towers. From our vantage point, just south of Picadilly, the city looks very peaceful and quiet.

Just a quick note to let you all know what I have in the Christmas issue. The double issue, packed with essays, is our single best-selling issue of the year. The lead in the science section this year is suitably Christmassy, and all about scent. The Bom chicka wah wah effect explained.

The scent of a man. To attract a woman by wearing scent, a man must first attract himself. Dec 18th 2008.


2009: International Year of the Boffin?
To round up the end of the year, I'd also like to congratulate the European Commission on its recent masterful work in December in managing to award itself unjustifiably huge bluefin quotas this year, in the teeth of scientific advice.

I'm actually looking forward to 2009, it may be economic misery for most of us, but at least the US has a serious raft of new scientific advisers in top positions in the new Obama administration.

Harvard physicist John Holdren will be the presidential science advisor, physicist Steve Chu as Secretary of Energy, and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco will head the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

It doesn't necessary mean that science will always be the final word in political decision-making, but it does show that the science will be listened to and taken seriously, even when this may be politically inconvenient.

This sort of heavyweight scientific advice has been notably absent from the Bush administrations. Consequently, science, as a result, has moved right down the political agenda. The only way for science to play its part, is to make sure that plenty of scientists get top political jobs. They see the world differently. If anything, this makes political decisions all the more difficult because you have to take in reality as a data point, rather than just try to find a compromise between the various noisy interest groups and lobbyists.

Nobody in authority ever hired a scientist because they wanted to make lots of people happy. But any administration serious about solving real world problems, rather than just politics as usual, needs boffins.

Also, a recent green.view:

Welcome to the NASQUACK. An exchange for species rather than stocks. Dec 15th 2008

Happy New Year. Don't forget, if you have a story or lead, please drop me a line.

Bye bye bluefin

The news about the bluefin tuna just keeps on coming. This week we had an exclusive story with some new predictions that the bluefin tuna population in the Med and the Northeast Atlantic is about to collapse. The only way of avoiding this with any certainty is a ban on fishing. However the current strategy for conserving the bluefin tuna involves more fishing and fishing that will cause the population to decline so precipitously that it would qualify as critically endangered.

As the story details, despite fine words about a ban at the IUCN meeting a month in October, the European Union, and the UK are heading to a crucial meeting held by ICCAT with a mandate that seems to do all it can to avoid actually mention moratorium. (See our piece and also this AFP report). While WWF is encouraged by signs in Italy and Spain of interest in a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing, it is of course the EU/EC that has the seat at the table (which is one of the most important among the 46 nations involved in ICCAT).

The EC contends that it has done a good job on managing the bluefin through ICCAT, despite all evidence to the contrary. Matters are coming to head, though, at this November's meeting.

Underscoring this was a letter from ICCAT chairman Dr Fabio Hazin which was sent on October 31st to all the delegates. He writes, "I believe that this upcoming ICCAT meeting may very well be the most important one our Commission ever faced. ICCAT credibility is seriously at stake at this moment and our fate will be sealed ultimately by the decisions we make at Marrakech".

Every year, the politicians at ICCAT ignore the scientific advice. This year, there is more talk of heeding the scientific advice. But there is still plenty of wiggle room. A EC spokesperson said "there is not only one scientific advice". Within any estimate is a degree of uncertainty, and this can typically be exploited to allow for more fishing. One of the scientists who reworked the ICCAT data, said that some of the assumptions that had been made up in their models were incredibly optimistic.

In an interview, Andy Rosenberg, a fisheries scientist at the University of New Hampshire, also questioned the degree to which the scientific committee at ICCAT were truly independent. He says the scientists do a good job, but ultimately the committee is taking its "marching orders from the various members states. The science committee is asked to analyse various options."

He adds, "it really is up to governments and governments will respond to public pressure. But it is always too slow. Its a matter of people saying that this isn't acceptable. We need public outrage, this is the common heritage of mankind and an international resource and this is how we are dealing with it".

More soon on this. But for now I'll leave you with a few more of Dr Hazin's words.

"Let's not fool ourselves: there will be no future for ICCAT if we do not fully respect and abide by the scientific advice.... our credibility will be irreversibly jeopardized and the mandate to manage tuna stocks will surely be taken out of our hands. "

"...we must be aware that this is our very last chance to prove that we can do our job properly. if we fail, other institutions will take over. And if one stock falls out of our hands, others may well do likewise."

"please make every effort to ensure that your delegation will not miss such a crucial and historical moment for the Commission".

Managed to death
If nothing is done soon, the bluefin tuna will disappear from the MediterraneanOct 30th 2008