best kept Secret = 2
Genes are simply chemicals that direct the combination of more chemicals.
Edward Tatum and George Wells Beadle investigated the transmission of hereditary characteristics of genes and proved that particular genes are responsible for particular enzymes, and therefore all biochemical processes are regulated by genes.
For their work on genetics, they shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Joshua Lederberg.
For over 400 years, we've known that genes drive behavior:
"Dogs provide a dramatic yet familiar example of genetic variability within species. Despite their great variability in size and physical appearance, they are all members of the same species. Dogs also illustrate within-species genetic effects on behavior. Although physical differences are most obvious, dogs have been bred for centuries as much for their behavior as for their looks. In 1576, the earliest English-language book on dogs classified breeds primarily on the basis of behavior. For example, terriers (from terra, which is Latin for "earth") were bred to creep into burrows to drive out small animals. Another book, published in 1686, described the behavior for which spaniels were originally selected. They were bred to creep up on birds and then spring to frighten the birds into the hunter's net. With the advent of the shotgun, different spaniels were bred to point rather than to spring. The author of the 1686 work was especially interested in temperament: 'Spaniels by Nature are very loveing, surpassing all other Creatures, for in Heat and Cold, Wet and Dry, Day and Night, they will not forsake their Master'.
"Behavioral classification of dogs continues today. Sheepdogs herd, retrievers retrieve, trackers track, and pointers point with minimal training. Breeds also differ strikingly in intelligence and in temperamental traits such as emotionality, activity, and aggressiveness. The selection process can be quite fine tuned. For example, in France, where dogs are used chiefly for farm work, there are 17 breeds of shepherd and stock dogs specializing in aspects of this work. In England, dogs have been bred primarily for hunting, and there are 26 recognized breeds of hunting dogs. Dogs are not unusual in their genetic diversity, although they are unusual in the extent to which different breeds have been intentionally bred to accentuate genetic differences." [24]
Animal behavior can be deduced by careful observation and explained by evolution theory. By carefully observing terriers, we can deduce that they were selected to creep into burrows. By carefully observing people, we can deduce they were selected to believe in virtually anything:
"Precisely what we believe is immaterial; what matters is the kind of behavior it generates. This is why humanity is characterized by such astonishing diversity in its belief systems. As far as our genes are concerned, we can believe that the universe is driven by an overweight fairy on a green cheese bicycle provided that such belief effectively coerces us into adopting genetically advantageous behavior in all matters of evolutionary consequence, such as feeding, mating, nurturing, bonding, and protecting family, tribe, and territory." [25]
Even though scientists pointed out over a hundred years ago that energy -- not money -- was the source of the capitalists' wealth, economists just didn't have the genes to give up their beliefs and face the real world. In other words, two million years of evolution produced an animal that was ideally suited to worship the Market God. [26]
Adam Smith believed that God's divine plan was revealed in a free market: "the divine being ... contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity of happiness." Economic historian Deborah Redman explains: "Because the order of nature is providential, the free market that reflects natural order also reflects the workings of providence. In this way the spheres of morality, theology, jurisprudence, and economics become hostages to nature, so to speak." [27]
The first commandment of the Market God (as revealed by Adam Smith): "Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interests in his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men."
The economists didn't have the genes to understand the physics they were struggling to impersonate:
"[ With the development of modern physics ] it became possible to see orthodox economic theory for what it really was: a bowdlerized imitation of nineteenth-century physics…It was not the methods of science that were appropriated by the early neoclassicals as it was the appearances of science, for the early neoclassicals possessed a singularly inept understanding of the physics they so admired… [ Neoclassical economists attempt ] to reduce all social institutions such as money, property rights, and the market itself to epiphenomena of individual constrained optimization calculation. All these attempts have failed, despite their supposed dependence upon mathematical rigor, because they always inadvertently assume what they aim to deduce… Conservation principles are the key to the understanding of a mathematical formulation of any phenomenon, and it has been there that the neoclassicals have been woefully negligent." [28]
"Once one gets the scorecard straight, then it will become apparent that twentieth-century neoclassical theory resembles nothing so much as the child’s game of Mr. Potatohead -- the fun comes in mixing and matching components with little or no concern for the coherence of the final profile." [29]
Had economists evolved to understand the first and second laws of thermodynamics, they would have realized it was just a matter of time until global society entered a period of chronic energy shortage. Since neither capital nor labor can create energy, central bankers will soon have no way to manipulate the economy:
"Increases or decreases in the level of money supply are thought to influence the level of production in the economy. However, this is true only if the 'externals' to the economy -- i.e., sources of energy from outside of the money circle -- are constant. When the availability of energy changes, the economy changes in ways not correctable by manipulations of the money supply." [30]
If central bankers try to stimulate the economy under conditions of chronic energy shortage, they will create "stagflation" instead:
"High inflation rates can be explained by the linkages between fuel use and money supply. If the money supply is increased, stimulating demand beyond levels that can be satisfied by existing fuel supplies, then prices will rise. This implies that when the costs of obtaining fuel are high, fiscal and monetary policies may not be successful in stimulating economic growth." [31]
The next round of energy-shortage-induced stagflation will leave central bankers helpless and they will seek military solutions to their economic problems. This certainly isn't the first time that faith in the Market God has led to military solutions.
SAME BELIEF = SAME RESULT
The true nature of the highly artificial economic organization on which peace rested becomes of utmost significance to the historian.
-- Karl Polanyi
In late 1973 the first OPEC oil shock struck, as oil prices quadrupled and the general inflation indexes shot up to 11 percent. More important, gasoline lines appeared. Waiting in line to buy a basic commodity like gasoline is something that no American had ever experienced. Shock and irritation were high, but those lines were like the first small heart attack -- an indication of mortality... What was worse, economists could pose no solution to the energy problem. Influential professionals, such as Milton Friedman, predicted that the oil cartel would quickly fall apart. It didn't.
-- Lester Thurow. [32]
In the 19th century, economist Hermann Gossen proclaimed: "It would only frustrate totally or in part the purpose of the Creator were we to attempt to neutralize [the free market] in total or in part, as is the intention of some moral codes promulgated by men." And he asks with moral indignation: "How can a creature be so arrogant as to frustrate totally or partly the purpose of his creator?" [33] The economists' faith in the Market God led to two world wars and sent millions to their deaths.
No other historian has explained the human suffering caused by failed economic theories as well as Karl Polanyi:
"The origins of the cataclysm lay in the utopian endeavor of economic liberalism to set up a self-regulating market system." [p. 29]
"By the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, world commodity prices were the central reality in the lives of millions of Continental peasants; the repercussions of the London money market were daily noted by businessmen all over the world; and governments discussed plans for the future in light of the situation on the world capital markets. Only a madman would have doubted that the international economic system was the axis of the material existence of the race. Because this system needed peace in order to function, the balance of power was made to serve it. Take this economic system away and the peace interest would disappear from politics." [p. 18]
"By the end of the seventies the free trade episode (1846-79) was at an end; the actual use of the gold standard by Germany marked the beginnings of an era of protectionism and colonial expansion… the symptoms of the dissolution of the existing forms of world economy -- colonial rivalry and competition for exotic markets -- became acute. The ability of haute finance to avert the spread of wars was diminishing rapidly. For another seven years peace dragged on but it was only a question of time before the dissolution of nineteenth century economic organization would bring the Hundred Years' Peace to a close." [p. 19]
"The breakdown of the international gold standard was the invisible link between the disintegration of world economy since the turn of the century and the transformation of a whole civilization in the thirties. Unless the vital importance of this factor is realized, it is not possible to see rightly either the mechanism which railroaded Europe to its doom, or the circumstances which accounted for the astounding fact that the forms and contents of a civilization should rest on so precarious foundations.
"The true nature of the international system under which we were living was not realized until it failed. Hardly anyone understood the political function of the international monetary system; the awful suddenness of the transformation thus took the world completely by surprise... To liberal economists the gold standard was purely an economic institution; they refused even to consider it as a part of a social mechanism. Thus it happened that the democratic countries were the last to realize the true nature of the catastrophe and the slowest to counter its effects. Not even when the cataclysm was already upon them did their leaders see that behind the collapse of the international system there stood a long development within the most advanced countries which made that system anachronistic; in other words, the failure of market economy itself still escaped them." [p. 20]
"The transformation came on even more abruptly than is usually realized. World War I and the postwar revolutions still formed part of the nineteenth century. The conflict of 1914-18 merely precipitated and immeasurably aggravated a crisis that it did not create. But the roots of the dilemma could not be discerned at the time…The dissolution of the system of world economy which had been in progress since 1900 was responsible for the political tension that exploded in 1914." [p. 21] [34]
Exactly like the economists of one hundred years ago, and despite millions killed in two world wars by their mistakes, economists still worship the Market God. Moreover, economists still haven't changed their inherently defective methodology.
Economists first abstract all commodities to money -- which of course, obliterates all qualitative differences between the commodities themselves, and leaves economists uniquely unqualified to know anything about the commodities they purport to study.
Although economists treat energy just like any other resource, it’s not like any other resource. Available energy is the precondition for all resources -- including more available energy! Because of their total dependence on the measure of "money", today's most prominent economists are unable to know the difference between "libraries" and "oil":
"Should we be taking steps to limit the use of these most precious stocks of society's capital so that they will still be available for our grandchildren? … Economists ask, Would future generations benefit more from larger stocks of natural capital such as oil, gas, and coal or from more produced capital such as additional scientists, better laboratories, and libraries linked together by information superhighways? … in the long run, oil and gas are not essential." [Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus] [35]
Talk about an evolutionary cul-de-sac! The economists' devotion to the Market God coupled with their innate inability to know the difference between libraries and oil will lead to a new generation of wars and send billions to their deaths.
The next cycle of death will begin when the world experiences a severe oil crunch in less than ten years (probably less than five, perhaps much less). The crunch will be triggered by a political upheaval in one or more of the major oil-producing nations, a Muslim backlash against America's friendship with Israel, OPEC reducing production to make more profit, or simply the natural -- and inevitable -- "peak" in global oil production.
Once the crunch is here, it's too late. The global economy will go to hell and rational planning will be replaced by crisis management. With the oil gone, there is nothing left to work with anyway.
The coming oil crunch is the best-kept secret in Washington, Whitehall, Brussels, and Jerusalem, but it’s just a matter of time until word hits the street…
TIME MAGAZINE -- January 14, 1974
It looked like a hand grenade, so the Albany, N.Y., station operator played it safe and assumed that it was a hand grenade. He gave the man who was toting it all the gas he wanted. Attendants elsewhere last week faced curses and threats of violence, sometimes backed by suspicious bulges in the pockets of jackets. When a huge bear of a man warned a Springfield, Mass., dealer, "You are going to give me gas or I will kill you," the dealer squeezed his parched pumps to find some. "Better a live coward than a dead hero," he said.
Such incidents were not exactly common last week, but they occurred often enough, especially in the Northeast, to indicate an outbreak of a kind of gasoline madness. The New Year's weekend was the first time that many drivers became really desperate for gas. Many stations ran out of their monthly allotments as the weekend started and closed until they could get new deliveries after the holiday. Those that stayed open backed up long lines of drivers whose tempers sometimes exploded -- especially if they found the pumps dry when they finally got to them.
The gas shortage is sparking other types of deviant behavior. Flouting of the law is on the rise. In New York City, two gasoline tanks trucks, each loaded with 3,000 gallons, were hijacked within a week. Price gouging by station owners has become distressingly common. Miamians complain of having to pay $1 a gallon or being charged a $2 "service fee" before a station attendant will wait on them.
At best, many gas station owners and attendants have become unapproachable to strangers; they will wait only on longtime customers. Some issue window stickers to the regulars; others sell by appointment only. Oregon Governor Tom McCall last week rolled into a Union 76 station only to be told by the manager: "Sorry, Governor, we're only selling to our regular customers."
So the Governor meekly drove to the end of the line at a nearby station that was taking all comers…
[1] THE PRIZE: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, by Daniel Yergin, Joseph Stanislaw (Contributor); Touchstone, 1993 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671799320/brainfood.a
[3] James Madison was the fourth President of the United States (1809-1817). A member of the Continental Congress (1780-1783) and the Constitutional Convention (1787), he strongly supported ratification of the Constitution and was a contributor to The Federalist Papers (1787-1788), which argued the effectiveness of the proposed constitution. Madison has been described by political historian Richard K. Matthews as the "ideal Machiavellian Prince", the "father of the Constitution", the "father of the Bill of Rights", the "father of political parties", and the "father of preferred freedoms".
[4] p. 79, IF MEN WERE ANGELS: James Madison & the Heartless Empire of Reason, by Richard K. Matthews; Kansas, 1995; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0700608079/brianfood.a
[6] The net energy curve was found empirically by Hall, Cleveland and Kaufmann working with Louisiana oil and gas wells. A very rough estimate is that the last 5% of production from a field might be at an energy loss (it doesn't say how much loss, the authors stopped computing when net energy reached .5).
Recent research suggests perverse subsidies total about $1.5 trillion per year worldwide. This is twice as large as global military spending each year and three times as much as the international narcotics industry. [ see http://www.websiteworld.co.uk/hot.htm ] Production at financial profit but energy loss is partially due to economic subsidies.
[7] p. 314, GETTING DOWN TO EARTH, by Robert Costanza et al., Eds.; Island Press, 1996; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559635037/brainfood.a
[8] OIL AS A FINITE RESOURCE: When Is Global Production Likely to Peak? by James J. MacKenzie; World Resources Institute, 1996; http://www.wri.org/wri/climate/finitoil/eur-oil.html
[10] THE DEATH OF THE OIL ECONOMY, by Ted Trainer; Earth Island Journal, Spring 1997; http://dieoff.com/page116.htm
[11] p. 87, BEYOND OIL, by John Gever et al., Univ. Pr. Colorado, 1991; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870812424/brainfood.a
[12] THE POST-PETROLEUM PARADIGM -- AND POPULATION, by Walter Youngquist; Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 20, Number 4, March 1999; http://www.dieoff.com/page171.htm
[14] THE WORLD PETROLEUM LIFE-CYCLE: Encircling the Production Peak, by Richard Duncan, Institute on Energy and Man, Seattle, WA. 1997; http://dieoff.com/page133.htm
[15] ISLAM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY: Two Visions Of Reformation, by Robin Wright; Journal of Democracy 7.2 (1996) 64-75; http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/rwright.htm
One can make a rough estimate of the stability of Muslim nations by using Freedom House's list of "free" countries as a proxy for democracy, and the following list of Muslim countries:
Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Cameroon, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Uzbekistan, Yemen. (Of course, not all were involved in wars.)
In the last thirty years, Muslim countries (which total 37) were involved in roughly 27 wars while "free" countries (which total 88) were involved in about 20 wars (including wars with Muslim countries). http://freedomhouse.org/survey99/country/ http://www.gn.apc.org/peacepledge/wars/war_index.html
[17] Internal combustion, steam, or gas turbines are called "heat engines" because they convert fuel into heat, then into mechanical motion.
[19] A typical gasoline engine with a compression ratio of 8:1 cannot exceed a theoretical 45 percent efficiency, in practice might be about 35 percent; for a diesel with 20:1 it's 55 percent, 45 percent; for a turbine with 30:1 it's 60 percent, 50 percent.
[20] p. 132, MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT, by Philip Mirowski; Cambridge, 1989; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521426898/brainfood.a
[21] DANGEROUS CURRENTS: The State of Economics, by Lester C. Thurow; Random, 1983; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394723686/brainfood.a ; http://dieoff.com/page162.htm
[23] p. 2, THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE, by Jared Diamond; Harperperennial, 1992; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060984031/brainfood.a
[24] pp. 58-59. BEHAVIORAL GENETICS: Third Edition, Plomin et al; Freeman, 1997; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716728249/brainfood.a
[25] p. 186, THE SPIRIT IN THE GENE: Humanity's Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature, by Reg Morrison, Lynn Margulis; Cornell, 1999; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801436516/brainfood.a
[26] Scientists search for truth by forming statements that can be tested. If a statement cannot be tested, then it is not "scientific". Testable statements are known as "hypotheses" and take the general form "IF [I do this], THEN [this will occur] ". For example, the hypothesis "IF I drop a rock, THEN it will fall to the ground" it can be tested to see if it is "false".
In 1934, Sir Karl Popper proposed a criterion of testability, or falsifiability, for scientific validity. Scientific theories are hypotheses from which can be deduced statements testable by observation; if the appropriate experimental observations falsify these statements, the hypothesis is refuted. If a hypothesis survives efforts to falsify it, it may be tentatively accepted. No scientific theory, however, can be conclusively established.
Popper's mode of thought -- the habit of attempting to prove oneself wrong -- is the only path to knowledge about the real world.
Evolutionary psychologists have found that humans evolved to naturally use a "falsification strategy" with respect to the social world, but use a "confirmation strategy" with respect to the physical world. Our innate social-world "falsification strategy" causes us to instinctively reject social anomalies and attempt to "falsify" claims about the real world that might jeopardize social beliefs (e.g., the claim that global oil production will "peak" soon).
On the other hand, our innate physical-world "confirmation strategy" allows us to defend social constructions of reality (e.g., the "free market") to the death, even if the ideals they represent are far from physical reality. The most notorious example of this "confirmation strategy" was Julian Simon.
"Consider first a phenomenon I call the deontic effect in human reasoning (Cummins, 1996b, 1996c). Deontic reasoning is reasoning about rights and obligations; that is, reasoning about what one is permitted, obligated, or forbidden to do (Hilpinen, 1981; Manktelow & Over, 1991). Deontic reasoning contrasts with indicative reasoning, which is reasoning about what is true or false. When reasoning about deontic rules (social norms), humans spontaneously adopt a violation-detection strategy: They look for cheaters or rule-breakers. In contrast, when reasoning about the truth status of statements about the world, they spontaneously adopt a confirmation-seeking strategy. This effect is apparent in the reasoning of children as young as three years of age (Cummins, 1996a; Harris & Nuñez, 1996) and has been observed in literally hundreds of experiments on adult reasoning over the course of nearly thirty years, making it one of the most reliable effects in the psychological literature (see Cummins, 1996b, 1996c, and Oaksford & Chapter, 1996 for reviews of this literature)." [pp. 39, 40] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND, by Denise D. Cummins (Editor), Colin Allen (Editor), Oxford, 1998 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195110536/brainfood.a
[27] p. 237, THE RISE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A SCIENCE, Deborah Redman; MIT, 1997 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262181797/brainfood.a
[28] p. 6, AGAINST MECHANISM: Protecting Economics from Science, by Philip Mirowski; Rowman and Littlefield, 1988; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0847676951/brainfood.a