links of interest
George Johnson, The anthropologists vs Jared Diamond ("A Question of Blame When Societies Fall," NYT):
'By the time I left Amerind, I realized that what I had witnessed was a clash of world views. Central to the “cosmology” of Dr. Diamond’s tribe is a principle celebrated throughout the physical and biological sciences - to understand is to simplify and seek patterns.
'In an e-mail message, he said that progress in any field depends on syntheses and individual studies. “In both chemistry and physics, the need for both approaches has been recognized for a long time,” he wrote. “One no longer finds specialists on molybdenum decrying the periodic table’s sweeping superficiality, nor advocates of the periodic table scorning mere descriptive studies of individual elements.”
'For the anthropologists, the exceptions were more important than the rules. Instead of seeking overarching laws, the call was to “contextualize,” “complexify,” “relativize,” “particularize” and even “problematize,” a word that in their dialect was given an oddly positive spin. At some moments, the seminar seemed less like a scientific meeting than a session of the Modern Language Association.'
Chris Carroll on electronic waste ("High-Tech Trash," National Geographic):
'A switchover to digital high-definition television broadcasts is scheduled to be complete by 2009, rendering inoperable TVs that function perfectly today but receive only an analog signal. As viewers prepare for the switch, about 25 million TVs are taken out of service yearly. In the fashion-conscious mobile market, 98 million U.S. cell phones took their last call in 2005. All told, the EPA estimates that in the U.S. that year, between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other equipment were discarded. If all sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total 50 million tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme.'
Steve Paulson interviews theologian John Haught on science, religion, and the New Atheists ("The atheist delusion," Salon.com):
'The new atheists have made science the only road to truth. They have a belief, which I call "scientific naturalism," that there's nothing beyond nature -- no transcendent dimension -- that every cause has to be a natural cause, that there's no purpose in the universe, and that scientific explanations, especially in their Darwinian forms, can account for everything living. But the idea that science alone can lead us to truth is questionable. There's no scientific proof for that. Those are commitments that I would place in the category of faith.'
Gabor Steingart looks at a potential shift in the US official policy on trade ("The End of Globalization?", Spiegel Online):
'Hillary Clinton is now breaking with the legacy of her predecessors, including that of her husband. She no longer believes that trade with other nations is automatically beneficial to her own country. The old theory no longer holds true, she recently told the Financial Times. If she becomes president, she intends to withdraw from the ongoing World Trade talks that began in Doha, Qatar. In Clinton's view, a trade policy that would pick up where that of current President George W. Bush leaves off is "not an option."
'
Related: "The Establishment Rethinks Globalization", The Nation
'By the time I left Amerind, I realized that what I had witnessed was a clash of world views. Central to the “cosmology” of Dr. Diamond’s tribe is a principle celebrated throughout the physical and biological sciences - to understand is to simplify and seek patterns.
'In an e-mail message, he said that progress in any field depends on syntheses and individual studies. “In both chemistry and physics, the need for both approaches has been recognized for a long time,” he wrote. “One no longer finds specialists on molybdenum decrying the periodic table’s sweeping superficiality, nor advocates of the periodic table scorning mere descriptive studies of individual elements.”
'For the anthropologists, the exceptions were more important than the rules. Instead of seeking overarching laws, the call was to “contextualize,” “complexify,” “relativize,” “particularize” and even “problematize,” a word that in their dialect was given an oddly positive spin. At some moments, the seminar seemed less like a scientific meeting than a session of the Modern Language Association.'
Chris Carroll on electronic waste ("High-Tech Trash," National Geographic):
'A switchover to digital high-definition television broadcasts is scheduled to be complete by 2009, rendering inoperable TVs that function perfectly today but receive only an analog signal. As viewers prepare for the switch, about 25 million TVs are taken out of service yearly. In the fashion-conscious mobile market, 98 million U.S. cell phones took their last call in 2005. All told, the EPA estimates that in the U.S. that year, between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other equipment were discarded. If all sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total 50 million tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme.'
Steve Paulson interviews theologian John Haught on science, religion, and the New Atheists ("The atheist delusion," Salon.com):
'The new atheists have made science the only road to truth. They have a belief, which I call "scientific naturalism," that there's nothing beyond nature -- no transcendent dimension -- that every cause has to be a natural cause, that there's no purpose in the universe, and that scientific explanations, especially in their Darwinian forms, can account for everything living. But the idea that science alone can lead us to truth is questionable. There's no scientific proof for that. Those are commitments that I would place in the category of faith.'
Gabor Steingart looks at a potential shift in the US official policy on trade ("The End of Globalization?", Spiegel Online):
'Hillary Clinton is now breaking with the legacy of her predecessors, including that of her husband. She no longer believes that trade with other nations is automatically beneficial to her own country. The old theory no longer holds true, she recently told the Financial Times. If she becomes president, she intends to withdraw from the ongoing World Trade talks that began in Doha, Qatar. In Clinton's view, a trade policy that would pick up where that of current President George W. Bush leaves off is "not an option."
'
Related: "The Establishment Rethinks Globalization", The Nation