David Orr. 2005. Armageddon Versus Extinction. Conservation Biology 19 (2): 290-292

In this essay David Orr spells out the differences between conservation biologists and right-wing evangelical Christians as he sees it.  His views are based on the current situation in the USA, where he perceives that right-wing evangelical Christians and the State are becoming more and more intertwined.  He postulates that because these so-called Christians believe that the end times are near, they are careless stewards of the world’s natural resources, which suits the Bush administration, as it “legitimizes” their total disregard of universal environmental concerns.

David Orr puts it rather bluntly: “… by becoming an active force on the extreme right wing of U.S. politics, conservative evangelicals have made an unholy alliance with the vendors of fossil fuels, climate changers, polluters, sellers of weapons, the military, imperialists, exploiters, political dirty tricksters who assume that the ends they’ve chosen justify whatever means they use, spin artists, those willing to corrupt scientific truth for political gain, and those for whom law and the Constitution are mere scraps of paper… conservative evangelicals are now complicit with the political forces sweeping us toward more terrible violence and avoidable catastrophes of climate change and ecological ruin.” (Orr 2005, page 291)

I can fully identify with David Orr’s concerns. Time is a luxury we do not have, increasing the responsibility of influential world leaders to provide visionary leadership and act towards the common good of all the world’s inhabitants.  However, I do believe that he oversimplified some of the issues and painted a caricature picture of ‘evangelical’ Christians in general.  There are ‘evangelical’ Christians out there who do care and who are very involved in conservation efforts.  They propose constructive engagement of faith communities rather than Orr’s confrontational approach, which will alienate these groups even further. ‘Conservation Theology for Conservation Biologists – a Reply to David Orr’ in the December 2005 Issue of Conservation Biology 19 (6): 1689-1692, is a response that was put together by an international group of Christians from five continents; all professionals in various conservation-related disciplines.  They state that although they do agree with many things Orr said, they certainly do not agree with all his opinions.  Firstly they feel that he misunderstands the nature of science and religion. Secondly he uses “right-wing conservatives” and “evangelical Christians” synonymously and thirdly they feel that his over-generalized some of the issues.  Their strongest objection is that adopting a confrontational approach will do no good, in fact it may only cause more damage and reduce the influence of environmentalists on decision making in general.

They give four reasons why a confrontational approach would be a mistake.  It could alienate evangelical Christians worldwide from conservation efforts without changing their beliefs. Presently there are many existing initiatives where Christians and conservationists are working together and these Christian conservationists need the support of the wider conservation fraternity.  Christians have an existing network across the world that should rather be used to spread the conservation message.  Working together with evangelical Christians, developing this message, it a much wiser option than fighting them. Lastly they feel that Christian theology can provide hope in an otherwise bleak environmental situation.

Read both essay and response and make up your own mind! (There were a few responses to David Orr’s essay as you will see in the December 2005 issue of Conservation Biology.) 

Karen Marais

BCB Hons NISL student

University of the Western Cape

Private Bag X17

Bellville

E-mail  2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web  http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

 I hope I never have to repeat the past six days...  Have you ever heard of an "exam", where you actually still need to search through the help index of that particular computer program, because the exam paper asks you to "explore" some new technique you have never done before never mind ever heard of before??? And that after staring at a computer screen for hours on end!!!  Okay, maybe I'm a bit harsh, but really, I do not think I have sworn so much in ten years as i have in the past week. 

My problem is I cannot deal with something that is not in some way orderly...  I have learned a lot about IDRISI I have to admit, but I protest against the way I had to gain this knowledge!  An exam... for goodness sake, I think there are better ways. (here are some dictionary entries on "exam": to test someone's knowledge or skill in a particular subject OR a set of questions or exercises evaluating skill or knowledge)

Can it be called an exam if one actually still needs to gain that knowledge through browsing through the help section or surf the net... and that is not because you did not try and prepare for this exam!  We actually had to work through a tutorial in our own time as preparation for this so called exam... with no prior knowledge of what the hell remote sensing is in the first place.  For me to understand what I am doing I need a lot more background information than what I gained from doing the tutorial...

Anyway, I have vented my anger and will move on. 

Charles Darwin was 22 years old when he had signed on for a voyage on the Beagle.  He had developed a keen interest in natural history, but it is said that be probably went on that voyage out of boredom or indecision.  He had studied medicine and theology and was part of the establishment, coming from a wealthy family.  His interest in biology started with collecting beetles.  During his 5 year journey on the Beagle he concerned himself not only with biology, but also geology.  He had developed his idea of evolution through natural selection soon after he came back, but for more than 20 years he just tried to gather information to prove his theory, but he had not dared to publish it.

Alfred Russel Wallace came from a much poorer background.  He had to leave school at the age of fourteen, due to financial constraints of his family.  From there on he educated himself, partly through an apprenticeship in the surveying business, but mostly through reading books in public libraries. He became fascinated with biology and natural history.  He had read amongst others Darwin’s Journal and a book called Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.  In 1848 at the age of 25 he left on his first voyage, with one thing on his mind… to find the origin of species!

Through his travels, funding himself by collecting beetles and other animal specimens for the collector’s trade, Wallace came to almost the same conclusion as Darwin.  He was a great admirer of Darwin and he had sent him a paper he indented to publish on natural selection.  It is here where the conspiracy theory comes in.  (Several books have been written on this “conspiracy theory”, claiming that Darwin stole some of Wallace’s ideas, including divergence of species… but I am not going to go into that detail.) What exactly happened after that, we will probably never know, but the result was that Darwin and Wallace jointly published and Darwin ended up getting all the credit.  (At least Wallace is seen as the father of Biogeography.)

So, why am I a Wallace fan?  Probably because I am biased and I would rather support the underdog.  Taking his background into account, the way he educated himself and fought his way up (unlike Darwin, who had a University education and knew the right people) He conquered disease and dispair after more than two years work of carefully preserved specimens and field work notes went up in flames. (The boat actually sank!) But he persevered and independantly came up with the same answers as Darwin.  Therefor I like to think that Wallace was the better scientist of the two.

(Some Conspiracy Theory books: Just Before the Origin by John Langdon Brooks, Wallace and Natural Selection by H. Lewis McKinney, an article titled “Wallace, Darwin, and the Theory of Natural Selection” by Barbara G. Beddall published in the Journal of the History of Biology.)  I cannot recommend one as I haven’t read them. 

Well, that is a difficult question.  I guess it depends on your field of interest!  Being in the natural sciences an obvious choice would be.... Darwin?  I am actually a bit of a Wallace fan.  Will try and put something together over the next few days to expand a bit on my choice...

I have started with two new modules.  GIS and Invasion Biology.  And just when I think I can take things a bit easy the next pile of work is dumped on me... but hey, I chose to study so I shouln't complain!  My firsts asignment for GIS is a Google Earth "around the world in 80 days" kind of project... I chose mountains and volcanoes and Google Earth is quite impressive!  Learned a lot about mountains and volcanoes in the process and got to know how Google Earth works.

I have finished my assignment on crop circles and here are my views.... I did write it a bit tongue in cheek and I have to say, that I do not say my belief is the right one!  But for the time being and in the reality I live in, that is what I came up with!  Enjoy!

What are crop circles?  Geometric designs in crop fields are no new phenomenon and have been reported for many years.  The earliest report in a reputable magazine (the only one?) was in “Nature” in 1880 ⁽¹⁾, where crop circles in the English county of Surrey had been described.  An increase of this phenomenon took place since the early 1970’s and since has been noticed in many countries all over the world. ⁽²⁾

But are they man-made, a natural phenomenon or as some people even suggests, extra-terrestrial forces at work??  From the internet search I have conducted it seems that it is still mystery.  There are several theories and hypotheses of how they are created, but all are still theories… Some more fantastic than others, but none have provided enough evidence to convince me of any of the theories.

One thing that did strike me as I was struggling through a myriad of sites was the amount of sites with a distinct “commercial flavour”!  I mean, how reputable can a site be , when the first thing you notice are pop-up menus with advertisements of books on crop circles, shops that sell crop circle paraphernalia and requests for donations for “crop circle research”? The impression I got from many sites was definitely not ‘scientific’.  They seemed either to be a personal opinion of someone obsessed with crop circles (the “research” being no more than anecdotal), or someone out to make money out of people obsessed with crop circles or some New Age healers, spiritualist or something of that sort trying to convince people of some aliens trying to communicate with us mortals on earth (and make a buck or two along the way…)!  Made me rather think of the “support group for people that had been abducted by aliens” that exists in the United States of America…

To me, with my limited knowledge of physics, the best scientific explanation for the phenomenon was given by the Plasma theory.  The plasma vortex theory was first postulated by meteorologist Terence Meaden but later adapted to the plasma theory by John Burke and William Levengood. ^{(3, 4)}  Research conducted by this team of biophysicist has come up with a few explanations of why they think that plasma is the active force behind “authentic” crop circles. They claim to have studied and analyzed plant samples from more than 300 crop circle formations from 5 countries around the world.  Patterns of physical alterations in the plants have been found for the crop formation samples, but not the control samples.   Further, these physical alterations in the tissue of the plants inside a crop circle have apparently not been found in known man-made (hoaxed) crop circles.

As I understand it, they postulate that plasma (“…a plasma is an electrically conductive collection of charged particles that responds collectively to electromagnetic forces. Plasma typically takes the form of neutral gas-like clouds or charged ion beams, but may also include dust and grains (called dusty plasma). They are typically formed by heating and ionizing a gas, stripping electrons away from atoms, thereby enabling the positive and negative charges to move freely.”) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Physics) ⁽⁵⁾ is drawn to the earth from the ionosphere ⁽⁶⁾ by a strong electro-magnetic field.  These electro-magnetic-fields can be caused by water percolating from chalk and limestone aquifers. ⁽³⁾ Plasma reacts when traveling through a magnetic field by moving in a spiral and emitting microwaves in the process. ⁽³⁾  Thus, if plasma could reach the earth, it would explain the holes blown from the inside out in growth nodes and the elongation of growth nodes in plants inside a crop formation. ⁽³⁾  However, they cannot quite explain the shapes of crop formations!

Other explanations I have come across on the internet are however even less plausible and mostly not researchable.  One was given by a South African sangoma, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, only as “the writing of the gods”. ⁽⁷⁾  Another explanation given was that crop circles had similar properties to liquid crystals and that this could explain the mechanical failure of cameras, cell phones etc. in crop formations, but their research had not produced consistent results. ^{(8, 9)}

The more reputable sites I did visit like the BBC ⁽¹⁰⁾ and Wikipedia gave little credit to the research that has been done to date.  I must admit that I am very skeptical myself and the religious fervour with which some people defend the alien hypothesis undermines the scientific credibility of these reports even further, which reduces the chance that any serious research will be done to try and solve the “mystery”. To me they are a mysterious form of art, nothing more.

References:

1. Andreas Muller. Crop Circles [Internet]. Kornkreis Forschung in Deutschland. [cited 2006 May 6] Available from: http://www.kornkreise-forschung.de/
2. Wikipedia contributors. Crop circle [Internet]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; 2006 May 2, 14:12 UTC [cited 2006 May 6]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crop_circle&oldid=51207130.
3. John Burke. Crop circle formation [Internet]. Physics of crop formation. 1998 [cited 6 May 2006]. Available at:  http://www.bltresearch.com/physics.html 
4. Levengood W, Burke J. 1995. Semi-Molten Meteoric Iron Associated with a Crop Formation. Journal of Scientific Exploration 9 (2): 191-199
5. Wikipedia contributors. Plasma (physics) [Internet]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; 2006 May 6, 21:58 UTC [cited 2006 May 8]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plasma_%28physics%29&oldid=51888274.
6. Wikipedia contributors. Ionosphere [Internet]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; 2006 Apr 26, 03:39 UTC [cited 2006 May 6]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ionosphere&oldid=50200652.
7. Andreas Muller. Crop circle explanations [Internet]. 2006 [cited 2006 May 6] Available from: http://www.kornkreise-forschung.de/textCredoMutwa.htm
8. Hein S, Russel R. 2002. Electromagnetic and Crystalline Properties of Crop Formations. Unpublished.  Available from: http://www.mountbaldy.com/crop/
9. Hein S, Russel R. 2000. Electromagnetic Anomalies and Scale-Free Networks in British Crop Formations. Unpublished.  Available from: http://www.mountbaldy.com/crop/
10. BBC editors. Crop Circles [Internet]. [cited 2006 May 6] Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/life/aliens/cropcircles/index.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A724204