How Has It Changed You?

How has it changed you? What good has it done? Who has it brought you closer to, and who has it distanced you from? Are you happier, or less happy? How? Do you love more or fewer people more or less? Do they love you? Does it matter? And how did you come to this place, anyway? And why?

And Man Made Life

TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life.

Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor (see article). Pedants may quibble that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.

--"And man made life: Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived," The Economist, Leaders section (5.20.10)

The genie is out of the bottle--for good and ill. We knew it would likely happen, sooner or later. The path was being revealed: the work of the cloning scientists; the mapping and research of the genome; the growing knowledge of the details of how our genes dictate our form and function--and our deep-seated need to know more, author more, and control more. We cannot be surprised that we are brought to this place.

But if there is reason for hope, there is reason for concern. We will have to be at our very best. In whatever good, protecting and guiding way we may entertain a notion of relationship with Deity or Truth, in whatever way we may hold to a sense of Purpose or Providence, may that power and wisdom, that creative process, purpose or providence be with us and guide us. For we have so often proven that we humans acting individually or collectively, privately or in the process of governing, are unreliable stewards of those things that offer the potential for the greatest good and the greatest harm. The article elaborates:

That ability would prove mankind's mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. The bomb, however justified in the context of the second world war, was purely destructive. Biology is about nurturing and growth. Synthetic biology, as the technology that this and myriad less eye-catching advances are ushering in has been dubbed, promises much. In the short term it promises better drugs, less thirsty crops, greener fuels and even a rejuvenated chemical industry. In the longer term who knows what marvels could be designed and grown?

On the face of it, then, artificial life looks like a wonderful thing. Yet that is not how many will view the announcement. For them, a better word than "creation" is "tampering". Have scientists got too big for their boots? Will their hubris bring Nemesis in due course? What horrors will come creeping out of the flask on the laboratory bench? ...

The other [advancing] development is faster and cheaper DNA synthesis. This has lagged a few years behind DNA analysis, but seems to be heading in the same direction. That means it will soon be possible for almost anybody to make DNA to order, and dabble in synthetic biology.

That is good, up to a point. Innovation works best when it is a game that anyone can play. The more ideas there are, the better the chance some will prosper. Unfortunately and inevitably, some of those ideas will be malicious. And the problem with malicious biological inventions—unlike, say, guns and explosives—is that once released, they can breed by themselves. What if a home-brew synthetic-biology club were accidentally to launch a real virus or bacterium? What if a terrorist were to do the same deliberately?

The risk of accidentally creating something bad is probably low. Most bacteria opt for an easy life breaking down organic material that is already dead. It doesn't fight back. Living hosts do. Creating something bad deliberately, whether the creator is a teenage hacker, a terrorist or a rogue state, is a different matter. No one now knows how easy it would be to turbo-charge an existing human pathogen, or take one that infects another type of animal and assist its passage over the species barrier. We will soon find out, though.

But how do we protect the world from ourselves, from the harm, if not the horror, we could unleash? Rather than a poor job of paraphrasing, I offer the thoughtful considerations of The Economist:

It is hard to know how to address this threat. The reflex, to restrict and ban, has worked (albeit far from perfectly) for more traditional sorts of biological weapons. Those, though, have been in the hands of states. The ubiquity of computer viruses shows what can happen when technology gets distributed.

Thoughtful observers of synthetic biology favour a different approach: openness. This avoids shutting out the good in a belated attempt to prevent the bad. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, so the best way to oppose the villains is to have lots of heroes on your side. Then, when a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly. If pathogens can be designed by laptop, vaccines can be, too. And, just as "open source" software lets white-hat computer nerds work against the black-hats, so open-source biology would encourage white-hat geneticists.

Regulation—and, especially, vigilance—will still be needed. Keeping an eye out for novel diseases is sensible even when such diseases are natural. Monitoring needs to be redoubled and co-ordinated. Then, whether natural or artificial, the full weight of synthetic biology can be brought to bear on the problem. Encourage the good to outwit the bad and, with luck, you keep Nemesis at bay.

The computer hackers and computer virus analogies are useful, and perhaps our most reasonable guideposts. And the approach offered reflects wisdom, or at least fair understandings of our experience. It is likely the better of unnerving alternatives.

A longer article, a fascinating treatment of the actual biological technology employed and other approaches in progress, is provided in a Briefing article in the same issue of The Economist: "Genesis Redux: A new form of life has been created in a laboratory, and the era of synthetic biology is dawning." It is definitely worth the read.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163154
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163006

Sojourners

If you've believed in better understandings and answers (better thinking), new beginnings and endings (cycles and changes), causes and effects (reasons), that there is something right or true out there to believe in (or at least something more), then you've had no choice, no other way to go. You've had to keep seeking, testing, accepting and rejecting--and moving on, again and again.

'Tweaks' Can Save Social Security. A Congressional Report.

WASHINGTON - On its current path, Social Security is projected to run out of money by 2037, largely because of aging baby boomers reaching retirement. For the first time since the 1980s, Social Security will pay out more money in benefits this year than it collects in payroll taxes. The longer action is delayed, the harder it will get to address the program's finances.

Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits. Some of the options are politically dangerous, such as increasing payroll taxes or reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Others, such as gradually raising the age when retirees qualify for full benefits, wouldn't be felt for years but would affect millions. Many wouldn't affect current recipients, according to the report by the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the committee, said small "tweaks" are all that is needed to bolster Social Security's finances for future generations of retirees.

--Can tiny changes save Social Security? by Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press, as reported in msnbc.com (5.17.10)

This is not news. Not the fundamental conclusions, anyway. I remember concerns raised and similar prescriptions offered in the WSJ and other financial publications 20 or more years ago. And just a few years ago, there was another round of these observations, including a particularly good article in The Atlantic. Had the changes been made twenty years ago or even five or ten, the cost and impact on retirees would have been negligible. Even now, the effects would apparently be bearable. If frogs had wings...

But no one dared touch the "third rail" of retirement benefits or increase taxes. After all, we have an electorate with an exagerated sense of public entitlement, regardless of income level or status--an electorate that at the same time is often ungrateful, and dismissive or disapproving of the necessary size of the governing enterprise and the work of governing. And nothing has changed. If anything, the ideological polarization of today's poisonous political climate makes it more difficult than ever.

So what kind of "tweaks" are we talking about? Just what is the report suggesting? Actually, it makes no particular recommendation, but offers various possibilities, alone or in combination, which would provide an effective solution:

The entire $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years would be wiped out if payroll taxes were increased by 1.1 percentage points for both workers and employers. It would also disappear if Congress started taxing all wages, not just those below $106,800, said the Senate report, citing projections by the actuaries at the Social Security Administration.

On the benefits side, more than three-fourths of the shortfall would vanish if Congress reduced annual cost-of-living increases by 1 percentage point each year. Social Security recipients get annual increases based on inflation. This January, for the first time since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975, there was no increase because prices decreased last year. About 23 percent of the shortfall would be gone if Congress gradually increased the age when retirees qualify for full benefits from 67 to 68. Nearly a third of the shortfall would disappear if the full retirement age were gradually increased to 70.

But the article made no mention of "means testing"--although I have to believe the study and report dealt with the possibility. Means testing is merely a measure for reducing or eliminating social security benefits for those who otherwise will have significant assets or income--means--in retirement. This approach reinforces the notion of social security insurance: although we all pay into it, we only receive payments from it if we do not already have significant retirement assets or income.

Although it would doubtless eliminate some or all of the social security benefit I now receive, I support means testing. I think it is reasonable and fair. I would also support lower cost-of-living increases, especially since there is evidence that the measure used has overstated actual inflation. And they could increase payroll taxes as a last resort. I would not raise the qualifying age further, not when employment is harder to retain for older employees, and very difficult to find if you are older and lose your job.

But even if legislation could be passed, even if a reasonable, acceptable cobbling together of these approaches would solve our intermediate-term funding problem, we will have done nothing to address the funding of the following period. The article:

One expert cautioned that adjustments designed to fully fund Social Security for only 75 years will almost certainly have to be revisited well before then. Here's why: In 15 or 20 years, the Social Security trustees will be looking at a new 75-year window, one that includes future shortfalls beyond the current 75-year horizon. Those shortfalls will have to be addressed years in advance to avoid dramatic tax increases or significant benefit cuts, said Kent Smetters, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. "If you only fix it for 75 years at a time, the same problem suddenly reappears every 15 to 20 years," Smetters said.

I know. Manana. Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow. Which is, of course, how we got where we are.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37195779/ns/business-personal_finance/

More on Genes: How DNA Turns Stress Into Illness

Misery isn't just depressing, it's bad for your health. People going through stressful events, like divorce, are more likely to get sick. People who are HIV-positive see their condition worsen more quickly if they don't have good social support. But nobody knows exactly how mental stress causes illness and death.

--"Misery in the Genes: How DNA Turns Stress Into Illness," by Helen Fields, Chronicle of Higher Education (5.2.10)

We all know that, of course. Simple correlation studies and multivariate analysis have long made the association clear. But because we did not know how stress caused physical illness, we could not be certain that there was not another concomitant or associated factor that was the actual, hidden cause. We just couldn't know for sure.

But that has all changed now--or at least it is changing. Now the causative relationship between stress and physical illness is becoming clear, the pathways are becoming known. From the Chronicle article:

Now a study by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and several other institutions has come up with an actual biological pathway: a chain of molecules that connects stress to disease through genes. The scientists also learned that some people can get through tough times without ruining their health, thanks to a particular genetic variation that breaks the chain.


The study, published this spring in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is wildly multidisciplinary, spanning psychology, molecular biology, immunology, and epidemiology. That posed challenges in lining up grants, says Steven W. Cole, an associate professor of medicine at UCLA, who led the research. But the study's success signals the growth and increasing sophistication of Mr. Cole's field, psychoneuroimmunology, the study of connections between mind and health.

As interesting as the finding is the ingenuity, breadth and reliability of Dr. Cole's methodological approach--and the possibility of a remedy:

He took inspiration from scientists who scan the entire human genome looking for genes that can be linked to diseases. He developed a computer program with a specific goal: to find mutations in stretches of DNA that attract transcription factors, molecules in a cell that activate genes. Transcription factors can be pushed into action by environmental factors like stress. A mutation in the DNA regions that attract them, which are called binding sites, could disrupt this "on-off switch" and thus change the stress response.

In the list of genes that were physically near the mutations, one stood out: interleukin 6, which...helps turn on the inflammatory response, which brings infection-fighting cells to the area—but a problem if you make it all the time. [I]t can lead to constant inflammation, which is bad for the body. Mr. Cole says, "Things like coronary heart disease, the most prevalent kinds of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, probably Type 2 diabetes as well" are all linked to chronic inflammation.

Close to the interleukin 6 gene, the computer had turned up a binding site for GATA-1, a transcription factor. "But there was no guarantee that the whole thing the computer recognized took place in reality," says Mr. Cole. So he did a series of experiments to figure out if GATA-1 was indeed the messenger that brings news of stress...

If Mr. Cole was right about the connection between stress and disease, then a change in the GATA-1 binding site—the mutation noted by his computer program, a DNA difference that occurs in about 20 percent of the population—should keep the transcription factor from triggering so much inflammation. So people with that mutation might be healthier than those without it...

[The result:] People who were depressed at the beginning of the study and had the nonmutated sequence were twice as likely to die in the next 10 years as were others; those who had the mutation seemed to be protected. When Mr. Cole examined the data more closely, he saw that this was true only for deaths caused by diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, that are related to interleukin 6. Because the connection held true for such inflammation-related diseases but not for deaths due to other causes, Mr. Cole became more convinced that he was on the right track.

Other researchers have been impressed by Mr. Cole's results and by the combination of computer modeling, experimentation, and epidemiology he used to get there. "It's a fine study," says Gene E. Robinson, a neuroscientist, genome biologist, and professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who studies how the environment affects honeybee behavior. "It's a very creative coupling of different kinds of techniques and different perspectives to provide one of the most complete analyses of, basically, how does the social environment get under the skin."

There are certainly other pathways that link stress to disease. But Mr. Cole's method points to a new way to find links between environment and health...

And out of this research may eventually come a method or medication that deters the transcription factor from triggering illness-generating levels of inflamation in that 80% of us without the mutated GATA-1 binding site. Dr. Cole:

The next question is whether happiness might balance out stress in the cells. "We all secretly hope there's a pill," Mr. Cole says—some way to give everyone the benefit of that mutated GATA-1 binding site. Of course, living a calmer life might have the same effect, but not many people manage that. "If people cannot or will not give up stress, is there something we can do biologically to help?" Mr. Cole asks. It's a big question, one that will probably take research wide enough to span many disciplines to answer.

http://chronicle.com/article/Misery-in-the-Genes-How-DNA/65335/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

"Contract Employees": The New Normal?

The difference is that now he is a contract employee. He no longer gets any of the perks of being a permanent worker, including paid vacations or sick days, health insurance or tuition assistance. And he estimates that he makes about 20 percent less — for the same job he was doing before. The thing he misses most? "A feeling of security."

--"Need a job? Contract work could be the new normal," by Eve Tahmincioglu, msnbc.com (5.6.10)

And the new contract employee--freelance worker, if you will--must now pay the payroll taxes previously paid by his employer, as well as the portion the employee previously paid. The good news is all for employers, especially the vast majority of employers who previously treated most all their workers as legal employees. As re-employment starts to increase in a recovering economy, changing to contract workers is just too attractive to many of them. The reality:

As employers begin to cautiously hire again after the deepest economic downturn in a generation, [contract workers are] in the vanguard of an emerging new contingent work force. For some businesses, these contingent workers could become a permanent solution, eliminating a huge swath of full-time jobs with benefits, say labor and business experts.

"It's cheaper to hire contingent workers, but also more flexible for employers," said Bill Kahnweiler, associate professor and human resource expert at Georgia State University's Department of Public Management and Policy. Contingent workers allow companies to stay lean and avoid hiring more permanent workers. "If someone decides, 'We need to be this size,' it's far easier to do that with contract workers and temps," Kahnweiler said.

But how big an issue is this anyway? Is this a major trend or just a short-term strategy, much as temporary employees have always been used to meet staffing needs in economic declines and the early phase of economic recoveries? Some economists believe that we need more time and data to be confident of longer-term directions and answers, and that data will not be available for a couple years. But many others feel the handwriting is already on the wall. The article continues:

Just check any job search site and type in "freelance," "temporary" or "contractor," and you easily can find hundreds of hits in a broad array of industries. Monster.com saw a 46.2 percent spike in contract job postings in March compared to the same month last year, said Matthew Henson, a spokesman for the jobs site. Overall job listings increased 32 percent in the same period.

Littler Mendelson, one of the largest employment law firms in the country, predicted in a report last year titled "The Emerging New Workforce" that 50 percent of new jobs that emerge after the recession will be contingent positions, and as a result "as high as 35 percent of the work force will be made up of temporary workers, contractors or other project-based labor."

Staffing agencies also are seeing the trend. "Last year, a lot of companies were using temps to fill in as an extension of the work force, or to supplement a new burst in clients, or on a project basis," said Tina Chen, director of operations for Westmont, Ill.-based Carlisle Staffing. She saw a 43 percent increase in her company's billable hours from December to March. "Now they're looking to a supplemental work force full time."

Who are the people now finding their jobs changed to contract worker? And of critical importance to the future of our workforce, what does this mean for healthcare and retirement for the new contract workers? Apparently these contract employees will include large numbers of professional and technical workers, as well as lower-wage hourly workers. Some will still be able to afford their own health insurance and retirement savings, although their monthly take-home earnings will be considerably less. And lower income workers will not likely be able to afford either one. The experts:

Garry Mathiason, senior managing shareholder at Littler Mendelson, said it is the new normal. "As the economy gets moving faster, there will be more opportunities, and many of those will be in contingent jobs," he said. Such free-agent work has gone far beyond low-skilled jobs and the construction sector, he said, where contract work long has been prevalent. Mathiason expects to see a rise in the use of contingent workers in highly skilled positions — including scientists, engineers, professionals and managers — as companies aim to do more project-based work with small groups of professionals they can bring in as needed. He compares it to making a movie, where producers bring in the crew needed to get the job done.

But such a "transient" work force could end up hurting workers because many of the protections and benefits of being full-time employees, including unemployment insurance and some labor laws, don't apply to free agents. Contingent workers typically don't get sick or vacation days, retirement accounts or health coverage. "Companies want a more flexible work force, but we have to think about what's the next way we're going to protect people," said Sara Horowitz, founder of Freelancers Unions.

"This contingent economy is threatening to the American middle class," said Mr. Ackerman. "Workers like the flexibility, but not if they have to trade off guaranteed hours, health insurance or a secure retirement."

Corporations and other employers have never embraced managing health insurance or retirement pensions for their employees. To them it is not so much about providing and managing the the best and most effective health care, but rather, managing and reducing to the extent possible an unwelcome, dramatically rising business expense. And in recent years they have more openly acted as if they would be happy to be relieved of that responsibility. Perhaps a public option or a national health care plan will in time necessarily be back on the table. It will because so many more people will have need of it, and will be more likely to demand it. And what of retirement savings? That will have to be revisited as well.

But aren't there labor and tax laws about who must be treated as a full-time employee, and who can be treated as an "independent contractor?" Yes, there are. The rules are based on how integral the job or function is to the nature of the business, and how much day-to-day management and direction control are exercised by the employer or contractor. Could this put a halt to the broad conversion of employee jobs to contractor jobs, or at least slow it down. Perhaps, but it is sometimes a fuzzy area, and the government is far behind in audits of this issue. The article:

Sometimes contract workers are misclassified as independent contractors because employers don't want to pay benefits," said Mitch Ackerman, executive vice president of one of the Service Employees International Union. "What we find with part-time, contingent and independent contracting work is there's incredibly high incidents of wage theft, labor law violations and health violations," — especially when low-wage earners are involved, he said.

Alexander Passantino, former acting administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor's wage and hour division and an employment attorney with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, said employers need to look to guidelines established by government agencies to determine a worker's status. "The more control, the more likely it will be that the individual will be an employee."
Another factor to look at, he added, is whether the services provided by an individual are an integral part of a business. For example, "in a restaurant, the servers are an integral part of the business, but a plumber is not," he said.

Employers who misclassify an employee can face fines and back taxes and may have to pay benefits such as overtime or retirement. A 2000 Labor Department study, the most recent available, found 10 percent to 30 percent of firms audited in nine states misclassified at least some employees. Some government estimates show that more than 3 million workers are misclassified.

The federal government and state officials have recently pledged to crack down on such practices. The White House's latest budget includes funding to hire federal investigators to look into violations, and the IRS announced a three-year contractor classification audit of thousands of companies.

Lets hope so. But these wheels turn slowly, and IRS and labor audits can take years from the date of these employer changes before they are addressed and concluded. A lot of change may have already taken place, a new direction set, and the damage will likely be done. And regardless, most of the employers who are well advised will recast and redefine these new job requirements to come closer to the legal definition of an independent contractor. Get used to it; it may be the new normal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36826679/ns/business-careers

Love & Russian Orthodox Mystics

Thomas Merton provides us a useful summary review of the Russian Orthodox monastics and their contemplative spirituality. I've referred to Thomas Merton before. A 20th-century American Cistercian (Trappist) monk, he was a prolific writer on the contemplative traditions of Christianity and other faiths and spiritualities.

The following quote summarizes his thoughts on Christian love and the orientation of the Russian Orthodox mystics reflected in Starchestvo, the process of spiritual direction by a staret or the startsy (pl.) (monk elders gifted and experienced as teachers and directors).

Thomas Merton, from his essay, "Russian Mystics" (1):

It is not so much that the startsy were exceptionally austere men, or that they had acquired great learning, but that they had surrendered themselves completely to the demands of the Gospel and to Evangelical charity [love], totally forgetting themselves in obedience to the Spirit of God so that they lived as perfect Christians, notable above all for their humility, their meekness, their openness to all men, their apparently inexhausible capacity for patient and compassionate love. The purpose of Starchestvo is, then, not so much to make use of daily spiritual direction in order to inculcate a special method of prayer, but rather to keep the heart of the disciple open to love, to prevent it from hardening in self-centered concern (whether moral, spiritual, or ascetical).

All the worst sins are denials and rejections of love, refusals to love. The chief aim of the starets is first to teach his disciple not to sin against love, then to encourage and assist his growth in love until he becomes a saint. This total surrender to the power of love was the sole basis of their spiritual authority, and on this basis the startsy demanded complete and unquestioning obedience. They could do so because they themselves never resisted the claims and demands of charity [love].

...So many Christians exalt the demands and rigors of law because, in reality, law is less demanding than pure charity [love]. The law, after all, has reasonble safe limits! One always knows what to expect, and one can always hope to evade, by careful planning, the more unpleasant demands. (Emphases added.)

Whatever some may feel about Christianity, or the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox contemplative traditions, this understanding of Christian love--Love from, of and with God, individually and in community--has to resonate or appeal more than the everyday secular and faith expressions of relationship and community we most often encounter.

(1) in Mystics and Zen Masters (1967), by Thomas Merton

An empty branch--at rest, then filled.

Mary Oliver, from Evidence (2009):

Empty Branch in the Orchard

To have loved

is everything.

I loved, once,

a hummingbird

who came every afternoon--

the freedom loving male--

who flew by himself

to sample

the sweets of the garden,

to sit

on a high, leafless branch

with his red throat gleaming.

And then, he came no more.

And I'm still waiting for him,

ten years later,

to come back,

and he will, or he will not.

There is a certain commitment

that each of us is given,

that has to do

with another world,

if there is one.

I remember you, hummingbird.

I think of you every day

even as I am still here,

soaked in color, waiting

year after honey-rich year.

Jesus, Matt. 10:16-17:

But Beware of Men...

I send you out as sheep among wolves.

Therefore, be as shrewd as serpents,

and innocent as doves.

But beware of men...

Jeremiah 6: 16:

The Good Way

Stand by the roads and ways,

and watch.

Ask for the ancient paths,

where the good way is.

Then walk in it,

and you will find rest for your soul.

Jesus, Matt. 11: 28-30:

Come To Me

Come to me

all you who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you,

and learn from me,

for I am gentle and humble of heart.

And you will find rest for your soul,

for my yoke is easy,

and my load is light.  

Jesus, John 15: 9-10, 12:

Abide in My Love

Just as the Father has Loved me,
I have also Loved you.
Abide in My Love.

If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in My Love...

This is my commandment,
that you love one another,
just as I have Loved you.

Nature-Nuture: The Orchid Hypothesis

Few things have captured my interest so completely for so long as questions of nature and nurture. That is, to what extent are our behaviors, our very personalities, temperaments, aptitudes, successes and failures a function of our genetic prescriptions, predispositions or environmental trigger mechanisms. And, to what extent are they a function of what we learn, our acculturation, how we are shaped by our family, community and education experiences. In college, I was intensely focused on psychology, learning theory, classical and operant conditioning--but only as balanced by a secondary focus on biology and genetics, the brain, neurological and endocrine systems. And little about that has changed for me--except the notable, even illuminating, advances in genome research and evolutionary psychology. And I'd like to share with you one of the more fascinating and useful implications of recent research: The Orchid Hypothesis.
As reported in The Atlantic:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people.  

Introduction, "The Science of Success," by David Dobbs, The Atlantic (December 2009)

The story begins with some genetics basics: there are certain key genes affecting our behavior that have variations called "alleles." Such genes are called "polymorphisms." As the article notes, it has long been known that variants of these genes "affect either brain development or the processing of the brain's chemical messengers, making people more vulnerable to certain mood, psychiatric, or personality disorders." Such variants are known as "risk alleles"--in contradistinction to the more normal, more prevalent "protective alleles"--because they increase our likelihood of developing a behavioral problem. And according to this article, based on many studies over the last decade or so,

...researchers have identified a dozen-odd gene variants that can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, heightened risk-taking, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors, and other problems—if, and only if, the person carrying the variant suffers a traumatic or stressful childhood or faces particularly trying experiences later in life.

 This became known as the "stress diathesis" or "genetic vulnerability" model. And most of the research advancing this hypothesis was focused on the presence or absence of the risk allele in individuals and the resulting effect of childhood stress or trauma on the individuals' behavior. What was affirmed again and again was that having a risk allele did not mean that you would necessarily exhibit these various behavioral problems, only that you were vulnerable to them if you had suffered oppressive levels of stress or trauma. But because of the focus on behavioral dysfunction, no one was looking for whether there were other possible results--upsides, perhaps, in cases of particularly supportive environments.

But that has changed in the last few years. New research directions and initial results have offered a broader and deeper understanding of the range of circumstances and results that obtain from the presence of these risk alleles. In fact, these risk alleles are, in certain circumstances, "possibility alleles." From the Atlantic article:

Recently, however, an alternate hypothesis has emerged from this one and is turning it inside out. This new model suggests that it's a mistake to understand these "risk" genes only as liabilities. Yes, this new thinking goes, these bad genes can create dysfunction in unfavorable contexts—but they can also enhance function in favorable contexts. The genetic sensitivities to negative experience that the vulnerability hypothesis has identified, it follows, are just the downside of a bigger phenomenon: a heightened genetic sensitivity to all experience.

There are apparently references in Swedish folk wisdom to "dandelion children": normal, healthy, resilient children who adapt and thrive almost anywhere. In noting this, Bruce Ellis and W. Thomas Boyce, offer that their research now suggests that there are also "orchid children," children who "will wilt if ignored or maltreated but bloom spectacularly with greenhouse care."

That's all well enough, even exciting, if like me you are fascinated by such things. But what does it all mean for our understanding of human potential, behavioral management or remediation, even for our understandings of evolutionary processes? More from the article:

At first glance, this idea, which I'll call the orchid hypothesis, may seem a simple amendment to the vulnerability hypothesis. It merely adds that environment and experience can steer a person up instead of down. Yet it's actually a completely new way to think about genetics and human behavior. Risk becomes possibility; vulnerability becomes plasticity and responsiveness. It's one of those simple ideas with big, spreading implications. Gene variants generally considered misfortunes (poor Jim, he got the "bad" gene) can instead now be understood as highly leveraged evolutionary bets, with both high risks and high potential rewards: gambles that help create a diversified-portfolio approach to survival, with selection favoring parents who happen to invest in both dandelions and orchids.  

In this view, having both dandelion and orchid kids greatly raises a family's (and a species') chance of succeeding, over time and in any given environment. The behavioral diversity provided by these two different types of temperament also supplies precisely what a smart, strong species needs if it is to spread across and dominate a changing world. The many dandelions in a population provide an underlying stability. The less-numerous orchids, meanwhile, may falter in some environments but can excel in those that suit them. And even when they lead troubled early lives, some of the resulting heightened responses to adversity that can be problematic in everyday life—increased novelty-seeking, restlessness of attention, elevated risk-taking, or aggression—can prove advantageous in certain challenging situations: wars, tribal or modern; social strife of many kinds; and migrations to new environments. Together, the steady dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive flexibility that neither can provide alone. Together, they open a path to otherwise unreachable individual and collective achievements. 

This orchid hypothesis also answers a fundamental evolutionary question that the vulnerability hypothesis cannot. If variants of certain genes create mainly dysfunction and trouble, how have they survived natural selection? Genes so maladaptive should have been selected out. Yet about a quarter of all human beings carry the best-documented gene variant for depression, while more than a fifth carry the variant that Bakermans-Kranenburg studied, which is associated with externalizing, antisocial, and violent behaviors, as well as ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The vulnerability hypothesis can't account for this. The orchid hypothesis can.

The article returns to a recent study comparing children with and without the risk allele. In this study, there is a risk allele control group and a group where parents of children with the risk allele were trained to intervene in constructive and supportive ways. The author notes that both the "vulnerability hypothesis" and the "orchid hypothesis" would predict that the control group with the risk allele would exhibit worse behaviors than the the group with the protective allele. And they did. But the surprise came with the risk allele group that received parental interventions. The "vulnerability hypothesis" would suggest that they would improve, but not achieve the same level of normative behavior as the group with the protective allele. Wrong. The Atlantic article, in conclusion:

As it turned out, the toddlers with the risk allele blew right by their counterparts. They cut their externalizing scores by almost 27 percent, while the protective-allele kids cut theirs by just 12 percent (improving only slightly on the 11 percent managed by the protective-allele population in the control group). The upside effect in the intervention group, in other words, was far larger than the downside effect in the control group. Risk alleles, the Leiden team concluded, really can create not just risk but possibility.  

Can liability really be so easily turned to gain? The pediatrician W. Thomas Boyce, who has worked with many a troubled child in more than three decades of child-development research, says the orchid hypothesis "profoundly recasts the way we think about human frailty." He adds, "We see that when kids with this kind of vulnerability are put in the right setting, they don't merely do better than before, they do the best—even better, that is, than their protective-allele peers."

A long article, it is nonetheless worth reading in full for those with an appetite for more depth of coverage. Complementary, affirming research with Rhesus monkeys is also examined at length. And the author's personal examinations and reflections on his own risk allele raise another set of very human considerations and decisions.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

Christ Church. 20 Years.

Christ Church, East Greenwich, RI. First worship service: February 11th, 1990. It's been 20 years, and I am remembering the early years. A special time and experience, a gift, really. It does not seem so very long ago, yet it is now remembered only by the largely dispersed people of that time and place.

Not $Trillions, Not Hundreds of $Billions, Maybe $87 Billion

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is telling Congress that the administration believes the final cost of the government's heavily criticized financial bailout effort could be as low as $87 billion. Geithner made the new estimate in a letter Friday to congressional leaders that was obtained by The Associated Press. A year ago, officials were estimating the bailout could cost as much as $500 billion [and which at first had been estimated at $700 billion, or much more by many].

The administration had already lowered the cost of the $700 billion bailout program, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to $117 billion. That [includes] the losses from the auto [$28b], AIG [$48b] and the mortgage foreclosure programs [$49b] and earnings of up to $11 billion from several other programs under TARP.

In addition to the $117 billion in TARP losses, the administration is estimating losses of $85 billion from the support to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those two categories of losses would be offset by the $115 billion in earnings the administration expects will be realized from the Fed's support programs. The biggest offset to those losses will be earnings of $115 billion that the administration expects the Federal Reserve to realize from the extraordinary assistance it has given to provide liquidity to the financial system.

--"Bailout cost may total just $87 billion," by Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press, reprinted on msnbc.com (4.23.10)

Yes, some of us are still keeping track of this. Especially those who saw the necessity and logic of these bold initiates, and believed the early estimates and projections of actual cost and likely offsets offered by the administration.

Yes, we did trust in the character, experience and ability of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Who else was there who was more dispassionate and uncompromised by prior career choices and experience? Who else had the same depth of current information, historical perspective, expertise and understandings of the financial system and issues?

No, we were not swept away with the doom and dispair being marketed by those ideologically antagonistic or just skeptical toward the programs--or those personally antagonistic to President Obama himself or, by association, Secretary Geithner or Fed Chairman Bernanke. (For an overview of cost estimates ranging to over $7 trillion a year ago--and the more realistic estimates of the administration and CBO--see my post and cites in "Real Tab for Bailout? A Lot Less Than You Think," April 18,2009.)

So yes, I am quite pleased to observe the evolving vindication of these men and their courageous work on our behalf, without whom the best choices would not have been made, and the courage to carry them out would have been lacking. (And yes, some credit goes to former President George Bush who appointed Chairman Bernanke and supported the original TARP approach, and the unlikely contribution of then Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sacks CEO Hank Paulsen.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36742144/ns/business-economy_at_a_crossroads/

Dealing with Budget Deficits: Who Pays the Bill?

If the world were run by economists, deficit reduction would be a very complicated balancing act. For politicians one question may well dominate all others: who is going to pay? The candidates differ from country to country, but the list usually includes taxpayers, public-sector workers, entitlement recipients (such as state pensioners or public-health users), foreign investors and future generations. Already battle lines are being drawn: witness the strikes by Greece's public-sector unions and the tea parties thrown by America's tax protesters.

--"Dealing with the budget deficits: Who pays the bill?" The Economist (3.4.10)

It amazes me that so many people I run into, hear of or read about--well-heeled, "middle class," or relatively poorer, all--believe that someone else should and will pay for the huge national budget deficit that is now visited upon us. Someone else must pay the cost of averting the worst depression in history. The middle class--and certainly those poorer--believe that they need lower taxes or more government help, even if most of them pay little or no income taxes now. And yes, I do know they still pay a considerable portion of their income in regressive social security, property and sales taxes. Then, too, retirees clearly do not want their social security payments reduced, even as some of them bluster and shake their fists incomprehensibly about the need for lower income taxes.

But the ones that amaze me most are the particularly well off or "rich," by some fair measure, so many of whom believe they have no responsibility or duty to play a larger role in reducing the choking weight of our national budget deficit. They have great difficulty seeing it as their patriotic duty, a service to their country required of them because they are the fortunate ones favorably positioned to provide it. And they are favorably positioned to provide it because they have taken full advantage of the opportunities and benefits of citizenship in the most open, representative democracy and the most robust market economy in the world. And it has made them financially rich or very well off.

Giving more in a time of national need is to them somehow unfair, too much to ask of them and their investment portfolios. And more, to suggest that social security should be treated more as social insurance for which a "means test" would determine their need for supplemental retirement payments can bring out an ugly, selfish side of many of them that might surprise you. It still surprises me. They want what is coming to them, thank you very much; let someone else save the country from its financial woes.

That's what it has come to. That's the state of patriotism and individual responsibility among many of America's most fortunate today. What is particularly ironic and galling to me is that these same people are so quick to deride and dismiss poorer groups and the working middle class as having an attitude of entitlement about social programs or fair labor practices. But yet, those same privileged folks believe they are entitled to avail themselves of all the opportunity America offers--and they have, often to extraordinary levels of wealth--but in tough times, do not feel obliged to give what only they can give to relieve the national burden, possibly to avoid continuing economic weakness or another recession. What a country. What patriots, these.

There. My unrepentant rant now done, and catharsis advanced, I return to The Economist article which offers some more global observations about the state of sovereign debt, world-wide--and who may be called on to pay for it:

The battles will be all the more fierce this time around because the deficits are so large and likely in the short term to stay that way. With developed economies still weak, many governments are (often rightly) keen to run large deficits for a while longer. But the bond markets are getting impatient, especially with weaker European countries. Greece was forced to announce a third austerity package this week, after its initial efforts failed to reassure either the markets or its neighbours (see article). Although Britain has a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than Greece and its debt has an average maturity of 14 years, sterling also wobbled this week, with investors spooked by the prospect of a hung parliament. True, the three biggest rich-world economies, the United States, Germany and Japan, are under less pressure. But Japan has high debt levels and America has the government-bankrupting cost of ageing baby-boomers.

Okay, so much for the backdrop of sovereign public deficits world-wide. What about solving the problem, and especially here in the U.S.? What about identifying resources and sources to liquidate these public deficits?

Two immediate answers appear, which should be easier for politicians to embrace than all those spending cuts and tax rises. The first is to be honest about the size of the problem...[V]oters can hardly make judgments about what to scale back if they do not know what promises have been made. The second is to focus on economic growth. Higher growth reassures markets, increases tax revenues and reduces spending on unemployment benefits and other welfare payments. So politicians should eschew policies that reduce the long-term growth rate, such as protectionism or higher taxes, and focus instead on measures that boost the growth potential, such as more flexible labour markets and other productivity-enhancing reforms.

All right, we are all for motherhood and apple pie. Truth telling and policies that facilitate growth will be welcomed by all. But notwithstanding the Economist's lofty perch on the free-market citadel--and I am a fan, as all know--most realists also insist that more short-term fiscal discipline is essential to deliver us from this mess. Reform of social security (read that, reduced benefits, or a reduction in the growth of benefit, or a delay in the age of qualification for benefits, or "means testing" for benefits, or all of the above), medicare administration and fraud, and other social programs, and some level of income tax increases for higher income taxpayers, will be required. So how about that?

The more immediate fight, which is already starting to break out in many European countries, is between taxpayers and public-sector workers, and between raising taxes and cutting public spending (see article). Politically, the contest is evenly matched, pitting powerful unions against the biggest taxpayers—corporations and high-earners—who often have the ear of politicians. In terms of economics, though, the bulk of the adjustment should come in the form of spending cuts.

The state had to step in during the credit crunch, given the scale of the banking crisis, but this expansion of its scope should be temporary. This is not just ideological bias on our part; economic studies suggest that fiscal adjustments that rely on spending cuts do better than those based on tax rises. Yes, some tax rises may be necessary, if only out of the political necessity of persuading the electorate that the burden is being shared. But tax rises, like Japan's in 1997, can kill a recovery.

It is probably not just ideological bias, but there is a healthy dose of it in there. And if we should consult what economic studies suggest might do better, we should also recognize the need and wisdom of timely addressing debt reduction and the state of national social cohesion. Income taxes are at their lowest point in a long time, and we as a country have in the past enjoyed a vigorous, high-employment economy with considerably higher individual income tax burdens. We can likely bear some level of higher income taxes now without material adverse effects on the progress of the economic recovery, or so economists opine in other places. And as the debt is paid down and the economy continues to strengthen, those tax rates can again be reduced. But to move responsibly and timely on debt reduction will likely require a more balanced approach, a fiscal policy that includes both spending cuts and tax increases. And in case you were wondering, those tax increases would doubtless apply to me, as well. But yes, Mr. Economist, you can have a last word:

Whichever path governments choose will be hard. As a period of loose credit gives way to an era of austerity, the social cohesion of many nations will be put to the test. Not all countries will pass. Over the next few years the careers of many politicians will be made and broken in the bond market.

Now, that observation is surely correct, and all the more reason to approach the available fiscal policy options erring on the side of faster solutions (spending cuts and tax increases) and, to the extent practicable, meeting social needs and preserving the strength of the social fabric.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15606221&fsrc=nlwhig03-04-2010editors_highlights

Defining Poverty: Measuring the Actual Needs of the Needy

The poor will always be with us. That's what one of the most influential religious figures in history said two millenia ago--although to be fair, the statement was addressing a very different place, time, and situation. But the poor are still with us, and have been ever since in most societies and cultures. In economics, they measure and analyze the damaging social effects and costly burdens of poverty, and the persistent levels of chronic unemployment, the attendant condition that both leads to poverty and holds the poor captive there, often for generations.

Over the course of the 20th century, most advanced and accountable societies have provided assistance programs for the poor to a greater or lesser extent. And in most cases, it is measured and provided for in terms of money--periodic welfare payments, or "transfer payments" from the government. And in the U.S., those payments are supported to some extent by complementary programs such as food stamps, subsidized federal housing, and medicaid. But it is often not enough as many continue to live without an adequate diet, adequate housing, education or healthcare. And the victims are too often the children, a next generation without the basics needed to lift themselves to gainful employment, to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty.

But how do we define and measure poverty? And is our approach to its measurement part of the failure that extends to inadequate solutions? Does income in and of itself--money--provide the best measure of the needy's needs, and the best understanding of how to address them? That issue is now being addressed by two of the most authoritative and influential researchers and thinkers in the field. From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

At the forefront of this change in thinking are two economists, James E. Foster, a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University, and Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, at the University of Oxford. A paper they wrote in 2007 may help redefine what it means to be poor. Mexico has adopted the method outlined in the paper as its official poverty measure. Bhutan is using it to create a national happiness index. Other countries, like Chile, have indicated interest, as have officials of the World Bank, who are considering where else the approach might work.

Among researchers in the field, Mr. Foster was already well known. A paper he co-wrote in the 1980s included a method for calculating income-based poverty that is now the standard in many countries and is cited in nearly every paper on international poverty. A mathematician at heart, Mr. Foster took an economics course as an undergraduate at New College of Florida and found his calling. Here, he decided, was a way for him to apply his math skills to the real world. [He and] economist Amartya Sen, who is now a professor at Harvard University [and] won a Nobel in economic science in 1998, wrote a book together called On Economic Inequality (Oxford, 1997).

That book contains a chapter on multidimensional poverty, a concept that Mr. Sen is known for having pioneered. But while Mr. Foster agreed that, in theory, poverty was about more than income, he was dubious about actually trying to measure those other factors...A conversation with Ms. Alkire changed his mind. While he was in Britain to give a talk, she buttonholed him, arguing that his formula for measuring chronic poverty could, with appropriate tweaks, translate to multidimensional poverty. "He was suspicious," Ms. Alkire says, "but we talked it through." Mr. Foster was finally persuaded.

The method that they developed allows researchers to create categories deemed important to well-being, like access to health care, education, food, and so on. Income can be included, too, as one factor among several. Researchers can decide how many categories must be deficient to make a person poor, and can also weight certain categories as more important than others. They might, for instance, decide that food matters more than education.

--"The Actual Needs of the Needy: New Measure of Poverty Cathes On," by Tom Bartlett, The Chronicle of Higher Education (3.7.10).

But what does that mean in terms of how it could help us better understand poverty and address it? And with the U.S.' long history of using income to measure poverty--and falling short of adequately addressing it--what are the chances that this new approach might be adopted here? More from the same article:

For starters, says Mr. Foster, you get a fuller, more accurate picture of who needs help and what kind of help they need. People in a rural area might need better transportation in order to make it to a market. Providing better transportation does not necessarily raise anyone's income, but it might substantially improve their quality of life. Having a way to measure improvement in areas other than income allows a government to demonstrate how it is helping its citizens, or a critic to show how it's failing to help them. What's more, looking at just income can be misleading. In India incomes have recently risen, but so has malnutrition. If people are hungry, aren't they still living in poverty?

That's why Mexico has adopted the new method. A 2004 law requires the government to use a multidimensional measure of poverty in official estimates. After looking at a number of proposals, Mexico chose the method devised by Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire. The multidimensional approach, he says, allows for "a better idea of the type of poverty people are suffering and the reasons for this type of poverty." Data from 2008 have been analyzed using the method and, Mr. Licona says, some changes are already under way. For example, a program called Oportunidades, which gives grants to poor families, will now take into account schooling and nutrition when identifying families in need.

Bhutan's embrace of the formula has a twist. Instead of measuring poverty, the country is using it to assess national happiness in nine areas, including living standards and psychological well-being. Adaptability is part of the method's appeal: Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire don't dictate categories or cutoffs. Instead they provide mathematical tools for making an evaluation...What the two scholars have created is "a method to actually operationalize these ideas that otherwise seem appealing but are very difficult to put into practice."

The United States has been using the same income-based measure for decades, though the Obama administration announced just last week that it would start taking into account a broader set of information, like how much a family spends on child care and housing. That's still a long way from what Mr. Foster and Ms. Alkire propose, but it will provide more data on how poor people spend money. And perhaps if the multidimensional poverty measure is a success in Mexico, then other countries, maybe even the United States, will follow suit.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Actual-Needs-of-the-Needy-/64526/

Science, Spin & Climate Change: The Clouds of Unknowing

I understand the type of identity politics involved. I do. But it's just so dysfunctional, so sad and unsettling. That one vocal, political interest group is unqualifiedly dismissive of the science that supports global warming and the actions proposed to address it, and another unqualifiedly supports it, is hard to reconcile but easy enough to understand. That's the nature of unquestioning identity politics. That's where we are, whether it sinks us or not. We appear helpless to get past it it all, absent the level of climate change and global disaster that would signal it is already too late to address the related issues without great shared pain and loss--and great expense.

Part of the problem is that it is hard to find balance in interpreting and understanding the science, the evidence. But The Economist in a recent "Leaders" article and related "Briefing" article, provides as balanced and useful an understanding and prescription as I've read. They address both the error and the harm of overstating the case beyond the evidence, but also the failed thinking that presumes the research and its interpretation must be complete and without error to justify preventative action. The Economist:

CLIMATE-change legislation, dormant for six months, is showing signs of life again in Washington, DC. This week senators and industrial groups have been discussing a compromise bill to introduce mandatory controls on carbon (see article). Yet although green activists around the world have been waiting for 20 years for American action, nobody is cheering. Even if discussion ever turns into legislation, it will be a pale shadow of what was once hoped for.

The mess at Copenhagen is one reason. So much effort went into the event, with so little result. The recession is another...The bilious argument over American health care has not helped: this is not a good time for any bill that needs bipartisan support. Even the northern hemisphere's cold winter has hurt... But climate science is also responsible. A series of controversies over the past year have provided heavy ammunition to those who doubt the seriousness of the problem.

Three questions arise from this. How bad is the science? Should policy be changed? And what can be done to ensure such confusion does not happen again? Behind all three lies a common story. The problem lies not with the science itself, but with the way the science has been used by politicians to imply certainty when, as often with science, no certainty exists.

--"Spin, science and climate change," Leaders Section, The Economist (3.18.10)

Now, that is a provocative opening, one that should warm the hearts of naysayers, those who doubt or disparage the science, those who would let nature and man's influence on it just take its own course. But it is just setting the necessary backdrop, making the appropriate concessions, in setting a fair and useful basis to continue the discussion. The same article continues:

When governments started thinking seriously about climate change they took the sensible step of establishing, in 1989, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was designed to get scientists to work out what was happening to the climate, and to get governments to sign off on the scientists' conclusions. It has done the job of basic science pretty well. There have been occasional complaints both that it has overstated the extent of the problem, and that it has understated it. Its reports trawl through all recent climate science. The wide range of the outcomes it predicts—from a mildly warming global temperature increase of 1.1°C by the end of the century to a hellish 6.4°C—illustrate the uncertainties it is dealing with.

But the ambiguities of science sit uncomfortably with the demands of politics. Politicians, and the voters who elect them, are more comfortable with certainty. So "six months to save the planet" is more likely to garner support than "there is a high probability—though not by any means a certainty—that serious climate change could damage the biosphere, depending on levels of economic growth, population growth and innovation." Politics, like journalism, tends to simplify and exaggerate...

Around the same time it emerged that the most recent IPCC report had claimed that the Himalayan glaciers were going to disappear by 2035, instead of 2350. The panel's initial unwillingness to address this mistake, and the discovery of further problems with its work, raised troubling questions about its procedures.

How bad is this? Sceptics point out that each mistake has tended to exaggerate the extent of climate change. The notion that the scientific establishment has suppressed evidence to the contrary has provided plenty of non-expert politicians with an excuse not to spend money reducing carbon. So the scientists' shameful mistakes have certainly changed perceptions. They have not, however, changed the science itself.

As our briefing explains in detail, most research supports the idea that warming is man-made. Sources of doubt that have seemed plausible in the past, such as a mismatch between temperatures measured by satellites and temperatures measured at the surface, and doubts about the additional warming that can be put down to water vapour, have been in large part resolved, though more work is needed. If records of temperature across the past 1,000 years are not reliable, it matters little to the overall story. If there are problems with the warming as measured by weather stations on land, there are also more reliable data from ships and satellites.

So, is it wise to champion inaction until all doubts and objections by all parties are satisfied? Do we not understand that it is so often the nature of scientific research and prescriptions that they must incorporate uncertainties and the statistical probability of their occurence and impact? It is based on data and probabilities like these that intelligent, wise public policy is often shaped and carried out. And we have been well served by understanding the strengths and limitations of that process. More from the article:

Plenty of uncertainty remains; but that argues for, not against, action. If it were known that global warming would be limited to 2°C, the world might decide to live with that. But the range of possible outcomes is huge, with catastrophe one possibility, and the costs of averting climate change are comparatively small. Just as a householder pays a small premium to protect himself against disaster [property damage insurance], the world should do the same.

This newspaper sees no reason to alter its views on that. Where there is plainly an urgent need for change is the way in which governments use science to make their case. The IPCC has suffered from the perception that it is a tool of politicians. The greater the distance that can be created between it and them, the better. And rather than feeding voters infantile advertisements peddling childish certainties, politicians should treat voters like grown-ups. With climate change you do not need to invent things; the truth, even with all those uncertainties and caveats, is scary enough.

The longer, more detailed "Briefing" in the same edition of the Economist does in fact provided a very useful review of the state of some of the questioned data and interpretations of them. I commend it to your reading. But that more thorough treatment also offers broader perspectives that are equally helpful. From the briefing article, "The science of climate change: the clouds of unknowing":

In any complex scientific picture of the world there will be gaps, misperceptions and mistakes. Whether your impression is dominated by the whole or the holes will depend on your attitude to the project at hand. You might say that some see a jigsaw where others see a house of cards. Jigsaw types have in mind an overall picture and are open to bits being taken out, moved around or abandoned should they not fit. Those who see houses of cards think that if any piece is removed, the whole lot falls down. When it comes to climate, academic scientists are jigsaw types, dissenters from their view house-of-cards-ists.

The defenders of the consensus tend to stress the general consilience of their efforts—the way that data, theory and modelling back each other up. Doubters see this as a thoroughgoing version of "confirmation bias", the tendency people have to select the evidence that agrees with their original outlook. But although there is undoubtedly some degree of that (the errors in the IPCC, such as they are, all make the problem look worse, not better) there is still genuine power to the way different arguments and datasets in climate science tend to reinforce each other.

The doubters tend to focus on specific bits of empirical evidence, not on the whole picture. This is worthwhile—facts do need to be well grounded—but it can make the doubts seem more fundamental than they are. People often assume that data are simple, graspable and trustworthy, whereas theory is complex, recondite and slippery, and so give the former priority. In the case of climate change, as in much of science, the reverse is at least as fair a picture. Data are vexatious; theory is quite straightforward. Constructing a set of data that tells you about the temperature of the Earth over time is much harder than putting together the basic theoretical story of how the temperature should be changing, given what else is known about the universe in general...

Okay, but moving from a proper perspective to summary data, possible outcomes, and probabilities, what reasonable understandings should we take away from all this?

Adding the uncertainties about sensitivity to uncertainties about how much greenhouse gas will be emitted, the IPCC expects the temperature to have increased by 1.1ºC to 6.4ºC over the course of the 21st century. That low figure would sit fairly well with the sort of picture that doubters think science is ignoring or covering up. In this account, the climate has natural fluctuations larger in scale and longer in duration (such as that of the medieval warm period) than climate science normally allows, and the Earth's recent warming is caused mostly by such a fluctuation, the effects of which have been exaggerated by a contaminated surface-temperature record. Greenhouse warming has been comparatively minor, this argument would continue, because the Earth's sensitivity to increased levels of carbon dioxide is lower than that seen in models, which have an inbuilt bias towards high sensitivities. As a result subsequent warming, even if emissions continue full bore, will be muted too.

It seems unlikely that the errors, misprisions and sloppiness in a number of different types of climate science might all favour such a minimised effect. That said, the doubters tend to assume that climate scientists are not acting in good faith, and so are happy to believe exactly that. Climategate [the e-mail disclosures suggesting bias among investigators at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia] and the IPCC's problems have reinforced this position.

Using the IPCC's assessment of probabilities, the sensitivity to a doubling of carbon dioxide [having an effect] of less than 1.5ºC in such a scenario has perhaps one chance in ten of being correct. But if the IPCC were underestimating things by a factor of five or so, that would still leave only a 50:50 chance of such a desirable outcome. The fact that the uncertainties allow you to construct a relatively benign future does not allow you to ignore [higher probability] futures in which climate change is large, and in some of which it is very dangerous indeed. The doubters are right that uncertainties are rife in climate science. They are wrong when they present that as a reason for inaction.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=15720419&fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C03-18-2010%7Ceditors_highlights