By
Antonio Casolari
September
2000
Prologue.
‘The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men
who know no other master but their reason;..’[Condorcet, 1795, ‘Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des progres
de l’esprit humaine’]
Hippocrates [c.460 - c.377 BC], the most celebrated Physician of
antiquity, known as the 'Father of Medicine', made the following biting
statement: 'There are in fact TWO things, SCIENCE and Opinion. The former begets
KNOWLEDGE, the latter Ignorance.'
It’s a good basis to start a quick look at a field usually covered
by misconceptions.
The
exercise of Science is possible because '..The
universe is governed by a set of rational laws, that we can discover and
understand.' [Stephen Hawking
[1942 -], Mathematics, Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist at the University
of Cambridge, UK, in 'A Brief History of Time', 1996, Bantam Books, NY].
Further, Arthur Kornberg [NY, 1918 -] who discovered DNA polymerase - for
which he shared the 1959 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine - and who was
the first to synthesize a viral DNA [Stanford Univ. Med. Center, Dept. of
Biochemistry, wrote [Science (1992),
257, 859]: '..Science is unique
among all human activities - unlike law, business, art, or religion - in its
identification with progress'.
Charles DARWIN [1809-1882] obtained wide recognition after publication
of his great work 'On the Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection' [1859], founding the theory of Evolution. He
was perhaps the greatest expert in living organisms. Darwin published: 'The
Fertilization of Orchids' [1862]; 'The
Variation of Plants and Animals under
Domestication' [1867]; 'The Descent of
Man and Selection in Relation to Sex' [1871]; 'The
Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals' [1872]; 'Insectivorous
Plants' [1875]; 'The effect of Cross
and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom' [1876]; 'Different
Forms of Flowers in Plants of the Same Species' [1877]; 'The
Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms' [1881].
Discussing on general aspects of Nature with Joseph D. Hooker, Charles Darwin wrote [July 13, 1856]: '..What
a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low,
and horribly cruel works of nature!' [Correspondence
of Charles Darwin, vol.6; 1990].
As a matter of facts, one may take a walk in the highway of the Gigantic
Disasters of Nature [GDN].
1st GDN: INBORN
DISEASES [ID]. More than 3,300
genetic diseases caused by ‘inborn errors’ are actually known [McKusic,
V.A., 1983, ‘Mendelian Inheritance in Man’, 6th ed., John Hopkins
Univ. Press, Baltimore]. Among the most relevant consequences of ID one may
find: autistic behavior, blindness, cretinism, deafness, dwarfism, IQ below 50,
mental deficiency, paranoid ideation, skeletal deformity, cardiopathy, cerebral
degeneration, cirrhosis, cranio-facial dismorfism, chronic polyneuropathy,
growth retardation, impaired intelligence, multiple malformation, neurological
disorders, neurosis, psychosis, premature aging, recurrent infections, etc.
Each year come into the world about 120,000 US babies with birth defects;
birth defects contribute substantially to childhood morbidity
[in the US 5,000 to 6,000 infant deaths are attributed each year to the
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, SIDS, attributed recently to the inborn error in
the metabolism of the short-chain L-3-hydroxylacyl CoA dehydrogenase] and
long-term disabilities.
[ http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/cddh/BD/bdpghome.htm
]
About 1/3rd of
inborn diseases are accompanied by Mental Retardation, from mild to severe. An
estimated 12 every 1,000 US school children have Mental Retardation
[http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/cddh/fact/mrfs.htm
].
2nd GDN: A LIFE THREATENED
by DISEASES, SENESCENCE and DEATH. – Human life is threatened by a collection
of about 11,000 classified diseases [Intnl Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical
Modifications, 4th ed., 1993, Washington, Public Health Service],
caused by thousands of pathogenic viruses, bacteria, parasites, and
physiological malfunctions. Furthermore, the benefices of a life threatened by
diseases are accompanied by senescence, characterized by impairment of mind,
sight, hearing, all the body, caused by the simultaneous and progressive piling
up of cells damages [the wear-and-tear] produced by a collection of ‘natural
agents’ like ‘natural peroxide
radicals’ formed by the ‘natural metabolism’ of
the cells; ‘natural background radiation’ from the rocks and incoming
from the outer space, causing multiple damages to the
DNA [‘The Biology of Aging’, J.A.
Behnke, C.E. Finch & G.B. Moment
Ed., Plenum Press, NY & London, 1978]; ‘natural toxic chemicals’
present in nearly all vegetable and fruits eaten daily [R.
F. Keeler, 'Toxins in Plants', in The
Safety of Foods, H.D.Graham Ed., AVI Publ. Co. Inc.,Westport, CO, 1982].
Further, one can add to the above grants, a natural collection of
mental affliction – from mild to severe - coming from sadness to
despair, to depression, to the Alzheimer’s disease, to the borders of madness.
All the above is mixed with the famous ‘struggle for life’, in a world
chracterized by violence [men against men, men/animals against animals, men/animals
against plants], down to the widespread idiocy. [In connection with the
human ‘natural idiocy’ it can be remembered that during less than
3,700 years [historic age] a total of 3,050 [± 100] wars were fought in the world , for a total of
19,162 years-in-war].
To complete the feast, the phycho-physical degradations are crowned by
the very final ‘error catastrophe’, the ‘natural death’.
3rd GDN: MAN, ANIMALS, PLANTS.
The Nobel Prize for Peace [1952] Albert Schweitzer [1875-1965], Medicin,
Philosopher and Humanitarian, wrote: ‘..Nature does not have any respect
for life. Beings live at each other expenses. The nature compels them to commit
the worst cruelties. Nature is beautiful and wonderful if seen from the outside,
but reading in his book it fill us of disgust..’.
Examples of disgusting cruelty in the animal world are innumerable. Only
few paradigmatic situations follow.
3.1 - PARASITISM. Two examples would be enough to describe both the
cruelty and the disgust. [A]. The
ichneumonoidea are wasps living freely, as adults, but passing their larval life
as parasites feeding on the bodies of other animals. The most common victims are
caterpillars [bytterfly and moth larvae]. The free-living females locate an
appropriate host and convert it to
a food factory for their own young: many females lay their eggs directly upon
the host's body. Since an active host would easily dislodge the egg, the
ichneumon mother often simultaneously injects a toxin that paralyzes the victim.
The caterpillar lies, alive but immobile, with the agent of its future
destruction secure on its belly. Most often, adult females of ichneumons pierce
the host with their ovipositor and deposit eggs within it; the host is not
otherwise inconvenienced, at least until the eggs hatch and the ichneumon larvae
begin their grim work of interior escavation, by gnawing the inside of the
caterpillar, devouring almost every part of it except the skin and intestines,
carefully avoiding injuring the vital organs. Finally, the larva completes its
work by devouring the remaining internal organs, the heart and central nervous
system, killing its victim, and leaving behind the caterpillar's empty shell. [S.J.
Gould, ‘Non-moral Nature’ in Great Essays in Science, quoted; http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/mbcn/kyf102.htm]
[B] - The
Fieraster, is a small fish living most of the time inside the aquiferous lungs
of the holothuria, gnawing little
by little some lung of his host. At night, the Fieraster leave some time his
host to search for some fruit, and then recovering to his warm lung at daybreak.
3.2 – FLESH-HEATING MAN AND ANIMALS. Men share with many animals [wolves,
coyotes, jackals, foxes, bears, raccoons, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous,
olingos, weasels, linsangs, genets, civets, mongooses, hyenas, lions, tigers,
leopards, jaguars, pumas, lines, cheetahs and more than 150 different species],
collectively termed carnivores, the habit of being flesh-heaters. Wild animals usually –
but not exclusively – catch animals of different
species, smaller, weaker, defenceless, inexperienced
young, whether or not herbivores. I doubt it exist some ethic guide - other than
‘natural idiocy’ - not regarding as the worst crime the killing of living
beings for eating them; the killing of weaker subjects is regarded by common
laws as an aggravant. The man exerts the same killing activity as wild animals;
even worse, the man breeds cattle, horses, sheep, poultry, fishes, etc., in
billion of heads, with the exclusive purpose of slaughtering and heating them.
Such massive breeding for killing overcome any conceivable justification. It’s
an unacceptable cruelty. In the same contest, also the herbivore animals eat
living beings, because plant material is made of living cells. Thus even the
eating habit of herbivores can be envisioned as an unacceptable cruelty against
life. Life is a collection of chemical mechanisms not essentially different in
animals and men, with the seldom-revealed exception of the human understanding
capacity. Nor the plants are fundamentally different from animals, except for
the unique capability of plants to synthesize organic matter from the simplest
matters as water, light, carbon dioxide and inorganic salts, what grants to
plants the complete nutritional autonomy. The Plant kingdom is the best –
although imperfect too - result of Nature.
4rd
– CANCEROGENIC NATURAL CHEMICALS. A great threat to human life comes from
cancerogenic substances present in common ‘natural foods’. 'ABOUT 50% OF CHEMICALS - WHETHER NATURAL OR SYNTHETIC - THAT HAVE BEEN
TESTED IN STANDARD, HIGH-DOSE, ANIMAL CANCER TESTS ARE RODENT CARCINOGENS.'
[Ames, B.N. & Gold, L.S., 2000, Mutation Research 447, 3-13]
The two Authors are the major world experts on the matter.
'Dietary Pesticides are 99.99% ALL NATURAL. ..Plants produce toxins to
protect themselves against fungi, insects, and animal predators. Tens of
thousands of these natural Pesticides have been discovered, and every species of
plant analyzed contains its own set of perhaps a few dozens toxins. When plant
are stressed or damaged, such as during a pest attack, they may greatly increase
their natural pesticide levels, occasionally to levels that can be acutely toxic
to humans. The human intake of these toxins varies markedly with diet and would
be higher in vegetarians. ..We estimate that Americans eat about 1.5g of natural
pesticides per person per day, which is 10,000 times more than they eat of
manmade pesticide residues. ...in
chronic cancer tests carried out for the purpose, about HALF of naturally
occurring pesticides resulted to be CARCINOGENIC...the natural pesticides that
are rodent CARCINOGENS are present in the following foods: anise, apple, apricot,
banana, basil, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, caraway, carrot,
cauliflower, celery, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa, coffee, collard greens,
comfy herb tea, currants, dill, eggplant, endive, fennel, grapefruit juice,
grapes, guava, honey, honeydew melon, horseradish, kale, lentils, lettuce,
mango, mushrooms, mustard, nutmeg, orange juice, parsley, parsnip, peach, pear,
peas, black pepper, pineapple, plum, potato, radish, raspberries, rosemary,
sesame seeds, tarragon, tea, tomato, turnip. '
[B. N. Ames, M. Profet and L.S. Gold, 1990, 'II. Dietary Pesticides (99.99% All Natural)' in Proceedings
of National Academy of Sciences USA 87, 7777-7781].
That’s
enough to claim ‘ why [the Delaney
Clause] isn’t it applied to natural
carcinogens?’ [P.H.
Abelson, 1993, SCIENCE 259, 1235].
5th
– PLANETARY GDN: EARTHQUAKES, TORNADOES, STORMS, FLOODS; CROP DESTRUCTION by
PEST; ETC. The Big Nature
does not disregard to ADD some gift of planetary relevance.
EARTHQUAKES: during only the 20th century about 110 major
earthquakes occurred, each causing
1,000 or more deaths, for a TOTAL of about 2,216,528 victims.
TORNADOES, STORMS, FLOODS, ETC.: Number of DEATHS Caused from
1888 to 1994: 624,365, equivalent to about
5,890 Deaths / year.
DEATHS by U.S. TORNADOES amount to about 4,905 / 70 years [1925-1995].
PEST: '..the tsetse fly puts about 100 million people and 60 million
heads of cattle at risk in sub-Saharian Africa due to the transmission of
tripanosomiasis .' [ICIPE, 1997,
‘Vision and Strategic framework towards 2020’, ICIPE Science Press, Nairobi,
Kenia ]
PEST accounted for pre-harvest
losses of 42% of the potential value of crop [eight crops that
together occupy half the world's cropland, with harvest wrote $300 billion
over 1988-1990], with 15% attributable to insects and about 13% each to weeds
and to pathogens. An additional 10% of the
potential value was lost post-harvest [Oerke, E.-C. et al., 1994, ‘Crop
Production and Crop Protection’, Elsevier, Amsterdam]. [American
Phytopathological Society; http://www.scisoc.org/feature/FoodSecurity/Top.html]
'Herbivorous insects are said
to be responsible for destroying one fifth of the world's total crop
production annually.' [ http://www.fao.org/inpho/compend/text/ch02.htm]
Maize is the main staple food in sub-Saharian Africa. In the Kenyan
highlands, total losses of maize due to pests were estimated at 57 percentage [Grisley,
1997, http://www.fao.org/inpho/compend/text/ch03.htm]
In Zimbabwe, grain damage of 92
% stored maize was reported due to insect pests [Mutiro,
C.F. et al., 1992, Zimbabwe
J. Of Agric. Res., 30(1), 49-58 ]. In
sub-Saharian Africa insect pests, in addition to fungal diseases, are
responsible for 50 percentage damage in cassava [Yaninek, J.,1994, Proc.
5th Symp. Internat. Soc. for Tropical Root Crops-Kampala, Uganda,
pp.24-26].
Infestations of stored cowpeas can be as high as 90 percentage in
markets and in village stores [Alebeek,
1996, http://www.fao.org/inpho/compend/text/ch02.htm]
In Kenya, the National Food Policy Document reported up to
30 percentage destruction of harvested
maize due to pests during storage and handling [Wongo,
L., 1996, Post Harvest Technology,
vol. 11, p. 30]. In West Africa, up
to 100 % damage to cowpeas may happen in a few months after storage due
to infestation of Callosobruchus maculatus [Lienard,
V. & Seck, D., 1994, Insect
Science and its Applicat., 15(3), 301-311]. Post-Harvest losses of grains
due to rodents is estimated to range between 2 and 12% on the average, rising up
to 20-100% in some countries as Egypt, Belize, Sierra Leone, Korea, Ethiopia [Hopf et al., 1976 >> http://www.fao.org/inpho/compend/text/ch03.htm].
LOCUST. Locusts can damage
a wide variety of crops. Damage resulting from adult locusts flying into an area
can be sudden, unpredictable and devastating. Migrations of 500-600 km overnight
are not uncommon. In 1984, during a major outbreak of the Australian plague
locust, estimated crop loss was $5 million. Without control, losses would have
been $103 million. The damage caused by an uncontrolled outbreak may reach up to
$200 million; in 1990, locust damage in Australia totaled more than $20 million,
after widespread spraying cropping areas to control about 70% of locust
population.[ http://www.agric.wa.gov.au:7000/locust/locust.html]
6th – ARCHAIC GDN: NATURAL MASS EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS AND
PLANTS. On the basis of fossil records, there is a general agreement among
geologist/paleontologist over the existence of 5-6 major destructive events
during earth's history, called Mass-Extinction [ME]. Some scientist suggests
that ME were a cyclic phenomenon, occurring every 25-30 million years;
accordingly, the number of ME during Earth history would be about 19 - 23 from
the Cambrian period.
The cyclic ME theories seem to suggest that such destructive events
would be caused by collision events with comets or asteroids having orbits
passing through solar system with regular frequency, and colliding regularly
with earth. Several evidences suggest that the crater near Yucatan peninsula was
caused by an extraterrestrial impact which took place just about 65 millions
years ago [the cretaceous period], and disrupting the earth's echosystem to such
an extent as to cause ME.
The number of living species, which have ever existed, can be estimated
to be about 5 billion. Today the biodiversity is greater than has ever before:
the number of living species ranges - according to most scientists - between 12
and 100 million species. That is to say that more than 99.8 % of all species
were destroyed by ME. 'Life on earth has suffered its share of catastrophes. In
the last 600 million years there have been five massive holocausts of
biodiversity, and eleven other mass extinctions of major extent. The great
Permian extinction, some 250 million years ago wiped out 90 per cent of
all-preexisting species. At the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years
ago, 60 to 75 % of species were killed off, including most of the dinosaurs,
large marine reptiles, ammonites and flying pterosaurs.' [Scientific American,
July 1996].
The above destructive capacities are well over any destructive capacity
of communism [more than 100 million victims – S. Courtois, N. Werth, J-L Panne,
A. Paczkowski, K Bartosek & J-L. Margolin, 1997, ‘Le
Livre Noir du Communisme. Crimes, Terreur, Repression.’, Robert Laffont
editeur, Paris] and nazism [ 25 million victims; Courtois et al.,
quoted above], though joined together.
7th
– COSMIC GDN. Universe is violence. It’s the greatest conceivable violence,
by the so enormous, huge, dimensions and by the essence itself of the cosmic
objects. Mind:
A - The birth of the
Universe with the greatest conceivable explosion: the big bang. ‘…The
beginning of time would have been a point of infinite density and infinite
curvature of space-time….At the big bang, the universe is thought..to have
been infinitely hot. ..As the universe expanded the temperature of the
radiation decreased…One second after the big bang it would have fallen to
about ten thousand million degrees..’ [S. Hawking, quoted].
B - What makes the stars shine is a continuous hydrogen bomb explosion.
Just our Sun shines, forwarding heat and radiation into the space, through a
continuous and infernal tripudium of hydrogen bomb explosions: [four] hydrogen
nuclei fuse together to form [one] helium nucleus; the mass irradiated into the
space amounts to about 4,000 million kg each second.
C - The number of Galaxies amounts to about 1,000 billions, each made of
some ten billions of stars and of an unknown number of orbiting planets. The
stars spinning round the center of galaxies, the galaxies spinning round local
groups, local groups going away each other in the expanding universe. Large
galaxies gently gulp smaller ones or smash into each other (the Milky Way and
Andromeda galaxies are ‘.. closing the
2.5-million light-years gap between them at nearly 500,000 kilometers per
hour.’ [R. Irion, 2000, SCIENCE
287, 62-64], in cataclysms explosion of hellish potency [R. Irion, quoted], (hellish light, hellish roar) forwarding the
shine just to the ultimate limit of universe; where only echoes live of such
remote explosions, together with only a memory [2.7°K]
of the billions degree reached by the cosmic explosion of 12 billion light years
ago.
D – At the center of the Galaxy, the presence of a supermassive black
hole of 2.6±0.2
x106 solar masses [M⊙] [F.
Yusef-Zadeh et al., 2000, SCIENCE
287, 85-91], in an area spanning 30 light-years, was proposed ‘..to explain
the tremendous energy –equal to 100 million Suns – pouring from the center
..’ [E. Stokstad, 2000, SCIENCE 287, 65-67].
What’s a vision completely different from the quiet image of the
starry night.
CONCLUSION
The disasters of nature are many, horrible, and of cosmic dimension.
‘The practice of that which is ethically best – what we call
goodness or virtue – involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is
opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.
… The cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends. The ethical
progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process, but in
combating it.’ [Thomas Henry Huxley,
in ‘Evolution and Ethics’, 1893]
Humankind must endeavor to subtract the entire environment to the
violent power of Nature. All aspects of life on the Planet must be taken under
control, to temperate, modulate the idiotic, criminal, random, senseless
violence of nature.
The achievements of Science and Technology in the last century were some
thousands. The life span effectively doubled in the last century. Some hundreds
millions people survived [were subtracted to the destructive power of nature] to
diseases as a result of huge progress in biology, medicine, therapy; hygiene,
welfare.
The most insane policy is unable to turn the planetary situation to a
level worst of the actual one inherited by the insanity of nature. Anyhow, I
trust the time of criminal policies [like communism and nazifascism] ended
forever last century.
We, the people, we have freedom and
internet. We are achieving such high levels of Scientific knowledge, that
in the nearest future human intelligence will be widely expanded up to leave
very few chances to uncontrolled natural events, few chances to violence.
I trust the human intelligence will prevail.
‘…the
perfectibility of man is truly infinite;..the progress of this perfectibility
from now onwards must be independent of any power that might wish to halt it.’
[CONDORCET, 1795, ‘Esquisse
d’un Tableau historique des progres de l’esprit humain’.]
‘It
is simply a design fault that we age and die? If cells were not programmed to
age; if the telomeres, which govern the number of times a cell divides, did
not shorten with each division; if our bodies could repair damage due to
disease and aging, we would live much longer and healthier lives. New research
now allows a glimpse into a world in which aging – and even death – may no
longer be inevitable.’ [J.
Harris, 2000, SCIENCE 288, 59].
Recommended reading:
CONDORCET,
1795, ‘Esquisse d’un Tableau historique des progres de l’esprit humain’.
[Outline of a Historic Table of Human Mind Progess]
English
version of Ch. 10: ‘The Future Progress of the Human Mind’: http://ishi.lib.berkeley.edu/~hist280/research/condorcet/pages/progress_main.htm
Complete
French version:
www.unifi.it/riviste/cromohs/bibliot/philmeth/Condorcet/Esquisse.html
Antonio Casolari
a.casolari@rsadvnet.it