The Straight Dope 02/24/2006

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 02/24/2006

Dear Cecil:

It's not often that I stumble into anything on the Net that scares me,
but this does. A large number of sites declare that we're about to hit,
or have hit, peak oil production and that our civilization is
essentially on the clock and poised to implode in the next 40 to 60
years. Are these accurate assessments, or are they taking the worst-case
scenario to extremes? --Scott Lumley, via e-mail

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Cecil replies:

Sit down, Scott. What you're describing isn't the worst case; arguably
it's the best case. While it's not clear when oil production will peak,
or whether the peak is already past, no one doubts oil production is
bound to decline--the only questions are how soon and how fast. Opinions
vary (boy, do they), but my feeling is, 40 to 60 years? We should be so
lucky.

Background: The concept most associated with looming oil shortages is
that of the "Hubbert curve," named after the late geophysicist M. King
Hubbert. In a prescient 1956 paper, Hubbert drew on more than a
century's worth of data to suggest that fossil fuel production followed
a characteristic bell-shaped curve, ramping up sharply in the early
going, peaking once practical limits were reached, then declining. If
you could accurately estimate fossil fuel reserves, Hubbert argued, you
could predict when peak oil production would occur. Compiling such an
estimate for U.S. oil reserves, Hubbert projected that U.S. oil
production would peak between 1965 and 1970. In the event, it peaked in
1971.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060224.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

I hear about it on rock songs, jeans and cigarette commercials. Its road
sign can be found everywhere, but I can't for the life of me find it on
any road map: Where is Route 66? Where does it start and where does it
end? Does it pass through all the cities mentioned in the song? What
makes it so important? Why isn't Route 66--if it ever existed--in any
road map? --A. Goldschmidt

SDSTAFF Rico replies:

If you ever plan to motor west,   
travel my way, take the highway that's the best.   
Get your kicks on Route 66.

For many automobile travelers in the early to middle 20th century,
Route 66 was the most celebrated highway in America. The legendary
status of the Chicago-to-Los Angeles road was forever cemented in the
popular imagination by a hit song and a television series. The rise and
fall of Route 66 is a study in the relationship between America and its
automobiles.

The early part of the 20th century was a heady time for Americans. With
Henry Ford bringing the automobile within reach of almost everyone, the
average person no longer was limited to spending his life in his
hometown. Trucks were also beginning to be introduced, and the operators
were looking for a way to compete with the nation's railroads. The only
limitation was the roads available.

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mroute66.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 11/01/1991

Dear Cecil: 

Are human beings still evolving? Or are we devolving? Are our genes,
when passed on to our kids, copied faithfully like a digital recording?
Or is the process more like a photocopy of a photocopy, deteriorating
more and more with each generation? I hope it's not the latter, because
if the results are anything like those from the self-serve copy place
down the street, we're in big trouble. -- David Westwood, Santa Monica,
California  

Cecil replies:  

David, it's obvious you not only slept through Intro to Biology, 
you were a little groggy during a couple key college bull 
sessions, too. We covered this topic a little after 2 AM
the second month of freshman year. The prevailing view was that humans
weren't evolving, because what with the welfare state and the miracle of
modern medicine and all, natural selection (i.e., survival of the
fittest) had ceased to operate.  

Nonsense, I argued (correctly, of course, because even then
I could see I was never wrong) -- natural selection by definition
is always at work. If nobody dies beforereaching reproductive 
age, well, that merely meant that everybody got naturally selected.

You don't get it, said my opponents. If there aren't any differences
in mortality among genotypes (isn't it great the way I sling these
words around like you know what I'm talking about?), that means
the gene pool is static and we aren't evolving.  

Sure we are, sez I. The fundamental question isn't whether people
die young, it's whether they fail to reproduce, or reproduce less
abundantly than others. On this basis we can say that the genes
for the following physical types or traits are slowly disappearing
from the population: 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_047.html

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