What's New Robert L Park Friday, 12 February 2010

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 12 Feb 2010   Washington, DC

1. MENTAL VACUUM: MANY READERS STRAIGHTENED ME OUT..
It's not the things I forget that worry me so much as the things I remember 
perfectly that never happened. So it was last week when I commented in 
passing that Apollo 11 relied on vacuum-tube electronics; of course, it did 
not.  I am unable to explain my lapse. My thanks to those who straightened 
me out.

2. FOOD: THE BOAT IS SINKING FASTER THAN WE ARE BAILING.
A Special Section of Science magazine this week is devoted to the problem 
of feeding "an expected population of 9 billion in 2050." Expected by whom? 
In the last 40 years the population has doubled. If it doubles again in the 
next 40 the population would be closer to 14 billion. In the entire issue 
of Science I did not see a single mention of population control. In 1798, 
the Rev. Robert Thomas Malthus, British scholar and clergyman, observed 
that animals typically produce far more offspring than are required for 
replacement. This helps to ensure survival of the species, as Darwin noted 
50 years later citing Malthus. To avoid excessive population, Malthus 
urged "restraint," but the reproductive instinct is far more powerful than 
Malthusian logic. I cannot do better than to once again quote Norman 
Borlaug’s acceptance speech on the occasion of winning the 1970 Nobel Peace 
Prize for the Green Revolution. It bears repeating: "We are dealing with 
two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the 
biologic power of human reproduction.  Man has made amazing progress 
recently in his potential mastery of these two contending powers...there 
can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the 
agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for 
population control unite in a common effort."  This, it is clear from the 
Special Section, has not yet happened.

3. PRAYER: CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT REJECTS SUPERSTITION.
Bruce Flamm, obstratician and skeptic, fought a millionaire 
fertility/prayer clinic operator through the California court system and 
won.  The case involved the notorious "Columbia prayer study," in which it 
was claimed that prayer increased the success rate of fertility treatments. 
Flamm demanded the study be withdrawn. Qwang Cha, the millionaire clinic 
operator, lost at every level but kept appealing the judgment in the belief 
that Flamm must inevitably fold. Bruce Flamm doesn’t fold.  Last week the 
California Supreme Court refused to consider the Appeals Court decision 
against Cha.  

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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