Noah, the Tower of Babel…and Science

A lot of efforts have been made to appraise the Bible in terms of science and vice versa. For example, I've had fun showing (to a conference of transhumanists, no less!) that the book of Genesis clearly states we were meant to be scientists and co-creators and that "nothing is beyond us."

Indeed, it can be illuminating to plumb the Bible -- one of the keystone books of western civilization. Moreover, it gives you the ability to stun, surprise and gain a back-brain door into the minds of some of your deep-steeped neighbors. And so, in light of the recent Russell Crowe film, let's pause and sample the story of Noah.

Now of course, it is somewhat like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. Past scholars, uncharitable toward literalist believers in "biblical inerrancy," have calculated the needed size of the Ark, for example. Were even just all known mammal species shoved aboard, shoulder to shoulder -- you'd need a hundred modern aircraft carriers.

In fact, this argument has had results! Creationist "scientist" Ken Ham conceded -- in his recent debate with Bill Nye -- that evolution (yes "evolution"!) must have radiated all the species we now see, from a seed population that rode upon the Ark! I cannot believe this major concession got so little play in the media or among devotees of either religion or science. It is a real shift in ground.

So, all right, following Ham's clever dip-n-dodge… Noah only carried two of every GENUS and not species. I'm not sure even that will suffice… but however you may groan over this bit of back-pedaling, you also have to be impressed with the agile footwork! Okay, so evolution is real. But it only happened after the flood. Jumping Jehosephat.

Take a look at this article: Creationists Need Faster Evolution than Evolution on Skeptic Ink, who claims that creationists are "using evolutionary theory to support Noah's Ark. Sad."

(For you science-y types, here's the capsule from Skeptic Ink: "There are 2,798 HLA-B alleles in the human population. If these originated from the 8 individuals on the ark (assuming all were heterozygous), the mutation rate for the gene must have been one every 2 years (from the day Noah stepped off the Ark until the present). But this mutation rate for the HLA gene wasn't matched by mutation rates for other genes. We don't have 2000 alleles for eye color or blood type or other genes in the human body." In other words, no possible set pif genetic mutation rates can match this story against what we now see going on, in the cells and chromosomes of living creatures today.)

Okay.  Then something else occurred to me. Let's say the entire human population, including guiltless babies, were drowned in a fit of angry pique by a questionably-balanced deity who was not setting a very good parental example, that's for sure. And let's further posit that the wives of Noah's three sons must replenish the Earth with humans. Less than ten generations later, you have cities and Babel-towers being built. What's the math on that?

Well, if each woman is very very fertile -- and extremely lucky -- let's generously figure ten surviving offspring. (Extremely generous, for that era, but let's go with it.) Five of those ten are daughters who can make human beings. (For our purposes, only females matter.) If each generation can multiply the number of fecund females by five, then ten generations of continuously lucky folks, who breed like rabbits and lose almost no babies at all, will give you close to ten million people! Wow.

Of course, that calculation is at the extreme high end. See this analysis, where other scholars suggest there were 900,000 people around to start building the Tower of Babel and perhaps as few as 36,000. In which case you get a completely different set of math quandaries…

…like how much physical volume of stone or rammed earth could be stacked upon a tower, in just the century alloted, by such a small population that also had to grow food and live "by the sweat of their brow"? By the time you get to 20,000 feet, the sheer amount of stuff… neglecting compressional and other engineering forces… could not have been hauled by 100x that population -- equipped with trucks! No wonder Talmudic scholars decided (in the 7th century) that the word "tower" must have stood for some kind of machine or high technology that had been lost to time, one that enabled human wizards to fly to heaven's gateway. Okay, that's kinda sci-fi cool, I admit, especially for the 7th Century! But a topic for another time. Let's get back to Noah.

One suggestion by the talmudists that's very interesting is that the human species that was wiped out by the Flood was different than ours. That the flood-reset wasn't just moral but genetic, with Noah's family being fundamentally different than his water-doomed neighbors, not just morally but as a matter of speciation. (One sage suggested that people before that point "had no thumbs" until Noah's new sub-species introduced that novelty. Can anyone find a reference?)

Hmmm. well, the mind roams at this point, picturing a humanity 1.0 that might have been really unpleasant by nature… (what? worse than us?)… in which case, is the questionable morality of the Flood eased, at all?

Alas, that raises a counter question about the fallibility of a deity who had to revise His design. (Not a problem, by modern reckoning! All ambitious projects undergo revision. It is only a quandary - ironically - to the obsequiously devout, who insist on zero-fallibility, a completely unnecessary trait of a creator and, well, a hard piece of flattery to live up to!)

Of course, all this calculating misses the point… that the literalist inerrancy folks are wrong, on a truly manic scale. Standing upon a tower of evidence, we know the ages of the Rocks of Ages. We know the universe is vastly greater, older and more beautiful than their cramped, cover-the-eyes-and-ears frenzy permits them to see. But even if you take the stories at face value, problems abound.

For example, if the Babel dispersal happened around 1800 BCE (about the time of the Thera explosion of Santorini, a thought provoking coincidence!) then a seed population of maybe 100,000 would have had to bear successful babies at a prodigious rate… while walking very quickly… in order to spread to the corners of the globe and diversify into the countless tribes who we know to have dwelled in countless far-flung locales. Most of which we know to have been occupied already, long before 1800 BCE. Indeed, by that date, Egypt had already been operating for quite some time… and their language did not change as a result of any tower.

But it's that successful birth rate that has me confused. At what point did the accelerated replenishment cut off, with the world's women losing that reproductive lucky streak, tumbling into the long era of filth and pain and childbed-fever and still-births and miscarriages and infertility and death, death, death that we know to have been their lot, both from written records and from mummies and bones?

It must have been an abrupt transition -- a terrifying and dismaying one… from a blithe expectation of long lives and ten healthy children, into a maelstrom of horror and bleeding and mourning. Yet no records or even stories tell of such a devastating shift. Nor do I know of any any theological musings to explain why the rebuild of population since the flood was so rapid, then abruptly limited by pain and death after death. Was this another punishment? If so, it seems nastier than any flood.

One group inconvenienced by these points of math is the Mormon community. If (as calculated) there were about 340 years between the flood and Babel… and if the Babel crisis precipitated the barrel-migration of a Hebrew tribe (Jaredites) to America… then the building of populations in the Americas becomes almost impossible to contemplate, especially with no Ice Age Bering land bridge to make things seem plausible. But of course, the same quandaries afflict any other faith that insists on interpreting the legends of illiterate shepherds as physically precise accounts…

...instead of allegories that still convey powerful lessons, to this day.

And so, that is where I will leave things. First, because there can be no resolution, because biblical literalism is simply wrong and also because it insults any chance of a God worth our time and attention, portraying Him (her?) as too vicious for words to describe…

… instead of as the vastly subtle Creator worshipped by Einstein, who concocts a vast cosmos of stunning complexity, diversity and extant -- a universe truly worthy of respect. A God who -- Albert would tell us, if he were here today -- must have gotten things started fourteen billion years ago by uttering the stunning beauty of Maxwell's Equations, in order to command…

 "let there be light."

Airline deterioration, the new elite, levees and climate deniers

If any of you do have a relationship with one of the obstinate global-warming-deniers, here is my usual recommendation. Never confront a dogmatist with sumo opposition. Letting them choose the battleground is silly. For example, trying to offer mountains of scientific evidence only validates them, by making it seem that their own position is about evidence at this point.

Just after recovering internet access (off several days!) and doing a big event at Second Life...

==Deterioration of Air Travel==

Amid last week’s terrible ructions in air travel, will no one point out the part of all this that is most politically and socially significant?

No, I am not referring to the stunning levels of ineptitude, revealed by the FAA -- a story that has grown commonplace, under a regime that relentlessly undermines professionalism at every turn. Although it is meat for passing headlines, the real story is something more insidious. And politically devastating, if the public is ever finally roused.

Would this state of affairs ever have come to pass, if society’s elites had reason to care about the health of modern commercial air travel?

Gradually, people are growing aware that the rich, famous and powerful are abandoning our crowded airports, evading the painful security queues, the germ-laden air and uncertain schedules. Leaving all of that for little folk to endure, elites are even staying away from First Class. (Have you noticed, most of the people up front are either exhausted upper-middle managers or frequent fliers, traveling on upgrades? And first class service has deteriorated, accordingly.)

So where have all the aristocrats gone? The movie stars and banking moguls? Just look a few hundred meters away from the main terminal, at the luxurious private and charter hangars that seem to burgeon and grow, monthly. And no, the rapid increase in travel by corporate jet and luxury charter is not much of an outrage in its own right, not as much as it is a symptom and a warning...

...that the members of civilization with the most influence and political power will not be on our side, when it comes to improving air travel. They’ll not be adding their voices to the lowing of the steers, down in the cattle cars. Rather, they are abandoning the rest of us to our fates.

Moreover, it is symptomatic of something more.

Let’s get familiar with our masters. An article in Newsweek by David Rothkopf distills the essence of his book SUPERCLASS: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making, about the uber-elite who make capital decisions affecting millions or even billions of people. “They ride on Gulfstreams, set the global agenda, and manage the credit crunch in their spare time. They have more in common with each other than their countrymen. Meet the Superclass....It is a much more concentrated world.”

“The iconic symbol of superclass unity is the Gulfstream private jet. In fact, one way to measure the clout of an event is to count the private jets at the nearest airport. According to Gulfstream, traditionally attracts more of its planes than any other gathering, drawing up to 10 percent of the 1,500 planes in service to Zurich airport. But this year's Olympics in Beijing will give it a run for its money, as typically do events as diverse as the Monaco Grand Prix, China's Boao Forum, the Geneva Auto Show or Allen & Co.'s annual getaway for media magnates in Sun Valley, Idaho. Globalization looks different when you can tell the pilot when to leave and where to go, and when there are no security lines to wait in when you are heading off for distant destinations. Those who are free to move about the planet this way come to have more in common with themselves than with their own countrymen.”

This is all grist for my next novel, of course... and take this futurist’s word for it. The next few decades will in part revolve around whether these people decide to side with Western Civilization... and with our children ... or instead, they give into the blandishments of ego and human nature, doing what you or I might do, if we stood in their $20,000 loafers. Giving in to the seductive temptations of privilege -- especially rationalizing reasons to cheat.

Do not mistake any of this for left-wing, class-warfare ranting. I have nothing against capitalism or rich folk, per se. Heck, I am richer than most, and I know maybe eight billionaires on a first name basis... and ALL of them have chosen - to one degree or another - to side with us, with the Western Enlightenment! Every one of those tech moguls is doing his best to look forward, to promote great new things, and to help the good tide lift all boats.

But I also know that my own experience results from a selection effect. These eight all hang in the same circles I do... that of modernist citizens of a profound new renaissance. Guys who would be just about as happy with a decent normal wage, if it still meant they could do all the cool stuff and help exciting dreams come true.

Alas, not all zillionaires are like that. And thereupon, let me commence an allegory.

The lesson of the levee.

==Left and Right-handed approaches ==

Welcome to the world wrought by global warming....

The life of a contrarian is inherently frustrating. Whenever you point out the flaws in a particular dogmatic position, there is a tediously-predictable, reflex reaction that you must be a dogmatist, for the opposite extreme. I’ve run into this over and over, in one realm after another, often regarding causes that I (generally) approve-of -- like feminism, ecology and philanthropy! For example, in propounding the public argument for an open society -- one of reciprocal accountability and a knowing citizenry -- I find that the arguments for transparency are seldom viewed as simply standing up for what we already have - but rather, as “David Brin advocating universal nakedness and an end to privacy.”

Likewise, when it comes to the hoary, centuries-old French curse called the “left-right political axis,” just look at the all-or-nothing choices we are offered. Societies have long had two ways to get things done -- typified by the “Cathedral and the Bazaar.” Organized projects, paid-for by pooled resources and planned through some kind of legal consensus (generally government) illustrate a “left-handed” approach,” while the “right hand” of progress was propelled by free individuals and groups, competing with each other (generally through markets) to do, achieve, create and excel.

Suppose you favor one approach. Must you advocate amputation of the other?

Indeed, let me offer a clip from my ”Questionnaire on Ideology.”

THE LEFT HANDED APPROACH: concerted action by tribal or national units, organized by leaders who gather social resources (e.g. taxes or tithes) and apply them to attain goals in an organized manner.

THE RIGHT-HANDED APPROACH: create loosely regulated markets wherein free individuals compete and/or cooperate, making the best deals they can for their own self interest.

In 10,000 years we’ve seen countless left-handed projects - pyramids, canals, wars and universities...
...and countless market contributions - industry, medicine, slavery, and bookstores.

Radical socialists demonize the right-hand as inherently corrupt/immoral/exploitive, often prescribing its complete amputation.

Radical libertarians/anarchists call the left-hand inherently coercive/immoral/stifling often prescribing its complete amputation.

If you prefer one class of problem-solving methods, would you amputate the other entirely?
Or help try to discover which types of tasks each class is best at, and assign them accordingly?

Does your preferred ‘hand’ solve chronic problems, e.g. create abiding conditions for personal satisfaction & generation of wealth? How well does it deal with acute problems, like crimes, natural disasters or Adolf Hitler?

Which approach focuses on anticipation and which fosters resiliency? Which serves professional problem-solvers? Amateurs?

==Levees are Left-handed==

Can you see why my investment banker friends snif at me as a crypto-leftist, while my big-L liberal friends moan when I quote Adam Smith and call him the “first liberal”? It is easy enough to find faults with either stifling, state-bureaucratic paternalism or rapacious, cheating-infested thievery by conniving cabals of CEO golf buddies. But, in fact, we should have outgrown all of that simplistic nonsense long ago! And we should be - at long last - studying the things that each hand is good at.

And here is one foremost example, that shows just how stupid the dogmatists are.

Levees are the most fundamentally left-handed project of them all.

Only governments build levees on a large scale. Only governments can, or ever will build levees on a grand scale. When private interests feel threatened by floods, they use political pressure and any means possible to get governments to spend money, even taxed from faraway mountain dwellers, in order to save their precious lowland property. And, yes, rich men who despise taxes and big government will do this, as they always have. (See: Listen to Nature and Accept her Adamant Plan.)

And what big projects do you think we have in our future?

When the Greenland and Antarctic ice plateaus melt and the oceans rise? Will the deniers of global climate-change stick to their tune, when their lowland property is threatened by new sea levels?

If we are to be ruled by New Aristocrats... oh please God, don’t let it be these fools. These awful, monstrous fools.

==Just a bit more about climate change==


Consider how it workd, psychologically. Influenced by a million courtroom dramas, the deniers seem to be saying ”You must prove this beyond all reasonable doubt... and I can use any doubt, any doubt at all... to reject all of your evidence.” In other words, it will never be enough. It CAN never be enough.

So. Instead of sumo, try a jiu jitsu move on guys like this. For example:

"Despite there being a 99% consensus on the part of mainstream scientists, demonstrating that climate change is human generated, that it will be titanically costly and dangerous and that it can be at least partly remedied if we act soon... we will nevertheless and willingly admit there is always room for more research. More discussion.

“But that isn't the issue. The issue is - what should a wise civilization be doing right now?

"What reasonable people propose - and the deniers oppose - is simply that our nation and world give high priority to becoming more efficient and to try to foul our nest a little less.

“That is it. The “waste-not” wisdom of an older, truer conservatism. The thing the deniers are opposing is that we put some effort toward having a wealthy and happy civilization, on less oil and waste. Period! That’s it.

“And here’s the crux: even if (unlikely) it turns out that all the scientists and intellectuals and tree-huggers and pointy-headed liberals prove to be wrong -- even if it all turns out to be an exaggerated, chicken-little panic -- what’s the worst that could happen, if we put in a little work and investment and effort to become more efficient?

“The worst that would happen is that... we'll all be more efficient. (Guess who are the ONLY people who don’t want that! Who don’t want us to get free of dependence on forieign oil? Gee, I wonder.)

“On the other hand, if the deniers prove wrong (very likely), then their dogmatic, writhing, series of excuses for delay will prove extremely costly to us all. And they will be among the first demanding vast new government levee projects, to save their precious homes.

“But, oh, here is the one thing that proves how shortsighted and stupid they really are. They can expect civil lawsuits commensurate with their unscrupulous delaying tactics. Don’t think we’re joking! By comparison, the tobacco lawsuits will look like nothing. Exxon stockholders, take note."

-------

Finally, under comments, I’ll post a few links showing the other side of things. The world of transparency in action.

How best to rebuild after a long-awaited disaster... part II

 Last time I wrote: After we care for the people, what is the most practical and beneficial way to help rebuild the great city of New Orleans? ... What should be done with a below-sea-level isthmus of soggy, termite-ridden ground that lies between a Gulf bay called Lake Pontchartrain and a river that’s become its worst enemy? How can we not rebuild a city that was so grand and wonderful and fun...

Of course, first we must care for our fellow citizens. All displaced residents must get generous help from their countrymen, to rebuild lives and livelihoods, enter decent homes, find jobs and so on. Moreover, the cultural gift that was New Orleans should be saved for us all. But how? The discussion continues.

Suggestion #2: Listen to Nature and accept her adamant plan.


In EARTH, I describe how desperately the Mississippi wants to change its course. Every year, it strains harder against the Army Corps of Engineers’ magnificent - but someday doomed - Achafalaya Control Dam. Look at a map and ponder.

Is it possible that NOW may be the right time to let the river go?

There have always been benefits and drawbacks to this idea, with political balance choosing to leave things as they were... spending hundreds of millions to keep forcing Ol’ Miss down its old channel, which continues silting and rising. (Today, the river’s BOTTOM now lies above the second floor of some NoLa buildings. Shall we keep fighting nature till a syrup-sluggish flow passes the THIRD floor? Fourth? Any higher and the river will flow backwards!)

Obstinacy has had huge, expensive and destructive effects - artificially lengthening the official channel, hampering shipping, robbing the barrier islands and swamps of silt, until Louisiana’s delta is almost gone... the old natural hurricane barrier that might have saved the city from Katrina.

Benefits of opening the gates: a new, straight and fast channel to the Gulf - especially if it were prepared and then water scoured - would require little in the way of ongoing dredging or levees. Carried swiftly to the Gulf, silt would spread wide, rebuilding wetlands and islands, recreating the natural storm barriers.

After an adjustment period, river commerce should be more efficient. And the endeavor may partly be paid off by nongovernmental money, attracted to an entirely new rivermouth economic zone. (Providing jobs preferentially for the displaced?)

An added bonus. For the first time we will see before us a proposed mega-engineering project that environmentalists will probably not block. While some may resist out of a reflex to oppose any ambitious alteration of nature, others will see it as restoring a long-lost balance and offer enthusiastic backing. Might this even set a new tone for the years that follow? One of cooperation between those with a keen eye for spotting problems... and those with bold proposals to solve them?

Drawbacks: This plan would require finally buying out a chain of Achafalaya farms - and some villages - that have long known the river would someday come a-calling. Some will kick and scream while others welcome getting the waiting over with, calmly, deliberately. Some may even relish new riverfront views.

But let’s face it, the real opposition to releasing the Imprisoned Mississippi always came from NoLa itself, which took pride and identity from being America’s greatest River City. Only now the Big Easy may be ready, at last, to accept a different role.

Please, I am not offering this suggestion in order to kick New Orleans while it’s down. Indeed, this may be the best and only way to rebuild all of this great town... and more. For example, if the Mississippi moves away, NoLa will remain a GULF city, with Pontchartrain right next door. Its port could stay valuable, though much traffic would be diverted to trans-shipment facilities at the new Achafalaya outlet. In any event, this would cut in half the number of dikes that New New Orleans has to maintain. That savings, alone, might pay for the diversion.

(Actually, it may cut the number by more than 2/3.)

And picture this. Today’s riverbed would then become an amazing raised plateau, winding through town. Envision it supporting a rail corridor, to replace some essential portion of traffic from the transplaced river. Or, better yet, imagine a sinuous path of view-rich housing for many of the displaced, so high that even a future break in the Ponchartrain dikes would never touch them. And the sogginess that rots every beam and timber of New Orleans today? Presumably that would decline, as well.

(Certainly on the west and south sides of the old riverbed, this solution would be permanent. A drier life, free of mildew. Only then the suburbs will be physically linked to Old NoLa... perhaps something they won’t like, given the unneighborly behavior that some displayed during this crisis.)

Indeed, this may be the one way to ensure that even old neighborhoods can be rebuilt, without the nation worrying that it’s all for nothing.

With a year's warning, a new Achafalaya path for the Mississippi could be prepared (the one it wants to take and will take, sooner or later). If done carefully, the new river will be healthier, better for commerce, and the whole region ecologically improved. What’s more, it’s probably much cheaper than any other plan, as well. Heck, the river itself should do most of the work.

The alternative? Spend billions restoring and then maintaining an impossible situation... keep chaining up an adamant river that pushes harder every year against the artificial bonds that enslave it to our shortsighted will... until the Dam eventually gives way anyway, releasing the Father of Waters to come sweeping down upon unprepared farms and villages... leaving NoLa just as high and dry.

Well, it’s a thought. I hope that was at least entertaining. Again here’s my standard warning. Especially for any angry riverfolk.

I am paid to be interesting. I am not paid to be right.

Feel free to weigh in with your own alternatives, now. I’ll be too busy hiding.

===

Finally, a few misc items:

1 - some complain that it’s hard to check my website from Asia. This problem must be solved, since I believe Asia is the future home of optimistic science fiction. But for now, all my host suggests is - “If you know the IP address range that someone is trying to reach us through - something in the subnet Class C level - I'd be happy to unblock specific areas.” So, send me this info and I’ll see what I can do.

2 - check this example of self-organized networking to post what’s needed and where.(http://gracedavis.typepad.com/katrinablog/)

3 - I am still trying to decide which place to send three boxes of Childrens books and a box of EARTH hardcovers. I had them addressed to the Astrodome. But now I hear it’s emptying fast.