Why Do Acorns Cause Traffic Accidents?

I read an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the steep decline in acorns in the Northeast, and how this has is likely to produce more traffic accidents.  Most of us have heard or seen a version of the well-known science fiction story about a a travel agency of the future organizes tours to the past.  The agency has carefully picked its eras and epochs and has taken special precautions to assure that nothing of the past is touched so not to disturb the future.  It has built special observation walks on which the time tourists can travel, and monitors placed every few feet to be sure that no one gets off.

On one trip to the remote past, a spooked tourist swats a butterfly which flutters, lands on the walk, and dies.  When the tourists return home, back to their own time, they chat excitedly, anxious to tell their families and friends about their experience.  Only after a few minutes do they notice that the signs everywhere are in an English which they recognize and can understand, but the spelling is very different.  The death of the butterfly had, over the millions of ensuing years, had caused tiny, almost insignificant changes, as minor as changing the position of vowels and consonants in language.

I thought of this story as I read the Times article which begins with a description of the phenomenon of the lost acorns:

It is a phenomenon happening not only in New York but also throughout the Northeast. While last fall set a recorded high for acorn production, at roughly 250 pounds per tree, this year is seeing a recorded low, with a typical tree shedding less than half a pound of its seeds, said Mark Ashton, a forest ecologist at Yale University. On average, oaks produce about 25 to 30 pounds of acorns a year.

“Scarlet oak, black oak, true red oak,” Dr. Ashton said. “These are the ones that dominate our forest, and these are the ones that aren’t producing acorns this year.”

Coming on the heels of an acorn glut, the dearth this year will probably have a cascade of effects on the forest ecosystem, culling the populations of squirrels, field mice and ground-nesting birds. And because the now-overgrown field mouse population will crash, legions of ticks — some infected with Lyme disease — will be aggressively pursuing new hosts, like humans.

“We expect 2012 to be the worst year for Lyme disease risk ever,” said Richard S. Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. “We are already planning educational materials.”

It will probably turn into a big year for animals’ being killed on highways as well. Deer, in search of alternative sources of food, will leave the cover of the oak trees and wander out closer to roads.

“I would expect that traffic collisions are going to be higher in a year like this year,” Dr. Ostfeld said.

Adherents to the theory of Gaia – the earth is mystically interconnected, one large, complete organism where the smallest change in one part is compensated by an equal change in another – apply the same thinking as that expressed in the science fiction story, an idea fantasized for fiction, but based on science fact (imagine giant meteors crashing into earth and causing pre-nuclear winters and minimize the idea to include small ecological changes, wiping out species and/or encouraging others):

The Gaia hypothesis is the idea that the Earth's systems are biologically interconnected to develop an ecological equilibrium. Because of the teleological nature of the theory and the tendency of some of its proponents to dress their beliefs up in scientific jargon, it is typically classified as a failed hypothesis at best, pseudoscience at worst.

It is known to its adherents as the "Gaia Theory" or even "Gaian Science". They assert that the physical components and systems of the Earth itself are linked together in a system that allows the Earth to maintain a "preferred" homeostasis. Originally proposed by Dr. James Lovelock, it was given the name of Gaia after the Greek word for "Earth." Believers in this hypothesis are, therefore, called "Gaianists."

Lovelock asserted that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. He claims that, because of this complex system, the Earth reacts to change in a manner similar to a living organism.(RationalWiki)

RationalWiki had the word ‘hippies’ in the text of the above, but then Track Changed out.  The sentence read at the beginning of the second paragraph “It is known to hippies as the ‘Gaia Theory’…..”, classifying it with crystal energy and magnetism, but the idea has staying power.  The recent movie Avatar has a Gaia-based hippie philosophy at its heart.  All living things are connected to each other in a network of billions and billions of synapses. 

The reason why such stories and fringe philosophies are so popular is because we realize that everything is interconnected.  There are consequences, although unforeseen, of climate change, disease control, porous borders, international financial markets….a limitless number of categorical events which could provoke changes in human ecology (I use the term to include social, economic, cultural status). 

Buddhist teaching says, ‘There is no change but change”:

No state once gone ever recurs nor is identical with what goes before. But we worldlings, veiled by the web of illusion, mistake this apparent continuity to be something eternal and go to the extent of introducing an unchanging soul, an atta, the supposed doer and receptacle of all actions to this ever-changing consciousness.

"The so-called being is like a flash of lightning that is resolved into a succession of sparks that follow upon one another with such rapidity that the human retina cannot perceive them separately, nor can the uninstructed conceive of such succession of separate sparks."[13] As the wheel of a cart rests on the ground at one point, so does the being live only for one thought-moment. It is always in the present, and is ever slipping into the irrevocable past. What we shall become is determined by this present thought-moment. (www.buddhanet.net article by Narada Thera)

For this reason I am not an activist, nor am I an environmentalist.  I believe that the world is always changing, that each change will produce other changes, the outcome of which is unpredictable and becomes more so the longer the time horizon. 

My son went to an excellent high school but which was plagued by Political Correctness, an unfortunate pall cast over intellectual investigation.  He was in a science class whose students concluded wrongly, he felt, that the decline of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay was an ecological disaster and should be countered by any means possible.  He argued as I have, that all things evolve and change; but added the important philosophical element – Man is an integral part of that change.  In other words, Man may have overharvested oysters, but his intervention was equal to – no more, no less – than the viruses and bacteria which following their own individual life cycles, influenced by a myriad of micro-forces and evolutionary stresses, killed them.  He was jeered and dunned, but held his ground. 

This is why I love Shakespeare’s Histories, for they represent Man’s perpetual cycles – a self-propelled historical evolution with no meaning, no bad or good, an ever-changing saga moving around a single fulcrum – human nature.  There is no change but change in history as well as everything else.

Reforming Higher Education

The Washington Post published an editorial today (12/2/11), praising Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s attempt to contain the cost of higher education(http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/some-welcome-steps-toward-reducing-the-cost-of-college/2011/12/01/gIQAb2UNIO_story.html).  While I agree that costs are out of control, it isn’t enough to reduce spending, but to focus what resources are available on a more focused curriculum – one which is geared to graduating economically productive and democratically savvy students; and one which produces verifiable results to measure these objectives.

The Duncan proposals are a step in the right direction, for far too many students are deep in debt; but the editorial does not state that not only are students in debt, but the cost-benefit ratio of their investment is very low.  That is, many students graduate without the requisite skills to make their way in today’s economy; and few enter the world with an understanding of history, economics, finance, and government which will enable them to be competent and responsible voters.  

The Post editorial states:

THE PRICE OF a college education keeps spiraling upward. Tuition is up 8.3 percent for in-state students at four-year public universities for the 2011-12 academic year, according to the College Board. Lest you think state budget cuts are solely to blame, tuition at four-year private colleges rose 4.5 percent at the same time. Both figures far outstrip the rate of inflation.

The time has come for a vigorous attack on the cost side of this equation — as Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged in an important speech Tuesday. “I believe that postsecondary institutions and states also have yet to fully tackle the cost-containment challenge in a comprehensive and sustainable fashion,” the secretary said, noting that much higher-education spending is connected only remotely to the core mission of educating students. “Too many universities today actually have a perverse incentive to invest in expensive non-academic perks to drive rankings and attract students, like building gilded athletic centers and residential dorms.” [my italics]

This is a good start, and should contribute to lower operating costs and lower tuitions. However, as I have suggested above, the curriculum needs to be reformed so that the cost of tuition be directly related to the verifiable benefits of it.  A university without the frills will simply be a lower-cost university, not a better one.  In today’s competitive world a better one should be one which provides the skills necessary to thrive after college. 

I have written previously about the need to reconfigure higher education so that public universities, with taxpayer money, serve the nation’s interest as well as the students; and be at the vanguard of this new technical and civic education.  Private universities should continue to offer a wider range of subjects not available in the public sector; and public vocational education should be expanded in partnership with industry.

The Post editorial goes on:

To this welcome dose of straight talk, Mr. Duncan added a call for more innovative use of technology when teaching large courses, accelerating the four-year degree schedule and awarding degrees based on demonstrated knowledge as opposed to accumulated course credits.

Again, I am all for these innovations; but they are not the structural reforms that are required to reorient higher education – as suggested above, focus public education on technical, economic, and civic education; and increase public investment in vocational education.

The editorial goes on:

[Duncan] suggested ways in which the federal government can encourage the adoption of such reforms: steering federal loan dollars to schools based on the graduation rates of low-income aid recipients, or offering grants that reward states and institutions for systematic reforms that increase graduation rates.

Another good idea – steering federal loan dollars – but it doesn’t go far enough.  Increasing graduation rates and universities which do not have the curricula to enable their graduates to perform will, does nothing but inject more ill-prepared students into the workplace where they will still have difficulties getting employment.  Federal dollars, if needed at all, should be spent on supporting those institutions which graduate qualified students.  Accreditation and eligibility for loans should be based on institutional performance.

In short, I am pleased to see that at least small steps are being taken to reform and improve higher education

The End of Violence - Wishful Thinking And Pie In The Sky Idealism

Steven Pinker of Harvard has published a book on violence and why it has declined (The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined) He contends that violence has decreased over the centuries largely because the world has become more civilized (laws, institutions, governance, civil rights).  Nations, regions, and communities become less violent as they increasingly subscribe to these pacifying principles. He cites statistics that show that the Southern states of the United States are much more violent than their New England cousins because individuals and communities are still more tribal (i.e. more prone to extra-societal and violent means to settle scores).  Once these outlying groups become more civilized, violence will decrease.

Most reviewers of Pinker's book agree with the conclusion that violence has declined if the period of history studied is long enough. Pinker has started his historical analysis back in the bloody 8th Century; and those depredations and the mass slaughters of that century at the later marauding of the Mongol Genghis Khan and his cohorts make today’s regional conflicts look petty. 

Most reviewers, however, are puzzled by Pinker’s conclusion that the 20th Century horrors (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot) were aberrations. Writing in the Guardian, David Runciman writes:

Pinker argues that the violence of the 20th century is best understood as a series of random spasms rather than part of a trend. The two world wars were essentially freak events, driven by contingency and in some cases lunacy: a bit like the killings on Utøya [recent killings in Norway] magnified a millionfold. They do not reflect the default condition of mankind.

The evidence for this is the third part of Pinker's case: look at what has happened since 1945, as the world has become immeasurably more peaceful on almost every count. Of course, there have been horrors (Mao, Pol Pot) but no one can doubt that the arrow has been pointing away from the violence of the first half of the 20th century, not back towards more of it.

Other reviewers have noted Pinker’s conclusion that the deaths in World War II, when calculated on the basis of population, were really not that bad – the slaughter of the Mongol hordes, for example, were far worse, and WW II ranks only ninth on the list.  There is a new type of history, dubbed ‘atrocitology’,reported on recently in the New York Times which gives exhaustive lists of wars, genocides, and mass slaughters.

The Economist reviewer says that there is nothing new in Pinker’s conclusion about the decline of , and cites Kant who wrote in the 18th Century:

But what is the lesson of this generally benign assessment? Immanuel Kant’s famous “triangle” of factors—open economies, democracy and engagement with the outside world—are still the prerequisites for reliable peace. Professor Pinker (unfashionably) praises United Nations peacekeeping. It makes it harder for the bellicose to start wars and helps nip some resurgent conflicts in the bud before they can spark off yet more carnage. Aspiring to bourgeois prosperity and free trade is also important; people are less inclined to kill those with whom they can do business.

Not mentioned in the reviews is the Pax Romana in the 1st and 2nd Centuries A.D. which lasted 100 years during which there were no major wars.  This was largely because of the establishment of a disciplined colonial law – or, a progressive civil and state society imposed by the conqueror.
In short, no one doubts that Kant’s principles still hold; and if one takes a long enough view of history, and uses certain indicators (like population-based data), violence has declined. 

However, there are a number of things to consider when assessing these conclusions:

1. Human nature has not changed.  As Shakespeare has written perhaps more eloquently than anyone else, human history has predictable cycles, all of which are kept in motion because of a persistent and irrepressible desire for power, territory, resources, and status; and this desire has always been effected through aggression – not always through violence (political and economic manipulation have been good blood-surrogates).  As much as Pinker can describe brain plasticity – the so-called ability of the human brain to adapt to positive social developments – even the casual observer can see this aggressiveness and self-promoting behavior from children to families to interest groups to politicians to nations.  

2. Even small conflicts can have global consequences.  An Israeli-Iranian war or worse, an American-Iranian war, for example, would destabilize the entire world.  The number of casualties might be low on the atrocity scale, but the increase in the potential number of consequent conflicts would be significant.

3. There has been no decline in small-scale conflicts.  Within the past 20 years the United States alone has engaged in two wars with Iraq and one with Afghanistan (Taliban).  The potential for escalation and future violence caused by these conflicts is significant.  The war in Afghanistan might well lead to a failed state of Pakistan, a nuclear power.

4. There has been a proliferation of nuclear states. The potential for small-scale conflicts to escalate into serious slaughter is significant. 

5. Ethnic and religious conflict is proliferating.  While it is true that the likelihood of major world conflict – i.e. a US-China war – is for the time being remote, the world is becoming a more fractured and unstable place. There may be fewer genocides on the scale of Rwanda (again, not given too much visibility because of Pinker’s 20th Century ‘anomaly’ theory), but ethnic and religious rivalries will only increase and create incremental violence. 

 4. A world financial meltdown is likely to generate violence.  While the rise in state and civil institutions has contributed to the decline of violence, it has also created an unstable world.  If there were to be a global financial meltdown, it would be hard to predict the outcome.  Given my first premise – that human nature is aggressive and acquisitive, and that that tendency is only augmented in times of scarcity; and given the assumption that state and civil society would likely be destroyed if the very economic and financial system that underpins it were to itself be destroyed, the potential for violence if anything has increased.  

5. An Economic Depression and an erosion or destruction of civil institutions would provoke a return to ‘tribalism’.  In an unstable world where trust in institutions declines, a return to extra-societal and extra-judicial measures of self preservation are a likely outcome.

6. A population-based analysis of violence is incomplete. The number of deaths in a conflict has nothing to do with the impact or implications of violence.  Eight-hundred thousand Rwandans died in the genocide, but it was contained between Hutus and Tutsis; and the spillover was only to neighboring Burundi.  Smaller conflicts resulting in fewer deaths – such as Middle Eastern religious and tribal wars – can have a much greater impact on the region and the world, drawing in larger powers and escalating the threat of increased violence.

In short, there appears to be no convincing evidence that violence – or the proclivity for it – has decreased.  In fact, the 21st Century seems a far more dangerous and potentially violent place than the one that preceded it, one of the most violent in history.  Using body counts to make a point on violence reminds me of Vietnam – they were of no use whatsoever in assessing the outcome of the war.  The reasons for war and violence could not be quantified, nor could the will and determination of the North Vietnamese or the lack of it on the part of the Americans.

Pinker’s vision of coming world peace is fancy.  Opinion is divided – very divided – on views of human nature and history, and there are many who still put great faith in the civilizing nature of Man, his ultimate goodness, and his ability – through the State – to accomplish civilized ends.  There are just as many others who believe that we are still (until truly radical changes in our DNA are made) like Shakespeare’s kings – aggressive, acquisitive, self-interested, and capable of anything to achieve our ends.  Society and its institutions have provided us with an architecture within which we are reasonably and temporarily safe; but that architecture is only as strong as those human beings who built it.

Violence is here to stay.