A toxic purple haze of diesel exhaust hangs over the rice and jute fields here in northeastern India, and bird songs are frequently drowned out by the chug-a-chug-a-chug of diesel generators. — Across the developing world, cheap diesel generators from China have become a favorite way to provide electricity. — They power everything from irrigation pumps to television sets, allowing growing numbers of rural villages in many poor countries to grow more crops and connect to the wider world. — But as the demand increases for the electricity that makes those advances possible, it is often being met through the dirtiest, most inefficient means, creating pollution in many remote areas that used to have pristine air and negligible emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases...

Another popular approach being tried in India and elsewhere -- using solar energy to recharge lanterns by day -- has run into difficulty even as diesel prices would seem to make it more competitive. — The problem is that prices for photovoltaic panels for solar energy have surged as governments in industrialized countries, especially Germany, have encouraged greater use of renewable energy, said Hemant Lamba, the coordinator of Aurore, a renewable energy service company in Auroville, India. — "It's harder to do any solar energy projects in India," he said. ...   more »

Selvi Alagappan rises early each day to tend to her small patch of crossandra and jasmine flowers in the rural Indian village of Mangalam, in the Union of Pondicherry. These and the mushrooms she cultivates in a nearby shack bring in a monthly income that, while still below the poverty line, keeps her large family from going hungry. — Two years ago, however, starvation was very much a reality for Selvi and her family. But like many other participants of the Biovillage Project, a collaborative development programme described by its authors as "pro-nature, pro-women, pro-poor", Selvi was given the tools and technical assistance to increase her household income and get her back on her feet again.

The project is run by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, a local non-governmental organization in Chennai, with funding and technical assistance from the Government of India and international agencies including FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The project began in 1992 with 42 participants in three villages. It now operates in 19 villages with a team of 24 project specialists. ...   more »

The United Nations (UN) has been recommended to set up a Statutory Body comprising G8 and G20 nations to provide political oversight to the global and national efforts to achieve the goal of a hunger-free world by 2015. — The recommendation was made in the Chennai Declaration that was adopted yesterday on the concluding day of the three-day international workshop on "Food Security: A Great Threat to Human Security" held at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSRRF) in Chennai in India.

"The goal should be eradication of hunger by 2015, and not halving the proportion or the number of the hungry in relation to any chosen base year," the declaration recommended. — It said all the member states of the UN should make the right to a balance diet, clean drinking water, environmental sanitation, primary health care and primary education a basic human right...

The programme will be completed today (Thursday) through visiting Biovillage and Auroville, a MSSRF project in Pondicherry. ...   more »

I started reading this interview with more than a little skepticism. ("Oh, this must be one of Bush's Christian fundamentalist appointees.") But as I read through it, I became increasingly impressed with the balanced perspective held by Dr. Collins. I'm posting it here because I think it provides an encouraging example of a possible rapprochement between scientists and people of faith.

The media often portray the religious right in the United States as antiscience. Is that a fair characterization?
I don't think it's fair to blame believers for getting defensive about attacks on the Bible when they see their whole belief system is under attack from some members of the scientific community who are using the platform of science to say, "We don't need God anymore, that was all superstition, and you guys should get over it." Believers then feel some requirement to respond, and this has led to an unfortunate escalation of charges and countercharges...

So what would you say to the scientists who are fervently opposed to religious thought and practice?
Is there any dogma more unsupported by the facts than from the scientist who stands up and says, "I know there is no God"? Science is woefully unsuited to ask the question of God in the first place. So give the religious folks a break. They are seeking the kind of spiritual truths that have always interested humankind but that science cannot really address. ...    more »

This is one of the best summaries of the science of climate change and global warming forecasting I've seen. It's by Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT, who was recognized in 2006 by Time magazine as "one of the world’s 100 most influential people." Highly recommended.

...The evolution of the scientific debate about anthropogenic climate change illustrates both the value of skepticism and the pitfalls of partisanship... general awareness of the issue dates to a National Academy of Sciences report in 1979 that warned that doubling CO2 content might lead to a three-to-eight-degree increase in global average temperature. Then, in 1988, James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, set off a firestorm of controversy by testifying before Congress that he was virtually certain that a global-warming signal had emerged from the background climate variability... Most scientists were deeply skeptical of Hansen’s claims; I certainly was...

At roughly this time, radical environmental groups and a handful of scientists influenced by them leapt into the fray with rather obvious ulterior motives. This jump-started the politicization of the issue, and conservative groups, financed by auto makers and big oil, responded with counterattacks... A very small number of climate scientists adopted dogmatic positions and in so doing lost credibility among the vast majority who remained committed to an unbiased search for answers... On the right, the search began for negative feedbacks that would counter increasing greenhouse gases: imaginative ideas emerged, but they have largely failed the acid test of comparison to observations. But as the dogmatists grew increasingly alienated from the scientific mainstream, they were embraced by political groups and journalists, who thrust them into the limelight. This produced a gross distortion in the public perception of the scientific debate. Ever eager for the drama of competing dogmas, the media largely ignored mainstream scientists whose hesitations did not make good copy. As the global-warming signal continues to emerge, this soap opera is kept alive by a dwindling number of deniers constantly tapped for interviews by journalists who pretend to look for balance...    more »

...If, in fact, full-blown nanotechnology erupts into our lives in 20 years, instead of 50, the results are likely to be as disruptive as the first century of the Industrial Revolution, but compressed into a much shorter time period. And, given that it might, it is the duty of those of us who would prefer an unimaginable future to an unthinkable one to take seriously the responsibility of handling nanotechnology carefully.

But it's also important to remember that we have a huge advantage that our ancestors lacked as they struggled with the first Industrial Revolution: we have a history of technology, and we understand that what technologies are adopted and how they are used is a matter of societal choice. We have the power to imagine, to anticipate and ultimately to steer the development of nanotechnology. ...   more »

...Genuine climate mayhem is underway. It is intensifying fast. People are going to die: of heat, of disease, freezing, starving, drowning and dying of thirst. Not in mere tens of thousands as they did in the Paris heatwave, but in hecatombs. We have a global climate crisis. A real one, not a futurist speculation. People are going to make agonizing sacrifices in increasingly frantic efforts to ameliorate that and redress that crisis. Then, next year, they will discover that the situation is vastly worse than then imagined, and the spillage of blood and treasure and sacred honor that they thought would surely help is a fraction of what was necessary.

The climate crisis is in its Neville Chamberlain phase right now. People still imagine that a concern with the climate is trendy, and that a judicious head-nod here will mean peace in our time. Those people are not merely mistaken, they are delusionary. They are nodding in disdain at the basic laws of physics. The human race has spent two industrious centuries unearthing the planetary dead and setting them aflame in the sky. There is hell to pay for an affront like that, and it's all ahead of us in this century. We are in in 2007 and we are about seven percent of the way into very, very deep and very, very hot water.

Nevertheless, the frog will jump from that hot water. We are winning. ...   more »

...For those unfamiliar with the book, Barnes argues that there is private wealth and then there is common wealth—in the form of nature, structures supported by the community and society (such as parks, streets, capital markets, the internet), and cultural and intellectual wealth (the wealth of ideas). Private wealth, he argues, is produced partly by appropriating common wealth, and private profit often externalizes costs into the commons. And he proposes a solution. ...   more »

Book I Canto I 14 Immobile in herself she gathered force.mp3

MP3 File

Ceres (pronounced "series") is a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.

Mission: Integrating sustainability into capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.

About Us: At its founding 17 years ago, Ceres introduced a bold new vision to the business world. That vision is of a world in which business and capital markets promote the well being of human society and the protection of the earth's biological systems and resources. Ceres advances its vision by bringing investors, environmental groups and other stakeholders together to compel companies and capital markets to incorporate environmental and social challenges into their day-to-day decision-making. By leveraging the collective power of investors and other key stakeholders, Ceres has achieved dramatic results, among those: ...    more »

I’m a bit of an odd duck here, a public interest activist among the world’s most powerful business and political leaders. These are the people with the power to effect the critical changes needed to address climate change, the people whose hearts and minds I try to win over every day at Ceres. And now they’re all here in one place.

Immediately upon arriving at the World Economic Forum I find reason for optimism – climate change dominates the formal agenda and the hallway conversations. Did I make a wrong turn somewhere and walk into an international environmental conference?

At the first plenary session, the assembled masses, mostly captains of industry, are asked if they favor mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions and 71% are in favor. Am I dreaming? This could be a tipping point because one year ago this would have been unthinkable. ...   more »

Fascinating musings by Garry Jacobs of the Mother's Service Society, on possible relationships between the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and modern theories in physics as presented by Michio Kaku in his book Hyperspace.

1. The Special Theory of Relativity views time as a dimension. It finds that space and time are interchangeable. They can rotate into each other in a mathematically precise way. Reality is space-time.

Is there any sense in which Sri Aurobindo would view space and time as a single reality?

· According to him, all reality resides in and issues from the Absolute. By a process of Self-conception, the Absolute manifests Being/Existence (Sat) and all that issues from it. The principle of time emerges when Being extends itself subjectively to become Consciousness-Force (Chit). The principle of space emerges when Being extends itself objectively to become an object to its own Self-Conscious experience. Space and time are different expressions of the same reality. ...   more »

Here are the latest emails from my friend Mark Turcotte, reporting on his travels in Southeast Asia:

Chong Fa Falls, Thailand
Along the path to Chong Fa Falls there are many so-called "sensitive" plants. (You see them for sale sometimes in stores.) One touch causes them to fold up their leaves; another causes them to droop their whole branch. ...   more »

The philosophy of the Institute is that emerging technologies that link the world together are not ethically neutral, but often have long-term implications for viability of natural systems, human rights and our common future.

Trees for Airmiles: Our 2007 Target: 20,000 trees in highly climate-affecting regions. — One tree removes 55 pounds of carbon each year, equal to 1100 miles of car travel or 5500 miles in a commercial airliner (assuming 2 passengers out of 200 on the flight). ...   more »

Provocative responses by scientists to question: "What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?" — from Guardian Unlimited via RYD.

Martin Rees Astronomer Royal and professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge

"I'd like to widen people's awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead — for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4bn years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, 6bn years from now. Any creatures that exist then will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.

"Our concern with Earth's future is, understandably, focused upon the next 100 years at most — the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. But awareness of this longer time horizon, and the immense potential that human actions this century could foreclose, offers an extra motive for proper stewardship of this planet. ..."   more »

I've been thinking lately about two seemingly unrelated questions that have a hidden and, I suspect, significant connection:

1. Why do you have a neck?
2. Why hasn't videoconferencing ever caught on? ...

It might sound strange at first to design a communication device that bobs around just as our heads do when we talk and listen. But when nature settles on the same solution to a difficult problem more than once, as it did with vertebrates and cephalopods, it is worth paying attention. ...    more »

ON the vanguard of venture capital, the buzzwords of late have been “alternative energy” and “China.” Are the two worlds about to collide?

Seed investors are financing, or considering financing, start-ups in China that are developing equipment for wind and solar power, clean water and food alternatives and technology to promote energy efficiency.

While this may seem to be an arbitrary combination of two of the hottest trends in venture capital — sort of like the first person who mixed peanut butter and chocolate — there is a growing number of investors who believe that the potential reward in China is worth the tremendous risk. ...   more »

The New Dimensions Foundation is a social profit, public benefit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) educational, organization supported by listeners. Our primary activity is the independent production of broadcast dialogues and other quality programs that explore creative solutions to urgent challenges facing humankind.

The purpose of New Dimensions Radio is to deliver life-affirming, socially and spiritually relevant information, practical knowledge and perennial wisdom through the voices and visions of those who are asking new questions and are looking at the world in positive and inspiring ways. It is through the exchange of ideas and information that we can be empowered and enabled to meet the future with greater energy and clarity...

Our programming presents a diversity of views from many traditions and cultures, and strives to provide listeners with an experience of what it means to be human on the planet in these times. — New Dimensions fosters the process of living a more healthy life of mind,body and spirit while deepening our connections to self, family,community, planet and the natural world. ...   more »

Thanks to Kim for finding this insightful paper from Ulrich!

This paper is intended to introduce a Gebser-oriented audience to the life and work of Sri Aurobindo. The following statement by Jean Gebser explains why anyone interested in him should be equally interested in Sri Aurobindo.

"Be it noted that my concept of the formation of a new consciousness, of which I became aware by a flash-like intuition in the winter of 1932/33, and which I began to put forward in 1939, largely resembles the world-scheme of Sri Aurobindo, who was then unknown to me. My own, however, differs from Sri Aurobindo's in that it appeals to the Western world only and does not have the profundity and the pregnant origin of his ingeniously presented conception. I see an explanation for this phenomenon in the fact that I was in some way brought into the extremely powerful spiritual field of force radiating through Sri Aurobindo."...   more »

Thanks to RY Deshpande for referring this new article from the Guardian, via The Hindu.

CARBON DIOXIDE is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought. — New figures from dozens of measuring stations across the world reveal that concentrations of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, rose at record levels during 2006 — the fourth year in the last five to show a sharp increase.

At its most far-reaching, the finding could indicate that global temperatures are making forests, soils, and oceans less able to absorb CO2 — a shift that would make it harder to tackle global warming. ...    more »

This animation presents the ideas from chapter one of a new book called "Imagining the Tenth Dimension". While this "way of imagining" is not the accepted explanation for string theory, it does have thought-provoking connections to many people's impression of how our reality is constructed. For further info and the discussion forum, visit www.tenthdimension.com . ...    more »

Thanks to our friend Katherine Grace McGlothlin for these inspiring quotes honoring Dr. King, on his birthday, Jan. 16:

“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weakness of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.” ...   more »

GOOGLE and some of the world’s top publishers are working on plans that they hope could do for books what Apple’s iPod has done for music.

The internet search giant is working on a system that would allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry. — With 380m people using Google each month, the move would give a significant boost to the development of e-books and have a big impact on the publishing industry and book retailers. ...   more »

Book I Canto I 13 At the summons of her body's voiceless call.mp3

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Another interesting article from 'The Hindu,' courtesy of RY Deshpande.

Robert Angus Smith, a Scottish chemist coined the term "acid rain" as far back as 1870 to describe the quality of the rain which was affected by sulphur dioxide (SO2) released from coal burnt in factories. Yet it has taken more than a century for countries to grapple with the effects of gaseous emissions. After years of denial by the Thatcher Government in the U.K. and the Reagan administration in the U.S., both these countries as well as most countries of Europe (including the East Block) and Canada made a concerted effort by 1993 to roll back SO2 emissions by as much as 30 per cent compared to the 1980 baseline. Their record on oxides of nitrogen (NOx) is not so dramatic, since vehicles, which are a major source of NOx, are constantly increasing. Western Europe and U.S. have stabilised NOx emissions, while Russia and Eastern Europe have been less successful. ...   more »

Thanks to RY Deshpande for referring this article.

The thrilling discovery of 52 species of animals and plants from the equatorial island of Borneo in just one year is proof that the task of cataloguing all life on earth deserves the highest priority. A treasure trove of species, which includes a miniature fish that lives in highly acidic peat swamps, six Siamese fighting fish, a tree frog with bright green eyes, and 16 new ginger plants, has been found in a mountainous area described as the "heart of Borneo." Indexing biodiversity is a discipline with a deadline. Continuing deforestation, habitat loss, the spread of invasive species, and the annexation of resource-rich areas to feed mass consumption leave insufficient time to classify everything. ...    more »

...Being hyped as both an Object d’ Art for your home (it folds in half at the press of a button) and zippy commuter (uses an electric ‘smart power’ motor, based on something called the Passol motor unit). Free of petrol and oil apparently. Die-cast aluminium provides the curves and a Lithium-ion battery feeds the “permanent magnet synchronous motor“. ...    more »

Imagine a cluster of these hanging at Auroville! ...

Uses for these durable Spheres are limited only by ones imagination. Healing, meditation, photography, canopy research, leisure and game watching are just some of the things you could do.

Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown or from any other solid objects like buildings or rock faces. A web of rope is connected to any strong points available. This replaces the foundation of a conventional building. A suspended tree house uses the forest for its foundation. The occupants have a vested interest in the health of the grove. The supporting web also mirrors our connectedness to our surroundings. Each sphere has four attachments on top and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each attachment is strong enough to carry the entire sphere and contents. ...    more »

The following is a shortened version by Ulrich of a long 4-part article originally written by Christopher Holvenstot and posted on Philica. It introduces a new way of thinking about our occurring world. ~ ron

...With even the slightest and flimsiest of footholds in this next new realm one can turn back to view the familiar biospecific realm entire. One can’t help but admire the queer and abstract nature of our provincial, biospecific reality. It is a unique and bizarre creation entirely determined by conscious processes and the imperatives of a biological format. Its logic, despite all, holds together with such tenacity and vigor. We will forever be physically, emotionally and psychologically tethered to the biospecific realm. However, viewing its logic and construction from the remote exterior perspective of the extracontextual allows us to use the same conceptual technology and methodology to construct additional extracontextual realms…

We have, throughout our biological evolution, been unwitting co-creators of our world and experience. This co-creation can now be done with a newly realized conscious intention, utilizing a potentially unlimited supply of creative approaches in the exploration, interpretation and re-creation of our condition. ...    more »

A twenty-five centuries old paradigm has passed its expiry date. It is no longer appropriate to ask: what are the ultimate building blocks and how do they interact and combine? The right questions proceed from the assumption that what ultimately exists is a single, intrinsically ineffable Being. How does this manifest itself? How does it come to constitute an apparent multitude of objects? After treating you to the answers from contemporary physics, I turn to the deeper answers from Indian philosophy in general and Sri Aurobindo in particular. That intrinsically ineffable Being relates to its manifestation in a threefold manner: it is the substance that constitutes, the consciousness that contains, and an infinite Quality-Delight that expresses and experiences itself. By a multiple exclusive concentration it assumes, first, the aspect of a multitude of separate selves and, last, the aspect of a multitude of formless particles — the latter in order to set the stage for the Adventure of Evolution. I conclude by explaining why the laws of physics are essentially tautological: if you want to set the stage for evolution via a process that results in a multitude of formless particles, then these laws must have exactly the form that they do. ...

Mohrhoff, U. (2007). The Physics of Sachchidananda. PHILICA.COM Article number 73.   more »

World peace was not supposed to look like this. It was supposed to be more - well, more peaceful. But a remarkable global phenomenon is being obscured by headlines about bombs and conflict in the Middle East. The ancient scourge of war has disappeared, at least in the sense of one government's army doing battle with another. — Last week marked 1,000 consecutive days with no wars between nations anywhere in the world, since the night in November 2003 when India and Pakistan instituted a cease-fire. This is the longest episode of interstate peace in more than half a century.

Other sorts of conflicts still rage around the world, but these are not wars of government against government. In this summer's bloodletting in Israel and Lebanon, for example, the Lebanese government took no military action to defend its territory, even as some of its bases came under fire. In Iraq, no government in the world has sent troops to support the insurgency. The interstate phase of the war for Iraq ended more than three years ago, when the United States and its allies removed Saddam Hussein's government. Despite the brutality in Darfur and elsewhere, even civil wars have become rarer. After rising steadily for half a century, the number of civil conflicts dropped by a third or more in the late 1990s. The world is far more peaceful than a dozen years ago, when slaughters in Rwanda and the Balkans led to gloomy predictions of rampant civil war. ...   more »

Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it...

"As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change, scientists have a special responsibility, once again, to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces," Professor Hawking said. "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. ...    more »

SCIY today announced three significant new features:

1) All Articles
2) IY-related Books
3) See Full Text of Recent Comments   more »

Hewlett-Packard Co. researchers may have figured out a way to prolong Moore's Law by making chips more powerful and less power-hungry. HP Labs today said it created a method of using a "crossbar switch" that more efficiently routes signals inside a common kind of chip called a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The technology could lead to the creation of chips packed with far more transistors on board, leading to faster computing times. HP calls its new technology field programmable nanowire interconnect (FPNI). The lab hopes to make an actual prototype chip using the technology within a year, and HP believes it could produce chips that contain a 15-nanometer crossbar by 2010. ...   more »

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which 60 years ago began keeping tabs on humanity’s temporal distance from self-annihilation with the concept of a “Doomsday Clock,” apparently found things sufficiently dire to nudge the minute hand forward two clicks, indicating that we are now “five minutes to midnight” — or Doomsday.

The clock had last been adjusted in 2002, when it was moved from 9 minutes off to 7 minutes. The current position is the closest the group has put the planet to Doomsday since 1953, when the Soviets and the United States were first playing with their newfangled thermonuclear weaponry, and things looked mighty bleak indeed. ...    more »

You're standing on a planet that's evolving ...

Atkin's Architecture Group recently won the first prize award for an international design competition with this stunning entry. Set in a spectacular water filled quarry in Songjiang, China, the 400 bed resort hotel is uniquely constructed within the natural elements of the quarry. Underwater public areas and guest rooms add to the uniqueness, but the resort also boasts cafes, restaurants and sporting facilities.

The lowest level runs with the aquatic theme by housing a luxurious swimming pool and an extreme sports center for activities such as rock climbing and bungee jumping which will be cantilevered over the quarry and accessed by special lifts from the water. With a stunning visual presentation as shown here, it's no wonder this project took home the first prize. This is a fine example of an ultra modern facility co-existing amongst its natural environment. ...   more »

Universal Design is a framework for the design of places, things, information, communication and policy to be usable by the widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations without special or separate design. Most simply, Universal Design is human-centered design of everything with everyone in mind.

Universal Design is also called Inclusive Design, Design-for-All and Lifespan Design. It is not a design style but an orientation to any design process that starts with a responsibility to the experience of the user. It has a parallel in the green design movement that also offers a framework for design problem solving based on the core value of environmental responsibility. Universal Design and green design are comfortably two sides of the same coin but at different evolutionary stages. Green design focuses on environmental sustainability, Universal Design on social sustainability. ...   more »

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 2,635,859 people from around the globe.

From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business. — You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents. ...   more »

This is a followup on an earlier SCIY article about Jaron Lanier's work.

Was I serious when I suggested that people might someday become more like cephalopods (see Jaron's World, April 2006)? At the time I was thinking about the way some cephalopods, such as the mimic octopus, can appear to morph into different objects. I wondered whether people using computers could someday pull off the same trick (within virtual reality, presumably) and how that ability might expand the range of human expression. My guess is that being able to turn into whatever comes into your mind—or, more profoundly, to simulate a concept or way of being instead of just talking about it—will lead to a new kind of expression, which I call postsymbolic communication.

This may sound wildly speculative, but yes, I really was serious. In fact, I believe we are seeing early signs of the cephalopodization of our species right now. One arena in which the transformation is beginning is in massive online virtual worlds. Second Life is probably the best example. I serve as a technical advisor to Linden Lab, the company that administers Second Life, but really, most of what I have done is watch in delight and amazement as thousands of creative individuals have signed up, logged in, and built an entire virtual planet. ...   more »

A national report in China indicates that the country could face a rather staggering gender imbalance over the next 15 years, with as many as 30 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020...

Industrialized nations typically produce between 105 to 107 boys for every 100 girls... China’s Family Planning Commission, however, found that there are currently 118 boys born for every 100 girls, and in some regions like the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan, according to an Associated Press report on the study, “the ratio has ballooned to 130 boys to 100 girls.” ...   more »

"Prophets Facing Backward," my book under discussion here, claims that the cluster of social constructivist, feminist and postcolonial theories that deny any cognitive distinctions between warranted knowledge and collectively accepted beliefs ... have provided philosophical justifications for [a] kind of populist interpretive flexibility ...

Set against the backdrop of the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, the book argues that the relentless debunking the very idea of universally valid, bias-free facts has received in the hands of its many academic critics, has added to a culture of doublethink where truth has becomes infinitely malleable, open to all kinds of nativist, pseudo-scientific and faith-based interpretations.

Intellectuals, whose job it is to challenge such mystifications, I argue, have betrayed their calling by condemning the very possibility of impartial and universally valid truth that can cut through cultural and national boundaries. This betrayal has made it easier for the religious right to present itself as the defender of the tradition, dressed up as “alternative science”, which it claims has been unfairly rejected and willfully suppressed by the secular elite. The logic of deconstruction of modern science simultaneously provides the logic for the construction of “sacred sciences” by the resurgent religious-political movements that have sprung up among the Hindus, Christian and Muslims alike.

It is indeed high time for science studies to get engaged in the thorny issues raised by the attempt of religious extremists to take on the prestige of science for their objectively false and outdated cosmologies. It is gratifying to note that the debate I began in the "Prophets" has now been joined. My colleagues from science studies and postcolonial studies have done me the honor of critically engaging with the concerns I have raised regarding the political dangers of epistemic multiculturalism in this age of religious fundamentalisms. In this essay, I will respond at length to the issues my critics have raised in their readings of the "Prophets." ...   more »

The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step towards "mental decolonization". These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism.

At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as "difference" by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The "Vedic sciences" currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity.

By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls "reactionary modernism." ...   more »

Book I Canto I 12 Against the evil at life's afflicted roots.mp3

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... Finally, the content of any science is profoundly constrained by the language within which its discourses are formulated; and mainstream Western physical science has, since Galileo, been formulated in the language of mathematics. But whose mathematics? The question is a fundamental one, for, as Aronowitz has observed, ``neither logic nor mathematics escapes the `contamination' of the social.'' And as feminist thinkers have repeatedly pointed out, in the present culture this contamination is overwhelmingly capitalist, patriarchal and militaristic:...

Thus, a liberatory science cannot be complete without a profound revision of the canon of mathematics. As yet no such emancipatory mathematics exists, and we can only speculate upon its eventual content. We can see hints of it in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory; but this approach is still heavily marked by its origins in the crisis of late-capitalist production relations. Catastrophe theory, with its dialectical emphases on smoothness/discontinuity and metamorphosis/unfolding, will indubitably play a major role in the future mathematics; but much theoretical work remains to be done before this approach can become a concrete tool of progressive political praxis. Finally, chaos theory -- which provides our deepest insights into the ubiquitous yet mysterious phenomenon of nonlinearity -- will be central to all future mathematics. And yet, these images of the future mathematics must remain but the haziest glimmer: for, alongside these three young branches in the tree of science, there will arise new trunks and branches -- entire new theoretical frameworks -- of which we, with our present ideological blinders, cannot yet even conceive. ...   more »