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  Science
Complex Systems and Human Freedom
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Perhaps the last great project of the traditional Enlightenment was the 20th century effort by philosophers and logicians such as Russell, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein (especially in the Tractatus) to demonstrate that mathematics and language - and by extension, reality itself - could be founded with absolute certainty on explicit logical structures. As is well known, this attempt failed. The mathematician Kurt Godel demonstrated in the 1930's that arithmetic was "incomplete" - that is, it will always contain more truths than can be derived from its axioms - and Alan Turing showed that even fairly simple computer programs could be...

Environmentalism: Private or Public Morality?
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Democratic systems of governance, especially those that guarantee true freedom of speech and religion, impose a substantial responsibility on citizens. As individuals, virtually all of us have our own belief systems, reflecting our heritage, our social and cultural environment, our religious traditions, and, hopefully, our reflection on what is good and true. But a democratic system requires that we limit our efforts to impose those beliefs on others. Thus, for example, in those societies where freedom of religion is a fundamental principle, such as France or the United States, believers in any particular faith are limited by the legal structure...

The Commoditization of Nature
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One of the most famous lines of The Communist Manifesto is Marx and Engle's reflection on the pace of change and secularization generated by bourgeoisie capitalism: "All that is solid melts into air, and all that is holy is profaned." This is a prescient observation, especially as regards modern environmentalism, for it targets an important dynamic, the importance of which is frequently unappreciated: the commoditization of nature. "Commoditization" is a strange word. Frequently found in Marxist discourse, it means the process by which market capitalism changes things that were previously not regarded as economic goods into something with a price,...

Earth Systems Engineering
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To start with the big picture, it is important to recognize the systemic meaning of the Industrial Revolution and its concomitant changes in our population levels, industrial and agricultural activities, technology systems, and culture. The result is a world in which the dynamics of major natural systems - carbon, nitrogen, hydrologic, sulfur, and heavy metal cycles; ocean and atmospheric patterns; the biosphere at every level from genetic to ecosystem - are dominated by human activity. Frequently, as in the case of invasive species, the impacts may be unintended and a result of cumulative individual decisions rather than direct engineering -...

Marx, Environment and Complexity
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Some people may wonder why this column, written by an industry person, refers so often to the thoughts of Marx, which at least in recent history have formed the basis for the most profound challenge to market capitalism. The answer is easy, and explains this month's column: Marx was a brilliant thinker, and saw clearly the human costs - as well as the benefits - of the capitalist system evolving around him. We can learn a lot from where he was right or, as in this case, wrong. It is often said that every philosophic system has a nightmare potential...

Are Archaeologists Always Absent-Minded?
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Doesn’t it seem that archaeologists show up a lot in popular culture these days? The most familiar images of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft leap to mind; but you can find plenty of others in movies, television, toys, books, even advertising for retirement plans. Decades of archaeologists pictured in movies include Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient, Peter Cushing in the 1959 version of The Mummy, John Hannah in the 1996 version; Jason Miller in the Exorcist; Charlton Heston (heaven help us) in The Awakening. Archaeologists populate novels these days, too: Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody; Tony Hillerman’s Thief of Time;...

A History of British Architecture
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Architecture is about evolution, not revolution. It used to be thought that once the Romans pulled out of Britain in the fifth century, their elegant villas, carefully-planned towns and engineering marvels like Hadrian's Wall simply fell into decay as British culture was plunged into the Dark Ages. It took the Norman Conquest of 1066 to bring back the light, and the Gothic cathedral-builders of the Middle Ages played an important part in the revival of British culture. However, the truth is not as simple as that. Romano-British culture - and that included architecture along with language, religion, political organisation and...

Egypt: ancient art
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The Land of the Pharaohs and pyramids of Giza have fascinated generation upon generation. Thanks primarily to art, their legacy has not been lost to the ravages of time. Much of the art which still exists today is funerary, built for tombs of the wealthy. Although King Tutankhamen, (Tut to most of us) was really only a mediocre pharaoh, historically speaking, he achieved great fame because his tomb was discovered intact. It was filled with priceless art treasures and it's believed many more such tombs, filled with similar art wait in silence. One of the greatest aspects of Egyptian art...

The Babylonian Theory of the Planets
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One of the great discoveries of the nineteenth century was a discovery about the past - the existence of a highly sophisticated mathematical astronomy among the ancient Babylonians. Otto Neugebauer tells the story in The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, pp. 103-105 (full references are given below). The discoverers were three Jesuit priests. The first, Johann Nepomuk Strassmaier, an Assyriologist, worked in the British Museum for nearly twenty years, patiently and tirelessly copying into his notebooks the contents of unpublished clay tablets from Babylon. Among these were many with astronomical contents, which Strassmaier was unable to comprehend. He invoked the help...

Evolution of Evolution
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Darwin theories today are used in medicine to understand and care for the natural evolutionary development of the body from birth to death, and to stop unwanted mutations such as deadly bacteria, viruses, and cancer that prematurely destroys the body. When we are sick and visit a physician, we are generally not in the mood for a moral examination before the doctor will treat our illnesses. Many illnesses are a product of chance and those that are our fault, the lectures can wait until we are on the mend. Darwin is used in biology in the development and care of...

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