Monday, October 27, 2003

GAIA: The Quiet Revolution  Thomas I. Ellis, Ph.D. writes: So how do we get there from here? How do we move from Glomart--a dysfunctional global industrial and economic system that is parasitizing our planet, wasting our communities, poisoning our minds with television, and destroying our future—to Gaia—our vision of a peaceful, symbiotic, and sustainable world in which humanity fully acknowledges its total dependence on the health of the biosphere, and acts accordingly? I do not pretend to have a definitive answer to this, the most urgent question of our times. But I have some idea, I believe, of what would be required for such a comprehensive cultural transformation. It would have to be what Douglas Hofstadter has called a “viral idea”—a self-validating and self-propagating set of interrelated ideas and practices that quickly catches on and spreads across cultures because it provides a coherent explanation for people’s experience, gives them a basis for identification with others, even across cultures, and meets their deepest psychic needs. Examples of such viral ideas in history include Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Protestantism, Democracy, and Communism. All have their attendant pathologies, but all have radically transformed large parts of the world in a remarkably short time, even though the first three spread only by word of mouth and manuscript, in the era before mass communications. Despite their dramatic differences, these viral ideas all had certain common features, including imagery, symbols, and key concepts, as well as coherently stated epistemological premises, ethical precepts, and self-validating practices. Although many were associated with one or more charismatic founders, they were all propagated by the example set by communities of practice, whether itinerant monks, churches, mosques, or revolutionary committees. If Gaia is to become a successfully propagated viral idea, it needs all of these characteristics, without the attendant pathologies. And the concept itself is ideally suited to these requirements. It already has a coherent epistemological foundation (holism or systemic thinking); an emotionally compelling image (the image of the living Earth from outer space), and a key concept (Gaia as myth, model, metaphor, and movement). What is needed, then, is to articulate the ethical precepts and prescribe the core practices that derive from this understanding. (10/27/03)  The GAIA Model  Thomas I. Ellis, Ph.D. writes: The division of academic discourse into separate domains of inquiry--the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the professional disciplines--has had the unfortunate effect of restricting the exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, largely because scholars are rewarded for publication in their own fields, and hence have a disincentive for inquiry into topics that require delving into other disciplines. One result of this mutual isolation has been an astonishing lack of attention, across the curriculum, to the greatest challenge facing all of us in the Twenty-First Century: the global ecological crisis. Students who are concerned about the global crisis are normally channeled either into the physical or biological sciences, where they study specific manifestations of the crisis, or into environmental studies programs in the social sciences, where they focus primarily on the socioeconomic and political causes of specific environmental issues.  Meanwhile, all the rest of the students and faculty--in the arts and humanities, mathematics, sociology, history, economics, business, architecture, engineering, law, and the health sciences--pursue their curricular goals in settings where discussion of this fundamental and inescapable global crisis has no place. Many, especially in economics and business, are thus in complete ignorance and denial about the central fact of our time: the fundamental incompatibility between an economic system predicated on the infinite growth of production and consumption, and a finite and overstressed world. None of us, however, has the luxury of ignoring the global crisis any longer.  Our polar ice caps are already melting, due to global warming, threatening an unprecedented global catastrophe within our lifetimes. Rainforests are being destroyed at an accelerating pace, toxic chemicals pervade our bodies and our world, species are disappearing more rapidly than ever, fresh water supplies are dwindling, topsoil is disappearing, and population continues to soar, particularly in the nations of the southern hemisphere which can least afford additional mouths to feed. Petroleum, the primary source of the cheap and abundant energy that has driven industrial expansion for the past century, is at or near its global peak of production, after which the net productivity of our global oil resources will steadily and irreversibly decline, while demand continues to grow. Yet no affordable alternatives are in sight. Addressing this global crisis of unprecedented magnitude will require the best thinking and efforts, not simply of "environmentalists" (who are often marginalized and dismissed by the cultural mainstream) but of all of us, regardless of our disciplinary interests. Accordingly, I have developed the following heuristic model to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue among faculty and students in order to focus their creative efforts on this fundamental challenge. (10/27/03) Genetically Modified Immune Cells Fight Cancer BBC Science -- Genetically modifying a patient's own blood could help them beat cancer, according to scientists in Australia. Their technique involves removing millions of white blood cells from the patient and boosting them with cancer-fighting genes. These genetically-altered cells are then injected back into the patient to identify and destroy cancer tumours. The technique has been tested effectively in mice and could be trialled in humans in just two years. It has been developed by scientists at the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. It aims to dramatically boost the ability of the immune system to fight cancer. "Instead of having a very, very few, perhaps one in 1,000 cells that can recognise the tumour, now we have virtually 100% of them that can home in and so the attack on the tumour is much, much greater," said Joe Trapani, an associate professor at the centre. He said tests on mice have shown that the procedure can be done. "What we've shown so far is that you can take the cells from the immune system from the animal itself, treat them outside the body to be able to recognise cancer and then inject them back into the body." (10/27/03) 5:56:35 PM

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