W1D.NET WEB ONE DIRECTORY REVIEW

Today’s Racial Inequalities Are a Product of America’s Racist Past

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Maryann Cusimano Love, "Race in America: ‘We Would Like to Believe We Are Over the Problem," America, vol. 196, no. 5, February 12, 2007, p. 8. Copyright 2007 www.americamagazine.org. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of America Press. For subscription information, call 212-581-4640 or visit www.americamagazine.org.

Maryann Cusimano Love is associate professor of international politics at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

As Senator Barack Obama explores a presidential bid [in 2007 and 2008], media headlines across the country ask, "Is America ready for an African-American president?" Between 50 percent and 62 percent of Americans polled answer yes, that race is no longer a barrier in the United States. But that this is considered a newsworthy headline by all the major media outlets and that around 40 percent of those polled answer no suggests otherwise. A recent controversy in Virginia echoes the issue. A Virginia state legislator, Delegate Frank D. Hargrove Sr., a Republican from a suburb of Richmond, gave a newspaper interview on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which he said that "blacks need to get over" slavery. He was stating his opposition to a resolution in the Virginia legislature to apologize for slavery and promote racial reconciliation as part of Virginia’s activities marking the 400th anniversary of the English settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Officials tout Jamestown’s founding as the birthplace of our nation (predating the pilgrims’ landing in Plymouth Rock by 13 years), of representative government, of the rule of law and of American entrepreneurism. (Jamestown was settled by the Virginia Company of London in order to bring profits back to shareholders.) But Jamestown was also the birthplace of slavery in our country. Government time and tax money are being spent on the commemoration. One sponsor of the resolution, state Senator Henry Marsh, notes that while "the whole world’s attention is on Virginia" because of the Jamestown anniversary, "Virginia can take a leadership role in promoting racial harmony." Delegate Hargrove disagrees. He argues it is "counterproductive to dwell on it," noting that "not a soul today had anything to do with slavery."

The Relevance of the Past

Some of Delegate Hargrove’s argument is attractive. It lets us all off the hook for the inequities of the past. My Sicilian and Irish great-grandparents emigrated to the United States in the 1900’s. By Hargrove’s logic, my family is not responsible for slavery or its aftermath, because we were not here when it happened. On the other hand, my husband’s family moved from Scotland and Ireland to the Chesapeake Bay region in the 1600’s. We know little of the family history, but the name is common in these parts, on both black and white faces. I laugh in the grocery checkout lane with an African-American over our shared name, Love. But later, I wonderare we related? Did someone in my family tree own someone in your family tree?

To "get over" racial problems in America today, we need to understand them and their roots.

The flaw in Hargrove’s argument is that the inequities of the past persist today. Noting the achievements of African-Americans like Senator Obama, we would like to believe that we "are over" the race problem. But the statistics paint a more sobering picture. Dr. David Satcher, the 16th surgeon general of the United States, notes that 85,000 African-Americans died in the year 2000 due to inequality in health care. The infant mortality rate of black babies is double the infant mortality rate of white babies in the United States. African-Americans have lower life expectancies than white Americans by six or seven years. Twenty-five percent of black Americans live in poverty. One-third of African-American children live in poverty. Black poverty rates are triple those of whites. Tavis Smiley’s book, Covenant with Black America, explores many other disturbing inequities that persist in the United States today in housing, education and the criminal justice system. The Hatewatch Web site lists cross burnings and activities of white supremacist groups today, and it is possible to track the hate groups currently active in each state. The Harvard online racial bias tests have shown that millions of Americans harbor racial preconceptions. And 16-year-old Kiri Davis repeated the "doll test" used in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case with the same infamous results: 4- and 5-year-old black children in Harlem overwhelmingly said that the black dolls were bad and the white dolls were good and pretty. As past inequities continue into the present, we have a moral responsibility to address them.

Understanding Is Needed

To "get over" racial problems in America today, we need to understand them and their roots. But we don’t. A recent survey conducted by the University of Connecticut found that more than 19 percent of the 14,000 college students in 50 U.S. universities surveyed believed that Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech was advocating the abolition of slavery. I teach a course at Catholic University on the civil rights movement. Our students, most of them graduates of Catholic elementary and high schools, know little of U.S. or Catholic racial history.

The United States is not alone. Such debates are hallmarks of peacebuilding efforts in post-conflict societies from South Africa to Colombia. We all face these choices, balancing apologies, reconciliation, redress for past wrongs, with attention to present and future problems.

Delegate Hargrove’s suggestion that we "get over" the past by not bringing it up can be tempting because it is easy. Senator Obama’s vision of a post-racial politics is inviting because it is hopeful. But we are not there yet, and the only way to get there is to work through the present-day ramifications of our persistent past, not only as individuals ("I don’t condone racism") but as communities ("What are we doing to end unacceptable racial inequities?").

The Ethical Implications of Nanomedicine Must Be Considered

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Raj Bawa and Summer Johnson, "The Ethical Dimensions of Nanomedicine," The Medical Clinics of North America, vol. 91, 2007, pp. 881-887. Copyright 2007 Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. www.nvcc.edu.

"Hype or excitement about nanomedicine should not obscure the important ethical and societal implications of these technologies."

In the following viewpoint, Raj Bawa and Summer Johnson assert that it is critical that the ethical, societal, and regulatory issues of nanomedicine are discussed before the technologies are clinically used. Bawa and Johnson discuss various questions about nanomedicine that need resolution. These questions include: What is the morality of using nano-based procedures for human enhancement? What are the long-term risks of nanomedicines? And, how can government protect the privacy of health information? According to Bawa and Johnson, these questions, and other concerns about nanomedicine, must be addressed to ensure fairness and safety so that nanomedicine can provide the greatest benefits to society. Bawa is the president of Bawa Biotech consulting and a professor in natural and applied sciences at Northern Virginia Community College. Johnson is the director of the Ethics in Novel Technologies, Research, and Innovation program of the Alden March Bioethics Institute.

As you read, consider the following questions:

What do the authors say is essential for greater public acceptance of nanomedicine and which is also critical for its commercial viability?
According to the authors, both enhancement and therapy are based on the relative concept of what?
According to the authors, why is there a concern that the retention of nanomedicine molecules in the body may cause long-term harm to healthy tissues?

Medical practice is about to enter a new era focused on the nanoscale and the practice of "nanomedicine." Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction, and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures. Nanomedicine is, in a broad sense, the application of nanoscale technologies to the practice of medicine, namely, for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease and to gain an increased understanding of complex underlying disease mechanisms. The creation of nanodevices, such as nanobots capable of performing real-time therapeutic functions in vivo [inside the human body], is one long-term goal. Advances in delivering nanotherapies, miniaturization of analytic tools, improved computational and memory capabilities, and developments in remote communications will eventually be integrated. These efforts will cross new frontiers in the understanding and practice of medicine. The ultimate goal is comprehensive monitoring, repair, and improvement of all human biologic systemsbasically, an enhanced quality of life.

A Huge Impact

The potential impact of nanomedicine on society could be huge. Nanomedicine could drastically improve a patient’s quality of life, reduce societal and economic costs associated with health care, offer early detection of pathologic conditions, reduce the severity of therapy, and result in improved clinical outcome for the patient. Numerous companies are actively involved in nanomedicine research and development, with many nanomedicine-related products already on the market or under development. The nanopharma market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Analysts project that by next year [2008] the market for nanobiotechnology will exceed $3 billion, reflecting an annual growth rate of 28%. According to another recent report, the United States demand for nanotechnology-related medical products (nanomedicines, nanodiagnostics, nanodevices, and nanotech-based medical supplies) will increase more than 17% per year to $53 billion in 2011 and $110 billion in 2016. This report predicts that the greatest short-term impact of nanomedicine will be in therapies and diagnostics for cancer and central nervous system disorders. Yet, despite all of this research and development in nanomedicine, federal funding related to the research and educational programs on ethical issues have clearly lagged behind. It is critical that ethical, social, and regulatory aspects of nanomedicine be proactively addressed to minimize public backlash similar to that seen with other promising technologies, most notably, genetically modified foods in Europe. The public should be properly educated regarding the benefits and risks of nanomedicine. Such an approach is essential for greater public acceptance and support for nanomedicine. In fact, it is critical for commercial viability of nanotechnology in general.

Given this backdrop, it is possible that nanomedicine is poised to add a profound and complex set of ethical questions for health care professionals. Once nanobased interventions are tested in clinical trials and given Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, it becomes the domain of health care practitioners to use nanotechnology for the improvement of human health and populations. But for many physicians, nanomedicine is an entirely new area for preventive and diagnostic interventions and curative therapies that will require continuing education, patient education, and a heightened awareness of the risks for and benefits of nanotechnologies as applied to medicine. We will focus primarily on issues that are likely to emerge once nanomedicine moves out of the preclinical and clinical stages of research and development. In other words, our discussions will be limited to nanomedicine products as they enter the market and find medical applications in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease.

Nanomedicine raises fundamental questions, such as what it is to be human, how human disease is defined, and how treating disease is approached. Just as with the era of genetics and molecular biology, physicians will have to reconceptualize how they think about the diseases they treat, the means they have to treat them, and the meaning of the phrase, "do no harm."

Yet, nanomedicine is not a single class of medical interventions that can easily be analyzed from an ethical perspective. Nanomedicine includes a wide range of technologies that can be applied to medical devices, materials, procedures, and treatment modalities. The simplest way to distinguish categories of nanomedical interventions is to differentiate diagnostic nanomedicine from therapeutic nanomedicine. Diagnostic nanomedicine can include a wide range of interventions, from the use of nanoparticles for detecting tumors or cells with imaging technologies to chips or other implantable devices that can be created using nanoparticles and nanotechnology techniques that can be used to monitor or detect changes in blood chemistry, DNA, or other materials. It has been postulated that by 2016, clinicians or health care workers will be capable of scanning an entire genome within a few minutes. Therapeutic nanomedicine includes a wide range of interventionsfrom nanopharmacology to nanobased medical devices, such as surgical nanobots or drug-delivery devices to nanomaterials used for bone grafts or other body implants.

Just as different ethical issues exist for preventive medicine versus curative or therapeutic medicine, there exist very different kinds of ethical issues that arise out of diagnostic nanomedicine versus therapeutic nanomedicine. Interventions based on nanotechnologies likely will resurrect old questions about human enhancement, human dignity, and justice that have been asked many times before in the context of pharmaceutic research, stem cell research, and gene therapy.

Much of what is discussed or "hyped" as the future of nanomedicine, however, has yet to occur. Therefore, it is difficult for ethicists to predict in advance of the arrival of actual technologies what kinds of issues might arise out of nanomedicine. Yet, on the basis of other kinds of biomedical technologies that have affected health care, it is possible to conjecture what some of the perennial ethical issues and novel ethical problems for nanomedicine will be. Therefore, this article outlines a range of potential ethical issues for preventive and therapeutic nanomedicine that may occur as these technologies move from the laboratory to the clinic. Specific focus is on the ethical question of enhancement versus therapy, the risk for and benefits of nanotechnologies in health care, changing understanding of human disease, and privacy and confidentiality.

Understanding Human Disease

Diagnostic nanotechnologies eventually will provide the ability to detect and characterize individual cells, subtle molecular changes in DNA, or even minor changes in blood chemistryscenarios that will likely cause pause and reconsideration of what it means to be a "healthy person" versus a "person who has a disease." In a "nanoworld," we might have to reconsider how to diagnose someone who has, say, cancer. Is the presence of a genetic mutation known to have a predisposition for causing cancer in a single cell a diagnosis? Or is it simply a risk factor? How many cells from the body must be of a cancerous nature for it to be defined as cancer? 1? 50? 1000? The answers to these questions are difficult because at this point no one knows exactly how to define, diagnose, or detect disease with this level of sensitivity. Eventually, disease may be able to be detected in this way, but it is important to remember that the development of such diagnostic technologies will require reconceptualizing understanding of disease. This will have a significant impact on health care professionals and patients.

The key is that if the slightest abnormality can be discovered, one must ask whether or not such information will have clinical relevance. If such knowledge does have clinical relevance, then it seems reasonable to develop technologies that could detect diseases at their earliest stages with the hope that this early detection would result in fewer side effects, less aggressive treatments, and better survival rates.

There may be some cases, however, where more information is simply too much information. Such heightened awareness simply could result in anxious patients, worried family members, or an entire group of the "worried well." One must, therefore, think carefully about which diseases and conditions it would be appropriate to apply such nanotechnologies to so that those interventions are helpful in understanding those diseases, rather than creating a burden or risk for patients and others. Therefore, the balance of information processed and disseminated versus benefit to society and individual health is a significant consideration for the ethics of nanotech-based diagnostic technologies.

Enhancement Versus Therapy

A related distinction for judging the morality of a medical procedure or treatment is whether or not it is regarded as therapeutic or enhancinga subjective determination that is coupled with the determination of whether or not the procedure or treatment results in a normal or abnormal individual. A little analysis, however, reveals these distinctions to be unavailing because both enhancement and therapy are based on the relative concept of "normal". Most novel medical technologies that are employed for diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of diseases can also be used to enhance the function of the human body or mind. The traditional distinction between therapy and enhancement lies in the fact that therapy is concerned with maintaining, repairing, or restoring bodily parts or functions that a patient previously had or used. Enhancement, however, is concerned with the creation or improvement of bodily parts or functions that were absent, undamaged, or previously malfunctioning. Using this distinction, the implantation of a nanoscale device that emulates the function of a congenitally absent organ paradoxically would be enhancing rather than therapeutic.

As to this question, a frank prohibition pragmatically is unworkable. There are simply too many potential benefits that implantable nanoscale medical devices offer, and policing their use will only be effective when society has reliable methods to detect violations.

Rather, at the level of the profession, the practice of nanomedicine must be governed by a nanomedical ethic that maps the classical principles onto a transhuman and posthuman reality. Of these, the principle of "justice" in access to nanomedical procedures and entitlement to nanomedical treatment likely will be the most contentious. In this context, issues relating to unfair competition, socio-economic inequality, discrimination, and bias will arise and need to be addressed. At the level of civilization, a morality must be crafted that honors an unprecedented expansion in the meaning of human being and militates against any eugenics [advancement of the human race through selective breeding] agenda.

Risk Versus Benefit

Another important concern for nanomedicine is the need to balance the potentially significant benefits of nanomedical interventions with their potential risks. In the area of therapeutic nanomedicine, for example, it is clear that nanotechnologies will allow active chemical compounds or drugs to be more bioavailable and targeted to specific cellular structures. Therefore, these compounds will be needed at lower doses and have fewer side effects. One likely risk of nanomedicine, however, is that these drugs will receive FDA approval and be on the market long before the long-term risks are conclusive. Because nanomedicines have the potential to cross the blood-brain barrier or enter cells easily, it is a concern that the retention of these molecules in the body may cause long-term or unintentional harm to healthy tissues. Because long-term follow-up data regarding nanomedicines do not yet exist, it is important that patients be informed, that there may be long-term consequences for using these drugs. Although this is not altogether different from the long-term risks associated with exposure to chemotherapeutic or radiologic agents, it is an important risk factor that must be disclosed to patients taking nanomedicines or any kind of intervention involving nanoparticles or nanomaterials.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Another important ethical issue relates to the protection and maintenance of health information in the era of nanomedicine. Nanotechnologies will make possible the collection of an enormous amount of individual cellular/subcellular level surveillance data of the human body. Nanomedical technology is expected to miniaturize implantable devices so that they function at the subcellular or synaptic level with the ability to monitor or collect data regarding cellular activities and biochemical events within organs, tissues, or individual cells. One application of this technology would be to include a means by which that information could be transmitted remotely. For example, the VeriChip Corporation has declared the availability of the world’s first and only patented, FDA-cleared radiofrequency identification implantable microchip. The VeriChip is inserted under the skin and can be easily scanned with a reader. A small amount of radiofrequency energy passes from the reader energizing the dormant microchip, which then emits a radiofrequency signal transmitting an individual’s unique verification number. This number then can be used for various purposes, including accessing personal medical information from a database or assessing whether or not somebody has authority to enter into a high-security area.

If and when such technologies are made possible via nanotechnology, a key ethical question arises: Can the health information infrastructure handle, collect, process, and analyze real-time on-going health data? With so few health care institutions adopting electronic medical record systems or health information systems designed to accommodate increasingly large medical files across institutions and time periods, it is of concern that ways are being created to generate massive amounts of health information without a system to use it. Moreover, ensuring privacy and confidentiality in such a system would be of utmost importance; a system without adequate safeguards presents serious ethical problems.

It is difficult to predict how ethical issues related to nanomedicine will evolve in the years to come. Nevertheless, ethical considerations will likely play a significant role in the development and use of nanotechnologic interventions in medical care. Initially, some of the important ethical concerns will continue to focus on risk assessment and environmental management. Later on, novel ethical issues and unforeseen dilemmas will arise as the field advances further and intercepts other areas of biomedical research, including genomics, personalized medicine, bioinformatics, and neurobiology. As with other biotechnologic advances before it, nanomedicine will face significant challenges as it moves from proof-of-concept to clinical trials to clinics. Along the way, ethical questions regarding social justice, privacy, confidentiality, long-term risks and benefits, and human enhancement are certain to arise. Health care providers must be ready to answer such ethical questions for themselves and be able to address those questions for their patients. Ultimately, it seems likely that nanomedicine will usher in a new area in health care where pharmaceuticals will be more effective and less toxic, where disease monitoring can be done on a highly sensitive and specific level, and where injections, surgical procedures, and a host of other interventions will be made, less painful, less toxic, and with fewer side effects than their current counterparts. It is important to ensure, however, that these advances in medical care do not come at the expense of fairness, safety, or basic understanding of what it means to be a healthy human being. Ultimately, public and political interest for regulations need to be carefully balanced with the interests of scientists and businesses for uninhibited science and technological efforts. Hype or excitement about nanomedicine should not obscure the important ethical and societal implications of these technologies. Nanomedicine’s future appears brightest if it can be assured that it also will be a future where such ethical issues are addressed by the health care profession.

College Students Lose Interest in Religion

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Barna Group, "Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years," Barna Update, www.barna.org, September 11, 2006. Copyright The Barna Group, Ltd., 2006. Reproduced by permission.

"Most [twentysomethings] pull away from participation and engagement in Christian churches, particularly during the ‘college years.’"

The Barna Group provides leadership and resources to guide Americans’ spiritual transformation. From 2001 to 2006 it interviewed thousands of teens and adults about their religious activity, and the viewpoint that follows summarizes its findings. The organization insists that many young people, though strongly spiritual in their teen years, leave church behind when they reach their twenties. Of those who used to attend church, 61 percent spend less time reading the Bible, attending church, and praying than older adults, Barna Group claims. To counter this, the organization suggests that youth ministries must focus on fostering faith that sustains beyond high school.

As you read, consider the following questions:

In the organization’s view, in what six religious activities do twentysomethings participate less often than older adults?
Why does deep, lasting spiritual transformation rarely occur among teens, according to the Barna Group leader quoted in the viewpoint?
How did the study’s authors classify "evangelicals"?

Transitions in life are rarely simple. Some of the most significant and complex shifts that people undergo occur during the transition from adolescence to early adulthood. An important part of that maturation is the refinement of people’s spiritual commitment and behavior.

A new study by The Barna Group (Ventura, California) shows that despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, most twentysomethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult yearsand often beyond that. In total, six out of ten twentysomethings were involved in a church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood.

Teens Embrace Spirituality

Teenagers thrive on fresh experiences and new perspectives. The spiritual dimension gives teens a fertile ground for their explorations. Half of teens attend a church-related service or activity in a typical week. More than three-quarters discuss matters of faith with peers and three out of five teens attend at least one youth group meeting at a church during a typical three month period. One-third of teenagers say they participate in a Christian club on campus at some point during a typical school year. There is also a substantial amount of unorthodox spiritual activity: three-quarters of America’s teenaged youths have engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft-related activity during their teen years (not including reading horoscopes).

Still, one of the most striking findings from the research is the broad base of opportunities that Christian churches in America have to work with teenagers. Overall, more than four out of five teens say they have attended a church for a period of at least two months during their teenage years (81%). This represents substantial penetration and significant prospects for influencing the nation’s 24 million teens.

Disengagement of Older Youths

At the same time, the Barna research underscores how fleeting that influence may be: twentysomethings continue to be the most spiritually independent and resistant age group in America. Most of them pull away from participation and engagement in Christian churches, particularly during the "college years." The research shows that, compared to older adults, twentysomethings have significantly lower levels of church attendance, time spent alone studying and reading the Bible, volunteering to help churches, donations to churches, Sunday school and small group involvement, and use of Christian media (including television, radio and magazines).

In fact, the most potent data regarding disengagement is that a majority of twentysomethings61% of today’s [2006] young adultshad been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying). Only one-fifth of twentysomethings (20%) have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences. Another one-fifth of teens (19%) were never significantly reached by a Christian community of faith during their teens and have remained disconnected from the Christian faith.

For most adults, this pattern of disengagement is not merely a temporary phase in which they test the boundaries of independence, but is one that continues deeper into adulthood, with those in their thirties also less likely than older adults to be religiously active. Even the traditional impulse of parenthoodwhen people’s desire to supply spiritual guidance for their children pulls them back to churchis weakening. The new research pointed out that just one-third of twentysomethings who are parents regularly take their children to church, compared with two-fifths of parents in their thirties and half of parents who are 40-years-old or more.

David Kinnaman, the director of the research, pointed out, "There is considerable debate about whether the disengagement of twentysomethings is a lifestage issuethat is, a predictable element in the progression of people’s development as they go through various family, occupational and chronological stagesor whether it is unique to this generation. While there is some truth to both explanations, this debate misses the point, which is that the current state of ministry to twentysomethings is woefully inadequate to address the spiritual needs of millions of young adults. These individuals are making significant life choices and determining the patterns and preferences of their spiritual reality while churches wait, generally in vain, for them to return after college or when the kids come. When and if young adults do return to churches, it is difficult to convince them that a passionate pursuit of Christ is anything more than a nice add-on to their cluttered lifestyle."

Piecing Faith Together

While twentysomethings often disengage from traditional religious expressions, faith and spirituality are hardly absent from their lives. The research also examined a number of significant realities about the spiritual journeys of young adults:

As for religious identity, most twentysomethings maintain outward allegiance to Christianity: 78% of twentysomethings say they are Christians, compared with 83% of teenagers. Although they are less likely than older generations to feel this way, most twentysomethings describe themselves as "deeply spiritual."
Loyalty to congregations is one of the casualties of young adulthood: twentysomethings were nearly 70% more likely than older adults to strongly assert that if they "cannot find a local church that will help them become more like Christ, then they will find people and groups that will, and connect with them instead of a local church." They are also significantly less likely to believe that "a person’s faith in God is meant to be developed by involvement in a local church."
These attitudes explain other anomalies of twentysomething spirituality. Much of the activity of young adults, such as it is, takes place outside congregations. Young adults were just as likely as older Americans to attend special worship events not sponsored by a local church, to participate in a spiritually oriented small group at work, to have a conversation with someone else who holds them accountable for living faith principles, and to attend a house church not associated with a conventional church. Interestingly, there was one area in which the spiritual activities of twentysomethings outpaced their predecessors: visiting faith-related websites.
The intensity of religious commitment is lower among young adults, but not as low as might be assumed. Among those in their twenties and thirties, 6% have beliefs that qualify them as evangelical. This is statistically on par with the level among today’s teenagers (5%), but about half the rate of those over age 40 (12%). One-third of young adults (36%) qualify as born again Christians, which is slightly lower than the 44% of those over 40. (In the Barna survey, evangelicals and born again Christians are defined based upon religious beliefs and commitments, not based on the terms people use to describe themselves.)

Where Youth Ministry Is Failing

Kinnaman offered several insights about the data: "Much of the ministry to teenagers in America needs an overhaulnot because churches fail to attract significant numbers of young people, but because so much of those efforts are not creating a sustainable faith beyond high school. There are certainly effective youth ministries across the country, but the levels of disengagement among twentysomethings suggest that youth ministry fails too often at discipleship and faith formation. A new standard for viable youth ministry should be not the number of attenders, the sophistication of the events, or the ‘cool’ factor of the youth group but whether teens have the commitment, passion and resources to pursue Christ intentionally and whole-heartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest."

The Strategic Leader of The Barna Group explained that, "It’s not entirely surprising that deep, lasting spiritual transformation rarely happens among teenagersit’s hard work at any age, let alone with the distractions of youth. And, since teenagers’ faith often mirrors the intensity of their parents, youth workers face steep challenges because they are trying to impart something of spiritual significance that teenagers generally do not receive from home.

"Our team is conducting more research into what leads to a sustainable faith, but we have already observed some key enhancements that youth workers may consider. One of those is to be more personalized in ministry. Every teen has different needs, questions and doubts, so helping them to wrestle through those specific issues and to understand God’s unique purpose for their lives is significant. The most effective churches have set up leadership development tracks and mentoring processes to facilitate this type of personalization.

"Another shift," he continued, "is to develop teenagers’ ability to think and process the complexities of life from a biblical viewpoint. This is not so much about having the right head knowledge as it is about helping teens respond to situations and decisions in light of God’s principles for life. Also, we have learned that effective youth ministries do not operate in isolation but have a significant role in training parents to minister to their own children.

"Above all, remember to keep a balanced perspective," Kinnaman cautioned. "Some have overstated the problem, while others minimize it. The fact is millions of American teenagers and twentysomethings are alive to God and devoted to His Kingdom. But the research is also clear that there are significant issues related to the way young people experience and express their faith. Without objectively and strategically addressing those challenges, Christian leaders will miss the opportunity to awaken many more young souls to a life-long zeal for God."

Research Method

The data in this report are based on interviews with more than 22,103 adults and 2,124 teenagers from across the nation in 25 separate surveys. The adult sample included interviews with 3,583 twentysomethings. The Barna Group conducted these studies through the use of telephone and online surveys, implemented from January 2001 through August 2006. All of these projects are based upon random samples of adults and teenagers living within the 48 continental states. The maximum sampling error for any of the nationwide adult studies (which include a minimum of 1,000 interviews) is 3.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The maximum sampling error for any of the teenage studies (which have a minimum sample of 600 interviews) is 4.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

In each survey, the distribution of respondents corresponded to the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. Multiple callbacks were used to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages.

"Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."

"Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical."

Outsourcing Benefits the U.S. Economy

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Robert T. Parry, Globalization: Threat or Opportunity for the U.S. Economy? FRBSF Economic Letter, May 21, 2004, pp. 13. Copyright 2004 by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Reproduced by permission.

"The same trends that make offshoring possible are creating new opportunitiesand new jobsthroughout the U.S. economy."

"Offshoring"outsourcing to other countriesis a longtime U.S. business practice that creates new opportunities for American workers, argues Robert T. Parry in the following viewpoint. Outsourcing is when companies contract to have some of their functions performed by other businesses. Offshoring makes foreign economies stronger, Parry maintains, which in turn increases the demand for U.S. goods and services, and thus creates new jobs. Moreover, he claims, when businesses outsource goods and services, their productivity increases, and increased productivity results in new jobs being created elsewhere. Parry is former president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

As you read, consider the following questions:

According to Parry, what is the basic argument in favor of free trade?
What example does the author use to support his argument that globalization helps increase U.S. productivity?
In the author’s view, what are the hallmarks of a flexible economy?

As a monetary policymaker, my main concern is the health of the U.S. economy. Although the economy turned in a pretty sluggish performance for a long while after the 2001 recession, it has shown some real strength over the last few quarters in terms of output growth and productivity.

But along the way, the jobs market performance was surprisingly disappointing…. This certainly raised concernsnot only for those looking for work, but also for us at the Fed [short for U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, America's central bank] and for other policymakers around the country.

In the discussions about jobs, a lot of attention has focused on trade and terms such as "globalization," "outsourcing," and "offshoring." The concern, of course, is that a free-trade environment is letting good jobs drain from the U.S. economy and wind up in China, India, and other countries where workers command much lower salaries. In the extreme, some would like to see restraints on trade to protect those jobs and halt the globalization trend.

Whether globalization is a threat or an opportunity for the U.S. economy is a big question with serious ramifications. Though I won’t be able to cover all the issues, I hope to add a little balance to the discussion. I’ll focus on four questions. (1) Why are most economists in favor of free trade? (2) What exactly are "outsourcing" and "offshoring"? (3) Is globalization a threat or an opportunity for the U.S. economy? (4) What can policies do to help U.S. workers?

Why Are Most Economists in Favor of Free Trade?

Basically, the argument is that everyone benefits when countries specialize in the type of production at which they’re relatively most efficient. Consider this analogy with the family: No family tries to make everything that it eats, wears, and enjoys. If it’s cheaper to buy something or have someone else do something, that’s what a family does. Then individual family members can concentrate on becoming good at their jobs in order to pay for what they buy.

A nation is no different. If it costs less to make certain products abroad than it does in the U.S., then it’s difficult to argue that U.S. consumers and U.S. companies should pay more for those products from U.S. producers. Instead, it makes sense to purchase those products more cheaply from abroad, whether they’re hard goods, like VCRs, or services, like call centers. Then we can devote our resources to producing and exporting those goods where we have a relative advantage. The result is a twofold benefitgreater efficiency and lower costs for U.S. firms and consumers.

What Are Outsourcing and Offshoring?

In its broadest sense, outsourcing is simply contracting out functions that had been done in-house, a longtime U.S. practice. When a car manufacturer in Michigan buys brake pads from an intermediate supplier in Ohio rather than produce them in-house, that’s outsourcing. When a company replaces its cleaning and cafeteria workers with an outside contractor who does the same services more cheaply, that’s outsourcing. When a company contracts out its payroll, accounting, and software operations, that’s outsourcing. Clearly, outsourcing can result in job losses if the outside supplier is more efficient and uses fewer workers.

Offshoring has been referred to as the global cousin of outsourcing. Instead of turning to domestic providers, firms may decide to purchase a good or service from overseas providers because of lower costs. Offshoring, too, has a long history in U.S. manufacturing; for example, firms in Mexico supply seat covers and wiper blades to Detroit automakers. What appears to be new about offshoring is that it’s affecting workers in the service sector who never expected to see foreign competition for their jobsdata managers, computer programmers, medical transcriptionists, and the like.

How much offshoring is going on? That’s difficult to say. We don’t have official statistics, and there are a lot of unsettled measurement issues. But a couple of estimates that have gotten some press … suggest that the U.S. lost 100,000-170,000 jobs to foreign workers between 2000 and 2003. Those numbers sound high until you put them in the context of all the job turnover that occurs every year in the U.S. Each year, some 15 million jobs are lost for all kinds of reasonsvoluntary employment changes, layoffs, firings, and so on. And in a growing economy, every year even more jobs are created.

Is Globalization a Threat or an Opportunity?

The answer to this question will focus on three important issues that are sometimes neglected in the discussion. First, globalization means that economic activity flows in both directions; although we may lose jobs to foreign workers, we also may gain jobs and boost economic activity. For example, data suggest that, in terms of office work, the U.S. insources far more than it outsources; that is, just as U.S. firms use the services of foreigners, foreign firms make even greater use of the services of U.S. residents. "Office work" refers to the category of business, professional, and technical services that includes computer programming, telecommunications, legal services, banking, engineering, management consulting, call centers, data entry, and other private services. In 2003, we bought about $77 billion worth of those services from foreigners, but the value of the services we sold to foreigners was far higher, over $130 billion….

Creating Opportunities and Growth

My second point is that open trade creates opportunities in the U.S by helping foreign economies become stronger. As incomes grow in other countries, so does their demand for goods and services, many of which those countries will not be able to producejust as the U.S. does not. This rise in foreign demand for imports is an opportunity for U.S. firms to compete to provide those products. And it would be a shame to miss that opportunity because of trade barriers our policymakers erected. It would mean lost export sales and lost jobs in those sectors.

Finally, globalization can help increase productivity growth in the U.S. The example of offshoring’s effect on the spread of IT [information technology] in the U.S. and, therefore, on our economic growth illustrates the point. According to one estimate, the globalized production of IT hardwarethat is, the offshoring of computer-related manufacturing, such as Dell computer factories in Chinareduced the prices of computer and telecommunications equipment by 10%-30%. These price declines boosted the spread of IT throughout the U.S. economy and raised both productivity and growth.

Offshoring offers the potential to lower the prices of IT software and services as well. This will promote the further spread of ITand of new business processes that take advantage of cheap IT. It also will create jobs for U.S. workers to design and implement IT packages for a range of industries and companies. Although some jobs are at risk, the same trends that make offshoring possible are creating new opportunitiesand new jobsthroughout the U.S. economy.

The Importance of Productivity

I’ve mentioned productivity several times so far, and I want to focus on it briefly, because I think it plays a significant role in the discussion about jobs in the U.S. Over the past two years, U.S. productivity in the nonfarm business sector has grown at a 4.8% annual rate. In the short term, this increased productivity has let businesses satisfy the demand for their output without having to hire new workers on net. So, it appears that this extraordinary surge of increased efficiency in our economy explains much more about the jobs situation than offshoring, outsourcing, or globalization does.

Although, clearly, productivity creates pain for workers who are displaced, most economists agree that higher productivity is a good thing for the economy. Why? Because, in the long run, higher productivity is the only way to create higher standards of living across the economy.

The American worker’s ability to produce more goods and services per hour has been the key to the U.S. economy’s surprising success throughout its history. Consider the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, where more output can now be produced with fewer workers. The same trend has occurred in services: the U.S. used to have lots of elevator operators, telephone operators, bank tellers, and gas station attendants, but now technological advances have taken over many of these jobs. Likewise, the Internet has taken over many routine tasks from travel agents, stock brokers, and accountants. And, with high-speed data links, a lot of office work can be done more cheaply abroad.

What happens to the displaced workers? They move into other sectors of the economy as new jobs emerge. For example, by one estimate, about a quarter of today’s labor force is in jobs that didn’t even exist in 1967.

This emergence of new jobs and workers’ ability to move into them are the hallmarks of a flexible economythat is, an economy in which labor and capital resources move freely among firms and industries. And such flexibility is a significant strength of the U.S. economy. We operate in competitive markets, and competition, whether from domestic or foreign competitors, induces change. To adapt to that change, and to ease the burden of adjusting to it, flexible labor and capital markets are critically important.

What Can Policies Do to Help U.S. Workers?

In terms of the overall economy, appropriate monetary and fiscal policies can ensure that aggregate demand keeps the economy on a sound footing, which helps generate jobs to replace those that have been lost.

But words about aggregate demand can seem like cold comfort to the individual workers whose offices and plants are closing because their jobs are going overseas. And concern for these workers, of course, is why there’s interest in trying to restrict trade with tariffs, quotas, or other barriers. Indeed, such measures may actually succeed in slowing job losses in affected industries temporarily. But, as I hope I’ve illustrated, in the end, they impose significant costs on the rest of the economy that are much higher than any benefits.

That’s why I believe it’s far more appropriate to have policies that focus on protecting the people at risk, not the jobs. Such policies should aim to do two things during difficult transitions: help workers get through the hard times and help workers become more flexible so they can adapt when they do face these kinds of changes. In fact, we have policies like theseunemployment insurance, for example. We even have policies specifically for manufacturing workers who have lost jobs to foreign competition. These trade-adjustment assistance programs offer both financial support for a time and the opportunity for training, so that workers can retool their skills and find new jobs. So, in order to help the service workers who have lost their jobs because of outsourcing, it might be appropriate to extend these programs to them.

I realize there’s some debate about how effective the programs are, but the concepts they’re built on are, to my mind, right on targetgiving workers a safety net and giving workers the training and tools to qualify for the jobs being created in the U.S. In fact, such programs also could be appropriate for workers who have lost jobs in the wake of the technology-driven productivity surge.

In the long-run, of course, the solution is simple to state, but difficultand costlyto implement. And that solution is improving the performance of the U.S. education system. Education is the bedrock of our current edge in technology and productivity. It’s the key to producing workers with the flexibility to learn new skills as market conditions evolve. And it’s the hope and promise we must provide for future generations of Americans.

Critiques of Darwinian Evolution Should Be Taught in Science Classes

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Stephen C. Meyer and John Angus Campbell, "Teach the Controversy," Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture, March 11, 2005. Reproduced by permission.

"Teachers should describe competing views to students and explain the arguments for and against these views as made by their chief proponents."

In the following viewpoint, Stephen C. Meyer and John Angus Campbell advocate that science educators teach students that evolutionary theory offers only one perspective on how life originated. While the authors acknowledge that instructors have been forbidden by law to teach creationism, they still can point out that Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory is a subject of controversy and that other views on life’s origins exist. Meyer and Campbell contend that by teaching the controversy, students learn how to make up their own minds based on present evidence. Stephen C. Meyer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a nonprofit organization that examines the crossroads of technology, science, and culture. John Angus Campbell is a communications professor at the University of Memphis. The pair served as the editors of the book Darwinism, Design and Public Education.

As you read, consider the following questions:

As Meyer and Campbell explain, why do many educators feel that they face a no-win situation when teaching about the origins of life?
What evidence do Michael Behe and Dean Kenyon offer to question Darwin’s theory of evolution?
According to the authors, what was the result of the ruling in the 1987 Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard?

What should public schools teach about life’s origins? Should science educators teach only contemporary Darwinian theory, or not even mention it? Should school boards mandate that students learn about alternative theories? If so, which ones? Or should schools forbid discussion of all theories except neo-Darwinism?

These questions are now arising frequently as districts around the country consider how to respond to the growing controversy over biological origins.

Of course, many educators wish such controversies would simply go away. On the one hand, if science teachers teach only Darwinian evolution, many parents and religious activists will protest. On the other, if teachers present religiously-based creationism, they run afoul Supreme Court rulings. Either way, it seems educators face a no-win situation.

So what should they do? Is there any approach that will satisfyif not everybodyat least most reasonable people?

Teach the Controversy

Surprisingly, there is a way to teach evolution that will benefit students and satisfy all but the most extreme ideologues.

Rather than ignoring the controversy or teaching religiously-based ideas, teachers should teach about the scientific controversy that now exists over Darwinian evolution.

This is simply good education.

When credible experts disagree about a controversial subject, students should learn about competing perspectives.

In such cases teachers should not teach as true only one viewjust the Republican or just the Democratic view of the New Deal in a history class, for example. Instead, teachers should describe competing views to students and explain the arguments for and against these views as made by their chief proponents. We call this "teaching the controversy."

But is there really a scientific, as opposed to just a cultural or religious controversy, over evolution?

In fact there are several significant scientific controversies about key aspects of evolutionary theory.

Evidence Worth Questioning

First, some scientists doubt the idea that all organisms have evolved from a single common ancestor. Why? Fossil studies reveal "a biological big bang" near the beginning of the Cambrian period (530 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or "phyla" (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors. Fossil finds repeatedly have confirmed a pattern of explosive appearance and prolonged stability in living formsnot the gradual "branching-tree" pattern implied by Darwin’s common ancestry thesis.

Other scientists doubt the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism. While many scientists accept that natural selection can produce small-scale "micro-evolutionary" variations, many biologists now doubt that natural selection and random mutations can generate the large-scale changes necessary to produce fundamentally new structures and forms of life. Over 350 scientists, including researchers from institutions such as M.I.T, Yale, Rice, and the Smithsonian, have signed a statement questioning the creative power of the selection/mutation mechanism.

Finally, some scientists doubt the Darwinian idea that living things merely "appear" designed. Instead, they think that living systems display tell-tale signs of actual or "intelligent" design. Prominent scientists, like Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe and former San Francisco State University biophysicist Dean Kenyon, have cited intriguing evidence in support of this theory such as the presence of digital information, complex circuits and miniature motors in living cells. Recently, mainstream academic publishers, notably Cambridge University Press, have published books and articles that present the scientific case for, and the debate over, intelligent design.

Since intelligent design is a new theory of biological origins, we recommend that students not be required to learn about it. Nevertheless, we think they should learn about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of orthodox Darwinism. Clearly, teachers should also be free to tell their students about alternative new theories like Behe’s design theory, provided these theories are based (as Behe’s is) upon scientific evidence, not scriptural texts.

A Compelling Approach

There are many reasons to adopt this "teach the controversy" approach.

First, constitutional law permits it. In the controlling Edwards v. Aguillard case, the Supreme Court ruled that it is permissible to teach students about both alternative scientific theories of origins and scientific criticism of prevailing theories.

Second, federal education policy calls for it. The authoritative report language accompanying the No Child Left Behind act states that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of views that exist."

Third, polls show that over 70% of the electorate favor teaching both the evidence for and against Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Finally, teaching scientific controversies engages student interest and encourages them to do what scientists must dodeliberate about how best to interpret evidence. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."

Note: Since the original publication of this article the number of signatories of The Scientific Dissent from Darwinism has risen to over 700. The complete list is available at www.dissentfromdarwin.com.

Using Alternative Sources of Stem Cells Resolves Ethical Issues

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Domestic Policy Council, "Advancing Stem Cell Science Without Destroying Human Life," The White House, April 2, 2007, www.whitehouse.gov.

"Recent biological advances have raised encouraging possibilities for producing powerful stem cells without harming embryos."

In the following viewpoint, the White House’s Domestic Policy Council advocates five approaches to stem cell research as ethical alternatives to the destruction of human embryos: cell extraction from already dead embryos; non-harmful biopsy of living embryos; cell extraction from nonembryonic cellular systems; reprogramming of adult cells back to an undifferentiated (pluripotent) state; and cell extraction from amniotic fluid. The Domestic Policy Council, directed by Karl Zinsmeister, coordinates the domestic policy-making process for the U.S. president, monitors the implementation of President George W. Bush’s domestic policies, and represents the president’s priorities to other branches of government.

As you read, consider the following questions:

What most valuable quality of embryonic stem cells do scientists aim to produce in alternative sources, as described by the Domestic Policy Council?
According to the authors, how have researchers from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Japan’s Institute for Frontier Medical Science reprogrammed ordinary adult cells into a pluripotent state?
What uses of amniotic stem cells have already been demonstrated by Wake Forest University researchers, according to the Domestic Policy Council?

The destruction of embryos for experimental purposes could open the way to more general and profound manipulations and reengineerings of human life. Without an understanding that life begins at conception, and that an embryo is a nascent human being, there will always be arguments that other uses, takeovers, and makeovers of embryos are justified by potential scientific and medical benefits. Crossing this line would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both, and to our nation as a whole….

A policy that defends the inviolability of human life does not preclude the hopeful possibilities of new findings and new therapies. It simply means we must harness the creative powers of our advancing knowledge only to humane and morally balanced means and ends. Amidst today’s dizzying pace of technological innovation, it is worth taking care to make sure that our moral and ethical policies keep up. The biotechnology revolution will bring sound and wholesome human results over the long run only if it is sensibly governed.

The stem cell debate is only the first in what will be an onrushing train of biotechnology challenges in our future. We must establish a constructive precedent here for taking the moral dimensions of these issues seriously. We must make certain we don’t force ourselves into a false choice between science and ethicsbecause we need both.

And there is good reason, and growing scientific evidence, to believe that we can have both….

Advances in Alternative Sources of Pluripotent Cells

Recent biological advances have raised encouraging possibilities for producing powerful stem cells without harming human embryos. What scientists value most about embryonic stem cells is their pluripotency and expandabilitythat they have the potential to be teased into many, and perhaps all, of the different cell types in the body. But scientists have begun to find that this potential may also exist in certain cells derived without embryos. New ways of producing pluripotent cells that don’t require the destruction (or even endangerment) of human embryos are now being investigated.

In May 2005, the President’s Council on Bioethics published Alternative Sources of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells, a White Paper which suggested four possible approaches for alternative sources: (1) by extracting viable cells from embryos already dead; (2) by non-harmful biopsy of living embryos; (3) by extracting cells from artificially created non-embryonic cellular systems or entities (engineered to lack the essential elements of an embryo); (4) by reprogramming (or de-differentiation) of adult cells back to pluripotency. Each of these methods carries its own scientific and ethical uncertainties, but one or more may ultimately offer a path toward an ethically responsible source of pluripotent stem cells.

In January 2007, landmark research from Wake Forest University has suggested yet another alternative: Amniotic fluid, investigators discovered, contains highly flexible stem cells shed by the fetus. These appear to have all the valuable qualities of embryonic stem cells, plus some advantages of their ownlike greater ease and speed of culture, and no tendency to produce tumors. Meanwhile, they are comparatively easy to collect without harming human life….

The Promise of Somatic Cell Reprogramming

Just in the short period since they were sketched out in May 2005, significant progress has been made on [the four techniques identified by the Bioethics Council], as reported in a number of new, peer-reviewed research studies published in leading scientific journals. At this point, one of the most promising avenues appears to be somatic cell reprogramming, which uses chemical and genetic factors to reprogram an adult cell to function like an embryonic stem cell.

Each cell in an individual’s body has the same DNA as every other cell. But in the course of developing into specialized adult tissues, different cells undergo different patterns of gene activation. Somatic cell reprogramming seeks to switch on or off the appropriate genes to transform an adult cell back into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell. This might be accomplished by stimulating the adult cell with the right combination of chemicals and genes, or by exposing it to the cytoplasm of an existing line of stem cells. This method could, in theory, create stem cells in bulk while bypassing entirely the problem of creating and destroying embryos.

Two research teams that have demonstrated significant progress toward this sort of cell reprogramming are Kevin Eggan and Chad Cowan from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi from the Department of Stem Cell Biology at Japan’s Institute for Frontier Medical Science. In August of 2005 and August of 2006, respectively, each team published impressive results which seemed to produce pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming ordinary adult cells.

The project conducted at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute fused a human adult cell with an embryonic stem cell. (These could come from one of the embryonic stem cell lines that President George W. Bush has approved for use with federal funds.) That effectively turned back the clock on the adult cell such that it was reprogrammed to a pluripotent state. Eggan and Cowan believe that their research could lead to "an alternative route for creating genetically tailored human embryonic stem cells for use in the study and treatment of disease."

Drs. Yamanaka and Takahashi published research based on mouse cells. Their complex study produced stunningly simple results: They reprogrammed adult cells into a pluripotent state simply by bathing them in four genetic factors. "The finding is an important step in controlling pluripotency, which may eventually allow the creation of pluripotent cells directly from somatic cells of patients," comments Dr. Yamanaka. If successful, this could offer all the benefits of embryonic stem cells and morethese cells could be genetically matched to any prospective patientwithout the ethical dilemmas of embryonic destruction.

Extracting Stem Cells from Amniotic Fluid

Other promising avenues are likely to open in the future. The latest alternative, published on January 7, 2007, in Nature Biotechnology, involves amniotic-fluid stem cells. Dr. Anthony Atala and a team from the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Harvard Medical School reported on a new category of readily available stem cells extractable from the waters cushioning babies in utero, as well as the placenta. While this very new research will need to be replicated and confirmed, Dr. Atala and colleagues have already managed to grow useful brain, bone, liver, muscle, and other replacement tissues using these stem cells.

This discovery suggests that if all U.S. newborns had their amniotic stem cells frozen, they could be available for future tissue replacement without fear of immune rejection. Moreover, a bank of amniotic stem cells from the waters of 100,000 pregnancies could supply 99 percent of the U.S. population with genetically compatible stem cells for possible transplantation. More studies will be needed to confirm that amniotic stem cells can generate all other cell types, but so far every culture attempted has succeeded. It must also be determined that tests conducted in mice will translate to humans.

Ocean Fertilization Can Reduce Global Warming

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Global warming, which many experts believe is caused by an increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, has generated worries that ocean levels will rise and weather patterns will change. In response, many international treaties have been developed that call for nations to reduce production of CO₂. However, fertilizing the ocean with iron to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere is more economical than trying to reduce CO₂ emissions, argue Michael Markels and Richard T. Barber in the following viewpoint. The authors claim that adding iron to encourage marine plant growth will reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂. Markels is the founder of GreenSea Venture, Inc., an ocean farming company. Barber is a professor of biological oceanography at Duke University.

As you read, consider the following questions:

What are the adverse economic effects of current attempts to reduce CO₂ emissions, in the authors’ view?
According to the authors, what is the disadvantage of injecting CO₂ into coal seams or pumping it to the ocean floor?

The CO₂ content of the atmosphere has increased from about 280 ppm [parts per million] to about 362 ppm during the last 60 years. During the 1980’s the rate of increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere, in terms of carbon metric tons, was about 3.3 gigatons of carbon per year (GtC/yr). Fossil fuel emissions were about 5.5 GtC/yr (20 Gt CO₂/yr) and terrestrial emissions were about 1.1 GtC/yr during that period, so about 3.3 GtC/yr, 60% of fossil fuel emissions, were sequestered naturally. Of this, about 2.0 GtC/yr was absorbed by the oceans and 1.3 GtC/yr by the land. The remaining 40%, 2.2 GtC (8.1 GtCO₂)/yr, contributed to the increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration. This increase in the CO₂ content of the atmosphere has led to concerns that this increase will result in global climate change, which, over time, can have adverse effects on weather, sea level and human survival. This concern has led to the 1992 Rio Treaty, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Working Group and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which call for a reduction of emissions of 34% by 2050 and a reduction of 70% from the then-expected emissions from the industrial nations by 2100. These reductions, if put into effect, would have serious adverse effects on the economy of the United States, causing loss of jobs, decrease in our standard of living and a reduction in the life span of our citizens. These required reductions would not address the concerns that demand an approach to permit the reversal of atmospheric CO₂ increase, should this become necessary.

The Problem of Increased CO₂

What is the basis for peoples’ concerns? Part is the fear of the new and unknown. Any change that is not purposeful may be viewed with apprehension. "It is probably bad unless I can control it." The other part is the unknown aspects of the science. While the results of increased CO₂ in the atmosphere have generally been benign so far there is genuine concern that at some point the atmosphere may become unstable and the oceans may freeze, the atmosphere may lose its water to outer space or the earth may become so hot that the atmosphere may become mostly water vapor. Here too, the key is to have available a technology that can be applied to the problem if required, to reverse the increased CO₂ content of the atmosphere at a cost that people are prepared to bear.

The current approach to the problem of atmospheric CO₂ increase is to take specific actions now to reduce the risk of adverse consequences in the future. These actions are to increase the efficiency of energy production and use and to change our standard of living to reduce our dependence on energy in our lives. Energy efficiency can often be increased, but we have been doing this for over 200 years, so there is not a lot of gain remaining before we run into thermodynamic barriers. Even at 100% efficiency, we still add CO₂ to the atmosphere, so this can never address peoples’ concerns. We can also address the other side of the problem, which is to increase the rate at which CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere. If we could increase this enough we could bring the net increase in CO₂ emissions to zero, providing a solution to the problem of peoples’ concerns. The availability of this solution will permit us to avoid precipitous actions and await the proven requirement to take steps to lower the atmospheric CO₂ level as may be prudent.

Removing CO₂ from the Atmosphere

CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere by plants using the Sun’s energy to convert it to biomass. This biomass may be used as food by bacteria, fungi and animals that obtain energy by reacting it with oxygen from the air and respiring CO₂ back to the atmosphere. Over time, a portion of the biomass formed has been sequestered in the earth and in the ocean bottom, forming fossil fuels that we burn to obtain energy to support our standard of living. Numerous projects have been undertaken to increase tree growth in the tropics. These projects suffer from a short lifetime, generally 20 to 50 years, and the difficulty of assuring that forest fires, poaching, etc., will not result in an early recycling of the carbon to the atmosphere. Other CO₂ sequestering technologies have been proposed, including injection of liquid CO₂ into geological formations or into the deep ocean.

The injection of CO₂ into coal seams and natural gas producing formations to increase methane production has been well proven and is commercially viable where relatively pure CO₂ is available. This is the case where natural gas wells produce a mix of CO₂ and methane, which is separated leaving a CO₂-rich stream at no additional cost. These CO₂-rich streams can also be disposed of in deep saline aquifers such as is being done in the North Sea. The capacity of these alternatives is low since not much pure CO₂ is available near disposal sites. A larger capacity alternative is to separate the CO₂ from flue gas at electric power plants, liquefy and transport it to a location where it can be transferred to a ship for transport to the deep ocean. There, the ship will lower a two-mile long injection pipe and pump the liquid CO₂ to the ocean floor. Each of these steps is expensive and energy intensive, with the result that the approach is expected to cost in the range of $300 per ton of carbon or $80 per ton of CO₂ sequestered.

There are environmental concerns since we would be adding a new chemical to the ocean floor, liquid CO₂, which may produce hydrates and other chemicals over time. Liquid fuels used for transportation are also difficult to burn so as to capture the CO₂ produced. While increased efficiency is usually advantageous it still results in CO₂ release to the atmosphere. This, again, indicates that sequestration of the CO₂ is likely to be the best approach.

Fertilizing the Ocean

The best approach is to sequester CO₂ in the deep ocean by causing a bloom of plant life that then sinks to the deep waters where it remains for about 1600 years, as measured by the ¹⁴C to ¹²C ratio [the normal ratio of these two isotopes as found in atmospheric CO₂] of upwelling of deep ocean water off of Peru. This process is possible because large areas of the oceans have excess, unused plant nutrients and much less than expected phytoplankton biomass, the so-called HNLC [high nutrient, low chlorophyll] waters. The difference is that the HNLC waters are deficient in one or more of the micronutrients required for plants to grow. While several essential metals may be involved in the limitation of growth in HNLC areas, iron has been shown to be the major micronutrient. Generally, 100,000 moles of carbon biomass require 16,000 moles of fixed nitrogen, 1,000 moles of soluble phosphorous and one mole of available iron. The main difficulty is the iron. Since surface ocean waters are highly oxygenated, any soluble iron is converted to Fe⁺⁺⁺ with a half-life of about one hour and precipitates as Fe(OH)₃. A shovel full of earth is about 5.6% iron on the average. The ocean, on the other hand, has 0.0000000001 or less moles per liter of iron, too little to sustain plant growth. The first problem, then, is how to add iron to the ocean so that it will be available to the phytoplankton (plants). The phytoplankton themselves exude organic chelating compounds into the ocean that protect some of the iron that is there from precipitation. Adding iron in the form of a chelate so that it does not precipitate but remains available for plant fertilization can mimic this natural process. An essential element that may be in short supply in nutrient-depleted, tropical ocean waters is phosphorous. Most phosphates are soluble and can be added directly to the ocean. Since the phosphate may attack the iron chelate, it may be necessary to keep the concentrations of both fertilizers low. This can be done by adding them to the ocean separately in the form of small floating pellets that release the fertilizing element slowly over a period of days. This process has been tested by GreenSea Venture, Inc. (GSV) in the Gulf of Mexico with good results. The remaining required essential element is fixed nitrogen. Bluegreen algae or, as they are more properly called, cyanobacteria, have the ability to fix nitrogen, so inducing a bloom of nitrogen fixers might supply this requirement.

Sequestering CO₂

When the fertilizer mixed with water is added to the tropical ocean surface it mixes rapidly in the warm waters (the mixed layer) and starts the phytoplankton bloom. The plants, mostly diatoms, multiply rapidly, increasing their numbers by two to three times per day, until they run out of one of the required nutrients. They then cease growing, lose the ability to maintain buoyancy and sink through the thermocline at a rate of about 75 feet a day. The sinking biomass is trapped in the cold, dense waters where it is eaten by animal life and bacteria. This slowly converts the biomass back to CO₂ in the deep waters. Where high concentrations of biomass are generated and reach the ocean floor they may be covered by mud and debris, leading to anoxic digestion. The methane produced is converted to methane hydrates by the high pressure of the deep ocean. It has been estimated that there is twice as much carbon in the methane hydrates of the deep ocean floor than all the terrestrial fossil fuels combined. It is worth noting that the addition of CO₂ in this low concentration, natural process is not expected to have any adverse environmental impact on the ocean, which now has about 85 times as much dissolved inorganic carbon as the atmosphere.

Since our objective is to sequester CO₂ to the deep ocean it is important that we minimize the proportion of the biomass produced that is processed by animal life and bacteria in the mixing layer above the thermocline. This can be done by fertilizing in pulses, so that the slower-growing animal life cannot multiply effectively before the diatoms have bloomed, died and gone below the thermocline, a period of less than 20 days. The fraction of the biomass produced that is sequestered below the thermocline has been measured. It depends principally on the amount of animal life available to eat the biomass and convert it back into CO₂ in the highly oxygenated surface waters. Where the ecosystem is in balance with large amounts of animal life the sequestered carbon is about 10% of primary production and consists mainly of animal parts, scales, bones and fecal pellets. Where animal life is absent the ratio may go as high as 80% sequestered. Measurements made in the tropical Pacific Ocean off of Peru produced a ratio of 53% sequestered beneath the thermocline. We have used this measurement in our calculations. We must also test the waters we intend to fertilize in order to add the correct amount and mix to produce the optimum result. To achieve this we select the waters for fertilization to include a strong, shallow thermocline, tropical sunshine and high nutrient, low chlorophyll (HNLC) conditions. These waters can be found in the tropical Pacific near the equator west of the Galapagos Islands. The cool wind-driven currents go directly to the west before reaching the Line Islands of Polynesia. The 3,000,000 square miles of these HNLC waters can sequester about 0.4 GtCO₂/yr. Recent studies have shown that, because of the rapidly growing forests and verdant agriculture, North America has an uptake of 1.7 GtCO₂/yr and an emission of 1.6 GtCO₂/yr. While this rough balance is variable, depending on weather-stimulated growth it illustrates that sequestering capability such as that of the Pacific Equatorial Current can be significant in affecting the C content of the atmosphere….

The Commercialization of CO₂ Sequestration

Should the increasing CO₂ content of the atmosphere be determined to have adverse impacts much worse than their advantages, the further demonstration of this technology can provide a solution, relieving the concerns regarding the continuous increase of these adverse net impacts. CO₂ sequestering could then be carried out in the equatorial Pacific and in other HNLC waters, especially off of Antarctica, the main areas of the oceans that have a high capacity of sequestering CO₂. For instance, if all the CO₂ in the atmosphere were sequestered in the ocean, it would raise the average concentration of CO₂ in the ocean by only about 1.2%. The ocean chemistry would not be altered significantly and the increase in outgassing of the CO₂ from the ocean surface would be minimal.

The cost of sequestering CO₂ on a commercial scale is expected to be about $1.00 per ton of CO₂. The sales price for CO₂ sequestering credits, should they become tradable, would be about $2.00 per ton of CO₂, to include the cost of verification, overhead and profit. It is expected that these credits would be highly valued since they would not suffer from the problems of fire hazard, leakage and additionality the forest projects for CO₂ sequestering face. Such credits could be produced within a few years of a successful technology demonstration. Alternately, technology development could be continued with the objective of eventual large-scale CO₂ sequestration to address major climate perturbations.

Creating New Choices

The expected impacts of a successful demonstration of the technology and the measurement of significant sequestration response by the ocean to the planned chelated iron addition could be significant. The costly early actions now being contemplated to counteract possible future impacts of increased CO₂ content of the atmosphere would no longer be needed and instead all responses could be tied to measured consequences, which could then be reversed. This would open new options, avoid the unnecessary use of scarce resources and refocus attention on actual problems rather than seeking to deal with possible future scenarios. Many entities, both governmental and industrial may decide to do very useful things based on these concerns, such as improved energy efficiency and the exploration of new energy resources. This is to the good of society where they make economic sense and should be implemented in any case.

A CO₂ credit system may be instituted that will allow trading of credits to generate the lowest cost. Credits from sequestering CO₂ in the oceans should be a part of this effort so as to take early advantage of this lower cost, environmentally benign, low human impact and robust capacity approach to solving the global warming concerns, should this become necessary.

Many approaches for dealing with the increase in the CO₂ content of the atmosphere have been proposed, but sequestration by ocean fertilization has received little attention. It is new, far away and poorly understood by many. The initial reaction is that not enough is known to warrant attention at this time. While this reaction may have had merit in the past, the last few years have seen a great increase in knowledge about the oceans, especially the equatorial Pacific, where moored and floating buoy systems, research vessel voyages and continuous satellite monitoring have all greatly increased our knowledge and understanding. The last remaining piece of the puzzle is to quantify the response of this HNLC ocean water to iron fertilization … which can lead to solving the problem of peoples’ concerns rather than just working on it, thereby saving time and costs while greatly reducing the risk of adverse consequences.

Implementation and Environmental Concerns Surround the National Renewable Fuel Standard

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:00:00 +0000

"While the infrastructure challenges loom large, other concerns also surround the new Renewable Fuel Standard, including the environmental impacts of increased biofuels production."

In the following viewpoint, Rosalie Westenskow says that some congressional leaders are questioning whether the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), is a practical solution to decreasing domestic greenhouse gas emissions and U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources worries that portions of the law will be difficult to enact, such as the early year biofuel requirements. Environmental impacts of increased biofuels production, such as increased soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, and fertilizer runoff, as well as a disruption of food supply, are also concerns. Rosalie Westenskow is a United Press International correspondent.

As you read, consider the following questions:

According to Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, what are the three major problems with the Renewable Fuel Standard?
Why is it difficult and expensive to get biofuels to consumers?
Why could the increased demand for ethanol that will result from the Renewable Fuel Standard prolong our reliance on other countries for fuel?

Just weeks after passing a major energy bill, some congressional leaders are questioning whether certain portions of the law are achievable.

The biggest concerns hinge on the Renewable Fuel Standard [RFS] established by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a massive piece of legislation signed by the president on Dec. 19. The provision mandates increasing amounts of biofuels be produced and mixed with domestic gasoline. The dictated volume grows steadily each year, requiring a nearly eight-fold increase overall from last year’s production of 4.7 billion gallons to 36 billion gallons in 2022.

While the law as a whole has the potential to significantly decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil and domestic greenhouse gas emissions, the RFS provision could prove difficult to enact as it is currently constructed, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., at a hearing Thursday in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

"First, early year biofuel requirements could be too aggressive; second, mandates for specific technologies and feedstock could prove to be overly prescriptive; finally, the environmental restrictions may be too narrow," said Bingaman, chairman of the committee.

The RFS requires biofuel production to almost double in 2008 alone. While Bingaman said he’s confident the biofuels industry can produce the 8.5 billion mandated gallons, getting it to consumers presents a daunting task.

"It is not clear how all of this biofuel will find its way into the fuel tanks of our cars and trucks," Bingaman said. "Because the law was signed only weeks before the 2008 requirement came into effect, refiners had no opportunity to ensure that sufficient infrastructure would be in place to handle that much of an increase."

Indeed, representatives of the petrochemical and refining industries say the infrastructure needed this year alone cannot be built quickly enough.

Currently, most of the biofuels used domestically are consumed in the East Coast, West Coast, upper Midwest and Texas. But in order to meet the RFS, biofuels must be blended into gasoline sold all over the country, said Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, an advocacy group for the industry.

"When you start going beyond these traditional areas, it is a very, very difficult and expensive proposition to get" biofuels to consumers, Drevna told United Press International. "The cost of transporting renewable fuels to gas stations could reach 13 cents to 18 cents per gallon."

Ethanol, the major biofuel used today, cannot be transported via pipeline, like conventional fuels, because of its corrosive properties and its ability to absorb the water commonly present in pipelines, rendering it unusable.

However, ethanol industry advocates say the infrastructure challenges are not insurmountable. The industry has established a "virtual pipeline" using the rail system, barges and trucks, said Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade association for the industry.

"We can move product quickly to those areas where it is needed," Dinneen told senators Thursday.

A new ethanol distribution center in Manley, Iowa, will provide needed infrastructure, Dinneen said. By the end of 2009 more than 75 ethanol plants are expected to be operating within 275 miles of the terminal, producing about 5 billion gallons per year.

While the infrastructure challenges loom large, other concerns also surround the new RFS, including the environmental impacts of increased biofuels production.

The most commercially viable and commonly consumed biofuel today is ethanol, produced mainly, in the United States, from corn. Unfortunately, converting more land to grow these crops for ethanol could increase soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer runoff, as well as disrupt food supply, according to several studies.

The increased demand for ethanol that will result from the new RFS could also potentially prolong our reliance on other countries for fuel, said Mark Muller of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit advocacy group.

"This could lead to removing the tariff on Brazilian ethanol, resulting in a floodgate of cheap Brazilian ethanol driving down the domestic ethanol price, and thwarting U.S. efforts to become more energy independent," Muller told UPI.

That’s unlikely, said Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol.

"We have such a tremendous potential to produce fuel in the United States that the demand can be met domestically," he said.

Ethanol won’t be the only fuel used to satisfy the RFS, though. By 2022, 21 billion of the 36 billion gallons of mandated biofuels must come from "advanced sources" produced from wastes, debris and non-food crops.

To date, significant volumes of fuel have not been produced from any "advanced sources," but they hold huge potential, according to several sources. One study, conducted by the Oregon Environmental Council, found 84 million gallons of ethanol could be produced annually from the state’s wheat residues.

However, there are concerns that key fuel sources have been excluded from the bill. The most egregious of these is woody biomass derived from federal forest lands, said Carol Werner, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a non-profit organization.

Forests cover one-third of U.S. land, and much of that area could be routinely thinned of debrisreducing fire hazards and providing material for fuel, Werner said.

"Unfortunately, these provisions eliminate an opportunity to support hazardous fuels reduction (and) reduce the number of possible cellulosic (sources) for production of renewable fuels," Werner told senators Thursday.

The potential amount of woody biomass excluded by the provision is no paltry figure. According to a study conducted by the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2005, 1,996 million dry tons of forest biomass could be gleaned by thinning areas with a high fire risk in national forests alone.

Although the law technically allows biomass from high fire risk areas to count toward the RFS, "high fire risk" is defined as "being next to an occupied building," effectively eliminating most federal forest land, said Matt Letourneau, Republican communications director for the Senate Energy Committee.

Although no plans have been formally made to alter the law, Congress could potentially pass a corrections bill to iron out some of the difficulties in implementing the RFS, Letourneau said.

"There’s been talk of making some technical corrections anyway," he told UPI. "(And) there are also potential opportunities to attach language to other legislation."

Whatever Congress decides to do, it’s clear implementation will be a challenge, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

"I think it is pretty obvious that either a lot of good administrative people will have to get together and resolve this in a way that would be extraordinary or we’ll have to end up changing things," Domenici said.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education May Not Work

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0000

"Drug Prevention Placebo." Reprinted, with permission, from the March 1995 issue of Reason magazine. Copyright 1995 by the Reason Foundation, 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034.

Jeff Elliott is a freelance writer.

The October 1994 government flyer seemed like sweet vindication to the thousands of parents, police, and teachers who supported the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program, better known by the acronym DARE. "The D.A.R.E. Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction, and Effectiveness," the headline on the single page boasted, describing a new study of the drug-education program. More happy news followed. "Not only is DARE widespread and popular, but demand for it is high," read the flyer. DARE’s "… appeal cuts across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines [with] considerable support for expansion of the program."

Success and Criticism for DARE

Sweet vindication indeed. Since its inception in 1983, the DARE curriculum had rapidly spread from the Los Angeles area to schools across the country. In fact, more than half of all schools in the United States currently use the program; almost 20 million schoolkids a year are visited at least once by a DARE instructor. Despite such success, however, critics had been increasingly vocal in recent years, attacking the program as a costly and ineffective way of teaching kids about the perils of drug abuse. They claimed that DARE was just another untested pedagogical gimmick that served no purpose other than soaking up private donations and local, state, and federal tax dollars.

The newly released study, then, would simultaneously silence naysayers while boosting DARE’s shot at more public funds and deeper penetration into schools. This is no penny-ante business, either: DARE, which was specifically held up as exemplary in two sections of the 1994 crime bill, is competing with other drug-ed programs for a chunk of the more than $500 million the feds put aside for such instruction. And running DARE takes a lot of money. A DARE spokesperson claims the program costs somewhat less than $200 million annually, but other credible estimates range as high as $700 million, once all costs are considered.

The claims in the government flyer were accurateto a point. The three-year study, commissioned by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research office for the U.S. Department of Justice, did include those observations. Researchers found that DARE raises children’s self-esteem, polishes their social skills, and improves their attitudes toward police.

But unfortunately for DARE boosters, the study also proved something else: DARE doesn’t have a measurable effect on drug abuse. While the flyer devoted ample space to puffery, it dismissed the critical heart of the study in just two terse sentences. And it did not mention that NIJ had refused to publish the study, despite positive peer review.

A Faulty Research Study?

Charges and countercharges flew throughout the early weeks of October. NIJ was trying to put a positive spin on bad news and suppressing the study, claimed DARE critics. Not so, NIJ Director Jeremy Travis replied in one letter to the editor: Questions about "the scientific validity" of the study were raised by NIJ reviewers, and the work did not meet their "high standards of methodological rigor."

Travis’s letter was a stinging rebuke to the prestigious Research Triangle Institute (RTI), which has authored hundreds of government studies without complaint. Under pressure to withdraw the study or rewrite the conclusions, the scientists stood by their work. "We agreed to disagree," says principal author Susan Ennett.

Accusations of faulty research trouble Ennett and her co-authors, who point out that ongoing government reviews examined their work in progress. "We worked with NIJ throughout, sending drafts and getting back comments," says Ennett. "[The review] didn’t just happen at the end." Ennett says there were four outside reviews over the lifetime of the three-year project, as well as in-house reviews by NIJ itself.

Another curious aspect of the government reaction is that the RTI study contained no original research. Only previously published studies were examined, and all had reached the same dismal conclusions about DARE. Says Ennett, "The results of all the studies used in the meta-analysis were consistent; it’s not like the conclusions of these different studies were all over the place. We did not find any support for [a statistically significant] impact on drug use, and they show DARE has no effect at all on marijuana use." Another author of the study is more blunt: "The kids learn to have respect for police: fine and dandy. But if it’s sold for the prevention of drug use, it’s not working."

But even if NIJ had signed off on the study, the government had another excuse ready: A new, improved DARE was introduced in the autumn of 1994. And, as the flyer noted, "The effects of the new curriculum on learning and behavior may in turn call for a new evaluation." In the eyes of the Justice Department, in other words, all the research that proves DARE ineffective is now invalid.

This position infuriates many researchers, who view it as a disingenuous attempt to deflect criticism. Claiming that a revised program is entirely new is a well-known academic shell game. "There’s not a new curriculumthere’s a slightly changed curriculum," argues Richard Clayton, director of the Center of Prevention Research at the University of Kentucky. Clayton, who is now concluding a five-year evaluation of DARE in Kentucky, says his findings also match the conclusions in the RTI study.

"I’m really not surprised NIJ refused to publish it," says Clayton, "but I’m disappointed. DARE has a leadership role to play because it’s in half the schools. An organization that receives that much public funding has an obligation to be honest with the public."…

In the DARE Classroom

DARE Officer Terry Campbell is on stage. It is the first time he has visited this fourth-grade class, but most of the children already know him well. As the full-time DARE instructor for Petaluma, California, he has been in the classrooms since 1988. One of the program’s recent graduates was Polly Klaas, whose abduction and murder [in October 1993] brought sad fame to this small town, forty-five minutes north of San Francisco.

After he introduces himself, the twenty-minute lesson begins. Campbell asks if anyone knows what DARE means and a gift is quick to respond, "Drug Abuse Resistance Education."

"What’s a drug?" Campbell asks. The kids have ready answers, a mix of formal names and common slang. Cocaine. Alcohol. Tobacco. Coke. Pot.

"I know a different kind of drug," a boy adds. "It’s a medicine."

Campbell asks, "What is it?"

"Penicillin." The officer asks if his parents ever gave him Children’s Tylenol for a headache. Yes, they have.

"Did you take it in the right way?"

"Yes."

"Today, maybe you have a bad headache. Should you take 10 Tylenol?"

"No," the children chorus.

"That’s right. That’s called drug abuse. That’s all a drug issomething that can help you or hurt you, depending on how you take it."

The children listen attentively. Campbell is more than a police officer; he is also a natural teacher, demonstrating a genius that outreaches mere talent. In front of a class, he is transformed, riffing off the kids’ questions and comments like Robin Williams, connecting with every child in the room. Hands down, he is one of the best teachers imaginable. DARE and the city of Petaluma are fortunate.

In all classes, time is set aside for questions. Before school, Campbell accurately predicted the first question: "Have you ever shot anybody?" Similar career-day questions follow as the intrigued fourth graders quiz their visiting policeman. His profession is close to their minds; like all DARE officers, Campbell wears his uniformbut sans handgun, walkie-talkie, and other tools of his trade.

The Core Curriculum

These brief kindergarten through fifth-grade classroom visits, Campbell later explains, lay the groundwork for the DARE core curriculum, taught in the sixth grade. Campbell gives safety advice, reminds them to call 911 "if they need to," and prepares them for their DARE sessions. Not insignificantly, he also becomes a familiar and trusted figure. "One of the most beneficial things of the program is that kids get to see police officers like human beings," he says, corroborating a finding of the NIJ-sponsored study.

Next in his schedule is a sixth-grade DARE lesson, where Campbell teaches the fourth of the seventeen lessons in the DARE curriculum. It opens with one of the most controversial elements of the program: the DARE Box. On a window shelf rests the decorated shoebox, where anonymous notes can be passed to Campbell.

Campbell reads the first question: "Someone in my family is doing drugs and I’m worried that if I say anything it will make it worse." Heads spin. Who is it?

"Don’t look around," Campbell says quickly. "It isn’t important to know who wrote it."

A girl raises her hand. "Maybe that kid wants to talk to you about it."

"I’m more than willing to do that," he smiles warmly. "You all know me." He asks them the consequences of using an illegal drug.

"You could get in trouble," one child says. Another adds, "You could die."

Says Campbell, "It’s probably OK to get them into trouble, if that’s going to happen."

A boy asks, "What if it’s one of your parents?"

"You should talk to a teacher or a counselor, or another adult you trust." As Campbell begins the lesson proper, he slips the note into his pocket.

Of the twenty-seven children in this class, only the boy who apparently asked the question does not immediately open his workbook. Instead, he toys with the paper nameplate sitting on his desk. On the side of the wide triangle facing him are printed the eight ways to say no as taught by DARE. On the opposite side the side facing Campbellis the child’s name.

What happened to the note? "I threw it away," Campbell says later. "But I didn’t put it in the wastebasket in the classroom because one of the kids could find out who wrote it." Campbell was occupied with preparing for the lesson and didn’t notice the nervous boy. Still, he says he wouldn’t have acted on it if be had. "First, we don’t know if they were illegal drugsit could be alcohol or tobacco. Secondly, I may have a feeling that a child is having problems, but I can’t make that assumption. Maybe he was fidgeting because he needed to go to the bathroom."

Several times in the last six years, Campbell has found signed notes in the DARE Box. "If a child wrote that he was being abused or in danger, of course I would follow up on it." Recently, he received a note indicating child abuse. "I got the child appropriate help," says Campbell.

The 14 Percent Solution

"How many of you think people will actually force you to use drugs?" Campbell asks, bringing Maggie, one of the girls in the class, to the front of the room. (The names of the children have been changed.) "It’s possible that somebody’s gonna hold a gun to your head and say, take these drugs. More common is the form that Maggie and I have been best friends since kindergarten and I say, ‘Hey, Maggie, I got some marijuana here and I think it’s really great’ …"

"NO!" the child interrupts loudly, with a self-conscious giggle.

"… Would you like to try it?"

"NO!"

"Come on, we won’t be best friends if you don’t."

"NO!"

It is the introduction to a lesson on peer pressure and leads into a discussion of how friends can subtly coax agreement. Campbell reads from the DARE workbook: "How many seventh-grade students out of 100 have been drank from any alcoholic beverage?" The children, organized into groups of five and six, are to come up with a collective answer.

More than a little confusion spreads through the classroom about the assignment. The workbook explains this is the result of a "recent national survey;" but many don’t understand what that means. Does it include New York? one child asks. San Jose? A couple of minutes pass as the children struggle to understand what they are asked to do.

As the groups debate, Campbell wanders through the room, eavesdropping. Just as he approaches, one of the groups settles on 17.5 percent. A girl writes the number in her workbook as Campbell peers over her shoulder. She looks to him for approval but he says nothing, and his face remains blank. As he moves to the next group, she turns to classmates: "Let’s go a little bit higher; he didn’t seem to like that."

The five groups come to five different solutions, ranging between 42 percent and 70 percent. Campbell smiles; the exercise has worked. The correct answer, he reveals, is 14 percent. He points to the group that first had a 17.5 percent answer. He overheard one boy vote for 15 percent but relent against the collective will of the group. "This demonstrates how peer pressure works," Campbell says. "We allowed our peers to talk us into it. Is everybody out there doing drugs?"

The class chimes no, in unison.

"Just because somebody does it doesn’t mean everybody does. Did I surprise you that the figure was so low?" Campbell asks.

"No," the class responds again, but weaker.

Faulty Lesson Designs

Unfortunately, the 14 percent statistic used in the lesson is incorrect. And it’s not even from a recent nationwide surveythe number comes from research done between 1989 and 1990 in California alone. The survey is done every two years for the state attorney general, and the most recent figure for seventh graders who have ever been intoxicated is 23 percent.

Even though DARE’s statistic is wrong it is still lower than any of the estimates by the children. The objective of the lesson is valid; childhood perceptions of normal behavior can be badly skewed.

More troublesome is the lesson design. Only a wrong answer is "right"; the lesson fails if the class picks accurate numbers. When one group chose 17.5 percent, Campbellprobably unconsciouslyled them to raise their guesstimate by implying disapproval. Such subtle problems with design can give even brilliant teachers like Campbell fits.

Shown a transcript of this session, researchers not associated with DARE agree that the point of the lesson was valuable but dismiss the DARE exercise as useless. "Kid’s don’t relate to national or state data," says Joel Moskowitz, who has authored evaluations of several drug education programs. "It’s what their friends are doing that counts."

Moskowitz and others were also critical of the role-playing between Campbell and Maggie. "It should have been between two adolescents," Moskowitz says. "She just parroted the lines the police officer expected. It’s not going to be so easy to say no to a friend if it’s going to make them your enemy."

As the primary author of the DARE curriculum, Dr. Ruth Rich responds to their criticism. "The problem with this lesson is that the kids don’t understand the math," she says. Not so, at least in Petaluma. The children in this class actually skidded to a halt over the concept of a nationwide survey. The same confusion was repeated in another sixth-grade class, later in the day. If the point of the lesson is to teach kids that not everyone does drugs and "that concept is not being taught, we need to work on it," Rich concedes.

What about the complaint that a peer should have played the role of the friend offering Maggie drugs? Says Rich, "We have the officers role-play with the youngsters. We try to get the situation as real as possible, but we would never have a child offering a jointit reinforces the negative."

The problems with this lesson demonstrate something else as well: Designing an effective anti-drug program ain’t easy.

When Maggie role-plays saying no to Officer Campbell, she reinforces her skills at turning down drugs from a uniformed policeman. Not a likely real-life scenario. But if Maggie rejects a reefer from classmate Tommy, Maggie has a more realistic experienceand Tommy gets some practice in pushing drugs.

Similarly, it’s important for kids to know that drug abuse is the exception rather than the norm. Is there a better solution than the troublesome "national survey" question? …

The Emperor’s Clothing

DARE keeps children away from drugs. That raison d’tre sold thousands of communities on the program and keeps DARE in the schools, even if budget cuts must be made somewhere else. But by 1991, there were more than a dozen studies that claimed DARE didn’t work at all. Not that it was useless: It had positive effects on children’s knowledge about drugs, helped develop their social skills, and improved their attitude about police. But all these studies said the same thing about drug useif DARE had any effect at all, it was short lived.

Except for one study: a 1986 evaluation by William DeJong, used by NIJ to start the DARE bandwagon rolling. When DeJong’s research appeared in the Journal of Drug Education, his colleagues called the design of his study "seriously flawed." Among their complaints was that the children were given no test before starting the DARE program, which made it impossible to evaluate any claims of improvement. Critics also noted that the study revealed positive effects only with boys; there was a significant negative impact on the DARE girlsthe boomerang effect.

In 1991, NIJ decided to settle the question of DARE’s worth by hiring analysts at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to do a comprehensive evaluation. To DARE, it seemed like vindication and due respect was finally at hand. "The review of the DARE evaluation literature will give us ammunition to respond to critics who charge that DARE has not proved its effectiveness," read a DARE letter sent to state coordinators.

RTI researchers, of course, found no new ammunition for DARE in the studies. Yes, the program improved the relationship between schoolchildren and the police, and taught the kids many useful things. But as far as stopping them from using drugs … sorry.

Genocide Is Not Occurring in Darfur

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:00:00 +0000

In 2004, the United Nations requested a commission be formed to investigate escalating violence in Darfur, Sudan. In the following viewpoint the commission argues that while the acts occurring in Darfur are crimes against humanity and war crimes, they do not constitute genocide as it is defined by the Convention on Genocide. According to the commission, the absence of genocidal intent is the crucial missing element in making this declaration.

Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, on 18 September 2004 the Security Council adopted resolution 1564 requesting, inter alia [among other things], that the Secretary-General ‘rapidly establish an international commission of inquiry in order immediately to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all parties, to determine also whether or not acts of genocide have occurred, and to identify the perpetrators of such violations with a view to ensuring that those responsible are held accountable’….

The Commission assembled in Geneva [Switzerland] and began its work on 25 October 2004.

In order to discharge its mandate, the Commission endeavoured to fulfil four key tasks: (1) to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all parties; (2) to determine whether or not acts of genocide have occurred; (3) to identify the perpetrators of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur; and (4) to suggest means of ensuring that those responsible for such violations are held accountable. While the Commission considered all events relevant to the current conflict in Darfur, it focused in particular on incidents that occurred between February 2003 and mid-January 2005….

Violations of Human Rights Law

The Commission took as the starting point for its work two irrefutable facts regarding the situation in Darfur. Firstly, according to United Nations estimates there are 1.65 million internally displaced persons in Darfur, and more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur in neighbouring Chad. Secondly, there has been large-scale destruction of villages throughout the three states of Darfur. The Commission conducted independent investigations to establish additional facts and gathered extensive information on multiple incidents of violations affecting villages, towns and other locations across North, South and West Darfur. The conclusions of the Commission are based on the evaluation of the facts gathered or verified through its investigations.

Based on a thorough analysis of the information gathered in the course of its investigations, the Commission established that the Government of the Sudan and the Janjaweed are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law. In particular, the Commission found that Government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur. These acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity. The extensive destruction and displacement have resulted in a loss of livelihood and means of survival for countless women, men and children. In addition to the large scale attacks, many people have been arrested and detained, and many have been held incommunicado for prolonged periods and tortured. The vast majority of the victims of all of these violations have been from the Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit, Jebel, Aranga and other so-called ‘African’ tribes.

In their discussions with the Commission, Government of the Sudan officials stated that any attacks carried out by Government armed forces in Darfur were for counter-insurgency purposes and were conducted on the basis of military imperatives. However, it is clear from the Commission’s findings that most attacks were deliberately and indiscriminately directed against civilians. Moreover even if rebels, or persons supporting rebels, were present in some of the villageswhich the Commission considers likely in only a very small number of instancesthe attackers did not take precautions to enable civilians to leave the villages or otherwise be shielded from attack. Even where rebels may have been present in villages, the impact of the attacks on civilians shows that the use of military force was manifestly disproportionate to any threat posed by the rebels.

The Commission is particularly alarmed that attacks on villages, killing of civilians, rape, pillaging and forced displacement have continued during the course of the Commission’s mandate. The Commission considers that action must be taken urgently to end these violations.

While the Commission did not find a systematic or a widespread pattern to these violations, it found credible evidence that rebel forces, namely members of the SLA [Sudan Liberation Army] and JEM [Justice and Equality Movement], also are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law which may amount to war crimes. In particular, these violations include cases of murder of civilians and pillage.

Have Acts of Genocide Occurred?

The Commission concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide. Arguably, two elements of genocide might be deduced from the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by Government forces and the militias under their control. These two elements are, first, the actus reus [guilt-proving evidence] consisting of killing, or causing serious bodily or mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life likely to bring about physical destruction; and, second, on the basis of a subjective standard, the existence of a protected group being targeted by the authors of criminal conduct. However, the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing, at least as far as the central Government authorities are concerned. Generally speaking the policy of attacking, killing and forcibly displacing members of some tribes does not evince a specific intent to annihilate, in whole or in part, a group distinguished on racial, ethnic, national or religious grounds. Rather, it would seem that those who planned and organized attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive the victims from their homes, primarily for purposes of counter-insurgency warfare.

The Commission does recognise that in some instances individuals, including Government officials, may commit acts with genocidal intent. Whether this was the case in Darfur, however, is a determination that only a competent court can make on a case by case basis.

The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide.

Identification of Perpetrators

The Commission has collected reliable and consistent elements which indicate the responsibility of some individuals for serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including crimes against humanity or war crimes, in Darfur. In order to identify perpetrators, the Commission decided that there must be ‘a reliable body of material consistent with other verified circumstances, which tends to show that a person may reasonably be suspected of being involved in the commission of a crime.’ The Commission therefore makes an assessment of likely suspects, rather than a final judgment as to criminal guilt.

Those identified as possibly responsible for the above-mentioned violations consist of individual perpetrators, including officials of the Government of Sudan, members of militia forces, members of rebel groups, and certain foreign army officers acting in their personal capacity. Some Government officials, as well as members of militia forces, have also been named as possibly responsible for joint criminal enterprise to commit international crimes. Others are identified for their possible involvement in planning and/or ordering the commission of international crimes, or of aiding and abetting the perpetration of such crimes. The Commission also has identified a number of senior Government officials and military commanders who may be responsible, under the notion of superior (or command) responsibility, for knowingly failing to prevent or repress the perpetration of crimes. Members of rebel groups are named as suspected of participating in a joint criminal enterprise to commit international crimes, and as possibly responsible for knowingly failing to prevent or repress the perpetration of crimes committed by rebels….

Accountability Mechanisms

The Commission strongly recommends that the Security Council immediately refer the situation of Darfur to the International Criminal Court [ICC], pursuant to article 13(b) of the ICC Statute. As repeatedly stated by the Security Council, the situation constitutes a threat to international peace and security. Moreover, as the Commission has confirmed, serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties are continuing. The prosecution by the ICC of persons allegedly responsible for the most serious crimes in Darfur would contribute to the restoration of peace in the region.

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