The Issue of Liberal Fundamentalists

The post by the green eyed monster entitled "Defending Science from the Scientists" brought me back to my undergraduate curriculum in religion and environmental sicence and encouraged me to once again go down the dangerous road of Religion v. Science, God v. Evolution, and of course Richard Dawkins v. Anyone who will challenge him.

Richard Dawkins, the well known scientist, atheist, and author of The God Delusion, claims that belief in a supernatural creator qualifies as a delusion. This is an absurd claim for a scientist to make, since it is of course science that claims only physical observations can be observed or "proven." To imply that the physical sciences are capable of disproving the existence of an admittedly non-physical Being, seems to me unfounded. Dawkins should not use his position as an esteemed scientist to venture into the realm of things he has only superficially studied and try to influence the susceptible masses with flawed logic. This essay addresses Dawkins's argument more fully.

Dawkins sometimes comes across like the bully on the playground: he is usually the one who needs to reaffirm his position by beating up on those around him. Dawkins seems to believe that religion actually creates miserable people, wars, and damaging fundamentalist ideologies. While there are many historical examples that he can use (see the Crusades), I don't believe he has thought through the implications of his pseudo-logic. Much of what we do on a daily basis flies in the face of what scientific literalism tells us. For example, modern medicine's motto perhaps ought to be: keeping the unfit alive to reproduce and combat evolutionary theory since (insert year).

The unquestioned faith in anything claiming to be scientific that dominates most of the world's universities is explored in the recent documentary, Expelled. In this film, Ben Stein does a good job of exploring the current state of affairs in academia (and the "educated" world at large) regarding intellectual freedom, or lack thereof. In reality, popular academia is often controlled by scientific fundamentalists, who adopt the complete opposite, yet no less outlandish, perspectives associated with religious fundamentalism.

Scapegoating and ridiculing those who believe in God in the name of science is just an immature adults' game of "mine is bigger than yours."

Is the Renewable Fuel Mandate Reasonable?

Given the well-documented energy price increases in 2008 and our very uncertain energy future, the Renewable Fuel Mandate, passed by Congress as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 needs to be reconsidered. This legislation requires a gradual ramping up of ethanol production, from the current 10 billion gallons to a total of 31 billion gallons by 2022, in an effort to achieve greater energy independence. This number includes 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol and 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol.

The negative consequences of corn ethanol’s life cycle in terms of soil erosion, water quality, and energy balance have been well documented, so there has recently been greater attention given to cellulosic ethanol. The problem is that technology and land use plans are lagging behind on the cellulosic ethanol front. The Billion Ton Study, produced by the Department of Energy and the United States Department of Agriculture in 2005, estimates that there are 1.3 billion tons of biomass available annually for the production of cellulosic ethanol. While a careful reading of this report doesn’t give away any glaring flaws in the assessment, sustainably harvesting this biomass and converting it into ethanol with little or no environmental degradation and in a cost effective way is clearly a gargantuan task.

This task is made even more difficult by the fact that different regions of the country are better adapted for different sorts of feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol production. For example, the south has a plethora of forest products while the heartland has agricultural residues like corn stover and the potential for large-scale growth of perennial grasses.

There are many obstacles to the efficient production of 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022. The most prominent on the front end are the harvest, transportation, and storage of millions of tons of feedstocks. On the back end, the conversion processes are different than the already well-established corn ethanol facilities, so the infrastructure and technology development that must occur will be extremely expensive.

At the end of the day, this Congressional mandate promotes a good idea: produce renewable fuels to help the United States become more energy independent. If it is to be seen as a lofty goal to provide a sense of urgency, I applaud Congress’s chutzpa. However, if the requirement remains set in stone regardless of the land use changes, water quality degradation, increased erosion patterns, and habitat loss that could ensue, future generations might look back and wonder what we were thinking.