Bearing Witness: Assumptions, Realities, and the Otherizing of Katrina

As post-Katrina rebuilding of Louisiana and Mississippi proceeds, we should heed the lessons from anthropologists and others studying aid and development in other parts of the world who point out that aid is often predicated on poorly examined assumptions about beneficiaries and local conditions. Hence, as the recovery after Katrina continues, assumptions about the U.S. South and about poverty, race, and class in the United States must be exposed and examined as well as assumptions about disaster victims and relief. Drawing on personal experiences, I examine here some of the assumptions with which I operated as a small group of friends and I organized an unofficial relief team to provide whatever aid we could to people on the Mississippi Gulf coast in the first few weeks after Hurricane Katrina. I recount the disconnections between my assumptions and the local conditions as relayed by Katrina survivors or that members of the team and I witnessed firsthand.     

Artist and Educator

Policy can be a useful tool for effecting change, but policy analysis, which shapes policy development, has been underused in music education research. This paper demonstrates how Bardach's (2000) Eightfold Path can be used to develop solutions to problems in music education. Some have argued that school music programs do not prepare students to engage musically in today's society. To develop alternative solutions and project their outcomes, I analyze several current and past efforts to redefine music education and secure its place in the curriculum. Several alternatives, which include revising the National Standards, developing a national curriculum, improving professional development, and reconceiving advocacy, are evaluated, and policy recommendations are made that will enable the profession to redefine music education to better serve today's students.     

“The Simulacra of Morality”: Islamic Veiling, Religious Politics and the Limits of Liberalism

On December 17, 2003, French President Jaques Chirac went on television to explain the immediate necessity of passing a law recently proposed by the Stasi commission. This commission had been empowered to explore the failures of the last thirty years of French immigration policy in terms of integration. It had also been specifically instructed to investigate threats to the concept of laicite, the rigorous French version of secularism and the separation of the Church and the State. Chirac explained that, following the commission’s advice as well as that of numerous experts, he had centered on a policy to deal with these issues: We shall do so by bringing to life the principle of secularism, which is a pillar of our constitution. It expresses our wish to live together in respect, dialogue and tolerance. Secularism guarantees freedom of conscience. It protects the freedom to believe or not to believe. He then expanded upon what this freedom requires: It is the neutrality of the public sphere which enables the harmonious existence side by side of different religions. Like all freedoms, the freedom to express one’s faith can only have limits in the freedom of others, and in the compliance with rules of life in society. Religious freedom, which our country respects and protects, must not be abused, it must not call general rules into question, and it must not infringe the freedom of belief of others. Finally, Chirac, building to a rhetorical climax, came to the essence of the new law which had provoked so much commentary around the world: In all conscience, it is my view that the wearing of clothes or of symbols which conspicuously demonstrate religious affiliations must be banned in state schools. The hypothesis which I wish to advance is that in the actual world in which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science is in the imaginary world which I described. What we possess are the fragments of a conceptual scheme... we posses indeed simulacra of morality... but we have lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.     

When You Find Yourself in a Hole, Stop Digging: Comments on Earth Systems Engineering

In an earlier "Forum" article in this journal, Brad Allenby outlined his views of a new approach to managing the unintended consequences of human activity, "earth systems engineering." He argues that we must develop the tools, institutions, and moral and ethical systems to allow us to "assume an active management role for most global systems." I believe this to be a significant departure from a core concept of industrial ecology: learning from ecosystems how the natural world operates to be able to more effectively design and manage coupled human-natural systems. Such lessons are more likely to lead away from tightly managed, centralized approaches, and favor approaches with as little intervention as feasible. More important, I believe that we are far less likely to learn how to implement earth systems engineering than simpler approaches, hence less likely to minimize environmental damage.     

Surviving as an underrepresented minority scientist in a majority environment

I believe the evidence will show that the science we conduct and discoveries we make are influenced by our cultural experience, whether they be positive, negative, or neutral. I grew up as a person of color in the United States of America, faced with challenges that many had as members of an underrepresented minority group. I write here about some of the lessons I have learned that have allowed me to survive as an underrepresented minority ­scientist in a majority environment.     

Getting a head start: the importance of personal genetics education in high schools

With advances in sequencing technology, widespread and affordable genome sequencing will soon be a reality. However, studies suggest that "genetic literacy" of the general public is inadequate to prepare our society for this unprecedented access to our genetic information. As the current generation of high school students will come of age in an era when personal genetic information is increasingly utilized in health care, it is of vital importance to ensure these students understand the genetic concepts necessary to make informed medical decisions. These concepts include not only basic scientific knowledge, but also considerations of the ethical, legal, and social issues that will arise in the age of personal genomics. In this article, we review the current state of genetics education, highlight issues that we believe need to be addressed in a comprehensive genetics education curriculum, and describe our education efforts at the Harvard Medical School-based Personal Genetics Education Project.     

Plastic surgery in rural Ethiopia.

From this brief experience in Ethiopia I believe that plastic and reconstructive surgery can contribute much to the lives of many people in such underdeveloped regions of the world. If one will teach the principles of plastic surgery to the general surgeons and paramedical people who do most of the work in these areas, it can amplify and expand their capabilities. Surgery is, of course, only one link in the long chain of basic health issues, and the ultimate solutions are on a different level. Yet, the magnitude of the problems is a compelling reason to make the effort, to take the time, and to contribute our skills in developing regions of the world. Though we cannot alone conquer the entire problem, we can do our bit.     

A total approach in ergonomics is a must to attain humane, competitive and sustainable work systems and products

Globalization brings along complexity, competition and change as anticipated by working in teams, quality enhancement of human resources and a change of mind-set to be more holistic in approaches. Enhancement of expertise, widening of the horizon, developing added values as well as preparedness to carry out management of the future have to be built and developed. Conditioning and customizing programs through formal and informal education and training should also be carried out in bridging existing gaps, filling needs and solving key problems. New proper and appropriate curricula must be developed together with encouraging the change of mind-set. It is essential to attain the highest capabilities to work in a team and to think and act holistically, as well as to enhance human relations capabilities in communicating the research results. By so doing, the gaps between research and implementation and between theory and practice need to be bridged; the felt real needs of the target groups could thus be filled; and the root causes of the problems faced in any activity could be solved in a sustainable manner. In implementation, a SHIP (Systemic, Holistic, Interdisciplinary and Participatory) approach must be conducted for identifying, analyzing and solving the problems so as to attain sustainable results. In defining the technology being used, it must be comprehensively assessed through six criteria so that it can be technically, economically, ergonomically and socio-culturally sound, save energy and preserve the environment. Through this total approach, work organization and work systems and their products are expected to be more humane (healthier, safer, comfortable, efficient), competitive and sustainable, as prerequisites for survival and continual development.     

A case for more curiosity-driven basic research

Having been selected to be among the exquisitely talented scientists who won the Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award is a tremendous honor. I would like to take this opportunity to make the case for a conviction of mine that I think many will consider outdated. I am convinced that we need more curiosity-driven basic research aimed at understanding the principles governing life. The reasons are simple: 1) we need to learn more about the world around us; and 2) a robust and diverse basic research enterprise will bring ideas and approaches essential for developing new medicines and improving the lives of humankind.When I was a graduate student, curiosity-driven basic research ruled. Studying mating-type switching in budding yeast, for example, was exciting because it was an interesting problem: How can you make two different cells from a single cell in the absence of any external cues? We did not have to justify why it is important to study what many would now consider a baroque question. Scientists and funding agencies alike agreed that this was an exciting biological problem that needed to be solved. I am certain that all scientists of my generation can come up with similar examples.Open in a separate windowAngelika AmonSince the time I was a graduate student, the field of biological research has experienced a revolution. We can now determine the genetic makeup of every species in a week or so and have an unprecedented ability to manipulate any genome. This revolution has led to a sense that we understand the principles governing life and that it is now time to apply this knowledge to cure diseases and make the world a better place. While applying knowledge to improve lives and treat diseases is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, it is important to realize that we are far from having a mechanistic understanding of even the basic principles of biology. What the genomic revolution brought us are lists, some better than others. We now know how many coding genes define a given species and how many protein kinases, GTPases, and so forth there are in the various genomes we sequenced. This knowledge, however, does not even scratch the surface of understanding their function. When I browse the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome database (my second-favorite website), I am still amazed how many genes there are that have not even been given a name.To me the most important achievement the new genome-sequencing and genome-editing technologies brought us is that nearly every organism can be a model organism now. We can study and manipulate the processes that most fascinate us in the organisms in which they occur, with the exception, of course, of humans. Thus, I believe that the golden era of basic biological research is not behind us but in front of us, and we need more people who will take advantage of the tools that have been developed in the past three decades. I am therefore hoping that many young people will chose a career in basic research and find an exciting question to study. The more of us there are, the more knowledge we will acquire, and the higher the likelihood we will discover something amazing and important. There is so much interesting biology out there that we should strive to understand. Some of my favorite unanswered questions are: What are the biological principles underlying symbiosis and how did it evolve? Why is sleep essential? Why do plants, despite an enormous regenerative potential, never die of cancer? Why do brown bears, despite inactivity, obesity, and high levels of cholesterol, exhibit no signs of atherosclerosis? How do sharks continuously produce teeth?One could, of course, argue that the knowledge we have accumulated over the past 50 years provides a reasonable framework, and it is now time to leave basic science and model organisms behind and focus on what matters—curing diseases, developing methods to produce energy, cleaning up the oceans, preventing global warming, building biological computers, designing organisms, or engineering whatever the current buzz is about. Like David Botstein, who eloquently discussed the importance of basic research in these pages in 2012 (Botstein, 2012 ), I believe that the notion that we already know enough is wrong and the current application-centric view of biology is misguided. Experience has taught us over and over that we cannot predict where the next important breakthrough will be emerge. Many of the discoveries that we consider groundbreaking and that have brought us new medicines or improved our lives in other ways are the result of curiosity-driven basic research. My favorite example is the discovery of penicillin. Alexander Fleming, through the careful study of his (contaminated) bacterial plates, enabled humankind to escape natural selection. More recent success stories such as new cures for hepatitis C, the human papillomavirus vaccine, the HIV-containment regimens, or treatments for BCR-ABL induced chronic myelogenous leukemia have also only been possible because of decades of basic research in model organisms that taught us the principles of life and enabled us to acquire the methodologies critical to develop these treatments. Although work from my own lab on the causes and consequences of chromosome mis-segregation in budding yeast has not led to the development of new treatments, it has taught us a lot about how an imbalanced karyotype, a hallmark of cancer, affects the physiology of cancer cells and creates vulnerabilities in cancer cells that could represent new therapeutic targets.These are but a few examples for why it is important that we scientists must dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of basic knowledge and why we as a society must make funding basic research a priority. Achieving the latter requires that we scientists tell the public about the importance of what we are doing and explain the potential implications of basic research for human health. At the same time, it will be important to manage expectations. We must explain that not every research project will lead to the development of new medicines and that we cannot predict where the next big breakthroughs will materialize. We must further make it clear that this means we have to fund a broad range of basic research at a healthy level. Perhaps a website that collects examples of how basic research has led to breakthroughs in medicine could serve as a showcase for such success stories, bringing the importance of what we do to the public.While conducting research to improve the lives of others is certainly a worthy motivation, it is not the main reason why I get up very early every morning to go to the lab. To me, gaining an understanding of a basic principle in the purest Faustian terms is what I find most rewarding and exciting. Designing and conducting experiments, pondering the results, and developing hypotheses as to how something may work is most exciting, the idea that I, or nowadays the people in my lab, may be (hopefully) the first to discover a new aspect of biology is the best feeling. It is these rare eureka moments, when you first realize how a process works or when you discover something that opens up a new research direction, that make up for all the woes and frustrations that come with being an experimental scientist in an expensive discipline.For me, having a career in curiosity-driven basic research has been immensely rewarding. It is my hope that basic research remains one of the pillars of the American scientific enterprise, attracting the brightest young minds for generations to come. We as a community can help to make this a reality by telling people what we do and highlighting the importance of our work to their lives.     

Designing the Ocean Policy Future: An Essay on How I Am Going To Do That

A new millennium offers an opportunity to think about possible future directions in ocean policy. But such an effort must take account of the considerable changes in the world political and economic system since 1989 - globalization with its rapid transportation, communication, economic interdependence; population increase, increased pressure on the stock of the world's natural resources and spaces, the end of the Cold War but with diffusion of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and a rise in world environmental consciousness. In this context we must develop patterns of sustainable use, and learn how to implement forward look principles for ocean management such as those propounded by the Luso-American Foundation. However, we have not calculated the political and economic costs or understood how we will achieve outcomes consistent with the principles. These are critical to successful global ocean governance. We understand what must be achieved but not by whom or how.     

Maximizing biodiversity, information and sustainability

Numerous global changes—notably anthropogenic extinction—force reconsideration of our management practices and the ways we regulate human influence in today’s world. Here, I define management to maximize biodiversity and illustrate the science that provides information to set goals for such management. Maximizing biodiversity simultaneously achieves sustainability and systemic health by avoiding the abnormal or pathological. The normal or sustainable are determined through the use of empirical integrative patterns to objectively account for the complexity of systems within which we find ourselves as a species. The science that reveals these integrative patterns provides measures of problems that can be solved by maximizing biodiversity—problems heretofore recognized only qualitatively. I use the Shannon-Weiner information index to test, and, with no surprise, reject the null hypothesis that there is no direct anthropogenic effect on biodiversity. The results of this science serve as examples of the kind of information most useful for guiding management and illustrate maximized biodiversity as a standard for management. Reference points based on maximized biodiversity are preferable to statistical parameters in meeting the objective of avoiding the abnormal or pathological in our interactions with other species, ecosystems and the biosphere. Management to maximize biodiversity is implemented by modifying human interactions with other biotic systems to achieve consistency in such interactions by mimicking natural role models of sustainability. Human influence is a significant factor in today’s world and the magnitude of such influence is illustrated by comparing humans with other species.     

The evolutionary roots of our environmental problems: toward a Darwinian ecology

It is widely acknowledged that we need to stabilize population growth and reduce our environmental impact; however, there is little consensus about how we might achieve these changes. Here I show how evolutionary analyses of human behavior provide important, though generally ignored, insights into our environmental problems. First, I review increasing evidence that Homo sapiens has a long history of causing ecological problems. This means that, contrary to popular belief, our species' capacity for ecological destruction is not simply due to "Western" culture. Second, I provide an overview of how evolutionary research can help to understand why humans are ecologically destructive, including the reasons why people often overpopulate, overconsume, exhaust common-pool resources, discount the future, and respond maladaptively to modern environmental hazards. Evolutionary approaches not only explain our darker sides, they also provide insights into why people cherish plants and animals and often support environmental and conservation efforts (e.g., Wilson's "biophilia hypothesis"). Third, I show how evolutionary analyses of human behavior offer practical implications for environmental policy, education, and activism. I suggest that education is necessary but insufficient because people also need incentives. Individual incentives are likely to be the most effective, but these include much more than narrow economic interests (e.g., they include one's reputation in society). Moralizing and other forms of social pressure used by environmentalists to bring about change appear to be effective, but this idea needs more research. Finally, I suggest that integrating evolutionary perspectives into the environmental sciences will help to break down the artificial barriers that continue to divide the biological and social sciences, which unfortunately obstruct our ability to understand ourselves and effectively address our environmental problems.     

Eric Michaels: An appreciation

… I got into media studies, as an anthropologist, because I believed the media were the belly of the beast, and because I thought television was central to the creation of the extraordinary contradictions that plagued the contemporary world. [Michaels 1983]

It would seem that Malinowski's stricture that the function of the ethnographer was to see the native's culture from the native's own point of view could at last be achieved—literally, and not metaphorically.

What would such a world be like, and more importantly, what problems have we to set before our students now that will, at the least, not hinder them from coming to an understanding of an age in which man presents himself not in person but through the mediation of visual symbolic forms… It is now no longer possible for the student of culture to ignore the fact that people all over the world have learned, and will continue in great numbers to learn, how to use the visual symbolic mode. Anthropologists must begin to articulate the problems that will face us in trying to understand others when their point of view is known to us primarily through movies distributed by broadcast television and cable. [Worth 1981: 94–95]     

Bioethics and culture: an African perspective

The project of Bioethics seems to me to require paying attention to the cultural realities and assumptive frame of reference of different peoples. I assume that this must be one of the views of the organizers of this conference too and that this is why the idea of country reports is taken seriously. If I am right about this, then it makes sense for me to start my discussion with a very brief discussion of some aspects of the cultural realities of Africa with particular reference to the Yoruba of Nigeria. Then I will discuss how this world view raises issues for bioethics. Two aspects of people's worldview relevant to bioethical issues are their conception of the human person and their conception of cause. What they consider themselves to be, and what they consider to be the principles of causation will normally influence their attitudes to health and illness and their choices regarding health care. I will briefly discuss these issues with regard to the Yoruba worldview.     

Review Times in Statistical Journals: Tilting at Windmills?

Using limited data, I argue that the review times in statistics are far too long for the field to keep pace with the rapidly changing environment in science. I note that statisticians do not appear to believe in statistics because data on the review process are not widely available to members of the profession. I suggest a few changes that could be made to speed up the review process, although it would appear that a change in our culture is required before the problem will be solved.     

Seaweeds: an opportunity for wealth and sustainable livelihood for coastal communities

The European, Canadian, and Latin American seaweed industries rely on the sustainable harvesting of natural resources. As several countries wish to increase their activity, the harvest should be managed according to integrated and participatory governance regimes to ensure production within a long-term perspective. Development of regulations and directives enabling the sustainable exploitation of natural resources must therefore be brought to the national and international political agenda in order to ensure environmental, social, and economic values in the coastal areas around the world. In Europe, Portugal requires an appraisal of seaweed management plans while Norway and Canada have developed and implemented coastal management plans including well-established and sustainable exploitation of their natural seaweed resources. Whereas, in Latin America, different scenarios of seaweed exploitation can be observed; each country is however in need of long-term and ecosystem-based management plans to ensure that exploitation is sustainable. These plans are required particularly in Peru and Brazil, while Chile has succeeded in establishing a sustainable seaweed-harvesting plan for most of the economically important seaweeds. Furthermore, in both Europe and Latin America, seaweed aquaculture is at its infancy and development will have to overcome numerous challenges at different levels (i.e., technology, biology, policy). Thus, there is a need for regulations and establishment of “best practices” for seaweed harvesting, management, and cultivation. Trained human resources will also be required to provide information and education to the communities involved, to enable seaweed utilization to become a profitable business and provide better income opportunities to coastal communities.     

The ethics of public policy RCTs: The principle of policy equipoise

In this article, I ask whether a principle analogous to the principle of clinical equipoise should govern the design and conduct of RCTs evaluating the effectiveness of policy interventions. I answer this question affirmatively, and introduce and defend the principle of policy equipoise. According to this principle, all arms of a policy RCT must be, at minimum, in a state of equipoise with the best proven policy that is also morally and practically attainable and sustainable. For all arms of a policy RCT, policy experts must either (1) reasonably disagree about whether the trial arms are more effective than this policy, or (2) know that they are.     

Maximum sustainable yield and species extinction in a prey–predator system: some new results

Though the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) approach has been legally adopted for the management of world fisheries, it does not provide any guarantee against from species extinction in multispecies communities. In the present article, we describe the appropriateness of the MSY policy in a Holling–Tanner prey–predator system with different types of functional responses. It is observed that for both type I and type II functional responses, harvesting of either prey or predator species at the MSY level is a sustainable fishing policy. In the case of combined harvesting, both the species coexist at the maximum sustainable total yield (MSTY) level if the biotic potential of the prey species is greater than a threshold value. Further, increase of the biotic potential beyond the threshold value affects the persistence of the system.     

A creative collaboration between the science of ecosystem restoration and art for sustainable stormwater management on an urban college campus

This article presents an interdisciplinary, on‐campus, student project, titled “The Rain Project” that I designed as an urban ecosystem restoration model as well as a collaborative pedagogical approach between ecological science and art at George Mason University (GMU), Virginia, U.S.A. A group of students from several disciplines (e.g. environmental science, art, civil engineering, biology, communication, and film/media) participated in designing and constructing a floating wetland for a campus stormwater pond as part of sustainable stormwater management. The Rain Project has numerous implications for college education, scholarship, and service while presenting a novel way of building a sense of community among undergraduate students for ecological awareness and literacy. The work of Jackie Brookner, a renowned eco‐artist who worked extensively on stormwater, and its relevance to the project is discussed. I strongly suggest the need for linking art and the science of ecosystem restoration to best obtain improvements in much‐needed communication for the success of community participatory restoration projects. I also believe that this kind of interdisciplinary, campus project can facilitate the changes we need to train higher education students to be able to both think differently and communicate effectively. The Rain Project introduced students to new learning strategies that connected “systems thinking” with art, ecological science, and restoration practices.