Category Archives: Darwinism

I entered 2020 thinking of myself as a science writer. I ended the year less sure.

While the first sparks of the COVID-19 pandemic ignited at the end of 2019, I was traipsing through a hillside in search of radio-tagged rattlesnakes, allowing myself to get electrocuted by an electric catfish, and cradling loggerhead-turtle hatchlings in the palm of my hand. As 2020 began and the new coronavirus commenced its ruinous sweep of the world, I was marveling at migratory moths and getting punched in the pinky by a very small and yet surprisingly powerful mantis shrimp. We share a reality with these creatures, but we experience it in profoundly different ways. The rattlesnake can senseperhaps seethe body heat of its mammalian prey. The catfish can detect the electric fields that other animals involuntarily produce. The moths and the turtles can both sense the magnetic field of the planet and use it to guide their long navigations. The mantis shrimp sees forms of light that we cannot, and it processes colors in a way that no one fully understands. Each species has its own unique coterie of senses. Each is privy to its own narrow slice of the total sights, smells, sounds, and other stimuli that pervade the planet.

My plan was to write a book about those sensory experiencesa travelogue that would take people through the mind of a bat, a bird, or a spider. Such a journey, not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, as Marcel Proust once said, is the only true voyage.

It quickly became the only voyage I could make. As the pandemic spread, the possibility of international travel disappeared. Commuting turned from daily reality to fading memory. Restaurants, bars, and public spaces closed. Social gatherings became smaller, infrequent, and subject to barriers of cloth and distance. My world contracted to the radius of a few blocks, but the sensory worlds of other animals stayed open, magical and Narnia-like, accessible through the act of writing.

When I had to pause my book leave to report full-time on the pandemic, those worlds closed too.

In theory, 2020 should have been a banner year for science writers. A virus upended the world and gripped its attention. Arcana of epidemiology and immunologysuper-spreading, herd immunity, cytokine storms, mRNA vaccinesbecame dinner-table fodder. Public-health experts (and pseudo-experts) gained massive followings on social media. Anthony Fauci became a household name. The biggest story of the yearperhaps of the decadewas a science story, and science writers seemed ideally placed to tell it.

Read: Why the coronavirus is so confusing

When done properly, covering science trains a writer to bring clarity to complexity, to embrace nuance, to understand that everything new is built upon old foundations, and to probe the unknown while delimiting the bounds of their own ignorance. The best science writers learn that science is not a procession of facts and breakthroughs, but an erratic stumble toward gradually diminished uncertainty; that peer-reviewed publications are not gospel and even prestigious journals are polluted by nonsense; and that the scientific endeavor is plagued by all-too-human failings such as hubris. All of these qualities should have been invaluable in the midst of a global calamity, where clear explanations were needed, misinformation was rife, and answers were in high demand but short supply.

But the pandemic hasnt just been a science story. It is an omnicrisis that has warped and upended every aspect of our lives. While the virus assaulted our cells, it also besieged our societies, seeping into every crack and exploiting every weakness it could find. It found many. To understand why the United States has fared so badly against COVID-19, despite its enormous wealth and biomedical savvy, one must understand not just matters of virology but also the nations history of racism and genocide, its carceral state, its nursing homes, its historical attitudes toward medicine and health, its national idiosyncrasies, the algorithms that govern social media, and the grossly deficient character of its 45th president. I barely covered any of these issues in an 8,000-word piece I wrote for The Atlantic in 2018 about whether the United States was ready for the next pandemic. When this pandemic started, my background as a science writer, and one who had specifically reported on pandemics, was undoubtedly useful, but to a limited degreeit gave me a half-mile head start, with a full marathon left to run. Throughout the year, many of my peers caviled about journalists from other beats who wrote about the pandemic without a foundation of expertise. But does anyone truly have the expertise to cover an omnicrisis that, by extension, is also an omnistory?

Read: The next plague is coming. Is America ready?

The all-encompassing nature of epidemics was clear to the German physician Rudolf Virchow, who investigated a typhus outbreak in 1848. Virchow knew nothing about the pathogen responsible for typhus, but he correctly realized that the outbreak was possible only because of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, dangerous working conditions, and inequities perpetuated by incompetent politicians and negligent aristocrats. Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing but medicine in larger scale, Virchow wrote.

This viewpoint was championed by many of his contemporaries, but it waned as germ theory waxed. In a bid to be objective and politically neutral, scientists focused their attention on pathogens that cause disease and ignored the societal factors that make disease possible. The social and biomedical sciences were cleaved apart, separated into different disciplines, departments, and scholars. Medicine and public health treated diseases as battles between individuals and germs, while sociologists and anthropologists dealt with the wider context that Virchow had identified. This rift began to narrow in the 1980s, but it still remains wide. COVID-19 landed in the middle of it. Throughout much of 2020, the United States (and the White House, specifically) looked to drugs and vaccines for salvation while furiously debating about masks and social distancing. The latter were the only measures that controlled the pandemic for much of the year; billed as non-pharmaceutical interventions, they were characterized in opposition to the more highly prized biomedical panaceas. Meanwhile, social interventions such as paid sick leave and universal health care, which could have helped essential workers protect their livelihoods without risking their health, were barely considered.

To the extent that the pandemic has been a science story, its also been a story about the limitations of what science has become. Perverse academic incentives that reward researchers primarily for publishing papers in high-impact journals have long pushed entire fields toward sloppy, irreproducible work; during the pandemic, scientists have flooded the literature with similarly half-baked and misleading research. Pundits have urged people to listen to the science, as if the science is a tome of facts and not an amorphous, dynamic entity, born from the collective minds of thousands of individual people who argue and disagree about data that can be interpreted in a range of ways. The long-standing disregard for chronic illnesses such as dysautonomia and myalgic encephalomyelitis meant that when thousands of COVID-19 long-haulers kept experiencing symptoms for months, science had almost nothing to offer them. The naive desire for science to remain above politics meant that many researchers were unprepared to cope with a global crisis that was both scientific and political to its core. Theres an ongoing conversation about whether we should do advocacy work or stick to the science, Whitney Robinson, a social epidemiologist, told me. We always talk about how these magic people will take our findings and implement them. We send those findings out, and knowledge has increased! But with COVID, thats a lie!

Virchows experiences with epidemics radicalized him, pushing the man who would become known as the father of pathology to advocate for social and political reforms. COVID-19 has done the same for many scientists. Many of the issues it brought up were miserably familiar to climate scientists, who drolly welcomed newly traumatized epidemiologists into their ranks. In the light of the pandemic, old debates about whether science (and science writing) is political now seem small and antiquated. Science is undoubtedly political, whether scientists want it to be or not, because it is an inextricably human enterprise. It belongs to society. It is interleaved with society. It is of society.

Read: How the pandemic defeated America

This is true even of areas of science that seem to be sheltered within some protected corner of intellectual space. My first book was about the microbiome, a bustling area of research that went unnoticed for centuries because it had the misfortune to arise amid the ascent of Darwinism and germ theory. With nature red in tooth and claw, and germs as the root of disease, the idea of animals benefiting from cooperative microbes was anathema. My next book will show that our understanding of animal senses has been influenced by the sociology of sciencewhether scientists believe one another, whether they successfully communicate their ideas, whether they publish in a prestigious English journal or an obscure foreign-language one. That understanding has also been repeatedly swayed by the trappings of our own senses. Science is often caricatured as a purely empirical and objective pursuit. But in reality, a scientists interpretation of the world is influenced by the data she collects, which are influenced by the experiments she designs, which are influenced by the questions she thinks to ask, which are influenced by her identity, her values, her predecessors, and her imagination.

When I began to cover COVID-19 in 2020, it became clear that the usual mode of science writing would be grossly insufficient. Much of journalism is fragmentary: Big stories are broken down into small components that can be quickly turned into content. For science writing, that means treating individual papers as a sacrosanct atomic unit and writing about them one at a time. But for an omnicrisis, this approach leads only to a messy, confusing, and ever-shifting mound of jigsaw pieces. What I tried to do instead was unite those pieces. I wrote a series of long features about big issues, attempting to synthesize vast amounts of information and give readers a steady rock upon which they could observe the torrent of information rushing past them without drowning in it. I treated the pandemic as more than a science story, interviewing sociologists, anthropologists, historians, linguists, patients, and more. And I found that the writing I gravitated toward did the same. The pandemic clarified that science is inseparable from the rest of society, and that connection works both ways. Science touches on everything; everything touches on science. The walls between beats seemed to crumble. What, I found myself asking, even counts as science writing?

Read: How the pandemic now ends

There has long been a view of science writing that imagines its about opening up the ivory tower and making its obscure contents accessible to the masses. But this is a strange model, laden with troubling corollaries. It implicitly assumes that science is beleaguered and unappreciated, and that unwilling audiences must be convinced of its importance and value. It equates science with journals, universities, and other grand institutions that are indeed opaque and cloistered. And treating science as a special entity that normies are finally being invited to take part in is also somewhat patronizing.

Such invitations are not anyones to extend. Science is so much more than a library of publications, or the opinions of doctorate holders and professors. Science writing should be equally expansive. Ultimately, What even counts as science writing? is a question we shouldnt be able to answer. A womans account of her own illness. A cultural history of a color. An investigation into sunken toxic barrels. A portrait of a town with a rocket company for a neighbor. To me, these pieces and others that I selected for the 2021 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology show that science is intricately woven into the fabric of our livesso intricately that science writing should be difficult to categorize.

There is an obvious risk here. Of the typical journalistic beats, science is perhaps the only one that draws us out of our human trappings. Culture, politics, business, sport, food: These are all about one species. Science covers the other billions, and the entirety of the universe besides. I feel its expansive nature keenly. I have devoted most of my career to writing about microbes and lichens, hagfish and giraffes, duck penises and hippo poop. But I do so now with a renewed understanding that even as we step away from ourselves, we cannot fully escape. Our understanding of nature has been profoundly shaped by our culture, our social norms, and our collective decisions about who gets to be a scientist at all. And our relationship with naturewhether we succumb to it, whether we learn from it, whether we can save itdepends on our collective decisions too.

This article was excerpted from Ed Yongs introduction in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021.

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Ed Yong: The Pandemic Changed How I Think About Science Writing - The Atlantic

The state of sex education in the United States is dismal. Shaped by divergent state policies and local school board decisions, programmes are uneven in their content and coverage. There is confusion about what is being taught where. Most programmes are limited in scope, some are even harmful. Proponents of comprehensive sexuality education urge the teaching of reproductive development, contraception and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) but, far from these goals, they have fought and failed to ensure the bare minimum standard in more than half of the states: that lessons in sex education be medically accurate. Meanwhile, comprehensive programmes are attacked as too revealing and immoral by supporters of abstinence-only sex education, recently re-branded as sexual risk avoidance education, which tends to dissuade students from engaging in any sexual activity at all. Both factions argue that the country will continue to fail its youth unless schools embrace their version of sex education.

At the national level, the debate over sex education has generally followed culture war divides, with liberals supporting comprehensive sexuality education, and conservatives leading calls for sexual risk avoidance education. Long aligned with the latter has been white conservative Protestantism, the religious group most vocal in public debates about sex education since the late 1960s. But it would be wrong to think of the sex education debate as simply religious versus secular. In fact, religions are not one-sided on this issue, and cannot be separated from these discussions. A look at the history of sex education in the US shows that religions especially Protestant denominations have deeply influenced many aspects of sex education, both progressive and conservative. This is not surprising given the symbolic value of sexuality, as well as the transmission of moral values through sex education, both of which make it a key battleground in the culture wars. Sex education is attached to the control of young bodies through lessons about sexual diseases, reproduction and romantic pairings, as well as the control of young minds through the classroom. In formative ways, Christian involvement in the history of sex education laid the groundwork for both sides of the debate today.

Sex education began with 19th-century Protestant anti-prostitution reformers. These reformers led the social purity movement (social was then a euphemism for sexual). They paired their primary work of stamping out red-light districts with educational lectures about the physical and moral dangers of sex outside marriage. Social purity overlapped with other female-dominated reforms such as the temperance movement; alcohol and prostitutes were twin evils that lured men away from their Christian households. Social purity advocates such as Frances Willard, the leader of the Womans Christian Temperance Union, preached against the sexual standard that condoned men visiting prostitutes, while those such as John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of cornflakes, emphasised premarital abstinence and marital monogamy as essential to a healthy Christian lifestyle. Ironically, social purity reformers supported obscenity laws to protect youth again lewd sexual publications, even as they challenged the prevailing conspiracy of silence around public discussions of sexuality.

Whereas sex education was secondary to anti-prostitution reforms, it became a primary focus of doctors who began advocating for social hygiene (ie, sexual hygiene) in the early 20th century. The father of social hygiene and the founder of US sex education was a man named Prince Albert Morrow, a Kentucky-born dermatologist inspired by the advanced studies of venereal diseases in France. In the US, he promoted social hygiene education in order to protect innocent wives and offspring from the ravages of syphilis and gonorrhoea introduced into the family by husbands and fathers. He showed a flair for publicity by disseminating stomach-turning images of syphilitic children suffering from blindness and skin deformities. Morrow soon began to organise his campaign among fellow doctors, but progress was slow. Despite some being passionate about fighting venereal disease, many were nervous about treating syphilis and gonorrhoea since these diseases were popularly seen as fit punishments for sexual sins. Easing symptoms supposedly encouraged patients to continue their sinful behaviour not a position doctors were keen on defending.

So Morrow moved outside his professional scientific circle and engaged with Protestant social purity reformers as well. They had already developed publicly acceptable Christian rhetoric for talking about sexuality in a time when obscenity laws stifled other public discussions. Those who accepted Morrows invitation to join scientific professionals in creating the sex education movement made up the more progressive branch of purity reform. Influenced by liberal Protestantisms embrace of scientific authority to reveal Gods truths about creation, they sought to cooperate across religious and secular divisions as part of their Christian mission to mitigate social problems. Now Morrows movement took off in earnest.

Morrow had learned a lesson that recurs throughout the history of sex education: adding religious frameworks and spokespeople into medical campaigns is necessary for success. Facts and data are often not enough to convince the US public to take scientific lessons about sex seriously; religious persuasion is needed too. So, since the early 20th century, the sex education movement has treated Christianity as a fount of ample resources: live audiences (church attendees and auxiliary networks), free advertising (religious pulpits and publications), reputable leadership to guide and promote sensitive campaigns (ministers and other respected church people), an ethical system to motivate people to behave, and ideologies that safeguarded the topic from censorship by connecting it to well-accepted ideas of love, family and Christian respectability. Morrows work helped to create a coalition between social hygiene and social purity or, as he would later put it, between the medical man and the moralist. This eventually led to the creation in 1914 of the American Social Hygiene Association (now the American Sexual Health Association), an organisation that would guide the national sex education movement for decades to come.

The coalition that Morrow helped to create was particularly significant at a time of scientific professionalisation. Confidence was high in science, especially medicine, to solve societys problems. As scientific authority had become largely independent of religious authority by the early 20th century, some physicians accused conservative Christian reformers of spreading inaccurate medical information in their religious enthusiasm to curb vices. Doctors feared that religious approaches would always advocate for conversion and prayer over scientific education and medical intervention, even though liberal Protestant purity reformers who joined them also eschewed these more conservative evangelical reform methods.

Most early sex educators supported beliefs related to social Darwinism

For their part, purity reformers had reasons to distrust doctors, as some had stymied anti-prostitution reforms with their advocacy for medical regulation of prostitution, which would have amounted to legalising it anathema to those who wanted its abolition. But where there was overlap, there was success. Christian doctors and leaders such as Morrow advocated for a balance of religion and medicine within both groups, and helped to bridge tensions. Both agreed on the connection between prostitution, STIs and weak morals. They decided on sex education for children as the best way to address these problems so that boys would learn the dangers of visiting prostitutes, and girls would choose husbands who upheld a higher sexual standard. Early sex-education leaders made careful negotiations to keep a balance of approaches.

Elevating religious concerns also provided a reason to keep the sex education movement separate from the birth control movement. Endorsing birth control would have ostracised prominent Catholic sex educators such as John Montgomery Cooper. An anthropologist and priest, Cooper was well aware of the Roman Catholic position against artificial birth control methods but saw great value in sex education to discourage sin, strengthen character, and support reproduction within nuclear families. The decision by the American Social Hygiene Association to remain neutral on birth control viewed as a more radical, feminist cause further protected the movement from censorship and public outcry in its early years. At a time before most public schools were ready to incorporate lessons about sexuality, religious groups provided direct access to parents who would help to decide whether to let sex education into schools; they also offered experimental locations for developing and trying out these programmes.

The movements goals aligned with progressive education trends that sought to use public education to strengthen moral character and, ultimately, the nation. Sex educators of both religious and medical varieties shared concern for growing problems of the cities, which was often code for white peoples fears about an influx of immigrants and Black people to urban areas, a trend they believed fuelled vice and spread diseases. Like many progressive white elites of the time, most early sex educators supported beliefs related to social Darwinism, using middle-class Anglo-Saxons as a common benchmark for depicting ideals within sexual hygiene campaigns. Many sex educators came to support popular aspects of so-called positive eugenics, including the idea that keeping sexuality contained within a well-matched marriage (ie, same race, class, religion, etc) would advance each race, although some sex educators notably denounced the eugenics movement for promoting sterilisation and other negative eugenic measures.

After early experiments with public school sex education in Chicago, sex educators temporarily shifted to the immediate challenge of educating young soldiers about sexual temptations during the First World War. The military had a bad reputation for letting soldiers sow their wild oats; in response to parental uproar, the US government enlisted sex educators of the American Social Hygiene Association and the Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) to build a military sex-education programme. The sex educators focused on the moral side of sex, while military doctors lectured on STI symptoms and how to use a prophylactic kit when moral restraint failed. YMCA sex educators connected these lectures to their physical programmes to keep men morally, mentally and physically fit, with the goal of preventing men from visiting prostitutes or engaging in the largely unspoken option of same-sex intercourse.

YMCA lecturers such as James Naismith, the inventor of basketball and sex educator to the American Expeditionary Forces, used Christianity as a powerful motivator to encourage soldiers to stay morally and physically clean while overseas. Along with lectures and counselling sessions, Naismith considered sports a wholesome way to expel sexual energy and distract soldiers from sexual temptations. Chaplains, mostly Protestant, supported YMCA sex educators in urging soldiers to strengthen their Christian character and stay away from prostitutes. Moral education about sex was one piece of a larger American plan to stop the spread of STIs, which included policing red-light districts. Incarceration and forced medical examinations followed racist, classist and sexist assumptions, as they targeted women deemed problematic by those in power.

Religious institutions convinced parents that sex education was not smut and could serve godly goals

After the war, attention shifted back home. Religious leaders within the American Social Hygiene Association steered away from STI education and toward family life education. The liberal Protestant sex educator Anna Garlin Spencer led this shift, arguing that sexuality education was intimately connected to raising morally responsible children. As a pathbreaking female minister the first woman to be ordained in Rhode Island and a leader in social purity, suffrage and pacifism as well as a sociology professor, Spencer believed that religious groups had an obligation to support sex education, which would strengthen the family unit as the building block of each religion and of the nation. Her argument corresponded with broader concerns about the perils facing the modern family, primarily divorce, and overlapped with social scientific trends for domestic sciences, home economics, social work and marital counselling. Family life education echoed racial and cultural ideals of the eugenics movement about the importance of finding an ideal partner with whom to marry and reproduce. It further reflected liberal Protestant efforts to be on the cutting edge of academic trends and a desire to find common ground across religious groups, since they believed all could agree on the religious and national importance of strengthening the social institution of the family (read: the heterosexual, nuclear family).

Spencer created a partnership between the American Social Hygiene Association and the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches), which represented many mainline Protestant denominations and provided a voice for the moderate centre of liberal Protestantism. The Federal Council of Churches committed itself to preserving Judeo-Christian family life as the cornerstone of the nation, adding Reform Jewish and progressive Catholic sex educators to their liberal Protestant agenda. With the new focus on family life, the sex education movement used the Federal Council of Churches to reach churches and synagogues, convincing them to include family life education in their youth programmes. Religious institutions provided important testing grounds at a time when sex education was slow to catch on in school curricula, and they served as trustworthy avenues for convincing parents that sex education was not smut and could serve godly goals, paving the way for school programmes.

These religiously affiliated efforts pushed sex education forward through the mid-20th century, providing further infrastructure for the movement and making the platform more publicly acceptable. They chipped away at the conspiracy of silence and found ways of educating parents, young soldiers and some children, overcoming concerns that any discussion would incite sexual curiosity and depravity. Despite progress, the specific frameworks and decisions had consequences, shackling sex education to a certain ideal of family (as heterosexual, white, middle-class, and nuclear) and to morals (of a specifically white liberal Protestant variety). The overarching belief that the proper domain for sexuality was within monogamous, heterosexual marriages forged the sex education consensus in the first half of the 20th century. It didnt last much longer.

These progressive coalitions and agendas brought about their own downfall, laying the groundwork for the tumultuous sex education battles of the 1960s. Progressive religion wanted to invite everyone to the table, though still on progressive and usually Protestant terms. One perennial challenge of this liberal impulse is the question of how to be inclusive of those who dont accept the same terms of inclusiveness. Not everyone wants a spot at the table, and some exclusive worldviews feel compromised when certain groups are allowed to join the conversation on equal footing.

The Protestant brand of liberal theology that came to influence sex educators centred around the new morality, also known as situation ethics. Popularised by Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopalian professor of social ethics, it advanced the idea that to value inclusiveness and individualism meant acknowledging that morality is not the same for everyone in every situation. In place of absolute morality, the new morality advocated a Christian view of love as a common denominator to guide individuals in their unique contexts. Despite critiques that this was a slippery slope into moral bankruptcy, proponents argued that teaching individual decision-making guided by love would lead to higher standards. Fletcher advocated situation ethics for people to choose like people, not submit like sheep, suggesting that legalistic tactics produced reluctant virgins and technical chastity, with people acting as they were told to, rather than according to their own determinations.

As the new morality became the central religious framework of comprehensive sexuality education, it opened the door to discussions of previously taboo topics. Even though many comprehensive sexuality educators including Mary Calderone, the founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States believed that sex belonged within monogamous, heterosexual marriages, the new morality opened up the possibility that any sexual act could be moral, given the right contexts and motivations. Calderone also had a personal interest in education about the naturalness of masturbation, recalling her own trauma at being forced to wear aluminium mitts as a child to prevent her from touching herself. Informed by her progressive Quaker faith, Calderone advocated for the new morality to empower individuals to follow their own conscience and to denounce judging others sexual behaviour, since she believed that God could speak privately to individuals and that only God could judge how people responded to those intimate messages. She viewed education about sexual topics of all varieties to be part of the search for God-given truths, as well as vital to improving public health.

In 1996, abstinence-only sex education received an enormous boost of federal funding of $50 million a year

Acknowledgement of sexual diversity was significant for those rendered invisible or deviant by traditional frameworks. It was the liberal straw that broke the camels back, as conservative Christians relied upon absolute morality to support their ethical foundation: some things are always wrong, regardless of reason or context, a view tied to the belief that the Bible conveys unchanging, universal truths from God. The sex education battles of the late 1960s erupted when conservative Christian groups such as Christian Crusade launched public campaigns against comprehensive sexuality education, accusing it of promoting an anything-goes, anti-God morality that would lead to sexual chaos and the downfall of Christian America. Christian Crusades pamphlet Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? (1968) inflamed opposition to sex education as it reached households across the country.

By making sure that moral behaviour was a central concern of sex education, liberal Protestants had convinced Americans that sex education was important for raising children and building strong families. But after the 1960s, they lost control over whose morals guided the lessons. When the mainstream Judeo-Protestant consensus that had been used to justify family life education gave way to a rejection of universal morality, conservative Christians stepped in to put their morals at the centre of sex education. After spending years on defence against comprehensive sexuality education, evangelicals such as Tim LaHaye went on the offensive in the 1980s with abstinence-only education. LaHaye and his wife had reached bestseller status with their sex manual, The Act of Marriage (1976). Building on that success, he sought to prove that sex education could also be sanctified for conservative Christian purposes. Others followed, making abstinence-only education an integral part of the Christian Rights pro-family movement and evangelical purity culture, known for its silver rings and virginity pledges.

In 1996, abstinence-only received an enormous boost of federal funding ($50 million a year), supporting the message that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity. Christian abstinence-only campaigners worked to remove the most explicit religious language to fit their curricula within public schools. Abstinence-only federal funding has remained fairly consistent, with only a brief lull for less than a year under the Barack Obama administration, during which time a separate funding stream was made available to comprehensive sexuality education.

Even the liberal Protestant trend of embracing science as a method for revealing Gods truth came back around, as conservative Christians borrowed scientific language to argue that their version of sex education was representative of Gods will. Medically accurate sexual terminology that evangelicals had initially labelled pornographic now became part of their arsenal, within a framework of Just say no. Abstinence-only advocates took the same statistics that comprehensive sexuality educators used to demonstrate the need for more expansive programmes, and argued the opposite: that high rates of STIs and unintended pregnancies indicated the failure of comprehensive sexuality education, therefore demonstrating the need for restrictive programmes that exclude lessons on the effectiveness of contraceptives and the diversity of sexual and gender identities.

Peer-reviewed scientific studies have largely rejected the abstinence-only rationale, demonstrating that comprehensive approaches are more effective across multiple types of measurements. While some abstinence-only programmes have proven effective on specific behavioural outcomes, scholars and some policymakers have further critiqued such programmes for medical inaccuracies and harmful messages against LGBTQI youth and students who have been sexually active, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Adding to confused public discourse over the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of programmes is a tangled mess of policies that vary dramatically across states. The politicised nature of sex education also leads to teachers and textbook creators self-censoring for fear of parental complaints or school board retaliation, much as narrow anti-evolution laws in the early 20th century had the broader effect of inclining teachers to downplay the topic.

Sex education battles form the roots of the Christian Right, and they became entangled with later developments of evangelical resistance to racial integration in their schools and an alignment with the Republican Party in the 1970s. Protests against comprehensive sexuality education provided an opportunity to use sexuality to represent other political issues, showing the symbolic potency of sexuality as a carrier for moral values. The subsequent growth of abstinence-only programmes further strengthened their pro-family platform. These developments helped the Christian Right forge its Christian nationalist ideology.

Looking back on this history prompts the question of why scientific professionals needed religion in the sex-ed movement in the first place. Besides the resources and experience that Protestant reformers brought to the table, in the words of the scientists themselves, science was not enough. Early sex educators knew that data and facts were insufficient for changing sexual behaviours. One pointed out that doctors still contracted STIs, even though they knew the most about them, so something more than information must be needed to convince and motivate people to follow sexual health guidelines.

The realisation that scientific information alone was ineffective for the goals of sex education should resonate, as there are still many cases in which the US public remains resistant to scientific findings on controversial topics. Many Americans resistance to the overwhelming consensus on the basics of human evolution is one case in point, and one in which Protestantism has similarly played complex roles, with liberal Protestantism championing mainstream scientific authority, conservative Protestantism developing alternative rationales for creationism, and many individual beliefs falling somewhere along the spectrum between these national talking points. Religious responses to COVID-19 have revealed some similar divisions. A 2020 study found that those who held a Christian nationalist ideology supported mostly by politically conservative Christians who believe the Bible should be interpreted literally were most likely to reject scientific findings about the efficacy of masking, social distancing, and vaccination while other highly religious Americans were supportive of these same measures. Religious and political orientations, of course, are not the only factors influencing public reception of scientific data and discourses.

If we evaluated maths classes by how many people could complete their tax forms, wed also have cause for alarm

Religious affiliations, of course, are not the only factors influencing the public reception of scientific data and discourses. Common distrust of science (as if it were just one thing) can stem from the overuse of scientific jargon, the nonlinear process of scientific discovery, and real scientific mistakes, including corruption of individual researchers and classist, sexist and racist projects in the past and present. However, as the history of sex education demonstrates, religions have complex influences on secular issues and on public receptions, and scientists and science educators would benefit from pedagogical approaches that take seriously religious resistance to scientific authority. More broadly, scientists and educators of all varieties need new ways to teach scientific knowledge effectively to the public.

Another lesson that can be gleaned from this history is the need to re-examine the behaviour-oriented goals of sex education. If we evaluated the success of school mathematics classes by how many people could complete their own tax forms, we would also have much cause for alarm. Obviously, there are important differences between the topics of mathematics and sex, but instrumentalist assessments can put an unfair burden on education programmes: there are many other reasons that people engage in sexual activity (or fail to ace their taxes), completely unrelated to the type or quality of education programmes they previously encountered or the extent of their learning within those programmes. This calls for critical conversations about why we desire to control what happens beyond the classroom, whether such control is possible, and in what ways it impedes other educational objectives that we have stronger chances of achieving through sex education: concluding programmes with students who are well-informed and have the critical skills to ask good questions and find reliable answers after class is out.

The legacies of religious involvement on the history of sex education in the US will continue to be felt, and examining them will help us better understand our countrys messy and ambivalent approaches to sex today. Those influenced by comprehensive sexuality education might be able to recognise traces of past progressive Protestant influences, including the embrace of science as a way to learn about creation, the interfaith desire to find common ground, and the situation ethics of the new morality. Liberal Protestants also continue to generate some of the most comprehensive sexuality education programmes for religious education and private schools. Those familiar with abstinence-only/sexual-risk reduction programmes might recognise aspects of earlier Protestant purity reforms and midcentury family life education, along with the more direct influence of evangelical pro-family politics. Previous religious sex educators sought to move the conversation forward while also holding on to the reins as best they could. They set the boundaries of what should be considered acceptable in public sex education that would later break into our current divisions.

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Sex-ed in the US is a lesson in the complex legacy of religion - aeon.co

Sockeye travel the furthest of all Idaho salmon, swimming more than 900 miles and climbing more than 6,500 feet in elevation to their home waters in the Sawtooth Valley. The landlocked version of the sockeye are one of Idahos most popular fisheries. Fish and Game official Brian Pearson talks about techniques to improve captured sockeye for their breeding program. We actually brought in eight fish. They were being processed at the Eagle Fish Hatchery and this has happened as recently as 2015. But it's not usual and it's a trade off. We would normally prefer in most circumstances, that these fish make the long journey all the way back to the Sawtooth Basin and end up at the Sawtooth Hatchery near Stanley. That's valuable for our sockeye recovery efforts because the fish that make the last leg of that journey have desirable genetics. These fish are equipped to make that trek all the way back to their natal stream. In this case, the Sawtooth hatchery. So those are the fish that we really want in our captive brood stock as far as genetics go for our captive brood stock or a captive breeding program, Darwinism, survival of the fittest. Exactly. It's bringing in and using natural selection and integrating that natural selection into our captive breeding program effectively. Idaho does its best to support the sockeye by having dozens of fundraising events.

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Improving Sockeye genetics - AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST - AGInfo Ag Information Network Of The West

If you thought the misinformation, indoctrination, and viewpoint suppression perpetrated by Big Tech, schools, and the corporate media were limited to politics, think again. One of the many fronts of the war for the right to dictate what you believe is the scientific, religious, and metaphysical debate over where you came from.

A recent University of Michigan survey claims Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans, or 54 percent. Salon declared the debate over, posting the headline Science quietly wins one of the rights longstanding culture wars, calling it a setback for purveyors of pseudoscience. What role does information suppression play in this trend?

In 2006, an article in the journal Nature reported 70 years of enforced atheism and official support for darwinism in the Soviet Union were causing a public backlash against evolution in post-Soviet Russia. During the Soviet era, virtually everyone accepted Darwinism, largely due to government indoctrination and a lack of intellectual freedom. Could a similar intolerance be responsible, at least in part, for increased public acceptance of evolution in the United States?

More than 1,100 scientists have signed a list agreeing they are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. As a scientist, Ive signed that list. But as an attorney, I can attest that many of these scientists and others who are afraid to sign the list face discrimination because they wont toe the Darwinian line.

Earlier this year physicist Eric Hedin published a book titled Canceled Science, telling how Ball State University investigated him after he briefly covered intelligent design in an interdisciplinary elective seminar. When science faculty are prohibited from merely mentioning minority scientific viewpoints, its no wonder that many students gravitate towards Darwinism. Theyve heard nothing else.

Big Tech also makes it hard to find scientific information that challenges Darwin. In 2020, the journal BioEssays published an editorial calling for mandatory disclaimers and color coded banners on search engines to warn people about factual errors on websites supporting intelligent design. Yet while these websites are being targeted, Wikipedia is perpetuating biased and inaccurate information about the Darwinism/intelligent design debate.

Wikipedias intelligent design entry editorializes within the first five words that such a belief is pseudoscientific, and editors notoriously resist changes that add balance or accuracy. This led Wikipedias co-founder Larry Sanger, a self-described agnostic who believes intelligent design to be completely wrong, to slam the entry as appallingly biased. It simply cannot be defended as neutral. Yet Wikipedia is undoubtedly where countless people become informed and misinformed about evolution and intelligent design.

Wikipedians justify censorship of pro-intelligent design views by citing a consensus thats enforced by the scientific community and education system. In the United States, public schools almost universally teach evolution in a pro-Darwin-only fashion that censors any science that challenges the status quo.

Consider the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which take what The New York Times called a firm stand that children must learn about evolution. Out of 50 states, 44 have adopted these standards or something like them. They call for students to learn that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence, with no mention of counterevidence. Does this require simply knowing about evolution and understanding the arguments, or does it force students to affirm support for evolution?

The NGSS inform students that similarities among vertebrate embryos indicate common ancestry, parroting many biology textbooks which overstate the degree of similarity between fish, bird, and mammal embryos. But neither the NGSS nor many textbooks mention peer-reviewed studies showing that vertebrate embryos start development differently. As a 2010 paper in Nature explained, Counter to the expectations of early embryonic [similarities], many studies have shown that there is often remarkable divergence between related species both early and late in development.

In high school, the NGSS teaches that similarities in DNA sequences across different species also support common ancestry. But the NGSS ignores that the scientific literature is replete with conflicts between DNA-based evolutionary trees.

An article in New Scientist, titled Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life, observed [m]any biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. It quoted scientists saying things like We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality or Weve just annihilated the tree of life.

Likewise, a 2012 paper in Annual Review of Genetics could not reconcile universal common ancestry with the genetic data, and concluded life might indeed have multiple origins. The NGSS ignores such studies, presenting dumbed-down science in support of neo-Darwinian theory.

When the public lacks access to scientific information that challenges evolution because Darwin-doubting scientists are hounded out of academia, schools refuse to acknowledge peer-reviewed science that contradicts the standard evolutionary paradigm, and Big Tech obscures accurate information about intelligent design we dont have to wonder why public support for evolution is increasing. Under such a dogmatic system, what outcome would be expected other than increased support for evolution?

To be clear, Im not proposing some conspiracy theory. No conspiracy is needed to understand that power structures often systematically marginalize people and viewpoints that are in the minority, and thats exactly whats happening here. Whats concerning is that this is happening within the scientific community, where freedom of inquiry is supposed to thrive, and its happening on one of the most important topics for all humanity: our origins.

The Darwinism debate is a bellwether for larger issues of intellectual freedom in America. Support for evolution may be increasing, but if this is being driven by trends resembling Soviet-style information suppression, this isnt a road we want to traverse.

Casey Luskin holds a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, a law degree from the University of San Diego, and is a California-licensed attorney. He works as Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, in Seattle.

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Why You Only Hear One Side Of The Debate Over Life's Origin - The Federalist

Quantum phenomena wash out as particles interact with the environment, but classical properties survive. Are they selected in a process analogous to evolution by natural selection?

By Philip Ball

Panther Media GmbH/Alamy

IT IS often said that the very small is governed by quantum physics, and the large by classical physics. There seems to be one set of rules for fundamental particles and another for us. But everything, including us, is made of particles. So why cant we too be in superpositions or show wave-like interference when we pass through a doorway, as a photon or electron does when it passes through narrow slits? Ditto any large, inanimate object?

To cut to the chase: we dont know the answer. One of the most intriguing ideas now being tested, however, is that classical reality might emerge through a process analogous to evolution by natural selection.

That notion has its origins in the 1970s, when physicists first came to realise that a particles quantum behaviours of superposition, entanglement and suchlike leak out into its environment, disappearing as a result of interactions with other particles a process called decoherence. The coupling to the macroscopic environment spoils the quantum coherences so fast that they are unobservable, says Jean-Michel Raimond at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. Experiments have demonstrated that decoherence is a real, physical process, albeit one that happens in the blink of an eye.

What it cant tell us, however, is why various definite properties, such as position or velocity, emerge for us to observe. Why do these properties survive the transition from quantum to classical, while some other quantum features dont?

To Wojciech Zurek at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, it looked a lot like there was some sort of selective filtering going on. That filtering, he realised, is

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Quantum Darwinism: Can evolutionary theory explain objective reality? - New Scientist

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Philosopher and atheist Thomas Nagels little book,Mind and Cosmos, from 2012, continues to make big waves. He credited intelligent design proponents including Stephen Meyer and Michael Behe with helping to undermine (per the subtitle) the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature.Writing for the journalPublic Discourse,Matthew J. Franckcalls it a book that stuck for him, meaning one that sticks around in his thinking and writing in various ways, despite being outside Francks academic discipline:

My last recommendation is of a book that came to my attention in a more ordinary way accompanied by widespread attention, acclaim, and criticism. Philosopher Thomas NagelsMind and Cosmos(2012), coming in at only 126 pages plus notes, is a brisk but densely argued brief against the view, dominant among most contemporary scientists, that a reductionist materialism can explain, well, us creatures with consciousness and cognition who believe that our value judgments are rooted in reality. Nagels daring and iconoclasm are evident in his subtitle,Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. He was persuaded, he writes, by the intelligent design school of Darwin critics that the standard evolutionary account of the human mind comes up short. Nagel does not embrace the design thesis himself, but his thrusting it away rests on the rather feeble ground that he lack[s] thesensus divinitatisthat enables indeed compels so many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose.

Franck, among other distinctions, is Associate Director of the James Madison Program and Lecturer in Politics at Princeton.

Nagel put a sell by date on the Darwinist idea of mind:

I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two though of course it may be replaced by a new consensus that is just as invalid. The human will to believe is inexhaustible.

As a colleague points out, Nagels departure from the right-thinking consensus is on a par with Yale computer scientistDavid Gelernters 2019 farewell to Darwinism: both are major thinkers who showed that rejecting that orthodoxy can be done. Their courage also persuades me itwillbe done, by others of equal stature, giving intellectual permission to others in turn, until the tipping point that Nagel forecasts comes to pass. Of course, his sober warning about the next consensus must also be heeded.

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Little Book, Big Waves Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, Nine Years Later - Discovery Institute

In social psychology, the idea of the survival of the fittest is a theory that has many names: social Darwinism, and Competitive Jungle Belief(CJB), and others. It applies Darwins theories of natural selection in a social context in order to say that society as a whole is like a highly competitive jungle where only the fittest are competent and are, therefore, likely to survive. A new study published on Wednesday in PLoS One found that CJB is tied to characteristics such as a greater hostility towards other people, exploitative attitudes, and low self-esteem.

While it has been long recognized that the CJB acts as a mediator between individual characteristics and socio-political ideology, researchers in the Polish study have built a psychological profile of people who endorse the idea. In a sample of around 800 people, the study tested for how CJB related to five psychological variables including attachment styles, human values, moral judgments, and other personality traits.

Its results showed that social Darwinists have a relatively more dysfunctional quality of personal life because of their scores on the five variables. But this also has implications for society at large.

For instance, social Darwinists propensity to admire power, domination, and their determination to pursue goals at the expense of others, make conditions for an egalitarian society unfavorable. Moreover, a fearful attachment style could be connected with an inability to sympathize with others. In other words, social Darwinism belongs to the broader category of social beliefs, whose common denominator is a profoundly pessimistic and negativistic view of human nature and interpersonal relations, the study notes.

The study also found a link between greater scores on the Dark Triad of personality (greater antagonism, selfishness, and lesser communal characteristics like empathy) and CJB. Machiavellianism or emotional coldness and cynicism, was found to be the greatest predictor of CJB beliefs.

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Weve Completely Misunderstood Survival of the Fittest, Evolutionary Biologists Say

On a broader societal level, this means that social Darwinism tends to favor anti-egalitarian ideologies such as hierarchical relations, social dominance, and is a mediator between an aggressive personal disposition and approval of aggression in socio-political life. Previous studies have shown how social Darwinism can be linked to far-right authoritarianism and approval of political aggression. In other words, social Darwinism is a belief that acts as a bridge between personal negative psychological traits, and anti-egalitarian societal ideologies.

They especially reject human rights, care, help, and compassion as relevant criteria of moral judgments. As a matter of fact, they did not value any measured ethical code. If they do, it is some respect for authorities, the study observed.

The study carries important implications in understanding why the pandemic saw certain attitudes about the disposability of people prevail. The trajectory of the pandemic response and peoples attitudes have shown a prevailing belief that the coronavirus is a natural selector, where only the fittest survive, while the weak, the poor and marginalized die off, writes Vanessa Barker, a professor of sociology at the University of Stockholm.

Peoples refusal to cooperate while curbing the spread of the disease, and governments closing of borders to refugees and migrant workers are all symptomatic of social Darwinism at play. Only now, we know it is inherently rooted in negative personal attitudes towards other people. That an alarming number of people were in agreement with the idea of sacrificing elderly, disabled, and immunocompromised people in order to achieve herd immunity, speaks further to the tendency of individuals willingness to protect themselves at the expense of other people.

Indeed, researchers acknowledged that limitations of the study include not being able to factor the role of social processes in replicating or exacerbating such a negative view of the world. They hypothesize, for instance, that the pandemic may have caused an increase in such a worldview. During the Covid19 pandemic, a considerable increase in social negativism can be expected This may be a very good starting point for further research aimed at formulating a broader theory of negativistic thinking about the social world, the paper concludes.

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People Who Practice 'Survival of the Fittest' Are More Likely To Be Hostile, Shows Research - The Swaddle

The Arkansas Repertory Theater offers a zoo story, but its not Edward Albees zoo story.

Jennifer Vanderbeth rubs two young visitors to a research camp in East Africa with a former colleague, centered on a primatologist who believes the worldview of alpha men could be hit hard. It is the world premiere of the romantic comedy Priming.

The theater is performing a show at the Little Rock Zoos Sibitan Pavilion, as it conveys the message, When it comes to romance, human intriguing behavior is comparable only to the chimpanzees in the surrounding forest. .. Today, the first of three preview performances will take place, with a rainy day from Tuesday to Sunday to August 29th.

The film is directed by Ari Edelson, a playwright and novelist who often explores the stories of women in science, Edelson, and a Broadway producer in his previous career.

Ive known Will for years, says Edelson. He produced a show I directed Building the Wall [for New World Stages]..

He has been working on this piece for a while, during which time I know a writer who contacted me about doing some scripting work on this.

Im always very inspired when someone takes a scientific idea and gives it warmth and humanity, he adds. As a kid of scientists, I saw this and said,Oh, awesome, she did it.'

Vanderbeths script includes a discussion of nature and upbringing, Darwinism and evolution, and how they apply to human behavior and relationships, and whether they resemble the behavior of wild apes. It is.

Douglas Reese, his character, primatologist Desmond Hawks, said, Teaching requires lessons. He is a walking ego and an ego. He has all the bright and shining things. Achieved and learned. His books pop out of the airport kiosk shelves. Still he is a child in many ways he is accustomed to walking his way.

Plotpoint colludes to give him a big slap on his face. Who provides the slap? NS [other] Three of them take turns, he says.

Kate Gring plays Eve Goodwin. Eve Goodwin dates back a quarter of a century to two connections with the Hawks. We are friends, but 25 years ago we were alsothings, she explains.

She explains the professional relationships as they are passionate about the other side of the central issue, but whether the play is capable of changing and evolving relationships with people. Explore the problem.

The set, the director and the four actors in the play admit, but there is no jungle gym. And the play itself doesnt include the monkey business well, probably a little monkey business.

Theres a bit of smoothing, but its not hyper, explains Tally Gale, who plays Time magazine reporter Jenna Barash.

Theres an old flame, and maybe a new one, adds Joseph Scott Ford, who plays Dana Daforest, a young postdoc who came to help the Hawks. Hes familiar with theory, but he has an up-to-date view of implications, Ford explains.

In theaters, the reporter character is often a little device about whats going on, the window of the audience, says Gale. She made her own series of life choices. Shes probably trying to undermine these evolutionary theories. Shes weird and a super-achievement intended to be in Manhattan. , Not a concrete jungle. [actual] Dense forest.

The two young actors have an Arkansas background, but both headed to New York to pursue a career on the stage.

Ford is from Little Rock and graduated from Little Rock Christian Academy, but at least initially he had no goal of becoming a professional actor.

I saw the show as a rep, but didnt attend, he says. I was scared when I thought about playing. The injured high school athlete suddenly had the time and opportunity to introspect.

I saw the improvisation and thought,I can do it,' he recalls.

And Gale, who grew up in Russellville, admits that a performing arts scholarship from the North Little Rock-based Sia Foundation helped her launch her career. It was very helpful to me, she says. Shes paying it back shes been here to meet with Foundation founder Paul Leopros, who is looking for Sia graduates for boosters and funding efforts.

Edelson agrees that priming is similar to another Alby play, Virginia Woolf Afraid, both structurally and in several other ways. In fact, Gring says the actors were also discussing their similarities.

For example, both plays involve two couples, one older and one younger, struggling to find the meaning of love between day and night. Edelson calls it a real world bet.

Priming agrees with everything, but uses less brutal irony than Albys classics. Reese says its definitely a comedy. War of ideas with words as swords.

And as the rehearsal progresses, production is developing a more physical comedy aspect, Edelson says. It will be a very vibrant universe to enjoy this play.

Comedy and physicality make lofty ideas visceral, fun, and frothy. If this were a cocktail, it would definitely be carbon dioxide.

what: World premiere of a romantic comedy by Jennifer Vanderbeth of the Arkansas Repertory Theater.

when: From Tuesday to Sunday from 7 pm to August 29.

where: Cibitan Pavilion, Little Rock Zoo, 1 Zoo Drive, Little Rock

tickets: $ 45

information: (501) 378-0405 | TheRep.org

World premiere of Priming at the Arkansas Repertory Theater at Little Rock Zoo

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World premiere of Priming at the Arkansas Repertory Theater at Little Rock Zoo - Illinoisnewstoday.com

I'd put Cuomo up against McConnell any day for ruthlessness.But McConnell is all about Republican power and survival. Cuomo makes it about himself.

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigns after accusations of sexual harassment

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has resigned after multiple women accused the Democrat of sexual harassment.

USA TODAY

A few years ago, before Donald Trump emerged, I proposed a story with the working title, "Is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo too mean to bepresident?" The thinking among some Democrats was hell, yes, and among others it was hell, no. There was a depressing sense of Republicans as tough as nailsand Democrats as soft touches. This was, after all, the Obama era, and the Democratic president seemed haplessin the face of GOP obstruction. Maybe Cuomo was the antidote.

An editor put the kibosh on that idea (darn editors!), but I thought about it for years as Trump demolished a 2016 primary field of conventional Republicans, some of whom tried but never succeeded in being as nasty as he was, and edged past Hillary Clinton, a conventional Democrat and a woman to boot, on Election Day.

Joe Biden's presidential win last year put a cap on the mean era. Cuomo's resignation is the coda, and an ignominiousend to his family's dominance in New York politics.

TheCuomo dynasty arguably peaked early,with New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's 1984 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. It's considered one of the best speeches in American political history an eloquent yet bitingcritique of what he called then-President Ronald Reagan's social Darwinism.

"In many ways we are a shining city on a hill," Cuomo said, quoting Reagan. "But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory."

Cuomo was 52,in his first term, and a national future awaited him. It seemed certain he wouldrun for president.

But he never did. He mulled the 1988 and 1992 races for so long and in such public view,he earned the nickname "Hamlet on the Hudson." His plane never got off the ground, literally, as he dithered in Albany about whether to compete in the New Hampshire primary. He ended his career as a three-term governor who could have seized the moment, but did not.

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That was a whimper. His son is going out with loud headlines after the release of an attorney general report that found evidence he had sexually harassed 11 women, and many accounts of his crueltyin the workplace, especially toward women. He resigned before he could be impeached, and could face charges.

Cuomo was the empathetic, authoritative voice of the COVID-19 pandemic in daily TV briefings at a time when Trump was saying the virus was nothing to worry about, suggesting we trya malaria drug or an injection ofdisinfectant, and demanding less testing so he could boast of lower case counts.

Cuomo's mistakes sending pandemicpatients to nursing homes and trying to cover up the death tollhave been exposed over the past few months. Still, he kept on writinga lucrative book called "Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic."

Andrew Cuomo resigns:He personifies abuse of power at the expense of the vulnerable.

In another irony, Cuomo hadbeen hailedfor beinga supporter of the #MeToo movement. In 2018, he called for the resignation of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman,accused of violent nonconsensual sex with women ("No one is above the law, including New Yorks top legal officer, the governor said) and before that had directed Schneiderman to investigate how Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vancehandled 2015 sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

The retribution Cuomo sought against women who complained about his harassment, the resignations among those who helped him, his counterproductivelong-running feud with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, his shutdown of an ethics commission he himself had created to investigate corruption all make clear he runs a ruthless operation.

I'd put him up against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell any day.But McConnell is all about Republicanpolitical power and survival and gains. Cuomo makes it all about himself.

He might have been better off jumping into a presidential race. Like his father, he was mentioned many times. He might have been the idealnominee to take on Trump in 2016.

Breathtaking hypocrisy:Trump sycophants have no standing to demand that Cuomo resign

But most of America has moved past that moment, and past the Cuomos. The only one still prominent in public life is Chris, the CNN anchor who is now professionally scarred for having advised his brother on how to survive a scandal he ended up not surviving.

The logical choice for saving the family political dynasty, if anyone wants it to live on, would beoneor more of Andrew Cuomo's three daughterswith former wife Kerry Kennedy (daughter of Robert).

Women. They get the job done.

Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of"The Art of the Political Deal:How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock."Follow her on Twitter:@JillDLawrence

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Andrew Cuomo resignation is the coda on a mean era Joe Biden ended by beating Donald Trump - USA TODAY

J.D. Vance, author of the best-seller memoir (and subsequent film with Glenn Close) Hillbilly Elegy, is now running for a Senate seat in Ohio. While campaigning, he made news a week ago by saying we ought to consider a policy whereby people who have children cast not only their own votes, but they also cast the votes of their children until they are 18 years old. His point is this would be a way to give the people with the most stake in the future for our country the most say in shaping that future. Vance is running as a Republican and, by the way, he is a convert to Catholicism.

As you might have guessed over the years, I myself am not a Republican. All the same, some of the points Vance is making about what our country does and (mostly) doesnt do to foster healthy families, are valid and deserve to be front and center in 2022 and 2024. I think perhaps he goes a bit over the top with ad hominem argument when he complains that too many liberal Democrats in office dont have any kids and, for this reason, their views on policy are suspect, or worse. Im not sure the demographics of our politicians in office support that general observation. Nonetheless, in terms of the liberal Democrat intellectual establishment, there may well be merit to his concerns. Professors and authors are not likely these days to have a large number of children, or any children at all. There is indeed a potential blind spot there that can obscure the views of the liberal elite. They also tend to be nonreligious, as everyone knows.

In relation to all this, the University of London scholar Eric Kaufman has shown in his now famous book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the 21st Century (London, 2010), that all societies that lean toward secularism, agnosticism and atheism have fertility rates that are below replacement level and often times seriously below replacement level. This is true for all the countries of Europe and Russia (and China by force), as well as Australia, Canada and the United States. Replacement level is an average of 2.1 births per woman during reproductive lifespan, this measurement is the so-called Total Fertility Rate (TFR). Here in New England, Vermont is, by many standards, the least religious state in the U.S. and Vermont also has the lowest Total Fertility Rate of any state in the U.S., tied with Rhode Island, coming in at 1.5 births as of 2019 (as per the CDC report available online). Kaufmans book shows a clear connection between countries, states and subgroups religious practices (or lack thereof) and their fertility rates.

When I was still teaching college students, I was constantly surprised at how almost none of them realized the complications that arise when fertility rates fall below replacement level. Europe is living through these complications right now. The TFR for the European Union is 1.5 with Italy and Spain coming in at only 1.3 births. This means that Italys and Spains fertility rate is almost 50% below replacement level. Without significant immigration, they will not be able to hold their economies and social programs together through the coming decades. Having a decreasing population may sound great at first blush, but living through it is something else. Whole towns and regions become depressed and die; the market for goods and services shrinks each year; children in some towns are completely absent; old people outnumber the young. A world without a healthy next generation is a very sad place.

No doubt about it, having children is very hard work and very expensive. As any parent who has done the job well will tell you, it is the hardest job there is. It is even harder in a society such as the U.S., which is highly individualistic, has almost no programs to encourage and assist middle-class families, and is a country in which the extended family system is not especially functional.

People who live entirely by secular values, who are nonreligious, have a lower fertility rate than those who are religious almost no matter what religion. In the U.S., atheists and agnostics have a TFR of 1.6 and 1.3, while Catholics and Evangelicals have 2.3, with Mormons having the highest, 3.4 (see the Washington Post, May 12, 2015).

Also, as Kaufman explains in detail in his book, the world population as a whole is becoming more religious and the demographic directions are clear. Even simplistic, vulgar Darwinism establishes the point: Whoever reproduces best wins out in the end its not just survival of the fittest after all. Worldwide, Christians have a TFR of 2.6 and Muslims have 2.9 meaning Islam is the worlds fastest growing religion at the moment, but both are growing. These two religions are followed by over 50% the worlds people today and by 2050 over 60% of the world will follow these religions and 15% will follow Hinduism only a little over 10% will be unaffiliated (as per Pew Research Center figures).

Those who would like to see the worlds (and Americas) population fall dramatically and quickly, are going to be disappointed. Thankfully, in no small degree due to the influence of religions, the U.S. and the world rate of population growth will not fall off a cliff. World population will be decreasing slowly and steadily, coming to a permanent plateau at 10-11 billion worldwide population in 2100 (as per the United Nations mid-level estimate). This is within current estimates of our planets carrying capacity, and continued improvement in human ecology is extremely likely during the next 80 years.

Vance makes the point that, of course, its possible to keep the U.S. population stable through immigration, but he also makes the point that it would be less stressful culturally to achieve population stability the old-fashioned way, through keeping our TFR at 2.1 births. However, to do this, it might well not be enough to count on religious motivation alone, since the U.S. is also experiencing tendencies toward religious non-affiliation and secularism in general. He argues (and he almost sounds like a Democrat here) that we need to think about serious, outside-the-box improvements in our state and federal policies that foster, encourage and support peoples willingness to have children. And to do so in ways that encourage stable marriage and responsible parenthood.

Today, around 40% of births in America are to unmarried women. In the European Union, its over 50% and in France, over 60%. My point is not prudish disapproval. My point is much more serious: The point is that children are paying a price for the breakdown of the family. For example, the worldwide suicide rate for people 15-29 years old is 7.4 per 100,000, but in the U.S., it is 14 per 100,000, almost double the world average. This is tragic.

Religion can help with many things. Helping to foster a healthy birth rate and healthy families are two of those things. Helping to prevent suicide is another (see Medill News Service, Northwestern University, July 5, 2017). Those who are in a rush to rid the world of religion need to reconsider that stance and its repercussions.

A culture without God and children is a dying culture no matter how affluent and how progressive it may be.

John Nassivera is a former professor who retains affiliation with Columbia Universitys Society of Fellows in the Humanities. He lives in Vermont and part time in Mexico.

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On Faith: JD Vance, families and us | Perspective | rutlandherald.com - Rutland Herald