Capital and Ideology I

For a number of reasons, I'm out of my winter reading mode and will probably proceed through this book, by Thomas Piketty, very slowly. Like Capital in the Twenty-First Century, it isn't technical and is easy to understand. I am reminded of Charles Darwin, who similarly wrote accessible books, and thereby laid claim to the title of one of the greatest scientific minds in history. Like Darwin, Piketty is already rich and acclaimed from his popular first book.

I've only read the long introduction, which describes the main plan of the book. As with his last book, Piketty loves historical narratives in which he compares conditions in different countries at different periods. In this case, rather than focusing primarily on the economic aspects of wealth inequality in rich countries, he looks broadly at ideology and politics in all kinds of countries. I am already finding myself disagreeing with him when he says "Inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political." It looks as if the main premise of the book is that inequality can only be addressed through political processes, and in this sense it seems that his ideas are similar to those of Jared Diamond in Upheaval: each nation must work to define its situation and find solutions through a democratic political process. In most respects, that is a conventional view today. However, as I've mentioned on previous posts, I have a very low confidence level in political processes and usually find prevailing ideologies stunningly simplistic if not simply incorrect. Piketty seems to abhor technical language when it comes to collective human thinking about how societies should be organized. I agree with him that natural language is our primary resource for resolving political and ideological disputes, but think that he has too much faith in the idea that humans can collectively solve their major problems simply by identifying and discussing them at all levels of society. I find myself frequently disagreeing with progressive intellectuals, who often seem to base their ideas on a faulty understanding of human nature.

Piketty's form of argument, while refreshing in some ways, is disappointing in others. It is indeed pleasant to read about social issues in narrative form, probably because our brains have evolved to work that way. Strictly scientific language seems cold and inaccessible, so it makes sense that people, including Piketty, prefer stories for digesting information. Most people, for example, would prefer reading a novel to reading a scientific treatise. The problem is that ideologies and political memes lack real substance if they're not measured against more objective standards. Several of the books that I've read since reading Piketty's last book show that human cognition is highly erratic in its performance, which results in irrational behavior on the part of practically everyone. Thus, the idea that the citizens of a country can simply buckle down, put their heads together and reinvent themselves through a process that is both orderly and rational seems naïve to me. That, unfortunately, seems to be the view of most progressive intellectuals these days. I am more inclined to let policy experts or AI make these decisions, because most people are simply incapable of understanding complex policy options. It looks as if Piketty is going to completely ignore behavioral economics, which, besides being a useful branch of economics, is probably one of the most important ones to develop over the last fifty years.

Although, as I've said, politics and ideology don't interest me much, I can use the current political situation in the U.S. as an example. People generally agree about what comprise liberal or conservative ideas, but perhaps the one interesting thing that Donald Trump has done is demonstrate that Republican conservatives now have no core beliefs. Because Trump has no real ideology other than narcissism, the Republican Party, for the first time since the early twentieth century, no longer represents fiscal conservatism or free trade. Notably, there has been no effort made by Republicans to reframe their ideological beliefs, and it seems that, almost overnight, the conceptual identity of the party was gutted, and the party itself became a tool for conceptually incoherent opportunists. To be sure, some of the previous practices, such as the removal of restrictions on corporations, are still in place, but, with Trump at the helm, there can be no intelligible ideological or political goals. I think Piketty will be commenting on the Trump situation later in the book, but this situation may contradict some of his ideas.

Diary

I had been hoping to start commenting on another book by now, but the one I was reading wasn't worth it. It was on algorithms and turned out to be too basic and, therefore, though it did cover the general history of algorithms, did not go as far as I thought it ought to have on how they should to be deployed in the future. It is already evident that algorithms control many aspects of human life, and that, well short of AGI (artificial general intelligence), it will be possible to use them to make collective decisions for large populations in a manner that benefits the majority and doesn't hinge on the intractable irrational impulses that often dominate human behavior. This is a rather obvious need at the moment, with poorly-informed populist leaders taking the stage and facilitating preventable deaths while ignoring established science. It is embarrassing to have to think about the ludicrous statements made by Donald Trump, when it is now common knowledge that, besides remaining uninformed on COVID-19, his only motivation is to be reelected in November regardless of the human costs. The cognitive weaknesses embodied by Trump become more dangerous when they are magnified by unrealistic expectations about the efficacy of democratic political processes. One need only look at Trump's political career to see that from the start he has been self-centered, dishonest and unprepared to act in the best interest of voters. Recently he has demonstrated that he is perfectly willing to have thousands of them die unnecessarily if he thinks that it will facilitate his reelection. Even as responsible news outlets expose him on a daily basis as the dangerous charlatan that he is, there remains a foolish belief that the usual political process is the only suitable recourse, regardless of the growing costs of his incumbency.

Speaking of algorithms, I think it would be fairly easy to construct ones that would predict the likely outcomes of political figures in office by studying the backgrounds of politicians and comparing them to their subsequent political careers. For example, although Obama was somewhat successful and was respected as president, it might be shown that his lack of leadership experience, conformity and a desire to please offset his ability to empathize, which had helped him get elected. In the end, his weaknesses rendered him ineffectual as president. The case is more obvious with Donald Trump. Politicians who promote flagrant lies prior to election, such as birtherism, are more likely to lie in office. Similarly, those who conceal their financial records are more likely to have engaged in illicit transactions. With Trump, there remains the possibility that he has bungled most of his business initiatives and is now heavily dependent on money funneled to him through Deutsche Bank from Russian oligarchs. A subtle analysis might reveal some of the more elusive Trump characteristics. He has been using a grifter strategy for his entire adult life and lacks the flexibility to learn or adapt in office. This has only become apparent gradually, because Trump is in the habit of believing his own lies. It didn't emerge until recently that although Trump clearly pressured the government of Ukraine to provide negative information on Joe Biden in return for military aid, he couldn't see anything ethically wrong with it, because he is accustomed to thinking that his transactions are all for his personal benefit, and that he has no responsibility for anyone else. Another Trump habit that has become more obvious over time is his use of new distractions to escape close scrutiny on other questionable actions that he's taken; this particular strategy isn't very sophisticated and is commonly used by con men, but Trump has used it effectively since he was elected, because it keeps his critics off balance. Thus, the Trump presidency has played out as an emerging pathology that, despite being spotted by psychologists at the start, never found its way to public consciousness until it was too late. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has increasingly demonstrated that, not only does he disregard facts that conflict with his narrative, but that he also doesn't understand basic science and remains indifferent to the thousands of lives that have been lost due to his incompetence. I think that research along these lines, working from data on many politicians in many countries over many years, could reveal the predicted outcome for individual politicians in the environments where they work. If that information were publicly available, it would be much easier to avoid future Trump-like debacles. In the end, I think that AGI will be better at governing than humans, but this could be an intermediate step.

One bright spot at the moment is the emergence of Bill Gates as a potential new pundit. It seems that to a large extent competent people have been steering clear of political careers in the U.S. for some time now, because they recognize that they can make more money, do more interesting work, provide greater public service, etc., by pursuing other fields. Although I have been less than enthusiastic about Gates in the past, in this situation he is a breath of fresh air, and with any luck he will attract additional competent people to the realm of public policy. From my readings, the field of public policy, which has improved in recent years, is still in a state of disarray, partly because it doesn't all fall under one academic aegis and is splintered, and partly because much of it is subverted by the influence of commercial interests. For example, private companies have become adept at privatizing institutions such as prisons and schools, only to gut whatever was there and monopolize profits without providing any measurable social benefits. The active involvement of people like Bill Gates in public policy could improve the likelihood of wider implementation of science-based policies. The political process in the U.S. is severely antiquated and could benefit significantly from the help of technocrats.

I haven't had much luck finding any book that I really desire to read, and have settled on Capital and Ideology, by Thomas Piketty, even though it is very long and had mixed reviews. I appreciate the fact that Piketty emphasizes equality far more than most American economists and think it should be the focus of the field. I am also hoping that he will include various cultural and literary anecdotes, which I thought spiced up Capital in the Twenty-First Century and made up for often dull reading.

William has resumed his serial killer habits. This morning there was a dead chipmunk in the basement, and the other day he brought in a dead hummingbird and left it by the sofa while we were watching TV. Most mornings there are new mouse parts on the porch, but at least he hasn't been climbing the screens.

Diary

I'm glad to be finished reading about Charles Darwin, because he isn't the best subject for a biography. However, he fits the pattern that I see in most biographies, in which the person gradually becomes demythologized. That is not the case in hagiographic biographies, which I have attempted to avoid. With Darwin, it becomes clear that he inextricably belonged to a specific time and place, and that his strengths and weaknesses played out as they did only because his environment dictated what was possible for him. If he had been born a few years earlier, he probably wouldn't have thought of natural selection, and if he had been born a few years later, his ideas would have been considered passé among scientists. From my reading, there is no evidence that he was a towering genius who gazed over the millennia as no one else could. Even so, he still deserves a lot of credit for advancing substantive ideas that remain over the heads of many people in the world to this day. The problem occurs when readers attempt to emulate their biographical heroes, which is usually impossible, because all contexts are ephemeral and the same conditions will never arise again.

This spring has turned out to be very cold. Last Friday I mowed the lawn for the first time, and that night it snowed. Usually it is much warmer by now, and the hummingbirds have returned – they haven't. We are still burning wood in the stove to stay warm. Normally we would have run out by now, but a few months ago half of a large sugar maple blew over, and I cut and split it, a job that took several days. I bought a new chainsaw, because the maple had a larger diameter than what I usually cut. We also have some apple wood, which burns well because it is extremely dry. The very old Enos Severance apple tree was hollow in the middle, and the dead half of it recently blew over and was leaning on a telephone pole. I cut that too. The remaining half of the tree is more robust and should live for a few more years. According to the weather forecast, we should have a significant warm-up by Thursday. The coronavirus pandemic is having effects here, as everywhere, but is more subdued due to the low population density. As of today, Addison County has a total of 62 cases and 2 deaths. I would be at low risk of exposure, because I don't do the shopping, but I have been traveling to Chittenden County, to the north, quite often for treatment of a medical condition, and that is the hot spot in the state, with 432 cases and 37 deaths. It remains to be seen what the total effects of the pandemic will be. So far it hasn't had much effect on my family and friends. Everyone who isn't retired is still working or was already stay-at-home.

I am hoping that all the bad news will finally catch up with Donald Trump, who by now has unequivocally demonstrated that he is the worst president in American history. He sailed into a robust economy that was unrelated to anything that he did with the assistance of uneducated voters who had been taken in by right-wing propaganda, only to completely mishandle the first major crisis that came his way. Although he is now getting more long-deserved criticism in the press, he is still supported by the brainwashed true believers. In the long run, he will be seen as having mismanaged the economy and negligently permitted thousands of preventable deaths. When his legal protections are removed, he may well end up in jail, which is where he belongs. Future historians will be scratching their heads about how he was ever elected in the first place.

In other news, after giving up on Netflix and other streaming services, I recently subscribed to The Criterion Channel, which includes many good films that I haven't seen. They used to include Criterion films on Netflix, but it has steadily gone down-market over the years. Nearly all of the latest films and series are abysmal in my opinion. Some of the very old films on The Criterion Channel aren't that great, but I think that their overall catalog is far superior to any other of which I'm aware.

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place V

During his final years, Darwin seems to have scaled back on his work a little. He continued with plants, writing on insectivorous ones, and then switched to plant growth. His last book, on worms, turned out to be the best selling of all his books. His son, Francis, completed medical school but, like Darwin's brother, Erasmus, had decided not to pursue a medical career, and instead he worked with his father on his scientific projects. Another son, George, who taught mathematics, helped him with his math. Francis married and provided him with his first grandchild, Bernard, who was raised in Darwin's house when Francis's wife died shortly after childbirth. Although Darwin was modestly wealthy and his books had sold well for scientific works, as with comparable families in his social class, he had a large staff of about twelve people, which makes his household seem bizarre if you compare it to contemporary ones. He was thrifty in his expenditures, and by the 1870's this had put him at a disadvantage in his experimentation, since biological research had expanded considerably and he did not possess suitable laboratory equipment.

He wrote an autobiography, which was intended primarily as a family document, with no thought of publication. According to Browne, it offers a straightforward account of his life without referencing his emotional state or inner life. At Cambridge, "My time was wasted, as far as academical studies were concerned....we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards." He said that in his later years he couldn't stand reading poetry or Shakespeare. According to Browne:

Looking back, he reckoned that he learned nothing at school; nothing from his father, who considered him "a very ordinary boy"; nothing from two universities except that which he performed under his own steam. Everything accomplished on the voyage was from his own hard work.

His depiction of himself as entirely self-made can hardly be accurate. If, for example, Henslow hadn't set him up for the Beagle voyage and he hadn't befriended Lyell, it would be hard to imagine him attaining either the necessary inspiration or the subsequent success of his scientific career. He also expressed harsher views on Christianity than he generally did among his friends and family.

In 1880, Wallace, who, besides becoming a spiritualist, was bad at handling his finances and was going broke. Darwin generously assisted him by going through channels to arrange for a government pension for him. Darwin's brother, Erasmus, died in 1881. Finally, Darwin himself died on April 19, 1882, probably from heart failure, at the age of seventy-three. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Summing up Browne's two volumes, I would say that while they are extremely thorough, they focus more on the details of Darwin's daily life than on the role of his ideas in the history of science. I don't think that she emphasizes enough how much change has occurred in the last 150 years of scientific research, and how viewing Darwin close up fails to highlight his strengths and weaknesses as a scientific thinker. From my point of view, as a dabbler in scientific readings, the ideas of Darwin and his peers seem primitive, though they were radical at the time. For example, Lyell, who is considered the founder of modern geology, had no knowledge of plate tectonics and little idea of the age of the planet. The fossil record in 1870 was minute compared to what we have today, and the evolution of the plant and animal kingdoms is vastly better-understood. Both Lyell and Darwin seem to have been wrong about gradualism, though Browne hardly explores this fact. For example, Darwin would be astounded to read Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution, by Jonathan Losos, which I discussed earlier. In that book, Losos demonstrates how evolution can occur in only a few years, rather than thousands or millions of years. There is also a tendentiousness in Darwin's thinking, which seems to include the idea that evolution gradually leads to perfect organisms. In his mind, contraception was a bad idea, because it prevented the development of superior humans. More fundamentally, he didn't understand that sexual reproduction works well mainly because random mutations produce fitter organisms over time. He thought that, in advanced societies, males usually select their mates, and that their choices ultimately determine the fitness of their descendants. The actual situation is far more complex than that, and it sounds as if Darwin was simply repeating orthodox views of the social hierarchy in his milieu. So, although Darwin seems to have been a clearer thinker than most, he understandably lacked the superhuman ability to transcend various Victorian ideas, such as that of progress, which I don't think holds up well under scientific scrutiny.

I was also a little disappointed that even though Browne's discussion is sometimes sociological, she doesn't fully contextualize Darwin as a beneficiary of class privilege. It is easy to imagine someone like Darwin, who was a poor student and avoided confrontations, not flourishing at all under different circumstances. Today, someone like him probably wouldn't be admitted to Cambridge, and without family and college connections it would have been difficult for him to befriend Lyell and others and become part of the inner circle of scientists who called all the shots in Victorian England from behind the scenes. Browne describes how Darwin was quite talented at pulling strings in order to achieve the outcomes that he desired. He was also good at recruiting surrogates, Huxley in particular, to defend him, and therefore was able to avoid nearly all public contact. I don't think that if you placed him in a modern research environment, where he would be forced to adopt a narrow specialty and follow specific procedures, he would have done well at all. Browne does touch on this, but I don't think enough, because Darwin's success hinged on certain aspects of his environment that do not exist today.

One other point I thought I'd mention is that Darwin's opposition to religion was not something that he dreamed up by himself. Both his father and his grandfather were similarly skeptical, as was his brother, and Darwin probably absorbed it from his family.
In the broadest historical sense, it seems possible that the Reformation, led by Martin Luther, Henry VIII and John Calvin, sufficiently reduced Catholicism in the U.K. and Germany to free up scientific inquiry that might otherwise have been suppressed because of theological dogma. It may be no coincidence that the Industrial Revolution began in the U.K., whereas Catholic countries such as France, Spain and Italy significantly lagged. Even today it is notable that the countries most resistant to Darwinism tend to be the most religious. I might add that Darwin seemed to believe that morality had its origins in evolution rather than in religion, which I think makes him a precursor of E.O. Wilson, who popularized the idea of eusociality.

On the whole I found these books rewarding, though I could have done without the excessive detail. That tended to make the reading a bit too much like a BBC miniseries when I think it would have been more interesting to get to the heart of Darwin's ideas with briefer excursions into social history.

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place IV

Though Darwin's health remained uneven, he continued to write books. His next one was The Descent of Man, which was published in 1871. This filled in another gap left by Origin of Species and directly discussed the process of human evolution from earlier species. We know far more about this today than Darwin could possibly have known, but at the time it cemented his position as the primary thinker behind the idea of evolution. As with his other books, he drew from his many correspondences and was helped in the editing by his family, in this case particularly by his daughter, Henrietta. The book sold well, and Darwin's celebrity increased. Besides his knack for writing popular books, he looked the part of a sage, with a tall stature, a long gray beard and a serious countenance. I noticed that Daniel Dennett, the contemporary philosopher, seems to be doing a perpetual Darwin imitation in his physical appearance. This book was followed by On the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872, which turned out to be his most popular book to date. It sounds lighter than the others and contained many illustrations, which made it easier for the public to absorb.

By 1872, the Darwin family had become a mini-industry, and his wife, children and siblings all played roles in attending to the demands that arose. Emma, for her part, did not share Darwin's views on religion, but this didn't cause a rift between them, perhaps because in those days feminism wasn't prominent and married couples operated more on a duty-based model than one based on equality. The children were open to the ideas of their father, and they became comfortable with his brand of skepticism. Darwin didn't particularly like being popular, and his family became adept at managing the growing stream of visitors arriving at their house, sometimes unannounced.

In 1869, Wallace had published an unexpected article in the Quarterly Review in which he partially rejected natural selection. Apparently he had been taken in by the then-popular worldview of spiritualists and mediums who had been staging séances. This came as a shock to Darwin, but didn't damage their relationship. What is interesting to me is that Wallace consequently forfeited some of his authenticity as a co-founder of the theory of natural selection. In this instance, Darwin's plodding, empirical method proved to be an advantage over people who were in some respects more intelligent than he was. Though Darwin was not given to psychological self-analysis, he recognized that he had an ability sometimes lacking in university people and intellectuals, because he doggedly stuck to empirical procedures. Apparently, Wallace got carried away in thinking that a separate layer of reality that was unrelated to most species had provided for the development of humans. This explanation left the door open to spiritual forces and a human consciousness that transcended physical reality. I have noticed a similar phenomenon myself, particularly during the 1960's and 1970's, when gurus were popular, though they usually turned out to be charlatans. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that people with high IQ's have a greater tendency to become unhinged from reality than practical, down-to-earth people. In person, Darwin was not a scintillating conversationalist, and he never dazzled those in his presence with the variety of his ideas.

The popularity of spiritualism during the Victorian era leads up to my favorite part of the biography, which includes G.H. Lewes and George Eliot. Darwin was on friendly terms with Lewes, who had written a favorable commentary on pangenesis, and Darwin had visited them at their house in 1868. He also attended one of their Sunday literary gatherings in 1873. Middlemarch was published in 1871, and George Eliot was at the peak of her fame in the 1870's. Though Lewes and Eliot were slightly disreputable, because they weren't married, they became acceptable for socializing by both men and women around this time. Emma was dying to meet George Eliot, and, as it happened, in January, 1874, Darwin's son, George, arranged a highbrow séance at Erasmus Darwin's house in London with the medium Charles Williams. In attendance were Lewes, George Eliot, Francis Galton, T.H. Huxley, Emma and Darwin, among others. Some of them were believers, but many were skeptics. Darwin described the event as follows:

We had grand fun, one afternoon, for George hired a medium, who made the chairs, a flute, a bell, and candlestick, and fiery points jump about in my brother's dining room, in a manner that astounded every one, and took away all their breaths. It was in the dark, but George and Hensleigh Wedgwood held the medium's hands and feet on both sides all the time. I found it so hot and tiring that I went away before all these astounding miracles, or jugglery, took place. How the man could possibly do what was done passes my understanding. I came downstairs, and saw all the chairs, etc., on the table, which had been lifted over the heads of those sitting around it. The Lord have mercy on us all, if we are to believe in such rubbish. F. Galton was there and says it was a good séance.

According to Henrietta Darwin, "Mr. Lewes I remember was troublesome and inclined to make jokes and not sit in the dark in silence."  Francis Darwin reported that his father said "it was all imposture." Not long after this, Charles Williams was exposed as a fraud.

If you're tired of hearing about Charles Darwin, your misery will soon be over. Darwin has only nine years left to live, and my next post will be my last on Janet Browne.

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place III

When Alfred Russel Wallace got home, he and Darwin developed a cordial relationship but did not seem especially close. Wallace moved in with his sister's family in London and, after spending several years living in exotic and remote locations, he disliked the crowded city. Furthermore, although Darwin introduced him to his scientific peers, such as Charles Lyell, Wallace was an introvert and felt uncomfortable in wealthy, upper-class society. One senses that Darwin deliberately distanced himself from Wallace as co-discoverer of natural selection, and he avoided being photographed with him. Behind the scenes in England there was always political infighting within the scientific community as one person or group tried to outflank another with the goal of domination. In particular, the Darwin-Huxley-Lyell-Hooker group was often in conflict with a group led anonymously by Richard Owen, which regularly produced articles critical of Darwin's work.

Darwin's further research at home occasionally resulted in books. Before Wallace came back, a lesser-known naturalist, Henry Walter Bates, had returned from the Amazon, and Darwin took a great liking to him. Bates was more complementary to Darwin than Wallace, because his research helped buttress Darwin's main theory without the potential for stealing it. Bates specialized in butterflies and had noticed that some mimic others in their appearance, and that this is an example of natural selection at work. Darwin was delighted to have a non-threatening naturalist offer examples that supported his theory, and he strongly encouraged Bates to publish, which he did. Nevertheless, Wallace remained a crucial ally of Darwin, and, in an 1864 article, Wallace became the first to explicitly advance the idea that natural selection had produced modern humans. In a peripherally related manner, within scientific circles at that time, the notion that some races are superior to others was widespread. Darwin had been disappointed that some of his friends, Lyell in particular, stopped short of linking natural selection to humans, and Wallace's ideas were therefore closer to those of Darwin.

During the 1860's, Darwin's health deteriorated further, and though he was only in his fifties he looked old. With his increasing fame, prominent medical doctors visited him in Downe (the spelling had changed from Down), but none of them were able to cure him. At times he was bedridden for protracted periods. Friends, such as Henslow, and two of his sisters died. However, Darwin continued his research. Because of his celebrity, he began to socialize at the highest levels of English society, and Emma was ecstatic about getting to know the Tennysons personally. His five surviving sons initially provided him with some consternation, as they showed no particular talents, but, like him, once they started in college they generally improved by applying themselves, in much the same way that he had earlier.

His research from this period resulted in the publication in 1868 of Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. In this book he attempted to explain how sexual reproduction actually works and allows traits to be passed from parents to offspring. He was not mathematically-minded and typically relied on the observation of physical attributes, which prevented him from developing a theory such as Mendel's, with dominant and recessive traits. He came up with a theory that he called "pangenesis," in which living matter contains unseen "gemmules" which carry inheritable characteristics from parents to offspring. This book was completely ignored and did nothing to enhance his reputation. In Darwin's defense, I suppose that you might say that it was a very early speculation about genetics, but it was of little value at a time when molecular biology didn't exist and the very idea of DNA was several decades away. In any case, Darwin was well aware that his theory of natural selection would remain incomplete without such understanding.

Other than the social and historical aspects described in the book, I am still finding it lacking in the sense that little is done to sum up Darwin's ideas in relation to modern science. The reader is left with the impression that Darwin had one important insight, which he maximized to the utmost by employing a pragmatic careerist strategy that made him the primary beneficiary of acclaim. In Browne's account, if you took away Darwin's privileged background and gave it to Alfred Russel Wallace, today we might be talking about Wallaceism instead of Darwinism, and Charles Darwin might be seen as an obscure Victorian hobbyist.

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place II

Origin of Species soon became widely discussed. One of the first major events in England occurred at the British Society for the Advancement of Science meeting held in Oxford in June, 1860. At that time, the public was unusually interested in science, and Oxford was in the process of catching up with Cambridge in scientific research. On this occasion, which Darwin characteristically didn't attend, Thomas Henry Huxley held a public debate with Bishop Wilberforce. As of then, Darwin had hardly thought about the religious implications of his work, but it didn't stop others from recognizing the incompatibility between Darwin's evolutionary time line and that presented in the Bible. Darwin had played down the idea that humans descended from earlier primates, though readers readily made that inference. Wilberforce may not even have read the book, but the publicity enhanced Darwin's reputation. Thereafter, Huxley became Darwin's primary defender in England. The book was also published in the U.S., where it was attacked by Louis Aggasiz, who then taught geology and zoology at Harvard. By current standards, Aggasiz would be considered a creationist. Fortunately for Darwin, his friend, Asa Gray, the Harvard botanist, became his main defender in America. With all the publicity, in the popular press Darwin was often depicted as an ape. Soon the book was translated into German and French. The translators, particularly of the French edition, took great liberties with the text. The German edition became popular, whereas Darwinism never really took off in France, which, at that time, was quite conservative.

On a side note, I should mention that I always find it interesting how scientists who are at the top of their field of research in one area are sometimes foolish and ignorant in other areas. Thus, Aggasiz, who discovered and illuminated the previously unknown eras of glaciation, was utterly wrong about evolution; his reputation has diminished considerably, and he is now considered a racist. A more current example would be Freeman Dyson, who died recently. He was a leader in the field of quantum electrodynamics, while in his later years he labeled anthropogenic climate change as a political movement that wasn't fully supported by science, which caused James Hansen, who is far more knowledgeable on climate science, to rebuff him.

Darwin remained aloof from the debates and took up new botanical hobbies such as the collecting of insectivorous plants and orchids. Although his research on plants was mainly amateurish, as in his other areas of interest, he was extraordinarily well-connected: his closest friend, Joseph Hooker, was then the assistant director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He liked to experiment with organisms and theorize about their reproduction. Despite having a competitive nature, his shyness and lack of self-confidence made him reluctant to engage directly in public intellectual exchanges, and he was happy to allow others to perform that role for him. Emma developed a friendship with Huxley's wife, Henrietta, and they shared interests in subjects such as the poetry of Tennyson, quite the opposite of their scientific husbands. Darwin, it seems, had little interest in or appreciation of the arts, and while relaxing at spas he was satisfied by the best-selling fiction of the day, regardless of its quality. He liked living in a tranquil household with ample time to pursue his hobbies; demanding research and taxing debates didn't interest him much.

For her part, Browne is offering a perspective that is above all sociological. She doesn't have much to say about where Darwin's ideas fit in intellectual history and seems more concerned with the details of his daily life and how his social milieu enabled his ascent to prominence as one of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth century. So far, she has mentioned Malthus and Lamarck, Darwin's two main predecessors, without discussing their work in detail or comparing it closely to Darwin's. She has said nothing about where Darwin's theories stand in relation to modern evolutionary theory. With her particular emphasis, it is easy to see that though Darwin did have a deep insight into nature, he lacked many of the academic skills that would be necessary for him to succeed today. I'm as far as 1862, when Alfred Russel Wallace returns from Malaysia, which sets the tone for the next chapter.

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place I

This book starts where the other left off, in 1858, when Darwin was 49, and that year turned out to have an explosive effect on the remainder of his life. Darwin had been fussing over his researches and putting off a major exposition of his ideas, when in June he received a package from Ternate, an island in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). It contained a letter and an essay from the young Alfred Russel Wallace, with whom he was barely acquainted. The essay was on evolution and was better-written than anything that Darwin had been able to produce, and he immediately became worried that someone would beat him to the press. To make matters worse, the letter requested that he forward the essay to Charles Lyell for consideration. This created a moral crisis for Darwin. Wallace was from a poor family, had no college education and made a living finding exotic specimens for museums and collectors in England. He had no professional or academic credentials, and Darwin could easily have buried his essay so that it would never be seen by experts or the public. He decided to leave the matter entirely up to Lyell, and Lyell, along with Joseph Hooker, the botanist who was also a close friend, chose to present Wallace's essay along with a comparable essay by Darwin at the Linnean Society. This came at a bad time for Darwin, as various family members were ill from infections, and his youngest son, Charles, died on June 28. Darwin still managed to piece together an essay from his previous writings, and both essays were read at the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858. There was little reaction to the essays when they were read, and they were later printed in the society's Journal.

The situation with Wallace became a motivator, and Darwin immediately started work on what was to become On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin was not a good writer, and he prevailed upon Emma and one of her friends to help him improve upon the manuscript. He also solicited advice from his friends and scientific acquaintances. In those days, publishers and editors did little to correct manuscripts, and the burden often fell on the author. Darwin also carefully calculated who the audience would be, and the book was written both for the general public and the scientific community. He was pleased that his publisher, John Murray, chose to sell copies to Mudie's Circulating Library, which guaranteed a wide readership. The book was published on November 24, 1859, while the exhausted author was recovering from digestive problems and eczema at a spa in Yorkshire.

The first review, of an advance copy, appeared in the Athenaeum and was written anonymously by John Leifchild, who said "If a monkey has become a man—what may not a man become?" He considered the book too dangerous to read and thought that it should be handed over to theologians for safety. This review severely upset Darwin, and disturbed him for many years. On the other hand, as far as I've read, most of Darwin's colleagues found the book acceptable, though they may have had a few quibbles. The exceptions were the religious conservatives: Adam Sedgwick, the geologist, and Richard Owen, the naturalist, rejected his main thesis. Thereafter, Darwin and Owen broke off their friendship permanently. Another reader who objected was Robert FitzRoy, from the Beagle. FitzRoy wrote an anonymous letter to the Times, regarding which Darwin remarked privately to Lyell, "It is a pity he did not add his theory of the extinction of the Mastodon &c from the door of the Ark being made too small."

I've entered into the period in which Darwin became extremely famous. This is an era that interests me a lot, because it includes others with whom I'm quite familiar, such as George Eliot, G.H. Lewes and William Morris. Adam Bede, Eliot's first novel, was also published in 1859, and Morris was then living in Kent. My picture thus far is that Darwin was not particularly talented beyond having a deep conviction about how life operates, based on his direct observations, without intermediary qualifiers, well before most others. Someone could have done the same thing much earlier than he did, and you can do it yourself now without reading anything. Therefore, although Darwin deserves credit for presenting the first coherent and defensible theory of evolution, many other factors that had nothing to do with his insights came into play in a manner that permitted him to derive the maximum credit for the discovery. From Browne's meticulous account it is obvious that Darwin's high social rank and family wealth, along with his particular intellectual drive, were what made On the Origin of Species possible. One need only compare him with Alfred Russel Wallace to see how, under different circumstances, Darwin could easily have been a minor figure of intellectual history. I'll have more to say on this later, but thought that I should mention how Browne's biography both celebrates and demythologizes Darwin's work.

Diary

I suppose that most people are already tired of hearing about the coronavirus pandemic, but I ought to say something about it, since it is one of the most significant events of the last few years. So far it hasn't had much effect on me, since there are currently only eight known cases in Addison County and ninety-five in the entire state of Vermont. I'm sure that those numbers will increase significantly over the next few weeks, but I'm still unlikely to become infected. Social distancing has always been my habit, and I engage in it even more now that I'm retired. On a typical day I'm less than six feet away from just one person. If she gets it, I probably will, but she's being careful.

Of greater interest to me is how the pandemic relates to some of the thoughts that I've expressed on this blog. In my view, this is an excellent case study on the failure of human cognition, because it is readily apparent that conventional worldviews, particularly in the U.S., have blinded people to the actual fragility of their existence. The American model depends on events playing out according to a familiar script that everyone likes, but which contains significant elements of fantasy and delusion. Several of the problematic aspects of popular ideas are under test now, and I'll discuss a few of them:

1. Democratic processes, even when working properly, are no guarantee of competent leadership.

2. Capitalism alone is insufficient for maintaining social welfare, because the preparation for unlikely scenarios is not cost-effective and makes companies uncompetitive.

3. Countries that emphasize individualism are at a distinct disadvantage when a threat emerges that endangers everyone, because, rather than acting in unison, people follow whatever path they think is in their best interest.

1. As I've been saying for some time now, Donald Trump is an incompetent and corrupt president. First, he demonstrated that he was inept regarding economic policy; he started a trade war that is of no benefit to the country. He has also shown that he doesn't understand international diplomacy by, for example, cozying up with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un and receiving nothing in return, while alienating American allies. Currently, he is attempting to stage the coronavirus response in a manner that will help him get reelected, and in so doing he has demonstrated his ignorance regarding immunology and pandemics. Strangely, he still has an approval rating of about forty percent, which is why I think that the democratic model borders on the absurd. Trump is completely unfit for the job, and at most he should have a ceremonial position, not an executive position that makes him the most powerful person in the world.

2. The economic model in the U.S. requires most people to work for most of their lives. At the moment, retirees and wealthy people are not under as much stress as ordinary workers, who need immediate income to meet their expenses. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in place to assist them when an unexpected event causes their simultaneous unemployment. The capitalist model limits the responsibilities of employers for their employees, and the only recourse during a crisis such as this one is government intervention. In this instance, the intervention is being conducted in a haphazard fashion, with states doing one thing, the federal government doing another thing, and poor coordination between states and the federal government.

3. A noticeable difference regarding the coronavirus is the response by Asian countries compared to the response by Western countries, particularly the U.S. Because there is less emphasis on individualism in China, the leaders were easily able to implement draconian procedures in order to slow the spread of the disease. Those procedures seem to be working, and the U.S. may soon become the new epicenter. There is no uniform response here, and one of the results has been a skyrocketing in gun and ammunition sales. In other words, in the U.S. it's every man for himself. As a result, many infections won't be averted, and the death toll will probably be much higher than it would have been under more austere measures. As usual, Trump is only making matters worse by hoping to end social distancing as soon as possible and create a robust economy by November, just in time for his reelection. Some prognosticators are already surmising that China, with its disciplined and coordinated economic and social policies, may soon permanently surpass the U.S. as a world power, and it isn't hard to see how that could happen.

Well, I don't want to bore you with my usual ramblings, so I'll stop here. Unless I can find something else to read, I'll probably return to Charles Darwin soon.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging VI

I've finally finished this volume. Janet Browne, the author, has been conscientious, but there isn't much evidence of psychological acuity, as I mentioned earlier. When you come right down to it, on a day-to-day basis, Darwin was pretty boring. What has emerged is that he had persistence and an intuitive sense about evolution along with far superior resources than most of his contemporaries.

A highly controversial and successful book, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, anonymously written by Robert Chambers and published in 1844, set back Darwin for several years. The ideas in it were quite similar to his own at that point, but the book contained several errors and was strongly attacked in a review by Adam Sedgwick, the Cambridge geology professor and friend of Darwin. Among his professional associates, Darwin was the only nascent atheist, and they closed ranks on Vestiges in unison. In this situation, Darwin proved to be the opposite of a revolutionary, and he buried his dissent by withdrawing into a close anatomical study of barnacles that lasted until about 1852. Although the barnacle study seems like a form of escapism, Darwin managed to hone his observational skills while pursuing it, and in the end he emerged with a sense that hermaphroditic barnacles had evolved into sexual barnacles, and that sexual reproduction must play a role in natural selection. He had been intrigued by the fact that men have nipples, and while in that instance he would have been wrong to conclude that humans were ever hermaphroditic, it was still a sign that sexual reproduction has evolutionary advantages.

Emma continued to produce babies, with Henrietta born in 1843, George in 1845, Elizabeth in 1847, Francis in 1848, Leonard in 1850 and Charles in 1858. All of these children except the last survived to adulthood, so Darwin had in total seven surviving offspring out of ten. In 1848 his father died, and he received a substantial inheritance that left him wealthy for the remainder of his life. Much to Darwin's dismay, his favorite child, Anne, died from a disease in 1851. Darwin would be considered a male chauvinist today, because he was careful about sending his sons to college but made no such effort for his daughters. It is apparent that the Darwin household was fairly conventional for the time. Darwin himself was firmly in charge, and Emma managed the daily affairs while Charles continued his research and began to study pigeons, plants and seeds on the property, which included a large greenhouse. One of his pet projects was to determine how plants and animals became distributed across the globe. Darwin's health was always dicey, and he suffered from severe flatulence, which affected his social life away from home. He decided to take the "water cure" with James Gully at a fashionable resort for the rich, and he found it to be a success, despite the lack of real scientific evidence. Emma was more robust, and she thought that Charles was a hypochondriac. The social life in Down consisted mainly of visiting relatives, along with occasional stops by Darwin's colleagues. By the end of the book, Darwin has befriended both Thomas Henry Huxley and Alfred Russel Wallace, who are going to play pivotal roles in his future as he begins to publish on natural selection. As Browne points out, Darwin was talented at building a large international network of people who could help him both in developing his ideas and in obtaining samples for his research.

It is a little frustrating to me to have read so many pages (543) without even arriving at any of Darwin's most significant work. Yet there is some consolation in seeing how haphazard the process was and how difficult it was to overcome the prevailing belief system, including that of the scientific community. In hindsight, it seems to me that the ideas that Darwin was about to roll out were fairly obvious, even if you allow for the fact that DNA was yet to be discovered and that no one had heard of Gregor Mendel. At a minimum, this is a cautionary tale about how conventional wisdom can neutralize and destroy good ideas, even among well-educated people. For all their scientific zeal, Darwin's friends consisted almost entirely of conformists who took no interest in challenging the status quo.

As you may have guessed, I'm a little burnt out on Darwin at the moment and plan to pause before starting on the next volume. This will provide me with an opportunity to catch up on current events.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging V

Darwin soon rented a house on Gower Street in Bloomsbury, near University College London (the street, coincidentally, where I stayed on my last visit to London). He continued his geological research while adjusting to life with Emma. Their first child, William, was born in 1839. Their second child, Anne Elizabeth, was born in 1841 but only survived until 1851. Darwin was close to his children, while also maintaining a zoological interest in them. He was often in poor health, with headaches and stomachaches, and he was a little stressed out by their living expenses, since his father had not completely showered him with money. He didn't enjoy socializing much, and he and Emma gradually withdrew. Like most English people, he and Emma were not emotionally effusive, and they expressed care for each other by paying attention to each other's illnesses.

Darwin worked on a zoology series for several years, apparently in an editorial capacity, before and after marrying. Prior to marriage he had visited Glen Roy, an unusual geological formation in Scotland, and he wrote a long paper explaining its geology in Lyellian terms, as the rising of land from an ocean, with horizontal lines indicating previous shorelines. Adam Sedgwick helped him publish it and also nominated him for membership to the Royal Society. I found this situation remarkable, because membership to the Royal Society placed him among the top eight hundred scientists in the world, and Darwin's first professional paper as a geologist turned out to be completely incorrect. At the time, the work of Louis Agassiz was new and unfamiliar, but it offered a different and correct explanation of the geology of Glen Roy: glaciation. It took Darwin several years to admit that his interpretation was entirely wrong. In any case, this situation reflects how different science was in those days. Because of his family and college connections, he was able to become a leading scientist without an optimal academic background and through amateurish research. It would be impossible to replicate Darwin's career trajectory in the present.

Fortunately for him, there came the opportunity to contribute to a series of volumes on the voyages of the Beagle, with one section written by Captain King, a previous captain, one by Captain FitzRoy, and one by Darwin, in his capacity as naturalist. Darwin's contribution, taken from his journals on the voyage, proved to be quite popular. During its production, he and FitzRoy had new conflicts. FitzRoy thought that Darwin was remiss in crediting others aboard the Beagle who had assisted him. FitzRoy also held conventional religious views, and Darwin's suggestion that the Earth might be far more than six thousand years old irked him. Although Darwin's section was a smash hit, he made little money from it, and, as was common in those days, the publisher took most of the profit. The consolation to him was that he could send copies to a few select people and ingratiate himself with them in a manner that would enhance his professional reputation. He was elated to get a favorable response from Alexander von Humboldt, with whom he was not acquainted, but who was one of his intellectual heroes.

With a growing family, a dislike of Dickensian London and a host of minor illnesses, Darwin and Emma decided that they would prefer to live in the country. He prevailed upon his father for money to buy a house. His father offered a small amount that would be taken from his inheritance, and for which he would pay interest. In 1842, they found a suitable house in Down, Kent, about sixteen miles from London, and bought it. They had enough funds available to renovate it and even moved the road, which had been too close to the house. Later that year, Emma had her third child, Mary Eleanor, who soon died.

At this time, Darwin was already writing about natural selection, but was secretive about it. He knew that his work was extremely important and gave Emma special instructions on what to do with his manuscript if he died. I am finding that although many aspects of Darwin's intellectual and professional development seem haphazard and antiquated, he had the advantage of being able to shape a grand theory at his own pace, something that would probably be impossible to do in the current research environment. To be sure, scientific research is now advancing at a rapid pace, but I can't help but notice that the last two giants in science, Einstein and Darwin, were both solitary thinkers who probably would not function well on a research team. Increasingly, it seems to me that specialization tends to quash big ideas, which have always been necessary for framing reality and have historically allowed us to arrive at broad, empirically accurate worldviews. The absence of large, comprehensive theories which can readily be adopted by many people contributes to splintering and polarization within diverse populations. Without people like Darwin in the public sphere, we face a vacuum in our general conceptual environment.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging IV

After Tahiti, the Beagle made a long voyage to New Zealand, during which Darwin was often seasick. Especially compared to Tahiti, Darwin found the Maori natives violent and unpleasant. The settlers in New Zealand seemed dissolute, adding to his displeasure. From there they sailed to Australia, then Tasmania and then the Keeling Islands, where Darwin had an opportunity to explore coral reefs for the first time. Using Lyell's ideas, he was the first to correctly speculate that coral reefs were formed when land slowly submerged below sea level. From there they sailed across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, where Darwin rode an elephant. Their next destination was South Africa, where he met John Herschel, the son of the more famous William Herschel, the astronomer. John was there to make astronomical observations in the southern hemisphere. Shortly afterwards, the Beagle departed for England, where it anchored in Falmouth on October 2, 1836, nearly five years after it had sailed from Portsmouth on December 7, 1831.

At first, Darwin was almost a stranger in his own country. He disliked family gatherings and the usual chitchat. He decided to move to Cambridge and rented a house there, with the aim of sorting out the specimens from the voyage. Henslow had created quite a buzz about him, and he already had celebrity status in both Cambridge and London. Darwin gradually ambled toward the selection of a lifestyle that would suit him properly. He had never had any desire to be a clergyman, and the idea of being a professor also had no appeal to him. His role model became Charles Lyell, who was a successful gentleman geologist with no academic responsibilities. He soon moved to London, renting a house near his brother, Erasmus. He befriended Lyell and joined the Geological Society of London, where Lyell was president. On Lyell's prompting, he joined the Athenaeum Club, a prestigious men's club. He enjoyed Lyell's company, though he found him to be a social climber and a snob. Erasmus apparently was not practicing medicine and was living the life of a London intellectual while being financed by his father. He moved in the highest literary circles and was a close friend of both Harriet Martineau and Jane Carlyle; science, per se, was not his main interest, and he was known for his witticisms. Browne speculates that, since he never married and spent a lot of time with men's wives without drawing any suspicion, he was homosexual.

Darwin himself settled into a period of study. He found experts to identify his specimens, and they weren't always reliable. He had been negligent in identifying the locations where he had found some of the specimens, and it took a lot of work to rectify the problem. This was serious in the case of the finches from the Galápagos Islands, which later became a cornerstone of his theory of evolution. He was gradually working out a theory which, at the time, he called "transmutation," and from the start he knew that it would be controversial and should be handled carefully. He read Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, which, he realized, showed that death is one of the mechanisms by which the features of a species change over time. He was also interested in how farmers went about developing better agricultural products, whether plant or animal. Thus, it can be seen that, while Darwin lacked formal training in subjects that might have shed light on the theory he was working on, such as botany, zoology, anthropology and paleontology, he was able to synthesize a theory by drawing from multiple sources which were not necessarily academic. Malthus, after all, was a rural curate, not entirely unlike Darwin.

One of Darwin's decisions during this period was whether he should marry or not. He had a long conversation with his father, who accepted that he would not become a clergyman and promised to support him financially, as he did Erasmus. Insofar as marriage was concerned, he said that if Charles wanted to have children, he should have them before he got old.  Charles had made a list of the pros and cons of marriage that consisted mainly of cons: he didn't want to sacrifice much time for his wife and family. However, he then wrote:

One cannot live this solitary life, with groggy old age, friendless & cold, & childless staring one in one's face, already beginning to wrinkle.—Never mind, trust to chance–keep a sharp look out–There is many a happy slave–

He concluded that he ought to marry. His wife would not be an intellectual or a scientist and would not participate in his work. Furthermore, romance would not be part of the equation. There is no indication at this point whether he had any interest in sex, though one must keep in mind that it was then the early Victorian period in England. Needless to say, open discussion of sexuality was not popular then. Ironically, we seem to be in a similar situation now, because subjects such as gender identity have once again made discussion taboo. Historically, one of Darwin's primary revelations was that humans are animals, yet he was unable to discuss it within his milieu. The marital procedures of the time simplified matters a great deal for him, and his focus quickly shifted to Emma Wedgwood, a first cousin and the youngest daughter of his mother's older brother. Emma was a year older than him and the last available female in that branch of the family. In those days, before the effects of inbreeding were understood, it was common, especially in wealthy families, to marry first cousins. This had the practical advantage of keeping money in the family. Emma was receptive from the start, but Darwin was bashful. When he did finally propose, she accepted, and her father had no objections. They were married on January 29, 1839, two weeks before Darwin's thirtieth birthday.

The end of this book is in sight, and I should be able to wrap it up in one or two more posts. But then there is the SECOND volume. At this point, I can hardly fault Browne, because she is doing an excellent job. The problem may be that Darwin himself is a little boring, and it is possible that he simply happened to be in the right place at the right time with the appropriate resources available to him. He seems to have been quite agreeable and a deep thinker, but in context he wasn't all that revolutionary, because others had similar ideas. He had a steadfast resolve that helped and may have differentiated him a little, but I'm going to withhold judgment on his character and abilities until I've completed both volumes, which, at this rate, will take several more weeks.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging III

Darwin became enchanted by the tropical jungle that he saw when the Beagle arrived in Bahia in February, 1832. They sailed down the east coast of South America, stopping in Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. Considerable time was spent in Tierra del Fuego, and there was also a trip to the Falkland Islands. Darwin made several long expeditions inland on the continent, during which he collected plant and animal specimens, along with fossils. He was well-liked by the officers and the crew, and this upset an ambitious naturalist who had come along in a more official capacity than Darwin, and the naturalist left the ship. Darwin accumulated crates of specimens and fossils that were shipped back to Henslow in Cambridge from various ports along the way. Besides this, he became more than ever before a full-scale outdoorsman, and he hunted game to supply the ship with food. He rode with gauchos on the Pampas and was stalked by bloodthirsty natives, reminding me of Blood Meridian. On that occasion, Darwin feared for his life for the first time.

For this voyage, FitzRoy had brought three Fuegians whom he had earlier taken to England, in order to return them home. While in England, they had been taught English, proper table manners, and dressed accordingly. Darwin became interested in them in a way that later affected his views on evolution. They had easily adapted to life in England, and Darwin was inclined to see them as members of his species. At the time, that was not a settled view, and others thought that various indigenous groups comprised separate species. It was a great shock to everyone on the Beagle to see the Fuegians quickly revert to their previous lifestyle, walking naked in that dismal landscape.

From June, 1834 to September, 1835, the Beagle sailed up the west coast of South America, stopping in Valparaiso, Copiapó, Iquique and Callao. On this leg of the trip, Darwin became more interested in geology. He and FitzRoy read recent works by Charles Lyell, who was revolutionizing geology at the time with the concepts of gradual change and the effects of subterranean pressures on the surface. It seems likely that this version of gradualism also influenced Darwin's theory of evolution. As luck would have it, they witnessed both a volcanic eruption and an earthquake. FitzRoy took measurements of a rise in the land following the earthquake and sent the information indirectly to Lyell.

While in Valparaiso, Darwin had an extended illness of uncertain origin and became homesick. At that time, FitzRoy was in a foul mood, because the Admiralty had censured him for overspending, and he threatened to resign his position. FitzRoy, who, according to Browne, showed signs of instability (manic depression?) throughout his life, had a violent row with Darwin then. However, by the time that Darwin had recovered and they had seen the volcanic eruption together, their friendly relationship had resumed.

After Callao, the Beagle set off for the Galápagos Islands, where they stayed from September to October in 1835. Darwin noticed that the species were slightly different from one island to another. They then set off for Tahiti, where they stayed for a few days in November, 1835.

As you can see, the voyage is taking far longer than originally proposed. They're already nearly four years into a trip that was supposed to take two, and they're not even halfway around the world. As noted earlier, Browne's account is quite adequate, but I would prefer a more succinct version with less verbatim use of original source material. For me, the main points could be made with far fewer words. Browne is also a little short on analysis, and I would find it more helpful if she had devoted more space to Darwin's psychological development and how his Beagle period informed his later theories. At least it's obvious that his voyage on the Beagle was a watershed experience that profoundly affected Darwin for the remainder of his life.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging II

The pace of the book is so slow that I find it a little tedious. After more than two hundred pages I'm only up to 1832, when Darwin was 23. So much detail is provided from letters, diaries and other documents that it reads almost like a novel. Part of the problem is that, so far, Darwin hasn't distinguished himself in any way, and it is a little painful to watch him develop into a functional adult. At the moment he is a mediocre student whose father has made futile efforts to start him in a career while showering him with money. Besides showing no vocational talents, Darwin also lacks social skills and is somewhat physically unattractive, in part because of his large nose.

During the 1825-1826 college year in Edinburgh, Charles had simply accompanied his brother, Erasmus, and neither of them mingled with people at the university. In the 1826-1827 year, without Erasmus, though Charles didn't like his medical studies, he socialized a little and made friends. He joined the Plinian Society, a student group which engaged in discussion of a wide range of topics, and he walked with friends along the shore looking for marine specimens. At the close of that school year, his father decided that, since a medical career wasn't in the cards, Charles should become a clergyman. To that end, a tutor was hired to brush up Charles's Latin, Greek and mathematical skills so that he might gain admission to Cambridge. In January, 1828 Charles began studies there at Christ's College, which his brother had attended.

The intellectual atmosphere in Cambridge was far more stimulating than in Edinburgh. Almost immediately, Charles began a friendship with John Stevens Henslow, a professor of botany and a mineralogist. Henslow became his mentor and was subsequently influential with respect to Charles's career advancement. This was a boom period in the natural sciences, and Charles met Adam Sedgwick, one of the founders of modern geology. In the summer of 1831 they traveled together to Wales on a field expedition. Of course, Charles took no interest in studying for the clergy, and he engaged in a lot of outdoor activities while in college. He took a horse with him and liked to hunt. He became proficient at shooting and often went out in search of game birds. He also developed a romantic interest in Fanny Owen, a potential wife who seems as if she came right out of a Jane Austen novel.

Having received his B.A. in 1831, his father's plan was for Charles to return to Cambridge in October for a D.B., or Bachelor of Divinity, which would qualify him for the clergy. Charles hoped instead to travel with friends to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, to study natural history, and his father opposed that idea. As luck would have it, unbeknownst to Charles, Henslow had put him forward for a position on the Beagle, which the Admiralty was preparing to embark on a geographical and hydrographic survey of Tierra del Fuego and then continue around the world on a voyage that would last two years. The position did not have technical responsibilities, and its main purpose seems to have been to provide a suitable companion for the captain, Robert FitzRoy. However, the companion would be permitted to collect specimens and record observations as a naturalist. Although FitzRoy was an aristocrat and a Tory and Darwin was not an aristocrat and came from a Whig family, FitzRoy took a liking to him when they met and he was selected for the position. Browne goes to some length explaining how Darwin benefited from the wide-reaching Cambridge network that was in place to dole out positions for the ruling class. In this case, it was an unpaid position, and Darwin had to pay all of his expenses, which were substantial. Of course, his father disliked the scheme and listed several objections. Fortunately, Charles prevailed upon an uncle to defend him and won the argument.

As far as I've read, the Beagle has made it to South America, Charles has often been seasick, and his potential girlfriend, Fanny, has dumped him by marrying someone else just as soon as the Beagle had departed.

Charles Darwin: Voyaging I

This is the first of two biographical volumes on Charles Darwin written by Janet Browne, who has spent much of her career studying Darwin's life and ideas. There are more than a thousand pages in all, not counting notes, so this may take me longer to finish than usual. It is fairly light reading but also thorough, and Browne covers Darwin's entire social background with perhaps more detail than I would prefer. I'm hoping that her knowledge and insights will keep the reading lively. Darwin was a prototypical naturalist, and I like the way that he developed his theories, but, as is already apparent, he was a product of his time.

Darwin was born into a wealthy family. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a medical doctor who had trained at Cambridge and Edinburgh and was influenced by Scottish enlightenment figures such as David Hume and Adam Smith. Erasmus's first son, Charles (1758-1778), followed in his father's footsteps but died while studying medicine in Edinburgh. It then fell upon his second son, Robert (1766-1848), to study medicine. Robert also trained in Edinburgh and later married Susanna Wedgwood, a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the wealthy potter. Robert and Susanna settled in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, near the Welsh border, and raised a family. Robert was one of three doctors in the town, but he made most of his money through investments and was a shrewd person with good judgment. Although the family wasn't religious or ostentatious, they fit the model that is found in Jane Austen novels and, for example, made trips to Bath, like many families of comparable social rank. Charles had four sisters and one brother and was the fifth child, born in 1809. His mother died when he was eight, but his sisters seem to have made up for her absence, and he hardly remembered her after he grew up. His brother, Erasmus (1804-1881), was five years older and a friend and mentor throughout his childhood.

Charles was initially home-schooled but then accompanied his brother at Shrewsbury School, which was a boarding school only a mile from their house. Boys like Charles spent much of their time outdoors collecting insects, plants, rocks, or whatever they could find. Chemistry was a new and exciting subject in school, and he and Erasmus set up their own makeshift laboratory to conduct experiments. Erasmus was a much better student than Charles, and he left Shrewsbury for Cambridge. Charles was poor at languages and mathematics, and was therefore not well-qualified for the usual college curriculum. When Erasmus finished at Cambridge he moved on to Edinburgh in 1825 for a year-long course in medicine, and Charles left Shrewsbury to accompany him.

Erasmus completed the program in Edinburgh but disliked the university and the city. After Cambridge, he found the students crude. In those days, academic standards were almost nonexistent in medicine. There was no fixed curriculum for most students, and a degree wasn't necessary to practice medicine. The faculty consisted of independent agents who were paid by the number of students who enrolled in their classes, and they designed their classes to attract as many students as possible. Furthermore, they competed with freelance tutors not affiliated with the university. Besides this, the admissions criteria were loose, and the classes were filled with rowdy students as young as fourteen. When Erasmus left in 1826, Charles stayed and pursued a medical course until 1827. However, he disliked blood and, as far as I've read, he is on the verge of dropping out.

So far, the book is notably slow-moving, and I may have to pick up my reading pace to remain interested. By the age of eighteen, Darwin hadn't stood out much. He was introverted, unathletic and not naturally talented in the standard academic curriculum of the time. However, as I'm sure will become apparent later, his relaxed childhood and financial resources helped him develop into the leading scientist of his century.

The Sociology of Philosophy I

I had been hoping to start a new book by now, but it's coming from England and hasn't arrived yet. Therefore, I've decided to write a little about the sociology of philosophy, which falls within the broader topic of the sociology of academia and resembles the sociology of creative writing programs, which I touched upon earlier. I'm not primarily interested in the content of the academic fields discussed, and for me this is a more general analysis of human behavior in academic settings. The reason why I'm writing about philosophy is that I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate and attended graduate school briefly. This is not a topic that I would ordinarily think about much now, but I occasionally look at 3 Quarks Daily in search of new reading materials, and S. Abbas Raza, the editor, has a graduate degree in philosophy and likes to include articles by philosophers. I usually skip them, but occasionally I read ones by Justin E.H. Smith, and this keeps me peripherally aware of the field. I have also occasionally viewed videos or listened to podcasts with Daniel Dennett and Massimo Pigliucci, two other philosophers whom Raza likes.

This subject goes way back for me, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about how I became interested in philosophy and why I eventually became disillusioned with it. I think many people enter the field of philosophy because they have broad interests stretching from mathematical and scientific areas to literature and the arts, and they don't want to specialize and become scientists, engineers, writers or artists. This is the kind of information that never presents itself directly to you, and you have to sort it out by yourself over many years. After thinking about it for a long time, I decided that my undergraduate philosophy department faculty included a few confused pastors. In the four years that I spent there, no one told me that the only tenured faculty had studied theology at some point in their educations. They were good students who initially thought that they would become clergymen; most of them ended up attending divinity school and subsequently got Ph.D.'s in philosophy. Thus, through a series of unpredictable events, they became philosophy professors at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. I don't think that any of them were talented at philosophy, and it seems that they came to it by accident. Because of this, they were unable to deal with philosophy majors who had no interest in theology.  My own background was quite different, and I simply liked the college environment, wasn't a particularly good student and didn't want to specialize. I certainly had no interest in theology. By the time I arrived in graduate school, philosophy seemed like pointless rote learning centered on the writings of mediocre thinkers. This thought was completely beyond the scope of my undergraduate professors.

Just to give an example, let me repeat what I said earlier about moral philosophy, which, in my experience, is a complete waste of time. If you study it, you may learn about Kant's categorical imperative. I have concluded that it is nothing more than a warmed-over version of the golden rule, which has been around since the Bible. I now think that more headway was made by E.O. Wilson, the entomologist, than moral philosophers were able to make collectively over thousands of years. This was simply the identification of humans as a eusocial species and the establishment of a connection between moral behavior and DNA. A lot of what passes for philosophy is simply an extension of theological reasoning dating from the Middle Ages. In the case of morality and ethics, I think it best to start from scratch and begin with human genetic predispositions, because without them we wouldn't have any moral tendencies. Wilson himself has little interest in this field, and the task is left to others.

Another example of why I dislike philosophy is the case of Daniel Dennett. On the surface you would think that I would find him appealing, because he is very science-oriented and his theories are more empirical than those of most philosophers. However, I attended one of his lectures several years ago and found him to be a windbag. He has an excellent academic background and is extremely knowledgeable, but he hasn't really developed a distinctive worldview that might differentiate him from an ordinary scientist. Unfortunately, Dennett tows the line as an academic philosopher and spouts faddish philosophical terms such as "qualia," which strikes me as slightly idiotic. I find that philosophers habitually obfuscate fairly straightforward scientific ideas, and that it is better to go directly to the science. In this vein, I'm also unhappy with Justin E.H. Smith, who is one of the most elegant philosophical writers you're likely to come across, but whose writings never seem to have any practical applications; I see him more as an entertaining writer than as a substantive one. I am guessing that he drifted into philosophy because he liked to write, but writing alone does not make a good philosopher, and he consistently lacks the depth of a serious thinker.

Perhaps the person whose life best sums up my thoughts on philosophy is Ludwig Wittgenstein. He came from a wealthy Viennese family and had wide cultural exposure. For example, one of his sisters posed for Gustav Klimt. His interests tended to be technical, and first he tried aeronautical engineering and later architecture. Somehow he became interested in mathematical logic and found himself working with Bertrand Russell at Cambridge. By then, Russell was already getting tired of philosophy and was happy to unload his research on Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein's work was initially an odd combination of logic and mysticism, but after World War I and a stint as a schoolteacher in rural Austria it propelled him to rock-star status at Cambridge. However, as time passed, Wittgenstein increasingly became impatient with his philosophy colleagues, and his focus changed from logic to ordinary language. By the time of his death in 1951 he was recommending other fields, such as medicine, to his students. In my view, Wittgenstein was a frustrated artist, and none of his ideas are likely to be of lasting significance. I think that the same can be said of most philosophical ideas, and that the most durable ideas come from science. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with pursuing most academic fields, but that philosophy as an academic discipline has little to offer anyone.

My conclusion on academic philosophy is therefore much the same as my conclusion on creative writing programs. Yes, students can enroll in these courses and learn something, but they could just as well do something else and might end up happier. I see colleges and universities as economic entities in which the tenured faculty usually get good salaries and favorable working conditions while the students, particularly in fashionable subjects, may come away with nothing. I mean this not in the sense that the students are out a few dollars, but that the actual value of the education, in both technical and personal senses, can be quite low. Given my experience, it surprises me that intelligent people can still think that academic philosophy could be of value to anyone. The convoluted thinking that you have to go through just to make sense of it would drive most people mad.

Diary

I noticed that I haven't made a Diary post for a while and decided to now. Although these posts are sort of fillers, I think that they personalize the blog a little and prevent it from becoming a pure book-review website. As always, I have a hard time coming up with books to read. It seems to me that people who read a book a week must be completely undiscriminating. At this stage, the most satisfying books for me are long biographies of intellectuals written by talented biographers. This combination limits the number of suitable books, because there aren't many intellectuals whose lives interest me, and there aren't many good biographers either. Autobiographies have, in theory at least, a lot of potential, but in my experience they don't compare favorably to thorough biographies. For example, Confessions, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, though probably one of the best autobiographies, is not as complete as the biography I read. Rousseau presented a one-sided view of his life without including the reflections of others, and, as a result, the full context of his development into an outcast remained unexplored. One might conclude, after reading beyond Rousseau's account of events, that it was his pigheadedness that got him into trouble and ruined his friendships. I could arrive at this conclusion only after reading lengthy biographies of Rousseau and Diderot. Another example, Stendhal's autobiography, was good for what it was, but it was written very hastily and didn't cover a very long period. I enjoyed reading Simone de Beauvoir's autobiographical writings up to a point but eventually concluded that her take on reality was incomplete. I sensed that her perspective was skewed, and that became a major distraction. If there were a good biography of her, I would prefer that, but I don't think there is one currently. The autobiographer is inevitably tempted to present a sanitized version of his or her life. A skilled biographer, on the other hand, has an opportunity to understand his or her subject better than the subject understands himself or herself. Even in the absence of such understanding, the reader is provided with additional facts that are useful for making such judgments. I find that process interesting, and my next project is to read a lengthy biography of Charles Darwin; in this instance I'm going to skip Darwin's autobiography altogether. As my reading tastes have evolved, I now think that most fiction is too inaccurate and contrived, most historical writing is too tendentious and general, and most scientific writing, though potentially informative, is emotionally unsatisfying. I am open to different approaches, but this is where I am now.

Of course, I have been following the Trump impeachment proceedings. What is surprising at the moment is that he has any Republican support at all. Nothing could be plainer than that he is a narcissist with little talent beyond self-promotion. None of his domestic or foreign policies are well-informed, and any honest economist will tell you that he deserves no credit for any perceived economic strength in the country. In the most recent insider-tell-all book it is revealed that Trump didn't know that India borders China or what Pearl Harbor was all about. The one thing that sticks in my mind is that if he hadn't swallowed the Russian propaganda about Ukraine he would not have been impeached in the first place. As George Conway, a conservative Republican, announced recently, Trump is actually pretty stupid. The cowardice of his supporters in the Senate is therefore striking. Since there are still no definite signs that the impeachment process will result in his removal from office, we can only hope that he won't be reelected if he's cleared. There is still a chance that witnesses such as John Bolton will turn the tables on Trump.

I might add that my latest readings indicate that automation is the primary force behind current economic and political trends in developed countries. It's always hard for me to get excited about politics, because complex issues such as this never make their way into political talking points. The Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular have nothing to offer workers who have been displaced by automation, and Trump's attribution of job losses to unfair trade practices skirts the issue. The automation problem is so severe that the Democrats also seem afraid to address it directly. I think that we are only in the early phase of a development that will leave many more people unemployed in future years, and that the process will gradually move from manufacturing jobs to white collar jobs to professional jobs. Tech-savvy candidates like Andrew Yang are ahead of the curve, because they are promoting UBI now, and I'm sure that it will eventually become a political issue. However, the way things have been going, it seems unlikely that the democratic process will be effective for dealing with this particular problem. Democracy itself may be on the way out, because other systems are simply more efficient and effective.

We are having the dreariest winter since we moved to Vermont in 2011. Usually by mid-December the temperature remains below freezing until April and the snow doesn't melt. This year the temperatures have often been above freezing, there is little snow on the ground and it has rained recently. I have been looking at places to move to in northern Maine, where it still gets cold in the winter, but there are no comparable college towns up there that would balance the population of local people with well-educated ones, as we have here. I think that living in Middlebury would be a different experience if the college wasn't here, so I'm not about to move yet. William has completely adapted to his new cat door and ramp setup. He sleeps all day near the fire and gets locked in the basement at night. Late at night and in the morning he comes from the outside and paws on the porch door if he sees that someone is up. He doesn't seem to be catching much now, though he did catch a junco the other day.

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

I've just finished reading this book (actually, a cheaper advance uncorrected proof) by Stuart Russell, which represents a continuation of my interest in AI as reflected in the books I discussed in 2017 and 2018 by Max Tegmark and Luke Dormehl. Russell is a prominent AI researcher at UC Berkeley, so his perspective is a little different from that of Tegmark, who is a physicist, and Dormehl, who is a journalist. I found Russell more focused on the important issues at hand, but some of the chapters weren't of much interest to me and I consequently spent little time on them. I got the sense that academic specialization has impeded Russell's perspective a little (it usually does), though he did manage to convey some of the urgency more than Tegmark did in his book and much more than Dormehl did in his.

As the title suggests, the ascent of AI poses new problems for humans that are best addressed now rather than later. Russell uses the analogy that if we knew that an asteroid was going to strike the earth in a few years, we wouldn't wait for its arrival to start planning. The main question is how to prevent AI from becoming dangerous to mankind as technology approaches Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or, more loosely, superintelligence. I am not a programmer and don't care about programming, so I didn't pay much attention to those chapters. However, Russell also traces the history of AI and compares it to developments that have taken place in other scientific fields. He mentions a story about the physicists Ernest Rutherford and Leo Slizard. In 1933, Slizard read an article by Rutherford stating that although it was known that matter contains a great deal of energy, there was no practical way to extract it. The same day, Slizard thought of the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, which led directly to the first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942. Russell thinks that although the path to AGI is not immediately clear, a new idea that makes it possible could suddenly emerge at any time. So much AI research is occurring at the moment that it would not be surprising at all to have AGI appear within a few decades. Russell believes that the main pieces for its development are already in place. The necessary hardware exists and the use of probabilistic, self-learning algorithms is currently producing useful results.

Most of the problems related to AGI that are addressed in this book concern control. Sections are devoted to finding ways of incorporating human values into algorithms. Russell casts a wide net, which I think is far wider than necessary. For example, he considered ideas from economics and philosophy that I don't think are relevant. I liked the fact that he disagreed with Stephen Pinker, who thinks that AI doesn't pose a risk. The main risk is that AGI will be far more intelligent than any human ever could be and that if it has goals that do not appropriately value human well-being, the consequences could be disastrous. The problem consists mainly of incorporating the right human-friendly behavior into the algorithms and enforcing such procedures in national and international agreements. From a formal standpoint, the agreements would be similar to current international agreements on potentially dangerous gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR.

Although Russell covers his bases well and discusses what life might be like if a safe AGI arrives, that is not the main theme of the book. I think that by focusing on the risk to human existence, he doesn't devote enough space to changes that might occur in favorable circumstances. Even while stating that this would be the most significant event in human history, he doesn't speculate much on how we would react to it. He mentions Ray Kurzweil's idea of merging human brains with robotic bodies and expresses some skepticism, as I do. He also touches on some of the social changes that would be likely to occur. Perhaps everyone will spend most of their time in advanced virtual realities. More immediately, it would be a dramatic shock if AGI, in short order, stopped climate change, created a source of unlimited clean energy and replaced most human jobs along with all governments. While on the surface these would represent positive changes, they would also be traumatic. New ways would have to be found for people to occupy their time. Up to now, people have been able to distinguish themselves by working harder, having better ideas or being more productive than their peers, and those human-level talents would pale in comparison to AGI. The very idea of "genius" would instantly become obsolete, because all of the most important ideas that were originated by humans could perhaps be discovered and improved upon in seconds by AGI. How would people increase their social status under such circumstances? How would human interactions be affected by the introduction of realistic androids? Russell repeatedly refers to the gorilla analogy, in which gorillas were once a dominant primate species but became endangered when humans came along: the same may apply to us when AGI arrives.

I am also a little surprised that Russell has little to say about the potential abuse of AGI by humans. It is to be expected that individuals will attempt to control it in order to achieve their personal objectives rather than to support the welfare of mankind. What would happen, for example, if Vladimir Putin took control of an AGI developed in Russia? This would probably be just as disastrous an outcome as the rogue AGI to which Russell devotes so much of the book.

Good Economics for Hard Times III

The chapter on climate change, "In Hot Water," focuses primarily on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and does not address the long-term economic effects. Carbon taxes and exchanges are recommended. Wealthy countries, which are the primary creators of global warming, ought to assist poor nations, which, though not major polluters, continue to use processes that produce carbon dioxide emissions. One of the recurrent themes of the book is that humans tend to engage in "sticky" behavior, which in economics means that they don't like to move or change their habits. In India and other countries, people still cook with wood, which creates both carbon dioxide emissions and poor health. They also burn fields after harvesting, which causes pollution and is not a sound agricultural method. In cases like this, the authors recommend assistance from wealthy countries. Since poor countries are going to take the brunt of climate change, the countries that created it have some responsibility along with the financial resources to help.

The next chapter, "Player Piano," discusses automation, also limiting itself to the near-term effects. Robotics has already taken a toll on employment in manufacturing. The authors believe that this trend will continue and intensify, affecting many other industries and reducing relative wages for all but the tech-savvy. The chapter then abruptly shifts to tax policy, which is continued in the next chapter, "LEGIT.GOV." Banerjee and Duflo spend quite a few pages explaining why the policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were ill-conceived and have caused negative consequences right up to the present. One idea, that lower taxation on the rich results in economic growth, has been disproven. Another idea, that welfare makes people lazy and unproductive, is also inaccurate. Reagan and Thatcher apparently were sincere, and at the time there was no research to contradict them. The authors, rather courageously I think, go on to attack the American Dream ideology, in which the country is seen as an open field in which anyone can get ahead with hard work, and in which those who fail simply haven't put in enough effort. What they emphasize is that the Reagan-Thatcher policies are responsible for increased inequality in the U.S. and U.K., in which the rich are under-taxed. The top income tax rates in both countries have dropped considerably, allowing a few people to become extremely wealthy – much wealthier than the wealthy of the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the centers of finance in New York and London have permitted some to become super-rich without any visible talents. Excessive wealth accumulation by a small minority, which is enabled by low top income tax rates and the absence of a wealth tax, results in insufficient funds for necessary social programs. Those whose wages have stagnated or evaporated due to automation and international competition eventually require guidance and sometimes need financial support from the social service arms of government.

Ever since the Reagan-Thatcher era, government has been portrayed as an obstacle to progress. Although governments are often inefficient and corrupt, the same is true of private businesses. However, the authors argue that government involvement is essential when inequality rises to a high level and the government becomes the only source able to help those in need. Many of the social issues that exist in the U.S. and U.K. today are relatively nonexistent in countries such as Denmark, which has higher taxation on the wealthy and more funds available for social programs. In this respect, the authors criticize Emmanuel Macron for eliminating the wealth tax in France and placing a surcharge on fuel. These actions had an instant polarizing effect that resulted in riots. Catering to the rich comes at the cost of social stability.

Banerjee and Duflo also devote quite a few pages to the political polarization in the U.S. Much of it, they say, can be attributed to the low self-esteem and anger of those who are suffering economically now. In the U.S., the Protestant work ethic, as invoked by Reagan, tells them that they are failures if they can't succeed financially. A portion of these people gives up, takes drugs and dies. Another portion gets angry and becomes a pawn for corrupt politicians like Donald Trump. As policy wonks, the authors are well-versed in which policies would defuse this situation if they had political support and the proper funding. It goes without saying that Trump doesn't understand or care about the issues and that his incompetent administration is incapable of addressing the underlying causes. But the blame doesn't lie completely on the Republicans, since the Democrats have also supported welfare "reform" and privatization. Rhetorically, Hillary Clinton contributed to her own political demise by referring to Trump supporters as "deplorables." This angered enough people that it may have cost her the election. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama show all of the symptoms of "elites," and while I share some of their sentiments, displaying them in public can become a prelude to political death. As I've said, this is an anti-intellectual country, and some of the most popular memes in circulation, including the American Dream and American exceptionalism, border on pure fantasy.

The next-to-last chapter, "Cash and Care," discusses practical ways to assist the needy in both wealthy and poor countries. In each case, a form of Universal Basic Income is agreeable to the authors, though they think that it works better in poor countries. There is a lot of detail to wade through here, and I think this chapter would appeal more to someone in the field of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, like Duflo.

On the whole I found the book enlightening, because this kind of information rarely comes up in the news. It is encouraging to know that some real expertise exists in the subjects covered. Reading it is an easy way to rise above the nonsense that one faces on a daily basis. These important issues become drowned in misinformation, lies and bad jokes when encountered at the level of American politics. My only complaint about the book is that it doesn't extend its analysis out very far into the future, at which point both climate change and technological change will render the policy atmosphere quite different from the one we're in now.