Mars colony scepticism

Elon Musk wants to build a Mars colony. Apparently, he is motivated by the conviction that humanity must become a multiplanetary species in order to secure its long-term survival in case we render Earth uninhabitable. I wonder if he hopes it will be governed by an Elon (the title given to the leader of the Martians in Wernher von Braun’s book Marsprojekt.

Reactions have ranged from enthusiastic agreement to scepticism to dismissal as ‘a dangerous delusion’ (Martin Rees). Personally, I would place myself well towards the sceptical end of the spectrum.

While I am prepared to believe that Musk might well establish a permanent Mars colony within the timescale he envisages (by the early 2040s), I am very doubtful that he could achieve the kind of colony necessary to make humanity genuinely multiplanetary.

There is a vast difference between a permanent colony able to utilize in situ resources and a genuinely self-sustaining colony (i.e. able to exist without continuing support from Earth). It would certainly be feasible to establish a colony of a few thousand or even tens of thousands. But they would remain dependent upon Earth for anything they could not manufacture for themselves from local resources.

Musk envisages developing a much larger colony (perhaps as many as a million people) over a period of about 15 years. To achieve that, he would have to launch 1000 colony ships each carrying about 100 passengers during each of the launch windows in that period. But, even if he pulled this off, would a colony of this size be genuinely self-sustaining. Would it have the manufacturing base to construct everything the colonists would need?

What about computers? Even the most reliable computers have a lifetime of perhaps ten years. But replacement computers or their components cannot easily be manufactured from the raw materials even if they can be found, mined, and refined locally. You would first need to maufacture the machinery needed for their manufacture. So, before you can build even a small production facility, you would need to have in place several other industries.

Now, repeat that exercise for every other aspect of life – the machinery needed to manufacture the habitats in which the colonists live; their furniture; their clothing; their transport; the consumables used by the kind of health services that a population of that size would need.

I strongly suspect that even if the colony were ten times the size envisaged by Musk, it would still rely on Earth for some things – items that are simply too costly or complex for a society of this size to produce for itself, major technological innovations, luxury goods.

And what about a cultural life? Would a society of this sort have the surplus time or resources to allow some of its most creative members to engage in art, or music, or theatre, or dance, or literature?

Far from ensuring the long-term survival of the human race, I fear that a Mars colony would merely ensure that after the death of Earth, it would merely a ensure a long, slow decline and ultimate extinction. 

Missing in action

It’s been more than a fortnight since I last posted. My excuses are:

• I have been coping with the side effects of a new pain medication. The most annoying one was a tendency to spend most of the afternoons sleeping. Happily, that has now passed and the only remaining side effect seems to be that I now have vivid dreams every night. And the good news is that this medication seems to be much more effective than its predecessors.
• I have been transfixed (and not in a good way) by the aftermath of the slow-motion train wreck that was the recent US election. While I did avoid the temptation to add my voice to the cacophony of more- or (in my case) less-informed commentary on the internet, I have been finding it difficult to focus on much else.

Going forward, I plan to post more regularly (ideally once a week) – particularly, I imagine, on theology, spirituality, and photography.

‘The Eye of the Storm’

A random couple viewed through the Alban Berg monument in Vienna.

It began life as a fairly ordinary shot of the monument framed against the opera house. After cropping, I took it into Nik Silver Efex to emulate Kodak Tri-X film. Then I applied a motion blur in Nik Analog Efex.

Asceticism and world affirmation

According to Christos Yannaras,

Asceticism is the struggle to renounce my egocentric tendency to see everything as neutral objects, subject to my needs and desires. By poverty and submission to the common rules of asceticism, I fight precisely against my egocentric claim, I transpose the axis of my life from my ego to my relationship with the world which surrounds me, because the relationship begins only when in practice I desist from the tendency to subject everything. Then I begin to respect what surrounds me, to discover that it is not simply objective impersonal riches (of objective utility), but things, that is, results of activity, what has been done by a creative Person. I discover the personal character of the data of the world, a uniqueness of reason in each something, a possibility of relationship, a ground of loving reference to God. My relationship with the world becomes then an indirect relationship with God, the maker of the world, and the practical use of the world a ceaseless study of the truth of the world, a constantly deeper knowledge inaccessible to ‘positive’ science. (Elements of Faith, p.49f.)

The Groaning of Creation

A review of Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008)

In this short work, Christopher Southgate sets out to tackle the perennial problem of pain and suffering. What sets this volume apart from most other exercises in theodicy is that he focuses on the relatively neglected issue of animal suffering.

The first three chapters are essentially introductory. In chapter 1, he sets the scene by defining the nature and extent of the problem assuming as his starting point the evolutionary picture painted by modern science. Chapter 2 is a survey of various approaches that in his view hinder our efforts to address the problem of evolutionary theodicy. He quickly dismisses creationism and intelligent design, both of which question the evolutionary picture of the world from which he is starting. Equally short shrift is given to those who suggest the physical world is in some sense evil, or that its creator is evil, or that sheer creativity somehow takes precedence over the will of God; all these approaches require too great a departure from orthodox Christian theology for his taste. But his real target in this chapter is the notion of a cosmic fall. He simply cannot reconcile the notion of a historical fall of humankind that somehow has cosmic consequences with the scientific record. From there, he turns in Chapter 3 to a survey of the other evolutionary theodicies currently on offer, looking particularly at the work of Rolston, Peacocke, Haught, and McDaniel.

Southgate’s own proposal for an evolutionary theodicy is to be found largely in chapters 4 and 5. Like the authors surveyed in chapter 3, he accepts that the evolutionary process was the only way (or at least the best way) for God to bring a variety of finite selves into existence, given the constraints imposed by a law-like universe. However, the beauty, diversity, and sophistication that have arisen as a result do not cancel out the very real suffering that has occurred as a by-product. On the contrary, the responsibility for such suffering lies firmly with God. Thus, in Chapter 4 he paints a Trinitarian picture of a God who ‘suffers in the suffering of every creature’ (p. 56) and who creates by self-giving. He envisages a creation in which creatures are called to be themselves (to express their ‘thisness’) in accordance with the triune God’s creative will. However, their response to that call is always ambiguous because expressed by self-assertion at the expense of others rather than by self-giving; thus many (perhaps most) individual creatures never achieve the fulfilment to which God has called them. In his view, it is not enough to say that the overall process or God’s final purpose somehow justifies the messy evolutionary means. Thus, at the end of chapter 4 he affirms that the Cross and Resurrection have an objective redemptive effect on the non-human creation. This leads in chapter 5 into a brief discussion of the place of eschatology in evolutionary theodicy. Here he affirms the orthodox Christian view that there is no redemption apart from creation: we are saved as embodied creatures not disembodied spirits. This clearly implies that the non-human is implicated in the eschaton, but does evolutionary theodicy require the redemption of individual non-human creatures? Southgate argues that the answer is ‘yes’ at least in the case of more complex organisms.

He concludes his book with two chapters exploring our calling to care for creation in light of this theodicy. While rightly warning against the hubris that thinks human action can somehow bring about the eschaton, he argues that we are called to have some part in the redemption of creation. Negatively, he calls us to a self-sacrificial care for our fellow creatures, an ethical kenosis. Positively, he develops our role in terms of contemplation, priesthood and stewardship. And, in the final chapter, he examines two specific proposals, giving a cautious welcome to Andrew Linzey’s notion of vegetarianism as a sign of the eschaton and calling us to work for the preservation of other species.

Inevitably such a brief account of such a large topic has its weaknesses. In particular, I would highlight the lack of development of God’s action in relation to the non-human (especially in view of the fact that Denis Edwards, one of the key influences on Southgate’s own position, takes a strictly non-interventionist approach) and the extreme brevity of his account of the role of Christ’s atoning work (in spite of assertion that this is central to his thesis, p. 76). Nevertheless, this is a thought-provoking and at times moving work, which deserves to be widely read and debated.

Adam’s Ancestors

A review of David N. Livingstone, Adam’s Ancestors: Race, Religion and the Politics of Human Origins (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)

In this volume, the historian David Livingstone offers us a fascinating history of an obscure view of human origins: pre-adamism. Now confined to the margins of religious conservatism, it was once part of mainstream intellectual thought, and before that it had its roots in a sceptical perspective on the biblical account of human origins.

In eight chapters, Livingstone traces the idea from obscure roots, through its hey day in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and back into obscurity. This structure is at once both chronological and thematic as he traces the transformation of the idea through its historical trajectory.

Although he sees tantalizing glimpses of the idea in writings prior to the seventeenth century, he identifies its first clear exposition in the work of the seventeenth-century author Isaac La Peyrère. Impressed by the diversity of humankind revealed by early ethnology, and particularly his own studies of Greenland, La Peyrère sought to explain this by postulating the existence of human beings long before the time of Adam. His inevitable denunciation as a heretic doubtless played a part in his pre-adamism becoming part of the armoury of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scepticism in its assault on biblical orthodoxy.

By Chapter 3 Livingstone is ready to trace the first of the transformations in the fortunes of pre-adamism: the politicization of human origins in the eighteenth century. If as early pre-adamism suggested, there are distinct human races only one of which is adamic and therefore blessed by God, it is but a short step to using it as a justification of imperialism in general and the institution of slavery in particular (since the dominion of the adamic race clearly extends to a paternalistic position vis-à-vis the ‘lesser’ races).

Move on another century and the idea has undergone further transformations. It saw increasing use as a strategy for reconciling science and religion. But at the very same time that it was becoming established in orthodox Christian apologetics, a more secular version was playing an important role in the emerging sciences of anthropology and ethnology.

With the advent of Darwinism, the idea underwent yet another transformation. This time it was pressed into service as a theological device for reconciling the new science of evolutionary biology with the biblical view of human origins. In the process it cast off its polygenist roots and embraced a staunch monogenism – the human race is one in origin but that origin is now pushed back into the deep past of evolutionary prehistory.

But even as pre-adamism was evolving from polygenism to monogenism, a parallel development was exploiting its racist potential to the full. Chapter 7 explores the role of pre-adamism in the developing politics of racial supremacy.

In Chapter 8, Livingstone explores continuing traces of pre-adamism in twentieth-century thought. Specifically, he identifies three contrasting uses of the idea. It plays a part in some anti-evolutionary apologetics. More importantly, it is still used by both evangelicals and Catholics as a device for harmonizing evolutionary biology with a (relatively) conservative reading of the Bible. But, as he points out in his conclusion, such harmonizing strategies have a tendency to transform the very things they seek to unite. On a more disturbing note, the third contemporary use of pre-adamism is its continued deployment to justify the vicious racism of extremist groups like Christian Identity and Aryan Nation. However, Livingstone reminds us that this racism results from a rereading of pre-adamism in a particular social setting rather than being inherent in the idea itself.

In conclusion, this is a well-written and thought-provoking study of an interesting and unjustly neglected strand in the history of the relationship between science and religion.

(This review originally appeared in Science & Christian Belief 22, no. 1 (2010), pp. 99–100.)

Climate Justice

A review of James B. Martin-Schramm, Climate Justice: Ethics, Energy, and Public Policy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010)

Climate change is now very well documented, and its apparent connection with the combustion of fossil fuels and certain land use practices raises important ethical questions. Martin-Schramm grapples with these issues at a public policy level, looking particularly at the ethical responsibility of industrialized countries, especially the United States.

In his opening chapter, he proposes an ethic of ecological justice based on the moral norms of sustainability, sufficiency, participation, and solidarity. These norms are complemented by a series of twelve guidelines – equity, efficiency, adequacy, renewability, appropriateness, risk, peace, cost, employment, flexibility, timely decision-making, and aesthetics – to create a toolbox of ethical resources that he applies to the issue of climate justice in the subsequent chapters.

Chapters 2 and 3 offer an optimistic survey of the range of energy options currently available to the United States. The first deals with so-called conventional energy options – coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power – and the second with alternative/renewable sources of energy – solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, marine. He mentions the concept of peak oil but does not dwell on its implications, opting for the relatively optimistic view that global oil production will not peak until about 2026. He is similarly optimistic about uranium supplies. However, he proposes that we should shift from conventional to renewable energy for environmental (and security) reasons and seems to believe this is a feasible (if difficult) way forward.

Chapter 4 explores international climate policy just prior to the Copenhagen summit at the end of 2009. Viewed in the light of the ethical toolbox developed in chapter 1, he commends the Greenhouse Development Rights Framework proposed by the Stockholm Environmental Institute.

His fifth chapter focusing on US climate policy paints a bleak picture of fine words unmatched by effective action. He concludes that ‘Failure to take aggressive action now to reduce emissions will perpetuate current rates of GHG emissions and condemn future generations to a rate and degree of warming unprecedented in human civilization’ (p. 158).

The final chapter consists of a case study, examining greenhouse gas reduction strategies implemented by Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. He uses this to show how individual institutions and communities can implement energy policies that meet the ethical criteria spelled out at the beginning of the book.

As indicated above, my main reservation is that I think he is unduly optimistic about continuing conventional energy supplies and our capacity to move seamlessly from conventional to renewables. But, that reservation apart, Martin-Schramm has produced a very helpful practical survey of climate justice issues for anyone involved in the development of energy policies whether at community, company, or national government level.