“To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect both to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, there is a cause [of unity]; for even in bodies[,] contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality. And a definition [as an explanation of a thing] is a set of words which is one [thing] not by being connected together, like the Iliad, but by dealing with one object.—What then, is it that makes man one [thing]; why is he one and not many [different things], e.g. animal + biped, especially if there are, as some say, an animal-itself and a biped-itself? Why are not those Forms themselves the man, so that men would exist by participation not in man, nor in-one Form, but in two, animal and biped, and in general man would be not one but more than one thing, animal and biped?

Clearly, then, if people proceed thus in their usual manner of definition and speech, they cannot explain and solve the difficulty. But if, as we say, one element is matter and another is form, and one is potentially and the other actually, the question will no longer be thought a difficulty.”

The Works of Aristotle, Volume VIII: Metaphysica, Book VIII, Part VI, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by W. D. Ross, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1928.

Today, Smith may be the most famous to broach such ideas, but he wasn’t the first, although today he’s recognized as the first to set them in the context of an economic theory. Also, Mandeville was not Smith’s only precursor. Others, particularly those involved in the Scottish Enlightenment, added various insights before, or around the same time as Smith, notably: David Hume, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker, Dugald Stewart, Joseph Butler (Bishop of Durham), Anthony Ashley-Cooper (third Earl of Shaftesbury), and Francis Hutcheson.

For example, in 1767 Ferguson wrote that, “Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds, in striving to remove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate; and pass on, like other animals, in the track of their nature, without perceiving its end. He who first said, ‘I will appropriate this field: I will leave it to my heirs;’ did not perceive, that he was laying the foundation of civil laws and political establishments. He who first ranged himself under a leader, did not perceive, that he was setting the example of a permanent subordination, under the pretence of which, the rapacious were to seize his possessions, and the arrogant to lay claim to his service.

Men, in general, are sufficiently disposed to occupy themselves in forming projects and schemes: but he who would scheme and project for others, will find an opponent in every person who is disposed to scheme for himself. Like the winds, that come we know not whence, and blow whithersoever they list, the forms of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin; they arise, long before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not from the speculations, of men. The croud of mankind, are directed in their establishments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed; and seldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any single projector.

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”

An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Adam Ferguson, 1767, Duncan Forbes (editor), Edinburgh University Press, 1966, page 122.

Ferguson’s last line is a secular reformulation of an age-old religious thought (that is, ‘divine providence,’ which goes back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas, five centuries before). His later paragraphs expand on that. In essence, he argued that to explain the human equation, we need not introduce the divine. Then, if that was accepted, he argued that we also didn’t need the next level down proxies of the divine: Great Heroes who can foresee all possible outcomes and force a design that will lead to the ‘best’ outcome far into the future. In essence, he argued that nobody can foretell the future—the contingency of events is too complex—however, after the fact we inevitably look back and assume that at the beginning of things someone must have done so, because how else could things have worked out the way they did?

Thus in some serious sense, the name ‘spontaneous order’ is wrong, because there’s nothing ‘spontaneous’ about it. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The core idea is this: Every human practice, whether it be in language, law, politics, economics, or whatever, grew over very long periods, in very small steps, as each of us gradually changed what we did, and others copied us, discarding anything that didn’t seem to work. But we didn’t, or couldn’t, copy exactly, nor could we forsee what would happen after enough of us copied some new thing.

The resulting structure resists change not because we planned it to do so but because many of its parts supported each other. Anything that didn’t would get whittled away over time. We call the structure ‘spontaneous order’ only when we’re look at whatever resulted long after all that has happened and, surprised by the result because we can’t name any particular originator, we’re trying to figure out where that order came from. Thus, ‘spontaneous order’ really means ‘unplanned order.’ It is in no wise ‘spontaneous.’

The idea of spontaneous order amounts to saying that just because something is intricate needn’t mean that it must have been designed. A century before Darwin, that was a disquieting idea—it was disquieting even in Darwin’s time—and, apparently, even today. Broadly speaking: Ferguson applied the idea of spontaneous order to language, Smith to economics, Hume to law, but they all applied it to politics and government. Nor can it be said that any of those writers were thinking of today’s notions of spontaneous network order. Mandeville, for example, wasn’t seriously arguing that we are like bees, but more that our usual explanations of why we do what we do are highly questionable. For instance, see: “The Role of Mandeville’s Bee Analogy in ‘The Grumbling Hive’,” W. J. Farrell, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 25(3):511-527, 1985.

Their focus (and the focus, even today, of nearly all economists) is that of ‘betterment.’ Mandeville was more satiric and pessimistic than Smith or other Enlightenment philosophers, who were more usually sanguine and theistic. Mandeville was attacked strongly, primarily because he argued that ‘betterment’ happened largely because of selfish reasons. Many writers, particularly clergy, didn’t like that—for example, William Law, Richard Fiddes, John Dennis, George Bluet, George Berkeley, Alexander Pope, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. However, the Englightenment idea of ‘betterment’ still persists today. (It’s related to, and descended from, Aristotle’s ‘Great Chain of Being.’) These days it’s primarily used as justification for the ‘free market.’

For example, here’s a Nobel prize-winning proponent of the idea of spontaneous order in economics: “To understand our civilisation, one must appreciate that the extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously: it arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices.” The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, F. A Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 1988, page 6.

The text, however, states no assumption that all spontaneous order is necessarily ‘good,’ ‘beneficial,’ ‘progressive,’ ‘civilizing,’ or any of the other adjectives that we often use to say that we approve of something. The text’s main purpose is to show that spontaneous order exists in our species, and that it appears to be becoming more dominant, and then to explain some of the network mechanisms by which it comes to exist and by which it seems to be becoming more dominant. Whether those group arrangements are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aren’t part of this book.

The following paper extract states this book’s position rather well: “[This paper asks] why the implications of new goods have not more extensively been explored, especially given that the basic economic issues were identified 150 years ago. The mathematical difficulty of modeling new goods has no doubt been part of the problem. An equally, if not more important stumbling block has been the deep philosophical resistance that humans feel toward the unavoidable logical consequence of assuming that genuinely new things can happen and could have happened at every date in the past. We are forced to admit that the world as we know it is the result of a long string of chance outcomes....

Once we admit that there is room for newness—that there are vastly more conceivable possibilites than realized outcomes—we must confront the fact that there is no special logic behind the world we inhabit, no particular justification for why things are the way they are. Any number of arbitrarily small peturbations along the way could have made the world as we know it turn out very differently.”

“New goods, old theory, and the welfare costs of trade restrictions,” P. Romer, Journal of Development Economics, 43(1):5-38, 1994. Paul Romer is the author of seminal work on new growth theory in economics. For example: “Endogenous Technological Change,” P. M. Romer, Journal of Political Economy, 98(5-2):S71-S102, 1990.

That can happen when many things, each following their own rules, interact over time. It might then make sense to talk about a single large thing as opposed to the several smaller things that compose it, even if the large thing is unintended, perhaps even unnoticed. But what happens if those smaller things are us?

The study of complex networks is both very old and very new. It’s very old in that many early thinkers have pointed out that gestalts don’t always work the way we expect. It’s very new in that the field studying it formally, complex systems theory, is less than two generations old. Today it goes by many names (for example: complex adaptive systems, complexity theory, complex network science, self-organizing systems, non-linear dynamical systems theory). It studies how relationships between parts of a system give rise to the system’s self-organizing behaviors. It’s interdisciplinary, with influences from economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, computer science, and mathematics, as well as more specialized fields like entomology, climatology, geology, ecology, neuroscience, molecular biology, immunology, game theory, control theory, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and artificial life.

It’s growing now because our computers have grown strong enough for us to use them to see macroscale patterns that were too big for us to see before. It’s also growing now because we now know enough to realize that understanding how the parts of a complex network interact can be just as important as understanding the parts themselves. And it’s growing now that we realize that an entomologist studying termites may have something to say to a molecular biologist studying mitochondria, who may have something to say to a climatologist studying tornadoes, who may have something to say to a sociologist studying city planning.

It’s still a magpie of a science. It steals ideas from condensed matter physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, embryology, entomology, ecology, immunology, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, mathematics, and economics. It feathers its nest with that hodge-podge of ideas, trying to figure out what’s common among them. It’s hoping to answer just one central question: how does order arise out of chaos? It assumes that there’s similarity of origin regardless of whether that order is in cities or crayfish or economies or railway companies. It’s still flailing around in the dark, but the vague outlines of a coherent theory may not be far off. And that theory, if proven true, may one day imply testable things about our future. However, today even the very definition of the word ‘complex’ is unresolved. We don’t yet have a widely accepted way to measure the ‘complexity’ of a system. So we still don’t have a uniform definition of a ‘complex system.’ So it’s still far from a real science.

Our knowledge base is now growing so fast that in recent decades every new scientific field goes through the same cycle. First a few explorers find something of interest. Then there’s a feeding frenzy as many prospectors join the gold rush. After a while, interest wanes as the same prospectors see that the pot of gold is still distant. That speed-up is a side-effect of our growing knowledge base, but the cycle itself is very old. It doesn’t much matter whether it’s in mining or science, finance or the stock market. We behave exactly the same way, everywhere and everywhen. In the last century that cycle has played out in systems theory, cybernetics, information theory, game theory, catastrophe theory, fractal geometry, and chaos theory. It’s now playing out in complex systems. Each wave washes up some new and pretty shell on the shoreline of our knowledge, but it’s hard to build those shells into a coherent picture. Too much is still missing.

For a good summary (before the field existed), here’s Warren Weaver, from 1948. He’s here describing the world where physical sciences (physics, particularly) largely studied problems where everything but for two variables could be kept constant. Then it jumped to problems where there were two billion variables and statistics could be used to average out behavior. That left a vast middle ground, which the life sciences (and all other sciences) are still struggling with:

“One is tempted to oversimplify and say that scientific methodology went from one extreme to the other... and left untouched a great middle region. The importance of this middle region, moreover, does not depend primarily on the fact that the number of variables involved is moderate large compared to two, but small compared to the number of atoms in a pinch of salt.... Much more important than the mere number of variables is the fact that these variables are all interrelated.... These problems, as contrasted with the disorganized situations with which statistics can cope, show the essential feature of organization. We will therefore refer to this group of problems as those of organized complexity.” From: “Science and Complexity,” W. Weaver, American Scientist, 36(4):536-44, 1948, page 538.

For some background, see: “Quantifying Self-Organization with Optimal Predictors,” C. R. Shalizi, K. L. Shalizi, R. Haslinger, Physical Review Letters, 93(11):118701, 2004. Emergence: From Chaos to Order, John Holland, Perseus Books Group, 1999. Hierarchical Structures and Scaling in Physics, Remo Badii and Antonio Politi, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity, John Holland, Addison-Wesley, 1996. Emergent Evolution: Qualitative Novelty and the Levels of Reality, David Blitz, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

“Thus we consistently regard a society as an entity, because, though formed of discrete units, a certain concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general persistence of the arrangements among them throughout the area occupied. And it is this trait which yields our idea of a society. For, withholding the name from an ever-changing cluster such as primitive men form, we apply it only where some constancy in the distribution of parts has resulted from settled life.

But now, regarding a society as a thing, what kind of thing must we call it? It seems totally unlike every object with which our senses acquaint us. Any likeness it may possibly have to other objects, cannot be manifest to perception, but can be discerned only by reason. If the constant relations among its parts make it an entity; the question arises whether these constant relations among its parts are akin to the constant relations among the parts of other entities. Between a society and anything else, the only conceivable resemblance must be one due to parallelism of principle in the arrangement of components.”

The Principles of Sociology, Volume I: Herbert Spencer, 1885, D. Appleton and Company, Third Edition, 1916, page 448.

Then followed an entire chapter examining the question (Volume I, Part II, Chapter 2). Spencer primarily saw his ‘super-organism’ as an analogy. He intended to point out that a ‘society’ is different from a set of random individuals, but also different from a single organic entity.

Also, there’s a far older proverb dating to Roman times: Venter non habet aures [The belly has no ears]. Plutarch tells us that Cato the Elder used a version of it in an oration to mean that the hungry don’t listen when it comes to corn. (Arduum esse ad ventrem verba facere, qui careat auribus. [It’s hard to argue with the belly, which has no ears].) And Erasmus later used Venter auribus caret. [The belly has no ears.] Heinrich Bebel’s Proverbia Germanica, W. H. D. Suringar, E. J. Brill, 1879, page 385.

By 2019, employment in agriculture was (as a percentage of all employment globally) 26.857. International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database Data retrieved in March 1, 2020.

In 2006, the figure was 45 percent (1.3 billon people). The Employment Imperative: Report on the World Social Situation 2007, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2007, page 15.

In 1997, the figure was 46 percent. “A World of Farmers, But Not a Farmer’s World,” L. A. Ferleger, Journal of The Historical Society, 2(1):43-53, 2002.

For some of the collapses known to be linked to climate change, see: “What Drives Societal Collapse?,” H. Weiss, R. S. Bradley, Science, 291(5504):609-610, 2001. See also: “Climate and the collapse of Mayan civilization,” G. H. Haug, D. Günther, L. C. Peterson, D. M. Sigman, K. A. Hughen, B. Aeschlimann, Science, 299(5613):1731-1735, 2003.

The Younger Dryas is important both because it shows that earth’s climate can sometimes change suddenly (in geologic terms) and because we started farming sometime within it, at least as far as the domestication of emmer wheat in southwest Asia is concerned. Such so-called ‘D-O events’ (named by Wallace Broecker after the Danish climatologist Willi Dansgaard and the Swiss geophysicist Hans Oeschger, who pioneered the research into the phenomenon in the early 1980s) are now garnering increased attention in climatology. A Brain for all Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change, William H. Calvin University of Chicago Press, 2002, page 228. “Sudden climate transitions during the Quaternary,” J. Adams, M. Maslin, E. Thomas, Progress in Physical Geography, 23(1):1-36, 1999. “Evidence for General Instability of Past Climate From a 250-kyr Ice Core,” W. Dansgaard, S. J. Johnsen, H. B. Clausen, D. Dahl-Jensen, N. S. Gundestrup, C. U. Hammer, C. S. Hvidberg, J. P. Steffensen, A. E. Sveinbjörnsdottir, J. Jouzel, G. Bond, Nature, 364(6434):218-220, 1993. “One thousand centuries of climatic record from Camp Century on the Greenland ice sheet,” W. Dansgaard, S. J. Johnsen, J. Moller, C. C. Langway, Jr., Science, 166(3903):377-381, 1969.

It’s not impossible that some goats were domesticated much earlier. Mitochrondrial evidence suggests that domestication events for goats were complex and geographically spread out. It seems likely that goats traveled great distances, perhaps by being herded, yet still intermixed with local populations. “Multiple Maternal Origins and Weak Phylogeographic Structure in Domestic Goats,” G. Luikart, L. Gielly, L. Excoffier, J.-D. Vigne, J. Bouvet, P. Taberlet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 98(10):5927-5932, 2001. “Livestock genetic origins: Goats buck the trend,” D. E. MacHugh, D. G. Bradley, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 98(10):5382-5384, 2001.

“We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400 bc, from Natufian hunter-gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a ‘Basal Eurasian’ lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter-gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter-gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia.”

“Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East,” I. Lazaridis, D. Nadel, G. Rollefson, D. Merrett, N. Rohland, S. Mallick, D. M. Fernandes, M. Novak, B. Gamarra, K. Sirak S. Connell, K. Stewardson, E. Harney, Q. Fu, G. Gonzalez-Fortes, E. R. Jones, S. A. Roodenberg, G. Lengyel, F. Bocquentin, B. Gasparian, J. M. Monge, M. Gregg, V. Eshed, A.-S. Mizrahi, C. Meiklejohn, F. Gerritsen, L. Bejenaru, M. Blüher, A. Campbell, G. Cavalleri, D. Comas, P. Froguel, E. Gilbert, S. M. Kerr, P. Kovacs, J. Krause, D. McGettigan, M. Merrigan, D. A. Merriwether, S. O’Reilly, M. B. Richards, O. Semino, M. Shamoon-Pour, G. Stefanescu, M. Stumvoll, A. Tönjes, A. Torroni, J. F. Wilson, L. Yengo, N. A. Hovhannisyan, N. Patterson, R. Pinhasi, D. Reich, Nature, 536(7617):419-424, 2016.

But in general, too much is unknown. Perhaps as the ice retreated the drying climate forced us to stay near rivers. Or perhaps the reverse happened since the melting ice raised sea level by 90 meters (about 300 feet), which would have drowned our lowlying camps and forced our tribes into the hills. Or maybe there was especially good wood or stone or game, and an excellent cave, thereabouts. Or perhaps the geography was especially good in relation to the roaming ranges of other nomad tribes. Or maybe a plague forced some of us to stop roaming. Or perhaps a severe drought drove most game away. It’s even possible that our slowly rising population led to overhunting until things got so bad that we started eating grass all the time. It’s tantalizing, for example, that by 11Kya we’d already colonized most of the world that we could reach. So maybe our population had by then maximized, given our technology of the time, and food competition was thus growing. We don’t know. We’re also, likely, still missing a lot of data. For instance, our first cultivations may have happened millennia before the ones we’ve found so far, but they may have been in low-lying regions. If so, they would today be lost to us as the oceans rose with the melting ice. Perhaps, though, it was because the mutant grass seeds were so easy to harvest, and (at least in the Levant) so densely concentrated.

“Unconscious selection drove seed enlargement in vegetable crops,” T. A. Kluyver, G. Jones, B. Pujol, C. Bennett, E. J. Mockford, M. Charles, M. Rees, C. P. Osborne, Evolution Letters, 1(2):64-72, 2017. “Yield stability: an agronomic perspective on the origin of Near Eastern agriculture,” S. Abbo, S. Lev-Yadun, A. Gopher, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 19(2):143-150, 2010. “From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution,” J. L. Weisdorf, Journal of Economic Surveys, 19(4):561-586, 2005. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter Bellwood, Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, W. W. Norton, 1997. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, David R. Harris (editor), Smithsonian Books, 1996. Last Hunters, First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture, T. Douglas Price and Anne Birgitte Gebauer (editors), School of American Research, 1995.

Also, recent excavations have found large sites that may have been settlements, but may also possibly have been some form of communal gathering places, which weren’t near large food supplies. One very important one is Göbekli Tepe, in south-eastern Turkey. Another one is ’Wadi Faynan 16 in southern Jordan. At least one site, Jerf el Ahmar in norther Syria, is extra-special, in that it both started in the last ice age and continued into the Holocene, and it gave rise to monumental structures (although they were mainly settlements).

“Monumental — compared to what? A perspective from Göbekli Tepe,” M. Kinzel, L. Clare, in: Monumentalising Life in the Neolithic: Narratives of Change and Continuity, Anne Birgitte Gebauer, Lasse Sørensen, Anne Teather, and António Carlos Valera (editors) Oxbow, 2020, chapter 3, pages 29-48. “Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey,” L. Dietrich, J. Meister, O. Dietrich, J. Notroff, J. Kiep, J. Heeb, A. Beuger, B. Schütt, PLoS ONE, 14(5):e0215214, 2019. “Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago,” L. Weissbrod, F. B. Marshall, F. R. Valla, H. Khalaily, G. Bar-Oz, J.-C. Auffray, J.-D. Vigne, T. Cucchi, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(16):4099-4104, 2017. “The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey,” O. Dietrich, M. Heun, J. Notroff, K. Schmidt, M. Zarnkow, Antiquity, 86(333):674-695, 2012. “An 11 600 year-old communal structure from the Neolithic of southern Jordan,” S. J. Mithen, W. Finlayson, S. Smith, E. Jenkins, M. Najjar, D. Maričević, Antiquity, 85(328):350-364, 2011. “New light on Neolithic revolution in south-west Asia,” T. Watkins, Antiquity, 84(325):621-634, 2010. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? Graeme Barker, Oxford University Press, 2009. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter S. Bellwood, Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. After the Ice: a Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC, Steven Mithen, Harvard University Press, 2003. Neanderthals, Bandits & Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began, Colin Tudge, Yale University Press, 1998. “Jerf el-Ahmar, un nouveau site de l’horizon PPNA sur le moyen Eurprate Syriean,” D. Stordeur, D. Helmer, G. Wilcox, Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, 94(2):282-285, 1997.

Another question is about the purpose of cereals themselves. Instead of cultivating (or at least simply harvesting) them for bread, some argue that we may have been doing so for beer. One reason being that barley, left to itself, ferments. Another possible reason might be that consuming alcohol might be part of ritual, which might be an aid to tribal bonding.

It’s clear, though, that certainly by 10.4Kya we had settled down in at least a few mountain villages in today’s Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Cyprus, and had begun actively cultivating cereals.

“... ‘Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of [beer]!’ (R.L. Stevenson) no beer but rather cereal-Food. Commentary: Liu et al. 2018,” D. Eitam, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 28, 101913, 2019. “Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel: Investigating Natufian ritual feasting,” L. Liu, J. Wang, D. Rosenberg, H. Zhao, G. Lengyel, D. Nadel, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 21:783-793, 2018. “Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan,” A. Arranz-Otaeguia, L. Gonzalez Carretero, M. N. Ramsey, D. Q. Fuller, T. Richter, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 115(31):7925-7930, 2018. “The Roots of Cultivation in Southwestern Asia,” G. Willcox, Science, 341(6141):39-40, 2013. “Emergence of Agriculture in the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran,” S. Riehl, M. Zeidi, N. J. Conard, Science, 341(6141):65-67, 2013. “Searching for the origins of arable weeds in the Near East,” G. Willcox, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 21(2):163-167, 2012. “Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium BC cal. in northern Syria,” G. Willcox, D. Stordeur, Antiquity, 86(331):99-114, 2012. Origins and Spread of Agriculture in SW Asia and Europe: Archaeobotanical Investigations of Neolithic Plant Economies, W. S. Colledge, J. Conolly, and S. J. Shennnan (editors), University College London Press, 2005.

“The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey,” O. Dietrich, M. Heun, J. Notroff, K. Schmidt, M. Zarnkow, Antiquity, 86(333):674-695, 2012. “Genetic characterization and relationships of traditional grape cultivars from Transcaucasia and Anatolia,” J. F. Vouillamoz, P. E. McGovern, A. Ergul, G. Söylemezoglu, G. Tevzadze, M. S. Grando, Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization & Utilization, 4(2):144-158, 2006. “Fermented Beverages of Pre- and Proto-Historic China,” P. E. McGovern, J. Zhang, J. Tang, Z. Zhang, G. R. Hall, R. A. Moreau, A. Nuñez, E. D. Butrym, M. P. Richards, C.-S. Wang, G. Cheng, Z. Zhao, C. Wang, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(51):17593-17598, 2004.

“Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisition of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human populations in the last 10,000 years.” From: “The agricultural revolution as environmental catastrophe: Implications for health and lifestyles in the Holocene,” C. S. Larsen, Quaternary International, 150(1):12-20, 2006.

“The shift from foraging to farming led to a reduction in health status and well-being, an increase in physiological stress, a decline in nutrition, an increase in birthrate and population growth, and an alteration of activity types and work loads. Taken as a whole, then, the popular and scholarly perception that quality of life improved with the acquisition of agriculture is incorrect.” From: “Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture,” C. S. Larsen, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24:185-213, 1995.

See also: The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, Richard H. Steckel and Jerome C. Rose (editors), Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Its population estimates are given here: “Demography and Storage Systems During the Southern Levantine Neolithic Demographic Transition,” I. Kuijta, in: The Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Ofer Bar-Yosef (editors), Springer, 2008, pages 287-313.

An interesting recent model suggests that the particular period was unusual in that it was 1/ warm, and 2/ stable, and 3/ stayed that way for more than 2 millennia. That hadn’t happened at any time in the preceding 44Kya (in which period, presumably, humans were capable of exploiting the conditions—or falling into the trap, as the book has it) “Climate stability and the development of agricultural societies,” J. Feynman, A. Ruzmaikin, Climatic Change, 84(3):295-311, 2007.

There’s so much we today don’t know about those particular 2,600 or so years and what must have mattered to us across that particular stretch of time. But there’s one thing that may have mattered a great deal—genetic changes in wheat.

Step back once again to 11.6Kya. Unlike in the dramatized sketch in the text, we’re intimately familiar with everything that we see in our foraging cycle, for we eat nearly anything that can’t eat us first. The wheat variant we come across is rare around the planet, but in this time and place, it would be no surprise to us. What’s new is that for some reason we start storing its seeds. Why we choose to store anything at all at this particular time is unknown. But of all the seeds that we could have chosen, we probably choose these particular ones because their seeds happen to be a little bigger than other grass seeds. It would make sense for us to gather them rather than other seeds. Also, although most of their stalks shatter as they ripen—so that their seeds fall to the ground, ready to sprout—the stalks of a few mutant wheat plants fail to shatter. Normally that strain would be rare. It can’t make new plants, so from the plant’s point of view, it’s a dead end. But from our point of view, as the last ice age ended, those few mutants might have saved some of our lives.

We would probably ignore wheat stalks that had done the right thing and shattered. Picking up their scattered seeds would take more energy than eating them would give—something we only do when we’re truly starving. But the few mutant plants would still have their ripe seeds on the stalk. That would leave them in the perfect position for us to harvest cheaply.

Then, over time, we built more permanent seasonal shelters where they grew. Then, over time, we spent more and more time there. After a while, we started planting some of the mutant seeds that we didn’t eat. That gave those mutants an edge over their normal cousins, so they spread. As we kept selecting among them, they grew taller, too, which made them easier to harvest, and their seeds grew bigger, which made them more worthwhile to harvest, and easier to store. With that, we hadn’t merely settled, we had also begun to farm. What kept driving us all that time?

Our earliest known settlements were in the Fertile Crescent, a zone of grassland and woodland beginning at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean (the bottom of the Levant) and arching north and east to the Zagros Mountains in today’s Iran. Sites primarily cluster in the Zagros, Taurus, and Pontic Mountains of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the Levant, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (primarily Israel and Jordan). (So roughly: today’s Iraq, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.)

From DNA analysis, einkorn wheat probably originated near the Karacadâg mountains in today’s Turkey. The seven primary domesticates of the Fertile Crescent were: barley, emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Of the 56 known species of large-seeded grasses, 32 grow wild in the Mediterranean region.

“AFLP Analysis of a Collection of Tetraploid Wheats Indicates the Origin of Emmer and Hard Wheat Domestication in Southeast Turkey,” H. Özkan, A. Brandolini, R. Schâfer-Pregl, F. Salamini, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 19(10):1797-1801, 2002. “Site of Einkorn Wheat Domestication Identified by DNA Fingerprinting,” M. Heun, R. Schäfer-Pregl, D. Klawan, R. Castagna, M. Accerbi, B. Borghi, F. Salamini, Science, 278(5341):1312-1314, 1997. The Emergence of Agriculture, Bruce D. Smith, Scientific American Library, 1995. Seed To Civilization: The Story of Food, Charles B. Heiser, Harvard University Press, New Edition, 1990. Forces of Change: An Unorthodox View of History, Henry Hobhouse, Arcade, 1989.

Domestication probably took at least a millennium or so given that early farmers had no idea what they were really up to. A mathematical model of how long it might take for genetic change to spread in wild-type versus artificial selection grasses estimates that it might take 3,000 years for our selection to really change a plant. “The genetic expectations of a protracted model for the origins of domesticated crops,” R. G. Allaby, D. Q. Fuller, T. A. Brown, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 105(37):13982-13986, 2008. “How fast was wild wheat domesticated?” K. Tanno, G. Willcox, Science, 311(5769):1886, 2006.

Finally, cereals needn’t necessarily be one of the first plants we tamed. “Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley,” M. E. Kislev, A. Hartmann, O. Bar-Yosef, Science, 312(5778):1372-1374, 2006.

For Europeans in North America, maize came to be called ‘Indian corn,’ then simply ‘corn.’ In 1539, Garcilaso de la Vega, part of Hernan de Soto’s expedition in northern Florida and the Carolinas, wrote that, “[We] marched on through some great fields of corn, beans, and squash and other vegetables which had been sown on both sides of the road and were spread out as far as the eye could see across two leagues of plain.” The Florida of the Inca, John and Jeannette Varner (editors and translators), University of Texas Press, 1988.

“Comparative analysis of the domestic cat genome reveals genetic signatures underlying feline biology and domestication,” M. J. Montague, G. Li, B. Gandolfi, R. Khan, B. L. Aken, S. M. J. Searle, P. Minx, L. W. Hillier, D. C. Koboldt, B. W. Davis, C. A. Driscoll, C. S. Barr, K. Blackistone, J. Quilez, B. Lorente-Galdos, T. Marques-Bonet, C. Alkan, G. W. C. Thomas, M. W. Hahn, M. Menotti-Raymond, S. J. O’Brien, R. K. Wilson, L. A. Lyons, W. J. Murphy, W. C. Warren, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 111(48):17230-17235, 2014. “First wave of cultivators spread to Cyprus at least 10,600 y ago,” J. D. Vigne, F. Briois, A. Zazzo, G. Willcox, T. Cucchi, S. Thiébault, I. Carrère, Y. Franel, R. Touquet, C. Martin, C. Moreau, C. Comby, J. Guilaine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 109(22):8445-8449, 2012. “The taming of the cat,” C. A. Driscoll, J. Clutton-Brock, A. C. Kitchener, S. J. O’Brien, Scientific American, 300(6):68-75, 2009. “From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication,” C. A. Driscoll, D. W. Macdonald, S. J. O’Brien, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(1):9971-9978, 2009. Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, Melinda A. Zeder, Daniel G. Bradley, Eve Emswiller, and Bruce D. Smith (editors), University of California Press, 2006.

Pigs and cattle were each domesticated about 10Kya. Horse domestication seems to date to about 6Kya, and donkeys to about 5Kya. “Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe,” V. Warmuth, A. Eriksson, M. A. Bower, G. Barker, E. Barrett, B. K. Hanks, S. Li, D. Lomitashvili, M. Ochir-Goryaeva, G. V. Sizonov, V. Soyonov, A. Manica, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21):8202-8206, 2012. “Patterns of East Asian pig domestication, migration, and turnover revealed by modern and ancient DNA,” G. Larson, R. Liu, X. Zhao, J. Yuan, D. Fuller, L. Barton, K. Dobney, Q. Fan, Z. Gu, X.-H. Liu, Y. Luo, P. Lv, L. Andersson, N. Li, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(17):7686-7691, 2010. “A Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequence from a Mesolithic Wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius,),” C. J. Edwards, D. A. Magee, S. D. Park, P. A. McGettigan, A. J. Lohan, A. Murphy, E. K. Finlay, B. Shapiro, A. T. Chamberlain, M. B. Richards, D. G. Bradley, B. J. Loftus, D. E. Machugh, PLoS ONE, 5(2):e9255, 2010. “The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking,” A. K. Outram, N. A. Stear, R. Bendrey, S. Olsen, A. Kasparov, V. Zaibert, N. Thorpe, R. P. Evershed, Science, 323(5919):1332-1335, 2009. “Domestication of the donkey: Timing, processes, and indicators,” S. Rossel, F. Marshall, J. Peters, T. Pilgram, M. D. Adams, D. O’Connor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(10):3715-3720, 2008.

Today all those species can still reproduce on their own, but none of them would exist in the numbers they do without our intervention. Our planet now supports ten thousand million chickens, 1,500 million cows, over a thousand million sheep, 700 million goats, and over 500 million pigs. All those populations are perhaps a thousand times as large as they would be without us. (Of course, they exist in such numbers at the expense of other species.) Today we control their reproduction with selective breeding, hormones, and spaying, and one day, to make them even more suitable as food or pets, we may genetically remove their reproductive ability entirely, just as we in some sense have already done with maize and wheat and seedless grapes. The Archaeology of Animals, Simon J. M. Davis, Yale University Press, 1987.

Slavery can arise even among foragers: if they’re sedentary and have access to a rich food source that rewards intensive labor. One such example is the coastal tribes in the northwest of North America. Their subsistence was based on hunting, gathering, and fishing. They all had a tradition of potlatch. Slavery among them was economically valuable not for primary activities (like fishing) but secondary activities—like drying the fish for storage. Aboriginal slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America, Leland Donald, University of California Press, 1997.

These days it’s popular to believe that when we were foragers we likely didn’t take slaves because we were ‘nice’ or just meek and thus didn’t have large wars. Not so. Rovers weren’t meek—skeletons from that time show that they could maim and kill just as well then as now—but they likely didn’t enslave each other. There would be no point. “Anthropology, Archaeology, and the Origin of Warfare,” I. J. N. Thorpe, World Archaeology, 35(1):145-165, 2003. Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, Debra L. Martin and David W. Freyer (editors), Routledge, 1998. Killing or exploiting each other is ancient. It’s simply that it didn’t pay as well when we were foragers.

Herders: “An ancient tripartite symbiosis of plants, ants and scale insects,” T. Itino, K. Murase, Y. Sato, K. Inamori, T. Itioka, S.-P. Quek, S. Ueda, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1649):2319-2326, 2008. The Ants, Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University Press, 1990, page 553.

Slavers and thieves: (Some steal brood members for consumption. Theft of brood for labor, not consumption, is sometimes known not as ‘slavery’ but as ‘dulosis’ or a kind of cleptobiosis.) “Rossomyrmex, the Slave-Maker Ants from the Arid Steppe Environments,” F. Ruano, O. Sanllorente, A. Lenoir, A. Tinaut, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, 2013:541804:1-7, 2013.

“In this review of cleptobiosis, we not only focus on social insects, but also consider broader issues and concepts relating to the theft of food among animals. Cleptobiosis occurs when members of a species steal food, or sometimes nesting materials or other items of value, either from members of the same or a different species. This simple definition is not universally used, and there is some terminological confusion among cleptobiosis, cleptoparasitism, brood parasitism, and inquilinism. We first discuss the definitions of these terms and the confusion that arises from varying usage of the words. We consider that cleptobiosis usually is derived evolutionarily from established foraging behaviors. Cleptobionts can succeed by deception or by force, and we review the literature on cleptobiosis by deception or force in social insects. We focus on the best known examples of cleptobiosis, the ectatommine ant Ectatomma ruidum, the harvester ant Messor capitatus, and the stingless bee Lestrimellita limão. Cleptobiosis is facilitated either by deception or physical force, and we discuss both mechanisms. Part of this discussion is an analysis of the ecological implications (competition by interference) and the evolutionary effects of cleptobiosis. We conclude with a comment on how cleptobiosis can increase the risk of disease or parasite spread among colonies of social insects.” From: “Cleptobiosis in Social Insects,” M. D. Breed, C. Cook, M. O. Krasnec, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, 2012:484765:1-7, 2012.

Interestingly, the allele did not arrive in Europe with the first farmers. It became common only in the Bronze Age, many millenia after the domestication of cattle and the start of dairying. “FADS1 and the Timing of Human Adaptation to Agriculture,” S. Mathieson, I. Mathieson, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35(12):2957-2970, 2018.

From then, lactase persistence apparently spread quickly in Europe, based on a study of one battle gravesite from around 5Kya, where it was very low in comparison to today. “Low Prevalence of Lactase Persistence in Bronze Age Europe Indicates Ongoing Strong Selection over the Last 3,000 Years,” J. Burger, V. Link, J. Blöcher, A. Schulz, C. Sell, Z. Pochon, Y. Diekmann, A. Žegarac, Z. Hofmanová, L. Winkelbach, C. S. Reyna-Blanco, V. Bieker, J. Orschiedt, U. Brinker, A. Scheu, C. Leuenberger, T. S. Bertino, R. Bollongino, G. Lidke, S. Stefanović, D. Jantzen, E. Kaiser, T. Terberger, Current Biology, 30(21):4307-4315.e13, 2020.

For humans, the median age at menarche is about 12, but these days a common age for first reproduction is 20-25, so it’s common to take ‘a generation’ as somewhere in that range of years. The text assumes it to be no more than 25 years.

While most human genetic change is very slow, some recent human genetic change—where ‘recent’ means the last 80,000 years or so—that is, the recent past—aren’t. “Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution,” J. Hawks, E. T. Wang, G. M. Cochran, H. C. Harpending, R. K. Moyzis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(52):20753-20758, 2007. “Genome-wide detection and characterization of positive selection in human populations,” P. C. Sabeti, P. Varilly, B. Fry, J. Lohmueller, E. Hostetter, C. Cotsapas, X. Xie, E. H. Byrne, S. A. McCarroll, R. Gaudet, S. F. Schaffner, E. S. Lander, The International HapMap Consortium, Nature, 449(7164):913-918, 2007.

For an example of very recent (last few millennia) change, see low-oxygen adaptation in Tibet: “Sequencing of 50 Human Exomes Reveals Adaptation to High Altitude,” X. Yi, Y. Liang, E. Huerta-Sanchez, X. Jin, Z. X. Cuo, J. E. Pool, X. Xu, H. Jiang, N. Vinckenbosch, T. S. Korneliussen, H. Zheng, T. Liu, W. He, K. Li, R. Luo, X. Nie, H. Wu, M. Zhao, H. Cao, J. Zou, Y. Shan, S. Li, Q. Yang, Asan, P. Ni, G. Tian, J. Xu, X. Liu, T. Jiang, R. Wu, G. Zhou, M. Tang, J. Qin, T. Wang, S. Feng, G. Li, Huasang, J. Luosang, W. Wang, F. Chen, Y. Wang, X. Zheng, Z. Li, Z. Bianba, G. Yang, X. Wang, S. Tang, G. Gao, Y. Chen, X. Luo, L. Gusang, Z. Cao, Q. Zhang, W. Ouyang, X. Ren, H. Liang, H. Zheng, Y. Huang, J. Li, L. Bolund, K. Kristiansen, Y. Li, Y. Zhang, X. Zhang, R. Li, S. Li, H. Yang, R. Nielsen, J. Wang, J. Wang, Science, 329(5987):75-78, 2010.

Further, at least two genes that appear to be involved in determining our brain size have undergone strong positive selection recently, and (here’s the politically volatile bit) only among some of our populations. One haplotype of Microcephalin was strongly selected for starting about 37Kya (confidence limit from 14Kya to 60Kya), and a haplotype of ASPM about 5.8Kya (confidence limit between 500 and 14,100 years). These are extremely recent haplotypes. Neither have spread very far in our African population yet. “Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans,” P. D. Evans, S. L. Gilbert, N. Mekel-Bobrov, E. J. Vallender, J. R. Anderson, L. M. Vaez-Azizi, S. A. Tishkoff, R. R. Hudson, B. T. Lahn, Science, 309(5741):1717-1720, 2005. “Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens,” N. Mekel-Bobrov, S. L. Gilbert, P. D. Evans, E. J. Vallender, J. R. Anderson, R. R. Hudson, S. A. Tishkoff, B. T. Lahn, Science, 309(5741):1720-1722, 2005. “Reconstructing the evolutionary history of microcephalin, a gene controlling human brain size,” P. D. Evans, J. R. Anderson, E. J. Vallender, S. S. Choi, B. T. Lahn, Human Molecular Genetics, 13(11):1139-1145, 2004.

On a related note, see also: Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization, Spencer Wells, Random House, 2010. Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity, Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince, Harper Perennial, 2008.

The text tries to give the considered view of many geneticists. For a contrary view from the popular science world, however, see: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, Basic Books, 2009.

The backhanded reference to naked apes is to: The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal, Desmond Morris, Jonathan Cape, 1967.

Woven clothing in the paleolithic is a guess. However, that we had woven clothing (as opposed to the typical image we carry of paleolithic hunters dressed only in hides) is not unlikely since their remote ancestors had cordage and nets, and thus some kind of weaving. The Pavlovian variant of the Gravettian people—who lived scattered over a region stretching from Spain to southern Russia about 29Kya to 22Kya—apparently at least had nets. “Ice Age Communities May Be Earliest Known Net Hunters,” H. Pringle, Science, 277(5330):1203-1204, 1997.

Actual twisted fibers dating to about 18Kya have been found in caves in France. The earliest known evidence of woven fabrics might be Venus figurines carved about 26Kya. Some of them have incised representations of what may be skimpy string skirts, presumably for some symbolic purpose. So twining and plaiting may go back 26 millennia. Of course, there’s argument about this particular extrapolation. Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing, Mary C. Beaudry, Yale University Press, 2006, pages 45-46 and 90. “Archaeological Textiles: A Review of Current Research,” I. Good, Annual Review of Anthropology, 30:209-226, 2001. “Perishable Technologies and Invisible People: Nets, Baskets, and ‘Venus’ Wear ca. 26,000 B.P.,” O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, D. C. Hyland, Enduring Records: The Environmental and Cultural Heritage of Wetlands, Barbara Purdy (editor), Oxbow Books, 2001, pages 233-245. “Upper Palaeolithic fibre technology: interlaced woven finds from Pavlov I, Czech Republic, c. 26,000 years ago,” J. M. Adovasio, O. Soffer, B. Klíma, Antiquity, 70(269):526-34, 1996. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean, E. J. W. Barber, Princeton University Press, 1991.

Tattoos in the neolithic are a total guess. However, a tattooed man existed in the Ötztal Alps 5.3Kya. There seems to be no reason we couldn’t have tattooed, or scarred, ourselves 11Kya, or even 50Kya, or more. “Origin and Migration of the Alpine Iceman,” W. Müller, H. Fricke, A. N. Halliday, M. T. McCulloch, J.-A. Wartho, Science, 302(5646):862-866, 2003. The Man in the Ice: The Discovery of a 5,000-year-old Body Reveals the Secrets of the Stone Age, Konrad Spindler, translated by Ewald Osers, Harmony Books, 1994. Incidentally, that particular find has ramified into a murder mystery with new, and so far unpublished, DNA and forensic analysis of the body and its artifacts by Thomas Loy of the University of Queensland. For the same sort of forensics, see: “Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchí, the first ancient body of a man from a North American glacier: reconstructing his last days by intestinal and biomolecular analyses,” J. H. Dickson, M. P. Richards, R. J. Hebda, P. J. Mudie, O. Beattie, S. Ramsay, N. J. Turner, B. J. Leighton, J. M. Webster, N. R. Hobischak, G. S. Anderson, P. M. Troffe, R. J. Wigen, The Holocene, 14(4):481-486, 2004.

Paleolithic ornaments, shoes, and tools: Our earliest probable ornaments may go back at least 82Kya (and perhaps 110Kya in the latest unpublished research). “82,000-year-old shell beads from North Africa and implications for the origins of modern human behavior,” A. Bouzouggar, N. Barton, M. Vanhaeren, F. d’Errico, S. Collcutt, T. Higham, E. Hodge, S. Parfitt, E. Rhodes, J.-L. Schwenninger, C. Stringer, E. Turner, S. Ward, A. Moutmir, A. Stambouli, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(24):9964-9969, 2007. “Middle Stone Age Shell Beads from South Africa,” C. Henshilwood, F. d’Errico, M. Vanhaeren, K. van Niekerk, Z. Jacobs, Science, 304(5669):404-404, 2004.

Our oldest known ornaments are perforated teeth or eggshell beads from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, and Lebanon, dated between 41,000 and 43,000-years-old, and 40,000-year-old ostrich-shell beads from Kenya. Beads found in Tanzania also appear to be very old, but are so far undated. “Ornaments of the earliest Upper Paleolithic: New insights from the Levant,” S. L. Kuhn, M. C. Stiner, D. S. Reese, E. Güleç, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(13):7641-7646, 2001. “Chronology of the Later Stone Age and Food Production in East Africa,” S. H. Ambrose, Journal of Archaeological Science, 25(4):377-392, 1998. Bead-making may go back at least 100Kya: “Middle Paleolithic Shell Beads in Israel and Algeria,” M. Vanhaereny, F. d’Errico, C. Stringer, S. L. James, J. A. Todd, H. K. Mienis, Science, 312(5781):1785-1788, 2006.

Our oldest known figurine is an ivory Venus dated to 35Kya. “A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany,” N. J. Conard, Nature, 459(7244):248-252, 2009. The oldest known musical instruments, bone and ivory flutes, are also 35,000 years old. “New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany,” N. J. Conard, M. Malina, S. C. Münzel, Nature, 460(7256):737-740, 2009.

Our oldest known shoe is 5,500 years old. The oldest known sandal is 10,500-9,300 years old. “First Direct Evidence of Chalcolithic Footwear from the Near Eastern Highlands,” R. Pinhasi, B. Gasparian, G. Areshian, D. Zardaryan, A. Smith, G. Bar-Oz, T. Higham, PLoS ONE, 5(6):e10984, 2010. In Search of Ancient Oregon: A Geological and Natural History, Ellen Morris Bishop, Timber Press, 2003, page 232. “Comments on ‘America’s Oldest Basketry,’ ” T. J. Connolly, W. J. Cannon, Radiocarbon, 41(3):309-313, 1999.

Chewing gum, too, is prehistoric. “Bulk stable light isotopic ratios in archaeological birch bark tars,” B. Stern, S. J. Clelland, C. C. Nordby, D. Urem-Kotsou, Applied Geochemistry, 21(10):1668-1673, 2006. “Chewing tar in the early Holocene: an archaeological and ethnographic evaluation,” E. M. Aveling, C. Heron, Antiquity, 73(281):579-584, 1999. “Chewing gum bezoars of the gastrointestinal tract,” D. E. Milov, J. M. Andres, N. A. Erhart, D. J. Bailey, Pediatrics, 102(2):e22, 1998.

“The Yamnaya expansions from the western steppe into Europe and Asia during the Early Bronze Age (~3000 BCE) are believed to have brought with them Indo-European languages and possibly horse husbandry. We analyzed 74 ancient whole-genome sequences from across Inner Asia and Anatolia and show that the Botai people associated with the earliest horse husbandry derived from a hunter-gatherer population deeply diverged from the Yamnaya. Our results also suggest distinct migrations bringing West Eurasian ancestry into South Asia before and after, but not at the time of, Yamnaya culture. We find no evidence of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia from when Indo-European languages are attested there. Thus, in contrast to Europe, Early Bronze Age Yamnaya-related migrations had limited direct genetic impact in Asia.” From: “The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia,” P. de Barros Damgaard, R. Martiniano, J. Kamm, J. V. Moreno-Mayar, G. Kroonen, M. Peyrot, G. Barjamovic, S. Rasmussen, C. Zacho, N. Baimukhanov, V. Zaibert, V. Merz, A. Biddanda, I. Merz, V. Loman, V. Evdokimov, E. Usmanova, B. Hemphill, A. Seguin-Orlando, F. E. Yediay, I. Ullah, K.-G. Sjögren, K. H. Iversen, J. Choin, C. de la Fuente, M. Ilardo, H. Schroeder, V. Moiseyev, A. Gromov, A. Polyakov, S. Omura, S. Y. Senyurt, H. Ahmad, C. McKenzie, A. Margaryan, A. Hameed, A. Samad, N. Gul, M. H. Khokhar, O. I. Goriunova, V. I. Bazaliiskii, J. Novembre, A. W. Weber, L. Orlando, M. E. Allentoft, R. Nielsen, K. Kristiansen, M. Sikora, A. K. Outram, R. Durbin, E. Willerslev, Science, 360(6396):eaar7711, 2018.

See also: “Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication,” A. Ludwig, M. Pruvost, M. Reissmann, N. Benecke, G. A. Brockmann, P. Castaños, M. Cieslak, S. Lippold, L. Llorente, A.-S. Malaspinas, M. Slatkin, M. Hofreiter, Science, 324(5926):485, 2009. “The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking,” A. K. Outram, N. A. Stear, R. Bendrey, S. Olsen, A. Kasparov, V. Zaibert, N. Thorpe, R. P. Evershed, Science, 323(5919):1332-1335, 2009. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, 2007. Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse, Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew, and Katie Boyle (editors), McDonald Institute, 2003, pages 69-82.

At a conference in 1966, one eminent anthropologist called hunter-gatherers ‘the original affluent society’ because they (probably) had so much free time. “Notes on the Original Affluent Society,” M. Sahlins, Man the Hunter: The First Intensive Survey of a Single, Crucial Stage of Human Development—Man’s Once Universal Hunting Way of Life, Richard B. Lee and Irven Devore, Aldine Publishing Company, 1968, pages 85-89. See also: Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins, Aldine Transaction, 1972. The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society, Richard Borshay Lee, Cambridge University Press, 1979. But for more recent analyses, see: “After the ‘Affluent Society’: Cost of Living in the Papua New Guinea Highlands According to Time and Energy Expenditure-Income,” P. Sillitoe, Journal of Biosocial Science, 34(4):433-461, 2002. “The darker side of the ‘original affluent society,’ ” D. Kaplan, Journal of Anthropological Research, 56(33):301-324, 2000.

See also: Towards a bioarchaeology of care: a contextualised approach for identifying and interpreting health-related care provision in prehistory, Lorna Ann Tilley, Australian National University, 2013. Sampling Biases and New Ways of Addressing the Significance of Trauma in Neandertals, Virginia Hutton Estabrook, doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 2009. “Neanderthals: a history of interpretation,” J. R. Drell, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 19(1):1-24, 2000. “Vertebral osteoarthritis of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 Neanderthal,” J. E. Dawson, E. Trinkaus, Journal of Archaeological Science, 24(11):1015-1021, 1997. “Pathology and the posture of the La Chapelle‐aux‐Saints Neandertal,” E. Trinkaus, American journal of physical anthropology, 67(1):19-41, 1985. “Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal flower burial in northern Iraq,” R. S. Solecki, Science, 190(4217):880-881, 1975.

Emmer wheat domestication at Abu Hureyra began around 10,400 years (calibrated) before the present, but the village was already inhabited by around 11,500 years (calibrated) ago. So they spent about a millennium simply gathering, not planting.

“The plant food economy of Abu Hureyra 1 and 2: Abu Hureyra 1: the Epipaleolithic,” G. C. Hillman, in: Village on the Euphrates: from foraging to farming at Abu Hureyra, A. M. T. Moore, G. C. Hillman, and A. J. Legge (editors), Oxford University Press, 2000, pages 327-398.

The Bible, The King James Version, Genesis 3:19.

“Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers,” M. Rivollat, C. Jeong, S. Schiffels, I. Küçükkalıpçı, M.-H. Pemonge, A. B. Rohrlach, K. W. Alt, D. Binder, S. Friederich, E. Ghesquière, D. Gronenborn, L. Laporte, P. Lefranc, H. Meller, H. Réveillas, E. Rosenstock, S. Rottier, C. Scarre, L. Soler, J. Wahl, J. Krause, M.-F. Deguilloux, W. Haak, Science Advances, 6(22):eaaz5344, 2020. “Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history,” S. Brunel, E. A. Bennett, L. Cardin, D. Garraud, H. Barrand Emam, A. Beylier, B. Boulestin, F. Chenal, E. Ciesielski, F. Convertini, B. Dedet, S. Desbrosse-Degobertiere, S. Desenne, J. Dubouloz, H. Duday, G. Escalon, V. Fabre, E. Gailledrat, M. Gandelin, Y. Gleize, S. Goepfert, J. Guilaine, L. Hachem, M. Ilett, F. Lambach, F. Maziere, B. Perrin, S. Plouin, E. Pinard, I. Praud, I. Richard, V. Riquier, R. Roure, B. Sendra, C. Thevenet, S. Thiol, E. Vauquelin, L. Vergnaud, T. Grange, E.-M. Geigl, M. Pruvost, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(23):12791-12798, 2020.

“For thousands of years the Eurasian steppes have been a centre of human migrations and cultural change. Here we sequence the genomes of 137 ancient humans (about 1× average coverage), covering a period of 4,000 years, to understand the population history of the Eurasian steppes after the Bronze Age migrations. We find that the genetics of the Scythian groups that dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the Iron Age were highly structured, with diverse origins comprising Late Bronze Age herders, European farmers and southern Siberian hunter-gatherers. Later, Scythians admixed with the eastern steppe nomads who formed the Xiongnu confederations, and moved westward in about the second or third century bc, forming the Hun traditions in the fourth-fifth century ad, and carrying with them plague that was basal to the Justinian plague. These nomads were further admixed with East Asian groups during several short-term khanates in the Medieval period. These historical events transformed the Eurasian steppes from being inhabited by Indo-European speakers of largely West Eurasian ancestry to the mostly Turkic-speaking groups of the present day, who are primarily of East Asian ancestry.” From: “137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes,” P. de Barros Damgaard, N. Marchi, S. Rasmussen, M. Peyrot, G. Renaud, T. Korneliussen, J. V. Moreno-Mayar, M. W. Pedersen, A. Goldberg, E. Usmanova, N. Baimukhanov, V. Loman, L. Hedeager, A. G. Pedersen, K. Nielsen, G. Afanasiev, K. Akmatov, A. Aldashev, A. Alpaslan, G. Baimbetov, V. I. Bazaliiskii, A. Beisenov, B. Boldbaatar, B. Boldgiv, C. Dorzhu, S. Ellingvag, D. Erdenebaatar, R. Dajani, E. Dmitriev, V. Evdokimov, K. M. Frei, A. Gromov, A. Goryachev, H. Hakonarson, T. Hegay, Z. Khachatryan, R. Khaskhanov, E. Kitov, A. Kolbina, T. Kubatbek, A. Kukushkin, I. Kukushkin, N. Lau, A. Margaryan, I. Merkyte, I. V. Mertz, V. K. Mertz, E. Mijiddorj, V. Moiyesev, G. Mukhtarova, B. Nurmukhanbetov, Z. Orozbekova, I. Panyushkina, K. Pieta, V. Smrčka, I. Shevnina, A. Logvin, K.-G. Sjögren, T. Štolcová, A. M. Taravella, K. Tashbaeva, A. Tkachev, T. Tulegenov, D. Voyakin, L. Yepiskoposyan, S. Undrakhbold, V. Varfolomeev, A. Weber, M. A. Wilson Sayres, N. Kradin, M. E. Allentoft, L. Orlando, R. Nielsen, M. Sikora, E. Heyer, K. Kristiansen, E. Willerslev, Nature, 557(7705):369-374, 2018.

“Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East,” I. Lazaridis, D. Nadel, G. Rollefson, D. Merrett, N. Rohland, S. Mallick, D. M. Fernandes, M. Novak, B. Gamarra, K. Sirak S. Connell, K. Stewardson, E. Harney, Q. Fu, G. Gonzalez-Fortes, E. R. Jones, S. A. Roodenberg, G. Lengyel, F. Bocquentin, B. Gasparian, J. M. Monge, M. Gregg, V. Eshed, A.-S. Mizrahi, C. Meiklejohn, F. Gerritsen, L. Bejenaru, M. Blüher, A. Campbell, G. Cavalleri, D. Comas, P. Froguel, E. Gilbert, S. M. Kerr, P. Kovacs, J. Krause, D. McGettigan, M. Merrigan, D. A. Merriwether, S. O’Reilly, M. B. Richards, O. Semino, M. Shamoon-Pour, G. Stefanescu, M. Stumvoll, A. Tönjes, A. Torroni, J. F. Wilson, L. Yengo, N. A. Hovhannisyan, N. Patterson, R. Pinhasi, D. Reich, Nature, 536(7617):419-424, 2016.

Incidentally, the Bible refers to the (by then settled) Amorites living in Canaan as being tall. “Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.” Of course, that may merely be a poetic way to say that they were hard to kill. The Bible, The King James Version, Amos 2:9. See also: Deuteronomy 3:11.

For similar prices in near-contemporary Lancashire, Wiltshire, and Manchester, see: Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, Volume LVI, The Chetham Society, 1861, pages 399-400, footnote. The Parochial History of Bremhill, in the County of Wilts: Containing a Particular Account, from Authentic and Unpublished Documents, of the Cistercian Abbey of Stanley in that Parish; with Observations and Reflections on the Origin and Establishment of Parochial Clergy, and other Circumstances of General Parochial Interest, Including Illustrations of the Origin and Designation of the Stupendous Monuments of Antiquity in the Neighbourhood, Avebury, Silbury, and Wansdike, W. L. Bowles, John Murray, 1828, page 17. History, Directory, and Gazetteer, of the County Palatine of Lancaster: With a Variety of Commercial & Statistical Information in Two Volumes, Illustrated by Maps and Plans, Edward Baines and W. Parson, Wm. Wales & Co., 1824, page 24.

It’s often said, especially by European or North American writers, that Europeans sometimes tried to stop all slavery (or even succeeded). Really, though, all Europe tried to stop, and that ineffectively, was the lucrative sale of its Christian slaves to non-Christian foreigners. Slavery in medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171. Sales continued. For example, in 1475 Pope Martin V threatened all Christian slave traders with excommunication. He also ordered all Jewish slave traders to wear a special badge of infamy. But then, in various European nations, Christian export slavery, had been occasionally prohibited since at least 655, by the Church or by various rulers. Not that it mattered. For example, the same year, 655, that Bathild, regent of France, who had herself been a slave (some say, kidnapped from England), tried to ban Christian enslavement in France, the Church, which wanted to maintain full control of ecclesiastical appointments, decreed enslavement for any children produced by clerics. No longer would the bastard child of a priest succeed him to his post.

William the Bastard (the Conqueror), too, is often alleged to have banned slavery in Britain after the conquest in 1066, but what he actually did was the same that any other European ruler did—he banned export slavery of English slaves (maybe because he didn’t get a cut on those sales?). It’s also often reported that various religious leaders, Saint Wulfstan or Anslem of Canterbury or Archbishop Lanfranc or Saint Patrick, for example, ended slavery in England—or even Europe as a whole. Not so. There were occasional admonitions, for example, after the (first) invasion of Ireland by English barons in the 1160s, but at most they lead to a reduction in Christian export slavery. In short: in Europe, it was ok to have slaves, it was ok for them to be Christian, it was ok to export slaves, too. The European abolition effort in medieval times was primarily about the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands.

Finally, it’s often stated that even if Christianity itself accepted slavery that after the Protestant Reformation it died out in Europe because of the new Protestant zeal. It’s true that it mostly did die out after the Reformation, and it’s true that Puritans, in particular, who were themselves badly treated, were more against slavery than normal, but it’s also true that many still kept slaves. William Penn, for example, a Quaker, who also owned Pennsylvania, was both a slave holder and a slave trader. England didn’t make slavery on English soil illegal until 1796 (not 1772 as is often reported; the James Somerset case in 1772 prevented slave recapture in England, but the idea of slaves as property wasn’t overturned until 1796). Nor was English slavery particularly special within Europe. For example, thanks to their longships, the Vikings earlier took Norse, Saxon, Irish, Gallic, Italian, and Slav slaves from all over Europe and sold them to other Europeans, to the Muslims, and to each other. Also, from the eighth century on, North Africans—from Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, known at the time as the Barbary coast—took slaves in England and Ireland for centuries, as well as slaves all over the North Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, from Iceland to Palestine—including Miguel de Cervantes, who was enslaved off the Catalan coast on September 26th, 1575, 30 years before he wrote Don Quixote.

“Biocultural analysis of Sex Differences in Mortality Profiles and Stress Levels in the Late Medieval Population from Nova Raca, Croatia,” M. Slaus, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 111(2):193-209, 2000. “A Biomechanical Study of Activity Patterns in a Medieval Human Skeletal Assemblage,” S. Mays, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 9(1):68-73, 1999. “Dry Bones: a Paleopathological Study of Skeletal Remains from a Medieval Graveyard in Dundee,” R. N. Spalding, D. J. Sinclair, A. Cox, K. D. Morley, Scottish Medical Journal, 41(2):56-59, 1996. The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, William Chester Jordan, Princeton University Press, 1996, pages 13-14.

However, paleopathology and paleodemography are still very young fields, with many of their research agendas, tools, and methods still in flux. In particular, any studies that claim anything about disease prevalence, or overall mortality statistics for any non-provably stationary populations, needs to be approached with caution. “The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples,” J. W. Wood, G. R. Milner, H. C. Harpending, K. M Weiss, Current Anthropology, 33(4):343-370, 1992.

A single brass pot might cost over a pound (20 shillings)—anything that we needed fuel or special tools to make was expensive. “Manorial court roll inventories as evidence for English peasant consumption and living standards, c.1270-c.1420,” Chris Briggs, in: Pautes de Consum i Nivells de Vida al Món Rural Medieval, Antoni Furio, and Ferran Garcia-Oliver (editors), Publicacions de la Universitat de Valéncia, 2010. An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 26. Plantagenet England, 1225-1360, Michael Prestwich, Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 457-458.

Dyer estimates that, at least in England between 1280 and 1480, given the technology available at the time, a family needed 12-15 acres. In 1280, in the East Midlands, at least 42 percent of households didn’t have that much. In 1480, about a third still didn’t. An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 175. Prestwich details land holdings in Norfolk between 1220 and 1292. At Hinderclay in 1300 the average holding was seven acres. But some were as large as 30 acres while others were as small as two acres or less. Plantagenet England, 1225-1360, Michael Prestwich, Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 455-456.

Note that the practice of selling tenants along with land, or of selling families separate from land, wasn’t restricted to Europe in 1300. For example, the same thing was common in China at about the same time. The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973, pages 71-73.

Also, a very few of us were royal, and we always lived well. Although, in 1300, with our knowledge of disease being what it was, even princes of a royal family only lived on average around 30 years at birth. For example, here are life expectancies of princes in England in 1300: “The exact figures are: up to 1275, 35.28 years; 1276-1300, 31.30; 1301-1325, 29.84; 1326-1348, 30.22; 1348-1375, 17.33; 1376-1400, 20.53; 1401-1425, 23.78; 1426-1450, 32.76.” From: “The Generation in Medieval History,” D. Herlihy, Viator, 5:346-364, 1974, footnote 10.

His account points us in an important direction. Famine involves not only a net loss in the intake of food but also, granting the victims’ attempts to make up the difference, the intake of ‘strange diets.’ Evidence from current famines attests to the presence in these diets of disagreeable plants, bark, leather, cloth, dirt, diseased animals and others—like grubs and vermin—not ordinarily considered palatable, and, in extreme cases, human cadavers.[...]

The ‘proof’ offered in the chronicle sources that social life and its under-girding morality were in jeopardy from the pain and suffering engendered by the urban crisis is the arresting allegation of cannibalism: Livonia, 1315; England, 1316; Poland, 1317; Silesia, 1317. We have seen that there were a few of these allegations in rural areas, particularly those affected by the cataclysm of war, such as Ireland. However, most of the accusations come from towns. ‘Many indeed consumed the flesh of gallows corpses,’ says one report about the Oderraum, where bands of criminal beggars were probably threatening the new towns. One account tells us that in jails half-starved miscreants feasted on the flesh of other unfortunates. The chronicler who reports these events confessed that he found the narration of them an unhappy task. Exponents of rationalistic explanations would say that such accounts originated from the sight of men, desperate for food, fighting among themselves for the small portions given them by jailkeepers. It was no hard thing after watching a spectacle like this to imagine the worst.

Urban observers regularly couple murder with cannibalism. ‘It is said [the reference is to Baltic towns] that certain people... because of the excessive hunger devoured their very own children.’ ‘Mothers fed upon their sons’ in this region. ‘In many places [in the towns of the Oderraum] parents after slaying their children, and children their parents, devoured’ their remains. Writing long after, the Bermondsey annalist—who, as we shall see, recorded pauperes in England eating pets and pigeon droppings—shared the information that the destitute ate their children too. Such chilling descriptions were to be repeated endlessly.”

The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, William Chester Jordan, Princeton University Press, 1996, pages 115, 148-149. Jordan estimates 30 million for the affected European population, with three million dead in the first three years.

Livi-Bacci, though, estimates that Europe as a whole contained that many as far back as the year 1000. However, although Livi-Bacci estimates 74 million for all Europe, it is for 1340 not 1314, and may include parts of Europe not visited by the 1314 famine. A Concise History of World Population, Massimo Livi-Bacci, translated by Carl Ipsen, Third Revision, Blackwell, 1997.

If we take grain prices as a proxy for poor harvests, then regular famine appears to have been common all over the world and for all recorded time. However, such price evidence may be good only for Western Europe in the recent past, with waves of inflation occurring in the 1200s, 1500s, 1700s, and 1900s. The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press, 1999.

This isn’t a bad idea. About 2,400 years ago, those of us in Athens sent an armada to the island of Melos to slaughter all men of military age, enslave all women and children, and steal their island. Similarly, in the late 1800s, a few of us in Belgium caused the deaths of at least eight million of us in the Congo, and stole tons of ivory and rubber (literally). The only thing that changed in all that time is the scale.

Athens and Melos: History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner, Penguin Books, 1954, Book II, Chapter 34, 2.34-2.46 Thucydides made this affair famous, not for its scale or novelty or brutality, for it was none of those, but for its frankness. Ancient Siege Warfare, Paul Bentley Kern, Indiana University Press, 1999, pages 148-149.

Belgium and the Congo: King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Adam Hochschild, Mariner Books, 1999.

“Many believe that willow is the natural source of aspirin. However, willow species contain only a low quantity of the prodrug salicin which is metabolized during absorption into various salicylate derivatives. If calculated as salicylic acid, the daily salicin dose is insufficient to produce analgesia. Salicylic acid concentrations following an analgesic dose of aspirin are an order of magnitude higher. Flavonoids and polyphenols contribute to the potent willow bark analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect. The multi-component active principle of willow bark provides a broader mechanism of action than aspirin and is devoid of serious adverse events. In contrast to synthetic aspirin, willow bark does not damage the gastrointestinal mucosa. An extract dose with 240 mg salicin had no major impact on blood clotting. In patients with known aspirin allergy willow bark products are contraindicated.” From: “Willow species and aspirin: different mechanism of actions,” J. Vlachojannis, F. Magora, S. Chrubasik, Phytotherapy Research, 25(7):1102-1104, 2011.

Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, Diarmuid Jeffreys, Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2008.

Not only that, our path is something we discover only in hindsight. Machado said it best: “Caminante, no hay camino, / se hace camino al andar.” [“Wanderer, there is no road, / The road is made by walking.”] “Proverbios y cantares XXIX,” Campos de Castilla, Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, translated by Betty Jean Craige, Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

By 2019, employment in agriculture was (as a percentage of all employment globally) 26.857. International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database Data retrieved in March 1, 2020.

The Bible, The King James Version, Isaiah 40:6.

Even those of us who eat a lot of meat are still grass-eaters. In total, over half of all our nutrition comes directly from plants, and the rest is indirectly dependent on them. Plus, of the roughly 400,000 plant species on this planet, we mostly eat only about 30. They give us around 95 percent of all our plant nutrition. Of those 30, 20 grow on about three-quarters of all cultivated land worldwide. They give us roughly 90 percent of all our plant nutrition. Of those 20, eight are cereals. All of them belong to the same genetic family of grasses. Just one of those, rice, feeds almost half of all of us alive today. All flesh is indeed grass.

Note though that the figure of 400,000 is a guess. We still don’t know how many plant species there are. “Documenting plant diversity: unfinished business,” P. R. Crane, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 359(1444):735-737, 2004. For more recent work just on seed plants, see: “Mega-phylogeny approach for comparative biology: an alternative to supertree and supermatrix approaches,” S. A. Smith, J. Beaulieu, M. J. Donoghue, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 9:37, 2009. They quote a figure of 13,533 for seed plants.

Wheat, barley, rye, and oats belong to the subfamily Pooideae. Maize, sorghum, sugar cane, and most millets belong to the subfamily Panicoideae. Rice belongs to the subfamily Bambusoideae. All are members of the family Poaceae (that is, the true grasses).

We understand a great deal about photosynthesis from a reductionist point of view: that is, think of a plant like a machine, like a car. Now imagine it completely dismantled with all its parts lying on the floor. We’ve analyzed many of those parts separately, and many in great detail. But how exactly they go together we don’t exactly know. Plants aren’t only about photosynthesis—they’re about survival and reproduction. Their photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency is determined by the interaction between all the parts of the entire system, not by any particular part of the system. So simply giving the car more gas (more carbon dioxide, say), or replacing a spark plug (a gene for RuBisCO, say), won’t necessarily help. So when it comes to figuring out how to ladder up their overall photosythetic rate we’re still at the stage of just watching what they do in bulk. And that data is now very old (1926, 1942, 1954, and 1971 by Transeau, Lindeman, Odum and others). It took a long while for us to figure out the differences between C3, C4, and CAM vascular plants, and it took a long time to work out the detailed structure of RuBisCO and the separation of the Calvin cycle from the light reactions inside the thylakoids of the plant’s chloroplasts inside their plastids. Considering just how many millennia we’ve depended so abjectly on plants (not just for food, but also for oxygen), this ignorance for so long is amazing.

“Plant membrane transport, like transport across all eukaryotic membranes, is highly non-linear and leads to interactions with characteristics so complex that they defy intuitive understanding. The physiological behaviour of stomatal guard cells is a case in point in which, for example, mutations expected to influence stomatal closing have profound effects on stomatal opening and manipulating transport across the vacuolar membrane affects the plasma membrane. Quantitative mathematical modelling is an essential tool in these circumstances, both to integrate the knowledge of each transport process and to understand the consequences of their manipulation in vivo. Here, we outline the OnGuard modelling environment and its use as a guide to predicting the emergent properties arising from the interactions between non-linear transport processes. We summarise some of the recent insights arising from OnGuard, demonstrate its utility in interpreting stomatal behaviour, and suggest ways in which the OnGuard environment may facilitate ‘reverse-engineering’ of stomata to improve water use efficiency and carbon assimilation.” From: “Predicting the unexpected in stomatal gas exchange: not just an open-and-shut case,” M. Klejchová, A. Hills, M. R. Blatt, Biochemical Society Transactions, 48(3):881-889, 2020.

See also: “Control of transpiration by radiation,” R. Pieruschka, G. Huber, J. A. Berry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(30):13372-13377, 2010. Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology, F. Stuart Chapin III, Pamela A. Matson, and Peter Vitousek, Springer, Second Edition, 2011, Chapter 5, especially pages 134-147. Biology, Kenneth A. Mason, Jonathan B. Losos, Susan R. Singer, based on the work of Peter H. Raven and George B. Johnson, McGraw-Hill, Ninth Edition, 2011, chapters 38 and 39. Ecology: Principles and Applications, J. L. Chapman and M. J. Reiss, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 1999, pages 136-138. Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare, Paul Colinvaux, Princeton University Press, 1978, Chapter 4.

However, an expert on agronomy, Richard C. Fluck, believes that it’s probably not far wrong. (Personal communication.) His argument is that although technology has improved since the 1970s, largely thanks to precision farming, pressure for improvement has also been nearly flat since then as oil prices had remained relatively low for all that time. “Energy Use in the U.S. Food System: a summary of existing research and analysis,” J. Hendricksen, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1995. Energy in Farm Production, R. C. Fluck (editor), Elsevier, 1992.

“Members of the plant family Leguminosae (Fabaceae) are unique in that they have evolved a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia (a group of soil bacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen). Rhizobia infect and form root nodules on their specific host plants before differentiating into bacteroids, the symbiotic form of rhizobia. This complex relationship involves the supply of C₄-dicarboxylate and phosphate by the host plants to the microsymbionts that utilize them in the energy-intensive process of fixing atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, which is in turn made available to the host plants as a source of nitrogen, a macronutrient for growth. Although nitrogen-fixing bacteroids are no longer growing, they are metabolically active. The symbiotic process is complex and tightly regulated by both the host plants and the bacteroids. The metabolic pathways of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate are heavily regulated in the host plants, as they need to strike a fine balance between satisfying their own needs as well as those of the microsymbionts. A network of transporters for the various metabolites are responsible for the trafficking of these essential molecules between the two partners through the symbiosome membrane (plant-derived membrane surrounding the bacteroid), and these are in turn regulated by various transcription factors that control their expressions under different environmental conditions. Understanding this complex process of symbiotic nitrogen fixation is vital in promoting sustainable agriculture and enhancing soil fertility. [...]

The host plant provides the microsymbiont with dicarboxylates together with other nutrients, in exchange for fixed nitrogen in the form of ammonium and amino acids. Nitrogen-fixing legumes contribute to nitrogen enrichment of the soil and therefore are valuable in improving soil fertility. The legume-rhizobium association has an important impact on sustainable agriculture since it provides more than 65% of the biologically fixed nitrogen in agricultural systems.” From: “Interaction and Regulation of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus Metabolisms in Root Nodules of Legumes,” A. Liu, C. A. Contador, K. Fan, H.-M. Lam, Frontiers in Plant Science, 9:1860, 2018.

“Reconstructing the evolutionary history of nitrogenases: Evidence for ancestral molybdenum-cofactor utilization,” A. K. Garcia, H. McShea, B. Kolaczkowski, B. Kaçar, Geobiology, 18(3):394-411, 2020. “Geobiological feedbacks, oxygen, and the evolution of nitrogenase,” F. Mus, D. R. Colman, J. W. Peters, E. S. Boyd, Free Radical Biology & Medicine, 140:250-259, 2019. “Holy alliances?” B. Osborne, New Phytologist, 175(4):602-605, 2007. “Host sanctions and the legume-rhizobium mutualism,” E. T. Kiers, R. A. Rousseau, S. A. West, R. F. Denison, Nature, 425(6953):78-81, 2003.

Rhizobia symbiosis may have arisen during a period where there was a lot of CO₂ in the atmosphere (about 60 million years ago). But why it didn’t take over is unknown. “Evolving ideas of legume evolution and diversity: a taxonomic perspective on the occurrence of nodulation,” New Phytologist, J. I. Sprent, 174(1):11-25, 2007.

We now know that legumes have a gene that triggers the formation of nodules, which then encourage nitrogen-fixing bacteria to come live there. That gene can be transplanted to another legume and it too will become nitrogen-fixing. “Nodulation independent of rhizobia induced by a calcium-activated kinase lacking autoinhibition,” C. Gleason, S. Chaudhuri, T. Yang, A. Muñoz, B. W. Poovaiah, G. E. D. Oldroyd, Nature, 441(7097):1149-1152, 2006.

This was done by redesigning the genes themselves, and building their interactions directly using a programming language (called Cello), not merely by cutting&pasting genes from one organism to another by hand, as is customary in genetic engineering: “Genetic circuits have many applications, from guiding living therapeutics to ordering process in a bioreactor, but to be useful they have to be genetically stable and not hinder the host. Encoding circuits in the genome reduces burden, but this decreases performance and can interfere with native transcription. We have designed genomic landing pads in Escherichia coli at high-expression sites, flanked by ultrastrong double terminators. DNA payloads >8 kb are targeted to the landing pads using phage integrases. One landing pad is dedicated to carrying a sensor array, and two are used to carry genetic circuits. NOT/NOR gates based on repressors are optimized for the genome and characterized in the landing pads. These data are used, in conjunction with design automation software (Cello 2.0), to design circuits that perform quantitatively as predicted. These circuits require fourfold less RNA polymerase than when carried on a plasmid and are stable for weeks in a recA+ strain without selection. This approach enables the design of synthetic regulatory networks to guide cells in environments or for applications where plasmid use is infeasible.” From: “Precision design of stable genetic circuits carried in highly-insulated E. coli genomic landing pads,” Y. Park, Y. E. Borujeni, T. E. Gorochowski, J. Shin, C. A. Voigt, Molecular Systems Biology, 16(8):e9584, 2020.

We don’t drop dead (usually) when we drink coffee and eat some potato chips because all plant-eaters have evolved ways to detect harmful plants and avoid them, or have evolved ways to detoxify a few plant poisons. In our case, we’ve selectively amplified only those few plant cultivars and those ways of preparing food from them that haven’t immediately killed us in the past. For example, cassava (a starchy tuber like the potato and the chief thing in tapioca) feeds over 400 million of us in the tropics, but it also contains cyanide. We’ve learned, presumably by long trial and error, how to boil it to reduce the poison to trace amounts. Rhubarb leaves, apple seeds, almonds, lima beans, potato skins, avocado skins, cherry pits—even too much nutmeg in your eggnog—all can kill. Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology: Principles, Robert Krieger, Academic Press, Second Edition, 2001, page 811. “What Do Animal Cancer Tests Tell Us About Human Cancer Risk? Overview of Analyses of the Carcinogenic Potency Database,” L. Swirsky Gold, T. H. Slone, B. N. Ames, Drug Metabolism Reviews, 30(2):359-404, 1998. “Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities,” L. Swirsky Gold, T. H. Slone, B. R. Stern, N. B. Manley, B. N. Ames, Science, 258(5080):261-265, 1992. “α-Chaconine and α-solanine content of potato products and their stability during several modes of cooking,” R. J. Bushway, R. Ponnampalam, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 29(4):814-817, 1981.

In 2005, of that land area, about 87 percent was in the United States. Argentina, Canada, and China made up most of the rest.

By 2010, about 10 percent of the world’s croplands were under cultivation. By 2011, smart seeds covered 160 million hectares, with 69 million hectares (170.503 million acres) in the United States alone. Brazil (30.3 million hectares) and Argentina (23.7 million hectares) followed. With over 170 million acres under cultivation in the United States alone, the world acreage covered by smart seeds grew to one acre in every ten. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011, Clive James, ISAAA Brief No. 43, ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications), 2011. “Transgenic Crops,” J. Schahczenski, K. Adam, in: Biotechnology: Perspectives & Prospects, C. P. Malik, Chitra Wadhwani, and Bhavneet Kaur (editors), MD Publications, 2008.

See also: ATTRA Publication Number IP189, National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, 2006. National Agricultural Statistics Service, Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture, 2005.

“Agriculture is the principal user of all water resources taken together, i.e. rainfall (so-called green water) and water in rivers, lakes and aquifers (so-called blue water). It accounts for about 70 percent of all withdrawals worldwide, with domestic use amounting to about 10 percent and industry using some 21 percent.” Unlocking the Water Potential of Agriculture, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003, page 7.

In its separate ‘Key Facts’ summary factsheet, it states the following: “To produce 1 kg of wheat, 1 m³ of water is needed. It takes at least 1.2 m³ of water to produce 1 kg of rice.” The text’s figures uses the usual conversion factors: 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds and 1 cubic meter is 264 gallons. So 1 pound needs 120 gallons.

However, the global range is very wide. For more recent figures on global evapotranspiration, see: “Review of measured crop water productivity values for irrigated wheat, rice, cotton and maize,” S. J. Zwart, W. G. M. Bastiaanssen, Agricultural Water Management, 69(2):115-133, 2004.

For the figures on evaporation loss for farm irrigation, see: Challenges to International Waters; Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective, United Nations Environment Programme, 2006.

For some estimates of other food animals, see: “World population, food, natural resources, and survival,” D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, World Futures, 59(3&4):145-167, 2003.

Here’s the story on cod off the Canadian Atlantic coast: “Overfishing of large-bodied benthic fishes and their subsequent population collapses on the Scotian Shelf of Canada’s east coast and elsewhere resulted in restructuring of entire food webs now dominated by planktivorous, forage fish species and macroinvertebrates. Despite the imposition of strict management measures in force since the early 1990s, the Scotian Shelf ecosystem has not reverted back to its former structure. Here we provide evidence of the transient nature of this ecosystem and its current return path towards benthic fish species domination. The prolonged duration of the altered food web, and its current recovery, was and is being governed by the oscillatory, runaway consumption dynamics of the forage fish complex. These erupting forage species, which reached biomass levels 900% greater than those prevalent during the pre-collapse years of large benthic predators, are now in decline, having outstripped their zooplankton food supply. This dampening, and the associated reduction in the intensity of predation, was accompanied by lagged increases in species abundances at both lower and higher trophic levels, first witnessed in zooplankton and then in large-bodied predators, all consistent with a return towards the earlier ecosystem structure. We conclude that the reversibility of perturbed ecosystems can occur and that this bodes well for other collapsed fisheries.” From: “Transient dynamics of an altered large marine ecosystem,” K. T. Frank, B. Petrie, J. A. Fisher, W. C. Leggett, Nature, 477(7362):86-89, 2011.

Estimates are that industrial fisheries typically reduce community biomass by 80 percent within 15 years. “Rebuilding Global Fisheries,” B. Worm, R. Hilborn, J. K. Baum, T. A. Branch, J. S. Collie, C. Costello, M. J. Fogarty, E. A. Fulton, J. A. Hutchings, S. Jennings, O. P. Jensen, H. K. Lotze, P. M. Mace, T. R. McClanahan, C. Minto, S. R. Palumbi, A. M. Parma, D. Ricard, A. A. Rosenberg, R. Watson, D. Zeller, Science, 325(5940):578-585, 2009.

“Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities,” R. A. Myers, B. Worm, Nature, 423(6937):280-283, 2003.

The core problem is that we don’t even know how many species are on earth now, far less how many are being lost per day. At a talk given in Cape Town in 2001, Leakey upped his estimate to “between 50,000 and 100,000 plant, insect, and animal species a year” but gave no evidence to support his claim. By some environmentalist guesstimates, about 24 percent of mammal species, 11 percent of bird species, and 3 percent of fish species are thought to be threatened. World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, World Resources Institute, 2000, pages 246-248. E. O. Wilson estimates that there are between 10 million and 100 million species on the planet. The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson, W. W. Norton, Reissue Edition, 1999.

The most recent comprehensive work estimates that we’re losing an unknown but perhaps large number of species. “Quantifying Uncertainty in Estimation of Tropical Arthropod Species Richness,” A. J. Hamilton, Y. Basset, K. K. Benke, P. S. Grimbacher, S. E. Miller, V. Novotný, A. Samuelson, N. E. Stork, G. D. Weiblen, J. D. L. Yen, The American Naturalist, 176(1):90-95, 2010. “Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines,” S. H. Butchart, M. Walpole, B. Collen, A. van Strien, J. P. Scharlemann, R. E. Almond, J. E. Baillie, B. Bomhard, C. Brown, J. Bruno, K. E. Carpenter, G. M. Carr, J. Chanson, A. M. Chenery, J. Csirke, N. C. Davidson, F. Dentener, M. Foster, A. Galli, J. N. Galloway, P. Genovesi, R. D. Gregory, M. Hockings, V. Kapos, J. F. Lamarque, F. Leverington, J. Loh, M. A. McGeoch, L. McRae, A. Minasyan, M. H. Morcillo, T. E. Oldfield, D. Pauly, S. Quader, C. Revenga, J. R. Sauer, B. Skolnik, D. Spear, D. Stanwell-Smith, S. N. Stuart, A. Symes, M. Tierney, T. D. Tyrrell, J. C. Vié, R. Watson, Science, 328(5982):1164-1168, 2010.

But groups collapse from many reasons, not just loss of soil fertility; there’s also soil erosion from over-reliance on annual plants, increased soil salinity, water mismanagement, and prolonged droughts. Megadrought and Collapse: From Early Agriculture to Angkor, Harvey Weiss (editor), Oxford University Press, 2017.

“To many historians, scientists, and agricultural experts, the term ‘Green Revolution’ refers to the controversial array of programs and policies that introduced high-yield seeds, intensive irrigation techniques, herbicides, pesticides, mechanization, and petrochemical fertilizers to parts of the developing world during the 1960s and 1970s. Among the most profound consequences of this recent agricultural transformation was a vast increase in the amount of nitrogen available to farmers in Asia and Latin America. Through the application of imported synthetic fertilizers, these cultivators achieved increased yields of staple crops such as corn, rice, and wheat.

Numerous scholars have portrayed this twentieth-century intervention in world food production as the first human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle during the modern era. Such a depiction is misleading. It obscures an earlier Green Revolution, beginning in the nineteenth century, during which companies and labor contractors transported millions of metric tons of nitrogen fertilizer and more than 100,000 workers across the globe, producing significant shifts in environments and labor conditions throughout the world. A comprehensive understanding of this First Green Revolution fuses two emerging research areas—global environmental history and transnational labor history. An investigation of the relationship between new forms of servitude that emerged in the Age of Abolition and the concurrent development of a worldwide fertilizer trade reveals that the changing nature of work is inextricably intertwined with the work of changing nature.

Between the 1840s and the 1930s, Peru and Chile exported hundreds of millions of tons of nitrogen-rich guano (dried bird excrement) and sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) to places as far-flung as California, Virginia, Prussia, Great Britain, and France. For farmers in North America and Europe, guano and sodium nitrate dramatically increased agricultural productivity during the final phase of the Industrial Revolution, which lasted from roughly the mid-1800s through World War I. The widespread availability of imported fertilizers also facilitated a departure from organic ‘closed systems’ of farming, in which nitrogen is cycled among soil, plants, animals, and people at the local scale, toward ‘open,’ energy-intensive approaches to agriculture that included additions of nitrogen from distant places.”

“The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840-1930,” E. D. Melillo, American Historical Review, 114(4):1028-60, 2012.

Interestingly, in 2010 it seemed that in one rare bacterial strain (GFAJ-1), one of the top six elements (phosphorous) could be replaced by arsenic, but this turned out not to be true. Instead, what was happening was that the cell’s own ribosomes were breaking down in the presence of arsenic and the phosphates from that were being recycled. “Growth of a bacterium that apparently uses arsenic instead of phosphorus is a consequence of massive ribosome breakdown,” G. N. Basturea, T. K. Harris, M. P. Deutscher, The Journal of biological chemistry, 287(34):28816-28819, 2012. Bacteria discriminate between nearly identical molecules of phosphate (PO₄^3-) and arsenate (AsO₄^3-).

“After decades of steady decline, the trend in world hunger — as measured by the prevalence of undernourishment — reverted in 2015, remaining virtually unchanged in the past three years at a level slightly below 11 percent. Meanwhile, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased. As a result, more than 820 million people in the world are still hungry today [...]. [...] even in high-income countries, sizeable portions of the population lack regular access to nutritious and sufficient food; 8 percent of the population in Northern America and Europe is estimated to be food insecure, mainly at moderate levels.” The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2019, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2019, page 3, see also Figure 1 (page 6). In 2012-2014, about 805 million were malnourished; that’s about 11.3 percent of the global population (or about one in nine of us). The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2014, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014, page 8. In 2010-2012, almost 870 million were malnourished. The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2012, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2012, page 8. In 2006, about 923 million were malnourished (around 14 percent, or about one in seven of us). The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2008, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2008, page 2. The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2004, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2004, page 4.

Even without the new sources of power great improvements are probable here. Microbes, which at present convert the nitrogen of the air into the proteins by which animals live, will be fostered and made to work under controlled conditions, just as yeast is now. New strains of microbes will be developed and made to do a great deal of our chemistry for us. With a greater knowledge of what are called hormones, i.e. the chemical messengers in our blood, it will be possible to control growth. We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium. Synthetic food will, of course, also be used in the future. Nor need the pleasures of the table be banished. That gloomy Utopia of tabloid meals need never be invaded. The new foods will from the outset be practically indistinguishable from the natural products, and any changes will be so gradual as to escape observation.”

“Fifty Years Hence,” in Amid These Storms: Thoughts and Adventures, Winston S. Churchill, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932, pages 269-280.

Were food machines to come to exist, many of us needn’t even notice them. We might continue to buy our food in grocery stores and markets, except that they might get some of their food from factories rather than farms. That’s already happened with Quorn, a fake meat made from vats of fungus that’s been selling since 1985. Today a few of us are planning to do the same with vat-grown pork from pig stem cells. But we don’t yet know how to do it cheaply, so were such meat-sheets to go on sale today they would cost over $1,000 U.S. a pound. One day, though, that price might drop to $1 U.S. a pound. If so, such meat-makers might then hop from factories to stores. Limited use in rich homes might then be just a question of time. The word ‘homemade’ might then gain a whole new meaning. However, a meat product that might one day cost $1 a pound, but that today costs $1,000 a pound, has little chance to come to exist any time soon given that in our rich countries today beef can cost less than $3 a pound.

Quorn has been on sale since 1985, primarily to the (very small) vegetarian market. It’s made from the fungus Fusarium venenatum. As of 2006, it was only sold in Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland. In 2007, the average price of beef in the United States, averaged over all cuts, was $2.75 a pound. FreshLook Marketing data, for the 52 weeks ending in December, 2007. “Long-term culture of muscle explants from Sparus aurata,” B. Funkenstein, V. Balas, T. Skopal, G. Radaelli, A. Rowlerson, Tissue and Cell, 38(6):399-415, 2006. “In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production,” P. D. Edelman, D. C. McFarland, V. A. Mironov, J. G. Matheny, Tissue Engineering, 11(5/6):659-662, 2005. “In vitro Edible Muscle Protein Production System (MPPS): Stage 1, Fish,” M. A. Benjaminson, J. A. Gilchriest, M. Lorenz, Acta Astronautica, 51(12):879-889, 2002. “Industrial Scale Production of Meat from in vitro Cell Cultures,” W. F. Van Eelen, W. J. Van Kooten, W. Westerhof, Patent Number WO9931222, European Patent Office, 1999.

Andrew Natsios, the head of the US agency for international development (USAid), rejected the accusations and said that it was bound by Congress to offer food and not money.

“There is no way that any responsible country can deal with this drought with cash for work,” he said. “The food deficit in southern Africa is so big that there’s no way people can buy it on the local market. It has to come from outside.

“We offered non-GM foods but they all declined to accept it. We would have preferred to send non-GM wheat, or rice but they only wanted maize. We tried to source non-GM maize but the industry said they could not guarantee that it was GM-free.”

Mr Natsios denied that the US was profiting from the crisis. “They [the critics] may know about the environment, but they don’t know about famine relief,” he said. “Starving people do not plant seeds. They eat them. These groups are putting millions of lives at risk in a despicable way.”

But he was not supported by the latest UN figures on food availability in the region, which showed that 1,160,000 tonnes of cereals are available in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. More than double that amount is available on the world market, according to the UN’s global information and early warning system.

“This shows that the alternative to rejecting GM food aid is not starvation,” Alice Wynne Wilson, of Actionaid, said. “Good practice in emergency aid is to provide cash support to the UN’s World Food Programme, so that it can buy grain from the most cost-effective sources.

“Bringing large volumes of food into a region that has areas of surplus can lead to a situation where there are food shortages in one part of a country, and locally produced food rotting in other parts.”

“US ‘dumping unsold GM food on Africa’ ”, The Guardian, October 7th, 2002.

[...] America’s cotton farmers receive:

•more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso — a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.

•three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.”

Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing Paper #30, Oxfam, 2002, page 2.

As usual, the situation is more complicated than the simple version given in the text. Several poor nations, particularly in Africa, also gain economically because several rich nations, particularly in the European Union, in effect suppress food prices on the world market by subsidizing their own domestic production. “Liberalizing Agriculture,” A. Panagariya, Foreign Affairs, 84(7):56-66, 2005. (Much more on this in Chapter 5....)

Previously, in 1805, Oliver Evans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had designed the first known refrigerator, but never built it. Then, in 1834, Jacob Perkins in England had applied for a patent for a similar device. In 1846, after Gorrie, Ferdinand P. E. Carre in France produced another cooling device. In 1850, James Harrison in Scotland built one, then moved to England and built successive models in 1856 and 1857, which were used to make parrafin wax and ice. In 1856, Alexander C. Twinning in America tried another design. In 1874, Raoul Pictet in Geneva, Switzerland, produced one and it was used to make ice for a skating rink, but was otherwise not commercially successful. Finally, in 1876, Carl von Linde produced the first reliable and efficient refrigerator. It was used to let German brewers brew beer all year round. None of those inventors were first thinking of food preservation. Further, all that development ignores all the earlier chemists, physicists, amateur scientists, and inventors, like Joseph Priestly, William Cullen, Michael Faraday, Louis Paul Cailletet, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, Sadi Carnot, and Lord Kelvin, who first separated various gases, and made the earliest observations about evaporation and thermodynamics. It also ignores the century-long story of ice harvesting, which would require a book by itself. (And one has already been written, The Frozen Water Trade: How Ice from New England Lakes Kept the World Cool, Gavin Weightman, HarperCollins, 2001.)

Few of our present-day artifacts came about simply. Most of their problems were solved piecemeal and over long periods by many hands, mostly working independently.

Various chemists, faced with mountains of now nearly worthless calcium carbine in both Europe and the United States, then tried various things. In 1903, two German chemists in Hamburg, Nikodem Caro and Adolph Frank having tried from 1895 on, ran nitrogen over hot calcium carbide, accidentally producing calcium cyanamide, the world’s first artificial fertilizer. They did that not to produce fertilizer but to produce cyanides to help extract gold from its ores (which is sodium cyanide’s chief use today). They formed a company to do precisely that: the Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt (German Gold and Silver Refinery, formerly Roessler), now called Degussa, AG. Another chemist, Fritz Rothe, soon joined them (he had developed much the same process at about the same time at Beringer Söhne in Charlottenburg, but his patent wasn’t completed by his employer, so he resigned and joined Caro and Frank’s firm instead). Together, the three determined that what they had created wasn’t the calcium cyanide they had thought, on the way to making the sodium cyanide they sought, but calcium cyanamide, which process they patented in 1898. A factory was then built in Frankfurt and its sodium cyanide output was used for gold extraction. But later, after the price of cyanide fell sharply (following a drop in mining after the Boer war), they switched to producing calcium cyanamide in bulk for farmers. Other factories followed, including a large one in Piano d’Orta, Abruzzo, east of Rome, in 1904. It was sited in Italy for hydroelectric power because the high heat in the electric furnace took a lot of energy. Two more plants followed, one in 1907 in Knapsack near Cologne, and another in 1908 near Trostberg in Bavaria.

Nitrogen Capture: The Growth of an International Industry (1900-1940), Anthony S. Travis, Springer, 2018, chapter 5, especially pages 69-75. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2001, pages 51-52. Connections, James Burke, Macmillan, 1978, pages 209-210. The Chemical Industry: 1900-1930, International Growth and Technological Change, Ludwig F. Haber, Clarendon Press, 1971. The Chemical Industry During the Nineteenth Century. A Study of the Economic Aspect of Applied Chemistry in Europe and North America, Ludwig F. Haber, Clarendon Press, 1958.

The Haber-Bosch process has its own involved backstory because fixing nitrogen and hydrogen to make ammonia also wasn’t easy, nor did it happen simply. By 1898, future food supplies were huge fears in Britain, Germany, the United States, and every other rapidly industrializing nation. Haber and Bosch’s 1909 process, started with a letter Haber sent BASF (Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik, originally a dye manufacturing company since Germany had grown powerful that way) and yielded an abundant supply of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer (but at the cost of a lot of energy). And in 1918 Haber got the Nobel prize for it. Then, because it was so important, in 1931, Bosch got the Nobel for it, too (technically, he got it for commercializing the process since a lot of technology had to be invented to deal with such high pressures and temperatures). (And in 2007, Gerhard Ertl got the prize for discovering why the Haber-Bosch surface catalytic process worked.)

The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, Thomas Hager, Three Rivers Press, 2008, pages 3-11, and chapter 6 pages 65-76. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2001. Catalytic Ammonia Synthesis: Fundamentals and Practice, J. R. Jennings (editor), Springer, 1991.

Degussa, AG, went on to be an integral part of Germany’s chemical industry during the first world war, and on into the second world war. Fritz Haber is implicated in both the production and deployment of the first poison gas (chlorine) used at Ypres in 1915 during the first war (not the only such gas used by either side, just the first), after which his wife, Clara, also a chemist, committed suicide. He’s also implicated, indirectly, via his company, under Bruno Tesch, and his aide, Karl Weinbacher, as well as Gerhard Peters, in the production of Zyklon-B, the pesticide used by the Nazis to gas over a million people. Degussa was not the only such firm. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, Daniel Immerwahr, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019, chapter 3. The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, Thomas Hager, Three Rivers Press, 2008. From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich, Peter Hayes, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pages 273-274, 284-285, 297.

He said that: “It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.” By 1909, chemists started doing just that. They found a way to make ‘chemical manure’ out of thin air. However, it was the war that brought that process online. But not for food—for weapons; because if we can make manure, we can also make explosives, and we care far more about that. War has a way of focusing our attention.

In his speech, William Crookes stated that: “My chief subject is of interest to the whole world—to every race—to every human being. It is of urgent importance to-day, and it is a life and death question for generations to come. I mean the question of food supply. Many of my statements you may think are of the alarmist order; certainly they are depressing, but they are founded on stubborn facts. They show that England and all civilised nations stand in deadly peril of not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply, food resources dwindle. Land is a limited quantity, and the land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on difficult and capricious natural phenomena. I am constrained to show that our wheat-producing soil is totally unequal to the strain put upon it. After wearying you with a survey of the universal dearth to be expected, I hope to point a way out of the colossal dilemma. It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.” The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898, Revised, With an Answer to Various Critics, With Chapters on the Future Wheat Supply of the United States, By Mr. C. Wood Davis, or Peotone, Kansas, and the Hon. John Hyde, Chief Statistician in the Department of Agriculture, Washington, William Crookes, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, pages 6-7.

But the edition that really caused a stir was the one that came out during World War I, when food blockade of Britain was a serious worry, and it was to be used the next year as a weapon (against Germany). The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898, Revised, With an Answer to Various Critics, With Preface and Additional Chapter Bringing the Statistical Information up to date, and a Chapter on Future Wheat Supplies by Sir R. Henry Rew With an Introduction by Lord Rhondda, William Crookes, Longmans, Green, and Co., Third Edition, 1917. See also: William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science, William H. Brock, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, Chapter 20. “The Social and Political Consequences of the Allied Food Blockade of Germany, 1918-19,” N. P. Howard, German History, 11(2):161-88, 1993. The Wheat Problem, by William Crookes, Review by C. F. Emerick, Political Science Quarterly, 15(2):343-344, 1900. “America and the Wheat Problem,” J. Hyde, The North American Review, 168(507):191-205, 1899.

It all started with this statement:

“Now we are working on the descriptive phase of molecular biology, but the real challenge will start when we enter the synthetic phase.

We will then devise new control elements. And add these new modules to the existing genome, or build up wholly new genomes.”

From: “In-vivo and In-vitro Initiation of Transcription,” W. Szybalski, in Control of Gene Expression, Alexander Kohn and Adam Shatkay (editors), Proceedings of the 18th ‘Oholo’ Biological Conference on Strategies for the Control of Gene Expression, Zikhron Ya’aqov, Israel, 1973, Plenum Press, 1974, pages 23-24,

“By the middle of 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) had surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion) and since then the world has become more urban than rural. However, major disparities in the level of urbanization remain among development groups. Thus, whereas the proportion urban in the more developed regions was already nearly 53 per cent in 1950, it will still take another decade for half of the population of the less developed regions to live in urban areas.

The world urban population is expected to increase by 84 per cent by 2050, from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion in 2050. By mid-century the world urban population will likely be the same size as the world’s total population was in 2004. Virtually all of the expected growth in the world population will be concentrated in the urban areas of the less developed regions, whose population is projected to increase from 2.5 billion in 2009 to 5.2 billion in 2050. Over the same period, the rural population of the less developed regions is expected to decline from 3.4 billion to 2.9 billion. In the more developed regions, the urban population is projected to increase modestly, from 0.9 billion in 2009 to 1.1 billion in 2050.”

World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2010, pages 2-4.

The text’s description of the French diet circa 1705 is actually from 1777, but it had remained mostly constant for centuries. “Our Frenchmen eat soup with a little butter and vegetables. They scarcely ever eat meat. They sometimes drink a little cider but more commonly water. Your Englishmen eat meat, and a great deal of it, and they drink beer continually in such a fashion that an Englishman spends three times more than a Frenchman [on comestibles].” Delaunay Deslandes, 1777. See: “Continental influences on the industrial revolution in Great Britain,” A. E. Musson, in: Great Britain and Her World, 1750-1914: Essays in Honour of W. O. Henderson, Barrie M. Ratcliffe (editor), Manchester University Press, 1977, page 67, footnote 42.

[In May, 1774] Watt had now been occupied for about nine years in working out the details of his invention. Five of these had passed since he had taken out his patent, and he was still struggling with difficulty. Several thousand pounds had been expended on the engine, besides much study, labour, and ingenuity; yet it was still, as Boulton expressed it, ‘a shadow, as regarded its practical utility and value.’ So long as Watt’s connexion with Roebuck continued, there was indeed very little chance of getting it introduced to public notice. What it was yet to become as a working power, depended in no small degree upon the business ability, the strength of purpose, and the length of purse, of his new partner.”

Lives of Boulton and Watt: Principally from the Original Soho Mss., Comprising also: A History of the Invention and Introduction of the Steam-Engine, Samuel Smiles, John Murray, 1865, pages 196-199.

Watt’s patent for “[A] new Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines,” was granted on January 5th, 1769, but Watt only enrolled its description at the High Court of Chancery on April 29th, 1769. It was patent number 913.

Watt first worked with John Roebuck in Scotland, then Matthew Boulton in England.

At the time, Adam Smith was working on what would become his Wealth of Nations. On June 27th, 1772, David Hume wrote to Smith: “We are here in a very melancholy Situation: Continual Bankruptcies, universal Loss of Credit, and endless Suspicions. There are but two standing Houses in this Place, Mansfield’s & the Couttses: For I comprehend not Cummin, whose dealins are always very narrow. Mansfield has pay’d away 40,000 pounds in a few days; but it is apprehended, that neither he nor any of them can hold out till the End of next Week, if no Alteration happen. The Case is little better in London. It is thought, that Sir George Colebroke must soon stop; and even the Bank of England is not entirely free from Suspicion. Those of Newcastle, Norwich, and Bristol are said to be stopp’d: The Thistle Bank has been reported to be in the same Condition: The Carron Company is reeling, which is one of the greatest Calamities of the whole; as they gave Employment to near 10,000 people. Do these Events any-wise affect your Theory? Or will it occasion the Revisal of any Chapters?” The Letters of David Hume, Volume II, 1766-1776, J. Y. T. Greig (editor), Oxford University Press, 1932, page 263.

See also: “Upon Daedalian wings of paper money: Adam Smith and the crisis of 1772,” H. Rockoff, Working Paper 15594, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 2009. Bank of Scotland: A History, 1695-1995, Richard Saville, Edinburgh University Press, 1996, page 162. “Crises of 1763 and 1772-1773,” E. S. Schubert, in: Business Cycles and Depressions, an Encyclopedia, David Glaser (editor), Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997. Scottish Banking: A History, 1695-1973, S. G. Checkland, Collins, 1975, page 237. “Scotland’s Balance of Payments Problem in 1762,” H. Hamilton, The Economic History Review, New Series, 5(3):344-357, 1953.

A book from 1840 sums it up this way: “That the history of invention of mechanism, and the description of its structure, operation, and uses, should be capable of being rendered the subject matter of a volume, destined not alone for the instruction of engineers or machinists, but for the information and amusement of the public in general, is a statement which at no very remote period would have been deemed extravagant and incredible.

Advanced as we are in the art of rendering knowledge popular, and cultivated as the public taste is in the appreciation of the expedients by which science ministers to the uses of life, there is still perhaps but one machine which such a proposition can be truly appreciated: it is needless to say that that machine is the STEAM ENGINE.” The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated: With an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement, and Its Application to Navigation and Railways; Including Also a Memoir of Watt, Dionysius Lardner, Taylor and Walton, 1840, pages 3-4.

The author goes on to expound at length, and start into what would become the hagiography of Watt, who was by then dead, but mainly though, in hindsight it seems clear that the reason for all the excitment was not how the steam engine worked, or what physical principles it depended on to work, but what the steam engine did—namely, by that point, mass audiences cared about it because it affected masses of people in factories and on railways and elsewhere. The same was true (and is still true) of computers from the 1980s and beyond. Interest in them will wane for the same reason that interest waned in steam engines.

Сыны Алтая и Отечества. Ч.2: Механикус Иван Ползунов: Жизнь и творчество выдающегося теплоэнергетика XVIII в., Н. Я. Савельев. Алтайское книжное издательство, 1988. [transliterated: Syny Altaya i Otechestva. Part 2: Mekhanikus Ivan Polzunov: Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo vydayushchegosya teploenergetika XVIII veka, N. YA. Savel’yev. Altayskoye knizhnoye izdatel’stvo, 1988.] [The Sons of the Altai and Motherland: Part II: Mechanicus Ivan Polzunov: The Life and Creative Work of an Outstanding Thermal Power Engineering Specialist of the 18th Century, N. Ya. Savelyev, The Altai Publishing House, Reprint Edition, 1988.]

For English references, see: The History of the Machine, Sigvard Strandh, translated by Ann Henning, Dorset Press, 1989, pages 118-120. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, A. M. Prokhorov (editor), Macmillan, 1973-1983. The Origins of Feedback Control, Otto Mayr, The MIT Press, 1970, pages 77-78. “The History of Technology in Soviet Russia and Marxist Doctrine,” D. Joravsky, Technology and Culture, 2(1):5-10, 1961.

Also, in the 1740s, a generation before Watt and Polzunov, something similar happened to Joseph Karl Hell (Jozef Karol Hell, or Höll, 1713-1789) compared to John Smeaton. Hell, in Slovakia, was mostly alone and industrial infrastructure was lacking there, while Smeaton, in England, laid foundations that Watt was to later build on. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology, Arnold Pacey, The MIT Press, Second Edition, 1992, pages 152-156.

Not that miners in Scotland were all that better off. For example, the first colliery in Scotland that the Newcomen steam engine was sold to in 1720 was in Elphinstone (in Stirlingshire). A ‘colliery’ is a coal mine where mining is done by ‘colliers’ (coal miners) who, from 1606 until 1800, were serfs bound not to land but to coal mines. While a laird couldn’t be as brutal to a collier as a lord could be to a serf in Russia, a bound collier was a piece of property. He or she couldn’t be sold individually, but in valuing the mine, he and his family were ranked with any other article attached to the mine. Colliers could move, but once bound to a pit, they couldn’t move, and if they tried, they could be brought back and punished. Colliers were expressly excluded from the Habeas Corpus Act of 1701. Collier status was so low that other workers would refuse to marry a collier’s daughter, and a criminal might sometimes be condemned to life as a collier. These bonds were loosened only in 1775, and removed entirely only in 1800, and only because that was the only way that mine owners could entice others to come work the mines to meet rising demand for coal. And women and young children were barred from being colliers, whether in Scotland or Wales or England, only after 1842. The Coal Industry of the Eighteenth Century, T. S. Ashton and J. Sykes, Manchester University Press, 1929, Chapter 5.

The Bible, The King James Version, Matthew 13:3-8.

Watt and Black were connected in several ways. Watt was an employee at Glasgow university while Black was a professor there. Black funded Watt’s first venture (and was later bought out by Roebuck). Black helped Watt with experiments. And Black explained latent heat to Watt when Watt stumbled upon one of its aspects in his own experiments while trying to improve a model of Newcomen’s machine as part of his job for the university.

In 1769, when Watt was 33, before he built a functioning machine and two years before he even got his first patent, and when Black was still alive, he had this to say, in some notes titled ‘A Plain Story’:

“A boiler was constructed which showed, by inspection, the quantity of water evaporated in any given time, and thereby ascertained the quantity of steam used in every stroke by the engine, which I found to be several times the full of the cylinder. Astonished at the quantity of water required for the injection, and the great heat it had acquired from the small quantity of water in the form of steam which had been used in filling the cylinder, and thinking I had made some mistake, the following experiment was tried :— A glass tube was bent at right angles; one end was inserted horizontally into the spout of a tea-kettle, and the other part was immersed perpendicularly in well-water contained in a cylindric glass vessel, and steam was made to pass through it until it ceased to be condensed, and the water in the glass vessel was become nearly boiling hot. The water in the glass vessel was then found to have gained an addition of about one-sixth part from the condensed steam. Consequently, water converted into steam can heat about six times its own weight of well-water to 212°, or till it can condense no more steam. Being struck with this remarkable fact, and not understanding the reason of it, I mentioned it to my friend Dr. Black, who then explained to me his doctrine of latent heat, which he had taught for some time before this period (summer 1764); but having myself been occupied with the pursuits of business, if I had heard of it I had not attended to it, when I thus stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that beautiful theory is supported.” The Life of James Watt: With Selections from His Correspondence, James Patrick Muirhead, John Murray, 1858, pages 78-79.

However, in 1814, when he was 78, highly successful and very well established, and when Black was dead, he had this to say in a letter:

“Here it was my intention to have closed this letter, but the representations of friends whose opinions I highly value, induce me to avail myself of this opportunity of noticing an error into which not only Dr. Robison, but apparently also Dr. Black, has fallen, in relation to the origin of my improvements upon the steam-engine; and which, not having been publicly controverted by me, has, I am informed, been adopted by almost every subsequent writer upon the subject of Latent Heat.

Dr. Robison, in the article ‘Steam-engine,’ after passing an encomium upon me, dictated by the partiality of friendship, qualifies me as the ‘pupil and intimate friend of Dr. Black;’ a description which not being there accompanied with any inference, did not particularly strike me at the time of its first perusal. He afterwards, in the dedication to me of his edition of Dr. Black’s ‘Lectures upon Chemistry,’ goes the length of supposing me to have professed to owe my improvements upon the steam-engine to the instructions and information I had received from that gentleman, which certainly was a misapprehension; as, although I have always felt and acknowledged my obligations to him for the information I had received from his conversation, and particularly for the knowledge of the doctrine of latent heat, I never did nor could consider my improvements as originating in those communications.”

Watt’s hagiographers were pleased to trot out that particular paragraph by the 1840s, when he was long dead, the steam engine was hugely important, and his hagiography began in earnest, but somehow loath to print the coda to it in the very same letter:

“Although Dr. Black’s theory of latent heat did not suggest my improvements on the steam-engine, yet the knowledge, upon various subjects, which he was pleased to communicate to me, and the correct modes of reasoning and of making experiments, of which he set me the example, certainly conduced very much to facilitate the progress of my inventions; and I still remember, with respect and gratitude, the notice he was pleased to take of me when I very little merited it, and which continued throughout his life.” The Life of James Watt: With Selections from His Correspondence, James Patrick Muirhead, John Murray, 1858, pages 496-497 and 500.

Watt’s machine was intricate; many of its parts depended on other parts, which depended on yet other parts. He built it on an engine common in England, but rare in Russia. It was common because of work done by Thomas Newcomen, John Calley, John Smeaton, Thomas Savery, and others. To make it more useful he had to increase its power, and for that he needed to understand the physics of heat; he got some of that insight from Joseph Black. To build it at all, he needed cylinders that could withstand high pressure (which he got from Abraham Darby and John Thomas). To make it cheaply enough, he needed cheap iron for his cylinders instead of costly brass (Abraham Darby II and Thomas Goldney III). To machine those cylinders precisely enough, he needed high-grade iron (John Wilkinson). To cut those precision-ground cylinders and pistons, he needed crucible steel (Benjamin Huntsman). To run it cheaply enough, he needed cheap fuel, which he got from coke—that is, coal cooked to remove impurities—instead of wood or charcoal (Abraham Darby). To do anything at all, he needed money (Joseph Black, John Roebuck, Matthew Bolton). And so on.

Britain also needed ever-improving steam engines (Richard Trevithick, William Murdock, Joseph Bramah, Jonathan Hornblower, Arthur Woolf). Then it needed ever-improving machine tools (Jesse Ramsden, Edward Nairn, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Joseph Whitworth, James Nasmyth). Plus it needed ever-growing canal transport (Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, William Small, Samuel Galton, Thomas Telford, John Rennies). It needed ever-expanding markets (Richard Trevithick, John Smeaton, Isambard Brunel). And it needed ever-expanding rail networks (Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson, John Wilkinson, Henry Cort).

Also, all the changes catalyzed yet another network of tools made by another network of early industrialists in Britain (Thomas Highs, John Kay, James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, Edmund Cartwright). They built the early machines of Britain’s textile industry. That then became one of the next killer apps, outside of mining, of the new steam tech. Also, all those people needed yet another network of people (Jethro Tull, Robert Bakewell, Joseph Foljambe, Robert and Charles Colling, and others). Their farm innovations helped Britain raise its food supply until it could almost feed itself.

Further, none of that might have happened had he not been a Presbyterian. In the eyes of the state, which had won the previous civil war, that made him a heretic—a Dissenter who refused to join the Church of England. Several of Britain’s early industrialists were Dissenters. For example, Wilkinson was a Presbyterian, Newcomen (Baptist), Roebuck (Independent), Wedgwood (Unitarian), and Huntsman, Darby, Goldney, Lloyd, and Barclay were Quakers. As Dissenters, they couldn’t stand for Parliament, hold public office, join the army, or attend Oxford or Cambridge. Barred from high-status posts—along with other riffraff, like Catholics, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and Gypsies—they went into lowly ones: trade and industry. There they stewed. With nowhere else to go, they did deals with one another. That’s partly what welded together Britain’s early industrial reaction network in the first place. So when Watt fled Scotland for England, it was tiny Britain, not huge Russia, that happened to have large pools of both skilled machinists and skilled financiers. Nobody arranged that. In some sense, our swarm did.

In Britain, non-Protestants, like Catholics, Jews, and Greek Orthodox, were a different matter. For example, England had kicked out its Jews entirely from 1290 to 1650. By the 1760s they were a tiny portion of the population (about 0.3 percent).

Further, Britain wasn’t unique in its religious repression. Russia was equally good at it. Russia, though, was much more of a peasant economy. It forced its religious minorities, primarily Jews, into finance, peddling, and shopkeeping instead of trade and industry—that is, when not running active pogroms against them. (A peasant uprising in 1768, during the partitioning of Poland, lead to massacres of both Jews and Catholics. Perhaps 20,000 were herded into their places of worship and killed. A century before, a Cossack idea of fun was to ride into a village and kill every male and take every female there.)

Similarly, France had slaughtered or exiled most of its Protestants, the Huguenots. (Two important steam pioneers in Britain, Denis Papin and John Desaguliers, for example, had fled France for Britain. They were Huguenots). Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria—all have poor tolerance records as well. For long periods of recent European history, only the Netherlands was tolerant of variant religious belief systems. Britain in the 1770s was then merely one of the less-intolerant nations. (Incidentally, England’s history of its treatment of Jews is also quite varied. For example, while it accepted them in the 1100s, it persecuted and ejected them in the 1200s.)

So Russia in the 1700s was still running pogroms against its Jews—and would continue to do so for another 170 years. But while that pressure forced Russia’s Jews together, they had even fewer outlets than Britain’s Dissenters did. Europe’s repression also forced much of its financial and trade expertise—largely in the form of Jews—out of Spain, Portugal, and France and into the Netherlands, and later to Britain.

Evangelista Torricelli made the first vacuum in 1643 while creating the first barometer (following the prompting of Galileo). The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas, Charles Coulston Gillispie, Princeton University Press, 1960, page 100.

Denis Papin published his 1676-1679 work with Robert Boyle on his ‘steam digester’ in 1680. “Papin, Denis (1647-1712?),” Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

James Watt was born on January 19th, 1736. James Henry Watt, James Watt’s father, was born January 28th, 1699, in Greenock, Scotland. (He married Agnes Muireheid, and died August 1782.) National Records of Scotland, OPR (Old Parish Register) 564-3/1, page 108. Thomas Watt, James Henry Watt’s father, was born in 1642 and christened April 16th, 1643, in Aberdeen, Scotland. (He married Margaret Shearer, and died February 27th, 1734.)

Mechanicians had succeeded in making steam-boilers capable of sustaining any desired or any useful pressure, and Papin had shown how to make them comparatively safe by the attachment of the safety‑valve. They had made steam‑cylinders fitted with pistons, and had used such a combination in the development of power.

It now only remained for the engineer to combine known forms of mechanism in a practical machine which should be capable of economically and conveniently utilizing the power of steam through the application of now well‑understood principles, and by the intelligent combination of physical phenomena already familiar to scientific investigators.

Every essential fact and every vital principle had been learned, and every one of the needed mechanical combinations had been successfully effected. It was only requisite that an inventor should appear, capable of perceiving that these known facts and combinations of mechanism, properly illustrated in a working machine would present to the world its greatest physical blessing.

The defects of the simple engines constructed up to this time have been noted as each has been described. None of them could be depended upon for safe, economical, and continuous work. Savery’s was the most successful of all. But the engine of Savery, even with the improvements of Desaguliers, was unsafe where most needed, because of the high pressures necessarily carried in its boilers when pumping from considerable depths; it was uneconomical, in consequence of the great loss of heat in its forcing‑cylinders when the hot steam was surrounded at its entrance by colder bodies; it was slow in operation, of great first cost, and expensive in first cost and in repairs, as well as in its operation. It could not be relied upon to do its work interruptedly, and was this in many respects a very unsatisfactory machine.

The man who finally effected a combination of the elements of the modern steam‑engine, and produced a machine which is unmistakeably a true engine—i.e., a train of mechanism consisting of several elementary pieces combined in a train capable of transmitting a force applied at one end and of communicating it to the resistance to be overcome at the other end was THOMAS NEWCOMEN, an ‘iron‑monger’ and blacksmith of Dartmouth, England. The engine invented by him, and known as the ‘Atmospheric Steam Engine,’ is the first of an entirely new type. [...]

In a very few years after the invention of Newcomen’s engine it had been introduced into nearly all large mines in Great Britain; and many new mines, which could not have been worked at all previously, were opened, when it was found that the new machine could be relied upon to raise the large quantities of water to be handled. The first engine in Scotland was erected in 1720 at Elphinstone, in Stirlingshire. One was put up in Hungary in 1723.” A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine, Robert H. Thurston, D. Appleton and Company, 1878, pages 55-57, and 68.

However, for the practical engineering concerns and all the difficulties that Newcomen had to have faced and overcome, see: Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Richard L. Hills, Cambridge University Press, 1989, Chapter 2, especially pages 22-30. His last, and most crucial, and most copied, insight—that of cold water injection—is described on page 25.

On Darby I (there were three ‘Abraham Darby’s, father, son, and grandson): Dynasty of Iron Founders: The Darbys and Coalbrookdale, Arthur Raistrick, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1953, pages 23-25. Note: Allen cites King (unread reference) as developing an argument that Darby I was predated by Shadrach Fox, the ironmaster who preceded him at Coalbrookdale, who apparently may be the real inventor of coke smelting. That’s certainly possible, but even so, coke wasn’t viable by itself. Darby also added sand casting, which he got from Netherlands practice. Even then, charcoal competed with coke for half a century. It was only when combined with the steam engine to pump water back up for the bellows pump that the cost really began to fall. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Robert C. Allen, Cambridge University Press, 2009. The Iron Trade in England Wales, 1500-1850: the charcoal iron industry and its transition to coke, Peter Wickham King, doctoral thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2003.

Perhaps he came by such ideas via pure logic (he presented his reasoning in his Physics, see citation). That’s how Plato’s pupils were supposed to discover truth, since to Plato, the senses can lie (consider the allegory of Plato’s cave), so only the mind can plumb the depths of reality. But perhaps it was also because he thought (to put it in today’s terms) that a body fell in a medium at a speed proportional to its weight, and inversely proportional to the amount that the medium resists its fall. So for him, if we dropped a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias from space, the whale would hit first. (His reasoning was more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea.) Perhaps he guessed that after seeing a pebble falling slowly through olive oil, faster through water, and fastest through air. Maybe then in a void it would fall infinitely fast. And that, he declared, was impossible. So a void couldn’t exist. (Actually, in his thought experiment argument, he concluded that its speed would be indeterminate, and that was impossible.)

Today we know that while his arguments were accepted for two millennia, they don’t stand up because the assumptions they were based on were false. To see why, drop three marbles of equal weight. They hit at the same time. Now glue two together, then drop all three again. They still hit at the same time. Yet, were Aristotle right, the two that were glued together, being heavier, would hit first. But none of us back then did any such test. Otherwise, we would have laughed at him. So his guess became dogma for us—for over two millennia.

Aristotle’s physics is still intuitive for most of us today, including first-year university physics students. Newtonian physics is still counter-intuitive to most of us today. For example, most of us believe that a constant force applied to a body will produce constant velocity. That’s wrong. (It will accelerate). And Einsteinian relativity is still completely unknown, not to say counter-intuitive, to most of us today.

“Intuitive Physics,” D. R. Proffitt, M. K. Kaiser, in: Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Lynn Nadel (editor), Nature Publishing Group, 2003, pages 632-637. The Unnatural Nature of Science, Lewis Wolpert, Harvard University Press, 1993. Uncommon sense: The Heretical Nature of Science, Alan Cromer, Oxford University Press, 1993. Matter, Space and Motion, Richard Sorabji, Cornell University Press, 1988, chapter 9, pages 142-159. “Common Sense Concepts about Motion,” I. Halloun, D. Hestenes, American Journal of Physics, 53(11):1056-1065, 1985. Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution, Edward Grant, Cambridge University Press, 1981. The Works of Aristotle, Volume II: Physica, Book IV, Parts VI-IX, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, Oxford University Press, 1952, pages .

What we take to be ’Aristotelian physics’ today is a sort of reinterpretation in mathematical terms of what Aristotle might have believed had he any mathematical talent. For example, around 1328 Thomas of Bradwardine, an English philosopher and theologian, wrote a book on motion based on what he understood to be Aristotle’s beliefs about motion. Bradwardine showed that Aristotle’s theory of motion was inconsistent. First, Aristotle claimed that a body could be in motion only when the force acting on it exceeded the resistance to its motion through the medium. Second, Aristotle claimed that a body’s velocity was proportional to the force acting on it divided by the resistance of the medium it moved through. Bradwardine showed inconsistency between these two Aristotelian tenets by assuming an initial force and resistance, then asked what would happen if the resistance were continually increased while keeping the force constant. At some point the resistance would exceed the force so the body cannot move. But its velocity, which supposedly was its acting force divided by the resistance, could not then also be zero. Thomas of Bradwardine, his Tractus de Proportionibus: Its Significance for the Development of Mathematical Physics, H. Lamar Crosby, Jr. (editor and translator), University of Wisconsin Press, 1955.

Before we could make a vacuum, and thus one day a steam engine, Beeckman in the Netherlands, Baliani, Galileo, Berti, Magiotti, Benedetti, Viviani, and Torricelli in Italy; Stevin in Belgium; Pascal in France; and others, first had to refute Aristotle’s argument that a vacuum couldn’t exist. Some of them built on William Gilbert in England—who, in 1600, simply guessed that outer space was a vacuum. But knowing that a vacuum could exist didn’t then mean that we could build a machine that harnessed one. Before there could be a Watt in Scotland there was a Guericke in Germany; a Papin and de Caus in France; a della Porta and Branca in Italy; a Boyle and a Hooke in England. Dressing for Altitude: U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits, Wiley Post to Space Shuttle, Dennis R. Jenkins, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2012, pages 15-17. Measuring the Natural Environment, Ian Strangeways, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2003, pages 91-94. “Air Weight and Atmospheric Pressure from Galileo to Torricelli,” R. Zouckermann, Fundamenta Scientiae, 2(2):185-204, 1981. De Magnete magneticisique corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure; Physiologia nova, plurimis et argumentis et experimentis demonstrata, William Gilbert of Colchester, London, 1600.

Further, after all of those names came a whole slew of more names to make practical machines to do something that someone was willing to pay for—like pump water out of mines. Only long after that did it occur to anyone that maybe such machines might be useful for something other than their first use, and for that they had to be changed, which required even more gestation and thus even more names.

It’s not uncommon to say that ‘steam engines’ existed in Rome (or Roman Egypt) two millennia ago then cite the aeolipile. But the aeolipile (perhaps invented by Vitruvius, then definitely a century later, by Hero of Alexandria, and also known as Hero’s engine) isn’t a steam engine. It’s a steam turbine. It doesn’t create, nor does it use, a vacuum. The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, from the original Greek, translated and edited by Bennet Woodcroft, Taylor Walton and Maberly, 1851, page 72. One possible source of confusion may be that the translation from the Greek was ‘steam-engine’, but that it was not.

One commonly accepted general argument about slaves and steam in popular science books goes as follows: “[T]he slave economy of the ancient world... discouraged any association of science and technology.... With cheap slave labor in plentiful supply, there wasn’t any incentive to develop labor-saving technology.” Gravity’s Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond, David Darling, John Wiley and Sons, 2006, pages 29-30.

The same goes for some research papers: “in [societies] based on slavery, there was no demand for steam power.” From: “The Long-Term Evolution of Social Organization,” S. van der Leeuw, D. Lane, D. Read, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 85-116.

Even in careful and detailed history books, it’s not unusual to see the following: “The precondition for progress was probably a reasonable balance between human labour and other sources of power. The advantage was illusory when man competed with machines inordinately, as in the ancient world and China, where mechanization was ultimately blocked by cheap labour. There were slaves in Greece and Rome, and too many highly efficient coolies in China. In fact, there is never any progress unless a higher value is placed on human labour. When man has a certain cost price as a source of energy, then it is necessary to think about aiding him or, better still, replacing him.” Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Volume I, The Structures of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel, translated by Siân Reynolds, Harper & Row, 1981, page 339.

By such arguments, we didn’t have a steam engine in, for example, the early Roman Empire, because we didn’t need a steam engine—because we had a large slave pool.

Other variants of roughly the same argument go as follows: “[Peter Levi]: What technology is nowadays expected to accomplish is the concentration or the transference of energy. And we know from the raising of obelisks that the practical mathematics were quite highly developed. It’s quite clever to raise a monolithic column or an obelisk. But I take it that what went wrong with the Hellenistic rulers’ exploration of different techniques is that they had too much man power—they had too many slaves. To have slaves is, apart from being wicked, inefficient, because you may use a million men where one machine could have done the job.” [...] “[Peter Green]:... It’s not so much that slaves were available, which indeed they were. No, the ruling classes were scared, as the Puritans said, of Satan finding work for idle hands to do. One of the great things about not developing a source of energy that did not depend on muscle power was the fear of what the muscles might get up to if they weren’t kept fully employed. The sort of inventions that were taken up and used practically were the things that needed muscle power to start with, including the Archimedean screw.” From the Discussion section following: “ ‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” K. D. White, in: Hellenistic History and Culture, Peter Green (editor), University of California Press, 1993, pages 234 and 236.

As an example, perhaps the only clearly documented one, see: “Free Labour and Public Works at Rome,” P. A. Brunt, The Journal of Roman Studies, 70:81-100, 1980. Brunt cites Suetonis, who mentions an incident in the life of Vespasian: “mechanico quoque, grandis columnas exigua impensa perducturum in Capitolium pollicenti, praemium pro commento non mediocre optulit, operam remisit, praefatus sineret se plebiculam pascere.” (“To a mechanical engineer, who promised to transport some heavy columns to the Capitol at small expense, he gave no mean reward for his invention, but refused to make use of it, saying: ‘You must let me feed my poor commons.’ ”) This he gives as evidence that keeping the populace happy was more important than new invention.

Such ideas are old, still current, and widely accepted: “[Schneider] traced the early path of the slavery/stagnation/blockage view from Diels in the 1920s through Ferrero, Rostovtzeff, and Lefebvre de Noëttes to Finley, Pleket, and Lee in the 1970s, and its perpetuation by Gille in the 1980s.” See: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000.

But there’s something wrong with all such sorts of explanations. “[T]he importance of slavery should not be exaggerated. The ancient slave owner had at least two good reasons to want to reduce his dependence on slave labor if he possibly could, for slaves were quite expensive to feed and they could be difficult to control.” Greek Science After Aristotle, G. E. R. Lloyd, W. W. Norton, 1973, page 108.

Similarly: “[S. M. Burstein]: The common wisdom that cheap slave labor inhibited the development of technology in antiquity should probably be reconsidered for two reasons. First, slaves are expensive, not cheap. Second, as the history of the antebellum American South indicates, the use of slave labor is not incompatible with the development of labor-saving technology, provided—and it is an important proviso—that the technology increases the productivity and value of the slaves.” From: “ ‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” K. D. White, in: Hellenistic History and Culture, Peter Green (editor), University of California Press, 1993, pages 236-237.

All the fairy tales fall apart once it’s seen that slave labor is free labor, but it’s not labor for free. Slave dealers didn’t simply give slaves away. They cost something to capture, feed, clothe, house, and guard. Further, if a plentitude of slaves or coolies is the reason we didn’t build a steam engine, why then did we ever bother to invent labor-saving tools like sails and waterwheels? Or bother to use animal power (horses, oxen, asses, camels) to turn capstans and such? Slaves would’ve sufficed, and often did suffice when the oxen or horse died, for those needs as well. If the waterwheel broke, get the slaves to grind the maize. If the sea’s winds died, get the slaves to row. It seems that using such an argument is ‘just-so’ history.

Yet further, the ‘fact,’ originally stated most forcefully by M. I. Finley in 1965 (and in his widely read 1973 book, The Ancient Economy,), and so widely accepted even today, that the Roman empire didn’t make use of watermills is now debunked. “[S]ubsequent research has revealed numerous water-mills from Hadrian’s Wall to north Africa and to Palestine, and has demonstrated that Italy was not excluded from this phenomenon.” See: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000.

It also seems unlikely that we didn’t build a steam engine because we were idiots. For example, in the early Roman Empire we had more flexible financial tools than those we had in eighteenth-century France. So we likely weren’t any stupider then than we are today. However, those tools weren’t as flexible as those we had in eighteenth-century Britain. In Rome, we didn’t have a national debt or a central bank or paper currency, so there was a limit to how much capital we could amass for new enterprises, like building a steam engine. But such tools can’t be all we needed because the Netherlands, and Italy before it, had financial tools about as flexible as those that Britain had. See: “Financial Intermediation in the Early Roman Empire,” P. Temin, The Journal of Economic History, 64(3):705-733, 2004.

Also: “Contrary to Finley, who asserted, ‘[A]ncient slavery... co-existed with other forms of dependent labor, not with free wage-labor,’ and Schiavone, who added recently that ‘slavery... led to the eventual stagnation of the [Roman economic] system, blocking off other paths,’ the analysis herein finds that free hired labor was widespread and that ancient slavery was part of a unified labor force in the early Roman empire, not a barrier to economic progress.” From: “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire,” P. Temin, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(4):513-538, 2004.

In sum: “The last twenty-five years have seen a radical overhaul of views on the level and importance of technological development achieved in the Roman world. From the 1960s to the 1980s the view prevailed that ancient technology in general, and Roman technology in particular, was stagnant and contributed little to the economy. Since then a number of studies have argued for a much higher level of ancient technological development, and a more rapid and widespread uptake of that technology. Ancient technology has re-entered the debate on the economy, and the task is now to assess what contribution technological developments might have made to economic growth. [...] [I]t looks increasingly difficult to deny the importance of technological developments to the achievement of per capita economic growth.” From: “Quantifying the Roman Economy: Integration, Growth, Decline?” A. Bowman, A. Wilson, in Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems, Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson (editors), Oxford University Press, 2009, pages 3-86, especially pages 33-38.

It thus seems unlikely that in Rome we didn’t invent a steam engine because we loved slavery, or because we couldn’t imagine living without slaves, or because we needed to keep slaves employed to thus avoid revolution, or because we were stupid. It seems more likely that it was because we didn’t know enough metallurgy, engineering, and physics. We couldn’t make the high-grade iron we would have needed to build a safe and efficient one. And considering what was to happen to both Polzunov in Siberia and Watt in Scotland, we likely didn’t have the skilled machinists we would have needed to maintain a high-precision one, even if an alien spaceship had simply dropped one off in the forum. In the early Roman Empire we didn’t have the tools we would have needed to make the tools we would have needed. We didn’t even have the ideas we would have needed to make the ideas we would have needed. In short, it seems likely that developing all the many tools and skills and knowledge that let us build an efficient steam engine took millennia of accident. All that came together only in the 1700s, and it happened first in Britain.

It would be interesting exercise in alternate history to try to work out how all that could have happened in Italy or China two millennia ago, or Egypt or Iraq four millennia ago.

The high price of grain during (and artifically propped up after) the Napoleonic wars, compounded the problem. “No doubt, a labourer, whose income was only £20 a year, would, in general, act wisely in substituting hasty-pudding, barley bread, boiled milk, and potatoes, for bread and beer; but in most parts of this county, he is debarred not more by prejudice, than by local difficulties, from using a diet that requires cooking at home. The extreme dearness of fuel in Oxfordshire, compels him to purchase his dinner at the baker’s; and, from his unavoidable consumption of bread, he has little left for cloaths, in a country where warm cloathing is most essentially wanted.” The State of the Poor: or a history of the labouring classes in England, from the Conquest to the present period; in which are particularly considered, their domestic economy, with respect to diet, dress, fuel, and habitation; and the various plans which, from time to time, have been proposed and adopted for the relief of the poor: together with parochial reports relative to the administration of work-houses, and houses of industry; the state of the Friendly Societies, and other public institutions; in several agricultural, commercial and manufacturing, districts. With a large appendix; containing a comparative and chronological table of the prices of labour, of provisions, and of other commodities; an account of the poor in Scotland; and many original documents on subjects of national importance, Frederick Morton Eden, Volume II, B. & J. White, G. & G. Robinson, T. Payne, R. Faulder, T. Egerton, J. Debrett, and D. Bremner, 1797, page 587.

None of that means that the industrial phase change was good for Britain’s trees. In fact, with the coming of the railway, then the internal combustion engine able to reach anywhere, even more trees were cut until Britain’s forestation had dropped to an all-time low of four percent by 1918. Today it is 11 percent. A Reference for the Forestry Industry, The Forestry Industry Council of Great Britain, 1998.

Brtain’s (then continental Europe’s) attitudes to the natural world started changing after the scientific revolution (also, the scientific revolution was itself partly an outgrowth of changes in attitudes toward the natural world). Deforestation, rather than a calamity, increasingly came to be seen as a symptom of increased industrial change, and therefore of ‘progress.’

“There is no positive information concerning the time when coal was first produced in France. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries coal was imported from Newcastle, England, and from Liege, Belgium, and traditions indicate that coal was being mined during this period in the Loire, Brassac, and Decize coal fields of France. In 1548 the first concession for coal mining of which there is any record was granted by Henry II. In 1667 Louis XIV placed an import tax on coal, which tax was increased in 1692, resulting in increased mining operations in France. In 1698 an edict was issued granting land proprietors the right to mine coal for their own profit on their lands without the permission of the sovereign, and as a result coal mining was actively carried on in France, beginning in the Loire and Brassac fields and gradually extending to the others. In 1744 Louis XV annulled the law of 1698, and required that thereafter concessions for coal mining must be obtained from the sovereign. The first concession for lignite mining was granted in 1788.” Coal Mine Labor in Europe, Carroll Davidson Wright, United States Bureau of Labor, 1905, page 183.

Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England, E. A. Wrigley, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 54. The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume I: Before 1700: Towards the Age of Coal, John Hatcher, Clarendon Press, 1993, Table 4.1, page 68.

“[O]f the fifty-five patents granted for inventions granted during the reign of Elizabeth, 1561-99, one in seven is for the raising of water, and of the 127 patents granted between 1617 and 1642, the same proportion is observable.” A Short History of the Steam Engine, H. W. Dickinson, 1938, Frank Cass and Co., Reprint Edition, 1963, page 16.

English Medieval Population: Reconciling Time Series and Cross Sectional Evidences,” S. Broadberry, B. M. S. Campbell, B. van Leeuwen, (unpublished manuscript), 2010. “Statistics of production and productivity in English agriculture 1086-1871,” M. Overton, B. M. S. Campbell, in: Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area (middle ages-20th century): Elements for Comparison, Bas J. P. van Bavel and Erik Thoen (editors), Brepols, 1999, pages 189-209. Christ’s Hospital of London, 1552-1598: “A Passing Deed of Pity”, Carol Kazmierczak Manzione, Associated University Presses, 1995, page 17. “People and Land in the Middle Ages, 1066-1500,” B. Campbell, in: Robert A. Dodgshon and Robin A. Butlin (editors), Historical Geography of England and Wales, Second Edition, Elsevier, 1990, pages 69-122. The Population History of England 1541-1871, A Reconstruction, E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, Cambridge University Press, 1981, Table 7.8, pages 208-209.

Henry VIII had continued a major push to bring iron making to England, by importing foreign ironworkers. His father, Henry VII, the first Tudor king, had started the push in the 1490s, after he stole the throne. (For example, he started the first blast furnace in England in 1491.) But it was only by the 1540s, under his son Henry, that industry in England really started to take off. The push continued under Elizabeth I, Henry’s daughter, who continued to import foreign experts in the 1570s. She increased the production of brass and glass in England. All three sovereigns lived in great fear of invasion. And iron-, brass-, glass-, and ship- production all needed massive numbers of trees. For example, a battleship (like the later Victory, which launched in 1765) might need more than 6,000 trees, at least 2,000 of which were 100-year-old oak trees. The Mary Rose, which launched in 1511 and sank in 1545, needed around 600. D. Goodburn, “Woodworking Aspects of the Mary Rose,” in: Your Noblest Shippe: Anatomy of a Tudor Warship, The Archaeology of the Mary Rose, Volume 2, Peter Marsden (editor), The Mary Rose Trust, Marsden, 2009, pages 66-68, and 71. The Iron Industry of the Weald, Henry Cleere and David Crossley, Jeremy Hodgkinson (editor), Second Edition, Merton Priory Press, 1995. Industry before the Industrial Revolution: Incorporating a study of the Chartered Companies of the Society of Mines Royal and of Mineral and Battery Works, Volume II, William Reese, University of Wales Press, 1968. Wealdean Iron, Ernest Straker, G. Bell & Sons, 1931. Opera Mineralia Explicata: Or, The Mineral Kingdom, Within The Dominions Of Great Britain, Display’d. Being a Complete History of the Ancient Corporations of the City of London, of and for the Mines, the Mineral and the Battery works. With all the Original Grants, Leases, Instruments, Writs of Privilege and Protection, by Sea and Land, from Arrest (except in the Mineral Courts); or being Prest, or Serving Juries and Parish-Offices: as also the Records of the said Mineral Courts, from the Conquest, down to this present year, 1713. Likewise Proposals for New Settlements and Plentiful Provision for All the Industrious Poor, be their Number ever so Great. M. S. (that is, Moses Stringer), Jonas Brown, 1731, Chapter 3, pages 27 and on.

Richard II, William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene I.

Here are estimates of urban population percentages: c. 1520 - 5.25 percent, c. 1600 - 8.00 percent, c. 1670 - 13.25 percent, c. 1700 - 16.25 percent, c. 1750 - 20.75 percent. c. 1800 - 27.75 percent. Energy and the English Industrial Revolution, E. A. Wrigley, Cambridge University Press, 2010, Table 3.2 page 61.

This is especially interesting given the discussion on the previous pages: “Removing English urban totals from those for Europe suggests that in continental Europe as a whole urbanisation was almost at a standstill between 1600 and 1800.” In other words, almost all new European urbanization in two entire centuries happened in England. Some of that was England playing catch-up with more heavily urbanized countries—particularly Italy and the Netherlands.

Of course, Charles I wasn’t the first monarch of England to be deposed, counting from Athelstan in 924. He was merely the first to be deposed via popular unrest. Before him, Harold II (1066), William II (1100) (possibly), Edward II (1327), Richard II (1399), Henry VI (1461), Edward V (uncrowned) (1483), Richard III (1485), and Jane (uncrowned) (1553), all lost dynastic (or external, in the case of Harold) power struggles. After him, only James II (1688) did.

“From a period of immemorial antiquity it had been the practice of every English government to contract debts. What the Revolution introduced was the practice of honestly paying them.” The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, Vol. I Thomas Babington Macaulay, Tauchnitz, 1849, page 284 (and on).

“The immediate result of England’s entry into the war against France in 1689 was to make public expenditure increase between two and three times. [...] [B]oth the government and Parliament made serious mistakes which ran the new state into Crisis. [...] [T]here was before the 1690s little or no experience of large and sophisticated financial projects, either in Whitehall or in the City of London. [...] In the harsh and uncertain conditions of eighteenth-century life the state lottery was a perennial way of escape into wealth and leisure—if only in the imagination. [...] [I]t attracted more subscribers than any other form of government loan. [...] In April 1694, a month after passing the Bill for the Million Lottery, Parliament assented to a very different project whose consequences were to be as far-reaching as the prior decision to create a National Debt. This was the establishment of the Bank of England.” [...] The first measures taken to create a system of government long-term borrowing were thus marked by haste, carelessness, and episodic failure—even if in comparison with the management of short-term finance they were shiningly successful. But such mistakes and errors of judgement were perhaps inevitable in a trial period. Some valuable lessons had been learned: about the Connections between long- and short-dated finance, about consultation with the City of London, about the importance of foreign confidence in sterling, about the relative popularity of different kinds of loans. Above all, a national bank had been established which quickly showed that in the quality of its management it could challenge comparison with the Bank of Amsterdam, hitherto the cynosure of European eyes. It provided a point of growing importance around which the developing machine of government finance could turn.” The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688-1756, P. G. M. Dickson, Macmillan, 1967, pages 46-47, 54, 57-58, and Table 2 (pages 48-49). See also page 256 for early bank subscribers. See also The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783, John Brewer, Unwin Hyman, 1989, Chapter 5.

“In effect, the Bank of England created a bond market, providing safe investment at reliable rates for investors and providing the government with a ready source of funds at low rates. It also systematized over several years the national debt. Over the long run, through the continental and world wars of the 1690s and the long eighteenth century until Waterloo, Britain had a huge financial advantage over much larger and arguably wealthier France, because its government could borrow at much lower rates, thanks to the Bank of England. The bank facilitated that borrowing and provided a ready source of currency, and the representative Parliament, which levied the taxes that provided reliable interest payments: institutions that got their beginnings in the arrangements that Parliament devised to finance the wars of William III.” Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers, Michael Barone, Random House, 2007, page 224.

The government was in such desperate need that it allowed the Bank of England to register as a joint-stock company—so, unlike every other bank, its investors had no personal liability if the bank failed. Its job was to lend money to the government at eight percent, and pass on that interest to its subscribers, less overhead costs (and profit). Its capital of £1.2 million was subscribed within 12 days. Only 60 percent of it, £720,000, was called up immediately, and that was loaned to the government in installments, the first of which was on August 1st, 1694. In return, the bank took the government’s promise to repay the loan, with interest (interest-bearing tallies, or bonds—in short, government debt), which essentially were backed by an Act of Parliament that amounted to earmarked taxes to be collected in future. The public then accepted the bank’s notes “as good as gold.” Thus for £100,000 in earmarked tax revenue, the government could drawn on £1.2 million (and the bank’s subscribers could expect £96,000 a year, and of course the bank’s proprietors could expect the difference, £4,000, every year). Overall, in the 15 years from 1688 to 1702, the government only borrowed £13 million as compared to the £59 million it raised in taxes.

However, the Bank of England wasn’t the first money-making scheme England tried to fund its latest war with France. The Bank was hard fought in Parliament, and were it not for the onerous war with France likely it would not have succeeded. Parliament first tried annuities and lotteries (which were popular) and tontines (which weren’t; a tontine is for a group who put in money and the last person to die gets it all). Nor was the Bank of England the first national bank; it’s just one of the oldest ones still surviving (after the Bank of Sweden). Banks had been founded in Amsterdam (1609), Barcelona (1609), Middle-burg (1616), Hamburg (1619), Delft (1621), Nuremberg (1621), Rotterdam (1635), and Sweden (1656).

But there were many arguments over high taxes. For example, here’s part of one about increasing the size of the navy from 20,000 to 30,000 seamen in 1735. It’s part of a combined statement by Robert Walpole, Horatio Walpole, and (James?) Oglethorpe.

“To pretend to tell us, Sir, what France and Spain intended to have done last Year, or to pretend to tell us what they intend to do this next Year, with the Ships of War they have continued in Commission, is, I think, something extraordinary. We may perhaps guess at some of their Designs, but I shall always think it very imprudent, to leave the Peace and Quiet of this Nation to depend upon such Guess-work; especially when we consider, that they have no Occasion to fit out any great Fleet against any Power in Europe but ourselves; and therefore it is not to be presumed, that they would put themselves to such a great Expence, unless they were suspicious that the Measures they have resolved to pursue, may make this Nation engage in the War; and in such a Case, I think it is natural to believe, they would take the first Opportunity to invade or disturb us: They have such an absolute Command over all the Seamen of their Country, they have always such Numbers of regular Troops upon their Coasts, or within a few Days march of their Sea-Ports, that when they have their Ships ready equip’d and fit for sailing, it would be easy for them to clap Seamen and Land-Forces on Board; and they might arrive upon the Coasts of this Kingdom, before it would be possible for us to man and fit our Fleet sufficient to engage them, if we had not made some extraordinary Provision beforehand: This every Man must be convinced of, who knows the Difficulty we had to procure Seamen enough for the Squadron we fitted out last Summer, notwithstanding the long Time we had to look for them, and the Method of Pressing which we were even then obliged to make use of. Nor does it signify to tell us, that at this Rate we shall always be obliged to fit out Squadrons, and put ourselves to a great Expence, whenever any of our Neighbours begin to fit out one; for I take it to be a right Maxim, I really think we ought to prepare and fit out a Squadron, whenever we see any of our Neighbours doing so, unless we very well know the Purposes their Squadron is designed for. The Expence bestowed upon fitting out a Squadron may be an Expence to the Publick, but it is little or no Loss to the Nation; the whole is expended among our own People, and it not only improves our Seamen, by making them acquainted with the Service on Board a Man of War, but it increases their Number; for every Fleet we fit out encourages a Number of Land-Men to engage in the Sea-Service: Whereas, if by neglecting to do so, the Kingdom should be invaded, and a civil War kindled up, the Nation would in that Case suffer a real Loss, a Loss which might far surmount the Expence the Publick could be put to by the fitting out of twenty Squadrons; so that We may suffer by neglecting this Maxim, but can never suffer by observing it.

I shall readily grant, that this Nation would be more formidable, if we owed no publick Debts, and had the same Fleet and the same regular Army we have at present; but if we had no Squadron ready to put to Sea, nor any regular Troops ready to take the Field, I cannot admit that we should then be so formidable as we are at present, even tho’ we did not owe a Shilling in the World. We all know, that what now makes a Nation formidable, is not the Number nor the Riches of its Inhabitants, but the Number of Ships of War provided with able Seamen, and the Number of regular well disciplined Troops they have at Command: And, whatever Gentlemen may think of the Acceptation of his Majesty’s good Offices, I am persuaded they would not have been so readily accepted, if the Parties had not seen us preparing to do them bad Offices, in Case they had refused to accept of our good.”

“Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen for the Year 1735,” The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Volume IX, A.D. 1733-1737, Hansard, 1811, pages 691-719, specifically pages 715-716.

The idea has been challenged as more quantitative and comparative data has come to light, but it’s hardly been disproved. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development, Joseph E. Inikori, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660-1800, Kenneth Morgan, Cambridge University Press, 2001. “The Atlantic Economy of the Eighteenth Century: Some Speculations on Economic Development in Britain America, Africa, and Elsewhere,” S. L. Engerman, Journal of European Economic History, 24(1):145-175, 1995. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley Engerman (editors), Duke University Press, 1992.

In France the Title of Marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept of it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote Provinces with Money in his Purse, and a Name terminating in ac or ille, may strut about, and cry, such a Man as I! A Man of my Rank and Figure! And may look down upon a Trader with sovereign Contempt; whilst the Trader on the other Side, by thus often hearing his Profession treated so disdainfully, is Fool enough to blush at it. However, I need not say which is most useful to a Nation; a Lord, powder’d in the tip of the Mode, who knows exactly at what a Clock the King rises and goes to bed; and who gives himself Airs of Grandeur and State, at the same Time that he is acting the Slave in the Anti-chamber of a prime Minister; or a Merchant, who enriches his Country, dispatches Orders from his Compting-House to Surat and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the Felicity of the World.”

Letters Concerning the English Nation,. by Mr. de Voltaire. London, Printed for C. Davis in Pater-Noster-Row, and A. Lyon in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden. First edition, translated by John Lockman, 1733, pages 69-72.

For a discussion of some of the current economic theories, see: The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention, William Rosen, University of Chicago Press, 2010, Chapter 11. However, Rosen avoids discussing at least two of the most venerable and still quite popular (even today) theories, namely: genes and religion.

Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene I.

Hunter-gatherers in Japan had pottery perhaps as much as 16Kya. Ancient Jomon of Japan, Junko Habu, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Hunter-gatherers in China had pre-neolithic pottery as much as 20Kya. “Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China,” X. Wu, C. Zhang, P. Goldberg, D. Cohen, Y. Pan, T. Arpin, O. Bar-Yosef, Science, 336(6089):1696-1700, 2012.

Oxen are castrated male cattle. Cattle were domesticated more than once, in one case (the zebu) in India perhaps 9Kya. “Domestication of cattle: Two or three events?,” D. Pitt, N. Sevane, E. L. Nicolazzi, D. E. MacHugh, S. D. E. Park, L. Colli, R. Martinez, M. W. Bruford, P. Orozco-terWengel, Evolutionary applications, 12(1):123-136, 2018.

Horses were (perhaps) domesticated perhaps 5.5Kya on the Steppes. “Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe,” V. Warmuth, A. Eriksson, M. A. Bower, G. Barker, E. Barrett, B. K. Hanks, S. Li, D. Lomitashvili, M. Ochir-Goryaeva, G. V. Sizonov, V. Soyonov, A. Manica, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21):8202-8206, 2012.

It would be wrong, though, to assume that Britain in 1776 was already well-off, just because a larger but still tiny percentage of its population now were. Even as late as 1850 Britons only ate about as well as Indians did in 1998. In 1776 the Poor Laws were still in full force, and for good reason—most of the population were still starving, or near starvation. They were also strictly tied to the land—and not just in an farming sense, but also in a legal sense. To travel, the poor needed passes, which they rarely got.

For example, on May 28th, 1795, a bill slightly ameliorated the travel problem: “Many industrious poor persons, chargeable to the parish, township, or place where they live, merely from want of work there, would in any other place where sufficient employment is to be had, maintain themselves and families without being burthensome to any parish, township, or place; and such poor persons are for the most part compelled to live in their own parishes, townships, or places, and are not permitted to inhabit elsewhere, under pretence that they are likely to become chargeable to the parish, township, or place into which they go for the purpose of getting employment, although the labour of such poor persons might, in many instances, be very beneficial to such parish, township, or place.” Poor Removal Bill, 35 George III, Chapter 101, (To Prevent the Removal of Poor Persons, Until They Shall Become Actually Chargeable). The bill explicitly excluded pregnant females, as the law had done for centuries already—they were the least able to work and the most expensive to support.

See also: The World Economy: A Millennia Perspective, Angus Maddison, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001.

Fifty years later (1795), one observer wrote that: “Water is seldom convenient; wind is a feeble and precarious agent; and muscular force is very expensive and very limited; but steam is free from each of these imperfections, and is superior to all in strength and duration.” Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800 Christine MacLeod, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 176. However, steam engines were still expensive.

Watt had trouble: “[T]he making of the invention is not the sole difficulty. It is one thing to invent, said Sir Marc Brunel, and another thing to make the invention work.... [Watt’s steam-engine] was so much in advance of the mechanical capability of the age that it was with the greatest difficulty it could be executed. When labouring upon his invention at Glasgow, Watt was baffled and thrown into despair by the clumsiness and incompetency of his workmen. Writing to Dr. Roebuck on one occasion, he said, “You ask what is the principal hindrance in erecting engines? It is always the smith-work.” His first cylinder was made by a whitesmith, of hammered iron soldered together, but having used quicksilver to keep the cylinder air-tight, it dropped through the inequalities into the interior, and “played the devil with the solder.” Yet, inefficient though the whitesmith was, Watt could ill spare him, and we find him writing to Dr. Roebuck almost in despair, saying, “My old white-iron man is dead!” feeling his loss to be almost irreparable. His next cylinder was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that it proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept steam tight, notwithstanding the various expedients which were adopted of stuffing it with paper, cork, putty, pasteboard, and old hats.... Yet better work could not be had. First-rate workmen in machinery did not as yet exist; they were only in process of education. Nearly everything had to be done by hand. The tools used were of a very imperfect kind. A few ill-constructed lathes, with some drills and boring-machines of a rude sort, constituted the principal furniture of the workshop....

Watt endeavoured to remedy the defect by keeping certain sets of workmen to special classes of work, allowing them to do nothing else. Fathers were induced to bring up their sons at the same bench with themselves, and initiate them in the dexterity which they had acquired by experience; and at Soho it was not unusual for the same precise line of work to be followed by members of the same family for three generations. In this way as great a degree of accuracy of a mechanical kind was arrived at was practicable under the circumstances. But notwithstanding all this care, accuracy of fitting could not be secured so long as the manufacture of steam-engines was conducted mainly by hand.”

Industrial Biography: Iron Workers And Tool Makers, Samuel Smiles, John Murray, 1863, pages 179-181.

Why this, and similar advances, didn’t lead to a huge change in China is a puzzle. (The medieval Islamic world is also puzzling.) China had so very much so very early, but the pieces either didn’t come together in industrial synergy, or when they did they didn’t stay together long enough to break our pattern of subsistence. Why? At least one big piece of ‘network physics,’ and probably many big pieces, must still be missing. The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973.

For example, to make pots we might need clay for the pots, potter’s wheels and lathes to shape the pots, flint and salt to glaze the pots, coal to fire the pots, power to grind the flint and run the wheels and lathes, and, of course, potters. But geography is a problem. Where do we put the pottery? Where the clay is? Where the coal is? How about where the power is? What about the flint, or salt—or potters? Wherever we site the pottery, we might need ships, carts, packhorses, and people, to fetch the clay, coal, flint, or whatever is missing—maybe even people—because to make pots we have to bring everything together. That transport adds either time or cost, or both. Plus, power is a special case. Waterwheels and windmills are stuck in place.

For any large-scale industry, we need large amounts of stuff. To make large amounts of any tangible thing, edible or not—whether it’s ground grain for an army, crucible steel for swords, spun thread for clothes, or dressed stones for a pyramid—we need lots of three things: power, hands, and resources (that is, materials and energy). To get lots of power—outside of ourselves and our draft animals, which would mean ongoing and irreducible food expense, even counting slavery—we usually need swift-running water, and to get that we need hills. To get lots of hands, we need food, which means water, but usually not swift-running water, which means plains. To get lots of resources beyond the usual—land, plants, and solar energy—we often need quarries or mines. However, hills, plains, and mines don’t often go together. Of course, that wouldn’t matter if mass transport, or any transport, was cheap, or at least fast, or better yet, both. But on land it wasn’t. So even after the horse, then the waterwheel, cheap, fast, and large-scale industry was all but impossible.

So for millennia most of our industry had to be small-scale. Only a few hands could move to where power was, or where resources were. Most hands stayed where food was, and we moved resources to where hands were, then hands made do for the missing power. None of us anywhere on the planet saw the problem, but we all faced it daily: Could we bring all three industrial needs—power, hands, and resources—together in one place? Or could we cut transport times, or costs, or maybe even both? Either way would smash the barrier and free us from our cage. In Britain, by around 1800, canals let us put a dent in the second, but the steam engine let us do both: the first by around 1800 with the steam-powered factory, then the second by around 1830 with the steam-powered locomotive.

“In Burslem, and its neighbourhood, are near one hundred and fifty separate Potteries, for making various kinds of stone and earthenware; which, together, find constant employment and support for near seven thousand people. The ware in these Potteries is exported in vast quantities from London, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull, and other seaports, to our several colonies in America and the West Indies, as well as to almost every port in Europe. Great quantities of flint-stones are used in making some of the ware, which are brought by sea, from different parts of the coast, to Liverpool and Hull: and the clay for the making of white ware is brought from Devonshire and Cornwall, chiefly to Liverpool; the materials from whence are brought by water, up the rivers Mersey and Weaver, to Winsford, in Cheshire; those from Hull, up the Trent, to Willington; and from Winsford and Willington, the whole are brought by land-carriage to Burslem. The ware, when made, is conveyed to Liverpool and Hull, in the same manner as the material brought from those places.

Many thousands of tons of shipping, and seamen in proportion, which in summer trade to the northern seas, are employed in winter in carrying materials for the Burslem ware: and, as much salt is consumed in glazing one species of it, as pays annually near £5,000 duty to Government. Add to these considerations the prodigious quantity of coals used in the Potteries, and the loading and freight this manufacture constantly supplies, as well for land-carriage as inland navigation, and it will appear, that the manufacturers, sailors, bargemen, carriers, colliers, men employed in the salt-works, and others who are supported by the pot trade, amount to a great many thousand people; and every shilling received for ware at foreign markets is so much clear gain to the nation, as not one foreigner is employed in, or any material imported from abroad for any branch of it; and the trade flourishes so much, as to have increased by two-thirds within the last fourteen years.

The Potters concerned in this very considerable manufacture, presuming from the above and many other reasons that might be offered, the Pot trade not unworthy the attention of Parliament, have presented a petition for leave to bring in a Bill to repair and widen the road from Red Bull, at Lawton, in Cheshire, to Cliff Bank, in Staffordshire; which runs quite through the Potteries, and falls at each end into a Turnpike road. This road, especially the northern road from Burslem to the Red Bull, is so very narrow, deep, and foundrous, as to be almost impassable for carriages; and in the winter, almost for pack-horses; for which reason, the carriages, with materials and ware, to and from Liverpool, and the salt-works in Cheshire, are obliged to go to Newcastle, and from thence to the Red Bull, which is nine miles and a half, (whereof three miles and a half, viz. from Burslem to Newcastle, are not Turnpike road), instead of five miles, which is the distance from Burslem to the Red Bull, by the road prayed to be amended.”

The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, in the Commencement of the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria: Comprising Its History, Statistics, Civil Polity, & Traffic With Biographical and Geneologicial Notices of Eminent Individuals and Families; Also, the Manorial History of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Incidental Notices of Other Neighbouring Place & Objects, John Ward, W. Lewis & Son, 1843, pages 28-29. For more general background, see also: The Wedgwoods: Being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood, With Notices of his Works and their Productions, Memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families And a History of the Early Potteries of Staffordshire, Llewellynn Jewitt, Virtue Brothers and Co., 1865, pages 162-163.

“The [early British railways] originated in the wagon ways, or tramways, used in the coal industry, and it was only with the construction of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) that it was discovered that railways could be used for passengers and general freight. The S&DR was launched in 1825 as a line designed to carry coal some 30 miles from collieries south of Durham to Stockton on the coast so that it could be transported by ship to London and elsewhere. The intention was to reduce the exorbitant cost of moving coal from the colliery to the coast. The S&DR’s authorising Act of Parliament followed the pattern of those for turnpike roads and canals. While the S&DR was free to operate its own vehicles on the railway, it had to permit the owners of other vehicles to use it on payment of a toll. The result was that the railway was used in a variety of different ways. Most of the traffic was pulled by horses, and while a large proportion of the trains were owned by the S&DR itself, individual colliery owners used their own wagons and horses. It was also used for passenger traffic, and two lady publicans ran horse-drawn carriages. The result was a combination of chaos, invention and success. The railway was built as a single track with passing places, and as traffic increased there were queues (and disputes) for their use. Light passenger coaches were supposed to give way to heavier coal trains. The locomotive engines introduced under the guidance of George Stephenson confirmed that mobile engines were at least as good as suppliers of motive power such as horses or stationary engines hauling wagons by ropes. The success, both technical and commercial, of the S&DR demonstrated for the first time that railways could have a commercial use beyond coal and mineral traffic in the north-east of England.

The discovery that railways could be highly profitable for transporting goods generally, not just coal and people, was made by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), which set the pattern for all other railways. Like the S&DR, the L&MR was established to break the stranglehold of a monopoly canal which took an indirect route between the two cities. The result of the monopoly was that the rapidly expanding cotton trade was faced with massive transport costs between its main centre, Manchester, and its chief port, Liverpool. As a consequence, and in what was to become the traditional fashion, the businessmen of the two cities, Liverpool merchants and Manchester mill owners, collaborated to build a railway between the two centres. An Act was passed in 1826, and the railway was opened in September 1830. Almost immediately upon completion, the L&MR was carrying mail, road ‘containers’ for Pickfords and had begun passenger excursions. From the start the proportion of passenger traffic was far larger than had been expected. It rapidly became clear that there were very large profits to be made, and that passengers as much as freight would be responsible for profitability. By the end of 1830, 70,000 passengers had been carried by the L&MR, and between 1831 and 1845 passengers accounted for 56 per cent of its total traffic receipts.”

railway.com: Parallels between the early British railways and the ICT revolution, Robert C. B. Miller, The Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003, pages 34-35.

Real enterprise was, however, steadily pursuing its aim amid all the excitement. Application had been made to parliament for leave to lay down a railway from Liverpool to Manchester—a work then become indispensable to those two increasing and important towns. At that period, and for some time afterwards, canal-boats, and slow, heavy roadwagons were the only available means for the transport of heavy goods or bulky merchandise. The charge for conveyance from London to Yorkshire amounted frequently to £13 per ton, and even at this high cost the service was very imperfect. Beneficial as canals had proved they were becoming inadequate to the growing requirements of trade. Besides the road there were two canals for the traffic between Liverpool and Manchester, the distance by the latter fifty-five miles, and the carriage of goods in some intances £2 per ton. Manchester was so entirely dependent on Liverpool for supplies of raw material, and the saving of time in transport so much an object, that any measure for an additional route was more a necessity than a speculation. It was notorious that goods were frequently conveyed from Liverpool to New York in less time than to Manchester. To make a third canal was impossible, as the district afforded no more water than sufficed for the two already existing. A thousand tons of merchandise were sent daily between the two towns, and produced a yearly revenue of £200,000 to the carriers. On one of the canals the profits were so great that the proprietors received the amount of their original outlay every alternate year.

Reasonable compliance with their wishes would have satisfied the merchants, who sought only to secure prompt and certain means of transport, not to depreciate canal property. Failing in their object, a railway, which had from time to time been talked about, was again discussed. The ‘Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company’ was formed, and their prospectus issued in 1824. In the following year the bill came before parliament, and there encountered all the opposition which selfishness could invent or ignorance employ, as may be seen in the parliamentary records of the session. The bill, however, was successfully carried in 1826.”

“Railway Communications,” in: Chambers’s Papers for the People, Volume 12, William Chambers, J. W. Moore, 1852, pages 14-15.

See also: “The collapse of the Railway Mania, the development of capital markets, and the forgotten role of Robert Lucas Nash,” A. Odlyzko, Accounting History Review, 21(3):309-345, 2011. “This time is different: An example of a giant, wildly speculative, and successful investment mania,” A. Odlyzko, B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10(1):article 60, 2010. Fire & Steam: A History of the Railways in Britain, C. Wolmar, Atlantic Book, 2007. The Railway Mania and Its Aftermath, 1845-1852, Henry Grote Lewin, The Railway Gazette, 1936.

Allen convincingly argues that in Britain, as opposed to France and China, labor was expensive and capital and energy were cheap. The substitution of capital and energy for labor was then economically forced. This is a great argument. However, it doesn’t quite explain why Britain was able to supply the machinery and know-how to accomplish that substitution, and why that particular substitution then went on to trigger such huge changes.

Also, see Elvin, and the even earlier Killough, for a sketch of an earlier version of the same argument: The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973. International Trade, Hugh Baxter Killough, McGraw-Hill, 1938, pages 83-84.

The following quote seems apropos: “This is not inappropriately called the iron age, and certainly it deserves the name of the metallic age. That men should chase wild animals, and having taken, should tame and feed them, and thus always secure a supply; that they should appropriate the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and, imitating the processes of nature, should cast seed into the ground and become cultivators, always to have the fruits of the earth; that they should, from wrapping their limbs in the skins of animals, weave clothing to protect their bodies and become manufacturers; that they should launch a hollow tree on a stream, and end by navigating every part of the ocean, absolutely winning bread from the salt wave,— seems less surprising than that that they should find the means of subsistence and of welfare in the bowels of the earth.... [E]very step has been successive; slowly, gradually, but surely, has man been led from utter ignorance of the objects around him to use and profit by every solid thing on the surface of the earth, by the waters which surround it, by the circumambient atmosphere, and by the minerals deep hidden in its bowels.... In 1798... the make of iron [in Britain] was 125,000 tons; in 1806 it was 258,000 tons; in 1823 it was 450,000 tons; in 1830, 670,000 tons; and now it is more than five times as much. We use iron in ways that our fathers never thought of. Our palaces and our ships are built of iron. Our railways are in the main iron; our telegraphs depend on iron.” From: “The British Iron Trade,” The Economist, 14(659):391-392, 1856.

Our industrial phase change wasn’t the first time we fell into that kind of pulsing, self-propelling, synergetic cycle. In our recent past, for example, we autocatalytically cemented another: get slaves to harvest sugar to buy tobacco to buy ships to get slaves to work plantations to buy opium to buy tea to get slaves. That particular cycle changed the futures of Britain, the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, India, Indonesia, and China. We made another cycle even further back in time: make war to get slaves to grow food to feed slaves to swell armies to support kings to make war to get slaves. The industrial phase change, however, may be our first synergetic cycle that didn’t directly depend on slaves.

The text takes some liberties with the term a chemist might use for that kind of process. The word ‘synergy’ comes from the Greek synergos, which roughly means ‘working together’ or ‘combined action.’ The word is in common use but chemists don’t normally use the word (although they might sometimes use ‘synergistic’). For the same idea (of a self-stimulating reaction network) they might instead say ‘jointly catalytic’ or ‘collectively autocatalytic’ or ‘network catalytic.’ But such phrases are too cumbersome for a book of popular science. For a survey of much more relaxed meanings of the word in physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, and anthropology, see: Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution, Peter A. Corning, University of Chicago Press, 2005. “The Synergism Hypothesis: On the Concept of Synergy and Its Role in the Evolution of Complex Systems,” P. A. Corning, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 21(2):133-172, 1998.

In economics, a similar idea is called ‘agglomeration economies’ or ‘economies of agglomeration’ (also sometimes ‘economies of scope’) (to contrast it with ‘economies of scale’—also called ‘increasing returns to scale’—which is subdivided into ‘internal,’ that is, at the firm level, and ‘external,’ that is, at the industry level). It’s related to what economists from Adam Smith on call ‘division of labor’ (that is, specialization) coupled with concomitant ‘externalities,’ ‘complementarities,’ ‘spillovers,’ and ‘increasing returns.’ Paul Krugman extended that to ‘economic geography’ (or ‘geographic economics’—or sometimes ‘location theory’) then to international trade, based on Alfred Marshall’s 1890 observation of the spatial formation of reaction networks (he didn’t call it that). That is, it is division of labor when that happens across multiple nearby firms (for example, in a city) as opposed to inside one firm. Perhaps the distinctions that economists draw relate to whether the division of labor is intentioned or not, whether it pre-dates or post-dates some event (that is, whether it happens as a result of some event, or whether the event happens because of it), whether it’s within one firm or not, within one industry or not, or within one cluster, city, or country or not. But for the text’s purposes, none of that matters since attribution of invention, ownership, and income division is irrelevant from the species point of view. Agglomeration Economics, Edward L. Glaeser (editor), University of Chicago Press, 2010. World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography, The World Bank, 2009, Chapter 4. “Intra-industry Foreign Direct Investment,” L. Alfaro, A. Charlton, American Economic Review, 99(5):2096-2119, 2009. “Location, Competition and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy,” M. Porter, Economic Development Quarterly, 14(1):15-34, 2000. “Urban Concentration: The Role of Increasing Returns and Transport Goods,” P. Krugman, International Regional Science Review, 19(1-2):5-30, 1996. Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume, Alfred Marshall, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1890, pages 271-272.

For millennia, however, men and women had well-defined roles. In China, for example, the saying is nan geng nü zhi (men plow women weave). For millennia, agrarian synergy had forced women all over the world into baby-making. When you’re a perpetual baby-machine, the three jobs that best fit you are child watching, home food production, and home clothing production. When some of us were speaking languages like Akkadian, those jobs were spinning thread and weaving, and milling flour and cooking. But in the 1800s such tasks began to matter far less than before. Our new factories and industrial farms were pumping out mass-produced food and clothes in vast peristaltic waves. Clothes got so cheap that many of us could afford more than one set. Food also got cheaper and cheaper. Child watching costs also declined as cities grew and schools ballooned. All three of the traditional female occupations grew less economically valuable. Women found other things to do, things that paid money.

“They are rather volatile than otherwise, but in general have very good natural capacities. If they have any genius, it is not cramped in their infancy by being overawed by their parents. There is very little subordination observed in their youth. Implicit obedience to old age is not among their qualifications. Their persons are in general tall and genteel, particularly the women, they are remarkably well shaped. I think I have not seen three crooked women in the country. Few, or none of them wear stays in the summer and there are but few that wear them constantly in the winter, which may be a principal reason why they have such good shapes. But to counterbalance this great perfection they have very bad teeth. Very few of them have a good mouth at twenty-five. It is said that eating so much hot bread (for they in general bake every meal) and fruit, is the reason why their teeth decay so early. They are good natured, familiar, and agreeable upon the whole, but confoundedly indolent. The men are universal Mechanics, Carpenters, Sadlers and Coopers, but very indifferent Husbandmen. Though the inhabitants of this Country are composed of different Nations and different languages, yet it is very remarkable that they in general speak better English than the English do. No County or Colonial dialect is to be distinguished here, except it be the New Englanders, who have a sort of whining cadence that I cannot describe.

The great population of this country is amazing. The emigration from Europe, added to the natural population, is supposed to double their numbers every twenty years, some will say, every sixteen years. It is certain that they increase much faster than they do in England, indeed they marry much sooner. Perhaps one reason may be, in England they cannot maintain a family with so much ease as they do in America which I believe deters many from marrying very early in life. None in England, but those who have not the fear of want and poverty before their eyes, will marry till they have a sufficiency to maintain and provide for a family. But here there are no fears of that sort and with the least spark of industry, they may support a family of small children. When they grow to manhood, they can provide for themselves. That great curiosity, an Old Maid, is seldom seen in this country. They generally marry before they are twenty-two, often before they are sixteen.

In short, this was a paradise on Earth for women, the epicure’s Elysium and the very centre of freedom and hospitality. But in the short space of three years, it has become the theatre of War, the Country of distraction, and the seat of slavery, confusion, and lawless oppression. May the Almighty of his infinite goodness and mercy, reunite and reestablish them on their former happy and flourishing situation. I am almost tired with scribbling, but these hints may be of service if ever I correct my Journal.”

“Saturday, July 19th, 1777.” The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777, edited by Samuel Thornely, Dial Press, 1924.

But that didn’t make the United States truly unusual. Britain, and the rest of Eurasia, wasn’t much different, except for being far more urban. That pattern had held for millennia. For example, in seventeenth-century England, Shakespeare could read, but neither of his daughters could. The pattern wasn’t uniform, though. Small newly rich places could be different. For instance, in fourteenth-century Florence, Dante pined for the good old days—back before rich Florentine women grew so uppity. (Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto XV.) “Gender and Civic Authority: Sexual Control in a Medieval Italian Town,” C. Lansing, Journal of Social History, 31(1):33-59, 1997, page 42.

The resemblance between all of our agrarian groups until the coming of industrialization doesn’t mean that all such groups were exactly the same. For example, here is de Tocqueville comparing France to the United States: “In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes, and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways which are always different. American women never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business, or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men.” Democracy in America: Part the Second; the Social Influence of Democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, J. & H. G. Langley, 1840, page 225.

Mostly though, wherever the plow had touched down women had fallen over, supine and silent. Thus, nineteenth-century women in Britain were, by law, inferior to men. Married women didn’t even exist, legally. They were home-bound, unable to vote, barely allowed to trade. They also had to be widows before they could control their own property. Outside of brothels and nunneries, half of us in 1830, in the United States, Britain, and nearly everywhere else, were wards of the other half, not counting slaves and natives.

One of [my servants] was a pretty girl, whose natural disposition must have been gentle and kind; but her good feelings were soured, and her gentleness turned to morbid sensitiveness, by having heard a thousand and a thousand times that she was as good as any other lady, that all men were equal, and women too, and that it was a sin and a shame for a free-born American to be treated like a servant.”

Domestic Manners of the Americans, Mrs. Trollope, Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832, pages 61-62.

Later on (page 74) she mentioned women and religion in the United States. “The influence which the ministers of all the innumerable religious sects throughout America, have on the females of their respective congregations, approaches very nearly to what we read of in Spain, or in other strictly Roman Catholic countries. There are many causes for this peculiar influence. Where equality of rank is affectedly acknowledged by the rich, and clamourously claimed by the poor, distinction and preeminence are allowed to the clergy only. This gives them high importance in the eyes of the ladies. I think, also, that it is from the clergy only that the women of America receive that sort of attention which is so dearly valued by every female heart throughout the world. With the priests of America, the women hold that degree of influential importance which, in the countries of Europe, is allowed them throughout all orders and ranks of society, except, perhaps, the very lowest; and in return for this they seem to give their hearts and souls into their keeping. I never saw, or read, of any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a slighter hold upon the men.”

There is much more of this, including descriptions of ‘Revivals’ as a form of theater.

Morse was hardly the last holdout against change. For example, here is Emerson in 1847: “Things are in the saddle, / and ride mankind.” (However, although this has been taken by many humanists along with his line: “law for man and law for thing” as including him in the Luddite camp, others disagree and see it as much more historically specific.) Aside from the whole Luddite movement, much of which might be taken as working-class reaction, there were strong reactions within the religious, literary, and even patrician classes (for example, Lord Byron). One writer in particular is worth quoting here, and that is the fulminator (over many issues, not just this one), Thomas Carlyle. Here he is, writing in 1829, on the evils of mechanization, in terms quite similar to Karl Marx’s writings in 1844:

“Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his sail, and lays down his oar; and bids a strong, unwearied servant, on vaporous wings, bear him through the waters. Men have crossed oceans by steam; the Birmingham Fire-king has visited the fabulous East; and the genius of the Cape were there any Camoens now to sing it, has again been alarmed, and with far stranger thunders than Gamas. There is no end to machinery. Even the horse is stripped of his harness, and finds a fleet fire-horse invoked in his stead. Nay, we have an artist that hatches chickens by steam; the very brood-hen is to be superseded! For all earthly, and for some unearthly purposes, we have machines and mechanic furtherances; for mincing our cabbages; for casting us into magnetic sleep. We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highways; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.”

The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, Volume Three, Chapman and Hall, 1858, pages 100-101. See also: Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, Nicols Fox, Island Press, 2002, especially Chapter 4. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, Leo Marx, Oxford University Press, 1964, especially Chapter 4. “Emerson’s ‘Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing,’ ” G. Arms, College English, 22(6):407-409, 1961.

For instance, Singer, like many boys in his time, left home at 13. He kept moving for the next 26 years. Like him, most white men were on the move, and women followed their men. The new nation was ballooning west, into an expanding native-free vacuum. But that in itself wasn’t new. The same slaughter was happening at about the same time for about the same reasons in Russia, Australia, and South America. Foragers were dying everywhere as our new transport tools carried the gun and the plow to every land.

For example, in the 1800s the, then small, Russian state expanded east much as the, then small, United States expanded west. Russian expansion into the Balkans was partly checked by the British and French in the Crimean War in 1854, but it continued expanding from 1856 on into the steppes of Central Asia, eventually stretching all the way to the Pacific. Although it was more conquest than outright replacement, it still led to many of the usual genocides against nomadic, or even settled, peoples, just as western expansion did in the United States starting a little earlier. Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe, Willard Sunderland, Cornell University Press, 2004.

“Home and the Sewing Machine,” The National Magazine, Volume 12, 1858, pages 539-544.

No one invention has brought with it so great a relief for our mothers and daughters as these iron needle-women. Indeed, it is the only invention that can be claimed chiefly for woman’s benefit. The inventive genius of man, ever alert to furnish the world with machinery for saving labor and cheapening the cost of manufactures, seemed to regard man as the only laborer, prior to the invention of the sewing machine....

[E]verywhere that the busy needle is plied, these tireless workers have found their way, carrying relief for woman’s trembling hands and weary eyes. The swift-flying needle—this best boon to woman in the nineteenth century—has already won many victories, and soon the song of the shirt will be heard only in tradition of sufferings passed away.”

“The Story of the Sewing-Machine,” New York Times, January 7th, 1860.

In 1860, an estimated 12,106 people lived in Bridgeport. Population of the 100 largest cities and other urban places in the United States: 1790 to 1990, Population Division Working Paper Number 27, United States Bureau of the Census, 1998.

Incidentally, Bishop also lists manufactory occupations, with a breakdown by male and female, for many towns, notably Hartford, where Samuel Colt had his gun manufactory. Hartford had a much larger spread of female occupations (but then, it was a much larger town than Bridgeport), however, the top three female occupations were still clothing of one kind or another. The largest group was 595 women in clothing. Then 512 women in ‘silk, sewing.’ Then 409 in hosiery. Then 302 in paper. Philadelphia was much larger still, and so had an even wider spread of industries.

Anomalies of the Sewing machine

In an editorial in a recent issue of the Scientific American, under the above title, the following paragraphs appeared, to which we have received a reply from a lady subscriber from Michigan.

“A psychological fact, possibly new, which has come to light in this sewing machine business is that a woman will rather pay $50 for a machine in monthly installments of five dollars than $25 outright, although able to do so.

“The curious processes of reasoning by which the feminine mind is led to regard the lapse of time as a cheapener and a hundred per cent interest as of no consequence, have not yet, we believe, been discovered.”

Our correspondent replies: “She does it from policy, for if she says, ’Husband, I wish $25 to buy a sewing machine with.’ she expects a shrug of the shoulders, and is unable to obtain the money; but if she says, ’I can buy a sewing machine, and pay for it in monthly installments, only $5 each month,’ perhaps she can get the coveted machine. A psychological fact, but is it masculine or feminine?”

See also: Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit, Lendol Calder, Princeton University Press, 1999, page 164.

“Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead. He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

He was an Indian with a white man’s spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.

We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.”

Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, December 20th, 1890.

“The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that ‘when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre.’ ”

Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, January 3rd, 1891.

See also: Women and Work in Britain since 1840, Gerry Holloway, Routledge, 2005. “Jobs for the Girls: The Expansion of Clerical Work for Women, 1850‑1914,” M. Zimmeck, in Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England, 1800-1918, Angela V. John (editor), Blackwell, 1986, pages 152-177. “ ‘To Barter Their Souls For Gold:’ Female Clerks in Federal Government Offices, 1862-1890,” C. S. Aron, Journal of American History, 67:835‑53, 1980‑1981. History of American Technology, John W. Oliver, Ronald Press, 1956, pages 440-442. The Natural History of a Social Institution: The Young Women’s Christian Association, Mary S. Sims, The Women’s Press, 1936, pages 84-85. Shorthand Instruction and Practice, Julius Ensing Rockwell, Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No. 1, 1893, Whole number 192, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893.

In 1891, F. Henrietta Müller (whose penname was ‘Helena B. Temple’) commented that, “One of the things which always humiliated me very much was the way in which women’s interests and opinions were systematically excluded from the World’s Press. I was mortified too, that our cause should be represented by a little monthly leaflet, not worthy of the name of a newspaper called the Women’s Suffrage Journal. I realised of what vital importance it was that women should have a newspaper of their own through which to voice their thoughts, and I formed the daring resolve that if no one else better fitted for the work would come forward, I would try and do it myself.” From: “Interview,” Woman’s Herald 4(161):915-916, 1891. (November 28th, 1891, 915-916.) Quoted in: Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984: An Annotated Critical Bibliography of British, Irish, Commonwealth and International Titles, David Doughan and Denise Sanchez (editors), New York University Press, 1987, pages 3-4.

Despite all the agitation since at least 1792, it wasn’t until 1918 that 1918 that all adult men, and all women over 30, could vote in Britain. It wasn’t until 1920 that all adult women could vote in the United States. It wasn’t until 1928 that all adult women could vote in Britain.

“This problem of education, started in 1838, went on for three years, while the baby grew, like other babies, unconsciously, as a vegetable, the outside world working as it never had worked before, to get his new universe ready for him. Often in old age he puzzled over the question whether, on the doctrine of chances, he was at liberty to accept himself or his world as an accident. No such accident had ever happened before in human experience. For him, alone, the old universe was thrown into the ash-heap and a new one created. He and his eighteenth-century, troglodytic Boston were suddenly cut apart—separated forever—in act if not in sentiment, by the opening of the Boston and Albany Railroad; the appearance of the first Cunard steamers in the bay; and the telegraphic messages which carried from Baltimore to Washington the news that Henry Clay and James K. Polk were nominated for the Presidency. This was in May, 1844; he was six years old; his new world was ready for use, and only fragments of the old met his eyes.”

The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography, Henry Adams, Houghton Mifflin, 1918, page 5.

Here’s Zola on the issue a year before:

“— Alors, l’émancipation de la femme par la bicyclette.

— Mon Dieu! pourquoi pas?... Cela semble drôle, et pourtant voyez quel chemin parcouru déjà: la culotte qui délivre les jambes, les sorties en commun qui mêlent et égalisent les sexes, la femme et les enfants qui suivent le mari partout, les camarades comme nous deux qui peuvent s’en aller à travers champs, à travers bois, sans qu’on s’en étonne.”

[“So women are to be emancipated by cycling?

‘Well, why not? It may seem a droll idea; but see what progress has been made already! By wearing rationals women free their limbs from prison; then the facilities which cycling affords people for going out together tend to greater intercourse and equality between the sexes; the wife and the children can follow the husband everywhere, and friends like ourselves are at liberty to roam hither and thither without astonishing anybody.”]

Paris, A Novel, Émile Zola, translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus, 1899, pages 335-336.

See also: “Liberating Technologies? Of Bicycles, Balance and the ’New Woman’ in the 1890s,” A.-K. Ebert, Icon, 16(Special Issue: Technology in Everyday Life):25-52, 2010.

See also: Bit by Bit, Stan Augarten, Ticknor and Fields, 1984, pages 37-39. It describes the Arithmometer, the first commercial adding machine (it also subtracted, multiplied and divided) in 1851, which was based on Leibniz’s Stepped Reckoner, which goes back to 1631, but which was never fully developed. There’s also Pascal’s Pascaline, which was built in 1644 but pitched to aristocrats, it never sold well (“bookkeeping was for servants”).

“Von Neumann Thought Turing’s Universal Machine was ’Simple and Neat.’: But That Didn’t Tell Him How to Design a Computer,” T. Haigh, M. Priestley, Communications of the ACM, 63(1):26-32, 2020. ENIAC In Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer, Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, and Crispin Rope, The MIT Press, 2016. The Computer—My Life, Konrad Zuse, translated by Patricia McKenna and J. Andrew Ross, Springer-Verlag, 1993. Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer, Clark R. Mollenhoff, Iowa State University Press, 1988. Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges, Simon and Schuster, 1983.

For a general reader’s book that tries to trace all the strands, see also: The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer, Jane Smiley, Doubleday, 2010.

The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014. The fourth billion by 2018. Then growth rate slowed. The second half of the world will take longer to get online.

Data collated from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, the World Bank, and the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Nowadays, faster and longer-range matter- and data-flow (transport and communication) can mean larger markets, longer supply-chains, and thus more money, and more competition. That can splinter having an idea from testing it, finding the money to build it, distributing and accounting for the money to build it, organizing the people and tools needed to build it, building it, legally defending it, regulating it, managing it, owning it, profiting from it, and controlling it. Large companies can now support many roles: scientist, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, investor, banker, lawyer, shareholder, board member, director, manager, accountant, designer, contractor, marketer, regulator, consultant. The people playing such roles might be distinct when building something large or complicated. Similar splintering can happen with large growing or servicing concerns, too, whether they be corporate farms or investment banks or major hospitals.

However, even in multinationals, while most such people may no longer be kin, or close friends, to be hired into the company they, often, still have to be ‘near’ each other, if not in location, then in language, origin, friendship circle, or at least, perceived education. Part of the reason for the persistence of such ties may be because they help guarantee performance, but also that they enhance trust and reduce the chance of betrayal, malfeasance, or non-compliance. Companies survive only if they cohere long enough to profit from internal cooperation.

But if a ‘mental railroad’ comes to exist, some of those geographic, linguistic, credit, and legal barriers to company creation, cohesion, and maintenance might erode. The barriers may no longer be quite so vital to enhancing or enforcing trust. It may no longer matter so much where someone lives, what language they speak, where they’re from, or perhaps even that some particular person in the company knew them before joining. Perhaps only skills, personalities, or predilections may matter. (Of course, government agencies, militaries, and defense and aerospace contractors, won’t ever adopt this model. Trust there is paramount; it’s not inter-company, it’s inter-government; and it’s not money but lives at stake.)

If so, no matter how small the company, or how esoteric its product or service, its roles might start splintering as some company tasks spin off into world-spanning contracts. If that happens, more people around the world might compete for such a contract, then perhaps farm out some of it, which other contractors might compete for, then they might farm out some of that to yet other contractors, and so on. Many such contractors might live anywhere, speak any language, and be any age, any gender, any sexual orientation. If so, only contracts might then bind such a company together.

Just as when the railroad started linking mines, factories, cities, ports, and such, there will surely be all sorts of barriers—particularly those surrounding individual, corporate, and national (maybe even regional) espionage, sabotage, and rivalry. So, probably, this will be largely a legal, political, and geopolitical issue, not so much a technical one. But if such global contracts do become viable, then after a while, all that may be left of any such company may be the network that glues producers—whether on farms, in factories, or in offices—to consumers.

Further, some of those producers, and even some of their consumers, may become robots—more and more of which may be any size, from whole city blocks down to gnats, so that some ‘services’ or even ‘factories’ (maybe eventually even some ‘farms’ too?) might even fit on rooftops or in bedroom closets. Why not? Establishing, branding, growing, and marketing such networks across national boundaries would then become such a company’s main business, regardless of what it grows, makes, or serves—or to whom, or what, it serves that to. Increasingly, company reputation may become everything it is to its clients. ‘Can you deliver the thing (food, fuel, part, service), in time and in budget, as promised?’ After a while, that may be all that defines the company.

If such companies were (legally) allowed to come to exist, and if they were rewarded, they could grow in number, variety, and size. As they compete, they could skeletonize as other companies arise to aid them. For instance, writing, insuring, and enforcing distributed contracts so that they could work in varied legal domains might grow so useful that it alone might become a new kind of company’s business. Identifying, targeting, and tracking suitable talent might become another kind of company’s business. Designing sets of contracts so that they mesh well, or are standardized, or are accredited, might become yet another kind of company’s business, and so on. Then, such helper companies could themselves skeletonize. The result could be a bouquet of skeletonized global companies, driving down global wages but driving up global variety.

Another such kind of helper company might arise to solve problems for other such companies—or for any company at all—or for no company at all, for some of them might even do some things just for the sheer joy of trying to see if they could do it. Science and math seem like prime candidates for that and pioneer volunteer groups in those areas already exist. In any such group, no one need necessarily be superfast or supersmart, but with the right tools and links to others, the group might well be—if not compared to other such groups, certainly compared to a lone person, or any number of lone people. That group might have an edge in terms of facility, creativity, curiosity, or tenacity.

Were such groups to become routine, a new term might enter the languages: ‘metaconcert.’ It might denote how people behave when they mass together to solve human problems, for there would then be a new kind of power grid—a mental one—because cleverness would then be on tap, like water or electricity. Depending on demand, perhaps half the planet might be in constant touch, and, enhanced with ever cheaper thinking aids, might attack problems—at least technical ones in science, engineering, medicine, math, finance, and business—in ever larger metaconcerts across planetary distances.

If the sheltering effects of location, language, origin, and prior friendship do indeed decline, any profit-motivated skeletonized groups that survive would have to become more nimble. With fewer tethers to physical existence, many such groups may then have the lifespans of mayflies—winking into and out of existence. Change would then be not merely constant, but torrential. As with steam engine dispersal two centuries ago, new centers of ‘mental industry’ would then spring up wherever they’re best suited to grow. Mental production would then explode, just as physical production once did when rails synergetically linked coal and iron and factories, making for a fifth wave of industrial phase change, possibly more like a tsunami than a wave.

Such tasks far exceed our tools and skills. We’re still our own mental carthorses. We don’t yet have mental steam engines.

Research toward what might eventually become such a thing is proceeding along several lines (although no responsible researcher says that the ultimate result might be a ‘global brain,’ or at least, nobody says so publicly). The problem is how to coordinate action by massive numbers of mobile, computational agents, each with limited knowledge, as they interact to solve various problems in a massive, distributed, global computer network. The chief areas of research are: ubiquitous computing (also called ubicomp), pervasive computing (sometimes called ambient intelligence), mobile agents, massively parallel computation, and grid computing. Security for Ubiquitous Computing, Frank Stajano, John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems, E. Bonabeau, M. Dorigo, G. Theraulaz, F. Kluegl, Oxford University Press, 1999. The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman (editors), Morgan Kaufmann, 1998. Software Agents, James E. White (editor), AAAI Press/MIT Press, 1997. The Ecology of Computation, B. A. Hubermann (editor), North-Holland, 1988.

“Opening of the Northern Railroad to Lebanon, N.H.,” Daniel Webster, Wednesday 17th Novemember, 1847, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, pages 116-117.

There are two main characteristics of the House of Commons which will command the approval and the support of reflective and experienced Members. They will, I have no doubt, sound odd to foreign ears. The first is that its shape should be oblong and not semi-circular. Here is a very potent factor in our political life. The semi-circular assembly, which appeals to political theorists, enables every individual or every group to move round the centre, adopting various shades of pink according as the weather changes. I am a convinced supporter of the party system in preference to the group system. I have seen many earnest and ardent Parliaments destroyed by the group system. The party system is much favoured by the oblong form of Chamber. It is easy for an individual to move through those insensible gradations from Left to Right but the act of crossing the Floor is one which requires serious consideration. I am well informed on this matter, for I have accomplished that difficult process, not only once but twice. Logic is a poor guide compared with custom. Logic which has created in so many countries semi-circular assemblies which have buildings which give to every Member, not only a seat to sit in but often a desk to write at, with a lid to bang, has proved fatal to Parliamentary Government as we know it here in its home and in the land of its birth.

The second characteristic of a Chamber formed on the lines of the House of Commons is that it should not be big enough to contain all its Members at once without over-crowding and that there should be no question of every Member having a separate seat reserved for him. The reason for this has long been a puzzle to uninstructed outsiders and has frequently excited the curiosity and even the criticism of new Members. Yet it is not so difficult to understand if you look at it from a practical point of view. If the House is big enough to contain all its Members, nine-tenths of its Debates will be conducted in the depressing atmosphere of an almost empty or half-empty Chamber. The essence of good House of Commons speaking is the conversational style, the facility for quick, informal interruptions and interchanges. Harangues from a rostrum would be a bad substitute for the conversational style in which so much of our business is done. But the conversational style requires a fairly small space, and there should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then, by the House.”

Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, Volume VII: 1943-1949, Robert Rhodes James (editor), Chelsea House Publishers, 1974, pages 6869-6871. See also: The Second World War, Volume V: Closing the Ring, Winston S. Churchill, Houghton Mifflin, 1951, pages 149-151.

Marshall McLuhan may have been rephrasing Churchill’s observation that “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us” when he said “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” in The Medium is the Massage. Note that the quote isn’t from his book of that name but from his album, The Medium is the Massage, which appeared the same year (1967). He has a child speak it on Side 2.

As for penal slavery, “It is truly extraordinary that European scholars have either neglected this whole aspect of the subject or defined it as something other than slavery when they recognized it.” Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Press, 1982, pages 44-45.

The term was in use in Europe (at least in Italy and France, perhaps England) by at least 1731. “[...] ils n’ont point d’abord recours au Canon, qu’ils ont eux mêmes nommé ultima ratio Regum, la raison à laquelle on a recours quand toutes les autres sont inutiles.” [First they did not resort to Cannon, they have even called them ultima ratio Regum, the reason that’s used when all others are useless.] From: “Reflexions sur les Nouvelles d’Italie,” in: Lettre historique (et politique), Contenant l’état présent de l’Europe, ce qui se passe dans toutes les Cours, l’interêt des Princes, leurs brigues, & généralement tout ce qu’il y a de curieux pour le Mois de Janvier 1731, Henri Basnage de Beauval, Jacques Bernard, and Jean baron de Carlscroon Du-Mont, Herman Uytwerf, 1731, pages 267-272.

Another popular one was Pluribus nec impar [A match for many].

My father has spent many hundreds a year to get the best mode, and most accurate, of making the blocks, and he certainly succeeded; and so much so, that I have no hope of anything ever better being discovered, and I am convinced there cannot.”

However, Southamptom’s rejection may have turned to dejection once Brunel built his factory, for:

“where FIFTY MEN were necessary to complete the shells of blocks previous to the erection of Brunel’s machinery, FOUR MEN only are now required; and that, to prepare the sheaves, SIX MEN can now do the work which formerly demanded the labours of SIXTY.

So that TEN MEN, by the aid of this machinery, can accomplish with uniformity, celerity, and ease, what formerly required the uncertain labour of ONE HUNDRED AND TEN.”

Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel: Civil Engineer, Vice-President of the Royal Society, corresponding member of the Institute of France, etc., Richard Beamish, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, Second Edition, 1862, pages 50-51 and pages 97-98.

Brunel got as far as he did, despite many failures, largely because his wife’s brother was senior in the British Navy. He provided introductions.

Brunel then worked with Samuel Bentham, who was himself very inventive. Brother of Jeremy Bentham (the political radical and philosopher), Samuel was inspector general of the British Navy. They then hired Henry Maudslay to build the machines they would need. Maudslay was one of Britain’s rising stars in precision tools. His machines for Brunel’s block-making manufactory at the Portsmouth yards were so well made that they were still in use in 1944, 141 years later. Blocks for the landing boats at Normandy on D-Day were made there. At the same Portsmouth yards, Bentham had a steam engine in use to drain the docks as early as 1799, and, by 1802, another to run mechanical saws.

The block factory paid for itself in just four years. But it suffered after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815 and demand dried up. By 1821 Brunel was in jail for debt. The government let him, and his family, languish there until he started corresponding with the Tsar of Russia, who was interested in hiring him away. Then the government paid off his debts with the understanding that he’d remain in Britain. He then went on to invent several more machines and initiate many more building projects. His son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, did the same.

The Greater Genius? Harold Bagust, Ian Allan Publishing, 2006. Brunel: The Man Who Made the World, Steven Brindle, Sterling Publishing Company, 2005, page 37. The Portsmouth Block Mills: Bentham, Brunel and the start of the Royal Navy’s Industrial Revolution, Jonathan Coad, English Heritage, 2005. Henry Maudslay & the Pioneers of the Machine Age, John Cantrell and Gillian Cookson (editors), Tempus Publishing, 2002. “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture,” C. C. Cooper, Technology and Culture, 25(2):182-225, 1984. English and American Tool Builders, Joseph Wickham Roe, Yale University Press, 1916.

Jefferson mentions the event toward the end of his letter to John Jay on August 30th as follows: “An improvement is made here in the construction of muskets, which it may be interesting to Congress to know, should they at any time propose to procure any. It consists in the making every part of them so exactly alike, that what belongs to any one, may be used for every other musket in the magazine. The government here has examined and approved the method, and is establishing a large manufactory for the purpose of putting it into execution. As yet, the inventor has only completed the lock of the musket, on this plan. He will proceed immediately to have the barrel, stock, and other parts, executed in the same way. Supposing it might be useful in the United States, I went to the workman. He presented me the parts of fifty locks taken to pieces, and arranged in compartments. I put several together myself, taking pieces at hazard as they came to hand, and they fitted in the most perfect manner. The advantages of this, when arms need repair, are evident. He effects it by tools of his own contrivance, which, at the same time, abridge the work, so that he thinks he shall be able to furnish the musket two livres cheaper than the common price. But it will be two or three years before he will be able to furnish any quantity. I mention it now, as it may have influence on the plan for furnishing our magazines with this arm.” The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private: Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State, Volume 1, Thomas Jefferson, Taylor & Maury, 1853, pages 411-412.

Another important catalyst was Major Louis de Tousard, who kept pushing the idea in the United States (after leaving France in 1793 after the Revolution), particularly by writing a proposition that partly led to the establishment of West Point in 1802. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, pages 26-27.

First verse: “Allons enfants de la Patrie, (Arise, children of the Fatherland) / Le jour de gloire est arrivé! (The day of glory has arrived!) / Contre nous de la tyrannie, (Against us tyranny’s) / L’étendard sanglant est levé (repeat) (Bloody banner is raised) / Entendez-vous dans les campagnes (Do you hear, in the fields) / Mugir ces féroces soldats? (The roar of those ferocious soldiers?) Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras (They’re coming right into your midst) / Éorger vos fils, vos compagnes! (To cut the throats of your sons, your women!)”

Chorus: “Aux armes, citoyens, (To arms, citizens) / Formez vos bataillons, (Form your battalions) / Marchons, marchons, (Let’s march, let’s march) / Qu’un sang impur (Let an impure blood) / Abreuve nos sillons (repeat) (Water our furrows)”

It was also in the First Barbary war from 1801-1805 (against Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco). Before, its ships had been protected by Britain’s navy, then by France’s navy (from 1778-1783), and for a while it simply paid tribute. That began to break down and conflict started in 1801, when Jefferson became president. That was the second time that United States troops were used abroad, and was also undeclared (by the United States, although it was ‘declared’ by Tripoli by chopping down the consulate’s flagpole, the custom at the time). At the time, the United States navy had just started and consisted of just six ships. The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, Frank Lambert, Hill and Wang, 2005.

“An act to encourage the importation of pig and bar iron from his Majesty’s colonies in America; and to prevent the erection of any mill, or other engine, for slitting or rolling of iron; or any plateing forge to work with a tilt hammer; or any furnace for making steel in any of the said colonies.”

There were many limitations, not just of technology, but also of people skilled in the technology, particular textile artisans. Britain wanted to encourage its own industry, by gaining the right raw materials from the colonies, yet discourage industrial competition from the colonies. In return, the United States, after independence in 1789, would offer bounties for the skilled, who would disguise themselves and their tools to slip through the export bans. It would also enact the first Tariff Act, which imposed some of the highest rates on slit and rolled iron, castings, mails, spikes and wool cards (the wire brushes used for carding wool). The idea was to stimulate home-grown production. A Social History of American Technology, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Oxford University Press, 1997. “An Industry Evolves: Lathes to Computers,” J. J. Benes, American Machinist, August 1996. Connections, James Burke, Macmillan, 1978, page 148. English and American Tool Builders, Joseph Wickham Roe, Yale University Press, 1916, page 111.

The machine was built for the Schuyler copper mines (now near Belleville, New Jersey). Benjamin Franklin mentioned a visit to the mine in a letter he wrote on February 13th, 1750: “I know of but one valuable copper mine in this country, which is that of Schuyler’s in the Jerseys. This yields good copper, and has turned out vast wealth to the owners. I was at it last fall, but they were not then at work. The water has grown too hard for them, and they waited for a fire-engine from England to drain their pits. I suppose they will have that at work next summer; it costs them one thousand pounds sterling.” The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Volume III, 1750-1759, Albert Henry Smyth (editor), Macmillan, 1905, page 1.

The machine was smuggled in by Josiah Hornblower, of Cornwall, who brought all the parts for a Newcomen engine, which he, his brother, and their father had built by hand. He also brought many spare parts because he knew that he could not rely on the crude colonial machinists to make new ones. By 1755, the machine was in operation, pumping out the deepest mine shaft—the first time steam power was used anywhere in the colony. Five years later the machine was down for repairs, with a new brass cylinder having to be sent for all the way from London. Then, in 1761, Josiah and a partner leased the mine from its owner, John Schuyler. The next year there was a fire. By 1767 the mine was idle as wars plagued the area. Another fire in 1773 closed the mine. By 1794 Nicholas Roosevelt, who, in partnership with Arent Schuyler, John’s son, had leased the mine, repaired the steam engine, then went bankrupt. The exhausted mine went on to bankrupt many partnerships for the next 50 years. However, by 1838 the new United States had over 5,000 steam engines. By then the new country had begun to turn the corner of industrialization. Josiah Hornblower and the First Steam Engine, With Some Notices of the Schuyler Copper Mines at Second River, N. J., and a Genealogy of the Hornblower Family, William Nelson, Daily Advertiser Printing House, 1883.

But so what? Relative to Europe in 1800, lots of countries were backwaters—Papua New Guinea, for instance. The new country wasn’t merely hicksville; there, any labor—skilled or unskilled—was undependable. It was expanding quickly. And as it expanded, and killed off more and more of its native hunter-gatherers, land was cheap and plentiful. So holding on to labor was hard. Anyone with a grubstake could head west and homestead. Europe, though, aside from Russia (which was expanding east much as the United States was expanding west, but which had its own problems), had killed off its native hunter-gatherers seven millennia before. So it had no new land to steal—at least, not in Europe—and it had large, stagnant pools of skilled labor. Thus, in Europe, only military emergency was enough to overcome its labor inertia—and then, only while the emergency lasted. For the infant country, though, it was all one long emergency. (Perhaps the same forces would apply were we to ever colonize another planet.)

Being land-rich and labor-poor mattered a lot, but if that were all, then Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, or Uruguay might have developed mass production first. They, too, were rapidly crowding out earlier farmers, herders, foragers, or nomads at about the same time. But they weren’t mavericks living under threat of imminent dissolution. In the United States, making guns of swappable parts was central to survival, then expansion. Just as with the first bloom of the steam engine in Britain as opposed to anywhere else, various accidents of geography and history came together to make the United States peculiarly suited to adopting the new steam power and the new precision tools quickly. But the main reason it could adopt those new tools at all was that there were new tools to adopt.

For instance, in 1810 the United States had no working steam engines, almost a century after Britain’s first ones. By 1838, it had over 5,000. So the United States did what Britain and France couldn’t, but were it not for France and Britain it might well have been just as stuck in our age-old production tarpit as they were.

The idea that labor shortage encouraged machines in the United States is hardly new. It seems to have first been articulated as part of previous scholarship, and then questioned, in: American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour Saving Inventions, H. J. Habakkuk, Cambridge University Press, 1962. See, for example: The Emergence of Industrial America: Strategic Factors in American Economic Growth Since 1870, Peter George, SUNY Press, 1982, pages 37-47. See also: Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe, Willard Sunderland, Cornell University Press, 2004.

“Lee’s appointment as superintendent of the Springfield Armory in 1815 followed an important change within the War Department. James Monroe, then secretary of war, pushed through Congress legislation that gave control of the Springfield and Harpers Ferry armories to the Ordnance Department, thus removing them from the immediate supervision of the secretary of war. An army bureau, the Ordnance Department had been created in 1812 to inspect and distribute military stores. Colonel Decius Wadsworth, who had worked with Louis Tousard in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, was the first chief of ordnance. To assist him, Wadsworth recruited a group of West Point junior officers. When the department gained jurisdiction over the armories in February 1815, these West Pointers moved immediately toward the institution of an American version of ‘le système Gribeauval,’ which Tousard had championed in his American Artillerist’s Companion. From their experience in the War of 1812, when a vast number of arms had been damaged beyond repair in the field but could have been fixed had parts simply interchanged, the ordnance officers believed that uniform parts manufacture (proven technically possible by Blanc, North, and possibly others) would be worth almost any price. Lieutenant George Bomford, Wadsworth’s chief assistant and his successor (1821-42), proved to be instrumental in the department’s efforts to achieve uniformity.” From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, page 33. See also: Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change, Merritt Roe Smith, Cornell University Press, 1977, page 104-107.

Just as with the steam engine in Britain, swappable parts took a long time to develop in the United States. It depended on decades of cross-pollinating work of the two men most in charge of ordnance: Decius Wadsworth and then George Bomford, and also Roswell Lee; and those who made it happen, some from gun develpment and some from textile development: John Hancock Hall, John H. King, Philip Burkart, Daniel Young, Jerome Young, Armistead M. Ball, James Henry Burton, Christian Sharps; Samuel Slater, Horatio Nelson Slater and John Fox Slater, Amos Adams Lawrence, Simeon North, Sylvester Nash, Thomas Blanchard, Joseph Whitworth, Jean Laurent Palmer, S. E. Robbins, Richard S. Lawrence, Oliver Winchester, Samuel Colt, and others. Industrializing Antebellum America: The Rise of Manufacturing Entrepreneurs in the Early Republic, Barbara M. Tucker and Kenneth H. Tucker Jr., Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector, Donald R. Hoke, Columbia University Press, 1990. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Samuel Slater and the Origins of the American Textile Industry, 1790-1860, Barbara M. Tucker, Cornell University Press, 1984. “Interchangeable Parts Reexamined—The Private Sector of the American Arms Industry on the Eve of the Civil War,” R. A. Howard, Technology and Culture, 19(4):633-649, 1978. “Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910,” N. Rosenberg, The Journal of Economic History, 23(04):414-443, 1963.

One can stand for many: Simeon North. On November 7th, 1808, he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy: “To make my contract for pistols advantageous to the United States and to myself I must go to a great proportion of the expense before I deliver any pistols. I find that by confining a workman to one particular limb of the pistol untill he has made two thousand, I save at least one quarter of his labor, to what I should provided I finish^d them by small quantities; and the work will be as much better as it is quicker made.” Simeon North, First Official Pistol Maker of the United States: A Memoir, S. N. D. North and Ralph H. North, The Rumford Press, 1913, page 64.

In such ways did this group in the United States develop much the same basic production ideas as the group that James Watt and others fit into in Britain had to, since they had earlier had to do much the same sorts of things with what were initially largely unskilled hands.

That more or less the same thing happened in two different countries when trying to solve difficult industrial problems in two different domains is partly attributable to some cross-fertilization (from Britain and France to the United States) but is also attributable to network forces. By 1890, Alfred Marshall was to put our drive toward the formation of industrial reaction networks as follows:

“When an industry has thus chosen a locality for itself, it is likely to stay there long: so great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighbourhood to one another. The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air, and children learn many of them unconsciously. Good work is rightly appreciated, inventions and improvements in machinery, in processes and the general organization of the business have their merits promptly discussed: if one man starts a new idea, it is taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes the source of further new ideas. And presently subsidiary trades grow up in the neighbourhood, supplying it with implements and materials, organizing its traffic, and in many ways conducing to the economy of its material.

Again, the economic use of expensive machinery can sometimes be attained in a very high degree in a district in which there is a large aggregate production of the same kind, even though no individual capital employed in the trade be very large. For subsidiary industries devoting themselves each to one small branch of the process of production, and working it for a great many of their neighbours, are able to keep in constant use machinery of the most highly specialized character, and to make it pay its expenses, though its original cost may have been high, and its rate of depreciation very rapid.

Again, in all but the earliest stages of economic development a localized industry gains a great advantage from the fact that it offers a constant market for skill. Employers are apt to resort to any place where they are likely to find a good choice of workers with the special skill which they require; while men seeking employment naturally go to places where there are many employers who need such skill as theirs and where therefore it is likely to find a good market. The owner of an isolated factory, even if he has access to a plentiful supply of general labour, is often put to great shifts for want of some special skilled labour; and a skilled workman, when thrown out of employment in it, has no easy refuge. Social forces here co-operate with economic: there are often strong friendships between employers and employed: but neither side likes to feel that in case of any disagreeable incident happening between them, they must go on rubbing against one another: both sides like to be able easily to break off old associations should they become irksome. These difficulties are still a great obstacle to the success of any business in which special skill is needed, but which is not in the neighbourhood of others like it: they are however being diminished by the railway, the printing-press and the telegraph.” Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume, Alfred Marshall, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1890, pages 271-272.

By the 1851 Great Exhibition, knowledgable Britons would be writing this: “The Americans carry out the factory system, the well-planned division of labour, to a greater extent than we do. They have not more hands than are requisite to do the work which is to be done; and they have not before their minds that fear of strikes, and grumblings and discontent, which frequently deter inventors from introducing new machines in England. Among us, guns and pistols are handwork, made in pieces by artisans who use the hammer and file, and other hand-tools; but in the United States the art is regarded as a kind of engineering, in which steam-power and beautiful machines are employed.” Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, “What Is A Revolver?” Anonymous, Number 519, December 10th, 1853. (Robert Chambers is the likely author of this piece; he often wrote anonymously to fill his journal.)

Even after 1851, mass production still took more decades to evolve and spread. For instance, in 1852 Samuel Colt started a revolver factory in London to rival his first one Hartford, Connecticut. However, the workers he hired there repeatedly sabotaged it, so he fired them and imported trained staff from his hometown. By 1854 his London factory was open for business. As with Blanc’s, and Brunel’s, it was successful—for a while. Britain and France had just declared war on Russia in the Crimea and, as usual, all of us in Europe went gun-mad. By December 1856, though, Colt closed his London factory. The war had ended. British gunsmiths were still making nearly everything by hand in their cottages and after the shooting war against Russia ended, they won the propaganda war against Colt with ‘Buy British.’ See: “Colt’s London Armoury,” H. B. Blackmore, in: Technological Change: The United States and Britain in the 19th Century, S. B. Saul (editor), Methuen & Co., 1970, pages 171-196.

By 1873, though, a respected German engineer wrote that “[T]he entirely new ideas of American machinery have tossed the English out of the satchel, and we must without hesitation attach ourselves to the new system if we do not want to fall behind.” That was Franz Reuleaux, author of the seminal Kinematics of Machinery. “Industry and Transport,” W. J. Ashworth, in: A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain, Chris Williams (editor), Wiley-Blackwell, 2004, pages 223-237. New Profession, Old Order: Engineers and German Society, 1815-1914, Kees Gispen, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pages 115-118.

At the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, Reuleaux noted that “Upon the field of inventions and inventive genius, there are but few highly remarkable achievements present, and among these America held the highest rank. Her machine exhibition bore almost exclusively the character of originality, * * * and it contained examples of the highest order of constructive ability and perfect workmanship.” See: “American Machinery at International Exhibitions,” T. R. Pickering, Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume V, November 1883 and May 1884, pages 113-130.

Reuleaux was widely respected and he traveled to World Exhibitions in London (1862), Paris (1867), Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876), Sidney (1879), and Chicago (1893). The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux: Kinematics of Machines from the Renaissance to the 20th century, Francis C. Moon, Springer, 2007, page 56.

Incidentally, on page 57, Moon summarizes Reuleaux’s eight-volume Book of Inventions (in 1884) this way: “He did not accept the contemporary theory of invention as resulting from scientific discovery, a view that is often expressed in popular literature on technology in the United States. Nor did he believe in the discontinuous genius theory of invention, where the ‘hero’ inventor, working alone, makes an important advance that benefits humankind. He viewed both scientific discovery and technical invention as evolving from a tension between the two, sometimes within the same man. Reuleaux viewed the development of new machine technology as one of evolution, that every invention has had a close antecedent developed further by clever inventors, new scientific ideas and the pressure of marketplace competition.”

Reuleaux was not alone in thinking along those lines. In the 1840s, Friedrich List, a German political economist, had long been trying to figure out how the United States, and especially England, were shooting ahead so quickly. Before 1844, List wrote (in reaction to Adam Smith’s ‘division of labor’ idea) that: “If we consider merely bodily labour as the cause of wealth, how can we then explain why modern nations are incomparably richer, more populous, more powerful, and prosperous than the nations of ancient times? The ancient nations employed (in proportion to the whole population) infinitely more hands, the work was much harder, each individual possessed much more land, and yet the masses were much worse fed and clothed than is the case in modern nations. In order to explain these phenomena, we must refer to the progress which has been made in the course of the last thousand years in sciences and arts, domestic and public regulations, cultivation of the mind and capabilities of production. The present state of the nations is the result of the accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections, and exertion of all generations which have lived before us. They form the mental capital of the present human race, and every separate nation is productive only in the proportion in which it has known how to appropriate these attainments of former generations and to increase them by its own acquirements, in which the natural capabilities of its territory, its extent and geographical position, its population and political power, have been able to develop as completely and symmetrically as possible all sources of wealth within its boundaries, and to extend its moral, intellectual, commercial, and political influence over less advanced nations and especially over the affairs of the world.” The National System of Political Economy, Friedrich List, translated by Sampson S. Lloyd, Longmans, Green and Co., 1916, pages 113-114.

“I invented nothing new. I simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work, and the discoveries of still other men who preceded them. Had I worked fifty or even ten or even five years before I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the great forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”

“The Schoolmaster of Dearborn,” New Outlook, CLXIV (September 1934), pages 61-62, in: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent, William Greenleaf, Wayne State University Press, 1961, Reprint Edition, 2011, page 138.

“No society is so isolated or self-sufficient that it has never borrowed at least some aspects of its technology from an outside source. Because humans engaged in normal communications are bound to exchange information about novel techniques or artifacts, general cultural contacts are the oldest means of transferring knowledge about technology from one culture to another. These contacts may be the result of exploration, travel, trade, war, or migration. All of these ensure that the parties, concerned will be exposed to new technological opportunities. What is traditional practice for one culture may be an important innovation in a different setting.” The Evolution of Technology, George Basalla, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 78.

For an example of human stigmergy (in an electronic landscape), see: “Group path formation,” R. L. Goldstone, A. Jones, M. Roberts, IEEE Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A,. 36(3):611-620, 2006.

For more general discussion, and an introduction to more expansionary terms like ‘sematectonic’ (by E. O. Wilson), and how it fits in to a whole panoply of terms to do with self-organization, see Chapter 7. (Stigmergy often means witting or unwitting communication via modification of the environment; putting up a signpost is witting, and creating shortcuts on grass by repeated walking is unwitting.) “Mindscapes and Landscapes: Hayek and Simon on Cognitive Extension,” L. Marsh, in: Hayek and Behavioral Economics Roger Frantz and Robert Leeson (editors), Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pages 197-220.

These phenomena have multiplied so rapidly, as to constitute a new science. Manifest Destiny must have its chair, within friendly proximity to those of Political Economy and the Science of Government. It ranks with the speculative Sciences. [...]

Between these two sects of believers in Manifest Predestination, these political Calvinists on the one hand, and the Universalists, or those advocating world-wide Republicanism, on the other, is there no middle ground, where compromise may be possible? Doubtless yes. A political evangel may very well be preached with the same impressive eloquence that sped the religion of Islam, like a prairie-fire, from Persia to the Pillars of Hercules; the conjoint eloquence of Saint and Scimetar. The influence of republican example may be strengthened and enforced by the direct application of power. In this way can Mexico be republicanized, and in no other. Cuba and its enslaved population, must owe its future liberties either to this principle, whether employed in the form of grape-shot, or as round dollars. It is morally certain that purely democratic institutions can never exist quietly in South America, unless some inconceivable revolution occur in the character of the people. Everywhere, beyond our borders, on this Western Hemisphere, do we see the need of the steady, ballasting traits of Anglo-Saxonism. It will never do to argue the practicability of our system beyond the confines of the race, until the experiment has been abundantly tried. The lights now before us seem to justify the idea that such institutions as those our Fathers devised, must be sustained by the continued exercise of traits peculiar to the national character. Believing this, and both branches of the Predestinarians accepting the fact that the national influence and national force must operate together, we see nothing irrational in the hope of a more dazzling future for the race than imagination has yet ventured to outline. Not a continent, a half-globe, but the world—shall be ours. Through what vista into the future shall we look to see a more splendid destiny?”

From: “The Science of Manifest Destiny,” New York Times, September 9th, 1852. (The New York Times, which started publishing on September 18th, 1851, was then one year old.)

By 1882, Walt Whitman was to crow: “Long ere the second centennial arrives, there will be some forty to fifty great States, among them Canada and Cuba. When the present century closes, our population will be sixty or seventy millions. The Pacific will be ours, and the Atlantic mainly ours. There will be daily electric communication with ever part of the globe. What an age! What a land! Where, elsewhere, one so great? The individuality of one nation must then, as always, lead the world. Can there be any doubt who the leader ought to be?” From: “Democratic Vistas,” Democratic Vistas and Other Papers, Walt Whitman, (London, 1888), page 66.

For an overview of the various technical problems that had to be solved (especially tool steel in 1899) before true mass production could happen, see: “Mr. Taylor, Mr. Ford, and the Advent of High-Volume Mass Production: 1900-1912,” J. Paxton, Economics & Business Journal: Inquiries & Perspectives, 4(1):74-90, 2012.

The ideas are old. It was bringing them together that was new. For example, we had manufactories in China around 1,000 years ago: “In +1175, the Hangchow factory [for printing paper money], for example, employed more than a thousand daily workers.” Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing, Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, 1985, page 48.

We had grain mills in the Roman Empire over 1,000 years ago: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000. Division of labor is also old. For example, Xenophon explained 2,400 years ago why Greek artisans specialize in cities. The Ancient Economy, M. I. Finley, University of California Press, 1973, page 135. Moreover, any large mass of us will specialize—for example, in armies. Probably the idea is so old that it’s impossible to date.

Division of labor in manufactories is also old. Around 1676 William Petty noted that “Cloth must be cheaper made, when one Cards, another Spins, another Weaves, another Draws, another Dresses, another Presses and Packs; than when all the Operations above-mentioned, were clumsily performed by the same hand.” Political Arithmetick, OR A DISCOURSE Concerning, The Extent and Value of Lands, People, Buildings: Husbandry, Manufacture, Commerce, Fishery, Artizans, Seamen, Soldiers; Publick Revenues, Interest, Taxes, Superlucration, Registries, Banks Valuation of Men, Increasing of Seamen, of Militia’s, Harbours, Situation, Shipping, Power at Sea, &c. As the same relates to every Country in general, but more particularly to the Territories of His Majesty of Great Britain, and his Neighbours of Holland, Zealand, and France, William Petty, Robert Clavel and Hen. Mortlock, 1690, page 19.

A century later, in 1776, Adam Smith noted that “[A pin-maker] could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some factories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day.” An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, Edwin Cannan Edition, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952, Book I, Chapter 1, page 3.

In other words, pin-makers specialized and together they formed a reaction network. Before that, a pin-maker could only make about one pin a day. Now, the same pin-maker could average around 5,000 pins a day. The price of pins dropped like a rock. It’s widely accepted that Smith based his example of division of labor on the Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau’s 1761 introduction to L’Art de l’Epinglier.

By dividing labor we could thus make an assembly line. By adding a steam engine we could also power all the tools on that line. That alone was a huge change, but mass production also involves yet another idea—precision parts. While we could divide our labor in factories to make pins in volume, those pins needn’t be precision-made. Conversely, we could make precision pins in low volume in factories without dividing our labor—painstakingly and by hand.

Also, mass production isn’t just volume: For example, Abraham Darby’s brass castings for cast iron, or Josiah Wedgwood’s pottery molds for kiln pottery, or Christopher Polhem’s cogwheels milling machine, or any number of other such items (bootlaces, buttons, coins, cannon balls, and so on), all were in volume, yet none were ‘mass produced.’ In 1452, Gutenberg had made the lead type for his printing press in bulk, but that wasn’t ‘mass production’ either.

Mass production is thus a form of volume production in which we divide both the making of, and the putting together of, standard parts into a series of steps so simple that we can make tools do them. We can then divide the labor of making and putting together the parts for those tools, thus closing the recursive loop. For efficiency sake, today’s forms of mass production extend the assembly line to a conveyor belt.

However, as Hounshell notes, the wooden clock industry did contribute to the marketing strategies later used by the sewing machine industry. Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector, Donald Hoke, Columbia University Press, 1990. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, page 51.

Here are just the first 10 conclusions of the original 1842 report:

“The follow conclusions in regard to Ironstone mines, blast furnaces, underground labour in tin, copper lead, and zinc mines, etc.]

From the whole of the evidence which has been collected, and of which we have thus endeavoured to give a digest, we find — in regard to COAL MINES-

1 That instances occur in which Children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years of age, sometimes at five, and between five and six, not unfrequently between six and seven, and often from seven to eight, while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which employment in these mines commences.

2 That a very large proportion of the persons employed in carrying on the work of these mines is under thirteen and eighteen.

3 That in several districts female Children begin work in these mines at the same early ages as the males.

4 That a great body of the Children and Young Persons employed in these mines are of the families of the adult workpeople engaged in the pits, or belong to the poorest population in the neighbourhood, and are hired and paid in some districts by the workpeople, but in others by the proprietors or contractors.

5 That there are in some districts also a small number of parish apprentices, who are bound to serve their masters until twenty-one years of age, in an employment in which there is nothing of deserving the name of skill to be acquired, under circumstances of frequent ill-treatment, and under the oppressive condition that they shall receive only food and clothing, while their free companions may be obtaining a man’s wages.

6 That in many instances much that skill and capital can effect to render the place of work unoppresive, healthy, and safe, is done, often with complete success, as far as regards the healthfulness and comfort of the mines; but that to render them perfectly safe does not appear to be practicable by any means yet known; while in great numbers of instances their condition in regard both to ventilation and drainage is lamentably defective.

7 That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest Children, generally that of ‘trapping’, requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and, according to the present system, that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end.

8 That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, yet, as the Children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and repassing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order.

9 That in those districts in which the seams of coal are so thick that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages from the workings to the horseways are not at any length, the lights in the main ways render the situation of these Children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupefying; but that in some districts they remaining solitude and darkness during the whole time they are in the pit, and according to their won account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks together during the greater part of the winter season, excepting on those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the Sundays.

10 That at different ages, from six years old and upwards, the hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from the workings to the main ways, or to the foot of the shaft, begins; a labour which all classes of witness concur in stating requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess.”

Children’s Employment Commission (Mines) 1842 report, Thomas Tooke, T. Southwood Smith, Leonard Horner, Robert J Sanders.

Criminal penalties were so severe that in practice few convicts were actually hanged, so transportation (essentially penal slavery) was a popular alternative. Also, pregnant women, young children, clergymen, anyone who could read (or pretend to) well enough to pass muster, and—of course—anyone who was rich, often received pardons or reduced penalties, like whipping or branding or pillorying. The laws were beginning to be softened by the 1830s—after huge postwar political unrest from 1816 on, largely having to do with the way the rich treated the poor—but many such laws were still in force by the 1850s. Crime and Punishment in England: A Sourcebook, Andrew Barrett and Christopher Harrison (editors), Routledge, 2001. “London Crime and the Making of the ‘Bloody Code,’ 1689-1718,” J. M. Beattie, in: Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689-1750, Lee Davison, Tim Hitchcock, Tim Keirn, and Robert B. Shoemaker (editors), St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pages 39-76. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, Peter Linebaugh, Penguin, 1991. Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-century England, Frank McLynn, Routledge, 1989.

In 1857, Britain had the following numbers of child committments: 29,949 who were between 16 and 21, 10,624 between 12 and 16, and 1,877 under 12 years old. “Crime, Pauperism, and Education in Great Britain,” The American Journal of Education, 6(16):311, 1859. For far more detail, see: “A Survey of Indictable and Summary Jurisdiction Offences in England and Wales, from 1857 to 1876, in Quinquennial Periods, and in 1877 and 1878,” L. Levi, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 43(3):423-461, 1880.

In Britain, after passage of the new Poor Law in 1834, an unwed mother bore the sole financial responsibility until her child turned 16. Many a poor and unwed mother couldn’t support her offspring, especially if she was young and had been impregnated by the master of the house or shop or factory in which she worked. Then, too, there was the stigma of having an illegitimate child. So what many mothers wanted was to make the child disappear. But it was illegal to kill your children (or at least, to be caught at it). Baby farmers existed for those (many) mothers who couldn’t bring themselves to kill their own children, or who didn’t want to risk it, or who chose to believe that their children would be raised properly, albeit very cheaply. Child Abuse and Moral Reform in England 1870-1908, George K. Behlmer, Stanford University Press, 1982.

Baby farming also existed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States until at least 1917. One Chicago ‘farmer’s slogan was: “It’s cheaper and easier to buy a baby for $100.00 than to have one of your own.” Baby Farms in Chicago: An Investigation Made for the Juvenile Protective Association, Arthur Alden Guild, Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1917.

Mandeville’s 1723 satiric comment below suggests something of England’s more usual attitude to the children of its laboring classes, prior to mass production:

“Few Children make any Progress at School, but at the same time they are capable of being employ’d in some Business or other, so that every Hour those of poor People spend at their Book is so much time lost to the Society. Going to School in comparison to Working is Idleness, and the longer Boys continue in this easy sort of Life, the more unfit they’ll be when grown up for downright Labour, both as to Strength and Inclination. Men who are to remain and end their Days in a Laborious, Tiresome and Painful Station of Life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they’ll submit to it for ever after. Hard Labour and the coarsest Diet are a proper Punishment to several kinds of Malefactors, but to impose either on those that have not been used and brought up to both is the greatest Cruelty, when there is no Crime you can charge them with.” The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Volume 1, Bernard de Mandeville, edited by F. B. Kaye, Clarendon Press, 1924, pages 288-289.

Similar attitudes prevailed in the United States. The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling, John Taylor Gatto, Oxford Village Press, 2001.

“[...] [A]dvertising is the life of trade.

Two examples of this influence have come to me in a casual way. While I can not vouch for the details, I believe in their outline they are substantially correct. One relates to an American industry that had rather phenomenal growth and prosperity in the late eighties and early nineties, being the foundation of one or two large fortunes. In its development it had been a most generous advertiser. A time came when various concerns engaged in this line of manufacturing were merged and consolidated. There being no longer any keen competition, it was felt that it was now no longer necessary to explain to the public the value of this product or the superiority of one make over another. In order to save the large expense that had been made for that purpose, advertising was substantially abandoned. The inevitable result followed, which all well-informed trade quarters now know would follow. But the value of advertising was not so well understood 25 or 30 years ago. This concern soon became almost a complete failure. As I recall, it had to be reorganized, entailing great losses. This line of trade was later revived under the direction and counsel of some of its old managers, and with the proper amount of publicity became a successful enterprise. [This was probably ‘Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound’]

But let us turn from the unfortunate experience of the loss that occurred through lack of advertising to an example of gain that was made through the shrewd application of this principle. In a somewhat typical American community a concern was engaged in an industrial enterprise. Its employees were not required to be men of great skill. Oftentimes they were new arrivals in this country who had been brought up to be accustomed to the meager scale of living abroad. Their wants were not large, so that under the American rate of wages they found it possible to supply themselves and their families without working anywhere near full time. As a result, production was low compared with the number employed and was out of proportion to the overhead expense of management and capital costs. Some fertile mind conceived the idea of locating a good milliner in that community. The wares of this shop were generously advertised through window display, newspaper space, and circularization. I suppose that every head of a family knows that a new bonnet on the head of one of the women in the neighborhood is contagious. The result in that community almost at once was better wearing apparel for the women, which necessitated more steady employment for the men. The output of the plant was greatly increased, its cost units were reduced, its profits were enlarged, it could sell its product to its customers at a lower figure, and the whole industry was improved. More wealth was produced. But the reaction went even further. The whole standard of living in that locality was raised. All the people became better clothed, better fed, and better housed. They had aspirations, and the means to satisfy them, for the finer things of life. All of this came from the judicious application of the principle of advertising.

The system which brought about these results is well known to the members of this association. You have seen innumerable instances where concerns have failed through lack of advertising and innumerable others where they have made a success through the right kind and amount of publicity. Under its stimulation the country has gone from the old hand methods of production which were so slow and laborious with high unit costs and low wages to our present great factory system and its mass production with the astonishing result of low unit costs and high wages. The preeminence of America in industry, which has constantly brought about a reduction of costs, has come very largely through mass production. Mass production is only possible where there is mass demand. Mass demand has been created almost entirely through advertising.

In former days goods were expected to sell themselves. Often times they were carried about from door to door. Otherwise,they were displayed on the shelves and counters of the merchant. The public were supposed to know of these sources of supply and depend on themselves for their knowledge of what was to be sold. Modern business could neither have been created nor can it be maintained on any such system. It constantly requires publicity. It is not enough that goods are made, a demand for them must also be made. It is on this foundation of enlarging production through the demands created by advertising that very much of the success of the American industrial system rests.”

President Calvin Coolidge, Speech to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, October 27th, 1926.

Coolidge wasn’t wrong. He himself benefitted from media manipulation. His ‘pancake breakfast’ with Al Jolson and other vaudeville stars helped his 1924 election. Nor was that a one-off. For example, from 1900 to 1925, population rose 50 percent, but consumption of goods went up 400 percent. Telling people what to buy, then enticing people to buy, mattered. The History and Development of Advertising, Frank Presbrey, Doubleday, 1929, page 598.

This wasn’t merely a question of spin. It was engineering. It had been unconscious before, and aimed at the rich. Now it was being done consciously, and aimed at the mass. Bernays, who had engineered Coolidge’s ‘pancake breakfast,’ and many other publicity stunts and advertising campaigns, wrote: “This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.” From: “Manipulating Public Opinion: The Why and The How,” American Journal of Sociology, E. L. Bernays, 33(6):958-971, 1928 (page 971, last paragraph of last page). See also Josiah Wedgwood, the earliest mass-marketer: Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment, Brian Dolan, HarperCollins, 2004. The Wedgwoods: Being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood, With Notices of his Works and their Productions, Memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families And a History of the Early Potteries of Staffordshire, Llewellynn Jewitt, Virtue Brothers and Co., 1865.

(1) On a wall: “The petty thieves support Vatia for the aedilship.” (2) Near a home: “At Nuceria, look for Novellia Primigenia near the Roman gate in the prostitute’s district.” (3) On a street: “Traveler, eat bread in Pompeii but go to Nuceria to drink.” (4) On a block of flats: “For rent from July 1st. Streetfront shops with counter space, classy second-story rooms, and one townhouse. Renters, contact Primus, slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius.”

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 4: Inscriptiones parietariae Pompeianae, Herculanenses, Stabianae, Karl Zangemeister and Richard Schöne (editors), Walter de Guyter, Reprint 1955. Abbreviated as CIL IV. Original Latin: (1) “Vatiam aed[ilem] furunculi rog[ant]” CIL IV 576. (2) “Nuceria quaeres ad porta romana in vico venerio novelliam primigeniam” CIL IV 8356. (3) “Viator Pompeis pane gustas Nuceriae bibes” CIL IV 8903 (partial). (4) “Insula Arriana Polliana [C]n Al[le]i[i] Nigidi[i] Mai[us] / Locantur ex [kalendis] Iuli[i]s primis / Tabernae cum pergulis suis et c[e]nacula equestria et domus / Conductor convenito Primum [C]n Al[le]i[i] Nigidi[i] Mai[us] ser[vum]” CIL IV 138.

Most of what we wrote was much the same for millennia. Here’s a little more of what we scrawled: In a tavern: “Restituta, shuck your dress, I beg, show [your] hairy c[*bleep*].” In a bar: “I f[*bleep*]ed the barmaid.” In a gladiator barracks: “Antiochus spent time here with his [girlfriend] Cithera.” On a merchant’s house: “Atimetus got me pregnant.” In a basilica: “I wonder, o wall, that you haven’t collapsed in ruin with the tedious scribbles of so many writers.” Original Latin: “Restituta pone tunicam rogo redes pilosa co” CIL IV 3951. “Futui copanam” CIL IV 8442. “Antiochus hic mansit cum sua Cithera” CIL IV 8792 (second entry). Gravido me tene(t) / Atm[etus?] CIL IV 10231. The last one is a famous epigraph: “Admiror o paries te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas” CIL IV 1904. [Note: The two bleeped words are stronger forms of “pudendum,” and “screwed.” Figure it out for yourself.]

Here’s another, of many pronouncements of the same stripe: “It seems to be a law of nature, that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident, that there may always be some to fulfil the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved from drudgery, and freed from those occasional employments which would make them miserable, but are left at liberty, without interruption, to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions, and most useful to the state. As for the lowest of the poor, by custom they are reconciled to the meanest occupations, to the most laborious works, and to the most hazardous pursuits; whilst the hope of their reward makes them chearful in the midst of all their dangers and their toils. The fleets and armies of a state would soon be in want of soldiers and of sailors, if sobriety and diligence universally prevailed: for what is it but distress and poverty which can prevail upon the lower classes of the people to encounter all the horrors which await them on the tempestuous ocean, or in the field of battle? Men who are easy in their circumstances are not among the foremost to engage in a seafaring or military life. There must be a degree of pressure, and that which is attended with the least violence will be the best. When hunger is either felt or feared, the desire of obtaining bread will quietly dispose the mind to undergo the greatest hardships, and will sweeten the severest labours. The peasant with a sickle in his hand is happier than the prince upon his throne.” A Dissertation on the Poor Laws by a Well-Wisher to Mankind, Joseph Townsend, Section VII, page 35, 1786, University of California Press, 1971.

Nor was that attitude rare earlier in England (or, probably, anywhere else). Compare the same thought from about 1388, four centuries prior: “And gif laboreris weren not, boþe prestis and knyȝtis mosten bicome acremen and heerdis, and ellis þey sholde for defaute of bodily sustenaunce deie.” [If laborers didn’t exist, both priests and knights must become farmers and herders, or else they would, for lack of bodily sustenance, die.] “Thomas Wimbledon’s Sermon: ‘Redde racionem villicacionis tue,’ ” N. H. Owen, Mediaeval Studies, 28:176-197, 1966.

That idea extended to slavery itself. The notion that many of us just have to be enslaved so that the few can have decent lives is very old. For example, Aristotle, 2,300 years ago, wrote: “But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.... Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.... It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Politics, Aristotle, Book I, Chapters iii-vii, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 1885, Dover, Reprint Edition, 2000, pages 32-34.

Today, slavery is no longer legal, but it still exists. Today, it’s common to say that we abolished legal slavery in the nineteenth century ‘because it was bad.’ But that can’t possibly be all that matters. If it were, why didn’t we abandon it millennia before? If the explanation for that then amounts to ‘because our ancestors were bad,’ then why are there an estimated 100,000 slaves today just in the United States alone? Why are 27 million of us still slaves today? Why must 250 million of our children between the ages of 5 and 14 still labor today? Why are we forcing perhaps 60 million of those children to become prostitutes or soldiers? Aren’t those things bad too? We’ve been slavers and slaves ever since we phase changed into farming and herding, millennia ago. The Hebrews kept slaves. The Maya kept slaves. The Bantu kept slaves. The Persians, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Sumerians—anyone and everyone kept slaves. Even when we tried to abandon slavery we rarely succeeded. For instance, the first effort in Europe to ban slavery came in 655. Europe still kept slaves 1,300 years later. We had to do more than talk before we could do without slavery—and we still haven’t fully done so.

Nor did we change our division of labor simply because of the steam engine alone. The United States had steam engines early on but still kept legal slaves up past the mid nineteenth century. Japan, Germany, China, and Russia all had steam engines by the late nineteenth century, but they still kept penal slaves in the twentieth century. In short, throughout our farming history, we all wanted slaves for our fields, our armies, our beds—or maybe even just as a threat of punishment. It didn’t much matter whether we had a king, a constitutional monarchy, a federal republic, a collective. It didn’t much matter whether we were Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Polytheists. It didn’t matter where we lived, nor what languages we spoke, nor what we looked like. Land and bodies were wealth. Legal slavery began to end worldwide only with our phase change into industry. That helped alter whether slavery was legal or not, whether our children had to work or not, whether women got paid for their labor or not, and what jobs men did.

For a sampling of the wider history, see: Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland: 800-1200, David Wyatt, Brill, 2009. Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem, Suzanne Miers, Rowman Altamira, 2003. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery In The Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast, And Italy, 1500-1800, Robert Davis, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, and Human Bondage in Italy, Steven A. Epstein, Cornell University Press, 2001. Beyond Child Labor: Affirming Rights, United Nations Children’s Fund, 2001. Slavery in the Arab World, Murray Gordon, New Amsterdam Books, 1989. Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, two volumes, John Ralph Willis (editor), Routledge, 1986. Slavery and Human Progress, David Brion Davis, Oxford University Press, 1984. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Press, 1982.

Noah is supposed to have used it to caulk his ark. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.” The Bible, The King James Version, Genesis 6:14.

Ditto for Gilgamesh before that. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Volume I, A. R. George, Oxford University Press, 2006, page 513.

See also: The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, James G. Speight, CRC Press, Fourth Edition, 2006, pages 3-10. But our hydrocarbon use started exploding only in the late 1800s. That’s when, through our usual bumbling, we developed practical versions of both the internal combustion engine and the dynamo.

However, if consumers put energy in themselves, that figure may be falling locally over time. In one district: “One average kcal of food energy requires a minimum input of approximately 6 kcal of fossil energy, down from 9 or 10 in 1970.” From: “The potential of Onondaga County to feed its own population and that of Syracuse, New York: Past, present, and future,” S. B. Balogh, C. A. S. Hall, A. M. Guzman, D. E. Balcarce, A. Hamilton, in: Global Economic and Environmental Aspects of Biofuels, David Pimentel (editor), CRC Press, 2012, pages 273-320.

As for the neolithic estimate, that is more debated. “Human genetic data reveal contrasting demographic patterns between sedentary and nomadic populations that predate the emergence of farming,” C. Aimé, G. Laval, E. Patin, P. Verdu, L. Ségurel, R. Chaix, T. Hegay, L. Quintana-Murci, E. Heyer, F. Austerlitz, Molecular biology and evolution, 30(12):2629-44, 2013. “MtDNA analysis of global populations support that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time,” H.-X. Zheng, S. Yan, Z.-D. Qin, L. Jin, Scientific Reports, 2:745, 2012. “When the World’s Population Took Off: The Springboard of the Neolithic Demographic Transition,” J.-P. Bocquet-Appel, Science, 333(6042):560-561, 2011.

Recently, consensus seems to be forming that no matter when the peak is, economic and political decisions taken within two decades of it will make a huge difference on its mitigation. One new study predicts the peak as early as 2014. “Forecasting World Crude Oil Production Using Multicyclic Hubbert Model,” I. S. Nashawi, A. Malallah, M. Al-Bisharah, Energy Fuels, 24(3):1788-1800, 2010. “Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production,” United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-07-283, 2007. “Peaking of World Oil Production: Recent forecasts,” R. L. Hirsch, World Oil, 228(4), 2007. “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management,” R. L. Hirsch, R. Bezdek, R. Wendling, United States Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2005. “Long Term World Oil Supply Scenarios - the future is neither as bleak or as rosy as some assert,” J. H. Wood, G. R. Long, D. F. Morehouse, Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, 2004.

Both sides of today’s arguments about oil depletion and alternative energy have clear political agendas. They each see the same amount of future oil in the ground in two completely different ways. Huge amounts of power and money—not to mention strong feelings of guilt and shame—depend on what policies each of our countries adopt. So the urge to sway those policy choices one way or the other is strong. However, the data on which such policies might be based is poor—and may even be deliberately distorted in some cases. When giants clash, amateurs can only watch and try to come to as reasonable a conclusion as possible. Those who say that oil production has peaked, or will soon, seem right. Physics favors them. But that still means that we have as much oil left as we’ve used until now. So those who say that we’ll likely invent our way out of disaster also seem right. Economics favors them. That seems to be roughly what those who are most informed seem to be saying on our oil futures markets. That’s where we place long-term public bets about future oil supplies and consumption patterns. There at least, hard data is in constant demand and continuous evaluation. Also, politics matters less there. Futures traders are betting thousands of millions of dollars on being right. Maybe they’re wrong, but so far it doesn’t seem so.

Since then, particularly since 2009, horizontal drilling, and most especially hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), when used with CCPP (combined cycle power plants), has changed the landscape a fair amount, particularly in North America, opening up vast new reserves of natural gas, and thus easing dependence on coal and shiftng some dependence away from oil. Also, fracking releases about half the carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour compared to coal, so it’s also having some effect on the climate change arguments.

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund’s database figures for GDP PPP (that is, purchasing power parity) from 2009 to 2011 were: $15,064.816 thousand million for the United States, $15,788.584 thousand million for the European Union, and $19,819.335 thousand million for East Asia (now classified as ‘Developing Asia’). With a world total GDP (PPP) of $78,852.864 thousand million, that means 19 percent for the U.S., 20 percent for the E.U., and 25 percent for Developing Asia. However, nominal GDP figures are different. Market measures are also different. World Economic Outlook Database, International Monetary Fund, 2011.

For gasoline, the average for 2018 based on 43 countries was 367.97 thousand barrels per day. The highest value was in the USA: 9328.98 thousand barrels per day. In 2019, about 142.17 billion gallons (or about 3.39 billion barrels—there are 42 U.S. gallons in a barrel) of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United States, an average of about 389.51 million gallons (or about 9.27 million barrels) per day. “Petroleum Supply Monthly,” With Data for March 2020 Energy Information Administration United States Department of Energy, 2004.

“California is the second largest consumers of gasoline and diesel fuels in the world, surpassed only by the United States as a whole. In 2006, Californians consumed an estimated 20 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel on the state’s roadways, an increase of nearly 50 percent over the last 20 years. This demand continues, even in the face of record petroleum prices.” State Alternative Fuels Plan, AB 1007 Report, California Energy Commission, 2007, page 11.

In 2008, energy from solar panels costs at least 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s about three times as much as retail electricity, even in a sunny region. Solar panel efficiency is measured as a percentage of the energy hitting it. Today’s commodity solar panels have energy efficiencies around 10 to 15 percent. Some research versions are now up to about 40 percent, but they’re expensive since they need exotic materials and delicate production processes. Cheap versions are around 8 percent, or less. It takes about 20 years for a solar installation to pay for itself.

The following abstract summarizes where experts think the technology is going over the next four decades: “Subjective probabilistic judgments about future module prices of 26 current and emerging photovoltaic (PV) technologies were obtained from 18 PV technology experts. Fourteen experts provided detailed assessments, including likely future efficiencies and prices under four policy scenarios. While there is considerable dispersion among the judgments, the results suggest a high likelihood that some PV technology will achieve a price of $1.20/Wp by 2030. Only 7 of 18 experts assess a better-than-even chance that any PV technology will achieve $0.30/Wp by 2030; 10 of 18 experts give this assessment by 2050. Given these odds, and the wide dispersion in results, we conclude that PV may have difficulty becoming economically competitive with other options for large-scale, low-carbon bulk electricity in the next 40 years. If $0.30/Wp is not reached, then PV will likely continue to expand in markets other than bulk power. In assessing different policy mechanisms, a majority of experts judged that R&D would most increase efficiency, while deployment incentives would most decrease price. This implies a possible disconnect between research and policy goals. Governments should be cautious about large subsidies for deployment of present PV technology while continuing to invest in R&D to lower cost and reduce uncertainty.” From: “Expert Assessments of Future Photovoltaic Technologies,” A. E. Curtright, M. G. Morgan, D. W. Keith, Environmental Science and Technology, 42(24):9031-9038, 2008.

(Note: ‘Wp’ means ‘peak Watts,’ that is the wattage that a panel can produce on a bright sunny day. So a price of ‘$1.20/Wp’ means that the panel costs $1.20 for every watt pumped out on the panel’s best day. Also note that over the past decade, good ratings for panels are in the $4.50/Wp to $5.50/Wp range.)

Here are some more startups: Natron Energy, NantEnergy, NeoSun, Primus Power, Sakti3, UniEnergy Technologies, are also still around. All are mainly research shops awaiting their big break. One such startup, Ambri, has gone through all those stages except the last. Their idea is, basically, the reverse of aluminum electrolysis; it started with magnesium and antimony—two dirt-cheap metals that are widely available—so if it could be made to work it could be done at scale.

But it’s not just startups trying to survive on a few tens of millions of dollars; big companies have gotten into new batteries, too. For example, General Electric sunk perhaps a billion dollars on Durathon, an internal push to replace lithium-ion batteries with their sodium-ion (sodium-nickle-chloride with molten salt) batteries. But they started in 2010, when lithium-ion was $1,000 a kilowatt-hour. By 2015, when it dropped to $350 a KWh, they gave up. (By 2016, it was $273 per kWh. By 2019 they sold the entire parent subsidiary, GE Transportation, to Wabtec.) “Wabtec and GE Transportation complete merger,” Railway Gazette International, February 25th, 2019. “Lithium-Ion Battery Costs and Market,” C. Curry, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, July 2017.

Why did lithium-ion drop in cost so fast? Easy: phones and electric vehicles (and behind them, more than anyone else, Apple and Tesla). As those markets mushroomed, demand escalated, so research on improving them focused. Now hundreds of millions of dollars a year at Panasonic, LG Chem, and Samsung, (also Mitsubishi and Saft), go into improving battery performance. However, it’s being optimized not for grid-scale battery use, but for phones and cars (and laptops). So the emphasis has been on chasing expensive, low-weight, small-size, batteries whose capacities fade, not low-cost, long-life, fade-free batteries. Improving one thing often means paying for it by reducing something else so that intensive research doesn’t transfer to grid scale.

For reliable power, what we need is rechargeable gigawatt-scale batteries that we could place anywhere, to store energy when the sun shines then give it back when the sun doesn’t. To be cheap enough for deployment they have to last for many years (ideally, decades), recharging over and over again, with low capacity-fade. For that, lithium-ion likely won’t cut it, and may never. It’s expensive (although cost has been falling unexpectedly fast with wider use, but, as mentioned, that’s for low-weight, small-size, fade-free batteries). Also, lithium has a fire-risk, and recharge potential drops below useful levels too fast. Its rare elements (lithium and cobalt) may also be a little too local to only a few sensitive nations (China, the Republic of the Congo). (Why wean off oil only to get addicted to lithium or cobalt?) Also, there’s too little of it compared to plentiful stuff like aluminum or magnesium. In general, rare, toxic, and costly elements are, a bad idea. So the search is on for grid-scale rechargeable batteries that are cheap, long-lived, and easy to build anywhere.

The tried-and-true way to do grid energy storage (grid-scale rechargeable batteries) with reasonably low loss per recharge is to use hydroelectric dams (this is pumped-storage hydroelectric). Almost 96 percent of the world’s grid scale battery power is of this type. We can often get back as much as 80-85% of the energy put in. Problem is: there are few places on the planet that have the right geological features to make it possible at gigawatt scale. To make it work, you need two dams near each other but also at different heights (high enough so that it’s worth while linking the two with a channel into which you put pumps and turbines). When grid power is cheap you pump water from the lower dam up to the upper dam, and when power is dear, you let water run back down through the turbines to generate electricity.

A startup, Quidnet Energy (founded 2013), is trying to drill wells next to a dam and force-pump water from the dam down the wells, then run the water in reverse through a turbine to recover some of the energy used. This might alleviate the problem, if they can get the recovery percentage high enough and the cost to drill plus equipment low enough.

If you have a mountain, a similar idea is to put a railroad on it. Fill a train with rocks and, when you have cheap power, pull the train up the mountain; then, when you need power, let it run down again. A startup, Energy Vault (founded 2017), is trying to do something similar with AI software controlling a multi-headed crane. When grid power is cheap, it stores that as potential energy by stacking heavy blocks into a giant tower; then when power is dear again, it releases it by lowering blocks to the ground. “SoftBank to invest $110m in brick tower energy storage start-up,” L. Hook, Financial Times, August 15th, 2019.

If you have a big mine, pump compressed air in, then let the air out again through a wind turbine. All such cases need some special geological feature: two nearby dams, a mountain, a mine. Also, they must have no other use. (For example, water in the dam can’t be needed for irrigation.) Failing that, you go with combustion-turbine (natural gas or coal), or hydroelectric or nuclear power plants, which idle when solar or wind is plentiful, but are on hot-standby to ramp up and take over to handle load-shifting and replace the missing sun or wind. (Such plants are called ‘peaker,’ ‘peaking,’ ‘load-shifting,’ or ‘load-following’ plants.) That costs far more energy than running at normal capacity. Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide, Richard Baxter, PennWell Books, 2006.

Too-rapid deployment of solar (and wind) recently led to a special case (as happened in California because of tax breaks and mandates, plus China flooding the market with cheaper panels). Lunchtime supply began to far exceed what it once was. To avoid massive surge, which would destroy all equipment, many peaker power plants need to be throttled back since demand doesn’t also increase to consume supply, and there was no way to store the energy oversupply (so it was just dumped). Then as dinnertime approached, all the oversupply went away, which meant that those idling plants then needed to ramp up again to meet peak demand. This led to a ‘duck curve’ of ever-more-defined duckieness as solar (or wind) deployment rose, and also ever more stress on the system. The upside, though, is that the width of peak demand narrows, so if we had a grid storage solution that could outlast the ever-shorter peak, both the thing causing the problem (increased solar) and the thing producing the solution (grid-scale batteries) could work in tandem to smooth out grid power and reduce the need for peaker plants. This made grid storage batteries even more attractive. “Overgeneration from Solar Energy in California: A Field Guide to the Duck Chart,” P. Denholm, M. O’Connell, G. Brinkman, and J. Jorgenson, NREL/TP-6A20-65023, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, November 2015.

Solar is a potentially much larger supply than wind, but, like wind, it’s variable, and we want power anytime, not just when the sun’s high and there’s no cloud, storm, or snow. Without batteries, we solve that problem today with peaker plants. But that can burn even more fossil fuels than not having solar (or wind) at all. If such plants were running all the time, instead of being on hot-standby, they would be more efficient. “Grid-Scale Battery Storage: Frequently Asked Questions,” T. Bowen, I. Chernyakhovskiy, P. L. Denholm, NREL/TP-6A20-74426, National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), September, 2019. “The Potential for Energy Storage to Provide Peaking Capacity in California under Increased Penetration of Solar Photovoltaics,” P. Denholm, R. Margolis, NREL/TP-6A20-70905, National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), March, 2018.

The problem of energy is simple: we want to live as well as possible as cheaply as possible; we never want to face it, but we’re cheapskates. These days, renewables like solar have good odor—they’re ‘clean,’ they’re ‘unlimited,’ they’re cheap (or even ‘free’), so only politics must be keeping us from much more of them. But little of that is true. Yes, there’s politics (there’s always politics) and, yes, they’re easier to start and build out, so they’re easier to scale, but all options have costs; all are limited; none are ‘clean.’ Gathering energy, whether it’s from the sun, the wind, the waters, or whatever, then getting it to do work—that is, getting power from that energy—takes factories and tools, which we have to design and make. Like wind, solar is a dilute and variable energy source that’s far less efficient than fixed and concentrated sources like coal or oil—or even better, uranium or thorium. Solar panels have to reverse that to concentrate energy again to be useful. Making those panels means digging stuff out of the ground, refining it, shaping it, transporting it, installing it, running it. Even just choosing where to put it means sacrificing land we might otherwise use for growing food, or something else. Everything has a cost. No power system can be ‘clean,’ nor ‘unlimited,’ nor ‘free.’ We pay in money, we pay in opportunity, we pay in effluent and planetary destruction, and we pay in lives—not only other species but also our own. In choosing among options, all we can do is learn a bit more about them then decide which set of costs we’re willing to pay, now and in the future.

The problem with ‘clean’ and ‘unlimited’ energy sources is that: 1/ They aren’t ‘clean.’ To build a wind farm or solar farm or hydro dam or whatever, takes energy and raw materials—cement, steel, cobalt, lithium, whatever—which means mining and fabrication. Without stored energy already saved to do the work, that takes energy and raw materials, which burns fuels. For example, ‘load-following’ electricity (peaker plants) add 12 percent of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Smelting iron and steel adds five more percent. Making cement means burning limestone, which adds a further four percent. Everything we do has a cost. “Net-zero Emissions Energy Systems,” S. J. Davis, N. S. Lewis, M. Shaner, S. Aggarwal, D. Arent, I. L. Azevedo, S. M. Benson, T. Bradley, J. Brouwer, Y.-M. Chiang, C. T. M. Clack, A. Cohen, S. Doig, J. Edmonds, P. Fennell, C. B. Field, B. Hannegan, B.-M. Hodge, M. I. Hoffert, E. Ingersoll, P. Jaramillo, K. S. Lackner, K. J. Mach, M. Mastrandrea, J. Ogden, P. F. Peterson, D. L. Sanchez, D. Sperling, J. Stagner, J. E. Trancik, C.-J. Yang, K. Caldeira, Science, 360(6396):eaas9793, 2018.

2/ They aren’t ‘unlimited.’ Even if such things were dropped from the sky by space aliens, we’re already maxed out on hydro (there are only so many rivers), there’s only so much wind, there’s only so much biomass—and we’re already at the stage of cutting down forests to feed biomass into biomass burners, which makes no sense, and so on. Solar is our long-term future. Statistical Review of World Energy 2018, British Petroleum, 2018, page 50. Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2017, page 397. “Europe’s Green-Fuel Search Turns to America’s Forests,” J. Scheck, I. J. Dugan, The Wall Street Journal, May 27th, 2013.

Today’s solar and wind (and tidal) farms exist not because they pay but because of laws and mandates to discourage old technology, and government subsidy to encourage new technology (Germany, Spain, Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom, elsewhere). That’s tax payer will and money at work to juice the market to try to get the technology developed more quickly than it would otherwise. It doesn’t yet pay. But it will.

Solving the grid-scale rechargeable battery problem is important because without it, all the ‘clean’ (or ‘green’) schemes—solar (photovoltaic or solar thermal), wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, ocean thermal...) and all the ‘clean’ electric vehicles, and such, don’t mean much—except even more carbon dioxide and more over-production. Today (directly or indirectly) they all really run on fossil fuels—natural gas, coal, or oil—or hydro or nuclear power.

Finally, there’s the question of what else we pay for our power besides money (whether out-of-pocket, or via tax) and carbon dioxide in the air. Incidents like Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima get a lot of media attention, but deaths per terawatt from nuclear is by far the lowest among all power sources. Coal is by far the highest. Solar (at least rooftop solar) (and wind) is also not the lowest. Nuclear is—by far. “How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources,” J. Conca, Forbes Magazine, June 10th, 2012.

Solving the problem is about gaining knowledge about the space of possible solutions as we grope around in the dark. Likely, all the people licking their wounds now from all the failed attempts over the past couple decades will be circulating around and eventually some will put their heads together and create a new network which will struggle to get funding and finally solve it. Evolution is blind.

Here’s the problem from the consumer end (not residential but commercial, industrial, or municipal). You’re mayor of a small town, or CEO of a company, or manager of a factory, and cost of grid power is going up (and perhaps surges, or brownouts, or maybe even blackouts, are either not uncommon or are increasing). That cost is high only during the daytime, when demand is high. It’s always much lower late at night. So what you want to do is arbitrage the cost down (buy low, sell high). Essentially, you want a gigantic UPS, plus surge protector. So you’re looking into plopping down some money on a newfangled grid-scale battery solution (sort of like cloud storage, except for energy). Problem is, the field isn’t stable yet, there are many tiny companies with many solutions, and the tech is based on exotic science you don’t understand.

You aren’t a scientist, and none of these potential battery companies have been around long enough to have a proven track record (many have already tried and died, so all the ones out there now are so new and fragile that none have much income, so none have been around long enough to be through IPO to offer stock on the stock market). Plus, choosing any one would be an enormous spend, since it would mean lock-in for 10- to 20- years. What happens if you choose wrong and it goes belly-up? It’s too big a spend, too much risk, and too little information for you to decide anything.

Besides, you have no serious push to move off grid power. The government hasn’t mandated any change, and has no tax credits for storage use. This is just something you’d be doing to reduce your long-term spend on electricity (and also ensure no brownouts or surges). So it’s sort of like buying insurance, plus lowering costs over time (that is, if the battery company you pick survives, and if grid power continues to climb in price, like in California, Texas, Florida, Hawa’ii, and so on, but not Tennessee). So why take a risk? No one’s going to fire you for not doing anything since no one else understands the situation, either. So the battery companies keep dying on the vine, propped up only for as long as their investors have patience.

Now a startup, Prisma Energy Solutions (founded 2017), claims to have found a way to break the logjam. Their plan to solve your dilemma with a lease program so that you can rent-to-buy instead of having to buy outright. Or just keep leasing until the market stabilizes and you know what shakes out. So you can join their program, then lease the service for only 5 years at a time, not 10 or 20, and don’t have to choose any particular company. Also, the battery companies get income, so they get to survive and develop the tech instead of going under all the time.

(BEGIN GUESSWORK: Prisma MUST be pooling battery companies somehow, perhaps like collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), so that, if any one, or a few of their contracted companies, do fail, lessees still get guaranteed power from the pool). Perhaps they stack them in shipping container trucks and back them into loading bays to just jack into a factory or business directly. Dunno how else they could make it work... where are they gonna find the money to lease so many expensive experimental batteries? that’s like the very earliest form of RAID hardware, except for power and at GIGAWATT scale! or maybe they’re also buying used car batteries as backup for the backup? a market is developing for used tesla batteries, for instance, so perhaps they’re making racks of them as backup in case too many companies fail?) In 2017, California put 396 stacks of Tesla batteries to use for 80 megawatt-hours backup at the Mira Loma substation in Ontario, California. The array can power 15,000 homes for over four hours. That’s enough to get over most peak shortfalls. “Rows of Tesla batteries will keep Southern California’s lights on during the night,” A. Micu, ZME Science, January 30th, 2017.

In 2011, the proportions were: about two-fifths of the electricity came from coal-fired power plants. Natural gas supplied roughly another quarter, and nuclear about another fifth. Oil added only about two more percent. That accounted for almost nine-tenths of the country’s electrical energy. Water power added more than half the rest. The remaining dribble mostly came from biomass (like wood). Wind, geothermal, tidal, and solar were so tiny that they simply didn’t matter. But the picture changes a lot when looking at the same country’s total energy use. Oil claimed over a third of that. (Of that oil, almost three-quarters went to transport, and almost a quarter to industry.) Coal claimed a further fifth; natural gas claimed a further quarter or so. Nuclear added roughly another twelfth. Again, that was about nine-tenths of the country’s total energy use (electricity included). But here, only around a third of the rest was water power. And, again, most of the dribble left was biomass, but increasingly wind. Geothermal, tidal, and solar again simply didn’t matter.

For 2011 figures, see: Figure 2.0: “Primary Energy Consumption by Source and Sector” (page 37), Figure 2.1a: “Energy Consumption Estimates by Sector Overview” (page 38), Figure 8.2a: “Electricity Net Generation, Total (All Sectors)” (page 222), Figure 8.2b: “Electricity Net Generation by Sector” (page 223), Figure 10.1: “Renewable Energy Consumption by Major Source” (page 278), Annual Energy Review 2011, Report No. DOE/EIA-0384(2011), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, September, 2012. Note: for the 6 percent of ’Other’ for electricity sources, it lists: “Wind, petroleum, wood, waste, geothermal, other gases, solar thermal and photovoltaic, batteries, chemicals, hydrogen, pitch, purchased steam, sulfur, miscellaneous technologies, and non-renewable waste (municipal solid waste from non-biogenic sources, and tire-derived fuels).”

Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 30, Stacy C. Davis, Susan W. Diegel, and Robert G. Boundy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, United States Department of Energy, 2011. Table 1-11: “Number of U.S. Aircraft, Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Conveyances” Table 4-4: “U.S. Energy Consumption by the Transportation Sector” Table 4-6: “Energy Consumption by Mode of Transportation” National Transportation Statistics, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, United States Department of Transportation, 2011.

In 2012: “Today’s share of fossil fuels in the global mix, at 82%, is the same as it was 25 years ago; the strong rise of renewables only reduces this to around 75% in 2035.” World Energy Outlook 2013, International Energy Agency, 2013.

In 1971, coal, oil, and natural gas was 86.3 percent, and has only fallen slightly as a relative percentage since then, although the world total energy supply has increased 2.6 times (from 5,519 Mtoe to 14,282 Mtoe) and its structure has changed. Natural gas was 16.2 percent, oil was 44.1 percent, and coal was 26 percent. World Energy Balances: Overview, International Energy Agency, 2020.

In 2008 a pound of uranium cost over 1,300 times as much as a pound of coal. In the United States as of May 2008, spot prices for uranium oxide (U₃O₈) were around $60 a pound and Central Appalachian coal, a benchmark grade, were around $90 a short ton (2,000 pounds). Most of coal’s cost isn’t mining it, it’s transporting it. “Coal News and Markets,” May 12, 2008, Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy. “Ux Weekly,” May 12, 2008, The Ux Consulting Company, LLC.

Incidentally, radioactivity is a source of great fear and also of great fearmongering. Most of the radiation one of us receives over a lifetime (about 82 percent, in the United States) comes from natural sources, including food, no matter how ‘organic.’ About 55 percent comes from radon in the home (and other structures). And nuclear power plants release far less radiation than coal-fired plants do. They also kill far fewer of us than any other power source, including all accidents (Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima). Deaths per terawatt from nuclear is by far the lowest among all power sources. Coal is by far the highest. But solar (and wind) is also not the lowest. Nuclear is. By far. “How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources,” J. Conca, Forbes Magazine, June 10th, 2012. Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, Gwyneth Cravens, Knopf, 2007. “Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash: Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance,” Fact Sheet FS-163-97, United States Geological Survey, 1997. Environmental Aspects of Trace Elements in Coal, D. J. Swaine and F. Goodarzi (editors), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. “Ionizing radiation exposure of the population of the United States,” National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Report 93, 1987.

“Metabolic engineering is the enabling science of development of efficient cell factories for the production of fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and food ingredients through microbial fermentations. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a key cell factory already used for the production of a wide range of industrial products, and here we review ongoing work, particularly in industry, on using this organism for the production of butanol, which can be used as biofuel, and isoprenoids, which can find a wide range of applications including as pharmaceuticals and as biodiesel. We also look into how engineering of yeast can lead to improved uptake of sugars that are present in biomass hydrolyzates, and hereby allow for utilization of biomass as feedstock in the production of fuels and chemicals employing S. cerevisiae. Finally, we discuss the perspectives of how technologies from systems biology and synthetic biology can be used to advance metabolic engineering of yeast.” From: “Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a key cell factory platform for future biorefineries,” K.-K. Hong, J. Nielsen, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 69(16):2671-2690, 2012.

“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” J. Fargione, J. Hill, D. Tilman, S. Polasky, P. Hawthorne, Science, 319(5867):1235-1238, 2008. “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change,” T. Searchinger, R. Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, F. Dong, A. Elobeid, J. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, D. Hayes, T.-H. Yu, Science, 319(5867):1238-1240, 2008.

Further, a global economic slump in 2008 halved the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Emissions from burning fossil fuels and from making cement rose 1.7 percent in 2008, as against 3.3 percent in 2007. “Global CO2 emissions: annual increase halves in 2008,” Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), 2009.

On the other hand, the rising price of oil in 2007-2008 helped increase food cost. That then led to riots and other unrest in 22 countries—all of them poor. Poor countries feel even more of a pinch than rich countries do.

In 2006, the EIA estimated that it was about 7 percent as of 2003 (the latest data available as of 2006). International Energy Outlook 2006, Report DOE/EIA-0484(2006), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, June 2006, Tables A2 and A8 in the Reference Case Projections Tables (1990-2030).

By 2013, the EIA put their estimate for 2010 renewables at 10.7 percent (renewables only comprised 7.6 percent for the industrial sector). “World industrial sector delivered energy consumption by region and energy source, 2010-2040 (quadrillion Btu)” Table 18. (page 127), “World total energy consumption by region and fuel, Reference case, 2009-2040 (quadrillion Btu)” Table A2. (page 181), International Energy Outlook 2013, Report DOE/EIA-0484(2013), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, June 2013.

Overall energy consumption in 2006 was around 448 exajoules, thus giving a burn rate per second of about 14.2 terawatts. (Note the difference between energy and power; A joule is a unit of energy; a watt is a unit of power; energy = power * time) “A multi-trillion dollar/year business supplies about 450 Exajoules (EJ, or 10¹⁸ joules); equivalently, we ‘burn’ energy at a rate over 14 Terawatts (TW, or trillion watts). About 86% is supplied by fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. The United States uses about a quarter of the total.” Report of the Energy Research Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006, page 6.

The solar irradiation on the upper atmosphere per second is about 340 watts per meter squared, or around 174 petawatts (174,000 terawatts) in total. So the solar energy reaching our planet in an hour is more than enough to supply all of our current energy needs for a year. About half of that energy incident on top of the earth’s atmosphere reaches the surface. “Radiation (Solar), ” Q. Fu, in: Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences, James R. Holton, Judith A. Curry, John A. Pyle (editors), Academic Press, 2003, pages 1859-1863. “Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget,” J. T. Kiehl, K. E. Trenberth, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78(2):197-208, 1997.

By 2018, SpaceX was regularly launching their reusable-booster, in-house parts, Falcon 9, with launch costs to LEO of $62 million, and GTO (geosynchronous transfer orbit) capacity of 18,300 pounds, which yielded a cost of about $4,100 per pound to GEO. The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2018, FAA AST, Office of Commercial Space Transportation, United States Federal Aviation Administration, 2018, page 144. In 2016, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., NASA Administrator, noted that more venture capital was invested in 2015 than in all 15 years prior to that combined.

From 1957 to 1999, our species launched about 104 times a year. From 2001 to 2005, we launched about 62 times a year. Of all those launches, only about 19 a year were commercial. For these earlier figures, see: The Space Launch Industry Recent Trends and Near-Term Outlook, Futron Corporation, 2004. “Space Launch Vehicle Reliability,” I-S. Chang, Crosslink, 2(1):23-32, 2001.

As most institutional satellites are placed into orbit by national launchers, the market open to international competition is relatively small. It was about USD 2 billion in 2013, a 20% decrease compared to 2012. As of spring 2014, there were six companies able to commercially launch satellites to geostationary (GEO) orbit, which is the most profitable orbit, home to large commercial communications satellites. They include the European Arianespace company (the current market leader, with the Ariane 5 launcher), the Russian Federation’s International Launch Services (Proton launcher), the United States’ Lockheed Martin (Atlas V) and Boeing (Delta launchers), China Great Wall (Long March launchers) and Sea Launch, an international consortium (Norway, Russian Federation, Ukraine and United States). Other companies can launch satellites in lower orbits, most notably SpaceX (USA), which carried out its first commercial launch in December 2013 with its Falcon 9. It is currently developing its Falcon heavy launch vehicle, with two commercial flights scheduled for 2015 and 2017. India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has a long track record. India is also developing and has successfully tested a heavy-lift cryogenic engine for its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with the ambition to enter the commercial GEO launch market. Launch demand in the next 10 years is expected to remain robust, with stable or increasing demand from institutional and commercial actors driven primarily by growth in emerging economies.”

The Space Economy at a Glance 2014, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2014, page 52.

“Space infrastructure is associated with launch vehicles, satellite operations and services, human spaceflight, and other critical functions. Rocket launch attempts, the most publicly visible reminder of space activity, increased in 2014 to 92, up from 81 launch attempts in 2013. The United States and Russia conducted the majority of the launch attempts in 2014, but organizations and countries such as the European Space Agency, China, India, and Japan also successfully launched payloads into orbit. New launch systems continued to be explored in 2014, with one company testing space launch vehicle reusability as a possible way to lower the costs of launch objects into orbit. Other companies focused on suborbital rocket flight, hoping to entice potential passengers into an adventure to the edge of space and back.

The nature and size of rocket payloads, the satellites, are changing. Of the nearly 300 satellites launched in 2014, slightly less than half weighed 10 kilograms (22 pounds) or less. In 2014, a single Russian space launch vehicle launched and deployed a combination of 33 small satellites and cubesats into low Earth orbit. Some of those deployed satellites eventually deployed more satellites into orbit as well. The size and commonality of parts in cubesats is increasingly attracting researchers, small companies, and schools to invest, build, launch, and operate satellites in space. The International Space Station started to become a launch platform itself, deploying small satellites into orbit.”

The Space Report: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity, The Space Foundation, 2015.

As as 2014, the most efficient solar panels were between 40 percent and 44 percent efficient (Sharp, Solar Junction, Spire Semiconductor, Spectrolab, NREL, Fraunhofer). However, those are research products, or are military-grade, intended for use in space, but perhaps only, or primarily, for private contractors (that is, subcontractors of defense contractors in the aerospace or weapons business). At least, that might be a reasonable guess since these products (all multijunction cells) never seem to reach the mass market, despite more than one occasion when a subsidiary company of a parent company (for example, Spectrolab, now owned by Boeing) announces that the product is about to be mass produced, but then it never actually is. In the commodity market (all crystalline silicon cells or, more recently, thin-film cells), 15 percent is still a reasonable efficiency to expect, although 20 percent is becoming more normal than before. When it comes to space, the two most important variables are efficiency and weight-to-power ratio. The ideal is high efficiency and low weight-to-power ratio. The lower the efficiency, the less energy extracted per square meter, and the higher the weight-to-power, the more weight has to be carried up for the same power returned. For satellites, for example, long-life and robustness and low-weight are valuable. The commodity market is earth-based and (so far) is not terribly motivated by such variables, but the military and exploration market is. The solar power panels on the ISS (International Space Station) are currently in the 1 watt per kilogram range, and those on most commercial satellites are limited to the 80-100 watts per kilogram range.

Entech, a NASA spinoff in Texas, has a promising technology, now marketed as SolarVolt, that scores on the low-weight, high-efficiency metrics and that may one day have the advantage of being mass producible. However, even stretched Fresnel lens multijunction panels are bounded to at most 300 watts per kilogram (so about 136 watts per pound). “Low-Cost 20X Silicon-Cell-Based Linear Fresnel Lens Concentrator Panel,” M. O’Neill, A. J. McDanal, D. Spears, C. Stevenson, D. Gelbaum, Seventh International Conference on Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems (CPV-7), Las Vegas, April 2011, pages 120-124. “Space Solar Cells and Arrays,” S. Bailey, R. Raffaelle, in: Solar Cells and Their Applications, Lewis Fraas and Larry Partain (editors), John Wiley, Second Edition, 2010, 397-494. “The Stretched Lens Array SquareRigger (SLASR) for Space Power,” M. F. Piszczor, Jr., M. J. O’Neill, M. I. Eskenazi, H. W. Brandhorst, Jr., 4th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC), San Diego, June 26-29, 2006.

“Although launching satellites appears to be a routine operation to the general public, there are still major risks involved. A branch of the insurance sector specifically covers the commercial space sector’s operations. The main risks covered still tend to be a failure at launch or mechanical troubles for large commercial telecommunications satellites. In addition to launch and deployment failure, space debris and solar storms pose collision and damage risks for satellites. The insured values usually cover the satellite’s replacement costs and/or the resulting business interruption.

In late 2013, there were around 205 insured satellites in orbit, of which 185 were in geo-synchronous orbit (GSO). The total insured value represented about USD 24 billion. Every year, there are on average 70-80 launches worldwide, of which 30-40 are insured, carrying 20-25 GSO satellites and 15-30 low-earth orbit satellites. Average insured value for a satellite in low-earth orbit is approximately USD 40 million with an operational lifespan of five years, while the more costly GSO satellites (USD100-400 million insured value) have an operational life span of about 15 years. A dual launch may be insured for up to USD 750 million. Annual premiums average between USD 750 million and USD 1 billion. The number of satellite failures in a given year has dropped in the last decades, but the average claim per loss has gone up from USD 38 million in the mid-1990s to USD 116 million in 2013, due to the increased size and complexity of telecommunications satellites. For instance, 2013 may be the first money-losing year for the insurance industry since 2007, with reported premiums of USD 775 million and possibly more than USD 800 million in claims.

Commercial suborbital flights and space tourism are not covered by any existing insurance regime. The few paying space tourists to the International Space Station have so far taken out personal accident insurance. As suborbital vehicles transporting paying customers on the edge of space (not entering into a full orbit) are to start operations in 2014-15, insurance issues will need to be addressed.”

The Space Economy at a Glance 2014, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2014, page 76.

“[...] launch insurance for a satellite may vary from 10%-20% of the satellite value depending in part on the number of recent launch vehicle failures. This would translate to industry-wide costs dedicated to commercial satellite insurance ranging from $5 billion - $10 billion over the next ten years. On average, this is about $3.5 million to $7 million per satellite.” Risk Transfer Modeling among Hierarchically Associated Stakeholders in Development of Space Systems, Thomas Grove Henkle, doctoral thesis, University of Southern California, 2007, page 5.

See also: Communication Satellites, Donald H. Martin, The Aerospace Press, Fourth Edition, 2000. “Cost Drivers — Why Do Conventional Satellites Cost So Much?” C. Elliott, Small Satellites Systems and Services, 4S Symposium, Conference, Arcachon, France, 1992, pages 703-708. “Insurance for Space Systems,” S. Fordyce, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 3(1):211-214, 1985.

Article IV

States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.

The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited.

Five other treaties address space issues. These are: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibits nuclear tests and any other nuclear explosions in the atmosphere or outer space; the Astronauts Rescue Agreement of 1968, requiring the safe return of astronauts and objects launched into space to their country of origin; the Liability Convention of 1972, establishing procedures for determining the liability of a state that damages or destroys space objects of another state; the Registration Convention of 1976 requiring the registration of objects launched into space; and the Moon Agreement of 1984, which took the first steps to establish a regime for exploiting the natural resources of space.

Laser Weapons in Space: A Critical Assessment, William H. Possel, Lt. Col., USAF, Maxwell Air Force Base, 1998.

In 2010, figures were: On earth, new coal plants might cost around $1 thousand million per gigawatt. Natural gas, $1.2 thousand million. Hydroelectric, $1.3 thousand million. Nuclear, $2 thousand million. (Solar would be $5.1 thousand million—except that none yet exist in the gigawatt range.) Those figures are very approximate. In reality, they vary depending on the plant’s scale, on what technology it uses, on the country it’s sited in, and on overall energy demand. The figures also don’t count various government subsidies (for example, Germany heavily subsidizes solar power plants), nor does it count maintenance costs, various lawsuit costs, taxes, and so on.

The nuclear estimate comes from China’s project of building four of the latest Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, which produce 1.117 gigawatts, for $8 thousand million U.S. for operation starting in 2013 to 2015.

The coal estimate comes from India’s project of building a 4-gigawatt coal plant for $4 thousand million. It expects to build at least five over five years.

Both China and India’s projects are using the same steam generator technology, supplied by Doosan Heavy Industries and Toshiba.

The hydroelectric estimate comes from China’s Three Gorges Dam project, In 2011 it expected to produce 22.5 gigawatts at a cost of $30 thousand million. It’s using turbines made by a consortium that includes General Electric.

The natural gas estimate comes from the proposed Eastshore Energy Center, in Hayward, California. Originally expected to go onstream in 2009, it application was denied in 2008. It was to produce 115.5 megawatts and cost $140 million.

The photovoltaic power plant estimate comes from the €130 million ($204 million U.S.) cost of the 40-megawatt Waldpolenz project in Germany. In 2007 it was the world’s biggest photovoltaic power plant.

The particular instrument referenced in the text is the new Large Binocular Telescope atop Mount Graham in Arizona. It cost $120 million, but $13 million per year to run. However, as adaptive optics and lucky-imaging techniques spread, all large earth-based telescopes were being upgraded. In 2009, at least ten were about twice as good as Hubble in many wavelengths. Hubble was still useful, however, particularly for deep-field and ultraviolet (and higher) observations. In general, our best telescopes have doubled in size every 30 years over the last century. Science with the VLT in the ELT Era, Alan Moorwood (editor), Springer, 2009. The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It, Robert Zimmerman, Princeton University Press, 2008. “Is the broken Hubble Telescope worth saving?” C. Moskowitz, USA Today, October 10th, 2008.

In 2010 BP spent over $93 million on advertising alone. Oil companies seem to be presenting one public face but by their (less public) exploration and investment decisions are presenting another face. “BP Tripled Its Ad Budget After Oil Spill,” Wall Street Journal, T. Tracy, September 1st, 2010. “BP to Invest $500 Million on Biofuels at a Research Center,” J. Mouawad, New York Times, June 14th, 2006.

Space robotics is still in the covered-wagon stage, but there have already been a few in-space experiments (Germany’s ROTEX in 1993, Japan’s ETS-VII in 1997, and Germany’s ROKVISS in 2005). “Ground verification of the feasibility of telepresent on-orbit servicing,” E. Stoll, U. Walter, J. Artigas, C. Preusche, P. Kremer, G. Hirzinger, J. Letschnik, H. Pongrac, Journal of Field Robotics, 26(3):287-307, 2009. Advances in Telerobotics, Manuel Ferre, Martin Buss, Rafael Aracil, Claudio Melchiorri, Carlos Balaguer (editors), Springer, 2007. The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Settlement, David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie L. Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu, Springer Praxis, Second Edition, 2007. “Robotics Component Verification on ISS ROKVISS - Preliminary Results for Telepresence,” C. Preusche, D. Reintsema, K. Landzettel, G. Hirzinger, 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 9-15 October, 2006, pages 4595-4601. “Space Robotics—DLR’s Telerobotic Concepts, Lightweight Arms and Articulated Hands,” G. Hirzinger, B. Brunner, K. Landzettel, N. Sporer, J. Butterfaß, M. Schedl, Autonomous Robots, 14(2-3):127-145, 2003.

“[T]he energy cost of going to the Moon is less than a hundred dollars in terms of kilowatt hours of electricity [per human passenger]. The fact that the Apollo round tickets cost about two billion dollars per passenger is a measure of the chemically-fueled rocket’s inefficiency.” From: “2001: The Coming Age of Hydrogen Power,” A. C. Clarke, Infinite Energy Magazine, Issue 22, 1998. The problem is figuring out how to do that.

We have various proposals to reduce launch costs today. One startup, the Space Island Group, has a clever way to reduce costs even if we use today’s launch technology: namely, instead of jettisoning the main fuel tanks once in orbit, outfit those tanks as space habitats. They also propose launching to low-earth orbit, then boosting to high-earth orbit (geostationary orbit) using specialized ion-drive tugs that would remain in orbit. PowerSat Corporation has similar plans. They also plan to split up their powersat into hundreds of micropowersats then gang them together in a phased array. Other companies in this domain include Space Energy, Inc., and Solaren, Inc. NASA is presently studying a plan by Masten Space Systems that argues for smaller but more robust rockets to put fuel stations in orbit and thus reduce costs and risks of later flights. “Depot-Centric Human Spaceflight: Strengthening American Industry, Creating a Robust Beyond-LEO Exploration Program, and Enabling the Commercial Development of Space,” J. Goff, S. Traugott, A. Oesterle, unpublished manuscript, 2009.

There are other, more far-out, ideas: Perhaps we could build cheap and reliable suborbital hypersonic scramjets or rocketplanes. We might also use nukes in orbit-changing spacecraft. Or, one day, we might replace rockets with superconducting mass drivers and free-electron launch lasers. We might even figure out how to build a space elevator. Costs would also lower if we already had moon colonists and got them to build satellite parts. Or if we already had an orbital power satellite. (Its power could reduce the cost of lunar mining and manufacture so the next one would be cheaper.)

For a survey of powersat technology, see: Laying the Foundation for Space Solar Power: An Assessment of NASA’s Space Solar Power Investment Strategy, Committee for the Assessment of NASA’s Space Solar Power Investment Strategy, United States National Research Council, National Academies Press, 2001. Much of scramjet research is classified, so it’s hard to say anything definitive. Here’s a report giving a good overview of what little is known publically: “A Comparison of Propulsion Concepts for SSTO Reusable Launchers,” R. Varvill, A. Bond, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 56(3/4):108-117, 2003. Mass drivers and launch lasers are even more speculative: “Preliminary Feasibility Assessment for Earth-To-Space Electromagnetic (Railgun) Launchers,” E. E. Rice, L. A. Miller, R. W. Earhart, NASA Report Number CR-167886, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1982. For something a lot more speculative, but even bigger-picture, see: The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, Marshall T. Savage, Little, Brown, 1994, pages 103-123. The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System, Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling, BC Edwards, 2003.

In the more immediate future though, the private company, SpaceX, became suborbital on March 21st, 2007. Its rocket then achieved orbit on September 28th, 2008. However, its rocket is not the first privately owned orbital rocket; it’s the first private liquid-fueled rocket to achieve orbit. Orbital Sciences Corporation was the first company to orbit its own (sold-fuel) rocket (in 1990). The private company, Blue Origin, is also developing its own rocket (but for suborbital flight).

We have other possible energy options, too. In the nearer term, we might find more efficient ways to mine oil from shale or oil sands, or from methane clathrates on the ocean floor. Then there’s bioreactors that extract energy from waste. We can also tailor life-forms for use in such bioreactors using artificial evolution. We’ve already evolved bacteria to extract heavy metals and sulfur and nitrogen compounds from coal or oil. “Biochemical technology for the detoxification of geothermal brines and the recovery of trace metals,” E. T. Premuzic, M. S. Lin, H. Lian, in: Heavy Metals in the Environment, Volume 2, R.-D. Wilken, U. Förstner, and A. Knöchel (editors), CEP Consultants Ltd., 1995, pages 321-324. We might, for example, grow hydrothermal bacteria in their normal nutrient bath mixed with small amounts of oil. Then, in stages, grow the survivors with ever higher proportions of oil, until they eat only oil. Then we add coal in the same staged way. We might end with bacteria that can eat coal at high temperatures and pressures.

A similar scheme might make bacteria that could leech oil from shalesands. That might lower the mining price for oil sands and shale oil enough to compete with liquid oil. Or it might even be used to convert our planet’s vast coal reserves into oil. Other research efforts to make genetically modified bacteria (or wholly synthetic cells) that make biofuels (like ethanol) are already underway. We can also make oil—it just costs more than digging it out of the ground. We can thermally depolymerize biomass into light crudes, water, and minerals. We can even grow plants to get fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. We can burn waste to make syngas (which is mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen), then make diesel fuel from that. A new company, Synthetic Genomics, has gotten funding from ExxonMobil on the hundred-million dollar scale to investigate making biofuels directly from genetically engineered algae. We can also simply burn biomass to make electricity. Plasma processing can convert municipal solid waste (or farm wastes like corn stover or rice straw) into syngas. Then we can steam-reform the syngas to make nearly pure hydrogen.

Hydrogen might be a good byproduct because we could use it to fuel cars and trucks. It’s also clean-burning and can be handled safely. But making it via electrolysis is currently three times more expensive than gasoline, and ten times more expensive than natural gas. Also, converting all our gas stations and cars and trucks and motorbikes to use hydrogen would be costly. Rich countries have a huge investment in cars and trucks powered by petroleum (whether gasoline or diesel). If they do it slowly enough to avoid severe economic disruption, and if they only have today’s science and technology to do it with, it’ll take decades for them to move from gasoline to hydrogen. On the other hand, hydrogen might be an easier choice for industrializing countries like China and India and Brazil. They don’t yet have as many cars per person. Also, new and relatively cheap pebble-bed nuclear reactors make both hydrogen and electricity. So such countries may convert to hydrogen sooner than rich ones.

Making cheap hydrogen might also be useful if we ever decide to do something about climate change. We’ve just recently learned that, unlike animals, a plant’s metabolism is almost solely governed by its nitrogen supply. If we could change that, we could change a lot of things. “Universal scaling of respiratory metabolism, size and nitrogen in plants,” P. B. Reich, M. G. Tjoelker, J.-L. Machado, J. Oleksyn, Nature, 439(7075):457-461, 2006. “Dark respiration rate increases with plant size in saplings of three temperate tree species despite decreasing tissue nitrogen and nonstructural carbohydrates,” J. L. Machado, P. B. Reich, Tree Physiology, 26(7):915-923, 2006.

Henry IV, William Shakespeare, Part I, Act III, Scene I.

In 1884 in the United States, a laborer got about $1 for a day’s work of ten or more hours. A highly skilled artisan might get $2. A well-paid clerk might get $3. In 2008, the United United States minimum hourly wage was $6.55. In 2009, it was $7.25. (In 1938 it was $0.25.) “Federal Minimum Wage Rates under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” United States Department of Labor, 2010.

Over the 15 years from 1995 to 2008, the cost of a pound of aluminum has mostly bounced between 50 cents and $1 U.S. From 2006 to 2007 it was a bit over $1 but never more than $1.50. As of January, 2007, it cost about $1.16 a pound. As of November, 2008, it cost about $1 a pound.

Aluminum makes up 8.2 percent of the earth’s crust. It’s the most abundant metal, and the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), on earth.

Worldwide, from 1884 to today, our yearly aluminum supply rose from around 200 metric tons to around 22 million. About five million of that is recycled. So our species as a whole now has at least 100,000 times as much aluminum as we did before. And we have it at about 1,000th the price. We now make more aluminum than any other metal, save iron. It’s now so plentiful and cheap that we make throw-away cans and tin-foil with it.

That price drop comes through better infrastructure and knowledge. We now know more about the cosmos than we did in 1884. We also now have more tools than in 1884. We have more trained people, and they’re more highly trained. We also have more and bigger and faster and cheaper mines, railways, ships, smelters, and the like. Education, exploration, mining, shipping, and processing costs—they’ve all have fallen for a good chunk of our species. Lastly, though, the price of aluminum has fallen because of our new energy supplies.

Carbon Tracker predicts global demand for fossil fuels to peak in 2023 posing a significant risk to the financial system as trillions of dollars’ worth of oil, coal and gas assets could become worthless. [...]

The dual challenge of an accelerated transition to a decarbonized world without jeopardizing profitability seems insurmountable. As argued above, a key challenge is to attract the capital required to transition a vast, 100,000 TWH industry, which spends $2 trillion per annum. Smaller quantities of capital do not move the needle in this mix. Larger quantities of capital are not going to be available unless they can earn a competitive return. Any decarbonization strategy should be based on firm economic foundations.” From: “The Energy Transition and Oil Companies’ Hard Choices,” R. West, B. Fattouh, Energy Insight: 50, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2019, pages 1, 3, 4.

See also: Oil Insurance Limited (OIL), a mutual insurance company spread among several major international oil companies, which claims to have over $3 trillion U.S. in assets under insurance.

The Tempest, William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene I.

If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe’s Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. ‘All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command’ and ‘a sound magician is a mighty god’. In the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to use as a mistress for pleasure what ought to be a spouse for fruit. The true object is to extend Man’s power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work; but his goal is that of the magician.”

The Abolition of Man: Or Reflections on Education With Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, C. S. Lewis, Macmillian, 1947, page 88.

On the choice of date: Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel with Supplementary Extracts from the Others, A Revised Text, Volume II, Charles Plummer, John Earle, Oxford University Press, 1952, page 62.

“On the seventh of the ides of June [7th June], they reached the church of Lindisfarne, and there they miserably ravaged and pillaged everything; they trod the holy things under their polluted feet, they dug down the altars, and plundered all the treasures of the church. Some of the brethren they slew, some they carried off with them in chains, the greater number they stripped naked, insulted, and cast out of doors, and some they drowned in the sea. Yet this was not unavenged; for God speedily judged them for the injuries which they had inflicted upon St. Cuthbert. In the following year, when they were plundering the port of king Ecgfrid, that is, Jarrow, and the monastery which is situated at the mouth of the river Don, their leader was put to a cruel death; and shortly afterwards their ships were shattered and destroyed by a furious tempest; some of themselves were drowned in the sea, while such of them as succeeded in reaching the land alive speedily perished by the swords of the inhabitants. Although the church of Lindisfarne had been thus ravaged and despoiled of its ecclesiastical ornaments, the episcopal see still continued therein; and as many of the monks as had succeeded in escaping from the hands of the barbarians still continued for a long time to reside near the body of the blessed Cuthbert.”

The Church Historians of England, Volume III, Part II, Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, translated by Joseph Stevenson, Seeleys, 1855, page 652.

“The news of this calamity filled all the nations of the Saxons with shame and sorrow. Lindisfarne had long been to them an object of peculiar respect; and the Northumbrians hesitated not to pronounce it the most venerable of the British churches. Alcuin received the account at the court of Charlemagne, and evinced, by his tears, the sincerity of his grief. ‘The man,’ he exclaimed, ‘who can think of this calamity without being struck with terror, who does not in consequence begin to amend his ways, and who does not cry to God in behalf of his country, has a heart not of flesh but of stone.’ It reminded him of an extraordinary phenomenon, of which he had been an eye-witness during his last visit to England. ‘See,’ he writes to Ethelred, king of Northumbria, ‘the church of St. Cuthbert is sprinkled with the blood of its priests, and robbed of all its ornaments: that place, the most venerable of all places in Britain, has been given in prey to the Gentiles; and where Christianity first took root among us, after the departure of St. Paulinus from York, there hath occurred the first of the calamities which awaited us. What else was portended by that rain of blood which we saw in Lent, at a time when the sky was calm and cloudless, fall from the lofty roof of the northern aisle of the church of St. Peter in York, the capital of the kingdom? Did it not denote that carnage would come upon us, and come from the north?’ He wrote to the monks of Lindisfarne, who had escaped from the swords of the Danes, and asked how it came that St. Cuthbert, and the saints, whose remains were interred within their church, had not preserved it from pollution. Nothing happened by chance. If it was not the first of a long train of evils destined for the whole nation, it must have been meant by God for the punishment of the inhabitants of the island. If then there was any thing sinful in their conduct, let them hasten to correct it. [...]

It was, however, his persuasion that the destruction of Lindisfarne was but ‘the beginning of sorrows:’ that the Danes were destined to act the same part in England, which the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons had formerly performed in Britain.”

The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church; Containing an Account of its Origin, Government, Doctrines, Worship, Revenues, and Clerical and Monastic Institutions, Volume II, John Lingard, C. Dolman, 1845, pages 221-223.

“Over-cowardly laws and shameful tributes are common among us, understand it who can; and many misfortunes befall this nation over and again. For long now nothing has prospered, within or without, but there has been devastation and persecution in every part, over and again. And for long now the English have been entirely without victory and too much cowed because of the wrath of God, and the pirates so strong with God’s consent, that in battle often one will put to flight ten, and sometimes less sometimes more, all because of our sins. And often ten or twelve, one after the other, will disgracefully insult the thegn’s wife, and sometimes his daughter, or near kinswoman, while he who considered himself proud and powerful and brave enough before that happened, looks on.” Angle-Saxon Prose, Michael Swanton (editor and translator), Everyman, 1993, pages 181-182.

“Base laws and scandalous extortions are common among us, and many mishaps happen to this nation time after time because of the wrath of God, let him acknowledge it who will. This nation has not been successful for a long time either here or abroad, but there has been devastation and hatred in pretty well every district again and again; and now for a long time the English have been utterly defeated and much disheartened because of God’s wrath. And the Vikings have been so powerful with God’s consent that often in battle one of them puts 10 to flight, sometimes more sometimes less, all because of our sins. And often 10 or 12, one after the other, offer disgraceful insult to the wife of a thane, or sometimes his daughter, or close kinswoman, while he looks on—one who considered himself important and powerful and brave enough before that happened.” Vikings: Fear and Faith, Paul Cavill, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001, pages 254-255.

For an annotated version of the original Old English version, see: Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, Dorothy Whitelock (editor), University of Exeter Press, 1977, page 59.

“Charlemagne is notable for his brutality and severity toward those who opposed him. The most obvious example of such brutality is the famous episode at Verden, where Charlemagne responded to the latest Saxon rebellion by having 4500 Saxons beheaded in one day.” Charlemagne’s Practice of Empire, Jennifer R. Davis, Cambridge University Press, 2015, page 157.

“These campaigns of Charlemagne were very bloody. [...] With his large kingdom and well-organized army, Charlemagne was able to inflict much more violence, seize more booty, and demand greater tributes than the Vikings could ever dream of.” The Age of the Vikings, Anders Winroth, Princeton University Press, 2014, pages 57-58.

“Never was there a war more prolonged nor more cruel than this, nor one that required greater efforts on the part of the Frankish peoples. [...] war was declared, and was fought for thirty years continuously with the greatest fierceness on, both sides, but with heavier loss to the Saxons than the Franks.” Early Lives of Charlemagne, Eginhard & the Monk of St. Gall, translated and edited by A. J. Grant, Chatto & Windus, 1922, pages 16-17.

“The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore. Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.” From: “Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya,” M. Mirazón Lahr, F. Rivera, R. K. Power, A. Mounier, B. Copsey, F. Crivellaro, J. E. Edung, J. M. Maillo Fernandez, C. Kiarie, J. Lawrence, A. Leakey, E. Mbua, H. Miller, A. Muigai, D. M. Mukhongo, A. Van Baelen, R. Wood, J.-L. Schwenninger, R. Grün, H. Achyuthan, A. Wilshaw, R. A. Foley, Nature, 529(7586):394-398 2016.

Had this happened in only one place on the planet, it could be attributed to accidents of history plus cross-fertilization of tropes over time. However at the beginning of the Columbian exchange: “What took place in the early 1500s was truly exceptional, something that had never happened before and never will again. Two cultural experiments, running in isolation for 15,000 years or more, at last came face to face. Amazingly, after all that time, each could recognize the other’s institutions. When Cortés landed in Mexico he found roads, canals, cities, palaces, schools, law courts, markets, irrigation works, kings, priests, temples, peasants, artisans, armies, astronomers, merchants, sports, theatre, art, music, and books. High civilization, differing in detail but alike in essentials, had evolved independently on both sides of the earth.” A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright, House of Anansi Press, 2004.

For a view from anthroplogy, see: “The emergence of status inequality in intermediate scale societies: A demographic and socio-economic history of the Keatley Creek site, British Columbia,” A. M. Prentiss, N. Lyons, L. E. Harris, M. R. P. Burns, T. M. Godin, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 26(2):299-327, 2007.

For a view from political science, see: Prosperity and Violence: The Political Economy of Development, Robert H. Bates, W. W. Norton, 2001.

For a view from economics, see: Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, Mancur Olson, Basic Books, 2000.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; / There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, / And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day / I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; / While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, / I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Collier Books, 1989.

Of the semantically obvious choices, this word seemed the most euphonious. The possibilities involving Greek roots for ‘self-changing’ or ‘self-evolving’ sound bad. (For example, one possibility for ‘self-evolutionary’ might be ‘autoexelixic.’ However, ‘autoallagic,’ to mean ‘self-changing,’ might be a reasonable possibility.) Another problem was how to keep the distinction between ‘self-assembling’ and ‘self-evolving’ (and later concepts in the book like ‘self-maintaining’) clear to the reader. An ecogenetic network is a self-assembling one, but not necessarily a self-evolving one. It relies on a fixed set of parts that have already evolved and it’s merely ‘choosing’ among various random assortments of them to see which ones ‘fit together.’ (In short, it self-evolves as a network, but its parts themselves don’t need to evolve.)

Botanists and ecologists mostly don’t use the word ‘ecogenesis.’ They do however have several related concepts, principally ‘ecological succession,’ ‘seral succession,’ ‘community assembly,’ ‘pedogenesis,’ and ‘demutation.’ There are also various biome-specific cases, like xerosere, lithosere, and so on. These were either too specific, too technical, or too colorless for a popular science book.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice, Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle (editors), Island Press, 2004. A Theory of Forest Dynamics: The Ecological Implications of Forest Succession Models, Herman H. Shugart, Blackburn Press, 2003. Ecological Assembly Rules: Perspectives, Advances, Retreats, Evan Weiher and Paul Keddy (editors), Cambridge University Press, 2001. Plant Succession: Theory and Prediction, David C. Glenn-Lewin, Robert K. Peet, and Thomas T. Veblen (editors), Springer, 1992. “A study of the ecology of pioneer lichens, mosses, and algae on recent Hawaiian lava flows,” T. A. Jackson, Pacific Science, 25(1):22-32, 1971.

The idea of succession is old in some ways, young in others. Early forms of it trace back to Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle. “Ecology today: Beyonds the Bounds of Science,” Nature and Resources, 35(2):38-50, 1999. Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Clarence J. Glacken, University of California Press, 1976, pages 129-130.

“Castelas he let wyrcean, / 7 earme men swiðe swencean. / Se cyng wæs swa swiðe stearc, / 7 benam of his underþeoddan manig marc / goldes 7 ma hundred punda seolfres.”

[He had castles built / and poor men terribly oppressed. / The king was very severe, / and he took from his underlings many marks / of gold and hundreds of pounds of silver. ]

Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language, Seth Lerer, Columbia University Press, 2007, page 43.

About a century later, three nobodies—one of them a gardener’s slave and another a barber—resolved to kill somebody important—a temple official. After the murder, they told Nin-dada, the victim’s wife, but she kept silent. Later, the facts came out and all four went on trial. In today’s terms, everyone agreed that Nin-dada was an accessory, but was she also an accomplice? Argument followed, then the verdict: All four were guilty. All four were killed. It was the law. The Ancient Mesopotamian City, Marc Van de Mieroop, Oxford University Press, 1999, page 122. History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History, Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Pennsylvania Press, Third Edition, 1981, pages 56-59.

[The Vita Lebuini antiqua had this to say: Regem antiqui Saxones non habebant, sed per pagos satrapas constitutos; morisque erat, ut semel in anno generale consilium agerent in media Saxonia iuxta fluvium Wisuram ad locum qui dicitur Marklo. Solebant ibi unam in omnes satrapæ convenire ex pagis, ex pagis quoque singulis duodecim electi nobiles totidemque liberi totidemque lati. Renovabant ibi leges, praecipuas causas adiudicabant et, quid per annum essent acturi sive in bello sive in pace, communi consilio statuebant.]

“In Hucbald’s ‘Life of St. Lebuinus,’ written between 918 and 976, we have some curious details of the Saxons. He also tells us they were divided into three classes: edlingi (nobiles), frilingi (ingenuiles), andlassi (serviles). This information he probably derived from Nithard. He tells us further that each pagus was governed by its own chief. At a certain time in each year there were elected from these pagi, and also from the three orders, twelve men who assembled together at a place near the Weser, called Marklo (which is identified by the editor with Markenah in the district of Hoya near the Heiligen loh, i.e., the sacred wood) and Adelshorn. There they discussed the public weal according to the prescribed rules. One of these councils, as I have said, was attended by Lebuinus (Pertz, ii, 361 and 362.)” From: “The Ethnology of Germany: Part IV, The Saxons of Nether Saxony, Section II,” H. H. Howarth, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 9:406-436, 1880.

See also: Formation and Resolution of Ideological Contrast in the Early History of Scandinavia, Carl Edlund Anderson, doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 1999, chapter 2. “The Missionaries: The First Contact between Paganism and Christianity,” M. De Reu, in: The Pagan Middle Ages, Ludovicus Milis (editor), Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1998, pages 13-38, especially pages 17-20. “The Early History of the Saxons as a Field for the Study of German Social Origins,” J. W. Thompson, American Journal of Sociology, 31(5):601-616, 1926.

Being barred from participation in kviðir had serious repercussions. It meant that a woman, even when acting as the head of a household, had fewer formal rights than hired workmen. Even men who owned no land could serve on a panel: the requirements for a male to participate in kviðir were a minimum age of twelve years and an ability to earn his own keep. Probably women were also barred from serving as witnesses in court, because almost all the discussions in Grágás concerning the eligibility of witnesses turn on descriptions of freemen (karlar). Women were not allowed to participate personally in prosecutions for manslaughter (vígsök), yet when wronged a woman could legally claim the right to prosecution. The sources are in general agreement that if a woman was an aggrieved party and owned a right of prosecution, she was to put her claim into the hands of a man. Women could also pursue their desires for vengeance by pushing their male kinfolk into action or by restraining them. The same was true in the case of a defence. Whatever the initial purpose of such regulations, they distanced women from a good deal of violence as prosecutions moved through stages of threat and sometimes force. Shielding women meant removing them completely from armed political life, and in Grágás women are barred from carrying weapons.”

Viking Age Iceland, Jesse Byock, Penguin, 2001, pages 316-317.

Northern Europe’s trade was low, too. For one thing, the Catholic Church, threatened by Islam’s expansion, had banned contact with Muslims. That had different outcomes for different parts of Europe. Merchants in Venice and Genoa simply ignored the ban. Other parts of southern Europe only half-ignored it. Merchants there still traded with Muslims, but then paid up to a quarter of their profits to the Church to buy penance for their sin. Southeastern Europeans (mostly the Byzantines, the last survivors of the Roman empire) traded in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. They ignored Rome—just as Rome ignored them. Northern Europeans though were too far from either the Mediterranean or the Black Sea. Besides, they didn’t have much to trade that anyone wanted—except slaves and furs. Instead of trade, they had Vikings.

As climate warmed in the 800s and 900s (the Medieval Warm Period), Norse longships had appeared in the newly ice-free north seas. They sailed south to harry coasts and rivers in today’s Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, and Lithuania. They both traded and raided. In some cases, they even settled. In England, for example, they pushed the Saxons into the south and west. Centuries before, the Saxons had conquered their way into England the same way. The Norse were just another instance of the same ecogenetic process. Nor were the Saxons strangers to slavery either. Like the Norse, they were too poor to have jails, so they enslaved each other for some crimes—incest, for instance. Or they enslaved for debt, or after wars among themselves or with the Celts (who had invaded centuries before them). Or they did it just for fun.

“It is shaming to talk about what has occurred far too widely, and terrible to know what far too many people do who practise the crime: these people club together and buy a woman for themselves out of the common fund, and one after the other, practise disgusting sin with that one woman, taking turns like dogs, disregarding the filth. And then for the right price they sell God’s creature, the purchase which he bought so dearly, out of the country into the hands of enemies. We also know well enough where the crime has been committed that a father sold his son for a price into the hands of strangers, and a son his mother, and a brother his brother.” Vikings: Fear and Faith, Paul Cavill, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001, page 254. At the time, Bristol was a major slave port. Dublin was the largest slave market in western Europe.

The Norse also colonized Iceland by 870, then Greenland by 986, then pushed all the way to ‘Vinland’ by 1002, five centuries before Columbus. They were traders as well as raiders. In fact, often they raided one place on the coast and sold the proceeds further down the same coast.

Writing in 922, an Arab diplomat tells us of other Scandinavians, perhaps Swedish traders (but they might also have been Slavs), on the banks of the Volga in what would one day become Russia: “They arrive from their territory and moor their boats by the Ātil (a large river), building on its banks large wooden houses. They gather in the one house in their tens and twenties, sometimes more, sometimes less. Each of them has a couch on which he sits. They are accompanied by beautiful slave girls for trading. One man will have intercourse with his slave-girl while his companion looks on. Sometimes a group of them comes together to do this, each in front of the other. Sometimes indeed the merchant will come in to buy a slave-girl from one of them and he will chance upon him having intercourse with her, but [he] will not leave her alone until he has satisfied his urge.” From: “Ibn Faḍlān and the Rūsiyyah,” J. E. Montgomery. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 3(1):1-25, 2000.

Malmesbury also wrote: “When he [Godwin] was a young man he had Canute’s sister to wife, by whom he had a son, who in his early youth, while proudly curveting on a horse which his grandfather had given him, was carried into the Thames, and perished in the stream; his mother, too, paid the penalty of her cruelty; being killed by a stroke of lightning. For it is reported, that she was in the habit of purchasing companies of slaves in England, and sending them into Denmark; more especially girls, whose beauty and age rendered them more valuable, that she might accumulate money by this horrid traffic. ” Chronicle of the Kings of England, From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, 1065: Book II, William of Malmesbury, translated by J. A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn, 1847, page 222.

Of course, the Catholic Church had a problem with that. But the problem wasn’t slavery. Churchmen owned slaves just like anyone else with two shillings to rub together. The problem wasn’t Christian slaves, either. By the eleventh century, much of Europe was Christian. The problem was selling Christian slaves to non-Christians overseas. Two centuries later, Thomas Aquinas debated whether male slaves could become clerics (nope), whether their kids were slaves (yep), and so on. He argued that “offspring follow the womb.” So slave mother, slave child, even if the father were free.

“Of the Impediment of the Condition of Slavery,” Supplement, Question 39, Article 3, Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Bros. Edition, 1947.

Writing in 1273, Aquinas had much to say about slavery. See, for example, Question 52, 57, and 65. Some apologists have chosen to muddy Aquinas’ relatively clear pronouncements on slavery by claiming that he didn’t mean slavery as the Greeks did. Naturally that must be so, but to Aquinas slaves were still chattel. They weren’t merely servants who were only a little unfree. For example: “Adultery, however, and inducing a slave to leave his master are properly injuries against the person; yet the latter, since a slave is his master’s chattel, is referred to [as] theft.” Supplement, Question 67, Article 3. That’s pretty explicit.

Further, Cordoba was linked by trade and post to other great centers of learning. For example, in 1004 the library at Cairo, Dar al-Hikma, was public and was said to house 1.6 million books. The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age, Fred Lerner, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001, pages 71-72. The Medieval Library, James W. Thompson, Hafner, Reprint Edition, 1957, pages 348-350.

As a general rule, Muslim treatment of colonized Christians was less harsh than Christian treatment of colonized Muslims, but that doesn’t make either treatment even close to mild. Muslim tolerance certainly broke down in the 1100s and 1200s. The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Bat Ye’or and David Maisel, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Revised Edition, 1985.

The text narrative is partly made-up (especially his early trading activity) since we don’t know much about his early life, but the details and the settings are real. Words for occupations present special problems. For example, the text uses ‘earthling’ (yrðlicg) over the more usual gebúr (from which descends ‘boor’) as the more colorful word. (In any case, a gebúr was likely richer than Godric’s parents were, but they might have been either cottars or geneats, or any gradation in between; we really don’t know.)

Here are the Old English names and today’s English cognates used in this section: Engla-lond - England; earthling - farmer; thane - baron; thorp - hamlet; widuwe - widow; madm - palfrey, that is, a placid horse; webbestre - web-maker, that is, weaver; isenwyrhta - iron-worker, that is, blacksmith; gleeman - minstrel and storyteller; scop - poet and storyteller; chapman - merchant; gemot - law court.

Here is an extract from Reginald of Durham’s writings on Godric:

“[I]n his beginnings, he was wont to wander with small wares around the villages and farmsteads of his own neighborhood; but, in process of time, he gradually associated himself by compact with city merchants. Hence, within a brief space of time, the youth who had trudged for many weary hours from village to village, from farm to farm, did so profit by his increase of age and wisdom as to travel with associates of his own age through towns and boroughs, fortresses and cities, to fairs and to all the various booths of the market-place, in pursuit of his public chaffer. [...]

At first, he lived as a chapman for four years in Lincolnshire, going on foot and carrying the smallest wares; then he travelled abroad, first to St. Andrews in Scotland and then for the first time to Rome. On his return, having formed a familiar friendship with certain other young men who were eager for merchandise, he began to launch upon bolder courses, and to coast frequently by sea to the foreign lands that lay around him. Thus, sailing often to and fro between Scotland and Britain, he traded in many divers wares and, amid these occupations, learned much worldly wisdom. [...]

[A]t length his great labours and cares bore much fruit of worldly gain. For he laboured not only as a merchant but also as a shipman... to Denmark and Flanders and Scotland; in all which lands he found certain rare, and therefore more precious, wares, which he carried to other parts wherein he knew them to be least familiar, and coveted by the inhabitants beyond the price of gold itself; wherefore he exchanged these wares for others coveted by men of other lands; and thus he chaffered [haggled] most freely and assiduously. Hence he made great profit in all his bargains, and gathered much wealth in the sweat of his brow; for he sold dear in one place the wares which he had bought elsewhere at a small price.

Then he purchased the half of a merchant-ship with certain of his partners in the trade; and again by his prudence he bought the fourth part of another ship. At length, by his skill in navigation, wherein he excelled all his fellows, he earned promotion to the post of steersman.” From: “A Merchant Adventurer,” in: Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, G. G. Coulton (editor and translator), Cambridge University Press, 1918, pages 415-420. Also see: Medieval Panorama: The English Scene from Conquest to Reformation, G. G. Coulton, Cambridge University Press, 1938, pages 317-320.

See also: “The Benedictines, the Cistercians and the acquisition of a hermitage in twelfth-century Durham,” T. Licence, Journal of Medieval History, 29(4):315-329, 2003. “Durham Priory and its Hermits in the Twelfth Century,” V. Tudor, in: Anglo-Norman Durham, David Rollason, Margaret Harvey, and Michael Prestwich (editors), Boydell & Brewer, 1998, pages 67-79. St Cuthbert and the Normans: The Church of Durham, 1071-1153, William M. Aird, Boydell & Brewer, 1998. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, M. T. Clanchy, Wiley-Blackwell, Second Edition, 1993, pages 238-240. “Literate and Illiterate; Hearing and Seeing: England 1066-1307,” M. T. Clanchy, in: Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader, Harvey J. Graff (editor), Cambridge University Press, 1981, pages 14-45. The Hermits, Charles Kingsley, Macmillan, 1913, pages 309-328. Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England from the Descent of the Saxons to A.D. 1235. Formerly Ascribed to Matthew Paris, Volume II, translated by J. A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn, 1849.

Godric also had a younger brother and sister. “Pater sancti hujus viri dictus est Ailwardus, mater vero Edwenna, fortuna quidem et divitiis tenues, sed justitia et virtutibus abundantes. Qui de Nordfolca nati sunt, et in villa quæ dicitur Wallepol, diutissime conversati. Recti et innocentes, et coram Deo simpliciter ambulantes. Hi cum sobolem non haberent, devotis precibus adorabant, ut prolem ad Dei cultum idoneam generarent. Concepit igitur mulier, et peperit filium, qui dictus ex patrini sui appellatione Godricus, quod interpretatur, ‘Bonum Regnum’ sive ‘Dei Regnum.’ Deinde post aliquot annos nati sunt eis filius et filia, quorum alter Willielmus, altera Burgwenna est appellata.” Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S. Godrici, Heremitæ de Finchale, Reginaldo Monacho Dunelmensi (Reginald of Durham), Joseph Stevenson (editor), Surtees Society, S. & J. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley, 1847, page 24.

On the other hand, buyers can sometimes have the upper hand as well. For example, when a multinational goes looking for a city to build a shopping center in, many cities want the increased development, so the corporation can cherry-pick to find the best deal. Publishers versus authors, commodity brokers versus farmers, insurance companies versus homeowners, multinationals versus cities, rich nations versus poor ones, often the usual simplifying neoclassical economics assumptions that there is perfect symmetry, perfect competition, and perfect knowledge on all sides is false.

Of course, economists know all that, but lacking more detailed yet still mathematically tractable models, neoclassical economics seems to be the best we can do at present.

“Commerce, as we have said before, is the increasing of capital by buying goods and attempting to sell them at a price higher than their cost. This is done either by waiting for a rise in the market price; or by transporting the goods to another place where they are more keenly demanded and therefore fetch a higher price; or, lastly, by selling them on a long-term credit basis. Commercial profit is small, relatively to the capital invested, but if the capital is large, even a low rate of profit will produce a large total gain.

In order to achieve this increase in capital, it is necessary to have enough initial capital to pay in cash the sellers from whom one buys goods; it is also necessary to sell for cash, as honesty is not widespread among people. This dishonesty leads on the one hand to fraud and the adulteration of goods, and on the other to delays in payment which diminish profits because capital remains idle during the interval. It also induces buyers to repudiate their debts, a practice which is very injurious to the merchant’s capital unless he can produce documentary evidence or the testimony of eyewitness. Nor are magistrates of much help in such cases, because they necessarily judge on evident proofs.

As a result of all this, the trader can only secure his meager profits by dint of much effort and toil, or indeed he may well lose not only profits but capital as well. Hence, if he is known to be bold in entering law suits, careful in keeping accounts, stubborn in defending his point of view, firm in his attitude towards magistrates, he stands a good chance of getting his due. Should he not have these qualities, his only chance is to secure the support of a highly placed protector who will awe his debtors into paying him in the first case, and by compulsion in the second. Should a person, however, be lacking in boldness and the spirit of enterprise and at the same time have no protector to back him up, he had better avoid trade altogether, as he risks losing his capital and becoming the prey of other merchants. The fact of the matter is that most people, especially the mob and the trading classes, covet the goods of others; and but for the restraint imposed by the magistrates all goods would have been taken away from their owners [...]

The manners of tradesmen are inferior to those of rulers, and far removed from manliness and uprightness. We have already stated that traders must buy and sell and seek profits. This necessitates flattery, and evasiveness, litigation and disputation, all of which are characteristic of this profession. [...]

As for Trade, although it be a natural means of livelihood, yet most of the methods it employs are tricks aimed at making a profit by securing the difference between the buying and selling prices, and by appropriating the surplus. This is why [religious] Law allows the use of such methods, which, although they come under the heading of gambling, yet do not constitute the taking without return of other people’s goods.”

An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), Charles Issawi (editor and translator), John Murray, 1950, Darwin Press, 1987, pages 68-70. See also: World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader, Peter Stearns (editor), New York University Press, 2008, Chapter 12.

We all need help, just as Virgil appeals to his Muses, saying: Non omnia possumus omnes [facere]. [We can’t all all things do.] [Or: We can’t all do everything.] [Or, to transliterate: Not all we can all things [do].] Eclogues, Book VIII, line 63.

A more comprehensive, but less likely, figure than seven miles a day might be 12 miles (about 20 kilometers), since 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) is about as far as a fit person can walk in a day, but that assumes no stopover at the destination and no heavy luggage. Also, high speed used to be about 90 miles (about 140 kilometers) a day—and that was only for the few and expensive couriers—the king’s, or those of a rich banking family like the Fuggers or the Medicis—traveling fairly short distances on safe and well-maintained roads in good weather with fit horses and changing horses on each leg of their journey. Pony Express riders in the United States in 1860-1861 averaged about 75 miles (120 kilometers) a day. Although in the 1200s, with numerous horses and riders, Genghis Khan’s messages often covered 180 miles (290 kilometers) a day across the steppes of Central Asia, and by the time of his grandson, Khubilai Khan, messages could cover 300 miles (480 kilometers) per day in emergencies. The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by William Marsden, edited by Thomas Wright, Orion Press, 1958.

However, it wasn’t until the 1500s and the enormous inflation and price differentials brought about by Europe’s conquest of the Americas that Europe began to develop a more sophisticated price theory. Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva, soon to be Archbishop of Santo Domingo, put it into words in 1554: “The value of an article does not depend on its essential nature but on the estimation of men, even if that estimation be foolish. Thus in the Indies, wheat is dearer than in Spain because men esteem it more highly, though the nature of the wheat is the same in both places.” The School of Salamanca: Readings in Spanish Monetary Theory 1544-1605, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, Clarendon Press, 1952, page 48.

Homer’s presentation of trading is decidedly negative, but then he, most likely, was orating before audiences, many of whom were Greek traders, so this required walking something of a fine line. With but one exception, the poem looks down on the Phoenicians as ‘greedy’ and ‘deceptive’ and ‘untrustworthy,’ but then, in this era, the Greeks were upstarts, competing with them. The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer’s Odyssey, Carol Dougherty, Oxford University Press, 2001, Chapter 5, especially pages 117-121.

See also: Warriors Into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece, David W. Tandy, University of California Press, 1997, Chapter 3, especially pages 72-75.

The time period coincides with the Viking incursions into the rest of Europe. So perhaps the Vikings were marauding then because of northern Europe’s warming climate. Maybe that warming kept the north seas ice-free all year round, but it also changed northern Europe’s farming.

However, recent work suggests that the Little Ice Age may be a statistical artifact of the smoothing effect of taking a moving average of a random process. “Change Points and Temporal Dependence in Reconstructions of Annual Temperature: Did Europe Experience a Little Ice Age?” M. Kelly, C. Ó. Gráda, Annals of Applied Statistics, 8(3):1372-1394, 2014. “The Waning of the Little Ice Age,” M. Kelly, C. Ó. Gráda, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 44(2):301-325, 2013.

With Europe’s new books, weather, currency, tools, food, numbers—and safety—machinery grew. Europe began to put the old Roman waterwheel to new uses—running furnaces and forges, beating textile fibers, fulling cloth, making beer and wine and glass. It even had a few windmills already in use (in Normandy and England). Towns grew. So did trade. Fat new ships plied fat new trade routes. New roads and bridges appeared. And in rich monasteries like Canterbury, huge new Gothic cathedrals soared. Europe began to phase change into industry. But it wasn’t industry based on the steam engine—that was five centuries into the future. It was based on the waterwheel.

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies, HarperCollins, 1996. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology, Arnold Pacey, Second Edition, The MIT press, 1992. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, Jean Gimpel, Penguin, 1976.

For example, according to the following main source (see Table 1, page 7), petrol consumption in Greater London in 2000 was 1,505,000 tonnes (that is, metric tons, and 1 gallon = ~0.002791 metric tons, so that’s about 539,233,249.731279 gallons per year, or about ~1,477,351.37 gallons per day).

City Limits: A Resource Flow and Ecological Footprint Analysis of Greater London, Best Foot Forward Limited, 2002.

For explanations about why so many figures are missing or proxied, and for warnings about using the above booklet as a basis for policy, see: London’s Ecological Footprint: A review, Greater London Authority, June 2003.

See also data from other reports that gave such data without citation. Monthly Digest of Statistics, Office of National Statistics, July 2009. Britain from Above, Ian Harrison and Andrew Marr, (a BBC documentary that aired in August, 2008), Pavilion, 2008. Focus on London 2007, Office of National Statistics, 2007. The Urban Environment, Twenty-Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, The Stationery Office, 2007. Drought in London, July 2006, Health and Public Services Committee, London Assembly, 2006. The London Plan: Spatial Development Strategy for Greater London, Greater London Authority, 2004. Access to Primary Care, A Joint London Assembly and Mayor of London Scrutiny Report, The Access to Primary Care Advisory Committee, 2003. Planning for London’s Growth, Greater London Authority, 2002. 1992-2002 Annual Abstract of Statistics, Bank of England, 2002.

For lack of London-specific data in some areas, the text proxies it based on total British figures (for example, for the number of British Telecom phone calls per hour, or the cash flow per day, or the M0 of the Bank of England) then divides that by the ratio of London’s population to Britain’s total population. That is almost surely a serious underestimate of the actual figures since London is richer and denser and more business-oriented than most of the rest of Britain.

Finally, the figures are for a spread of dates over about a decade, roughly from 1997 to 2008.

“Flows of capital, labour, technology and information have supported the growth of world trade from US$579 billion in 1980 to US$6.272 trillion in 2004, an increase of 11 times. Trade in goods has become an increasing share of the GDPs of national economies, rising from 32.5 per cent in 1990 to 40 per cent in 2001.... the location of infrastructure investment is an important determinant in the quality of housing, education and other services. A study of infrastructure investment in Buenos Aires from 1991 to 1997 concluded that 11.5 per cent of the population received 68 per cent of investment, leading to the observation that the city is, in fact, five cities, each with different levels and quality of infrastructure and public services.” State of the World’s Cities 2004/5, Globalization and Urban Culture, UN-Habitat (The United Nations Human Settlement Programme), 2004.

Of course, no city can get arbitrarily rich. Suppose a crazy billionaire comes to a city to start a company and decides to pay every new hire a million dollars a month. What would happen? The cost of high-end housing would jump to about half a million dollars a month. The cost of exotic food, of, um, entertainment, of expensive transport would jump (or imports of them would jump), and so on. Rents for everything would jump. The city as a whole would get richer, but the cost of living there would also rise. We know this because that’s just what has happened time after time, whenever there was a gold rush, silver strike, oil boom, or anything like that, anywhere and anywhen. The crazy billionaire would just be yet another gold mine.

Urbanization data is imprecise because the definition of ‘urban’ varies from place to place. However, in 2010 in the Americas and the Caribbean, about 80 percent of us were urban. In Oceania and Europe, about 70 percent of us were. In Asia and Africa, about 40 percent, and rising, of us were. (More precisely: Africa - 40 percent; Asia - 42.2 percent; Oceania - 70.2 percent; Europe - 72.8 percent; Latin America and the Caribbean - 79.6; Northern America - 82.1 percent.)

State of World Population 2011: People and Possibilities in a World of 7 Billion, United Nations Population Fund, 2011, pages 2-3. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2010.

Nor is that because we spawned more in cities than in the countryside. We’re fleeing the countryside. From 1950 to 2009, our numbers rose 2.7-fold while our urban numbers rose 4.7-fold. Since 1960, over 40 percent of our urban growth has not been because of rising urban birth rates but via rural flight to urban areas. “People Who Move: New Reproductive Health Focus,” R. Gardner, R. Blackburn, Population Reports, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Population Information Program, 24(3):1-27, 1996. “Fertility and Family Planning in African Cities: The Impact of Female Migration,” M. Brockerhoff, Journal of Biosocial Science, 27(3):347-358, 1995.

Kenya area - 580,367 square kilometres (224,081 square miles). Kenya - 1999 - 28,686,607. The Kenya population figures for 1999 are from: Kenya Census 2009, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2010. “Kenya: Provinces, Counties, Cities, Towns, Urban Centers — Population Statistics in Maps and Charts.” Citypopulation.de.

Population of Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar: Mongolia - 2009 - 2,671 (thousands). Overall urban - 61.5 percent. And 57.7 percent were in Ulaanbaatar alone. Ulaanbaatar - 2009 - 966 (thousands) (38.1 percent). Mongolia area - 1,564,110 square kilometres (603,910 square miles). World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2008, Table A.1, page 33, Table A.2, page 26, Table A.16, page 42.

Since the figures are guesstimates, for contrasting views, see also: Size of eleventh-century Baghdad: World Cities: -3000 to 2000, George Modelski, Faros, 2003. Size of seventeenth-century Edo (today’s Tokyo): The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy: Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War, Christopher Howe, Hurst, 1996, page 55. Size of eighth-century Chang’an (today’s Xi’an): Encyclopedia of Asian History, Volume I, Ainslee T. Embree, Robin J. Lewis, Richard W. Bulliet, Edward L. Farmer, Marius B. Jansen, David S. Lelyveld, and David K. Wyatt (editors), Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988, page 320.

Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region home to about 120 million in 2008: State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities, UN-Habitat (The United Nations Human Settlement Programme), 2008.

Like everyone, Einstein, while a genius, had a life, an education, and collaborators. For instance, without Hermann Minkowski, he would have had trouble developing the math behind his general theory of relativity. Without Max Planck and Neils Bohr, he couldn’t have been as productive in quantum theory, without Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen he wouldn’t have been as productive on quantum information theory and possible wormholes, and so on. Then there were all the people before him who created the fields he drew on, like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Mach, and Lorentz. Subtle is the Lord: The science and the life of Albert Einstein, Abraham Pais, Oxford University Press, 2005.

“Similar increases apply to almost every socioeconomic quantity, from innovation rates and rhythms of human behavior to incidence of crime and infectious diseases. They express a continuous and systematic acceleration of socioeconomic processes with increasing numbers of people, so that larger cities produce and spend wealth faster, create new ideas more frequently and suffer from greater incidence of crime all approximately to the same degree.” From: “Urban Scaling and Its Deviations: Revealing the Structure of Wealth, Innovation and Crime across Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Strumsky, G. B. West, PLoS ONE, 5(11):e13541, 2010.

See also: “The Self Similarity of Human Social Organization and Dynamics in Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, G. B. West, and “Innovation Cycles and Urban Dynamics,” D. Pumain, F. Paulus, C. Vacchiani-Marcuzzo, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 221-236 and 237-262. “The Size, Scale, and Shape of Cities,” M. Batty, Science, 319(5864):769-771, 2008. “Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Helbing, C. Kühnert, G. B. West, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(17):7301-7306, 2007. “Urban Land Area and Population Growth: A New Scaling Relationship for Metropolitan Expansion,” J. D. Marshall, Urban Studies, 44(10):1889-1904, 2007.

See also: Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, Edward Glaeser, Penguin, 2011. Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and its Implications in the Developing World, National Research Council, National Academies Press, 2003.

The distribution of the firm sizes also follows Zipf’s law. “Zipf Distribution of U.S. Firm Sizes,” Science, 293(5536):1818-1820, 2001.

National incomes also obey a power law: “Power Law Scaling in the World Income Distribution,” C. Di Guilmi, E. Gaffeo, M. Gallegati, Economics Bulletin, 15(6):1-7, 2003. In the paper, ‘middle-income’ means countries with GDP between the 30th and the 85th percentiles. That is, all countries but the very richest (which mostly means North America, Japan, and Europe) and very poorest (which mostly means African countries).

There’s a related scaling result, called Kleiber’s law, when it comes to living organisms, but it was recently shown, after almost 80 years, to be in doubt. It predicted a power law with an exponent of about 3/4 for homeotherms (like mammals and birds) but the exponent may be closer to 2/3rds. This has led to a fair amount of feather-ruffling among theorists. But whatever the real exponent, it’s still a power law. “Optimal Form of Branching Supply and Collection Networks,” P. S. Dodds, Physical Review Letters, 104(4):048702, 2010.

For a more general result (perhaps applicable to anything with a metabolism, which might be said to include nations, cities, firms, and such), see: “The Self Similarity of Human Social Organization and Dynamics in Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, G. B. West, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 221-236. “Sizing Up Allometric Scaling Theory,” V. M. Savage, E. J. Deeds, W. Fontana, PLoS Computational Biology, 4(9):e1000171, 2008. “Growth, innovation, and the pace of life in cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Helbing, C. Kühnert, G. B. West, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(17):7301-7306, 2007.

The key conjecture is the following from the original paper: “We conjecture that organisms have been selected to maximize fitness by maximizing metabolic capacity, namely, the rate at which energy and material resources are taken up from the environment and allocated to some combination of survival and reproduction. This is equivalent to maximizing the scaling of whole-organism metabolic rate, B. It follows that B is limited by the geometry and scaling behavior of the total effective surface area, a, across which nutrients and energy are exchanged with the external or internal environment. Examples include the total leaf area of plants, the area of absorptive gut or capillary surface area of animals, and the total area of mitochondrial inner membranes within cells.” From: “The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, B. J. Enquist, Science, 284(5420):1677-1679, 1999.

But before rushing off into la-la land, scientists need to be cautious. Ecology as a whole might be moving toward a unifying theory, the so-called metabolic theory of ecology. The idea is to try to establish that metabolism is to ecology roughly as genetics is to evolution. This has potential, but also potential pitfalls. “Testing the metabolic theory of ecology,” C. A. Price, J. S. Weitz, V. M. Savage, J. Stegen, A. Clarke, D. A. Coomes, P. S. Dodds, R. S. Etienne, A. J. Kerkhoff, K. McCulloh, K. J. Niklas, H. Olff, N. G. Swenson, J. Chave, Ecology Letters, 15(12):1465-1474, 2012. “Testing the Metabolic Theory of Ecology: Allometric Scaling Exponents in Mammals,” R. P. Duncan, D. M. Forsyth, J. Hone, Ecology, 88(2):324-333, 2007. “Allometric scaling laws of metabolism,” J. K. Leal da Silva, G. J. M. Garcia, L. A. Barbosa, Physics of Life Reviews, 3(4):229-261, 2006. “The origin of allometric scaling laws in biology from genomes to ecosystems: towards a quantitative unifying theory of biological structure and organization,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, Journal of Experimental Biology, 208(9):1575-1592, 2005. “Ecology’s Big, Hot Idea,” J. Whitfield, PLoS Biology, 2(12):e440, 2004. “A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, B. J. Enquist, Science, 276(5309):122-126, 1997.

Lawyers and judges also matter. So does road congestion and external trade. Smog, schools, jobs, all matter too. Many other factors—rivers, available land area, the cost and tensile strength of steel and concrete, and so on—all matter. And they all interact. Plus, we can always argue about definitions and the various purely political ways that a city can grow (for instance, by annexation). But despite all our urban planning, our mayors, our city councils, our earnest debates, our cities grow more like unruly ecosystems than like anything planned. The same is true of our other corporate bodies—our neighborhoods, universities, countries, regions, firms, institutions, governments, markets. They all grow or shrink ecogenetically. As new tools or new lives enter them, they act like ecosystems with new species invading.

Although the overall percentage of land being used by cities and industry is tiny compared to farm use, cities grow where we first settled, which originally meant the most arable land. So although cities consume far less land than farms, they still cover a significant fraction of arable farmland. How much exactly is unknown. “Assessing the Impact of Urban Sprawl on Soil Resources in the United States Using Nighttime ‘City Lights’ Satellite Images and Digital Soils Maps,” M. L. Imhoff, W. T. Lawrence, D. Stutzer, C. Elvidge, Perspectives on the Land-Use History of North America: a Context for Understanding our Changing Environment, T. D. Sisk (editor), United States Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR 1998-0003, Revised 1999.

In Britain, however, paving covers only a small proportion of the land. “More than 6.8% of the UK’s land area is now classified as urban” (a definition of ‘urban’ that includes rural development and roads). The UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis of the Key Findings UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011, page 75.

Unintended consequences from temporarily freezing rents, or the more serious use of complete rent control, is well-known in urban planning (for example, the case of New York and of California). But more generally, Jay Forrester, who started the field of system dynamics (and who also invented the first flight simulator in 1944), below reports on a model of urban housing that showed several counter-intuitive results, all of them completely sensible when the real variables and feedback loops are understood. But most of us either don’t see them or don’t understand them, or perhaps don’t wish to understand them 9for policitical or self-aggrandizing reasons).

He notes that “It is my basic theme that the human mind is not adapted to interpreting how social systems behave. Our social systems belong to the class called multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems. In the long history of evolution it has not been necessary for man to understand these systems until very recent historical times. Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental skill needed to properly interpret the dynamic behavior of the systems of which we have now become a part. [...]

People would never attempt to send a space ship to the moon without first testing the equipment by constructing prototype models and by computer simulation of the anticipated space trajectories. No company would put a new kind of household appliance or electronic computer into production without first making laboratory tests. Such models and laboratory tests do not guarantee against failure, but they do identify many weaknesses which can then be corrected before they cause full-scale disasters. [...]

Our social systems are far more complex and harder to understand than our technological systems. Why, then, do we not use the same approach of making models of social systems and conducting laboratory experiments on those models before we try new laws and government programs in real life? The answer is often stated that our knowledge of social systems is insufficient for constructing useful models. But what justification can there be for the apparent assumption that we do not know enough to construct models but believe we do know enough to directly design new social systems by passing laws and starting new social programs? I am suggesting that we now do know enough to make useful models of social systems. Conversely, we do not know enough to design the most effective social systems directly without first going through a model-building experimental phase. [...]

The mental model is fuzzy. It is incomplete. It is imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within one individual, a mental model changes with time and even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As the subject shifts so does the model. When only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different and are left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And it is not surprising that consensus leads to laws and programs that fail in their objectives or produce new difficulties greater than those that have been relieved.”

“Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems,” J. W. Forrester, Technology Review, 73(3):53-68, 1971. See also: “System Dynamics and the Lessons of 35 Years,” J. W. Forrester, in: A Systems-Based Approach to Policy Making, Kenyon B. De Greene (editor), Springer (originally Kluwer), 1993, pages 199-240.

For another example, a German city once decided to do something about the problem of noise and air pollution in its downtown shopping area. The mayor and city councillors reduced speed limits and added speedbumps to ensure compliance. Citizens applauded. But drivers spent more time negotiating downtown, so noise and air pollution increase. Aggravated by the new problems, shoppers started going to suburban malls. Downtown businesses went bankrupt. City taxes plummeted. And, thanks to the new speedbumps, noise and air pollution remained downtown. The original problem had grown worse. The Logic of Failure: Why Things Go Wrong and What We Can Do To Make Them Right, Dietrich Dörner, translated by Rita and Robert Kimber, Henry Holt and Company, 1996.

See also: Wicked Problems - Social Messes: Decision Support Modelling With Morphological Analysis, Tom Ritchey, Springer, 2011. How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities, John Cassidy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Donella H. Meadows, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House, 2007. Why Most things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics, Paul Ormerod, Pantheon Books, 2005. Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, Jeff Conklin, Wiley, 2005. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, John D. Sterman, McGraw-Hill, 2000. System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Robert Jervis, Princeton University Press, 1997. Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, Edward Tenner, Knopf, 1996.

For Braess’ Paradox, and other failures of otherwise seemingly intuitively obvious network traffic congestion reduction in general, see: “The negation of the Braess paradox as demand increases: The wisdom of crowds in transportation networks,” A. Nagurney, Europhysics Letters, 91(4):48002, 2010. “How Bad Is Selfish Routing?” T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, Journal of the ACM, 49(2):236-259, 2002.

Trying to make a supply network behave linearly is as hard as controlling a shower’s temperature if the hot water faucet responded not in seconds, but in minutes, and with irregular delays. Choosing to call any such network ‘efficient’ merely because no one is in charge—or, choosing to call it ‘inefficient’ simply because no one can be in charge—has more to do with political affiliation than reality. It’s equal to thinking that we can have traffic, yet somehow banish traffic jams. Good luck with that.

The term ‘non-linear’ originates with a mathematician, Stanislaw Ulam, circa 1950. He’s reported to have said that using the term ‘non-linear science’ was like calling the bulk of zoology ‘the study of non-elephants.’ “Experimental Mathematics: The Role of Computation in Nonlinear Science,” D. Campbell, D. Farmer, J. Crutchfield, E. Jen, Communications of the ACM, 28(4):374-384, 1985.

When we think about the world around us, we often assume ceteris paribus, Latin for ‘all else being the same.’ In reality, though, it’s cetera desunt (‘all else is missing’). In non-linear networks, ceteris is never paribus. Ecologists have long had to face this chasm separating what we think will happen and what actually happens.

This is in fact what happened on Friday, August 13th, 1982. The United States Federal Reserve then called the heads of many large foreign banks, pleading with them to honor large United States banks, even though those were all insolvent, thanks to their years of unadvised (by the Fed) lending to several Latin American countries, each with high inflation and unstable governments. In brief, it was a bubble, and each bank was getting while the getting was good. Bloated with petrodollars from the oil price hikes of the 1970s, they had treated each Fed warning as a yellow traffic light—namely: better speed up to get to the profit to beat the other banks, who were surely speeding up as well.

The blowup started with Mexico about to default that Friday, but Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela were nearly as bad (and would each fail, just later; Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina together came to be called ‘the MBA problem’). Citibank and Bank of America were in hock for around $2.5 billion each. Manufacturers Hanover and Chase Manhattan were in for about $1.5 billion. Morgan Guaranty was also in deep. The next five big banks were also in a bad way. In all, the top 10 United States banks were in deep trouble. Seven of the top eight money center banks were insolvent. Also, perhaps a thousand banks had outstanding loans of over $1 million U.S. just to Mexico alone. Of the smaller banks, each one wanted to avoid further lending and just write off the bad debt. But if any bank did that it would be a Prisoner’s Dilemma problem because they were all linked—since they had all lent to the same failing Latin American countries.

If any bank, even a small one, pulled out, the others would notice, and would pull out too, which would collapse the whole system. Also, if the Fed publically mentioned that there was a problem, or if any bank suspended lending, its depositors would notice, then begin a bank run, which would draw down the bank, and, short of a massive capital infusion, that would rapidly collapse all the banks. Further, there was no law to handle this situation, so the Fed couldn’t legally force the banks to do what it wanted them to do, so it used enticement and coercion.

Crisis was averted because this was all kept quiet while various bridging loans, with the big one amounting to $5 billion U.S. collected across a consortium of 526 banks, many of them international, papered over the holes.

In essence, this all amounted to the Fed getting foreign banks to keep lines of credit open to United States banks so that those banks could keep lending to Mexico, so that Mexico could keep paying interest on its loans to United States banks to keep the pretense going that all was well, while the banks repaired their balance sheets another way (principally by the Fed keeping interest rates artifically high even after inflation was vanquished at home, so that banks could make money on domestic loans over the next decade or so).

In brief: the Fed (and the IMF and the BIS) arranged for United States banks to keep afloat by indirectly paying themselves via roundtrip paths through Mexico, to thus give themselves enough time to gain money another way so that they could finally shed the bad loans publically (via Brady Bonds). This had the effect of keeping Mexico afloat (and later on the other Latin American countries as they each toppled and had to be kept afloat the same way).

However resolving all this behind the scenes took over a decade and, likely, lead to the first real spread of the belief among financiers that they could make big mistakes and be bailed out—once the mistakes were big enough, or interlinked enough, so that they became systemic (a term first coined by William Cline). That then leads to the moral hazard problem. Secondly, it led to the belief that big banks were treated far differently than small banks, something that was demonstrably true. Likely that encouraged capital concentration and the rise of a few very large banks.

While politicians come and go, and officials come and go, financiers mostly don’t—or at least, their knowledge gets passed on down the generations because it’s vital to their firm’s survival. So while rulers might say one thing (and maybe even think it), bankers know something else. They form one stigmergic layer of our non-linear financial network, thus giving it a memory.

This was the first real instance where regulators and central bankers were made aware of the notion of systemic risk (since 1929). But that lesson was forgotten—at least by the regulators, but probably not by the bankers. It could be argued that what happened in 1997-1998, and then again in 2007-2008, were reruns, except bigger, on bigger stages, with bigger players—and bigger consequences. It happened yet again, in an even more disguised form, in Europe in 2010-2015 (and ongoing as of 2017), in the Greek ‘bailout’—which was really a bailout of big French and German banks (Deutsche Bank, Finanz Bank, Commerzbank, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and others), engineered by the IMF, the ECB (European Central Bank), and the European Commission, and ultimately paid for by French, German, Spanish, Portugese, Irish, Italian, Greek, and other EU taxpayers, under the guise of ‘saving’ the failing Greek economy, which owed € 195 billion. As it is, the original government bond speculators who benefited aren’t paying, the original Greek oligarchs who benefited from the flodd of inflowing money aren’t paying, and now, neither are the big French and German banks who made all those bad loans.

Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment, Yanis Varoufakis, Bodley Head, 2017. Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence, William L. Silber, Bloomsbury Press, 2012, pages 218-227. Balance Sheet Recession: Japan’s Struggle with Uncharted Economics and its Global Implications, Richard C. Koo, Wiley, 2003, pages 126-131. Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979-1989, James M. Boughton, International Monetary Fund, 2001, Chapter 7, pages 281-318. For Each, the Strength of All: A History of Banking in the State of New York, J. T. W. Hubbard, New York University Press, 1995, Chapter 13, pages 251-270. Governing the Global Economy: International Finance and the State, Ethan B. Kapstein, Harvard University Press, 1994, Chapter 4, pages 81-102; see also pages 74-80 for the petrodollar setup. Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership, Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten, Times Books, 1992, pages 198-201. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, William Greider, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pages 517-521. Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis, Darrell Delamaide, Anchor Press, 1985. “External Debt and Macroeconomic Performance in Latin America and East Asia,” J. D. Sachs, see also pages 74-80 for the petrodollar setup. Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership, Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten, Times Books, 1992, pages 198-201. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, William Greider, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pages 517-521. Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis, Darrell Delamaide, Anchor Press, 1985. “External Debt and Macroeconomic Performance in Latin America and East Asia,” J. D. Sachs, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 16(2):523-573, 1985. International Debt: Systemic Risk and Policy Response, William R. Cline, Institute for International Economics, 1984. “External debt: system vulnerability and development,” W. R. Cline, Columbia Journal of World Business, 17(1):4-14, 1982.

“As a prelude to the overall review of the debt crisis and the debt strategy in later chapters, this chapter takes an in-depth look at the handling of the crisis in Mexico. Although Mexico was not the first indebted economy to erupt, nor the largest, nor the one with the most serious economic or financial problems, the 1982 Mexican crisis was the one that alerted the IMF and the world to the possibility of a systemic collapse: a crisis that could spread to many other countries and threaten the stability of the international financial system. [...]

By the next morning—Tuesday, September 7—there was indeed a panic in the interbank market. International banks were refusing to roll over lines of credit to Mexican banks. Unless calm could somehow be restored, the Mexican banks would have no choice but to default, and the whole interbank market could collapse overnight with incalculable consequences for financial markets. Throughout this Black Tuesday, Volcker, Leutwiler, Sam Y. Cross of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Brian Quinn of the Bank of England all worked the telephones to persuade banks to maintain the level of interbank credits. A substantial portion of the BIS loan that had just been approved was parceled out to repay portions of the outstanding claims, and the banks—knowing they could not get paid that day in any case—agreed to preserve the rest. By nightfall, the banking system had squeaked by without a default—and without a systemic collapse. [...]

The pressure put on the banks by the [IMF] Managing Director [on Tuesday November 16] was unprecedented, and it sent shock waves through the banking community. When the shock was absorbed, however, it became clear that cooperation was in everyone’s interest. The fundamental advantage to the banks as a group was that the package would enable them to get a net reflow of dollars from Mexico. As de Larosiére had indicated, the Mexican public sector would owe about $10 billion in interest payments during 1983. Without a fully financed adjustment program, the chances were virtually nil that Mexico would be able to make those payments. De Larosiére’s arithmetic implied that Mexico would pay approximately $5 billion in interest to banks in 1983, while the remainder would be rolled over into new principle. Thus, by raising exposure by $5 billion, the banks would receive a similar amount in net reflows that they otherwise could not get. Furthermore, if the Managing Director had been prepared to follow standard practice and take the program to the Board without any prior commitment regarding private financing, the Advisory Committee would have had a far tougher job—perhaps an impossible task—raising the $5 billion because of the free-rider problem they would have faced. Each individual bank that was small enough not to threaten the agreement by itself had an interest in trying to get its money back as rapidly as possible. Only if those banks could be convinced that withdrawal was impossible could the cost to each bank in terms of increased exposure be kept to a reasonable level.[...]

The primary explanation for the difficulty in reaching a globally optimal solution without outside intervention is that there was a sharp split in interests within the banking community. While the 25 largest creditors would provide for just over $2 billion of the $5 billion required by raising their exposure by the specified 7 percent, the next $2 billion would take another 75 banks, and the final $1 billion would require pulling in more than 400 additional banks. Furthermore, as a general rule, the banks with smaller exposure (and thus smaller required commitments) were not just smaller banks; they also had smaller exposure relative to their own size and thus would have been better positioned to cut their losses and run if the prospects of program success were judged to be poor. One goal of the concerted-lending package was to raise the stakes for those small banks by making success depend on their participation. Every bank with significant exposure would face a linkage between its decision to participate and the likelihood of program success; the free-rider problem was thereby greatly diminished.” Silent revolution: the International Monetary Fund, 1979-1989, James M. Boughton, International Monetary Fund, 2001, pages 281, 301-302, 307-308, 312.

For example, what might happen were an earthquake-prone city, like Istanbul or Mexico City, to require that all its buildings be made earthquake-proof? Sounds like a good idea, but if it were actually done, the city might simply die, because although most quake deaths are due to collapsed buildings, and we could reinforce or rebuild all our buildings, few of us could afford to. All of us would like to live or work under a roof that won’t one day fall in, but such a building would take time to build and cost a huge amount. Meanwhile, what about food, power, heat, clothes, transport...? Also, redoing all our buildings would be a massive undertaking, which would take time, and for all that time, construction costs would skyrocket. So what about new buildings—especially schools and hospitals—never mind bridges, roads, dams...? No single fear, not even the fear of death—unless it’s obvious and imminent—is easy to plan for because we don’t often see very much or very far, plus we’re inveterate risk-takers because we’re always faced with finite resources and infinite demands.

Many of us don’t like uncertainty and will do nearly anything to remove it as a possibility. Reasoning and Decision Making, P. N. Johnson-Laird and Eldat Shafir (editors), Blackwell, 1994. Minimal Rationality, Christopher Cherniak, The MIT Press, 1986. Decision-Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment, Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann, Free Press, 1977.

In the stock market it’s called ‘The Greater Fool Theory,’ and it goes something like this: ‘I may be a fool, but since I’m induced to buy this stock now, there should be greater fools out there I can sell it to later.’ For some of the extremes this style of reasoning can drive us to see: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, Roger Lowenstein, Random House, 2001. Inventing Money: The story of Long-Term Capital Management and the legends behind it, Nicholas Dunbar, John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

Scientists fall for such mental shortcuts, too. Should We Risk It? Exploring Environmental, Health and Technology Problem Solving, Kammen and Hassenzahl, Princeton University Press, 1999. Uncertainty: A Guide to Dealing with Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and Policy Analysis, M. Granger Morgan and Max Henrion, Cambridge University Press, 1990. “Assessing uncertainty in physical constants,” M. Henrion, B. Fischoff, American Journal of Physics, 54(9):791-797, 1986.

In essence, the text gives a simplified version of Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis. The essence of it is that the problem is systemic (see William Cline), not individual. Can ‘It’ Happen Again? Essays on Instability and Finance, Hyman P. Minsky, M. E. Sharpe, 1982.

Detractors might argue that the hypothesis is an unholy cross of Austrian economics with Keynesian economics. But the basic idea is very old. See, for example: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Princeton University Press, 2009. The Land that Never Was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History, David Sinclair, Da Capo Press, 2004. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Charles P. Kindleberger, Wiley, Fourth Edition, 2001. Devil Take the Hindmost A History of Financial Speculation, Edward Chancellor, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1841, Harmony Book, Reprint Edition, 1980.

The same idea (of the mix of strategies changing simply because organisms in the food web get used to, then begin to depend on the stability of the current mix of strategies) is common in ecosystem thinking. “In Quest of a Theory of Adaptive Change,” C. S. Holling, L. Gunderson, D. Ludwig, in: Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, L. H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling (editors), Island Press, 2002, pages 3-24. The idea is also familiar in game theory, and more recently in adaptive algorithms for complex systems: “Evolutionary Stable Strategies: A review of basic theory,” W. G. S. Hines, Theoretical Population Biology, 31(2):195-272, 1987.

It should come as no surprise then that the financial system exhibits a Moore’s Law of its own—from 1929 to 2009 the total market capitalization of the US stock market has doubled every decade. The total trading volume of stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average doubled every 7.5 years during this period, but in the most recent decade, the pace has accelerated: now the doubling occurs every 2.9 years, growing almost as fast as the semiconductor industry. But the financial industry differs from the semiconductor industry in at least one important respect: human behavior plays a more significant role in finance. As the great physicist Richard Feynman once said, ‘Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings.’ While financial technology undoubtedly benefifits from Moore’s Law, it must also contend with Murphy’s Law, ‘whatever can go wrong will go wrong,’ as well as its technology-specific corollary, ‘whatever can go wrong will go wrong faster and bigger when computers are involved.’ [...]”

The key moment was 14:42:44 (Eastern Standard Time) on May 6th, 2010.

“[...] a rapid automated sale of 75,000 E-mini S&P 500 June 2010 stock index futures contracts (worth about $4.1 billion) over an extremely short time period created a large order imbalance that overwhelmed the small risk-bearing capacity of financial intermediaries—that is, the high-frequency traders and market makers. After buying the E-mini for about 10 minutes, high frequency traders reached their critical inventory levels and began to quickly and aggressively unwind their long inventory at a key moment when liquidity was sparse, adding to the downward pressure. High frequency traders rapidly passed contracts back and forth, contributing to the ‘hot potato’ effect that drove up trading volume, exacerbating the volatility.

Meanwhile, cross-market arbitrage trading algorithms rapidly propagated price declines in the E-mini futures market to the markets for stock index exchange-traded funds like the Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts S&P 500, individual stocks, and listed stock options. According to the interviews conducted by the SEC staff, cross-market arbitrage firms ‘purchased the E-Mini and contemporaneously sold Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts S&P 500, baskets of individual securities, or other equity index products.’ As a result, a liquidity event in the futures market triggered by an automated selling program cascaded into a systemic event for the entire U.S. financial market system.

As the periods during which short-term liquidity providers are willing to hold risky inventory shrink to minutes if not seconds, Flash-Crash-type events—extreme short-term volatility combined with a rapid spike in trading volume—can easily be generated by algorithmic trading strategies seeking to quickly exploit temporarily favorable market conditions.”

High-frequency trading has gone on to play a role in the crackups behind the Facebook IPO, the collapse of Knight Capital Group, Inc., spoofing and layering by the Hold Brothers On-Line Investment Services, and the New York Stock Exchange fine.

In 2007, the International Monetary Fund estimated that GDP (PPP) in Canada was $1,265,838, while in South Korea it was $1,200,879, making them 13th and 14th in the world. The United States Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook estimated Canada at $1,266,000 and South Korea at $1,201,000, again making them 13th and 14th in world ranking. The World Bank reversed that order, but its estimates were about the same: South Korea at $1,199,270 and Canada at $1,178,205.

However, per-person, South Korea wasn’t as rich as Canada. In 2007, its population was 48.6 million whereas Canada’s was 32.89 million. South Korea is a big exporter of cars and computers. Its per-person income was about that of Israel’s. And like Israel, it has military and geopolitical significance, and thus investment, that Ghana lacks. So by 2007, Ghana’s per person income was over 17 times smaller than South Korea’s.

See also: “Japan and the Asian Economies: A ‘Miracle’ in Transition,” T. Ito, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 27(2):205-272, 1996. The East Asian Miracle, The World Bank, Oxford University Press, 1993. America and the Japanese Miracle, Aaron Forsberg, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. The Making of Modern Japan, Marius Jansen, Belknap, 2000. Eastern Phoenix: Japan Since 1945, Mikiso Hane, Westview Press, 1996.

South Korea versus the Philippines: Lectures on Economic Growth, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Harvard University Press, 2002, especially Chapter 3. Ghana versus Malaysia: “An Economic Development of Two Countries: Ghana and Malaysia,” B. Asare, A. Wong, West Africa Review, 5(1), 2004. And of course, South Korea versus North Korea.

The idea that ‘culture’ is mostly all that counts is both old and widely accepted. For example: “If we learn anything from the history of economic development it is that culture makes all the difference.” Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, David S. Landes, W. W. Norton, 1998, page 516. See also: Conquests and Cultures: An International History, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, 1998, especially pages 86, 97, and 166.

On the other hand, a few scholars, like Andre Gunder Frank, (in ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age, University of California Press, 1998) see a more chaotic picture—however, they, too, ascribe basically everything to ‘culture’ and ideology, specifically with respect to Europe. So, one side, the more dominant one in Anglo-American academia, essentially says that Europeans are the best. The other side, a much smaller iconoclastic side of the same Anglo-American academia, says that Europeans are the worst. Both assume that ‘culture’ and ideology are the main things that matter.

That seems wrong. For a summary of why that’s so, at least in the case of South Korea and Ghana, see: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World, Human Development Report, 2004, United Nations Development Programme, 2004, especially pages 18-19 and 38-44 in Chapters 1 and 2. See also: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang, Bloomsbury Press, 2007, especially Chapter 9.

For other examples of what’s wrong with the ‘culture counts’ argument, consider the following quote: “Scholars often used to offer cultural explanations for economic growth, and even today it is common to hear that China and Japan are booming because of the intuitive capitalist spirit or ingrained industriousness of the Chinese and Japanese peoples. But explanations based on immutable culture have been discredited, because the enthusiasts could not get their story straight. Confucianism used to be seen as an obstacle to economic growth, because it looked down on commerce; now it is praised as a great boon to growth. Chinese are now seen as industrious; just a decade ago, at least within Chinese factories, they were ridiculed for spending all their time on tea breaks and taking naps. Tamils are an exceptionally enterprising and hard-working people in Sri Lanka, but if this is ingrained in Tamil culture, then what happened to the Tamils in southern India?

Japan is a good example of the problems with explanations based on immutable culture. The Japanese are renowned today for their high savings rates, for their discipline and commitment to hard work and high quality. But a century ago, Japan’s savings rates were far lower than in the West. Likewise, foreigners used to be firmly agreed on the laziness and incompetence of Japanese workers. In 1881, a foreigner wrote in a Yokohama newspaper: “The Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much.” As late as 1915, an Australian expert told the Japanese government: “My impression as to your cheap labor was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied, easygoing race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of national heritage.” ”

Thunder from the East, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, pages 131-132.

See also: The Lever of Riches: Technology, Creativity, and Economic Progress, Joel Mokyr, Oxford University Press, 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass North, Cambridge University Press, 1990. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World, Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, Jr., Basic Books, 1982.

Here is how Britain saw, or more accurately sneered down on, the United States in 1820: “Such is the land of Jonathan—and thus has it been governed. In his honest endeavours to better his situation, and in his manly purpose of resisting injury and insult, we most cordially sympathize. We hope he will always continue to watch and suspect his government as he now does—remembering, that it is the constant tendency of those entrusted with power, to conceive that they enjoy it by their own merits, and for their own use, and not by delegation, and for the benefit of others. Thus far we are the friends and admirers of Jonathan. But he must not grow vain and ambitious; or allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, and most moral people upon earth. The effect of this is unspeakably ludicrous on this side of the Atlantic—and, even on the other, we shall imagine, must be rather humiliating to the reasonable part of the population. The Americans are a brave, industrious and acute people; but they have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character. They are but a recent offset indeed from England; and should make it their chief boast, for many generations to come, that they are sprung from the same race with Bacon and Shakspeare and Newton. Considering their numbers, indeed, and the favourable circumstances in which they have been placed, they have yet done marvellously little to assert the honour of such a descent, or to show that their English blood has been exalted or refined by their republican training and institutions. Their Franklins and Washingtons, and all the other sages and heroes of their Revolution, were born and bred subjects of the King of England,—and not among the freest or most valued of his subjects. And since the period of their separation, a far greater proportion of their statesmen and artists and political writers have been foreigners, than ever occurred before in the history of any civilized and educated people. During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for the statesman-like studied of Politics or Political Economy. Confining ourselves to our own country, and to the period that has elapsed since they had an independent existence, we would ask. Where are their Foxes, their Burkes, their Sheridans, their Windhams, their Homers, their Wilberforces?—where their Arkwrights, their Watts, their Davys?—their Robertsons, Blairs, Smiths, Stewarts, Paleys, and Malthuses?—their Porsons, Parrs, Bumeys, or Bloomfields?—their Scotts, Rogers’s, Campbells, Byrons, Moores, or Crabbes?—their Siddons’s, Kembles, Keans, or O’Neils?—their Wilkies, Lawrences, Chantrys?—or their parallels to the hundred other names that have spread themselves over the world from our little island in the course of the last thirty years, and blest or delighted mankind by their works, inventions, or examples? In so far as we know, there is no such parallel to be produced from the whole annals of this self-adulating race. In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? What have they done in the mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?” From: “America,” The works of the Rev. Sydney Smith, Sydney Smith, Longman, Brown, Greene, and Longmans, 1850, pages 283-284,

The problem with the word ‘culture’ is that it is too vague. There are hundreds of definitions of the word ‘culture’ going back to at least the 1750s. Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions, A. L Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Vintage, 1952. Boyd and Richerson give one popular recent meaning that is in the style of both Harrison and Landes above. “Culture is information capable of affecting individuals’ behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission.” Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd, University Of Chicago Press, 2004, page 5.

But such attempts to ignore artifacts and other aspects of material life seem unnecessarily restrictive. Ogburn gives an older and more encompassing definition that includes material things.

“A group of new-born infants on an island uninhabited by man would be without a social heritage, although, like the lower animals, they would be born into a natural environment. The social heritage is therefore not coextensive with environment. The environment of man may be said to consist of two parts: natural environment, including air, heat, land, water, soil, moisture, vegetation and minerals; and the social heritage, consisting of buildings, technological equipment, social organization, language, the arts, philosophies, science, religions, morals and customs.

The social heritage is very similar in meaning to the word, culture, as used by sociologists and anthropologists. Culture has been defined by Tylor as ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.’ In this definition of culture the use of material objects is not particularly emphasized, and there is a tendency to think of culture as somewhat removed from material objects. However, the use of material things is a very important part of the culture of any people. A special term, material culture, is frequently used, giving particular emphasis to the material features of culture. The word, culture, properly includes, as does the term, social heritage, both the material culture and also such parts of culture as knowledge, belief, morals, law, and custom.”

Social Change with respect to Culture and Original Nature, William Fielding Ogburn, B. W. Huebsch, Inc., 1922, pages 3-4.

Similarly, Turkey joined the European Union in 2005. To fit in, it had to change much of its red tape on banking, investment, and trade. As it did so from the 1990s to 2005, foreign investment quintupled. Greece and Portugal have had similar experiences, although they, like Italy, have had more recent upsets. Ditto for Spain and Ireland. (They have more recently been all joined together into the ‘PIIGS,’ especially since the collapse of Greece.) The change in foreign direct investment in Turkey to 2005 is from: “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation,” L. Alfaro, S. Kalemli-Ozcan, V. Volosovych, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2):347-368, 2008.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico entered free trade agreements in 1994 that have so far been more economically mixed than experience in the European Union. The agreements in question are the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) signed in 1989 and the North American free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994. Briefly, the combined North American economy has doubled in a decade, however it’s still not clear how much of that is a result of NAFTA and how much is better technology. Also, as of 2004, there were many points of friction between the three countries. It does seem to have benefited Mexico, though. NAFTA’s Impact On North America: The First Decade, Sidney Weintraub (editor), Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2004. NAFTA Revisited: Achievements and Challenges, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, Paul L. E. Grieco, and Yee Wong, Institute for International Economics, 2005.

The missing factor may may well include something to do with female options, whether rich or poor—although rich females started to change before poor females, so wealth does matter. There are probably several other relevant variables: for example, the rise of the wage-earning woman coupled with the decline of the three-generation family alone may have put pressure that led to fertility decline. Of course, there are many confounds. For example, even when aristocratic family size was low, that didn’t mean that all aristocrats had fewer children than average; it merely meant that aristocratic women did. Aristocratic males may still have procreated a great deal and produced a lot of illegitimate children, who weren’t counted. The Black Death may also have played a part.

For some exploratory references on the issue of aristocratic family size, see: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Gregory Clark, Princeton University Press, 2007. The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past, Mary S. Hartman, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940, Simon Szreter, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pages 45-50. Fertility Control, Stephen L. Corson, Richard J. Derman, and Louise B. Tyrer (editors), Taylor & Francis, Second Edition, 1994, pages 396-398.

It’s a consequence of stigmergy (what we’ve built, especially if large, strongly influences what we can next build.). Mathematically speaking, though, it’s more strictly any non-ergodic stochastic process. That is, any process whose asymptotic distribution is at least partly a consequence of its history. Increasing Returns and Path Dependency in the Economy, W. Brian Arthur, University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Arthur’s models have been challenged, particularly for VHS versus Betamax and for the Dvorak versus the QWERTY keyboards. That challenge in turn led to further argument. “Path dependence, Its Critics and the Quest for ‘Historical Economics,’ P. A. David, in: Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present, P. Garrouste and S. Ioannidis (editors), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2001, pages 15-40. “Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History,” S. J. Liebowitz, S. E. Margolis, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 11(1):205-226, 1995. “Defending the Concept of Network Externalities: A Discussion of Liebowitz and Margolis,” P. Regibeau, Research in Law and Economics, 17:33-39, 1995.

In economics, the argument revolves around whether path dependence (stigmergy, in the text) can force fixable free market errors. That is, whether the history of an innovation can lock a free market into choices that are economically inefficient even when more efficient choices exist. In general, that seems unlikely (in a free market). However, that’s not the point being made in the text. It argues that whether or not our choices are economically efficient, stigmergy does affect which options we choose, can choose, or are forced to choose.

“[Walter] Heller has his own definition of his breed: An economist is a man who, when he finds something works in practice, wonders if it works in theory.” From: “Take an economist, any economist...,” E. B. Furgurson, Seattle Daily Times, July 4th, 1979.

For a brief overview of the piped water initiative from the innovation diffusion point of view, see: Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M. Rogers, Free Press, Fifth Edition, 2003, pages 107-116. For more recent ethnographic background on Delta problems, see also: Agrarian Transformation in Egypt: Conflict Dynamics and the Politics of Power from a Micro Perspective, Caroline Laetitia Tingay, doctoral thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 2005.

“[L]ife expectancy at birth, only thirty-nine years in 1952, had climbed to fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women by 1989. The crude death rate, which was 23.9 in 1952, had declined to 10.3 by 1990. Its main component, the infant mortality rate, declined more dramatically in the same period, from 193 infant deaths per 1,000 live births to 85 per 1,000. Nevertheless, major disparities remained in the mortality rates of cities and villages as well as in those of Upper and Lower Egypt. Although mortality and morbidity data were adequate for establishing general trends, they were not reliable for precise measurements. Egypt’s official infant mortality rate, for example, was probably understated because parents tended not to report infants who died in the first few weeks of life. Corrected estimates of the infant mortality rate for 1990 ranged as high as 113 per 1,000 live births.

Although mortality rates have declined since 1952, the main causes of death (respiratory ailments and diseases of the digestive tract) have remained unchanged for much of the twentieth century. Death rates for infants and children ages one to five dropped, but children remained the largest contributors to the mortality rate. Nearly seventeen infants and four children under five years of age died for each death of an individual between age five and thirty-four. Children younger than five years of age accounted for about half of all mortality—one of the world’s highest rates. During the 1980s, diarrhea and associated dehydration accounted for 67 percent of the deaths among infants and children.”

Egypt: A Country Study, Helen Chapin Metz (editor), Fifth Edition, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1991, page 148.

Pneumonia and diarrhoea mortality disproportionately affect the youngest children: around 80 per cent of deaths associated with pneumonia and approximately 70 per cent of deaths associated with diarrhoea occur during the first two years of life.

Pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths are dropping — but not quickly enough.

There has already been substantial progress to reduce pneumonia- and diarrhoea-related mortality since 2000: deaths from these two diseases declined by nearly half between 2000 and 2015, from 2.9 million deaths to the current 1.4 million. Diarrhoea deaths have dropped more significantly since 2000, falling from 1.2 million to 526,000 in 2015 — a decline of 57 per cent. Deaths due to pneumonia declined at a slower rate during this period, falling from 1.7 million in 2000 to 920,000 in 2015. Indeed, pneumonia mortality rates have declined at a significantly slower rate than those of other common childhood diseases, such as malaria, measles and HIV.”

One is too many: Ending child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), November 2016, pages 5 and 7.

“Diarrhoeal deaths among children under-five have more than halved from 1.5 million in 1990 to 622 000 in 2012. Inadequate WASH accounts for 361 000 of these deaths, or over 1000 child deaths per day. [...] The burden of diarrhoea attributable to inadequate WASH is estimated on the basis of the total diarrhoeal disease burden. The number of diarrhoeal deaths has dropped dramatically over recent decades from around 2.5-2.9 million deaths in 1990 to 1.5 million in 2012. Mortality from diarrhoea in children under-five has also decreased during the same period.” Preventing diarrhoea through better water, sanitation and hygiene: Exposures and impacts in low- and middle-income countries, World Health Organization, 2014, pages ix and 1.

“Even though the percentage of the world’s population with access to improved water supply rose from 78 to 82 per cent between 1990 and 2000, and the percentage with access to improved sanitation rose from 51 to 61 per cent during this same period, contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human sickness and death on a global scale.” Global Environment Outlook, GEO-4, United Nations Environment Programme, 2007, page 151.

“Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea—4,900 deaths each day or an under-five population equivalent in size to that for London and New York combined. Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second biggest killer of children. Deaths from diarrhoea in 2004 were some six times greater than the average annual deaths in armed conflict for the 1990s.” Human Development Report, 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2007, page 6.

“10.7 million children every year do not live to see their fifth birthday.” Human Development Report, 2005, United Nations Development Programme, 2006, page 3.

Statistical Yearbook — Population Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Issue No 110, 2019. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2018, Table III.4, page 70. Literacy Statistics Metadata Information Table, UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 2019.

In Egypt in 2006, 29.3 percent of us couldn’t read and 57.6 percent were rural. The National Report On Literacy and Adult Education, Arab Republic of Egypt, 2008, pages 7 and 10. Even those figures may be inflated thanks to corruption, since a literacy certificate is so valuable for jobs. In 1970, illiteracy was even higher, at 68.6 percent.

Also, note that ‘operational closure’ is more than ‘catalytic closure’ (that is, that a reaction network makes all its own catalysts). That’s already guaranteed if the given reaction network has collective autocatalysis (which is called ‘synergy’ in the text). Operational closure means that the reaction network is closed not just with respect to its catalysts but also their reactants (biochemists call those the reaction’s substrates)—that is, the ‘resources’—that the collectively autocatalytic (‘synergetic’ in the text) reactions need. So it regenerates its own catalysts (it has catalytic closure) and it regenerates the molecules that those catalysts act on.

Note, however, that what exactly it ‘regenerates’ has to be considered carefully. It would be inefficient for a reaction network to regenerate resources already plentifully supplied by its surroundings. For example, termites don’t generate or fetch air; that’s treated as a given. Also, ‘regenerate’ has to be taken quite broadly. The fungus needed for the fungus farms in a termite colony, for instance, isn’t generated from nothing; it’s grown from old batches. Similarly, in a cell, if small non-catalyst helpers, like vitamins or cofactors or whatever, can come from the surroundings, they aren’t ‘regenerated.’ The point is that if the network is operationally closed, it has access to everything it needs to keep working. Such things may come from the surroundings, but if they don’t, it regenerates them. Energy, however, always comes from outside.

Note, too, that the loose way that the text (initially) defines operational closure differs from the definition given by Varela, which is more concerned with a system’s autonomy. However, both definitions are motivated by the same underlying idea of closure in mathematics (and especially in topology).

See the Preface and Introduction to: Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the First European Conference on Artificial Life, Francisco J. Varela and Paul Bourgine (editors), The MIT Press, 1992. “Organism: A Meshwork of Selfless Selves,” F. J. Varela, in: Organism and the Origins of Self, Alfred I. Tauber (editor), Kluwer, 1991, pages 79-107. See also: “Closure, causal,” M. Mossio, in: Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, Werner Dubitzky, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Kwang-Hyun Cho, and Hiroki Yokota (editors), Springer, 2013, pages 415-418. There the conceptual core is traced back to Kant in his 1790 Critique of Judgment. But for a more detailed formulation, at least for molecular networks, see: “Autopoiesis 40 years later. A Review and a Reformulation,” P. Razeto-Barry, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 42(6):543-567, 2012.

De Soto also points out how it’s much the same in many of our other poor countries. To get the legal permits to build a house on state-owned land in Peru takes almost seven years. It takes 207 steps spread over 52 government offices. To get legal title to that land then takes a further 728 steps. Buying a house in the Philippines can take 168 steps spread over 53 public and private associations and agencies. It can take 13 to 25 years. Leasing state-owned land in Haiti takes 65 steps. It takes about two years to lease a plot for five years. To then buy that land takes a further 111 steps. And 12 more years. Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina are similar.

It’s not only the red-tape. It’s also the opacity. Investors don’t know where to go, or who to ask. In a number of mining-dependent countries, rather than the government offering parcels of land in open auction, prospective investors are expected to provide the government with specific land coordinates. The geological survey offices know where the ore lies, but they just can’t be bothered to help the investors along. Though the countries’ livelihoods depend significantly on such entrepreneurs coming in, given the nature of doing business it is hardly surprising that this much-needed investment stays away.”

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, Dambisa Moyo, Macmillan, 2009, page 100.

However, there is a problem with that quote since, based on the World Bank reference the author cites for the figures, only the stated figure for South Korea (17 days) is for the number of days to get a business license. The other figures given are for how long it takes to get a construction permit, not the number of days to get a business license. For more details on that and on other countries, see: Doing Business 2009: Comparing Regulations in 181 Economies, World Bank, 2008, page 16 and other pages for specific entries for each country.

However, Plutarch attributes a similar thought to a contemporary, Anacharsis: “[W]ritten laws, which in all respects resemble spider’s webs, and would, like them, only entangle the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily broke through them.” Lives of Romulus, Lycurgus, Solon ... and Others, translated by John and William Langhorne, Wm. L. Allison Company, 1889, page 71. The text follows Diogenes and gives it to Solon as he’s widely acclaimed as a law-maker, even though he himself left no writings.

Whoever said it, the saying became proverbial. For example, millennia later, Jonathan Swift wrote: “Laws are like Cobwebs, which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through.” In “A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind,” Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, Jonathan Swift, John Morphew, 1711, page 257.

“As of September 30, 2013, the SEC’s workforce included 4,138 employees, of which about two-thirds were located at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and one-third were at the SEC’s 11 regional offices. In FY 2013, about 72 percent of the agency’s workforce consisted of attorneys, accountants, economists, and compliance examiners. The remaining 28 percent of the employees occupied other professional and administrative positions.” Audit of the Representation of Minorities and Women in the SEC’s Workforce, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014, page 2. “The SEC has responsibility for overseeing more than 25,000 market participants, including over 11,000 investment advisers, almost 10,000 mutual funds, 4,450 broker-dealers, 450 transfer agents, and 18 securities exchanges, as well as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The SEC also has responsibility for reviewing the disclosures and financial statements of approximately 9,000 reporting companies, and has new or expanded responsibilities over the derivatives markets, an additional 2,500 exempt reporting advisers to hedge fund and other private funds, more than 1,000 municipal advisors, 10 registered credit rating agencies, and 7 registered clearing agencies.” Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, Annual Report, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014, page 5.

“[...] though the governments of the developed countries acting together do have the ‘power’ to control market behavior, it is doubtful that they have or will have the competence to do so. To use John Heimann’s analogy, there is not much point setting bloodhounds to track greyhounds. The governments cannot design a new architecture, but given the certainty that the private sector’s risk-control models will fail at some point, they can demand earth-quake bracing.” From: “Risk Reduction in the New Financial Architecture: Realities and Fallacies in International Financial Reform,” M. Mayer, Working Paper No. 56, Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, 1999, page a47.

In 2001, of our more than 110 million kids out of school, nearly two-thirds were girls. “Girls are expected to be primarily or exclusively domestic workers in many cultures, so household work at young ages is regarded as natural for them. Such domestic work is also often seen as more valuable than any perceived returns from education, especially when parents calculate how, and for which of their children, they can pay school costs and fees. In addition, many schools are threatening places for girls, where they are at risk of sexual harassment from classmates and teachers and sidelined by prejudice and poor curricula. Solely by virtue of their gender, therefore, many girls are kept from school or drop out, ending up in exploitative labour. Of the more than 110 million children out of school, nearly two thirds are girls. Commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking in children for prostitution have also burgeoned, with at least 1 million children a year, most of them girls, entrapped in a network stretching from South-East Asia and the former Soviet bloc to Latin America.” Beyond Child Labor: Affirming Rights, United Nations Children’s Fund, 2001, pages 2-3.

Yet only the Western nations and small enclaves of wealthy people in developing and former communist nations have the capacity to represent assets and potential and, therefore, the ability to produce and use capital efficiently. Capitalism is viewed outside the West with increasing hostility, as an apartheid regime most cannot enter. There is a growing sense, even among some elites, that if they have to depend solely and forever on the kindness of outside capital, they will never be productive players in the global capitalist game. They are increasingly frustrated at not being masters of their own fate. Since they have embarked on globalization without providing their own people with the means to produce capital, they are beginning to look less like the United States than like mercantilist Latin America with its disarray of extralegal activity. Ten years ago, few would have compared the former Soviet bloc nations to Latin America. But today they look astonishingly similar: strong underground economies, glaring inequality, pervasive mafias, political instability, capital flight, and flagrant disregard for law.

That is why outside the West advocates of capitalism are intellectually on the retreat. Ascendant just a decade ago, they are now increasingly viewed as apologists for the miseries and injustices that still affect the majority of people.”

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, Hernando de Soto, Basic Books, 2000, pages 208-209.

Our institutional tools are machines whose main parts are us, but our incentives inside those machines vary depending on what our surrounding network is. Changing that network isn’t easy because it benefits all of its most powerful parts. It doesn’t seem to much matter what languages we speak, what faiths we have, what beliefs we espouse: rich land, poor land, all that might change is the levers of power.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, Harvard University Press, 2006. Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven N. Durlauf, and Karla Hoff (editors), Princeton University Press, 2006. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference, Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser, Oxford University Press, 2004. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, Owl Books, New Edition, 2002. Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby Payne, Aha Process, Inc., Revised Edition, 2001.

In economics this is related to the idea of ‘comparative advantage.’ Even if one person, group, or country were to make everything more efficiently than some other person, group, or country (that is, have ‘absolute advantage,’ it would still gain economically by specializing in whatever it was best at making then trading with other nations for everything else). The absolute cost of production doesn’t matter because of opportunity cost. By choosing to make one thing, you’re also choosing not to make another thing. Everything has an opportunity cost, so it’s best to specialize then trade for everything else. The idea goes back to the Irish economist Robert Torrens, but was much expanded upon two years later by the English economist, David Ricardo. Comparative Advantage in International Trade: A Historical Perspective, Andrea Maneschi, Edward Elgar, 1998, pages 54-55. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, David Ricardo, John Murray, 1817.

For general analysis of the economic costs of farm subsidies in the United States, see the following United States Congressional Budget Office Reports: “The Effects of Liberalizing World Agricultural Trade: A Review of Modeling Studies,” June 2006. “The Effects of Liberalizing World Agricultural Trade: A Survey,” December 2005. “Policies That Distort World Agricultural Trade: Prevalence and Magnitude,” August 2005

Floor statement of Senator John McCain on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, October 25th 2001:

“Mr. President, I would like to discuss for a few moments the fundamental problem with this appropriations bill and then talk a little bit about the pork that is again prevalent and on the increase in this appropriations bill.

First of all, I want to talk about Federal subsidies, where they go, who should be receiving them, the largess of the Federal Government taxpayers’ money under the present setup, how we are going to work subsidies, and how the money is distributed.

Earlier this year, the General Accounting Office released a report that details some very critical information on the disturbing trends of federal farm assistance. The GAO reports that over 80 percent of farm payments have been made to large- and medium-sized farms, while small farms have received less than 20 percent of the payments.

In 1999, large farms, which represent about 7 percent of all farms nationwide with gross agricultural sales of $250,000, received about 45 percent of federal payments. These payments average about $64,737.

Seventeen percent of farms that are medium-sized with gross sales between $50,000 and $250,000, received 45 percent of all payments. Payments average $21,943.”

Congressional Record, Volume 147, Part 15, October 25, 2001 to November 2, 2001, United States Congress, 107th Congress, First Session, United States Government Printing Office, Jan 1, 2006, page 20757.

“World trade in textiles and clothing was also highly distorted by the Multi-Fiber Arrangement [....] The Uruguay Round phased out the MFA over a 10-year period, eliminating all quantitative restrictions on trade in textiles and clothing. (Some high tariffs remain in place.) This was a fairly dramatic liberalization— remember, most estimates suggested that protection of clothing imposed a larger cost on U.S. consumers than all other protectionist measures combined. It is worth noting, however, that the formula used in phasing out the MFA was heavily ‘backloaded’: Much of the liberalization was postponed until 2003 and 2004, with the final end of the quotas not taking place until January 1, 2005.

Sure enough, the end of the MFA brought a surge in clothing exports from China. For example, in January 2005, China shipped 27 million pairs of cotton trousers to the United States, up from 1.9 million a year earlier. And there was a fierce political reaction from clothing producers in the United States and Europe. While new restrictions were imposed on Chinese clothing exports, these restrictions were phased out over time; world trade in clothing has, in fact, been largely liberalized.”

International Economics: Theory & Policy, 11th Edition, Paul R. Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Marc J. Melitz, Pearson Education, 2018, page 293. TNCs and the removal of textiles and clothing quotas, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2005.

For comparison, our richest countries (the OECD countries), gave $103.94 thousand million in ODA (Official Development Assistance, that is, foreign aid) in 2006. OECD in Figures, 2007 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2007.

For instance, in 2003, every cow in Europe got about $2 U.S. a day in subsidy—that was twice as much as half of us in Africa earned that same day.

The estimate of $250 million lost by West African farmers each because of protected cotton alone is from an address by Mark Malloch Brown, who was then the head of the United Nations Development Programme, His address was given at the launch of the Human Development Report 2003, to the Second Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, in Maputo, Mozambique, July 10th, 2003.

A year before, he noted that “Every cow in Europe today is subsidised two dollars a day. That is twice as much as the per capita income of a half of Africa. It is the extraordinary distortion of global trade, where the West spends $360 billion a year on protecting its agriculture with a network of subsidies and tariffs that costs developing countries about US$50 billion in potential lost agricultural exports.”

“More than 10 million people in Central and West Africa depend on cotton production for their livelihoods and food security. For many countries in the region, cotton exports provide the main source of foreign exchange revenues and rural employment. In 2001, cotton accounted for more than 50 percent of the total agricultural exports and 2.5-6.7 percent of the GDP of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Togo.

Working small plots of 1-2 hectares and relying on manual labour, farmers in West Africa rank among the lowest-cost producers of cotton in the world. Since the mid-1990s, however, they have been battered by a collapse in cotton prices and by competition with cotton exports from the United States. Production costs in the United States are three times higher than those in West Africa. But United States cotton farmers also benefit from US$3-4 billion per year in direct support — more than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso, where 2 million people depend on cotton production.

Between 1998 and 2001, as cotton prices slumped to record lows, cotton production in the United States grew by more than 40 percent and the volume of exports doubled.

[...] a study by FAO suggests that eliminating all domestic support — not only support notified to the WTO — would increase world cotton prices by 5-11 percent, and would prompt an expansion in African exports of at least 9 percent and possibly as much as 38 percent.” The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2004, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2004, page 25.

“The scale of government support to America’s 25,000 cotton farmers is staggering, reflecting the political influence of corporate farm lobbies in key states. Every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230, or around five times the transfer for cereals. In 2001/02 farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn — double the level in 1992. This increase in subsidies is a breach of the ‘Peace Clause’ in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, opening the door to the Brazilian complaint.

To put this figure in perspective, America’s cotton farmers receive:

•more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso — a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.

•three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.

In 2001, sub-Saharan exporters lost $302m as a direct consequence of US cotton subsidies. Two-thirds of this loss ($191m) was sustained by eight countries in West Africa, with Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire the worst affected. The cumulative loss suffered by this same group of countries over the three-year period 1999-2001, taking into account the price decrease for each year, was $334m. Outside this group, countries such as Zambia, Nigeria, and Tanzania have also suffered serious losses.

The small size of several West African economies and their high levels of dependence on cotton inevitably magnify the adverse effects of US subsidies. For several countries, US policy has generated what can only be described as a major economic shock.”

Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing Paper #30, Oxfam, 2002, page 2, 17.

Japan has a complex system in place to block as much foreign rice as possible. The markups mostly come from import duties, and can reach as high as 1,000 percent, depending on the rice variety. National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, 2005 The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), United States Government, 2005, page 314.

Even without subsidies, New Zealand has a farming advantage compared to its trading partners. Take, for example, its main one, Britain. Both countries have about the same land area. Yet, per person, New Zealand has eight times more farm land than Britain does. Its population is 15 times smaller and it produces nine time more food than it can eat. It’s thus cheaper to raise a lamb in New Zealand, slaughter it, freeze it, then ship it 11,000 miles from Auckland to Felixstowe than it is to raise a lamb in Devon. We would all lose if Britain subsidized sheep rearing. (Although it still does, a little.) Similarly, it’s cheaper for Britain, not New Zealand, to finance the Danish, Italian, French, or Taiwanese ship that carries that frozen lamb. We would all lose if New Zealand subsidized banking. (Today, of its 19 banks, none are subsidized.)

Call this period the ‘Pax Americana,’ perhaps followed by another period, more global period after 1991 and the end of the Cold War as China became an industrial exporting power and the ‘workshop of the world.’ It isn’t so much the change, especially for a large economy like the United States, but its speed. For example, from 1999 to 2011, manufacturing jobs in the United States fell by a third. That shift in the locus of manufacturing displaced around 2.5 million jobs in the United States (other jobs were created, but over two million people were disrupted from the late 1990s to 2007). That resulted from a massive labor migration in China, after its creation of SEZ’s (Special Economic Zones). “The massive increase in China’s industrial labor force—resulting from the decollectivization of agriculture, the closing of inefficient state-owned enterprises, and the migration of 250 million workers from farms to cities—has made China the default location for all types of labor-intensive production.” From: “The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade,” D. H. Autor, D. Dorn, G. Hanson, The Annual Review of Economics, 8(1):205-240, 2016. “The Hyperglobalization of Trade and Its Future,” A. Subramanian, M. Kessler, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Working Paper WP 13-6, 2013. As the economist Paul Romer, now chief economist of the World Bank, has often said: “Everyone wants progress; nobody wants change.”

Many factors may have contributed to this remarkable expansion of trade but the fact that it coincided with a significant reduction in trade barriers is inescapable. Trade barriers include all costs of getting a good to the final consumer other than the cost of producing the good itself: transportation costs (both freight costs and time costs), policy barriers (tariffs and non-tariff barriers) and internal trade and transaction costs (including domestic information costs, contract enforcement costs, legal and regulatory costs, local distribution, customs clearance procedures, administrative red tape, etc.).”

World Trade Report 2013: Factors shaping the future of world trade, World Trade Organization, 2013, page 55.

But the following paper states that in 1910 Germany was still only 48.8 percent urban. “Although the process of urbanization began around the middle of the century it reached completion essentially between 1871 and 1910. It brought about a shift in the population which doubled the proportion of city dwellers. In 1871 23.7 per cent of the population lived in communities of over 5000 inhabitants; by 1910 this figure had risen to 48.8, whilst the share of the rural population, including those living in country market towns, fell from 75 to 50 per cent of the population.” From: “The Process of Urbanization in Germany at the Height of the Industrialization Period,” W. Köllman, Journal of Contemporary History, 4(3):59-76, 1969.

That figure also seems to be what Seymour implies in his 1916 book: “In 1871 less than a quarter of the German people resided in the towns; at the end of the century, the town population comprised nearly half of the whole.” The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, page 64.

Dawson gives even lower figures of 23.7 percent in 1871 and 42.26 percent in 1900. These seem to be the most accurate of all. The Evolution of Modern Germany, William Harbutt Dawson, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, page 39.

“[T]owards the middle of last century, Great Britain was the merchant, manufacturer, shipper, banker, and engineer of the world and ruled supreme in the realm of business. Two-thirds of the world’s shipping flew the British flag, two-thirds of the coal produced in the world was British; Great Britain had more miles of railway than the whole Continent, and produced more cotton goods and more iron than all the countries of the world together. Her coal mines were considered inexhaustible, and the coal possessed by other nations was believed to be of such inferior quality as to be almost useless for manufacturing purposes. Great Britain had therefore practically the manufacturing monopoly of the world, and the great German economist Friedrich List wrote with perfect truth in his Zollvereinsblatt: ’England is a world in itself, a world which is superior to the whole rest of the world in power and wealth.’

Our economists and many of our merchants thought that our economic position was so overwhelmingly strong and so unassailable that it would be impossible for other nations either to compete with us in neutral markets or to protect their own manufactures against the invasion of our industries by protective tariffs. They believed that Great Britain’s industrial power was stronger than all tariff walls. During the reign of these intoxicating ideas of Great Britain’s irresistible economic power Cobden proclaimed that ‘Great Britain was and always would be the workshop of the world;’ Great Britain threw away her fiscal weapons of defence, opened her doors wide to all nations, and introduced free trade.

While Great Britain was the undisputed mistress of the world’s trade, industry, finance, and shipping Germany was a poor agricultural country. She had been impoverished by her constant wars; she had neither colonies nor good coal, nor shipping, nor even a rich soil or a climate favourable to agriculture. She was divided into a number of petty States which were jealous of one another and which hampered one another’s progress. Communications in the interior were bad, and her internal trade was obstructed and undeveloped. Besides she was burdened by militarism and she possessed but one good harbour. According to the forecast of the British free traders Germany was predestined always to remain a poor agricultural country, exactly as Great Britain was predestined always to remain a rich industrial nation.”

From: “The Fiscal Policy of Germany,” O. Eltzbacher, The Nineteenth Century and After, 54(318):181-196, august 1903, Note: In 1905 Eltzbacher published a book that expanded on much the same subject, titled: Modern Germany: Her Political and Economic Problems, Her Policy, Her Ambitions, and the Causes of Her Success, Smith, Elder, & Co., 1905. The above quote was included in Chapter 12. He later changed his named to J. Ellis Barker and published a second edition in 1907. The above material was then in Chapter 21.

Although note that Reuleaux, having set off a firestorm in Germany, on his way home in 1876 he wrote (in his tenth letter) that “[T]he enemies have written themselves into quite a rage. The English press could not resist adding slightly to the translation, to increase their instinctively awakened triumphalism, by telling their English readers that I called German products ‘cheap and nasty.’ ”

Her diplomatists have negotiated innumerable commercial treaties. The population of her cities has been increasing in a manner not unworthy of England in the Thirties and Forties. Like England, too, she is draining her rural districts for the massing of her children in huge factory towns. Her yards (as well as those of England) too, are ringing with the sound of hammers upon ships being builded for the transport of German merchandise. Her agents and travellers swarm through Russia, and wherever else there is a chance of trade on any terms—are even supplying the foreigner with German goods at a loss, that they may achieve their purpose in the end. In a word, an industrial development, unparalleled, save in England a century ago, is now her portion. A gigantic commercial State is arising to menace our prosperity, and contend with us for the trade of the world.” Made in Germany, Ernest Edwin Williams, William Heinemann, 1896, pages 9-10.

[2] “Whether the resubjugation of entire provinces by the Imperial Government may be regarded as a blessing or a curse to the populations concerned, it is difficult to decide. For them it is unhappily a mere choice between being at the mercy of unscrupulous adventurers, elated with a series of successes, and rendered ferocious by a life of rapine, but utterly unprepared to introduce any serious system of reform; or being restored to a rule which, although worn out and feeble, has the advantage of an old-established organization, and can prove, by its general policy at any rate, that it has the welfare of the governed seriously at heart. On the whole, setting aside the wholesale cruelty which has unhappily too often distinguished such governmental triumphs on the part of the Chinese, and to which, indeed, the unlucky people seem liable whichever party may happen to gain the ascendency, the preferable conclusion would seem to be that resubmission to native authority is perhaps the mildest fate that can be desired for those subjects of China whose country has unfortunately been the scene of civil war. But an entirely different result may be looked for when foreign dominion—that is to say, European—has taken the place of Chinese. In the case of England, there can be little fear but that, in spite of the notable mistakes which have at times marked her colonial administration of Asiatic peoples, the primary object to which she has always set herself has been the welfare of the governed, and the development of the resources of the country which they occupy. And even as regards Russia, however irresponsible her system of government, selfish and unscrupulous her foreign policy, and corrupt her executive, may be regarded from an English point of view, still there can be little question that her assumption of authority over any tract of Asian territory must be considered preferable in the interests of philanthropy and general expediency to its restoration to an intrinsically weak and unpractical Government like that of the Chinese.

Assuming that the above proposition is a reasonable one, it follows as a fair inference, that the sooner China or any part of it is brought under the sway of some strong and progressive Power the better. And really, looking at the matter from a purely philanthropic and utilitarian point of view, that is about the best fate that can befall its inhabitants, as well in their own interest as in that of the world at large. Many things conspire to show that the days of the ruling dynasty are numbered; and who can say, when the catastrophe does come, whether the huge but crumbling fabric will ever be reconstructed? or, if so, whose will be the head and hand that will accomplish the task? The probability is that the empire will, in spite of the marvellous homogeneity which characterizes its people, at once lose its cohesion, and break up into a number of petty chiefdoms; and one may well imagine the grievous and protracted misery that must follow upon such a dissolution. It would be ridiculous, nay wicked, to suggest that this contingency might be anticipated, and an endeavour made to avert it by the timely absorption of a portion or of the whole of the Chinese territory. But we are entitled to express the hope that the course of mundane affairs may so shape itself as that such a calamity may be indefinitely delayed; or, if it be inevitable, that it may fall to the lot of some nation to take up the reins which shall have the will as well as the power to use the opportunity to the best advantage of the millions concerned.”

“The Future of China,” W. H. Medhurst, The Contemporary Review, September, 1879, Volume XXXVI, pages 1-12. Medhurst (1796-1857), a proponent of gunboat diplomacy, had been the Chinese secretary to the British superintendent of trade in China and had retired two years before, in 1877, then been knighted. See also: Perceptions of China and the Chinese People in the British Periodical and Newspaper Press, 1860-1900, William M. Stegemeyer, Masters thesis, Paper 4575, Portland State University, 1992.

[3] Citing the Japan Herald 9 April 1881: “Whilst by no means of opinion that the natural resources of Japan, whether mineral or agricultural, are particularly or noticeably great, or that its population is especially hardworking or prudent, nevertheless it has the promise of a moderate future before it. Without expecting too much from its Government—for a government is seldom found to differ widely from the people whose affairs it administers—a condition of moderate affluence and tolerable content is before it. Wealthy we do not at all think it will ever become: the advantages conferred by nature, with the exception of climate, and the love of indolence and pleasure of the people themselves, forbid it. The Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much.” Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, (Retitling of: Western Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya: A Study in Economic Development,) G. C. Allen and Audrey G. Donnithorne, Routledge, 1954, reprinted 2003, 2013, page 225. See also: The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Penguin, 2005, page 316. Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, David S. Landes, W. W. Norton, 1998, page 350.

For a much more comprehensive analysis, see Dawson, who was British, but who was educated in Germany. In a 1908 book, he noted that:

“[I]ndustrial Germany is largely the child of industrial England. We have created the rival of whose competition we now complain. Some time ago the Cologne Gazette reminded its readers that ‘It was Englishmen who in Germany first took in hand the construction of railways, gas works, tramways, and machine shops; who supplied to these enterprises the ample resources of British capital; and who thus acted as the pioneers of German material development.’ This is a generalisation which it would be possible to illustrate in all sorts of ways.

[In] 1838... Mr. Richard Cobden... foretold the day when the weapons which English enterprise and example were then placing in German hands would be turned against ourselves with fatal effect....

The process which to Cobden seventy years ago appeared so sinister was continued far into last century. Englishmen, their enterprise, intelligence, and capital were welcome so long as they were needed. Those were the days of Germany’s apprenticeship, and never was learner more patient and industrious. Directly the apprentice was out of his time, however, he began business on his own account, and his master was free to go, and go he did. We all know the rest. From manufacturing for their own use the Germans soon proceeded to supply other nations, and England lost control of markets in which it had for generations held an almost undisputed position....

But this plodding and persistent endeavour of the Germans to come to the front has been supported by a skilful and even masterly application of means to ends. While the average Englishman has been accustomed to regard commerce as a purely rule-of-thumb matter, the German has followed it as a science and an art, and in reality all the methods and measures which he has adopted in competing with his older rivals for the trade of the world may be reduced to one principle, characteristic of the Germans in so many ways, the application of a trained intelligence to the practical affairs of life.

Broadly speaking, where the German outrivals his competitors it will be found that his success is due to one or other of three reasons (1) the cheaper price of his goods, (2) their superior or at least more serviceable character, and (3) the more efficient arrangements which he makes for reaching and attracting purchasers.”

The Evolution of Modern Germany, William Harbutt Dawson, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, pages 75-79.

See also: The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, Chapter 4.

As with many British historians at the start of the 1900s prior to World War I, Dawson’s general Germanophilia contrasted with Barker’s general Germanophobia. Dawson was highly respected. See: “William Harbutt Dawson: The Career and Politics of an Historian of Germany,” S. Berger, The English Historical Review, 116(465):76-113, 2001.

Science in method has been, perhaps, the greatest reason for Germany’s ability to produce goods more cheaply than her rivals. The development of mechanical labor-saving devices progressed further there than in any other country; and the Germans’ skill in the coordination of the various processes of production has also enabled them to cut their costs. Their application of the natural sciences, especially chemistry, was another factor making for economy in manufacturing methods. Every new discovery was at once investigated by the German manufacturers in the hope that it would lead to some improvement ia the technical details of production and thus allow them to undersell their competitors.”

The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, pages 69-71.

According to the report, before division, cities in what would become East Germany developed in parallel with those in what would become West Germany. Then came westward flight from 1949 to 1961 (Berlin Wall built). Then in the 1960’s and 1970’s came guest workers into West Germany. Then, on reunification, came westward flight.

However, the report doesn’t concern itself with the Marshall Plan, nor with the repayment of war reparations to Soviet Russia and Poland, which was mostly borne by East Germany. Also: although East Germany was poorer, it was also more equal (in income).

It is estimated that by the year 1976, 23 percent of Arab engineers, 50 percent of Arab doctors, and 15 percent of Arab BSc holders had emigrated. Roughly 25 percent of 300,000 first degree graduates from Arab universities in 1995/96 emigrated. Between 1998 and 2000 more than 15,000 Arab doctors migrated.

Apart from the sheer scale of emigration and its growth over time, looking into the motives of emigrants reveals obstacles to building Arab knowledge societies that are perhaps more serious than the brain drain itself. Surveys of highly qualified Arabs living abroad indicate that their principal reasons for leaving relate to the absence of a positive societal environment and facilities that would allow them to play their role in the knowledge system and in the development of their countries. Ideally this role should be performed under conditions that permit individual fulfilment and a decent standard of living. The denial of livable conditions to a host of highly qualified Arabs drastically undermines any attempt to create knowledge societies in Arab countries. Their emigration perpetuates weaknesses in both the production of knowledge and the demand for it, since the activities and pursuits of such highly qualified personnel would have significantly increased both supply and demand had they remained in their countries.” Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society, United Nations Development Programme, 2003, pages 144-145.

Neoclassical economic theory traces back to John Stuart Mill, with additions from Alfred Marshall, then many more recent thinkers; it amounts to assuming perfect knowledge and perfect competition. A variant, Hecksher-Ohlin theory, brings factor endowment more to the fore. Neoclassical economics believes in equilibium. That’s right in the long run, just as thermodynamics is right in the long run—entropy always wins, so everything must even out and die, eventually—but wrong in the short run. All lands compete for skills, machines, brains, money, and trade. Who wins what when?

Lucas compared the United States and India in 1988 and showed that, if the neoclassical model were correct, the marginal product of capital in India should be about 58 times that of the United States. So all capital should flow from the United States to India. But it doesn’t. “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?” R. E. Lucas, Jr., American Economic Review, 80(2):92-96, 1990. In the 1950s, Nurkse had earlier observed that capital had flowed from 1860 to 1910 not because of neoclassical economic theory but because of special conditions, namely Europe was seeding and exploiting its transplants (including Russia), and that was unlikely to happen in future. “International Investment To-Day in the Light of Nineteenth-Century Experience,” R. Nurkse, Economic Journal, 64(256):744-758, 1954.

In the 2010s, this has grown into even more of a puzzle as oil prices have collapsed. The fastest growing economies tend to be those with the slowest growing productivity of labor and capital. Others have high savings rates. China is an example. Foreign investment flows in there even though the country has lots of money already saved to itself power industry. “Developments in the early 21st century made the international pattern of capital flows look even more paradoxical than before. Not only was capital failing to flow from rich to poor countries in appreciable amounts; it was actually flowing uphill, from poor to rich, and on a huge scale. Behind this pattern lay a number of specific developments: Asset booms in rich countries spurred consumption and housing investment, for example, causing big current account deficits, while rapid growth in rich countries and especially China boosted commodity prices, allowing more relatively poor exporters of raw materials to run surpluses. This pattern has abated recently as advanced economies and China have slowed and commodity prices have fallen. In the 2010s, non-oil producing developing countries as a group began to run deficits again, even as rich countries moved into surplus and oil exporters, facing a collapse in oil prices starting in 2014, moved sharply from surplus to deficit. The recent deficits of non-oil producing developing countries have, however, been small compared to the size of the world economy.” International Economics: Theory & Policy, 11th Edition, Paul R. Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Marc J. Melitz, Pearson Education, 2018, page 756. “Capital flows to developing countries: The allocation puzzle,” P.-O. Gourinchas, O. Jeanne, Review of Economic Studies, 80(4):1484-1515, 2013. “The paradox of capital,” E. Prasad, R. Rajan, A. Subramanian, Finance and Development, 44(1):16-19, 2007.

“Has the Lucas Paradox been fully explained?” C. Azémara, R. Desbordes, Economics Letters, 121(2):183-187, 2013. “What drives international financial flows? Politics, institutions and other determinants,” E. Papaioannou, Journal of Development Economics, 88(2):269-281, 2009. “International Investment Patterns,” P. R. Lane, G. M. Milesi-Ferretti, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(3):538-549, 2008. “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation,” L. Alfaro, S. Kalemli-Ozcan, V. Volosovych, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2):347-368, 2008. “Banking on Democracy: The Political Economy of International Private Bank Lending in Emerging Markets,” J. Rodríguez, J. Santiso, International Political Science Review, 29(2):215-246, 2008. “International Capital Flows, Financial Stability and Growth,” G. L. Kaminsky, DESA Working Paper No. 10, ST/ESA/2005/DWP/10, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA), December 2005. “Channels from Globalization to Inequality: Productivity World versus Factor World,” W. Easterly, in: Brookings Trade Forum 2004: Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality, Susan M. Collins and Carol Graham (editors), Brookings Institution Press, 2004, pages 39-71. “Winners and Losers Over Two Centuries of Globalization,” J. Williamson, NBER Working Paper No. 9161, 2002.

In the 1800s, newly rich Britain, then France, then Germany, and elsewhere, went looking for poor lands to invest in—so money flowed to the United States, Russia, Turkey, also Canada, Australia, Argentina, and elsewhere, to build railroads and steel mills and factories and such. Growth of the International Economy 1820-2000: An Introductory Text, A. G. Kenwood and A. L. Lougheed, Routledge, Fourth Edition, 1999, Chapter 2, pages 26-44.

“The past 130 years have seen at least four major surges in private capital flows to emerging markets. The first, from about 1870 to the outbreak of World War I, was a boom in bond finance, largely to labor-scarce and resource-abundant economies of recent European settlement. The second was the post-World War I recovery, lasting until the Great Depression, of bond lending to finance public sector deficits. The third was the surge in international bank lending to developing country governments from the 1973 oil price shock until the 1982 Mexican crisis. The most recent surge was the 1990s boom in private-to-private portfolio flows and foreign direct investment in emerging market economies. All four episodes were accompanied by solid growth in world trade and investment, were punctuated by currency and financial instability in the capital receiving countries, and eventually ended in global political or economic crisis. [...]

Capital surges to emerging markets have typically been part of a larger, periodic process of rapid expansion of the global economy. They occur when the worldwide diffusion of technological changes improves communications and transport, growth is buoyant, world trade is expanding, financial innovation is rapid, and the political climate is supportive.” Global Development Finance, 2000, Analysis and Summary Tables, The World Bank, 2000, page 119.

The United States emphasizes different policies, but is otherwise similar. “The two countries also differ in their reliance on border measures, including tariffs and tariff-rate quotas, to provide support for domestic agriculture. Although both maintain tariffs, the European Union’s are higher, on average, and there are a greater number of tariffs over 100 percent. The European Union also makes heavier use of export subsidies across a wider range of commodities.

Overall, while both countries provide moderately high support to their agricultural sectors relative to other developed countries, the European Union maintains a higher overall support level, has higher budget outlays for agricultural support, and provides more support that is coupled or partially coupled to production than the United States.”

“U.S. and EU Farm Policy—How Similar?” M. A. Normile, A. B. W. Effland, C. E. Young, in: U.S.-EU Food and Agriculture Comparisons, Mary Anne Normile and Susan Leetmaa (editors), United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agriculture and Trade Reports, Outlook No. (WRS-0404), 2004, pages 14-27, especially pages 19 and 21.

Since 2000, and due to bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, tariffs have been declining. But that has failed to open markets as much as expected. Also, as tariffs have fallen, non-tariff barriers have risen. “Non-Tariff Measures to Trade: Economic and Policy Issues for Developing Countries,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2013.

However, at least in terms of tariffs, Lankes notes that: “Developing countries themselves have high tariffs that limit trade among them. The average tariff in developing countries is 14 percent, and in the least developed countries, 17.9 percent, compared with 5.2 percent in the industrial countries.” From: “Market Access for Developing Countries,” H. P. Lankes, Finance and Development, International Monetary Fund, 39(3):8-13, 2002.

Similarly, the World Bank states that: “Developing countries themselves are part of the problem. Although South-South trade is a much smaller share of total trade, average tariffs in manufactures are three times higher for trade among developing countries than for exports to high-income countries. Taken together and because of high protection for labor-intensive products around the globe, the world’s poor face tariffs that are, on average, roughly twice as high as those imposed on the nonpoor.” Global Economic Prospects 2002: Making Trade Work for the World’s Poor, The World Bank, 2002, page 37.

However, for a good argument that protectionism was widely used in the past among today’s rich nations, see: Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, Ha-Joon Chang, Anthem Press, 2002.

Will these countries continue to grow until they cross the threshold to developed countries? History suggests that growth cannot be taken for granted. Many countries grew impressively over long periods only to stagnate. For example, between 1950 and 1980 Brazil’s per capita economic growth was almost 5 percent a year—similar to recent growth in Botswana, Singapore and Thailand—but its economy collapsed in the 1980s and has only recently started to recover. Argentina’s collapse was even more dramatic, from a per capita GDP in 1913 that exceeded the European average, to one in 2007 that was just a fifth of Western Europe’s.

These cases illustrate how hard it is to cross the great income divide. Of the 108 countries with incomes below $7,000 per capita in 1970, only 4 moved up to the World Bank’s high-income classification in 2010. Three are small island economies (Antigua and Barbuda, Equatorial Guinea and Malta), one with abundant oil. The fourth—South Korea—remains an important exception. Estonia and Slovakia did not exist as independent countries in 1970, but both achieved growth that moved them up into the high-income group.”

Human Development Report, 2010, United Nations Development Programme, 2010, page 42.

“China faces growing gender imbalance,” BBC News, January 11th, 2010. World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2007. “The Contribution of Population Health and Demographic Change to Economic Growth in China and India,” D. E. Bloom, D. Canning, L. Hu, Y. Liu, A. Mahal, W. Yip, PGDA Working Paper Number 2807, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2007. “China’s Growth to 2030: The Roles of Demographic Change and Investment Premia,” R. Tyers, J. Golley, PGDA Working Paper Number 1206, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2006. “China’s Growth to 2030: Demographic Change and the Labour Supply Constraint,” J. Golley, R. Tyers, PGDA Working Paper Number 1106, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2006.

With an exploding population, the state, rather than focusing on long-term things—schools, infrastructure, public health, and development incentives—has shifted more to short-term feather-bedding. It buys off its people by subsidizing staples—bread and fuel, particularly—then goes about its business. How it actually runs the country is mostly up to an elite behind the scenes, and corruption is everywhere. But by 2025-2030 that might turn around if it grows more urban and literate, and enough literate women reach reproductive age. In the meantime, though, there is room for mass corruption, just as there was in, say, Chicago or New York during the mid 1800s, and for much the same reasons.

Aside from its location, though, Egypt doesn’t appear to be all that unusual. Ghana is in much the same boat. So is Nigeria. Nor is that an African problem alone. Take Laos. Today it’s poor, rural, and communist. But then it’s landlocked. Its largest trading partners are its neighbors: China, Vietnam, and Thailand. It’s only 20 percent urban and it doesn’t even have a functional railroad, which makes it far poorer than Egypt, never mind Germany. It has little choice in its poverty. But as China phase changes, so will it. Peru is in the same position with respect to Brazil.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether we live in Angola or Bolivia or Cambodia. All our poor countries are facing the same closure and trade problems. Angola has huge oil reserves; Bolivia has huge natural gas reserves; Cambodia has huge forests. But in none of them do we have the operational closure and trade power that we would need to compete internationally and thus develop our resources. For example, Amsterdam has had a stock market since 1602. Bolivia’s stock market was founded only in 1989. In 2009, neither Angola nor Cambodia had one. Plus, even where such tools exist, weak institutional tools leave them subject to political whim since most of us there are extra-legal because of high legal costs, so we have little say in what our lawmakers do. Elites decide—which means that insiders (or outsiders) with their hands on business or investment purse strings do.

Egypt in the Era of Hosni Mubarak, 1981-2011 Galal Amin, The American University in Cairo Press, 2011. “African Financial Systems: A Review,” F. Allen, I. Otchere, L. Senbet, The Wharton Financial Institutions Center, 2010. Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World, Bruce K. Rutherford, Princeton University Press, 2008. “Stock Market Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Critical Issues and Challenges,” C. A. Yartey, C. K. Adjasi, Working Paper No. 07/209, International Monetary Fund, 2007. Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? Changes in Egyptian Society from 1950 to the Present Galal Amin, The American University in Cairo Press, 2000.

“Ozymandias,” Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, W. Benbow, 1826, page 100.

Plus, not only didn’t the bullion stay in Spain, as it grabbed its hat and rushed for the door it destroyed wealth already there. Taxes went up over 400 percent. Wool exports collapsed. Spain started importing food. The long-term gain thus went to northern European countries—especially the Netherlands, then England. They had the artisans and the traders needed to absorb that much precious metal. Amsterdam, for instance, had a good harbor, a good fleet, and a long trading history. It also had knowledgeable, multilingual, and well-connected Jewish traders—who Spain (and Portugal, and before both of them, France and England) had earlier kicked out. All that Spain ended up with was lots of precious metal—for a while. The long-term result was Dutch trade expansion, then English trade expansion. Thus, Spain got the metal first, but metal isn’t wealth. The real wealth—the new options—went elsewhere.

Spain didn’t fully shift into industry until the 1960s. It was more or less a basket case until 1979, when it negotiated to join the European Union (which, back then, was the European Economic Community).

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Princeton University Press, 2009, pages 86-87. “Institutions and the Resource Curse in Early Modern Spain,” M. Drelichman, H.-J. Voth, in: Institutions and Economic Performance, Elhanan Helpman (editor), Harvard University Press, 2008. The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thought, Louis Baeck, Routledge, 1994, Chapter 7. A Financial History of Western Europe, Charles P. Kindleberger, 1993, Taylor & Francis, Reprint Edition, 2006, page 45. The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press, 1999, page 91. A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present, Rondo Cameron, Oxford University Press, 1993, pages 135-141. American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650, Earl J. Hamilton, Harvard University Press, 1934.

For that to happen, a lot of rapid growth has to happen in a lot of areas for a long time, since the poor country is starting the economic race from very far behind. How likely is any country to grow rapidly for two (or more) generations given all the accidents of history that could happen during all that time?

Well, in the recent past a long cold war helped that along in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. (It also happened in Singapore and Hong Kong, but they are more cities than countries). But Japan, after being threatened with subjugation in the 1800s, helped itself, then was smashed down in the 1900s, then was helped up. And both Taiwan, next door to China, and South Korea, next door to North Korea (and so indirectly China), feared invasion, and thus were motivated to perform economically via exports. But the cold war is over now yet it’s also happening now in China.

Five thousand years ago, Egypt, not Germany, had bronze tools, big cities, large buildings, writing, math, and famous medicine. Five hundred years ago, India and China, not Europe or the United States, led the world in just about every respect. Likely they will once again do so, for our economic center of gravity most likely will move back to where most of our brains and hands are—once those brains are well-trained and those hands have the right tools. Which brings up Africa. Since at least the 1800s, when a steam-powered, machine-gun-toting Europe carved it up like a roast turkey, it’s been the continent that the world has voted least likely to succeed. But it’s also a hugely resource-rich continent whose land area could swallow China, India, and the United States (plus nearly all of Australia). By 2050, over two billion of us will be alive there. But it’s pointless to ask when, or if, our hands and brains there will be trained the same way as in China, India, and the United States, if only because those countries won’t stand still for all that time. So to get a picture of which places will do well in the future, take the derivative of the length of immigration lines at embassies around the world. When a country’s derivative turns negative, it means the lines are shrinking. Fewer of us are trying to get in. Invest elsewhere.

Statistics: Land area, in square kilometers: Africa: 30,221,532. China: 9,640,011. India: 3,287,590. United States: 9,629,091. (Left over: 7,664,840. Australia: 7,692,024.) Guesstimated 2050 populations: Africa - 2,270,576. China - 1,303,723. India - 1,656,554. United states - 422,554. (Left over: 3382831-2270576 = 1,112,255.) (Figures from the International Data Base (IDB) Division of the United States Census Bureau, 2012.)

See also: “Systems, Autopoietic,” L. Bich, A. Etxeberria, in: Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, Werner Dubitzky, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Kwang-Hyun Cho, and Hiroki Yokota (editors), Springer, 2013, pages 2110-2113. There the conceptual core is traced back to Kant in his 1790 Critique of Judgment and several more recent philosophers, mathematicians, and psychologists, particularly Robert Rosen and Jean Piaget.

Autopoiesis and closure are closely related. See: “Autopoiesis 40 years later. A Review and a Reformulation,” P. Razeto-Barry, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 42(6):543-567, 2012.

The Lenski book, much as the text does, focuses on information acquisition. Within this stream of thought, often called ‘anthropological materialism,’ or ‘evolutionary sociology,’ there’s a kind of line of descent, based mostly on who was who’s student. (Roughly speaking: Gordon Childe influenced Leslie White, who influenced Marvin Harris, who influenced Stephen Sanderson.) This text, though, is a work of popular science written by a computer scientist; it differs from those of sociologists, anthropologists, historians, economists, and political scientists, in that its tries to focus on possible internal forces working within our whole species and not on any particular group as it stands with respect to any other group, although of course there’s no way to study our species in the abstract with no reference to particular groups.

World tomato production: 141,194,598 metric tons. United States production: 12,735,100 metric tons. That’s nine percent, or about one in every eleven. FAOSTAT Database, 2009, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009.

For example, from 1979 to 2009, manufacturing in the United States lost around a quarter million jobs a year, yet production rose by about two percent a year. Just since the end of the Cold War, military-related industries declined while finance-related industries rose. National income shifted by perhaps six percent from aerospace, electronics, cars, steel, and such, to finance, insurance, real-estate transactions, and similar. The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money, Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong, Basic Books, 2010.

Here’s Daniel Defoe on the calico buyer in 1719: “Every Woman whether rich or poor, that is seen in a Gown or Dress of printed Callico or Linnen shall be reputed an enemy to her Country.... We should soon see the ladies leave the Callicoes, and the callicoes, by Consequence, leave the Nation.” The Manufacturer, Daniel Defoe, 1719. Quoted in: Reading the East India Company, 1720-1840: Colonial Currencies of Gender, Betty Joseph, The University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 44.

Here is a longer extract on the calico question: “It is, without doubt, the just Concern, of our Representatives, to study the Interest and the Circumstances of the People who they represent. If these Gentlemen please but to look round them, they must of Necessity see that the Manufactures decline, that Trade languishes, and the Poor stretch our their Hands to them for Help. They must needs also see the Causes of it, even at their own Doors, while they cannot but see a wilfully-possess’d Nation, dress’d up in the Manufactures of Foreigners, and despising the Workmanship of their own People: Madly sending their Money to India and China, to feed and support Heathens and Savages; and neglecting, nay, I may say, Rejecting the Manufactures of their own Country, tho’ they see the poor Families starving for want of Work.” A Brief State of the Question, Between the Printed and Painted CALLICOES and the Woollen and Silk Manufacture, As far as it relates to the Wearing and Using of Printed and Painted CALLICOES in Great-Britain, Daniel Defoe, W. Boreham, 1719, pages 38-39.

Cripplegate, Whitechapel and Southwark had large populations of weavers and people in these London environs would have expressed strong sympathy for anti-calico protesters. In fact, one assault in Whitechapel left a young woman so severely injured that, despite the presence of a surgeon, ‘her life [was] despaired of.’ During many of these attacks women were mercilessly treated and had their calico gowns torn from their bodies or had acid thrown on them by assailants who quickly fled the scene. Some weavers were even so bold as to enter the homes of women they suspected of possessing calicos to search for the offending garments. In the absence to a sustained official response to these actions, the tactic of ‘calico chasing’ quickly spread to other urban centers where the wool and silk industries were important to the local economy.

Once they perceived that their actions went largely unchecked, weavers in London, Norwich, Bristol, and other provincial centers speedily took up the practice of forcibly divesting women of their calicos. Ultimately, a combination of petitioning, intimidation and public pressure brought an end to the crisis. In 1722 the Calico Act (7 Geo. I c. 7) forbade the use or wear of all printed, dyed and stained calicos in Great Britain and stiff monetary penalties, ranging from £5 to £20, were imposed upon those who wore or sold printed Indian cottons. [...]

The scale and duration of the Calico riots supports the conclusion that many English women of all degrees wore printed textiles. Moreover, many showed no signs of giving them up, no matter how many appeals were made to the traditional moral economy by ‘starving’ male weavers. Consequently, some upper rank women who wore calico were attacked in the course of the riots directly or with acids and inks thrown into their coaches. On the 29^th of July 1719, three women dressed in calicos drove in a carriage to the location where several weavers were standing in the pillory for their riotous actions. When the friends of the weavers perceived that these women had come to insult those in the pillory they attacked them and ‘stripped [the women] clean of [their] calicos.’ This was a dangerous tactic. Wealthy and powerful elites would not tolerate their female relations being handled in such rude fashion by the common mob and even middling women had to be treated with some degree of caution.”

See also: God, Duty and Community in English Economic Life, 1660-1720, Brodie Waddell, Boydell Press, 2012, page 215. Cotton, Beverly Lemire, Berg, 2011, pages 51-60. Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, Saturday, June 20th, 1719, and “Weavers Hall,” The Daily Courant, Thursday, July 9th, 1719, in: The British Cotton Trade, 1660-1815, Volume 2, International Trade and the Politics of Consumption, 1690s-1730, Beverly Lemire (editor), Pickering & Chatto, 2010, pages 281, 283. “The Close of last Week a Woman near the Hay-Market, passing along about 11 Night, some Link-Boys set fire to her Calicoe Gown and Petticoat, which blazing fiercely upwards, she was burnt to that degree, that she died the next Day.’ Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, Saturday, July 21st, 1722.

See also: “ ‘Callico Madams’: Servants, Consumption, and the Calico Crisis,” C. W. Smith, Eighteenth-Century Life, 31(2):29-55, 2007. Governance, Growth and Global Leadership: The Rise of the State in Technological Progress, 1750-2000, Espen Moe, Ashgate Publishing, 2007, pages 61-63. A History of London, Stephen Inwood, Avalon Publishing Group, 1998, pages 395-396. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain 1660-1800, Beverly Lemire, Oxford University Press, 1991, pages 20, 30. The London Weavers’ Company, 1600-1970, Alfred Plummer, Routledge, 1972, Chapter 14, pages 292-314. “The East India Company, 1600-1740,” W. Foster, in: The Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume IV, British India 1497-1858, H. H. Dodwell (editor), Cambridge University Press, 1929, pages 76-116. England and the English in the Eighteenth Century: Chapters in the Social History of the Times, Volume II, William Connor Sydney, Ward & Downey, Second Edition, 1891, pages 195-196.

Incidentally, the story of calico is part of Britain’s circuitous and largely unplanned path to industrial leadership in cotton, which was itself part of its rise to industrial leadership in general.

“The cotton textile industry itself is valid proof that the British Parliament functioned as a better check on vested interests than the French controller general. The story of cotton textiles is among other things a story of lobbying and vested interests. One cannot credibly claim that the British state consciously promoted or encouraged cotton textiles. And yet, indirectly, it still did so, by discontinuing industrial policies that were very clearly a product of vested interests. By ceasing its meddling in industrial politics, the British state removed the very explicit barriers that existed against cotton textiles. Add to this an odd fortuitous element: Banning Indian calicoes made it possible for domestic cotton weaving to gain a foothold in the market. Between 1696 and 1774, pressure group activity led to the passing of British laws conducive (sometimes by accident, sometimes not) to the development of the cotton industry....

This had been about politics, not economics: Concern with riots in the Celtic lands made Parliament support the linen industry. The growth of linens created a loophole for domestic cotton manufacture, sheltered by the very same act against competition from Asia....

Britain’s success at preventing pressure groups from stifling the implementation of new technology was essential. But regional British difference are also instructive. Cotton did not have strong pressure groups, much unlike wool, which had a long tradition of organization and regulation. As a consequence of pressure groups resisting new technology, a major shift took place in British textiles production.... In Yorkshire, technological innovations like the spinning jenny were rapidly diffused and incorporated, without much local resistance. The West Country on the other hand, saw major worker opposition, with strong resistance against machinery, strengthened by traditions of solidarity and collective action among the workers from earlier industrial and food riots. The result was a West Country that faded into industrial irrelevance, whereas Yorkshire grew to become the center of British wool production. British regions that opposed new technology rapidly lost out to the regions that embraced it.”

Governance, Growth and Global Leadership: The Rise of the State in Technological Progress, 1750-2000, Espen Moe, Ashgate Publishing, 2007, pages 61-63.

Of course, that was written in the early days, when automation was first moving from purely manual work into the office for the first time. In a footnote, Simon specifically mentions the “little evidence on recent factory automation” and what it suggests to him about possible future consequences on “clerical and managerial work.” Maybe the same will be true decades from now, or whenever it is that machines finally do move into the fully creative side of production, as opposed to what is merely perceived as the first glimmers of that today (in 2021).

As usual, with urbanization, specific dates depend on the specific reference chosen. For uniformity sake, since the text names several countries at once, it (mostly) goes with Mosley: “From the late eighteenth century onwards, the rise of industrial cities ushered in a new phase of environmental change. Britain was the first nation to undergo rapid urban-industrial expansion, followed by northern Europe, the USA and Japan. Driven by the push of agricultural modernisation, and the pull of factory work opportunities, urbanisation rates accelerated sharply in Britain, with others in the industrialising world catching up by the early twentieth century. In 1851, Britain—the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution—became the first country to have more than half of its population living in cities. By 1900, Germany and the Netherlands had also passed 50 per cent, and France was close to the ‘half urban’ mark at 45 per cent. But the USA did not reach this level of urbanisation until 1920, and Japan later still in 1935.” The Environment in World History, Stephen Mosley, Taylor & Francis, 2010, page 92. See also: The Encyclopedia of World History, Peter N. Stearns and William L. Langer (editors), Houghton Mifflin, 2001, page 420. France wasn’t half-urban until 1930; Spain not until 1950.

The term ‘middle-class’ is nebulous. Arguments continue as to what exactly it might be. A growing consensus, such as it is, seems to be, roughly like anything between $10 and $100 U.S. PPP a day. However, again arguments do continue. Back in 2004, it used to be $8 U.S. Argument also continue over whether it might be an ability to afford a bicycle or a motorcycle or a car, and so on. “Five Trends Reshaping the Global Economy,” D. Barton, McKinsey & Company, 2013. “Capturing the world’s emerging middle class,” D. Court, L. Narasimhan, McKinsey & Company, 2010. “The emerging middle class in developing countries,” H. Kharas, OECD Development Centre Working Paper No. 285, 2010. “The New Global Middle Class: A Cross-Over from West to East,” H. Kharas and G. Gertz, in: China’s Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation, Cheng Li, editor, Brookings Institution Press, 2010.

In 2004, predictions were that 600 million more would be earning over $8 a day by 2015. In 2004, $8 U.S. a day was defined as enough for a global middle-class income. The BRICs and Global Markets: Crude, Cars and Capital, Global Economics Paper Number 118, Goldman Sachs, 2004. Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050, Global Economics Paper Number 99, Goldman Sachs, 2003. However, of the four BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), Brazil’s per capita GDP improved from 1980 to 2000, but not by a great deal. Since 2000 it began to pick up. India’s, too, is picking up, but not as much as China’s.

Global per-person GDP rose from 1960 to 2000: Lectures on Economic Growth, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Harvard University Press, 2002, especially Chapter 5. From 1987 to 2004 alone, our numbers rose by over 1.7 thousand million. Yet our average per-person income still rose by a third. “Worldwide, GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) has increased from US$5 927 in 1987 to US$8 162 in 2004.” Global Environment Outlook, GEO-4, United Nations Environment Programme, 2007, page 4. Also, half a thousand million in all were added in the 25 years before 2007, a statistic quoted by Paul Wolfowitz, then president of the World Bank, at World Economic Forum Sessions on Global Health: Scaling Innovation in Foreign Aid, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007, page 7.

To put it more technically: as our future options’ marginal creation costs fall, it would only mean that new options would arise faster. The faster they do, the more quickly would rewards for any particular option drop. The more options there are, the harder the option-choice problem would become. So even if we one day have total freedom of choice among infinitely many options, each of which have a zero marginal cost of creation and adoption, we still won’t have a zero marginal cost of attention to pay to each of those choices equally. So rewards for each one would vary. Variation of reward is inevitable.

This idea is related to work on scale-free networks. A network becomes scale-free if its number of nodes is growing and if the chance that a new node will link to an existing node is proportional to how highly linked the existing node already is. “Statistical mechanics of complex networks,” A.-L. Barabási, R. Albert, Reviews of Modern Physics, 74(1):47-97, 2002.

For an early example of the ideas behind what is now called scale-free networks (and their associated power laws, as well as an explanation for their random generation), see: “A general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes,” D. J. de Solla Price, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27(5):292-306, 1976.

For further background on scale-freeness, see: “Towards a Theory of Scale-Free Graphs: Definition, Properties, and Implications,” (Extended Version), L. Li, D. Alderson, R. Tanaka, J. C. Doyle, W. Willinger, Internet Mathematics, 2(4):431-523, 2005. “Scale-Free Networks,” A.-L. Barabási, E. Bonabeau, Scientific American, 288(5):60-69, 2003. Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness, Duncan J. Watts, Princeton University Press, 1999.

For an application to business, see: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, Chris Anderson, Hyperion, 2006.

In 2006, 6.7 billion of us were alive and 4.6 billion were working age (that is, aged 15 or over) Of those, about two-thirds (2.9 billion) were in the workforce (that is, either at work or looking for work). Of those, just 45 percent (1.3 billion) were farmers. Plus, within those at work, 38.7 percent were farmers, 21.3 percent were in industry, and 40 percent were in services. So, for the first time in history, more of us were in service than on the farm.

“Between 1996 and 2006, the global labour force, consisting of people who were either working or looking for work, had grown by 16.6 per cent, to 2.9 billion.... That labour force represented about two thirds of the 4.6 billion people of working age (aged 15 years or over) in 2006. [...]

In 2006, the employment share of the service sector in total global employment reached 40 per cent and, for the first time, overtook the share of agriculture which was 38.7 per cent. The industry sector accounted for 21.3 per cent of total employment, a figure virtually identical to that of 10 years ago.

Agriculture still accounts for about 45 per cent of the world’s labour force, or about 1.3 billion people. In developing countries, about 55 per cent of the labour force is in agriculture, with the figure being close to two thirds in many parts of Africa and Asia. These figures should be treated as rough orders of magnitude, especially since many of those performing agricultural work or labour are also engaged in other forms of non-farm work. Rural employment has been associated with low incomes, and undoubtedly, rural poverty rates are higher than urban ones, particularly in African countries, where a recent modest decline in the difference between rural and urban poverty has been associated with rises in urban poverty levels rather than with any decline in rural poverty.”

Note: We can’t export most services, but if both robots and metaconcerts become common, we’ll find ways to export more and more of them. Dramatic, perhaps drastic, changes may be ahead, but in the very long run (post-2050 perhaps?), that may be our future: being of direct service to each other.

This may be just another way of saying that some income distributions are trending toward power laws. The same idea has been used to model earthquakes, scientific paper citations, species extinctions, the page linkage distribution of the world wide web, and it may even be used to model the highly skewed income distributions in the arts, entertainment, fashion, publishing, televised sports, and corporate salaries. First use of a version of Bak’s sandpile analogy may go back to H. G. Wells. (Interestingly, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation science fiction novels depend on the same set of ideas as Wells promulgated.)

However, a recent ILO study suggests other explanations: “Between 1999 and 2011 average labour productivity in developed economies increased more than twice as much as average wages. In the United States, real hourly labour productivity in the non-farm business sector increased by about 85 per cent since 1980, while real hourly compensation increased by only around 35 per cent. In Germany, labour productivity surged by almost a quarter over the past two decades while real monthly wages remained flat.

The global trend has resulted in a change in the distribution of national income, with the workers’ share decreasing while capital income shares increase in a majority of countries. Even in China, a country where wages roughly tripled over the last decade, GDP increased at a faster rate than the total wage bill—and hence the labour share went down.

The drop in the labour share is due to technological progress, trade globalization, the expansion of financial markets, and decreasing union density, which have eroded the bargaining power of labour. Financial globalization, in particular, may have played a bigger role than previously thought.” Global Wage Report 2012/13: Wages and equitable growth, United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), 2013, page xiv.

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan J. Watts, W. W. Norton, 2003. Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen, Mark Buchanan, Three Rivers Press, 2000. How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality, Per Bak, Copernicus, 1996. The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us, Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook, Penguin, 1995. The Discovery of the Future, H. G. Wells, B. W. Huebsch, Reprint Edition, 1913, pages 39-44.

Note, however, that while power laws have now become trendy there are strong reservations about actually finding them in the data, given massive sampling error, especially for rare events. “Power-law distributions in empirical data,” A. Clauset, C. R. Shalizi, M. E. J. Newman, SIAM Review, 51(4):661-703, 2009. “Accuracy and Scaling Phenomena in Internet Mapping,” A. Clauset, C. Moore, Physical Review Letters, 94(1):018701, 2005. “On the Bias of Traceroute Sampling; or, Power-law Degree Distributions in Regular Graphs,” D. Achlioptas, A. Clauset, D. Kempe, C. Moore, Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing: Proceedings of the thirty-seventh annual ACM symposium on Theory of Computing, 2005, pages 694-703.

However, the picture changed over the next 70 or so years, from 1840 to 1910. Output kept rising, but this time, real wages rose with it. Given the state of technical know-how at the time, capital had already done about as much as it could with tools and energy and labor organization. The only thing left to invest in was the workers themselves. In this period, railways, which helped concentrate workers, and also divide their labor, were spreading. Mass production, which needs educated labor, was also spreading. As real wages rose, workers now had enough to start saving a little of it. The rest they reinvested in themselves. Unions spread. Schools spread. Voting rights spread. Laws changed. Sewerage and other infrastructure spread. Child mortality then fell. Then family size dropped. The British economy shifted away from hand-to-mouth farm- and factory-labor. The returns to capital, while still high, then stabilized. Inequality then fell—but not as sharply as it had earlier risen.

See: “Engel’s Pause: Technical Change, Capital Accumulation, and Inequality in the British Industrial Revolution,” R. C. Allen, Explorations in Economic History, 46(4):418-435, 2009.

If this is a reasonable argument, then the situation now is that all of world labor is accessible, and robots are at, or are approaching, human capability in many areas, so capital is pursuing labor cost reduction rather than labor quality improvement. This is likely to persist for quite a while longer.

While all our countries have national barriers, and all once were self-sufficient in food and clothes and dwellings, few have achieved the operational closure needed to contain the complex network that can make machines, never mind machines that can make machines that can make machines. Such a network can not only produce a wide and ever-changing variety of desirable things in enormous amounts, it is recursively closed, so it can persist itself. It’s a strong attractant for various needed resources. So any country with it has trade power over any country without it, even ignoring its military applications. Maybe that would continue to be true even if all our countries one day achieve it, because by that point, there may be some new, more esoteric thing that only a few countries can sustain.

The gap between top and bottom is very large—far greater than that found in even the most unequal countries. In Brazil the ratio of the income of the poorest 10% of the population to the richest 10% is 1 to 94. For the world as a whole it is 1 to 103.” Human Development Report, 2005, United Nations Development Programme, 2006, pages 36-38.

See also: The World Economy: A Millennia Perspective, Angus Maddison, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001.

“Despite aggregate progress, there is no convergence in income—in contrast to health and education—because on average rich countries have grown faster than poor ones over the past 40 years. The divide between developed and developing countries persists: a small subset of countries has remained at the top of the world income distribution, and only a handful of countries that started out poor have joined that high-income group. [...]

Since the 1980s, income inequality has risen in many more countries than it has fallen. For every country where inequality has improved in the past 30 years, in more than two it has worsened. [...]

Since 1970, 155 countries—home to 95 percent of the world’s people—have experienced increases in real per capita income. The annual average today is $10,760, almost 1.5 times its level 20 years ago and twice its level 40 years ago. People in all regions have seen substantial increases in average income, though patterns vary. And the range, amount and quality of goods and services available to people today is unprecedented. From 1970 to 2010 per capita income in developed countries increased 2.3 percent a year on average, compared with 1.5 percent for developing countries. In 1970 the average income of a country in the top quarter of the world income distribution was 23 times that of a country in the bottom quarter. By 2010 it approached 29 times.”

Human Development Report, 2010, United Nations Development Programme, 2010, pages 4, 6, and 40-42.

The World Bank and the United Nations roughly agree on the above trends, but within econometric circles, various measures, and their interpretations, are contested. For example, see: “Poverty Traps,” C. Azariadis, J. Stachurski, Chapter 5 of Handbook of Economic Growth, Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf (editors), Volume I, Part A, Elsevier, 2005. “The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and... Convergence, Period,” X. Sala-i-Martin, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2):351-398, 2006. “The World Distribution of Income and Income Inequality: A Review of the Economics Literature,” A. Heshmati, Journal of World-Systems Research, 12(1):1-24, 2006. “World Income Distribution: Which Way?” P. Svedberg, Journal of Development Studies, 40(5):1-32, 2004. “True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculations, Based on Household Surveys Alone,” B. Milanovic, The Economic Journal, 112(476):51-92, 2002.

Further, the following paper argues that while inequity is large today, it used to be larger, but within countries, less so between countries. The industrial phase change led to a large spike in inequity for its first 90 years or so, then within-country inequities leveled off and between-countries inequities grew. “Inequality among World Citizens: 1820-1992,” F. Bourguignon, C. Morrisson, American Economic Review, 92(4):727-744, 2002.

“Year after year, NGOs presented more and more examples of the same inquitous practices, as well as new ones. Members [of the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery] listened to governments’ claims that they were eliminating them, only to hear a year later from NGOs that nothing had changed. The only certainty was that if there were any results they would be long delayed. While the UN talked and governments made excuses, more people fell into debt-bondage, more women were forced into marriage, more children were sold and ill-treated, and more workers were exploited. Meanwhile governments, even impoverished ones, spent large sums on arms. Leaders salted away ill-gotten gains, and corrupt officials failed to enforce laws. Third World poverty was compounded by population growth, by the failure to construct a new and more equitable international economic order, and sometimes by structural adjustment demanded by the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank or by ill-conceived development projects.” Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem, Suzanne Miers, Rowman Altamira, 2003, page 404.

“Well over one hundred thousand people live enslaved at this moment in the United States, and as many as seventeen thousand new victims are trafficked across our borders each year.” Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It, David Batstone, HarperOne, 2007, page 3.

“The United States has become a major importer of sex slaves. Last year, the C.I.A. estimated that between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States. The government has not studied how many of these are victims of sex traffickers, but Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America’s largest anti-slavery organization, says that the number is at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, the State Department’s director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, conceded: “That figure could be low. What we know is that the number is huge.” Bales estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 sex slaves in captivity in the United States at any given time.” See: “The Girls Next Door,” P. Landesman, New York Times, January 25th, 2004.

“Mali’s Children in Chocolate Slavery,” H. Hawksley, BBC News, April 12th, 2001. Slavery in Brazil: A Link in the Chain of Modernisation, Alison Sutton, Anti-Slavery International, 1994. Incidentally, in 1995, new Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced new measures to eradicate slavery. In 2003, new Brazilian President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva announced new measures to eradicate slavery. Slavery and Human Progress, David Brion Davis, Oxford University Press, 1984.

Agatha Christie, looking back from 1977 at her early life in Torquay (in Devon) just after the turn of the century, wrote:

“One of the things I think I should miss most, if I were a child nowadays, would be the presence of servants. To a child they were the most colourful part of daily life. Nurses supplied platitudes; servants supplied drama, entertainment and all kinds of unspecified but interesting knowledge. Far from being slaves they were frequently tyrants. They “knew their place,” as was said, but knowing their place meant not subservience but pride, the pride of the professional....

In describing my life I am struck by the way it sounds as though I and everybody else were extremely rich. Nowadays you certainly would have to be rich to do the same things, but in point of fact nearly all my friends came from homes of moderate income. Most of their parents did not have a carriage or horses, they certainly had not yet acquired the new automobile or motor car. For that you did have to be rich.”

An Autobiography, Agatha Christie, Dodd, Mead, 1977, pages 17 and 165.

In the time she was describing, the early 1900s, Britain had well over a million servants and only a few thousand cars. Cars were scarce and costly while servants—the largest occupational category in the country at the time—were common and cheap. In Britain today, a century later, it’s the other way around. In Britain a century hence, depending on how the ecogenesis of our toolbox goes, that might reverse again. But there’ll almost surely never be a time when everything we want is equally cheap and plentiful to all of us. The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant, Pamela Horn, 1975, Sutton Publishing Ltd., Reprint Edition, 1995, page 202. The Domestic Revolution: The Modernisation of Household Service in England and France, 1820-1920, Theresa M. McBride, Holmes & Meier, 1976, page 112.

“She was a Phantom of delight,” William Wordsworth.

But that is a loose translation from Alexander’s De Nominibus Utensilium. For a more accurate translation of the Latin, see: “Gold, Silver and Precious Stones,” M. Campbell, in: English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, John Blair and Nigel Ramsay (editors), Continuum International Publishing Group, 1991, pages 120-121. For even more extensive translations and other extracts on goldsmiths, see: “Shops and Shopping the Early Thirteenth Century: Three Texts,” M. Carlin, in: Money, Markets and Trade in Late Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of John H. A. Munro, Lawrin Armstrong, Ivana Elbl, and Martin L. Elbl (editors), Brill, 2007, pages 491-537. Daily Living in the Twelfth Century: Based on the Observations of Alexander Neckam in London and Paris, Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., University of Wisconsin Press, 1952.

For example, for the observations about metals in Mainz, see: “Isotope composition of Medieval lead glasses reflecting early silver production in Central Europe,” Mineralium Deposita, 32(3):292-295, 1997. Printing Presses; History and Development from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times, James Moran, University of California Press, 1973.

See also: Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity, Virginia Smith, Oxford University Press, 2008. The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, Katherine Ashenburg, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Translation: “But, oddly enough, a vicious man does not shun the consciences of other vicious men, and where all are filthy, the stench of one is hardly noticed.” Saint Bernard On Consideration, Saint Bernard (of Clairvaux), translated by George Lewis, Clarendon Press, 1908, page 34.

That attitude continued in Europe up to the 1800s. For example, Princess Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, sister-in-law to King Louis XVI, and niece of the Grand Duchess Sophia of Hanover, wrote a letter to her aunt Sophia on October 9th, 1694, about having to defecate in public during her stay in Fontainbleau. “Sewers, Cesspools, and Privies: Waste as Reality and Metaphor in Pre-modern European Cities,” A. P. Coudert, in: Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, Albrecht Classen (editor), Walter de Gruyter, 2009, pages 713-734.

In the late fifteenth century, Queen Isabella of Spain bragged that she had only bathed twice in her whole life. Queen Elizabeth bathed once a month, ‘whether she needed it or no,’ according to one contemporary chronicler. Her successor, James I, bore a great aversion to water and never bathed. One court lady complained that she and her friends got ‘lousy by sitting in a councillor’s chamber that James frequented.’ King James didn’t even wash his hands before eating. At table, he ‘only rubbed his fingers’ ends slightly with the wet end of a napkin.’ His lover, the Duke of Buckingham, wrote in one letter to the king, ‘So, craving your blessing, I kiss your dirty hands.’ James itched constantly and rarely changed his clothes.

By contrast, in 1671, John Burbury, an English diplomat stationed in Istanbul, expressed his astonishment at the excessive ‘cleanliness of the Turks who, as they had occasion to make urine ... afterwards washed their hands.’ ”

“Just as in poor relief and education, public authorities played a growing role in the later Middle Ages in improving living conditions. This was especially true in cities, where living conditions had become precarious, but at the same time most progress was made by regulation and developing public provision. Many of the problems in the late medieval cities were caused by the fact that space was scarce within the walls, and people were packed together. Smaller cities did not occupy more than about 20 hectares, and the medium-sized cities were about 20 to 40 hectares, meaning that 100-200 people were squeezed into each urban hectare. The biggest city in the Low Countries, Ghent, occupied 644 hectares, which on average housed some 100 people per hectare. Moreover, substantial parts of the space within the walls were taken up by monasteries and by the gardens and orchards of patrician houses, leaving less space for the rest of the population. As a consequence, late medieval cities were often more densely populated than modern cities are. This situation led to pollution by excrement and other waste, and resulted in epidemics, a risk increased by poor sanitation. The industries, including the highly polluting processes of fulling and tanning, made matters worse. Living conditions in the cities must have been appalling, as the high urban mortality rates indicate.

The concentration of wooden thatched houses, combined with heating, cooking, and brewing, often without a proper chimney, produced many fires. Every city in Hainaut in the 14th and 15th centuries experienced a major fire every five years, often destroying hundreds of houses. One of the towns in the Low Countries most severely hit by fire was Breda in Brabant in 1490 and again in 1534, when about 1,000 houses burnt down and the remains of the town were covered with ash and grit for almost a year. Fixed capital, in the form of buildings, workshops, and tools, was hit particularly hard by the fires, a risk which probably reduced investments. In the late Middle Ages the authorities increasingly started to regulate developments in this area. They required all households to have a ladder, bucket, and water, and the inspection of chimneys was organized: in Mons in 1413 night watches were appointed, and holes were made in the ice during frost in order to have access to open water.”

Manors and Markets: Economy and Society in the Low Countries, 500-1600, Bas Van Bavel, Oxford University Press, 2010, page 320.

Also, Gutenberg wasn’t the only one experimenting with print at this time. Laurens Janszoon Coster (also, Koster) in Haarlem, now the Netherlands, and Procopius (or Prokop or Procope) Waldvogel (or Waldfogel or Waldfoghel) in Avignon, France also did. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, translated by David Gerard, Verso, 1976, pages 52-54. Some writers also mention the much less credible Jan (or Jean or Johannes) Brito (also, Brulelou) in Bruges, now Belgium, Johannes Mentelius in Strassburg (Strasbourg), now France, and Panfilo (or Pamphilo) Castaldi in Feltre, now Italy. Not much is known about their work, and all of it may be apocryphal, as various writers have argued.

A century before, in 1310, in Yorkshire, England, a bible was worth 33 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence—a fabulous sum; enough to buy 60 cows (a cow sold for 12 shillings and 6 pence) or 50 slave families (an English slave and his family sold for 13 shillings and 4 pence). “Wheat, 6s. a quarter; oats, 3s.; a cow, 12s. 6d.; a sheep, 1s. 2d.; a fat hog, 3s. 4d.; a fat goose, 2½d.; eggs 0½d a dozen; wine, 4d. a gallon; ale, 0½d. a gallon; a labourer’s wages 1½d. a day, in harvest time 2d.; a journeyman carpenter, 2d. a day; a horse for military service, 13s. 4d.; a pair of shoes, 4d.; an English slave and his family, sold for 13s. 4d.; a bible, £33 6s. 8d; the Chancellor’s salary, £50.” The History of Bradford and Its Parish: With Additions and Continuation to the Present Time, John James, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866, pages 74-75, footnote.

Even by 1500 a book might cost a ducat in Venice, where a servant earned about seven ducats a year. For a teacher or skilled artisan, a book might cost about a week’s wages. Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Lisa Jardine, Longitude Books, 1998, page 160.

“Incest, if not detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known. There was a stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, etc.” The History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Volume I, J. H. Merle d’Aubigne, 1835, translated by H. White, Robert Carter and Brothers, 1875, page 56.

The original quote is hearsay. Its source is Caesarius of Heisterbach, one of the most popular German writers in the 1200s. He was a Cistercian Prior writing around 1223, about 14 years after the siege of Béziers (the town, most of whose people were slaughtered). He attributes Arnaud-Amaury, the Abbot of Cîteaux, in 1209, as saying: “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eis.” Dialogus Magnus Visionum atque Miraculorum, (Dialogue of Visions and Miracles), Book V, Chapter XXI, Caesarius of Heisterbach, edited by Joseph Strange, J. M. Heberle and H. Lempertz, 1851.

If it’s a true quote from the time, then the Abbot was partly quoting the Bible: “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” The Bible, The King James Version, II Timothy 2:19.

Béziers wasn’t the only such city. As part of spreading terror, there was also mass slaughter at Marmande (and planned for Toulouse), various atrocities at Bram and Lavaur, and mass burnings at Minerve, Lavaur, Les Cassés, and Montségur.

For example: “Clamour and shouting arose, [crusaders] ran into the town with sharpened steel; terror and massacre began. Lords, ladies, and their little children, women and men stripped naked, all these [were] slashed and cut to pieces with keen-edged swords. Flesh, blood, and brains, trunks, limbs, and faces hacked in two, lungs, livers, and guts torn out and tossed aside lay on the open ground as if they had rained down from the sky. Marshland and good ground, all was red with blood. Not a man or a woman was left alive, neither old nor young, no living creature, unless any had managed to hide. Marmande was razed and set alight.” Peacemaking and Religious Violence: From Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Jefferson, Roger A. Johnson, The Lutterworth Press, 2009, page 40.

Printing changed the entire, backward-looking view of society, with its stultifying respect for the achievements of the past, to one that looked forward to progress and improvement. The Protestant ethic, broadcast by the presses, extolled the virtues of hard work and thrift and encouraged material success. Printing underlined this attitude. If knowledge could now be picked up from a book, the age of unquestioned authority was over. A printed fifteenth-century history expressed the new opinion: ‘Why should old men be preferred to their juniors when it is possible, by diligent study, for young men to acquire the same knowledge?’

The Day the Universe Changed, James Burke, Little, Brown, 1986, pages 121-123.

On the other hand, the following Eisenstein quote seems apropos: “[A]lthough Protestant exploitation of printing linked the Reformation to early modern science in diverse ways, and although scientific publication was increasingly taken over by Protestant printing firms, evangelists and virtuosi were still using the new powers of print for fundamentally different ends. The latter aimed not at spreading God’s words, but at deciphering His handiwork. The only way to ‘open’ the book of nature to public inspection required (paradoxically) a preliminary encoding of data into ever more sophisticated equations, diagrams, models, and charts. For virtuosi the uses of publicity were much more problematic than for evangelists.... [T]he downfall of Ptolemy, Galen, and Aristotle did not come about as a result of cartoons and pamphleteering. Scientific change follows a different pattern from religious revivals. Publication was indispensable for anyone seeking to make a scientific contribution, but the kind of publicity which made for bestsellerdom was often undesirable. Even now, reputable scientists fear the sensational coverage which comes from premature exposure of their views. Early modern virtuosi had even better reasons for such fears. Many Copernicans (including Copernicus himself) took advantage of printed materials while shrinking from publicity. Many Puritan publicists and disciples of Francis Bacon proselytized on behalf of a ‘new science’ without favoring or even comprehending the technical Latin treatises which marked significant advance.” The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2005, page 298.

Once print’s cost fell sufficiently, however, printers became itinerate, driving their horse-drawn presses from town to town. Broadsheets began to appear everywhere, and then even the powerful lost control. Everything started to change. As some of the age-old verities came under question, even by unlettered peasants, anyone with anything to lose was petrified. Heresies had come before, revolts had come before, but print spread thought wider and faster, like napalm airstrikes on a dry forest. The resulting turmoil, like most major changes our species stumbles into, was not bloodless, nor was it without the usual ironies. In 1525, for example, Martin Luther, the instigator of Protestantism back in 1517, sided with the nobility and clergy against a peasant revolt that he helped encourage and in which perhaps 100,000 were massacred. By 1543 he also wrote a book inciting pogroms against Jews—and exactly four centuries later, another German leader was to take him seriously. The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants War from a New Perspective, Peter Blickle, translated by Thomas A. Brady, Jr. and H. C. Midelfort, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi German 1933-1945, Richard Grunberger, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, page 465.

Changes in Germany weren’t unusual. By 1562, all Europe would be bathing in blood over religious differences, and many European countries would expel their Jewish populations after centuries of persecution, demonization, and massacre. Sectarian violence raged on in firecracker chain-reactions until the end of the century, then flared up repeatedly over the next 250 years over the entire face of Europe, then the rest of the world. Nor was conflict solely due to religious difference. In a pinch, any difference between us will do, as two short, global, non-religious, high-intensity bursts in the 1900s show. Eventually, though, the gains in applicable knowledge about the cosmos forced Europe’s eyes to begin to turn slowly, oh so grudgingly, from the past to the future. That love of novelty, fueled by an uncontrolled printing press, and at the time largely unknown elsewhere in the world, would have major consequences for that same unsuspecting world.

“Almost Cut My Hair,” Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, 1970.

Incidentally, credit for naming and expanding, if not actually inventing, algebra, goes to several people, not least of whom is Al-Khwarizmi (Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī), a mathematician and astronomer who lived and taught in Baghdad from around 800 to some time after 847. His book Al-jabr wa’l muqabala [Calculation by completion and balancing] gave algebra its name. History of Mathematics, Carl B. Boyer, John Wiley & Sons, Second Edition, pages 228-230. Also, his name is the source of today’s word ‘algorithm,’ without which computer science wouldn’t exist.

Similarly, an argument can be made that science can exist without experiment. Again, early natural philosophy did so. For example, see: “Grosseteste’s ‘Quantitative’ Law of Refraction: A Chapter in the History of Non-Experimental Science,” B. S. Eastwood, Journal of the History of Ideas, 28(3):403-414, 1967.

Further, it’s not the case that even those proto-scientists in Europe were the first to have such ideas since that would ignore all the Arabic-speaking proto-scientists four or more centuries before and also after them. For example, in about 1038 Al-Hazen (Abū ’Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham) in his Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Book of Optics), stressed that he would not be swayed by prejudice and would try to carefully test each of his hypotheses by doing experiments on them. He critically examined the beliefs of each of his Greek and Muslim predecessors, showing why aspects of them must be wrong in many essentials. Then he explained how to do experiments, either thought experiments or actual experiments, to refute many such beliefs. And before him, Ptolemy, too, depended on experiment.

“The clearest evidence of Ptolemy’s empirical bent is found in his analyses of diplopia, reflection, and refraction. In all three cases, the phenomena are investigated on the basis of relatively simple yet ingeniously contrived experimental apparatus....

Alhacen’s account of visual perception is exceptionally cautious and considered. There is remarkably little in it that is overtly hypothetical or deductive and much that is overtly empirical and inductive. Furthermore, Alhacen is extraordinarily systematic and precise, almost mathematically so, in developing that account element-by-element in a logical order that is as inexorable as it is clear. Leaving virtually nothing to chance, he guides the reader along by the shortest of leashes, not only forcing him to follow the beaten path within straitened bounds, but also pointing out the exemplary landmarks—in the way of illustrative examples, many of them experimentally-based—along the way.”

Alhacen’s Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen’s De Aspectibus, the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham’s Kitāb al-Manāẓir, Volume I, translated and annotated by A. Mark Smith, American Philosophical Society, 2001, pages xxxvi and lii.

For example, while trying to ascertain some property of light and perception, Al-Hazen noted that: “[E]verything we have discussed can be tested by experiment so we will attain certainty about it.” Alhacen’s Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen’s De Aspectibus, the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham’s Kitāb al-Manāẓir, Volume II, translated and annotated by A. Mark Smith, American Philosophical Society, 2001, page 573.

Further, over two centuries before that, Jābir ibn Hayyān pioneered the idea of experiment in alchemy. Makers of Chemistry, Eric John Holmyard, Clarendon Press, 1931.

What is true, though, is that by Newton’s time all the centuries of effort were bearing fruit in insights that a later age would look back on and see as pivotal. History is a raging river out of which we can take only a few sips at a time or risk drowning.

Finally, it’s not entirely true, nor is it very likely, that we somehow decided not to experiment for millennia. It’s highly likely that there was experimentation at least in ballistics, if nothing else. Also, Strato of Lampsacus also almost surely experimented, as, almost surely, did Theophrastus, and others, most especially Archimedes.

“[T]he Hellenistic Age saw a variety of technical inventions and developments, as well as significant advances in theory and methodology, including, for example, the introduction of experiment to test a theory.

[O]ne has clear evidence that experiment was well known to Greek and Hellenistic science, even while antiquity allowed for variables such as modern science denies in advance.... ‘Experiment’ to us almost always means controlled experiment (laboratories, again); but to an Erasistratus, this would have been cheating, no matter what modern microbiologists might say about the essential techniques embodied in Koch’s postulates. It is thus arguable that ancient, as opposed to modern, ‘experiments’ assumed natural variables....

Yet this unlimited variability never has prevented ancients or moderns from ‘going and looking.’ ”

“ ‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” K. D. White, plus its Response and subsequent Discussion, in: Hellenistic History and Culture, Peter Green (editor), University of California Press, 1993, pages 211-237.

For Strato in particular, see: Gravity’s Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond, David Darling, John Wiley and Sons, 2006, pages 27-29.

And while the Greeks were a big step ahead, behind them are Sumerian, Indian, and Egyptian astronomers, doctors, and mathematicians going back who knows how many millennia.

That might seem baffling until we consider that we’re reading across two languages and over two thousand years. To get some sense of what Aristotle meant, consider how an object-oriented computer programmer might think of a wooden door when asked ‘what makes (for) a door?’

• Wood is what a door is made of.
• Having two sides, some width, hinges, and a handle, and is what makes something a door.
• A carpenter makes a door.
• Getting from one room to another is what a door is made for.

“ ‘Cause’ means:

• (1) [Material Cause:] that from which, as immanent material, a thing comes into being, e.g. the bronze is the cause of the statue and the silver of the saucer....
• (2) [Formal Cause:] The form or pattern, i.e. the definition of the essence... (e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general are causes of the octave)....
• (3) [Efficient Cause:] That from which the change or the resting from change first begins; e.g. the adviser is a cause of the action, and the father a cause of the child, and in general the maker a cause of the thing made....
• (4) [Final Cause:] The end, that for the sake of which a thing is; e.g. health is the cause of walking. For ‘Why does one walk?’ we say: ‘that one may be healthy’; and in speaking thus we think we have given the cause.”

In 1665, the series of stupidities and atrocities that historians now politely call ‘The Thirty Years War’ was just over, but all Europe still felt its effects. Ditto for the English Civil War, and the Franco-Spanish wars.

Meanwhile, men and women were burned, hanged, or drowned for witchcraft, Africans were beginning to be enslaved and transported by the million, and genocide against natives in the Americas was just about to begin in earnest as the new European colonies began to expand—in the north, the south, and in the Caribbean—in the Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British Americas.

Further, earlier famines in 1543 to 1586 had led to the Poor Laws, which in turn led to severe restrictions on travel in England. The poor needed a pass to move from one place to another because no parish would support non-residents. Unmarried pregnant women were treated worst of all, since they were the least able to work and the most expensive to support. That policy continued for centuries.

The figure of 80,000 plague deaths is a guesstimate, although widely reported. (However, Moote and Moote, below, report “nearly 100,000.”) The bills of mortality for each parish in London account for 68,561 deaths from plague in 1665. That, however, doesn’t count all those deaths that went unreported—which likely was very many, considering what would happen if you reported having a plague victim in the family. Any identified victim’s house was nailed shut, with the entire family still inside, and left for 40 days, often without food, until they all died, or miraculously survived. The city itself was also sealed off, with anyone wishing to leave having to get a pass, and few were given. Forgeries flourished. To ward off the plague, fires burned in front of every twelfth house, and 10,000 people lived on boats in the Thames, hoping to avoid the plague. London was a ghostcity that summer and fall. “A letter of an eyewitness,” by John Allin, reprinted in Unknown London, Walter George Bell, John Lane, 1919. The Great Plague: The Story of London’s Most Deadly Year, A. Lloyd Moote and Dorothy C. Moote, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

The plague didn’t end in 1665. Winter probably killed off many of the black rats carrying it, but it resurged the following spring. The 1665 plague also visited other places in England besides London (not counting its continental toll). York, for example, was particularly hard hit. Finally, plague was no stranger in London. Ever since 1348 it had been taking lives almost yearly, some years more than others. In 1563, 1603, and 1625, in particular, it had taken between a fifth and a quarter of all London. The plague usually peaked in August or September, after the harvest, especially after hot summers. For epidemiology of the 1665 plague visit, see: “Plague in London: spatial and temporal aspects of mortality,” G. Twigg, Epidemic Disease in London, J. A. I. Champion (editor), Centre for Metropolitan History Working Papers Series, Number 1, pages 1-17, 1993. Although an interesting new theory is that instead of the plague’s vector being black rats it may have been gerbils: “Climate-driven introduction of the Black Death and successive plague reintroductions into Europe,” B. V. Schmid, U. Büntgen, W. R. Easterday, C. Ginzler, L. Walløe, B. Bramanti, N. C. Stenseth, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10):3020-3025, 2015.

Incidentally, the same sequence of events, almost exactly, had happened before in 1607-08, with insurrections fueled by famine and enclosures in the spring; plague killing thousands and closing the theaters and putting Shakespeare out of work in the hot dry summer; and a great frost freezing the Thames in the winter, with ships frozen in ice kilometers out into the North Sea. That was the world that the Puritans who eventually saw Plymouth Rock fled.

Sixty years before, Shakespeare had married off his Juliet—and her mother before her—at 13. Besides Juliet (and her mother), Shakespeare married off Marina (in Pericles) at 14, and Miranda (in The Tempest) at 15. He himself had married at 18. However, his wife, Anne, had married at 26; his eldest daughter, Susanna, married at 24; and his youngest daughter, Judith, married at 31. He had little money, so there were only small dowries. Although the legal age was 14, and the rich always did as they liked, in the Tudor era many of the poor married late rather than early. On the other hand, that appears to be only true of some of northwestern Europe. Much of the rest of the world, whether rich or poor, seems to have married young whenever possible.

For an interesting take on the larger view of early and late marriage patterns, primarily in northwestern Europe, see: The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past, Mary S. Hartman, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Large families were common in Europe in the 1600s. For example, Benjamin Franklin (born in 1706) had 15 children with two wives. His father, Josiah Franklin (born in 1657), had 17 children, also with two wives. And his father, Thomas Franklin (born in 1598), had nine children. At the time, it was common for men to marry multiple women since so many women died in childbirth. Of course, not all seventeenth-century families were that large, but they weren’t uncommon, either. What kept population in Europe relatively constant was the wars, famines, and above all, plagues. An Historical Geography of Europe, N. J. G. Pounds, Cambridge University Press, 1990, Chapter 9. The French Peasantry, 1450-1660, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, translated by Alan Sheridan, University of California Press, 1987, Chapter 4. The North Atlantic World in the Seventeenth Century, K. G. Davies, University of Minnesota Press, 1974, pages 68-71.

“[...] Of all the characteristics in which the medieval age differs from the modern, none is so striking as the comparative absence of interest in children. Emotion in relation to them rarely appears in art or literature or documentary evidence. [...]

In literature the chief role of children was to die, usually drowned, smothered, or abandoned in a forest on the orders of some king fearing prophecy or mad husband testing a wife’s endurance. Women appear rarely as mothers. They are flirts, bawds, and deceiving wives in the popular tales, saints and martyrs in the drama, unattainable objects of passionate and illicit love in the romances. [...]

Medieval illustrations show people in every other human activity—making love and dying, sleeping and eating, in bed and in the bath, praying, hunting, dancing, plowing, in games and in combat, trading, traveling, reading and writing—yet so rarely with children as to raise the question: Why not?

Maternal love, like sex, is generally considered too innate to be eradicable, but perhaps under certain unfavorable conditions it may atrophy. Owing to the high infant mortality of the times, estimated at one or two in three, the investment of love in a young child may have been so unrewarding that by some ruse of nature, as when overcrowded rodents in captivity will not breed, it was suppressed. Perhaps also the frequent childbearing put less value on the product. A child was born and died and another took its place.

[...]

On the whole, babies and young children appear to have been left to survive or die without great concern in the first five or six years. What psychological effect this may have had on character, and possibly on history, can only be conjectured. Possibly the relative emotional blankness of a medieval infancy may account for the casual attitude toward life and suffering of the medieval man.

[...] If children survived to age seven, their recognized life began, more or less as miniature adults. Childhood was already over. The childishness noticeable in medieval behavior, with its marked inability to restrain any kind of impulse, may have been simply due to the fact that so large a proportion of active society was actually very young in years. About half the population, it has been estimated, was under twenty-one, and about one third under fourteen.”

Monday 1 February 1663/64 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Richard le Gallienne (editor), Modern Library Edition, 2001.

As if often the case, the text fixes on one particular date to ease the reader’s task of understanding and remembering the sequence of historical events. Of course, nothing ever happens in that precise a way. Latin Europe had been getting bits and pieces of Arabic knowledge for centuries before then, but usually innovators didn’t last to see their changes adopted widely. One of the few who did was Pope Sylvester II, who introduced the abacus to Europe in the 900s. But by and large, even he was regarded as too much of an innovator and many of his technically oriented innovations were ignored once he’d died. That’s typical of Europe before the real ferment. “Gerbert, the Teacher,” O. G. Darlington, The American Historical Review, 52(3):456-476, 1947.

Like a python choking down a pig, the Catholic Church, continually adding to Aristotle’s books of logic, the Organon (The Tool), had by the 1300s integrated all of his (known) books, and a thousand years of his Greek, Syriac, Persian, Arabic, then Latin commentators’ books in stages. That theological system then formed the mental infrastructure that Europe’s seventeenth-century natural philosophers built on—and eventually tore apart. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450, David C. Lindberg, University of Chicago, 1992.

It’s silly to imagine, as is still widely implied today, that ‘science’ somehow passed bodily from ‘Greece’ to ‘Europe’ via ‘the Arabs.’ That’s misleading on at least two fronts. It implies that ‘science’ is like a hand-bag that ‘Greece’ left in the cloak-room at Victoria station, which ‘the Arabs’ kept safe until ‘Europe’ checked it out 1,600 years later. It also implies that non-Latin speakers had no real influence on a train of thought that supposedly started in Greece. It ignores Egyptian, Sumerian, and Indian, then later Roman, Syrian, Persian, and Arabic thought. Both implications are pure humbug. As for the implication that ‘Europe’ was one unified thing, and that the Byzantines somehow don’t count, that’s just pure ignorance.

For an overview of the transition of Greek, Indian, and Persian mathematical and scientific learning to Arabic hands, see: How Greek Science Passed To the Arabs, De Lacy O’Leary, 1980, Kegan Paul, Reprint Edition, 2002. Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam, Francis E. Peters, New York University Press, 1968. However, note that some of that is based on myth. For more recent work, see: “Jundi-Shapur, bimaristans, and the rise of academic medical centres,” A. C. Miller, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(12):615-617, 2006. “The Mesopotamian schools of Edessa and Jundi-Shapur: the roots of modern medical schools,” S. Johna, American Surgery, 69(7):627-630, 2003. “The Arab-Islamic Medical Tradition,” L. I. Conrad, in: The Western Medical Tradition 800 BC to AD 1800, Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear, Cambridge University Press, 1995, especially pages 103-110 on the translation movement within Islam. “The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality,” M. W. Dols, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 61(3):367-390, 1987.

For a recent popular overview of the transition from Arabic to Latin hands, and the subsequent development of Europe’s late medieval theological system see: Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages, Richard E. Rubenstein, Harcourt, 2003. It’s possible, though, to come away from that particular book with a belief that Europe’s main faiths somehow lived in harmony. Except for pockets of time in the Netherlands, and in Islamic Spain, such is not the case. For example, in Christian Spain in the 1300s, sex between Christians and Jews was punished by death. Sex between Christians and Muslims was punished with public whipping. Violence and the persecution of minorities in the Crown of Aragon: Jews, Lepers and Muslims before the Black Death, David Nirenberg, doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 1993, pages 128-165.

For a continuation of the quote and more background, see: “Modernization of the Teaching of Latin: The Central Role of the Text and of the Lexical Approach,” R. Marino, Meeting the Challenge: European Perspectives on the Teaching of Latin, Cambridge University, 2005. “John of Salisbury and Aristotle,” C. Burnett, Didascalia, 2:19-32, 1996. Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past, Janet Coleman, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pages 291-293.

Excited as Salisbury was, he also pined for the good old days. He railed against the decadence of ‘modern’ times. He deplored the wholesale abandonment of the classics in the face of the new learning. He denigrated the new narrow specializations. He wailed that today’s students cared only for knowledge they could do something with right then—especially in the new get-rich-quick fields of law and medicine. And he denounced younger teachers for giving in to the pressure. Ahh, yes, how different schools are today.

Don’t assume, however, that Salisbury was a mere reactionary. He was one of the leading voices in the 1100s for reform of all sorts, and a master of the new Arabic material. He just didn’t like the idea of throwing out the classics just because of the new expansion in learning. Incidentally, he was with Becket when Becket was slaughted at Canterbury in 1170. Becket’s blood splashed on him when his scalp was chopped off. “John of Salisbury: An Argument for Philosophy within Education,” W. C. Turgeon, Analytic Teaching, 18(2):44-52, 1999.

(Incidentally: Bernard of Chartres taught William of Conches (Guillaume de Conches) and Richard l’Évêque, who taught John of Salisbury. For any researchers who might want to mine this area: William of Conches is well known but it’s hard to find out much about Richard l’Évêque. He was apparently archdeacon of Coutances from 1163 to 1170, then Bishop of Avranches from 1170 to 1181 (when he died). One problem is that John implies that he (Richard) was archdeacon already in 1159, when he (John) wrote the Metalogicon. Also, the list of Bishops of Avranches in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1914 lists a ‘Richard III’ from 1171 to 1182, a year after John’s Richard supposedly took up the post and a year after he supposedly died. Incidentally, Henry II swore that he didn’t order Becket’s murder on Sunday, May 21st, 1172—in Avranches cathedral, while Richard would have been bishop there. One final point: ‘l’Évêque’ is French for ‘Bishop.’)

Today, the ‘shoulders of giants’ quote’s originator is often given as Isaac Newton. “But in ye meane time you defer too much to my ability for searching into this subject [optics]. What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking ye colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.” Newton to Hooke, February 15th, 1676. The Forgotten Genius: The Biography of Robert Hooke 1635-1703, Stephen Inwood, MacAdam Cage, 2003, page 216. Originally published as The Man Who Knew Too Much, Macmillan, 2002. (Note: The letter itself was dated as ‘5 February 1675.’ The (old) Julian Calendar was still in use in England at that time.)

The quote’s true originator, Bernard of Chartres, was a Breton monk who ran the Chartres cathedral school in France from 1114 to 1124. Merton traces the quote’s history forward from the 1100s, and backward to Priscian, a sixth-century Constantinople grammarian, whose grammar Bernard had followed assiduously. On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript, The Post-Italianate Edition, Robert K. Merton, Chicago University Press, 1993, page 40 and pages 309-310.

However, the original idea behind the quote may be even older than that. In one (of many) versions of the Orion myth, Poseidon’s giant son, Orion, who gives his name today to the constellation of the hunter, tried to rape Merope and her father blinded him, after which Hephaestus, gave him one of his men, Kedalion, to carry on his shoulders to see for him. Bulfinch’s Mythology, The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes, Thomas Bulfinch, 1855. But of course this ancient idea may not originate there. Who knows.

The story we tell of ourselves may have little connection to reality. History speaks of our past, but myth speaks of us. Or, as Aristotle says, “[I]t is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen,—what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.” Poetics, Aristotle, 1451a, Section I, Part IX, translated by S. H. Butcher, Macmillan, 1898, page 35.

From such surveying—and similar work millennia before in Egypt, Iraq, and India—you’re on your way to developing geometry.

Now jump to Greece 2,300 years ago, and use a stick to sketch any right-angled triangle in the dirt, whether two of its sides are the same length or not. Draw squares on each of the triangle’s three sides, then discover that the area of the biggest square must equal the sum of the areas of the other two squares.

Now jump to Iraq in 830 and realize that you don’t need to draw such squares to show the relationship between their areas. If the length of the longest side is s, and the lengths of the other two sides are x and y, you can use the number system and the symbolic notation that you had earlier invented in jumps to India over a millennium before and a few centuries before to express the same area relationship this way:

From geometry, you’re starting to invent algebra.

Now jump to France in 1637 and draw two lines, horizontal and vertical, which thus cross at right angles, then draw a circle of width 2w centered where they cross. Every point on the circle is some distance, x, away from the vertical line, and some distance, y, away from the horizontal line, so you can express each point as (x, y). Based on what you’ve already found out, you can now show that x and y must relate to w as as follows:

Now draw the same diagram on a sheet of rubber, then distort the circle by pulling on the rubber horizontally (or vertically) to form an ellipse. In the case of the circle, the distance from one fixed point (the circle’s center) to every point on the circle is constant, but for the ellipse there are two fixed points and the sum of their distances to every point on the ellipse is a constant. You then see that, in effect, a circle also has two fixed points—it’s just that they’re in the same place. Pulling on the rubber separates them.

Further, you can show that if any ellipse is width 2w and height 2h and its width is bigger than its height, then each point, (x, y), on the ellipse must relate to w and h as follows:

By combining geometry and algebra, you’re beginning to invent analytic geometry.

Now jump back to Egypt in 1038 and while trying to figure out how both light and the eye work, create optical instruments that let you control where beams of light are cast. Use the data that gives you, plus both geometry and tests, to verify your insights into vision. You’re starting to move away from Aristotle’s way of ignoring instruments, math, and tests.

Now jump to Italy in 1286 and, from what you learned about vision, start grinding lenses for eyeglasses. Then jump to the Netherlands in 1608 and start combining such lenses to make spyglasses. Now jump to Italy in 1610 and extend those spyglasses into higher-resolution telescopes. Then turn one on Jupiter and discover that it has moons—something that Aristotle had never imagined. From that, guess, without mathematical proof, that Copernicus had been right after all. Just as Jupiter’s moons orbit Jupiter, the earth probably orbits the sun, not the other way round, as Aristotle had thought.

Now jump back to Denmark in 1572 and spend decades watching the night sky with your naked eye, keeping meticulous track of everything you see. From that mass of data, you prove that lights in the sky weren’t embedded in nearby and unchanging crystal spheres, despite Aristotle’s thought. Then jump to Germany in 1605, and from your night-sky data plus an early form of analytic geometry, deduce that Mars moves in an ellipse about the sun, not in a circle about the earth, despite what Aristotle had thought.

Jump to either England or the Netherlands in 1666 and combine the existence of Jupiter’s moons, plus the idea of Mars’ elliptical orbit, plus what you know of ellipses, to deduce that the force binding any planet to the sun must vary in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them. Then jump to England in 1666 or Germany in 1675 and build on algebra and analytic geometry to invent calculus. Use that calculus, plus everything else you’ve figured out about math, plus your new instruments, plus all the data you’ve amassed about planets and moons and comets and eclipses and tides and such, to discover uniform laws of gravity that apply to everything everywhere.

Timelines: Egypt 2,600 years ago - finding the height of a pyramid using similar triangles - Thales. Greece 2,300 years ago - finding the relation between lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle - Pythagoras. Baghdad in 830 - inventing algebra - Al-Khwarizmi. France in 1637 - inventing (classical) analytic geometry - Descartes. Egypt in 1038 - investigating light and vision by focusing on experimental verification - Al-Hazen. Italy in 1286 - grinding lenses for eyeglasses - unknown. The Netherlands in 1608 - inventing spyglasses - Lipperhey, Jansen, and Metius. Italy in 1610 - improving spyglasses into telescopes - Galileo. Denmark in 1572 - doing extensive and careful astronomical observations - Brahe. Germany in 1605 - deducing that Mars moves in an ellipse - Kepler. England or the Netherlands in 1666 - deriving the gravitational attraction between planets and the sun - Newton, Hooke, and Huygens. England in 1666 or Germany in 1675 - inventing the calculus - Newton and Leibniz. England in 1666 - discovering the laws of gravity - Newton.

“The roads that lead man to knowledge are as wondrous as that knowledge itself.” Kepler, in the summary to Chapter 45 of his Astronomia Nova, as translated by Koestler. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe, Arthur Koestler, Hutchinson & Co., 1959, page 337. Although the Latin sentence (along with its introduction) is a bit more florid: “In sequentibus lector ignoscet meæ credulitati, dum omnes ex meo ingenio æstimo. Quippe mihi non multo minus admirande videntur occasiones, quibus homines in cognitionem rerum cœlestium deveniunt; quam ipsa Natura rerum cœlestium.” Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler, Argumenta singulorum capitum [The Arguments of each chapter], opening sentences for Caput 45, 1609. But then Kepler was writing in the full heat of discovery, after a long and arduous process, and anyway, the sense is the same.

Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, David Wootton, Yale University Press, 2010. The Origins of the Telescope, Albert Van Helden, Sven Dupré, Rob van Gent, and Huib Zuidervaart (editors), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010. The Long Route to the Invention of the Telescope, Rolf Willach, American Philosophical Society, 2008. Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes, Vincent Ilardi, American Philosophical Society, 2007. Huygens: The Man Behind the Principle, C. D. Andriesse, Cambridge University Press, 2005. The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors, John Gribbin, Random House, 2004. The Forgotten Genius: The Biography of Robert Hooke 1635-1703, Stephen Inwood, MacAdam Cage, 2003. Originally published as The Man Who Knew Too Much, Macmillan, 2002. Tycho & Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens, Kitty Ferguson, Walker & Company, 2002. The Birth of Modern Science, Paolo Rossi, translated by Cynthia De Nardi Ipsen, Blackwell, 2000. Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, Lisa Jardine, Anchor Books, 1999. The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe, Victor E. Thoren, Cambridge University Press, 1990. History of Mathematics, Carl B. Boyer, John Wiley & Sons, Second Edition, 1989. Never At Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, Richard S. Westfall, Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Here is a simplified example put into today’s terms: Barrow, wishing to show how to calculate the slope of the tangent to the curve:

That argument is not rigorous to today’s mathematical eyes, but its shape is clear and it is substantially what we do today. Of course, Barrow didn’t see that this idea can be generalized quite considerably to do more powerful things, while Newton did. But then, so did Leibniz. Barrow himself was hoeing a furrow well traveled by many long before him—Archimedes, for example, who, two millennia before, estimated the area of a circle (and other areas, surfaces, and volumes) with a very early form of integration (he approximated the circle with triangulation and dissection). But the 1600s was when the true explosion began with Johannes Kepler, Pierre Fermat, Gilles Roberval, and Bonaventura Cavalieri. A case could even be made that Fermat, not Newton or Leibniz, invented the calculus first. The Historical Development of the Calculus, Charles Henry Edwards, Jr., Springer-Verlag, 1979. “Precalculus, 1635-1665,” K. Andersen, in: Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences, I. Grattan-Guinness (editor), Routledge, 1994, pages 292-307.

Not even Newton liked his own theory. Today it’s tempting, and easy, and common, to make Newton into some sort of scientific saint. Certainly nearly all the science writings about him make him out to be such, but that’s far more to do with what today’s scientists and technologists wish Then, as young natural philosophers grew up with the insights of the first two waves, the tide started to crest with Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Jeremiah Horrocks, Edmond Halley, Giovanni Cassini, John Wallis, John Flamsteed, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Marcello Malpighi, Jacob Bernoulli, Ole Rømer, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Gottfried Leibniz, and Isaac Newton.

Newton, born the year the English Civil War started, and a year after Galileo died (blind, and under house arrest in Florence) was also lucky enough to concern himself with physics, the most sharp-edged part of the new natural philosophy as it is the most universal, the most easily mathematized, and the most easily tested. Newton was an inheritor as well as a creator. (Note: Many books state that Newton was born the same year that Galileo died. However, it was actually a full year later. Galileo died January 8th, 1642. Newton’s birth date is usually given as Christmas Day, December 25th, 1642, but England was still using the old (Julian) calendar at the time instead of the new (Gregorian) calendar, so on the continent it was actually 10 days later, January 4th, 1643.)

It’s odd that similar waves of scientific thought had earlier happened around the eastern Mediterranean over 26 centuries ago. Thales of Miletus, building on earlier Egyptian and Chaldean mathematics and astronomy, started the ball rolling, just as Copernicus was to do much later. Thirty years later came Anaximander, then twenty years after that, Anaximenes (all from Miletus in today’s Turkey). About fifteen years after Thales, Pythagoras was born on Samos, 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) from Miletus. He then moved to Croton, in today’s southern Italy, and his school also flourished. The tradition is that Thales taught Anaximander, who taught Pythagoras. (After came Heraclitus and Parmenides.) Then a second wave started with Anaxagoras and Empedocles and Zeno, then Democritus, Hippocrates, Socrates, and Plato, then Aristotle (also his student, Theophrastus). Then yet another wave with Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes, and Erastothenes. Then it petered out. So perhaps Europe’s new natural philosophy would have petered out as well, had not an industrial phase change followed it.

For an interesting theory about that idea, see: The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn, Lucio Russo, Birkhäuser, 2004.

“Cleo. [...] They are very seldom the same Sort of People, those that invent Arts, and Improvements in them, and those that enquire into the Reason of Things: this latter is most commonly practis’d by such, as are idle and indolent, that are fond of Retirement, hate Business, and take delight in Speculation: whereas none succeed oftener in the first, than active, stirring, and laborious Men, such as will put their Hand to the Plough, try Experiments, and give all their Attention to what they are about.

Hor. It is commonly imagin’d, that speculative Men are best at Invention of all sorts.

Cleo. Yet it is a Mistake. Soap-boyling, Grain-dying, and other Trades and Mysteries, are from mean Beginnings brought to great Perfection; but the many Improvements, that can be remembred to have been made in them, have for the Generality been owing to Persons, who either were brought up to, or had long practis’d and been conversant in those Trades, and not to great Proficients in Chymistry or other Parts of Philosophy, whom one would naturally expect those Things from. In some of these Arts, especially Grain or Scarlet-dying, there are Processes really astonishing; and by the Mixture of various Ingredients, by Fire and Fermentation, several Operations are perform’d, which the most sagacious Naturalist cannot account for by any System yet known; a certain Sign, that they were not invented by reasoning a Priori. [...]”

The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Volume 2, Bernard de Mandeville, edited by F. B. Kaye, Clarendon Press, 1924, pages 144-145.

For example, John Locke tried to use the new way of thought to try to figure out governance in 1690. James Lind tried to use it to try to figure out scurvy in 1747. James Watt used it to try to figure out steam power in 1765. Adam Smith tried to use it to try to figure out economics in 1776. Honoré Blanc used it to help make precision guns in 1785. For instance, see: “Essay on the History of Astronomy,” Adam Smith, in: The Early Writings of Adam Smith, J. R. Lindgren (editor), Kelley, 1967. (This idea spread into the next century with, for example, John Stuart Mill, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx.)

However, the newly optimistic tone in Europe shifted after a major earthquake destroyed Lisbon in 1755. The usual cruelties, wars, and slaughters didn’t help either. (To give some vague idea of the era, in 1718 Peter I, Tsar of Russia, tortured and killed his own son.) But still an irrepressible Voltaire would write in 1756 that “reason and industry will always bring about new progress.” However, he also covered his bets in 1759 by making Candide ping-pong between Pangloss and Martin. By 1783, he was five years dead when British America became the United States of America. Its whole system of government came to be based on the new ideas.

History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet, Basic Books, 1980. The Pattern of Expectation, 1644-2001, I. F. Clarke, Jonathan Cape, 1979. The Idea of Progress: History and Society, Sidney Pollard, Pelican Books, 1971. The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth, J. B. Bury, Macmillan and Co., 1920. “Sociology Before Comte: A Summary of Doctrines and an Introduction to the Literature,” H. E. Barnes, American Journal of Sociology, 23(2):174-247, 1917. “The Founders of Sociology,” V. Branford, American Journal of Sociology, 10(1):94-126, 1904.

The following might give some idea of the tenor of the times: “Balloons occupy senators, philosophers, ladies, everybody.... When the arts are brought to such perfection in Europe, who would go, like Sir Joseph Banks, in search of islands in the Atlantic, where the natives in six thousand years have not improved the science of carving fishing-hooks out of bones or flints! Well! I hope these new mechanic meteors will prove only playthings for the learned and the idle, and not be converted into new engines of destruction to the human race, as is so often the case of refinements or discoveries in science.” From: “Letter 2283, to Sir Horace Mann, December 2, 1783,” in: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, Horace Walpole, Peter Cunningham (editor), Volume VIII, Richard Bentley and Son, 1891, page 438.

“Quem Immortalem / Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum: / Mortalem / Hoc Marmor fatetur. /

Nature, and Nature’s Laws, lay hid in Night. / God said, Let Newton be!, and All was Light.”

The Poems of Alexander Pope, John Butt (editor), Routledge, 1966, page 808.

Now his hard hands on Mona’s rifted crest, / Bosomed in rock, her azure ores arrest; / With iron lips his rapid rollers seize / The lengthening bars, in thin expansion squeeze; / Descending screws with ponderous fly-wheels wound / The tawny plates, the new medallions round; / Hard dyes of steel the cupreous circles cramp, / And with quick fall his massy hammers stamp. / The Harp, the Lily and the Lion join, / And George and Britain guard the sterling coin.

Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer’d Steam! afar / Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; / Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear / The flying-chariot through the fields of air. / —Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, / Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move; / Or warrior-bands alarm the gaping crowd, / And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.”

From the first canto of: “Economy of Vegetation,” Erasmus Darwin, 1791.

“The Prelude,” William Wordsworth.

State of World Population 2011: People and Possibilities in a World of 7 Billion, United Nations Population Fund, 2011, pages 3-4.

“The twentieth century witnessed the most rapid decline in mortality in human history. In 1950-1955, life expectancy at the world level was 46 years and it had reached 67 years by 2005-2010. Over the next 45 years, life expectancy at the global level is expected to rise further to reach 75 years in 2045-2050. The more developed regions already had a high expectation of life in 1950-1955 (66 years) and have since experienced further gains in longevity. By 2005-2010 their life expectancy stood at 76.5 years, 11 years higher than in the less developed regions where the expectation of life at birth was 65.4 years. Although the gap between the two groups is expected to narrow between 2005 and mid-century, in 2045-2050 the more developed regions are still expected to have considerably higher life expectancy at birth than the less developed regions (82.4 years versus 74.3 years).”

World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2007, page 14.

For example, in 1902 in the United States life expectancy at birth was 49.2 years. By 2002, it was 77.3 years.

“Gains in longevity were fastest in the first half of the 20^th century. These advances were largely attributed to ‘an enormous scientific breakthrough—the germ theory of disease’ which led to the eradication and control of numerous infectious and parasitic diseases, especially among infants and children. The new theory led to an entirely new approach to preventative medicine, practiced both by departments of public health and by individuals. Interventions included boiling bottles and milk, washing hands, protecting food from flies, isolating sick children, ventilating rooms, and improving water supply and sewage disposal. Beginning in the 1940s, the control of infectious diseases was also aided by the increasing distribution and usage of antibiotics, including penicillin and sulfa drugs.

Since mid-century, advances in life expectancy have largely been attributable to improvements in the prevention and control of the chronic diseases of adulthood. In particular, death rates from two of the three major causes of death in 1950—diseases of the heart (i.e., coronary heart disease, hypertensive heart disease, and rheumatic heart disease) and cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)—have fallen by approximately 60% and 70%, respectively, on an age-adjusted basis since 1950, improvements that the CDC has characterized as ‘one of the most important public health achievements of the 20^th century.’ ”

From: “Life Expectancy in the United States,” L. B. Shrestha, Congressional Research Service, Report RL32792, The United States Library of Congress, 2006, pages 3-4.

See also: Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History, James C. Riley, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

This new degree of control [over the environment] has enabled Homo sapiens to increase its average body size by over 50 percent and its average longevity by more than 100 percent since 1800, and to greatly improve the robustness and capacity of vital organ systems....

The increase in the world’s population between 1900 and 1990 was four times as great as the increase during the whole previous history of humankind.”

The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World, Robert William Fogel, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pages 8 and 21-22.

It had plagued India, particularly around the Ganges delta, probably since at least 1503 or 1543, and certainly by 1563. A History of Asiatic Cholera, C. Macnamara, Macmillan, 1876.

“Among us it is called the Cholerica Passio. The Indians call it morxi and we corrupt the word into mordexi.... It is more acute than in our country for it generally kills in 24 hours. I have known persons who have not lasted more than 10 hours, and the longest endurance of it is 4 days. As there is no rule without an exception, I have seen a man, with the gift of much endurance, who lived for 20 days, always vomiting colora curginosa. Finally, he died.” Coloquios dos simples, e drogas he coisas mediçinias da India, Garcia da Orta, 1563, 17th dialogue, in Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India by Garcia da Orta, Clements R. Markham (editor), Henry Southeran and Co., 1913, pages 154-155. “Medicine in Goa—a former Portuguese territory,” S. K. Panday, Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 28(3):123-148, 1982.

The new way to die crept up on Britain slowly. In 1816, aided by movements of Britain’s army, cholera stepped out of its traditional Indian centers, then started striding across Eurasia. It stalked its victims along the trade routes as far north as the Volga and as far west as Arabia. By 1830, it had reached Poland. The next year it hit Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Sweden. By 1832 it was in Paris. There it slew 7,000 in 18 days. Within a month, 13,000 Parisians were dead and 120,000 had fled. By 1832 it had already killed millions of us and those of us in Britain were walleyed with fear. Then, in February, it struck London. Disease and Civilization: The Cholera in Paris, 1832, François Delaporte, The MIT Press, 1986.

One example will do. “Agimet the Jew, who lived at Geneva and was arrested at Châtel, was there put to the torture a little and then he was released from it. And after a long time, having been subjected again to torture a little, he confessed in the presence of a great many trustworthy persons, who are later mentioned. To begin with it is clear that at the Lent just passed Pultus Clesis de Ranz had sent this very Jew to Venice to buy silks and other things for him. When this came to the notice of Rabbi Peyret, a Jew of Chambéry who was a teacher of their law, he sent for this Agimet, for whom he had searched, and when he had come before him he said: “We have been informed that you are going to Venice to buy silk and other wares. Here I am giving you a little package of half a span in size which contains some prepared poison and venom in a thin, sewed leather-bag. Distribute it among the wells, cisterns, and springs about Venice and the other places to which you go, in order to poison the people who use the water of the aforesaid wells that will have been poisoned by you, namely, the wells in which the poison will have been placed...”

From: “The Confession of Agimet of Geneva,” Châtel, October 20th, 1348, in The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791, Jacob R. Marcus, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1938. Because of that ‘confession,’ thousands of Jews in at least 200 towns and hamlets were burnt, and their property stolen.

“The year 1321, as is well known, was witness to the so-called leper scare. Rumors of a plot to kill Christians in France by poisoning the wells spread wildly. The organizers of the conspiracy were believed to be Muslims, but their contacts in France were said to be Jews and their agents—the alleged poisoners—lepers. In the wake of the violence of the Pastoureaux, of the still incomplete return to good harvests, and, most important, of widespread disease, the idea of a plot seemed credible enough. More and more ‘evidence’ of the plot was gathered by torture, and authorities and vigilantes were ruthless in their judicial and extrajudicial attacks on the vilified groups. In the end large numbers of Jews and lepers were killed, many more beaten and otherwise humiliated, and many others saddled with oppressive fines by the state.” The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, William Chester Jordan, Princeton University Press, 1996, page 171.

If that’s not enough, see: History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner, Penguin Books, 1954, Book I, Chapter 2. “DNA examination of ancient dental pulp incriminates typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of Athens,” M. J. Papagrigorakis, C. Yapijakis, P. N. Synodinos, E. Baziotopoulou-Valavani, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 10(3):206-14, 2006. “No proof that typhoid caused the Plague of Athens (a reply to Papagrigorakis et al.),” B. Shapiro, A. Rambaut, M. T. Gilbert, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 10(4):334-5, 2006. “Insufficient phylogenetic analysis may not exclude candidacy of typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of Athens (reply to Shapiro et al.),” M. J. Papagrigorakis, C. Yapijakis, P. N. Synodinos, E. Baziotopoulou-Valavani, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 10(4):335-6, 2006.

In brief, in 1842 in Manchester, 57 percent of the kids born to working-class mothers died before reaching five years old. Liverpool was the same. Within its shopkeeper and trades population, half of all deaths were kids under five. Dirty water killed them. Within its laboring population, 62 percent of all deaths occurred before the age of five. In all, over three-quarters of Britons died before turning 49.

Here’s an example: “The low houses [of Spitalfields] are all huddled together in close and dark lanes and alleys, presenting at first sight an appearance of non-habitation, so dilapidated are the doors and windows:- in every room of the houses, whole families, parents, children and aged grandfathers swarm together.” The Poor Man’s Guardian, 18 February 1832.

For general historical background, see: London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd, Anchor Books, 2000. London: A Social History, Roy Porter, Harvard University Press, 1994. For the real deal, written at the time (1851), see: London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Those That Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work, Volumes I-IV, Henry Mayhew, 1851, Dover, Reprint Edition, 1968.

London wasn’t Britain’s only city with large slums. For example, in Manchester in 1835: “Thirty or forty factories rise on the tops of the hills I have just described. Their six stories tower up; their huge enclosures give notice from afar of the centralisation of industry. The wretched dwellings of the poor are scattered haphazard around them.... Some of [the] roads are paved, but most of them are full of ruts and puddles into which foot or carriage wheel sinks deep.... Heaps of dung, rubble from buildings, putrid, stagnant pools are found here and there amongst the houses and over the bumpy, pitted surfaces of the public places.... Amid this noisome labyrinth from time to time one is astonished at the sight of fine stone buildings with Corinthian columns.... But who could describe the interiors of those quarters set apart, home of vice and poverty, which surround the huge palaces of industry and clasp them in their hideous folds? On ground below the level of the river and overshadowed on every side by immense workshops, stretches marshy land which widely spaced muddy ditches can neither drain nor cleanse. Narrow twisting roads lead down to it. They are lined with one-storey houses whose ill-fitting planks and broken windows show them up, even from a distance, as the last refuge a man might find between poverty and death. Nonetheless the wretched people reduced to living in them can still inspire jealousy of their fellow beings. Below some of their miserable dwellings is a row of cellars to which a sunken corridor leads; twelve to fifteen human beings are crowded pell-mell into each of these damp, repulsive holes.”

Journeys to England and Ireland, Alexis De Tocqueville, translated by George Lawrence and K. P. Mayer, edited by J. P. Mayer, Yale University Press, 1958, pages 105-106.

Engels also visited Manchester and had much the same to say. “...the most horrible spot (if I should describe all the separate spots in detail I should never come to the end) lies on the Manchester side, immediately southwest of Oxford Road, and is known as Little Ireland. In a rather deep hole, in a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings, stand two groups of about two hundred cottages, built chiefly back to back, in which live about four thousand human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse, offal, and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these, and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory chimneys. A horde of ragged women and children swarm about here, as filthy as the swine that thrive upon the garbage heaps and in the puddles. In short, the whole rookery furnishes such a hateful and repulsive spectacle as can hardly be equalled in the worst court on the Irk. The race that lives in these ruinous cottages, behind broken windows, mended with oilskin, sprung doors, and rotten door-posts, or in dark, wet cellars, in measureless filth and stench, in this atmosphere penned in as if with a purpose, this race must really have reached the lowest stage of humanity. This is the impression and the line of thought which the exterior of this district forces upon the beholder. But what must one think when he hears that in each of these pens, containing at most two rooms, a garret and perhaps a cellar, on the average twenty human beings live; that in the whole region, for each one hundred and twenty persons, one usually inaccessible privy is provided; and that in spite of all the preachings of the physicians, in spite of the excitement into which the cholera epidemic plunged the sanitary police by reason of the condition of Little Ireland, in spite of everything, in this year of grace 1844, it is in almost the same state as in 1831!”

The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, Friedrich Engels, 1845, translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Reprint Edition, 1892, pages 59-60.

“Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow, / And bear their Trophies with them as they go: / Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell / What Streets they sail’d from, by the Sight and Smell. / They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force / From Smithfield, or St. Pulchre’s shape their Course, / And in huge Confluent join at Snow-Hill Ridge, / Fall from the Conduit prone to Holborn-Bridge. / Sweepings from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood, / Drown’d Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench’d in Mud, / Dead Cats and Turnips-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.”

Selected Poems, “A Description of a City Shower,” Jonathan Swift, edited by C. H. Sisson, Carcanet, 1977.

Depending on what Londoners could afford, most daily drank wine or beer or ale, or any alcoholic drink they could afford, not so much to get tipsy but because water was unsafe. They didn’t know about germs, but they did know about smell and sediment. Beer was also a source of nutrition in a hungry world. Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Richard W. Unger, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Water was something only the poorest drank, but then that was nearly everyone. The poor also drank tea, even though it was outrageously expensive for them, because they needed the stimulant. Their food was monotonous and insipid. (Possibly, too, boiling water to make it may have had unintended health benefits.) After the enclosures began, they also rarely got milk. It might be interesting to read one of today’s Regency romance novels with such details of daily life included.

London had to wait until 1891 before its number of houses with constant supply surpassed its number without. Even then, it still had outages until the turn of the century. “Liquid Politics: Needs, Rights, Waste and the Formation of the Consumer in Nineteenth-Century Water Politics in England,” V. Taylor, F. Trentmann, in: Knowing Consumers: Actors, Images, Identities in Modern History, Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung, Bielefeld, February 2004.

Paris, Brussels, Cologne—no city in Europe was any better off. The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age, Jean-Pierre Goubert, 1986, translated by Andre Wilson, Princeton University Press, 1989, page 42.

The cheap and plentiful drinking water supply that our rich take for granted today became widespread in the industrial world only after 1900. And still London’s water wasn’t always clean. That had to wait until 1921. Londoners back then, just as village Egyptians in the 1990s, feared chlorine in their water. It tasted of ‘chemicals.’ Obviously it was a government plot. That political battle alone took 24 years to resolve. Meanwhile, their children died and died. “Water and the Search for Public Health in London in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” A. Hardy, Medical History, 28(3):250-282, 1984. Studies in Water Supply, A. C. Houston, Macmillan, 1913, page 64.

Clean, cheap, and plentiful bathing, washing, and flushing water had to wait even longer. It only become widespread in London and the rest of today’s rich world around 1950. The world that our rich countries know today is a recent invention. London’s Water Wars: The Competition for London’s Water Supply in the Nineteenth Century, John Graham-Leigh, Francis Boutle Publishers, 2000.

“If a foreign army had landed on the coast of England, seized all the sea-ports, sent detachments over the surrounding districts, ravaged the population through summer, after harvest destroyed more than a thousand lives a day for several days in succession, and, in the year it held possession of the country, slain fifty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-three men, women, and children, the task of registering the dead would be inexpressibly painful; and the pain is not greatly diminished by the circumstance that in the calamity to be described the minister of destruction was a Pestilence that spread over the face of the island, and found in so many cities quick poisonous matters ready at hand to destroy the inhabitants.” That quote is from William Farr’s 1852 “Report on the mortality of cholera in England in 1848-49.” It is cited in the editorial by Thomas Wakley in: The Lancet, II(17):393, 1853.

Note that that while today’s stories laud John Snow and rarely mention William Farr, the situation was reversed in the 1850s.

“The contrast of Farr’s and Snow’s approaches to the study of cholera highlights the importance of disease theory in epidemiological investigations. The studies of both men were predicated on their understanding of the nature and causation of disease, and their methodology reflected those theoretical differences. Snow was exclusive or reductionist in theory, and he focused his empirical investigation on finding collaborating evidence and ignored negative evidence or anomalous cases. For him epidemiology was a means of verification; for Farr it was also a means of discovery. Farr was eclectic and inclusive in his theory, and he approached his cholera studies by trying to weigh a large list of social, environmental, and biological factors in accounting for cholera’s behaviour. These qualities of mind made Farr responsive to new ideas and adaptable, as we can see in both the changing emphasis and the conclusions in his investigations of three cholera epidemics. A recent biographer of Snow briefly compares Snow and Farr and praises Snow for his openmindedness. By implication Farr was closed-minded. On the cholera question I would conclude just the opposite. Judged by the standards of his time Snow was the dogmatic contagionist and premature reductionist. Farr was the more cautious in weighing all evidence....

Today it is [Farr’s] results and not Snow’s that are considered merely ingenious, and Snow’s publications are read perhaps more sympathetically than they deserve, because the modern medical reader can ‘fill in the gaps in his reasoning with the comforting knowledge that Snow was, after all, right.’ ”

From: “The changing assessments of John Snow’s and William Farr’s cholera studies,” J. M. Eyler, Sozial- und Präventivmedizin, 46(4):225-232, 2001.

A similar argument could be made of Pettenkofer versus Koch later on. Opinion changes with time.

The Fleet river, which starts in the Hampstead hills and empties into the Thames just above London Bridge, and from which Fleet Street is named, was in Roman times a brook just outside London. As early as the 1300s it started becoming an open sewer when tanneries, catgut makers, and dyers started dumping offal into it. Eventually it became a general city sewer, by which time it had been renamed the Fleet Ditch. As London’s population rose in the 1500s, the Fleet became less a river of water and more a stagnant pool of ordure. From 1732 to the 1870s it was slowly covered over. Its lower reaches are now buried under Farringdon Street, emptying into the Thames under Blackfriars Bridge. The Lost Rivers of London, Nicholas Barton, Grosvenor Press, 1962.

As usual, the story is far more complicated than any summary could possibly suggest. For example, even after the engineering was completed, London’s East End (which is poor) was left out. Cholera came back in 1866 and killed 5,596 there. However, that finally convinced most London doubters that cholera was water-borne. The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, Stephen Halliday, Sutton Publishing, 1999, page 124.

The story, as presented in the text, also leaves out many important secondary causes, like the invention and consequences of the water closet, the paving of the roads, the invention of Portland cement, iron pipes with high-pressure seals, and cheap, machine-made soap.

Similar politically based arguments continue today over many other of our problems. Typically, liberals want government to expand to be able to force everyone to do what they think are sensible things. Conservatives want government to contract so that public spending is as low as possible to ‘let the market sort it out.’ Both distort or ignore facts that don’t support their politics.

The most unpleasant aspect of Snow’s thesis—that the mass of cholera victims were swallowing other people’s fecal matter—made him appear to the Lancet to be like an offensive tradesman himself.”

Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow, Peter Vinten-Johansen, Howard Brody, Nigel Paneth, Stephen Rachman, and Michael Rip, Oxford University Press, 2003, pages 10-11.

In the United States, echoing the sentiment in an 1860 commencement address, Oliver Wendell Holmes, professor of anatomy at Harvard, remarked that, “[A medicine] always is directly hurtful; it may sometimes be indirectly beneficial. If this presumption were established, and disease always assumed to be the innocent victim of circumstances, and not punishable by medicines, that is, noxious agents, or poisons, until the contrary was shown, we should not so frequently hear the remark commonly, perhaps erroneously, attributed to Sir Astley Cooper, but often repeated by sensible persons, that, on the whole, more harm than good is done by medication. Throw out opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics which our art did not discover, and is hardly needed to apply; throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.” Medical Essays, 1842-1882, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899 Edition.

But they weren’t even the first. Klein and Bochfontein had already done it and lived (although they tried it via the alimentary canal). Further, of all the 75,000 or so people in Hamburg drinking the filthy water, only 18,000 or so (2.4 percent) contracted cholera. And of those, 8,605 died (or about 1.15 percent). However, the death after eight days from accidental cholera infection of an assistant at the Hygenic Institute of Hamburg (Dr. Oergel, while doing research) made the medical news (Deutsch. Med. Modern, 1894, No 41, page 795).

Even today, we still can’t always tell who will get sick before the fact. Three of us might swallow deadly microbes and none might die. One may be genetically predisposed to make lots of stomach acid. Another may habitually drink lots of wine or cranberry juice or something else acidic. Yet another may have been previously infected without even knowing it. In the depths of our ignorance, it’s hard to tell what will kill us because so many things can.

Pettenkofer was neither a madman nor a fool. In a sense he did science right: he found a way, however dangerous, to test his idea. Plus, his conclusions were right, too, after a fashion.

“Even if I erred and the experiment threatened my life, I would look Death calmly in the eye, for it would not have been a frivolous suicide; I would die in the service of science like a soldier on the field of honour. Health and life are indeed very high earthly goods, but not after all the highest for human beings. Man, who wants to stand in a higher position than the animal, must be willing to sacrifice even life and health for higher, ideal goods.”

See: “Max von Pettenkofer—Life Stations of a Genius on the 100th Anniversary of His Death (February 9, 1901),” W. G. Locher, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 203(5-6):379-391, 2001. See also: Leaps in the Dark: The Making of Scientific Reputations, John Waller, Oxford University Press, 2004, pages 63-82. Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine, Lawrence K. Altman, 1986, University of California Press, Reprint Edition, 1998, pages 324-325. Practical bacteriology, microbiology and serum therapy (medical and veterinary): A text book for laboratory use, Albert Besson, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1913, page 491. “The Spirillum of Asiatic Cholera,” New England Medical Monthly, 17(7):333-338, 1898. Cholera: How To Prevent and Resist It, Max von Pettenkofer, translated by Thomas Whiteside Hime, Baillière, Tindall, and Cox, 1875.

He surely had a deathwish. Nine years later, after losing his wife and three of his children, he shot himself.

Incidentally, Pettenkofer wasn’t the first scientist to risk his life in this way. In Mauritus in 1854, while trying to see if opium would cure cholera, doctor Brown-Séquard, drank the vomit of a cholera patient. “Some Aspects of the Life of Dr C E Brown-Séquard,” Proceedings ofthe Royal Society of Medicine, 57(3):189-192, 1964.

“The latest news from Vienna is that Dr. Hasterlik and three other searchers after truth have been making experiments with the cholera bacillus, swallowing pure cultivations of that organism. It is reported that on December 19, 1892, Dr. Hasterlik took half a drop of a pure cholera culture, and on January 9,1893, a whole drop; a second experimenter taking three-fourths of a cubic centimetre. ‘Both remained in good health.’ A third person who, we are told, was subject to attacks of diarrhoea, took a whole cubic centimetre. In thirty-six hours his temperature rose, and diarrhoea set in, but on the fifth day the patient had recovered. A fourth experimenter, the acid of whose stomach had been corrected by the exhibition of a one per cent. solution of soda, took one and one-half cubic centimetre of the bacillus emulsion. Seven days later he was seized with an attack of diarrhoea. ‘All the four persons are now in perfect health, although in each case the existence of bacilli was established.’ This is all very interesting, but does not advance our knowledge of the question very much. Neither Koch nor anyone else contends that the ingestion of the cholera bacillus must necessarily produce an attack of cholera. Klein and Bochefontaine have both tried this method of cholera production already, in both cases with negative results; and these fresh ingestions give us no further information. As Hueppe has pointed out in his recent work on cholera, even when the horrible Hamburg water, with its filth and bacilli, was taken by the residents, by the most liberal calculation not more than three per cent. of the population contracted cholera. In these cases only were the conditions favorable to the production of the disease even when the bacillus was undoubtedly present. A number of others—probably a much larger percentage—suffered from an attack of diarrhoea; the rest remained entirely unaffected. We can gain no accurate information from such experiments made on people who must have a good deal of confidence in their alimentary tracts, unless a very large number can be induced to submit themselves to a prolonged series of ingestion experiments, whilst the alimentary canals of these patients are in various stages and conditions of disturbance. -British Medical Journal.”

From: “The Ordeal by Poison,” Physician and Surgeon, 15(4):185-186, 1893.

Danda opera ut potissimum sub radicibus montis silvestris villam ponat, ubi pastiones sint laxae, item ut contra ventos, qui saluberrimi in agro flabunt. Quae posita est ad exortos aequinoctiales, aptissima, quod aestate habet umbram, hieme solem. Sin cogare secundum flumen aedificare, curandum ne adversum eam ponas; hieme enim fiet vehementer frigida et aestate non salubris. Advertendum etiam, siqua erunt loca palustria, et propter easdem causas, et quod crescunt animalia quaedam minuta, quae non possunt oculi consequi, et per aera intus in corpus per os ac nares perveniunt atque efficiunt difficilis morbos. Fundanius, Quid potero, inquit, facere, si istius modi mi fundus hereditati obvenerit, quo minus pestilentia noceat? Istuc vel ego possum respondere, inquit Agrius; vendas, quot assibus possis, aut si nequeas, relinquas. At Scrofa, Vitandum, inquit, ne in eas partes spectet villa, e quibus ventus gravior afflare soleat, neve in convalli cava et ut potius in sublimi loco aedifices, qui quod perflatur, siquid est quod adversarium inferatur, facilius discutitur. Praeterea quod a sole toto die illustratur, salubrior est, quod et bestiolae, siquae prope nascuntur et inferuntur, aut efflantur aut aritudine cito pereunt. Nimbi repentini ac torrentes fluvii periculosi illis, qui in humilibus ac cavis locis aedificia habent, et repentinae praedonum manus quod improvisos facilius opprimere possunt, ab hac utraque re superiora loca tutiora.

[“Especial care should be taken, in locating the steading, to place it at the foot of a wooded hill, where there are broad pastures, and so as to be exposed to the most healthful winds that blow in the region. A steading facing the east has the best situation, as it has the shade in summer and the sun in winter. If you are forced to build on the bank of a river, be careful not to let the steading face the river, as it will be extremely cold in winter, and unwholesome in summer. Precautions must also be taken in the neighbourhood of swamps, both for the reasons given, and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.”

“What can I do,” asked Fundanius, “to prevent disease if I should inherit a farm of that kind?”

“Even I can answer that question,” replied Agrius; “sell it for the highest cash price; or if you can’t sell it, abandon it.”]

Scrofa, however, replied: “See that the steading does not face in the direction from which the infected wind usually comes, and do not build in a hollow, but rather on elevated ground, as a well-ventilated place is more easily cleared if anything obnoxious is brought in. Furthermore, being exposed to the sun during the whole day, it is more wholesome, as any animalculae which are bred near by and brought in are either blown away or quickly die from the lack of humidity. Sudden rains and swollen streams are dangerous to those who have their buildings in low-lying depressions, as are also the sudden raids of robber bands, who can more easily take advantage of those who are off their guard. Against both these dangers the more elevated situations are safer.”

De Re Rustica, (On Agriculture,) Marcus Terentius Varro, Book I, xii. in: Cato and Varro: On Agriculture, translated by W. D. Hooper and H. B. Ash, Loeb Classical Library No. 283, 1934, page 211.

Researches made upon bacteria of the intestine during the epidemic of 1873, did not give any new results. Hayem and Réynaud enumerated in the dejecta a dozen species of vibriones. These were the ‘spores’ which they met with in the rice water stools, but they did not commit themselves to a specific parasite.’

Up to 1883, however, nothing had been positively accomplished toward elucidating the problem as to the specific cause of cholera. In that year, cholera appeared in Egypt, and both France and Germany appointed commissions to investigate the cause of the disease. The German commission consisted of Dr. Robert Koch, Dr. George Gaffky and Dr. Fischer. After working upon the problem for some time in Egypt, the German commission proceeded to India, and here, as well as in Egypt, Dr. Koch demonstrated in the intestinal discharges, and in the intestinal mucosa, the presence of a peculiar curved micro-organism, really a spirillum, but more commonly known as the comma bacillus. This organism, Koch in a paper read at the Cholera Conference in Berlin, in 1884, announced as the cause of cholera, and, while there have been dissenters to his views, notably Klein, it is now admitted by every authority that this peculiar organism occurs in the intestines and dejecta of cholera patients only, and in no other disease in man or animals. Koch found this organism only in the intestines and dejecta of cholera patients, and never in the blood or viscera. The more acute the attack the greater the number of comma bacilli. The mucous membrane of the intestine is invaded in many instances by the spirilli, as well as the glands situated in the intestine, and the disease is caused by the irritating action of the organisms upon the intestinal mucous membrane and the absorption of toxic products evolved during the growth and multiplication of the spirilli.”

“The Spirillum of Asiatic Cholera,” New England Medical Monthly, 17(7):333-338, 1898.

In 1854 cholera came to Florence. Filippo Pacini, an anatomist at the University of Florence and a part-time microscope maker, identified the comma-shaped Vibrio cholerae microbe in its victims’ intestines. He wrote a paper about it. It was ignored. From 1865 to 1880 he wrote a dozen papers on cholera. He described it as a loss of fluid and electrolytes (which it is). He also rejected bleeding the patient. Instead, he suggested an injection of salted water. He also warned that the way the illness worked, some patients were probably being buried alive. All of that might have saved lives—except that no one paid the slightest attention. Italian miasma-believers couldn’t hear him. (Others didn’t even hear of him in the first place because he wrote in Italian, publishing only in Italian journals.) To them, the animalcules he reported, if they existed at all, were mere byproducts of the illness. They weren’t its cause. Besides, the Greeks, starting with Hippocrates, hadn’t said anything about animalcules. It didn’t occur to anyone to note that the Greeks hadn’t had microscopes. Anyway, Pacini was only the son of a cobbler. What could he know? He didn’t come from the right class for us to pay any attention to what he said. “Filippo Pacini: a determined observer,” M. Bentivoglio, P. Pacini, Brain Research Bulletin, 38(2):161-165, 1995. Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884-1911, Frank M. Snowden, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pages 120-121.

Other doctors also came to conclusions about cholera that were ignored at the time but that today seem prescient, among them Budd, Mitchell, Pouchet, Davaine, and Nedswetzky. They’re all but forgotten today. Africa in the Time of Cholera: A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present, Myron Echenberg, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 32-33. “The Etiology of Cholera,” E. C. Wendt, in: A Treatise on Asiatic Cholera, Edmund Charles Wendt, John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg (editors), William Wood and Company, pages 119-218.

In 1880, William H. Mays gave the following statement of faith at the San Francisco Medical Society. “I hold that every contagious disease is caused by the introduction into the system of a living organism or microzyme, capable of reproducing its kind and minute beyond all reach of sense. I hold that as all life on our planet is the result of antecedent life, so is all specific disease the result of antecedent specific disease. I hold that as no germ can originate de novo neither can a scarlet fever come into existence spontaneously. I hold that as an oak comes from an oak, a grape from a grape, so does a typhoid fever come from a typhoid germ, a diphtheria from a diphtheria germ; and that a scarlatina could no more proceed from a typhoid germ than could a sea-gull from a pigeon’s egg.” The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life, Nancy Tomes, Harvard University Press, 1998, pages 26-27. That wasn’t a statement of belief shared by all doctors. It was a statement of several radical ideas for the time. That he had to state all that shows just how much the germ theory relied on faith in the 1880s. Once we invest in some particular belief network, any new theory of the world becomes a threat.

We would also have to reject the model that postulated the spontaneous generation of life, but that had held sway since at least Aristotle. Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation, James E. Strick, Harvard University Press, 2000. For some of the most seminal, and rare, papers, see: Evolution and the Spontaneous Generation Debate, James Strick (editor), six Volumes, Thoemmes Press, 2001. But first get ready to bench-press a quarter-century of argument, in-fighting, backbiting, personal attacks, and sheer lying. For a smaller, but older, book, see: The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin, John Farley, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

We would also have to first disentangle a multitude of diseases. To Georgian and early Victorian medics, an upset stomach, food poisoning, diarrhea, and dysentery, were all one disease. They were all ‘cholera.’ All were just milder forms of the latest virulent form, which they thus called ‘Asiatic cholera.’ To them, too, typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and typhus were the same disease. So they divided all fevers into just four types: typhus, intermittent, simple continued, and remittent. ‘Intermittent’ was really malaria—but they didn’t know that. The rest were many kinds of infections all jumbled together, including malaria, typhoid, relapsing fever, and dysentery. Nineteenth-century medicine was just as confused as seventeenth-century chemistry, or sixteenth-century physics. “Walcheren 1809: a Medical Catastrophe,” M. R. Howard, British Medical Journal, 319(7225):1642-1645, 1999.

Finally, we would have to disentangle multiple effects, like weather, trading patterns, the effects, if any, of quarantine, and so on, to determine the true etiology of the disease. Of course, that was true of any other disease, too; it was merely that cholera was new. “Cholera, Quarantine and the English Preventive System, 1850-1895,” A. Hardy, Medical History, 37(3):250-269, 1993.

Toward the close of the century, Pettenkofer was pushing his ‘contagio-miasmatic’ theory, Virchow his ‘cell theory,’ Pasteur his ‘fermentation theory,’ and Koch his ‘infection theory.’ And there were others, too, including those like the ‘zymotic theory,’ which suported spontaneous generation of contagious life—and not without reason. There were many political battles (sometimes hidden, most times not) over all those issues. Over time, the Koch school ‘won.’ But, over even more time, it merged with the other three schools, because, really, disease is a very complicated thing.

Incidentally, the culture Pettenkofer, then Emmerich, drank was provided to him by George Gaffky and was low virulence (Gaffky guessed what Pettenkofer was up to). There were no evil geniuses behind the scenes, no intransigent idiots, no faceless power brokers, no heartless conspiracies. Everyone was trying to solve the same problem—how to ameliorate disease. They all did the best they could given what they knew at the time, plus of course their political leanings and professional affiliations. And meanwhile, doctors, and their patients, were caught in the middle. As an example of the in-fighting, Robert Virchow basically stole his ‘cell theory’ from Robert Remak. But his is the name most remembered today. Key Discoveries in Life Science, Christine Zuchora-Walske, Lerner Publishing, 2015, pages 12-13. The Birth of the Cell, Henry Harris, Yale University Press, 2000, page 133. “Forgotten Leaders in Modern Medicine, Valentin, Gouby, Remak, Auerbach,” B. Kisch, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 44:139-317, 1954.

“Re: Epidemiologic interactions, complexity, and the lonesome death of Max von Pettenkofer,” M. Wildner, A. Hofman, American Journal of Epidemiology, 168(1):119-120; author reply 120-121, 2008. “Invited commentary: The context and challenge of von Pettenkofer’s contributions to epidemiology,” G. M. Oppenheimer, E. Susser, American Journal of Epidemiology, 166(11):1239-1241; discussion 1242-1243, 2007. “Epidemiologic interactions, complexity, and the lonesome death of Max von Pettenkofer,” A. Morabia, American Journal of Epidemiology, 166(11):1233-1238, 2007. Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow, Peter Vinten-Johansen, Howard Brody, Nigel Paneth, Stephen Rachman, and Michael Rip, Oxford University Press, 2003, pages 165-167, plus the rest of Chapter 7. “The Causes of Infectious Disease,” F. Hueppe, The Monist, 8(3):384-414, 1898.

Whoever has even only partly studied the way in which cholera spreads must realize that the disease is not contagious, in the sense of the ordinary contagious diseases, as smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and typhus. These diseases are transferred from person to person, and in order to acquire them it is necessary to come directly or indirectly in contact with a patient. As a consequence, epidemics of these diseases are independent of season, weather, and temperature. Cholera, on the contrary, is so strikingly dependent on these external conditions that a connection between them and the spread of the disease cannot be doubted.

Contact with cholera patients is but slightly dangerous. Physicians and nurses are scarcely more frequently attacked than other people. On the other hand, numbers acquire the disease who never came in contact with, or even saw, a cholera patient. Inoculation with the blood, secretions, and excretions of cholera cases has proved negative. Even swallowing of the vomit, as was done by certain physicians during the first European epidemic, gave no results. Such experiments as these during the first epidemic caused most medical men who had had much to do with cholera to declare in favor of its non-contagiousness.

Recent experiments have enriched this question with new facts, but they have not brought it any nearer to a settlement. It has been proved that the swallowing of pure cultures of cholera bacilli is in many cases harmless. Yet this is not wonderful when we reflect that ordinary cholera micro-organisms are quickly killed by acids, and that, consequently, an individual with normal gastric juice might with impunity try such an experiment. In animals also we have found that the introduction of cholera dejecta or of pure cultures of the bacilli by way of the stomach produces, as a rule, no morbid effect; yet if, avoiding the stomach, the organisms are injected directly into the duodenum, a serious disease is brought about (Nicati and Rietsch, R. Koch, van Ermengem, and others). Somewhat similarly in human beings, if the gastric juice is neutralized, the same result follows. This was shown in the cases of von Pettenkofer and Emmerich (1892), who swallowed large quantities of a pure culture in bicarbonate of sodium, with the consequence that symptoms corresponding to a light cholera attack were produced, and comma bacilli in large numbers appeared in the stools. Similar results were found by other investigators (Metschnikoff, Hasterlik). This makes it very likely that the introduction of the bacilli into the stomach of a person whose gastric juice is continuously, or at least temporarily, deficient in hydrochloric acid will produce the disease. As a matter of fact, several cases are recorded of physicians acquiring the disease by careless handling of the organisms in bacteriologic laboratories. From this it is to be inferred perhaps that food or drink contaminated with dejecta of cholera patients might, under particular circumstances, be dangerous, though this mode of transference must be rare, because such uncleanliness is uncommon even among the lowest classes.

It is also remarkable that in the numerous cases in which bacilli were introduced experimentally, or in which an accidental infection took place in a laboratory, the disease was so mild as to make it often doubtful whether it was true cholera or not. So far there has been only one death reported from such an infection (Reincke). The reason for this is considered to be the lessened virulence of the bacilli.

Therefore we can conclude that, even though cholera may be transferred directly from person to person, this is by no means the ordinary manner by which an epidemic spreads. And, furthermore, if an accidental case should occur from carelessness in handling the bacilli or the evacuations, this is not sufficient to bring about an epidemic.”

Variola, Vaccination, Varicella, Cholera, Erysipelas, Whooping Cough, Hay Fever, H. Immermann, Th. Von Jüurgensen, C. Liebermeister, H. Lenhartz, G. Sticker, translated by Alfred Stengel, edited by John W. Moore, W. B. Saunders, 1908, pages 316-318.

“According to Georg Sticker, whose monograph on cholera of almost 600 pages, published in 1912, was treated as a standard work until comparatively recently, notably by Pollitzer, the ‘ruling excremental-contact-drinking-water hypothesis’ had always proved on exact investigation to be inadequate and erroneous. It was based on ‘suspicions and speculations’, not on real facts and well founded proofs. Epidemiology, he maintained, had shown the fallacies generated by ‘dogmatic, mystical, bacteriology’, and he accorded special credit to Wolter for having demonstrated with ‘such an impressive plenitude of observations’ how hollow were the pretensions of the contagionist.

Nevertheless, although Pettenkofer’s ‘localist’ doctrines were far from dead, no echo of them was heard in the discussions of the twelfth International Sanitary Conference, which opened on 7 November 1911 and closed on 17 January 1912, and at which 41 countries were represented, including China and Siam and 16 countries from the Americas.”

The scientific background of the International Sanitary Conferences 1851-1938, Norman Howard-Jones, United Nations World Health Organization, 1975, page 89.

Even after broad agreement was reached, politics and poverty still intervened (as it still can today). “So severe were the economic and political consequences of cholera in 1910 that in the following year Luzzatti’s successor, Giovanni Giolitti, opted for a policy of total concealment. Chapter 6 attempts, first, to establish that a major epidemic did in fact occur, and then to explain the success of the state in keeping it secret. [...] [T]he disease we aren’t allowed to mention.” Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884-1911, Frank M. Snowden, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pages 6 and 358. (see page 446 for the reference to the deputy, Pasqualino-Vassallo, who coined the phrase on March 8th, 1912.)

1. “Cultural transmission mechanisms speed up learning by skipping costly individual experimentation, sampling, and data processing.
2. Cultural-evolutionary products limit choice sets....
3. Cultural-evolutionary products limit choices in explicit decision making by providing simple mental models, built upon our most basic cognitive abilities....
4. Social decision mechanisms solve adaptive problems that individuals could not by distributing memory, computations, and skills among individuals. ”

For more on conformity, obedience, biased thinking, and bounded rationality, see also: Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2010. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Stanley Milgram, HarperCollins, 2009. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Philip G. Zimbardo, Random House, 2008. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Random House, 2007. Expert Political Opinion: How Good is it? How Can we Know?, Philip E. Tetlock, Princeton University Press, 2005. The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram, Thomas Blass, Basic Books, 2004. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini, William Morrow and Company Inc., 1993. How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, Thomas Gilovich, Free Press, 1991. A Study of Thinking, Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and George A. Austin, Transaction Publishers, 1986. Reason in Human Affairs, Herbert A. Simon, Stanford University Press, 1983. The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation, Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood, and Carolyn W. Sherif, Wesleyan University Press, 1988. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (editors), Cambridge University Press, 1982. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” A. Tversky, D. Kahneman, Science, New Series, 211(4481):453-458, 1981.

Lyell cites Aristotle’s Meteorologica, Book II, as follows: “ ‘The changes of the earth,’ he says, ‘are so slow in comparison to the duration of our lives, that they are overlooked (λανθανει); and the migrations of people after great catastrophes and their removal to other regions, cause the event to be forgotten.’ ” Principles of Geology: Or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and Its Inhabitants Considered As Illustrative Of Geology, Volume I, Charles Lyell, Hilliard, Gray & Co., Sixth Edition, 1842, page 22.

Also, the idea that everything that could exist must exist (plenitude) is more Plato’s thought than Aristotle’s, but Aristotle embellished it with the idea of a continuum of existence, which then led to his scale of nature (scala natura). History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet, Basic Books, 1980, pages 90-92.

Thus, about 20Mya a volcano erupted in the Aegean, blanketing ash over 37,000 acres of forest on what is today the island of Lesvos (or Lesbos). Over succeeding millennia, the stumps and fallen trunks, along with their barks and root systems, and even some fruits and leaves, turned to stone. Then, about 2,300 years ago, Aristotle spent two years on that island. Tradition says that he loved to walk, so he might well have walked through the half-buried ruins of the stone forest hundreds of times. Yet, if he took note of it at all, he probably never saw it as anything other than a field of strange-looking stones. He may even have sat on one of those stones while explaining to himself why they couldn’t be what they looked like they were.

Aristotle knew about stones that looked like living things, but he mostly couldn’t see them the way that many of us today do. If he thought about them at all, here’s how he may have reasoned: First off, he assumed that the cosmos had always existed, and would always exist, unchanged. He couldn’t bear the thought that it had a beginning, or that it would someday end. (He said that was for logical reasons having to do with reasoning about time, but he also thought that it was impious to think of a perfect cosmos as mortal.) He also assumed that between any two species was another one that shared aspects of both. So everything that could exist, did exist. He further assumed that all species had been designed to some purpose, with their purposes built in. He saw intricate, well-adapted life-forms all around him; they couldn’t be a result of mere chance. He also assumed that all those designs were perfect. So they couldn’t ever change. If they did, that would mean that they weren’t already perfect. And they were, so they couldn’t.

With all those assumptions in hand, if he came across a crab on the beach, then that species of crab must have always existed. The specific crab that he picked up would one day die, but its species never could. So if he ever saw a stone that looked like it might once have been part of a living thing, but that also didn’t look like it came from anything still living, then it couldn’t have ever been alive. Had it been, then members of its species would still be around in his time. So, for him, it must have been formed inside the earth, perhaps somewhat like a crystal.

“This argument over a single word — ‘scientists’ — gave a clue to the much larger debate that was steadily surfacing in Britain at this crucial period of transition 1830-34. Lurking beneath the semantics lay the whole question of whether the new generation of professional ‘scientists’ would promote safe religious belief or a dangerous secular materialism. Hitherto, either austere intellectual Deism, held for example by William Herschel, or else the rather more picturesque Natural Theology conveniently accepted by Davy (at least in his public lectures) had disguised this problem, whatever the revelations of astronomy or geology, or the inspired ragings of Shelley.

For many Romantic scientists, with a robust intellectual belief in the ‘argument by Design’, there was no immediate contradiction between religion and science: rather the opposite. Science was a gift of God or Providence to mankind, and its purpose was to reveal the wonders of His design. This indeed was the essence of ‘natural’ religion, as promoted for example by William Paley in his Natural Theology (1802), with its famous analogy with the divine watchmaker. It was the faith that brought Mungo Park back alive from his first Niger expedition. It was the faith that inspired Michael Faraday to become a Deacon in the Sandemanian Church in July 1832.

But public faith often differed from private beliefs. Whatever he said in his famous lectures, Davy’s poetry and his posthumous writings, such as Consolations in Travel, suggested a kind of science mysticism that certainly precluded a Christian God, and possibly even any kind of Creator at all. Others, like William Herschel, had been content to rely on an instinctive, perhaps deliberately unexamined, belief in a benign Creator somewhere distantly behind the great unfolding scheme of nature. Though in Herschel’s case, his own observations had shown how extremely — appallingly — distant, both in time and space, that Creator must be. Moreover, his sister Caroline never once mentioned God anywhere in her journals. As for Joseph Banks, his sister Sophia had had no high opinion of his natural piety.

Yet with the growing public knowledge of geology and astronomy, and the recognition of ‘deep space’ and ‘deep time’, fewer and fewer men or women of education can have believed in a literal, Biblical six days of creation. However, science itself had yet to produce its own theory (or myth) of creation, and there was no alternative Newtonian Book of Genesis — as yet. That is why Darwin’s On the Origin of Species appeared so devastating when it was finally published in 1859. It was not that it reduced the six days of Biblical creation to myth: this had already been largely done by Lyell and the geologists. What it demonstrated was that there was no need for a divine creation at all. There was no divine creation of species, no miraculous invention of butterflies’ wings or cats’ eyes or birds’ song. The process of evolution by ‘natural selection’ replaced any need for ‘intelligent design’ in nature. Darwin had indeed written a new Book of Genesis.”

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes, Random House, 2008, pages 450-451.

However there was growing excitement about it all over Europe. For instance, on April 25th, 1801, Humphry Davy gave a famous demonstration at the Royal Institution in London on ‘Galvinism’ (then others over the years, including other famous ones in 1802, 1806, 1808, and 1810, where he created arc lights) that wowed the crowds and led to much talk. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes, Random House, 2008, pages 285-299.

See also: The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion, Michael Mosley and John Lynch, Mitchell Beazley International, 2010.

See also: Controversy: Catastrophism and Evolution: The Ongoing Debate, Trevor Palmer, Springer, 1999.

“To [Thomas] Jefferson and many of his contemporaries, the very idea of species extinction seemed anathema. Intellectuals of his day recognized that settlement often resulted in the local extermination of wildlife. But the complete disappearance of a species was another matter altogether. The loss of any organism across its entire range implied an unacceptable imperfection in God’s creation, while violating deep-seated assumptions about the balance of nature and the great chain of being that proved central to Western understandings of how that creation was ordered. In the hope that living examples of these beasts might still be found wandering somewhere in the unexplored regions of North America, Jefferson urged the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to keep a sharp look-out out for species animals ‘deemed to be rare or extinct,’ like the American incognitum, during their famous western exploring expedition. The Corps of Discovery found a host of new plant and animal species during their arduous two-year journey, but they encountered no lumbering elephants.

While Jefferson’s doubts about the possibility of extinction remained commonplace at the time he penned Notes on the State of Virginia, [1784] by the time of his death in 1826, most naturalists on both sides of the Atlantic had experienced a sea change in their ideas on the subject. Central to this transformation was the work of the brash young French naturalist, Georges Cuvier. With access to specimens provided by a transatlantic fossil network and training from prominent German anatomists, Cuvier deployed the principles of comparative anatomy to offer convincing evidence that extinction had been a regular part of the earth’s history. Cuvier was the first naturalist to clearly distinguished between the two living species of elephant and two kinds of extinct fossil elephant, the mammoth and the mastodon, the latter of which he clearly differentiated and named in 1806. During the first several decades of the nineteenth century, he went on to describe a virtual zoo of lost creatures, thereby laying the foundations for modern paleontology. Within a surprisingly short period of time, the reality of extinction became central to most educated Westerners’ understanding of the earth’s history. Later in life, even Jefferson himself privately admitted that some species might have been lost. Yet, as we shall see later, some of the ideas that had led him and most other naturalists to deny the reality of extinction—for example, the notion of plentitude that proved central to the great chain of being and the idea that nature was finely balanced—remained important to thinking about the natural world long after the possibility of extinction became widely accepted.” Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology, Mark V. Barrow, Jr., University of Chicago Press, 2009, pages 18-19.

See also: Chronologers’ Quest: Episodes in the Search for the Age of the Earth, Patrick Wyse Jackson, Cambridge University Press, 2006. “Father Athanasius on the Isthmus of a Middle State: Understanding Kircher’s Paleontology,” S. J. Gould, in: Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Paula Findlen (editor), Taylor & Francis, 2004, pages 198-228. The Forgotten Genius: The Biography of Robert Hooke 1635-1703, Stephen Inwood, MacAdam Cage, 2003. Originally published as The Man Who Knew Too Much, Macmillan, 2002.

For example, in Britain until the nineteenth century, “[s]ome of the clergy denounced inoculation, till late in the eighteenth century, as flying in the face of Providence and endeavouring to baffle a Divine judgment.” A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Volume II, William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1878, page 83. (They also denounced, among many other things, “the use of ‘fanners’ to winnow maize as impious, because by them men raised an artificial breeze in defiance of Him ‘who maketh the wind to blow as He listeth.’ ”)

Similarly, despite all the evidence for the value of vaccination, agitation against it continued even as late as 2005. For example: “The most common characteristic of vaccine-critical websites was the inclusion of statements linking vaccinations with specific adverse reactions, especially idiopathic chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, autism, and diabetes. Other common attributes (≥ 70% of websites) were links to other vaccine-critical websites; charges that vaccines contain contaminants, mercury, or “hot lots” that cause adverse events; claims that vaccines provide only temporary protection and that the diseases prevented are mild; appeals for responsible parenting through education and resisting the establishment; allegations of conspiracies and cover-ups to hide the truth about vaccine safety; and charges that civil liberties are violated through mandatory vaccination.” From: “Vaccine Criticism on the World Wide Web,” R. K. Zimmerman, R. M. Wolfe, D. E. Fox, J. R. Fox, M. P. Nowalk, J. A. Troy, L. K. Sharp Journal of Medical Internet Research, 7(2):e17, 2005.

See also: Bodily Matters: The Anti-vaccination Movement in England, 1853-1907, Nadja Durbach, Duke University Press, 2005. “Anti-vaccinationists past and present,” R. M. Wolfe, L. K. Sharp, British Medical Journal, 325(7361):430-432, 2002. Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History, Donald R. Hopkins, University of Chicago Press, 1983.

For instance, by the 1870s, decades upon decades of work had at last convinced scientists in Europe that we all swam in an ocean of microbes. But that only added to our confusion, and revitalized age-old theories. To many of us, it meant that microbes must spawn spontaneously—for how else could so many different kinds of them have come to exist? Plus, how could some of them survive even in boiling water? We didn’t know what we didn’t know. (In this case, that the earth was billions of years old, which was enough time for lots of different kinds of microbes to evolve, and that some of those microbes made spores that could survive even high heat.)

“These experiments, and others no less interesting, by Prof. Tyndall, thus prove, in the most conclusive manner, that the ordinary air at the surface of the earth is always completely filled with particles of organic matter. It is not necessary to suppose that all these particles are living germs of vegetable or animal organisms, but when we see how constantly such organisms make their appearance wherever the conditions favor germination, it is impossible to doubt that a vast many of them have this character; and that these are the source of those growths of minute cryptogams which thus seem to spring up spontaneously. There is no other mode of accounting for such growths, except to suppose that they are actually spontaneous; and accordingly the view has been taken by some physiologists, perhaps I should say by many, that the true mode of accounting for the appearance of microscopic forms of life, is to suppose that they originate without organic antecedents, or, as they express it, de novo....

Prof. Wyman found that bacteria will make their appearance in infusions which have not only been boiled before being sealed up, but which, after being sealed, have been kept at a boiling heat for many hours. He found, moreover, that these same organizations perish when exposed to a heat not over 134^o Fahrenheit. Bastian, in a very extended series of experiments, has pushed the heat in the tubes containing his infusions as high as 300^o Fahrenheit, maintaining this high temperature, in some instances, not less than four hours; and has yet found that living forms do not fail subsequently to make their appearance in them. Such forms appear also, according to him, in solutions containing nothing of organic origin whatever, but composed entirely of certain salts of soda and ammonia; and he even affirms that in such solutions he has occasionally seen very remarkably fungi to present themselves with their full fructification, drawings of which he has given in his [1872] work, recently published, entitled The Beginnings of Life.”

“The germ theory of disease,” F. A. P. Barnard, The American Chemist, 5(1):15-23, 1874.

See also: Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation, James E. Strick, Harvard University Press, 2000, Chapter 5.

The Bible, The King James Version, Corinthians 13:11-12.

It’s actually part of Anslem’s longer reply: Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. [“I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, rather I believe in order to understand.”]

Face to Face: Volume Three: Sharing God’s Life, Marty Folsom, Wipf and Stock, 2016, page 61, footnote.

There are, of course, similar Latin phrases: Vide et credere [“See and believe”], and videre est credere [“To see is to believe”], or more colloquially, “seeing is believing.”

“...The most important of these reasons arises from the necessity that always exists for some theory to which to refer our facts, combined with the clear impossibility that, at the outset of human knowledge, men could have formed theories out of the observation of facts. All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.” The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, translated by Harriet Martineau, Volume I, D. Appleton and Co., 1853, pages 3-4.

That is hardly new even with Comte. In 1620 Francis Bacon illustrated the thought with an even older story first posed by Cicero, who was writing over two millennia ago about Diagoras of Melos, who was nearly four centuries older still. In Samothrace a friend told Diagoras that the gods must surely care about us because the many paintings they could see as offerings by those who survived storms at sea served as clear evidence that they do. Diagoras said yes, but where are the offerings of those who perished at sea? We suffer from “confirmation bias;” we tend to prefer to believe anything that confirms our prior beliefs, while mostly ignoring anything that doesn’t. “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises,” R. S. Nickerson, Review of General Psychology, 2(2):175-220, 1998. “Effects of Evidence on Attitudes: Is Polarization the Norm?” D. Kuhn, J. Lao, Psychological Science, 7(2):115-20, 1996. De Natura Deorum, Academica, (On the Nature of the Gods. Academics.), Cicero, translated by H. Rackham, (Loeb Classical Library No. 268) Harvard University Press, 1933, (Book III, 37), page 375.

Here’s Bacon: “Intellectus humanus in iis quæ semel placuerunt (aut quia recepta sunt et credita, aut quia delectant), alia etiam omnia trahit ad suffragationem et consensum cum illis: et licet major sit instantiarum vis et copia, quæ occurrunt in contrarium; tamen eas aut non observat, aut contemnit, aut distinguendo summovet et rejicit, non sine magno et pernicioso præjudicio, quo prioribus illis syllepsibus authoritas maneat inviolata. Itaque recte respondit ille, qui, cum suspensa tabula in templo ei monstraretur eorum qui vota solverant, quod naufragii periculo elapsi sint, atque interrogando premeretur, anne tum quidem Deorum numen agnosceret, quæsivit denuo, At ubi sunt illi depicti qui post vota nuncupata perierint? Eadem ratio est fere omnis superstitionis, ut in astrologicis, in somniis, ominibus, nemesibus, et hujusmodi; in quibus homines delectati hujusmodi vanitatibus advertunt eventus, ubi emplentur; ast ubi fallunt, licet multo frequentius, tamen negligunt et prætereunt. At longe subtilius serpit hoc malum in philosophiis et scientiis; in quibus quod semel placuit, reliqua (licet multo firmiora et potiora) inficit, et in ordinem redigit. Quinetiam licet abfuerit ea, quam diximus, delectatio et vanitas, is tamen humano intellectui error est proprius et perpetuus, ut magis moveatur et excitetur affirmativis, quam negativis; cum rite et ordine æquum se utrique præbere debeat; quin contra, in omni axiomate vero constituendo, major est vis instantiæ negativæ.” Summi Angliæ Cancellarii, Instauratio magna, Francisci de Verulamio, Apud [Bonham Norton and] Joannem Billium typographum regium, Anno 1620. Lib. I, Aphorismus XLVI, pages 60-61.

[The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, — ‘Aye,’ asked he again, ‘but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?’ And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences; in which the first conclusion colours and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two.] The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume IV, Translations of the philosophical works, Vol. I, Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, Longman & Co., 1858, page 56.

“Humans cooperate on an unprecedented scale among primates. To do so, they rely on equally unprecedented communication skills. Successful communication, however, raises an evolutionary challenge. For communication to be stable, senders must not be able to abuse receivers to the point at which communication stops being beneficial. In humans, receivers defend themselves against harmful communication by filtering messages. They are more likely to accept messages that fit with their prior beliefs, and messages sent by people they trust. Argumentation enables the transmission of messages when trust isn’t sufficient, thereby enlarging the scope of what can be successfully communicated.” From: “Confirmation bias — myside bias,” H. Mercier, in Cognitive Illusions: Intriguing Phenomena in Judgement, Thinking and Memory, Rüdiger F. Pohl (editor), Second Edition, Psychology Press, 2016, pages 99-114.

“Research on judgment and choice has been dominated by functionalist assumptions that depict people as either intuitive scientists animated by epistemic goals or intuitive economists animated by utilitarian ones. This article identifies 3 alternative social functionalist starting points for inquiry: people as pragmatic politicians trying to cope with accountability demands from key constituencies in their lives, principled theologians trying to protect sacred values from secular encroachments, and prudent prosecutors trying to enforce social norms. Each functionalist framework stimulates middle-range theories that specify (a) cognitive-affective-behavioral strategies of coping with adaptive challenges and (b) the implications of these coping strategies for identifying empirical and normative boundary conditions on judgmental tendencies classified as errors or biases within the dominant research programs.” From: “Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors,” P. E. Tetlock, Psychological Review, 109(3):451-472, 2002.

“Vita brevis, sensus ebes [hebes], negligentiae torpor et inutiles occupationes nos paucula scire permittunt. Et aliquotiens scita excutit ab animo per temporum lapsum fraudratrix [fraudatrix] scientiae et inimica memoriae praeceps oblivio.” Nicolas Copernicus, sometime between 1539 and 1543. Nicolaus Coppernicus, Volume II: 1512-1543, Leopold Prowe, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1883, page 411. (Note: The Latin is mistranscribed; corrections included above.) “The brevity of life, the failing of the senses, the numbness of indifference and unprofitable occupations allow us to know very little. And again and again swift oblivion, the thief of knowledge and the enemy of memory, makes a void of the mind, in the course of time, even what we learn we lose.” The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe, Arthur Koestler, Hutchinson & Co., 1959, page 191. (Note: the Latin here is differently distorted.)

But the thought goes back further, to John of Salisbury in 1159. (Policraticus: sive De nugis Curialium & vestigiis Philosophorum.) “Siquidem vita brevis, sensus hebes, negligentiæ torpor, inutilis occupatio, nos paucula scire permittunt: et eadem iugiter excutit et avellit ab animo fraudatrix scientiæ, inimica et infida semper memoriæ noverca, oblivio.” [Even given that short lives, dull senses, lazy negligence, and useless jobs, permit us to know only a little: even that little is always shaken and torn from the mind by the thief of knowledge, always hostile and treacherous to memory, forgetfulness.]

And further back than that, to Seneca in his De Brevitate Vitæ somewhere between 49 and 55, then back to Hippocrates, 2400 or so years ago, and his “Ars longa, vita brevis” aphorism. Who knows how far back it really goes.

“The discovery of Uranus, the Titius-Bode law, and the asteroids,” M. Hoskin, in: The General History of Astronomy: Volume 2, Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of Astrophysics. Part B: The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Réne Taton and Curtis Wilson (editors), Cambridge University Press, 1995, pages 169-180, especially pages 173-174. Criticism and the History of Science: Kuhn’s, Lakatos’s and Feyerabend’s Criticisms of Critical Rationalism, Gunnar Andersson, Brill, 1994, pages 81-90, 134-136. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn, University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 1970, page 115-117.

But before the tools had to come ideas that led to the tools. Those ideas didn’t themselves come out of nowhere, either. Nor did most of them have anything to do with looking up at lights in the sky. They also had to do with making camera obscuras, with making eyeglasses, with spying, with making glass artwork to hold religious relics—the list is long. None of it had to do with looking up. With no pressure, new ideas are rare.

The Origins of the Telescope, Albert Van Helden, Sven Dupré, Rob van Gent, and Huib Zuidervaart (editors), History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands 12, KNAW Press, 2010. The Long Route to the Invention of the Telescope, Rolf Willach, American Philosophical Society, Volume 98, Part 5, 2008. Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes, Vincent Ilardi, American Philosophical Society, Volume 259, 2007. “Playing with Images in a Dark Room: Kepler’s Ludi Inside the Camera Obscura,” Sven Dupré, in Inside the Camera Obscura: Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image, Wolfgang Lefèvre (editor), Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, pages 59-74, 2007.

In 1841, Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle, a physician, pathologist, and anatomist, described granules in human muscle cells. Then around 1850, his student, Rudolf Albert von Kölliker, an anatomist and physiologist, described granules in striated insect muscle cells.

From 1852 to 1890, others named similar subcellular granules, likely all of them were mitochondria. Since we had no idea what they were, their various names were all based on appearance: Greek (mitos for thread, or chondros for grain), Latin (filum for thread, or granum for grain), German (faden for thread, or korn for grain), or English. In 1890, Richard Altmann, a pathologist and histologist, called them bioblasts and guessed that they once were independent organisms, like bacteria. But cells didn’t sit still, and they were so complex that doubt that these subcellular things really existed continued until the 1950s and the invention of the electron microscope. But even then we didn’t really understand them in full.

Mitochondria, Immo E. Scheffler, Wiley, Second Edition, 2008. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, Nick Lane, Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 12-14. “Theory of Organelle Biogenesis: A Historical Perspective,” B. M. Mullock, J. P. Luzio, in: The Biogenesis of Cellular Organelles, Chris Mullins (editor), Kluwer, 2005, pages 1-18. Molecular Biology of the Cell, Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter, Garland Science, Fourth edition 2002, Chapter 9. “Mitochondria: A Historical Review,” L. Ernster, G. Schatz, The Journal of Cell Biology, 91(3 Part 2):227s-255s, 1981. “Golgi apparatus (complex) - (1954-1981) - from artifact to center stage,” M. G. Farquhar, G. E. Palade, The Journal of Cell Biology, 91(3 Part 2):77s-103s, 1981. The Mitochondrion: Molecular Basis of Structure and Function, Albert L. Lehninger, W. A. Benjamin, 1964. “The Sarcosomes of Heart Muscle Their Isolation, Structure, and Behaviour under various Conditions,” K. W. Cleland, E. C. Slater, Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 94(Part 3):329-346, 1953. A Hundred Years of Biology, Ben Dawes, Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1952, pages 84-87.

On the dependence of the advance of science and its dependence on tools, which lead to the discovery of new data, see the following two contrasting companion essays. Dyson (physics) argues mostly on the data side, Brenner (biology) argues mostly on the theory side:

“The great recent discoveries in the physical sciences were dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious monsters together constituting 97% of the mass of the universe. These discoveries did not give rise to new paradigms. We cannot build paradigms out of ignorance. The monsters were discovered by using the new tools of astronomy, wide-field cameras, and digital data processing. We must study the monsters patiently with new and more precise digital tools before we can begin to understand them. Galisonian science will continue to explore, with constantly evolving tools, the structures of space and time and galaxies and particles and genomes and brains.” From: “Is Science Mostly Driven by Ideas or by Tools?” F. J. Dyson, Science, 338(6113):1426-1427, 2012.

“We can now see exactly what constituted the new paradigm in the life sciences: It was the introduction of the idea of information and its physical embodiment in DNA sequences of four different bases. Thus, although the components of DNA are simple chemicals, the complexity that can be generated by different sequences is enormous. In 1953, biochemists were preoccupied only with questions of matter and energy, but now they had to add information. In the study of protein synthesis, most biochemists were concerned with the source of energy for the synthesis of the peptide bond; a few wrote about the ‘patternization’ problem. For molecular biologists, the problem was how one sequence of four nucleotides encoded another sequence of 20 amino acids.” From: “The Revolution in the Life Sciences,” S. Brenner, Science, 338(6113):1427-1428, 2012.

See also: The Sun, the Genome and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolutions, Freeman Dyson, Oxford University Press, 1999. Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics, Peter Galison, University of Chicago Press, 1997.

“Because the real planet Earth is revolving around its north-south polar axis, so, too, is mini-Earth. They are both thus revolving without effecting any change of the observed position of Polaris—the North Star—in respect to mini-Earth’s north pole. Therefore, the observer at the center of the Geoscope feels spontaneously the celestial fixity not only of Polaris but also of all the other stars as seen outwardly through the Geoscope’s triangular windows. Because outwardly of Geoscope’s equator what we can see of the starry scene is changing most rapidly and ever less rapidly until, looking out along the polar axis, we observe no change, we get the same feeling as we do looking out the window of a railway car, automobile, or airplane. We see and feel the scene changing as a consequence of our vehicle’s motion and not of the scenery’s motion. For the first time in human experience Geoscope’s mini-Earth spherical structure is clearly seen and felt to be revolving within the theater of Universe, and those holding steady their bodies, heads and their eyes and standing at the Geoscope’s center, feel-see their Earth revolving within the vast theater of the starry sky.

With Geoscopes locally available around the world, all children experiencing its true celestial-event orientations will feel themselves being rotated round from west to east by the Earth to be shaded from the Sun’s light by the rolling-around Earth’s western horizon... which deep shadowing they will call night.

They will feel their western horizon to be rotating around with them and to be obscuring (or eclipsing) the Sun. They will spontaneously say ‘Sunclipse’ instead of ‘Sunset.’ In the same way they will say spontaneously ‘Sunsight’ in the morning as the Earth revolves the Sun into seeability, thus spontaneously acquiring two poetical, two-syllable, truly meaningful words to replace the two-syllable, misinformative, but poetical words of their ancestry—‘Sunset’ and ‘Sunrise.’ ”

Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller, St. Martin’s Press, 1981, page 173.

In philosophy, the debate (not just about science, it’s about any field) splits between the realists and the anti-realists. Realists believe that there is a real world, that people can sense and talk about that real world, and that knowledge can thereby be gained about the real world. Anti-realists disbelieve various parts of those beliefs, or even all of them. Pessimists think that not only have past theories (like phlogiston) been overturned, so will present theories. Anti-pessimists (or optimists) think they’re wrong. “Why Should We Be Pessimistic About Antirealists and Pessimists?,” S. Park, Foundations of Science, 22(3):613-625, 2017. A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable, Anjan Chakravartty, Cambridge University Press, 2007. “A Confutation of Convergent Realism,” L. Laudan, Philosophy of Science, 48(1):19-49, 1981. Science and Hypothesis, Henri Poincaré 1905, Dover, Reprint 1952.

“I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. ‘When I hear you give your reasons,’ I remarked, ‘the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.’

‘Quite so,’ he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. ‘You see, but you do not observe.’ [...]

‘This is indeed a mystery,’ I remarked. ‘What do you imagine that it means?’

I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’ ”

“A Scandal in Bohemia,” The Original Illustrated ’Strand’ Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1989, page 119.

1. the distance from A to B is zero if and only if A=B
2. the distance between A and B is always positive if and only if A≠B,
3. the distance from A to B is the same as the distance from B to A,
4. the distance from A to B is less than or equal to the distance from A to B via any third point C. (Triangle inequality.)

For a related idea, see “It from Qubit” in: “Information Is Physics,” D. Monroe, Communications of the ACM, 62(11):13-15, 2019.

So to those improv-actors, those dictionary-rewriters, those ‘scientists,’ data isn’t knowledge until they can build and test a theory that it fits into. Then, sometimes some new tool, new finding, or new insight lets flint meet pyrite and sparks fly, so that 1+1=3. Then, words previously wrongly defined, vaguely defined, or not quite existing might get pulled into different or sharper focus in some new and, once seemingly absurd, or even impossible, way. That might then lead not only to new words and links, it might also firm up old ones and add new links between them, or throw them out entirely.

So scientists are a strange tribe. They needn’t necessarily be trying to model abstract things—mathematicians do that; nor build things—engineers do that; nor fix broken things—technologists do that; nor fix broken biological things—doctors do that. Likely, were it not for those fields, few people might care about science; but without science, those fields wouldn’t fit together and wouldn’t exist as they do today. Scientists try to rewrite their dictionary by looking for ways to ask the cosmos questions so simple that it can’t avoid answering simply—then trying not to flinch whenever its answers seem understandable enough to fit into the dictionary.

That long struggle to build dictionaries to understand the world still echoes in the words scientists use today. Today’s medical genies, genomics and proteomics, grew out of molecular biology, which grew out of biochemistry, which grew out of organic chemistry, which grew out of chemistry. Chemistry came from alchemy, which originally was an Arabic word. It descends from the Middle English word for the Old French word for the Medieval Latin word for the Medieval Arabic word for the Late Greek word for, probably, the Ancient Egyptian word for Egypt. That Egyptian word was ‘Kemet,’ meaning ‘The Black Land.’ Thus, the oldest ancestor of the word known today as ‘chemistry’ originally meant something like ‘The Art of the Black Land.’ So even with today’s CRISPR treatments and monoclonal antibodies and stem cells and whatnot, doctors are still following the early Egyptians, still seeking reliable medical knowledge, and still using the same tools: observation, tests, communication.

Why was medicine mired in magic, folklore, and the divine for so many millennia? Many believe that only pressures drive people to invent. That idea is so common that it has its own saying: ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ Folks imagine, for example, that wars speed invention, since in war people are trying to avoid being killed and trying to kill others faster. That sounds like a good story, since it seems to give war a value, other that what it’s so obviously for. But consider: war or no war, everyone, everywhere and everywhen, was faced with certain pains and sure death—and lost babies and destroyed lives. Were necessity truly the mother of every tool and idea that exists today, competition to heal each other would’ve been fierce. Rewards for consistent success would’ve been truly fabulous. Why didn’t that drive the species toward science and science-based medicine millennia ago? No, while necessity might work as a driver for simple things that are easy to see, for complex things it’s less necessity that’s the mother of invention than opportunity. People didn’t practice science-based medicine until recently not because they didn’t desire it but because it was beyond their power; the body was too complex for them to understand just as a steam engine was too complex for them to build. Knowledge can only grow when it has a chance to.

For example, in 1948 Erik Jarvik took possessions of the sole (at that time) fossil of ichthyostega, a now famous intermediary between fish and all tetrapods (four-legged land animals, which includes birds and snakes). He had inherited the specimen from the expedition leader then kept it to himself for 48 years, publishing in that time only three papers on it. No one had any way to check his claims. Many of them were wrong. (For example, he claimed that it had 5 toes; in reality it has 7.) Then he died in 1998. Just before that, other specimes turned up and others begin to correct his errors. “The axial skeleton of the Devonian tertrapod Ichthyostega,” P. E. Ahlberg, J. A. Clack, H. Blom, Nature, 437(1):137-140, 2005. Gaining Ground: The Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods, Jennifer A. Clack, Indiana University Press, 2002. “Polydactyly in the Earliest Known Tetrapod Limbs,” M. I. Coates, J. A. Clack, Nature, 347(6288):66-69, 1990.

There are many such stories in science, particularly in the dustier corners of the softer fields, like paleontology. Even so, it’s harder to forever politically spin things in science than in many other fields.

“In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.” Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, Secker & Warburg, 1949.

“Pauli was famous not only for his contributions to physics, including the exclusion principle, but also for his hurting remarks to people and there are many of such stories around. I must mention some, at least. You can’t talk about Pauli without mentioning some of these. For example, when Landau, the Russian physicist, came to visit Zürich, one day he was arguing all afternoon with Pauli and at the end he said: ‘Professor Pauli, you are not going to say that all I said was nonsense.’ ‘Far from it’ said Pauli, ‘far from it. What you said was so confused, one couldn’t tell whether it was nonsense.’

He was once visiting another university and in the evening he wanted to go to the cinema. It was his habit to go out in the evening, and when he came back at eleven or so, he would start working. He was doing most of his work during the night. Therefore, of course, he would not get up very early in the morning. It was said that once he was asked to attend a meeting at nine o’clock in the morning, and he said: ‘Oh no, I can’t stay up that late!’. Well, on that occasion he wanted to go to the cinema and a local man explained to him how to get to a good film. Next day he asked him did he find it all right. ‘Oh yes,’ said Pauli ‘it was easy, you express yourself quite intelligibly when you don’t happen to talk about physics.’

Probably, his most severe remark was to Stueckelberg. He was a very distinguished theoretical physicist, not really adequately recognized. Anyway, on an occasion, Stueckelberg said in the discussion: ‘Don’t go so fast, I can’t think as quickly as you.’, to which Pauli said: ‘I don’t mind if you think slowly, but I do object when you publish more quickly than you can think.’

Perhaps his last critical remark was when he was shown a paper by a young theoretician. He looked at it, and shook his head: Sadly, he said, das ist nicht einmal falsch. ‘That is not even wrong.’ ”

“People in the Early Days of Quantum Mechanics” R. Peierls, Fizika A: A Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics--Atomic and Molecular Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Plasma Physics, Volumes 1-2, 1992-1993, pages 11-30.

Since all science begins with hypothesis, that is the vaguest, lest understood part. Here is Medawar: “The truth is not in nature waiting to declare itself, and we cannot know a priori which observations are relevant and which are not: every discovery, every enlargement of the understanding begins as an imaginative preconception of what the truth might be. The imaginative preconception—a ‘hypothesis’—arises by a process as easy or as difficult to understand as any other creative act of mind; it is a brain-wave, an inspired guess, the product of a blaze of insight. It comes, anyway, from within and cannot be arrived at by the exercise of any known calculus of discovery. A hypothesis is a sort of draft law about what the world—or some particularly interesting aspect of it—may be like; or in a wider sense it may be a mechanical invention, a solid or embodied hypothesis of which performance is the test.” Advice to a Young Scientist, P. B. Medawar, Harper and Row, 1979, page 84.

For two recent contrasting overviews of scientific methods, see: “Reflection on rules in science: an invisible-hand perspective,” T. C. Leonard, Journal of Economic Methodology, 9(2):141-168, 2002. “The Invisible Hand and Science,” P. Ylikoski, Science Studies, 8(2):32-43, 1995.

Roger Bacon, William of Ockham, and others (and before them, Peter Abelard, William of St Thierry, Bernard of Clairvaux, and others during Europe’s twelth century Renaissance), then Francis Bacon and later David Hume, William Whewell, and John Stuart Mill, and others started the philosophical argument from the 1200s to 1800s, arguing about the various roles of induction versus deduction. The three dominant philosophical threads these days are: Pragmatism, Realism, and (the one that’s ignored by most scientists), Social Relativism.

Here are a few of the main references in the area: The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism, Frederick Suppe, University of Illinois Press, 1989. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science, David Hull, University of Chicago Press, 1988. Progress and Its Problems, Lawrence Laudan, University of California Press, 1977. Against Method, Paul K. Feyerabend, Verso, 1975. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper, Hutchinson, Sixth Edition, 1974. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn, University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 1970. “Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes,” I. Lakatos, in: Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (editors), Cambridge University Press, 1970. “Natural Kinds,” W. V. O. Quine, in: Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, 1969. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Pierre Duhem, Atheneum, 1962.

There’s a lot of wind, but as the philosophical and sociological arguments rage, most scientists ignore them as they go about trying to investigate our cosmos. Here’s Feynman on the difference between science and the philosophy of science: “Philosophers, incidentally, say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong. For example, some philosopher or other said it is fundamental to the scientific effort that if an experiment is performed in, say, Stockholm, and then the same experiment is done in, say, Quito, the same results must occur. That is quite false. It is not necessary that science do that; it may be a fact of experience, but it is not necessary.” The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Volume 1: Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat, Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands, California Institute of Technology, 1963, page 2-7.

To the extent that science is honest, what keeps it so is partly all that, but mostly that once interesting results appear in good journals they get talked about, argued about, worried over, tested, and used. Uninteresting results in good journals, and many results in most other journals are mostly ignored.

“There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.” From: “Guarding the guardians,” D. Rennie, Journal of the American Medical Association, 256(17):2391-2392, 1986. See also: “Editorial,” D. Rennie, Fourth International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication, Journal of the American Medical Association, 287(21):2759-2760, 2002.

It’s possible that nearly everything produced in second-tier and lower science journals is rubbish, yet even were that true, it so far doesn’t seem to matter much. Of course, that may change as we approach data-overload. But by then we’ll may well have made up more severe penalities for scientific fraud simply because we’ll have so much data coming out of science and so much of it will be vitally important in medicine, engineering, and other fields. Alternately, we may have so much data coming in that we’ll have no way at all to tell the good from the bad.

Further, to be able to do anything at all, we usually can’t do much by ourselves, so we have to fit into some network—some institution, which itself has limited time and resources. So our decisions can easily be driven to be slap-dash simply so that we can make the next deadline. Often, we then fill in the many blank spots in our mental maps with whatever we’re most biased to believe. That might be based on all sorts of seemingly reasonable but otherwise imaginary ideas. So we might not even notice that we’re guessing—or, if we notice, we hope others don’t notice. If what we assume at any point in our process of guessing and backtracking and guessing again is wrong, it needn’t matter how smart we are, nor how good our logic is, our conclusions can still be wrong.

On the other hand, another often-told story, that science and religion are at loggerheads, may be just as questionable. Later generations tend to impose present-day characteristics on earlier generations that they never had, or would even have truly understood.

Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion, John Brooke and Ian Maclean (editors), Oxford University Press, 2005. “The Conflict Thesis,” C. A. Russell, in: Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction, Gary Ferngren (editor), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion, John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor, Oxford University Press, 2000. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues, Ian G. Barbour, HarperCollins, Revised Edition, 1997. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, John Hedley Brooke (editor), Cambridge University Press, 1991.

This is not an original idea. For example, in 1908 Thorstein Veblen argued that:

“[...] technological knowledge, which included language, the use of fire, the use of simple tools for cutting, and basic fiber arts, was integral to all human communities, even the most primitive. Such knowledge constituted what Veblen termed the ‘immaterial equipment’ of production, as opposed to the material equipment of tools and machines. Technological knowledge was both collective, exceeding the grasp of any single individual, and cumulative, growing through experience transmitted by members of the group. Natural resources, machinery, and other types of physical capital became useful only through collective technological knowledge. [...]

For Veblen, technology included knowledge as well as practices, while remaining firmly independent of science. As used by Veblen, the term encompassed productive pursuits in all human epochs, not just the era of modern industry, while also covering a broad sweep of human activities, from domestication of animals to largescale industrial systems. He emphasized technology in use, refusing to reduce it to invention. Insofar as Veblen had a theory of technological change, he emphasized gradual accretions of skill and knowledge rather than major breakthroughs. His understanding of technology was, in principle, neither deterministic nor progressive. ‘Technological proficiency’ was itself neutral, neither ‘intrinsically serviceable [nor] disserviceable to mankind.’ ”

From: “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930,” E. Schatzberg, Technology and Culture, 47(3):486-512, 2006.

Here’s Bowles: “Since Darwin, intergroup hostilities have figured prominently in explanations of the evolution of human social behavior. Yet whether ancestral humans were largely ‘peaceful’ or ‘warlike’ remains controversial. I ask a more precise question: If more cooperative groups were more likely to prevail in conflicts with other groups, was the level of intergroup violence sufficient to influence the evolution of human social behavior? Using a model of the evolutionary impact of between-group competition and a new data set that combines archaeological evidence on causes of death during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene with ethnographic and historical reports on hunter-gatherer populations, I find that the estimated level of mortality in intergroup conflicts would have had substantial effects, allowing the proliferation of group-beneficial behaviors that were quite costly to the individual altruist.” From: “Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?” S. Bowles, Science, 324(5932):1293-1298, 2009.

And here’s Powell et al: “The origins of modern human behavior are marked by increased symbolic and technological complexity in the archaeological record. In western Eurasia this transition, the Upper Paleolithic, occurred about 45,000 years ago, but many of its features appear transiently in southern Africa about 45,000 years earlier. We show that demography is a major determinant in the maintenance of cultural complexity and that variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation. Genetic estimates of regional population size over time show that densities in early Upper Paleolithic Europe were similar to those in sub-Saharan Africa when modern behavior first appeared. Demographic factors can thus explain geographic variation in the timing of the first appearance of modern behavior without invoking increased cognitive capacity.” From: “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior,” A. Powell, S. Shennan, M. G. Thomas, Science, 324(5932):1298-1301, 2009.

“The strong predominance of right-handedness appears to be a uniquely human characteristic, whereas the left-cerebral dominance for vocalization occurs in many species, including frogs, birds, and mammals. Right-handedness may have arisen because of an association between manual gestures and vocalization in the evolution of language. I argue that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating vocal elements. The transition may be traced through changes in the function of Broca’s area. Its homologue in monkeys has nothing to do with vocal control, but contains the so-called ‘mirror neurons,’ the code for both the production of manual reaching movements and the perception of the same movements performed by others. This system is bilateral in monkeys, but predominantly left-hemispheric in humans, and in humans is involved with vocalization as well as manual actions. There is evidence that Broca’s area is enlarged on the left side in Homo habilis, suggesting that a link between gesture and vocalization may go back at least two million years, although other evidence suggests that speech may not have become fully autonomous until Homo sapiens appeared some 170,000 years ago, or perhaps even later. The removal of manual gesture as a necessary component of language may explain the rapid advance of technology, allowing late migrations of Homo sapiens from Africa to replace all other hominids in other parts of the world, including the Neanderthals in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia. Nevertheless, the long association of vocalization with manual gesture left us a legacy of right-handedness.” From: “From mouth to hand: Gesture, speech, and the evolution of right-handedness,” M. C. Corballis, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26(2):199-208, 2003.

See also: From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language, Michael C. Corballis, Princeton University Press, 2002.

So we don’t transport data between ourselves solely by moving it around on data-holding artifacts—like chunks of incised clay, papyrus scrolls, paper books, or memory sticks; nor solely by using data-transporting conduits—like keyboards, mobile phones, microwave transmitters, and fiberoptic cables. Our brains are data-holders, too. So are the walls we scribble on, the road signs we make, the labels we attach to our goods.

So when we decorate our world, or ourselves, or our things, or when we transport ourselves, or our goods, we’re also spreading data. So ‘data-flow’ includes physical transport, and it includes trade.

Thus data-flow between us rose with migration and exploration, and with tools as seemingly remote from data as canoes, horses, compasses, geared clocks (for use on ships), and carbon-arc lamps (for use in lighthouses), for they all increased our range and our trade. With a canoe or horse, we could reach places we couldn’t before. With a compass, we could leave port whenever we wanted, not just when it wasn’t cloudy. With a sextant and a chart we could leave port at night too, not just during the day. Lemons to cure scurvy, pitch to protect ships from woodworms, lateen sails to move against the wind, they all increased our data-flow. So did limited liability companies, bills of exchange, central banks, and stock markets.

Many of our tools, both physical and institutional, increased our warring and slaving, but they also increased our trading. As our trade rose, so did our data-flow. So more of us became more linked via data, whether we noticed it or not.

The same held for our rising numbers and rising densities as we phase changed into farming, and then for our later move into towns, because we transport data between ourselves by producing more of us and by massing in corporate bodies—like churches, markets, companies, cities.

Larger populations can overcome the inherent loss of information in cultural transmission because if more individuals are trying to learn something, there’s a better chance that someone will end up with knowledge or skills that are at least as good as, or better than, those of the model they are learning from. Interconnectedness is important because it means more individuals have a chance to access the most skilled or successful models, and thereby have a chance to exceed them, and so can recombine elements learned from different highly skilled or successful models to create novel recombinations. [...]

By isolating Tasmanians for eight to ten millennia, the rising seas cut them off from the vast social networks of Australia, suddenly shrinking their collective brains. A gradual loss of their most complex and difficult to learn skills and technologies ensued. Their isolation also prevented them from acquiring the technological and institutional innovations that would have expanded their collective brain, by fostering greater interconnectedness and fancier tools, weapons, and know-how.”

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Joseph Henrich, Princeton University Press, 2016, Chapter 12, especially pages 218-240, 250.

Note: Similar losses happened during periods of isolation in Northern Greenland, and in the islands of Oceania.

Anatomically modern humans existed by around 300Kya, and certainly by around 100Kya, and we were almost surely talking by about 90Kya, if not long before, for we had jewelry, tattoos, throwing weapons, and such. However, adding new things seems to have died out for a long while in sub-Saharan Africa (but not in Western Eurasia), then picked up again in Africa around 45Kya. One theory is that an extinction event (perhaps the Toba supervolcano around 74Kya?) brought down our numbers so much that even if any one of us would have a new idea, the idea would be unlikely to be passed on very often. (However the Toba theory has since been losing support, and a newer theory is that as humans spread out of Africa, smaller and smaller groups of pioneers led to founder effects, bottlenecking genes.) However, simultaneous and unrelated work also suggests that the same African population rapidly rebounded by around 40Kya (the Late Pleistocene). “Human occupation of northern India spans the Toba super-eruption ~74,000 years ago,” C. Clarkson, C. Harris, B. Li, C. M. Neudorf, R. G. Roberts, C. Lane, K. Norman, J. Pal, S. Jones, C. Shipton, J. Koshy, M. C. Gupta, D. P. Mishra, A. K. Dubey, N. Boivin, M. Petraglia, Nature Communications, 11(1):961, 2020. “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior,” A. Powell, S. Shennan, M. G. Thomas, Science, 324(5932):1298-1301, 2009. “Autosomal Resequence Data Reveal Late Stone Age Signals of Population Expansion in Sub-Saharan African Foraging and Farming Populations,” M. P. Cox, D. A. Morales, A. E. Woerner, J. Sozanski, J. D. Wall, M. F. Hammer, PLoS ONE, 4(7):e6366, 2009.

“Other things being equal, an increase in the density of the population means an increase in productive capacity.” Economic Harmonies, Frédéric Bastiat, translated by W. Hayden Boyers, edited by George B. de Huszar, original publication 1850, Foundation for Economic Education, 1996, page 561.

When we first began speaking, who knows how many millennia ago, our brains and hands began to connect at a whole new level. They did so again when we first began writing about five millennia ago, and again with the press as a catalyst five centuries ago. Each time, our mental resources grew. When our brains and hands are disconnected, we must all face our problems alone. Doing anything really new is then hard—unless one of us happens to be a genius—and it would help to have a supercomputer—and a robot factory in the basement—not to mention a robot army in the back yard to protect it all. So our rising linkage often means rising physical power, not just for some of our groups but, in time, for our whole species.

For us to change our tools a lot, we didn’t merely need many heads and little space and fast transport via horses (or camels, elephants, llamas, dog sleds, whatever). Juding by England, we also needed (at least) the right pressures, the right geology, some new level of insight into how the cosmos worked, and the results of centuries of tools—and not just physical tools, like steam pumps, but also institutional tools, like banking, and mental tools, like science. England phase changed because many things happened. Did they have to happen?

In such a world, our jigsaw has no space for a new piece. Even if one of us thinks up something new to make, why bother? Even if we do build it for ourselves, why would we build copies? To whom would we sell them? Even if we did manage to find someone to sell them to, if we all live in villages or on farms, what could we buy in return? Even if it isn’t a new thing to make, but a new way to do something, why do it? The old way works, and the new way might force someone else to change. Often, any change might mean that some of us are going to lose something—power, profits, prestige, maybe even life itself. So some of us will resist.

Thus, in the 1200s in Europe, the then-new spinning wheel was the latest in high tech. But in much of Europe, we couldn’t use it to make woolens. That was illegal. We had to spin wool by hand, or not at all. In 1454, Venice decreed that if any valued artisan or craftsman fled the city, to force his return his family would be jailed. If he didn’t return, he was to be hunted down and killed. In 1719, London weavers, desperate to keep out the then-new mechanically printed calicoes and linens, threw ink or acid on any woman who wore them in the street—or they simply tore her clothes off. In 1789, Lyon fork-makers so resented a new mechanical way to make tableware and other small metal items that they burned the workshop to the ground. Then they told the chief mechanic that if he built another, they would beat him up and burn his house to the ground.

By the 1800s it was too late to call halt. It’s not merely that some of us wanted to fangle things new, like a new dress or a new hat, while others of us wanted to keep things fangled the old way. The giant recursive industrial engine that we, willy-nilly, began putting together, after many centuries of unwitting buildup, was something new. It wasn’t the work of any one person, who we could throw some acid on, or whose house we could threaten to burn down. It wasn’t just this new tool, or that new tool-maker, or the other new system, in any one place, or even country, that we could isolate, or ostracize, or go to war with. It was too large and dispersed a change, and its stigmergic and synergetic effects were so broad and varied that we couldn’t stop it. Thus came railroads, steamships, telegraphs, radios, phones, (electronic) computers, cars, planes, rockets, satellites....

Banning of spinning wheels in Europe from the 1200s on: Use of the spinning wheel, sometimes called in Europe the ‘Hindustan Wheel,’ for woolen manufacture was either banned outright or forbidden for warp-spinning, beginning in Italy: in Venice (1224), Bologna (1256), Paris (1268), Speyer (1280), Abbeville (1288), Siena (1292), and Douai (1305), then grew from there as the spinning wheel spread. Bans remained in effect in some places until the 1500s. The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Volume I, David Jenkins (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2003, page 201.

In Venice in 1454 fleeing craftsmen were to be hunted down and killed: “[T]he Venetian government passed stern laws to prevent these esoteric subtleties from becoming known in other lands. In 1454 the Council of Ten decreed that

If a workman carry into another country any art or craft to the detriment of the Republic, he will be ordered to return; if he disobeys, his nearest relatives will be imprisoned, in order that the solidarity of the family persuade him to return; if he persists in his disobedience, secret measures will be taken to have him killed wherever he may be.”

The Story of Civilization 5: The Renaissance; A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D. Will Durant, Simon & Schuster, 1953, page 313. Apparently one actually was assassinated, in the 1700s.

This, though, is a sign that when skilled workers decided to flee there was really nothing that could keep them. Or as Cipolla says of another case: “Decrees forbidding the emigration of skilled workers were quite common in the late Middle Ages as well as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. [...] Typically enough, impotence bred ferocity. In 1545 and 1559 the Grand Duke of Florence decreed that workers in the brocade trade who had left the town should return to it. Special favors were announced for those who would comply with the order and penalties were threatened for those who did not. But in all likelihood the results were unsatisfactory: in 1575 the Grand Duke authorized ‘any person to kill with impunity any of the above-mentioned expatriates’ and posted a reward of 200 scudi for each expatriate craftsman who could be brought back ‘dead or alive.’ ” Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700, Carlo M. Cipolla, W. W. Norton, Third Edition, 1993, page 157.

See also: Medieval guilds and innovation: Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Cambridge University Press, 2011. Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400-1800, S. R. Epstein and Maarten Prak (editors), Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Russia had an alphabetic script and fairly early print shops but adoption there was sluggish. Perhaps the chief reason was that Muscovy had a powerful central force, much as China and the Ottoman Empire did. Literacy was also very low there.

The Arabic-speaking world never invented its own printing press, nor did it allow printing to enter it for a long time. With Arabic’s cursive writing it was hard to imagine it being separated into letter types. There were also religious beliefs to contend with. For example, in the Ottoman empire in 1483, Sultan Bayezid II decreed the death penalty for anyone printing Arabic or Turkish script. The ban held until 1727.

The European all-metal movable-type printing press, invented around 1452, was not the first printing press in the world. Presses were invented sometime between 1041 and 1048 in China with moveable clay type and with fixed metal type in Korea by 1234 (see Tsien and Needham below). Also, wood block printing was in use in Japan somewhere between 764 and 770. The European printing press, however, was the first one that slipped out of state control. One reason may be the much lower cost of type because European languages were alphabetic and only 30 or so characters were needed (although many more were needed for the earliest highly accurate ‘handwriting-compatible’ bibles). Although, in Korea in 1446, King Sejong tried to institute an alphabet of twenty-five letters. But Korean printers and scholars stuck with tradition—40,000 or so Chinese characters.

The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2005, pages 335-339. Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, Jonathan M. Bloom, Yale University Press, 2001. “Paper, Printing and the Printing Press: A Horizontally Integrative Macrohistory Analysis,” S. A. Gunaratne, International Communication Gazette, 63(6):459-479, 2001. Arabic Typography: A Comprehensive Sourcebook, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares, Saqi Books, 2000, pages 64-72. “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print,” F. Robinson, Modern Asian Studies, 27(1):229-251, 1993. “Innovation and Diffusion of Technology: an Example of the Printing Press,” M. Macioti, Impact of Science on Society, 39(2):143-150, 1989. Publishing, Printing and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia 1700-1800, Gary Marker, Princeton University Press, 1985. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, Halil Inalcik, translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber, Littlehampton Book Services, 1973. Annals of Printing: A Chronological Encyclopaedia from the Earliest Times to 1950, W. Turner Berry and H. Edmund Poole, University of Toronto Press, 1966.

“During the reign of Chhing-li [+ 1041-48] Pi Sheng, a man of unofficial position, made moveable type. His method was as follows: he took sticky clay and cut in it characters as thin as the edge of a coin. Each character formed, as it were, a single type. He baked them in the fire to make them hard. He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered his plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this he placed the types, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one solid block oftype. He then placed it near the fire to warm it. When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so that the block of type became as even as a whetstone.

If one were to print only two or three copies, this method would be neither simple nor easy. But for printing hundreds or thousands of copies, it was marvelously quick. As a rule he kept two formes going. While the impression was being made from the one forme, the type was being put in place on the other. When the printing of the one forme was finished, the other was then ready. In this way the two formes alternated and the printing was done with great rapidity.

For each character there were several types, and for certain common characters there were twenty or more types each, in order to be prepared for the repetition of characters on the same page. When the characters were not in use, he had them arranged with paper labels, one label for words of each rhyme-group, and kept them in wooden cases. If any rare character appeared that had not been prepared in advance, it was cut as needed and baked with a fire of straw. In a moment it was finished.

The reason why he did not use wood is because the tissue of wood is sometimes coarse and sometimes fine, and wood also absorbs moisture, so that the forme when set up would be uneven. Also the wood would have stuck in the paste and could not readily have been pulled out. So it was better to use burnt earthenware. When the printing was finished, the forme was again brought near the fire to allow the paste to melt, and then cleansed with the hand, so that the types fell off of themselves and were not in the least soiled. [...]

It appears that the use of movable-type printing in Korea was influenced by three major factors, all more or less related to Chinese practice. One was the idea of movable type. This was unquestionably inspired in Korea by the method described in Chinese records, for in the preface to a movable-type edition of Po Shih Wen Chi, printed in Korea in + 1485, the Korean scholar Kim Jongjik said explicitly that ‘the movable type method was begun by Shen Kua and brought to perfection by Yang Wei-Chung’. Although he was mistaken in identifying Shen Kua as the inventor, his acknowledgement of its Chinese origin is clear. How it arrived in Korea is not certain, but it may have been brought back by the princely monk Gitan, who travelled to China and resided in Hangchow in the latter part of the + 11th century, at the time and in the very place of Pi Sheng’s invention. He could, therefore, have been informed by his contemporaries in China, or through reading Shen Kua’s description, which certainly influenced the application of movable type by Korean printers. If so, the use of movable type in Korea must have begun earlier than the generally accepted date of 1234.”

Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing, Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pages 201-202, page 330.

“Why take fifteenth-century Western Europe as a point of departure instead of beginning much earlier with China, where the very first printed products were turned out? It is instructive to look outside the boundaries of Western Christendom if only in order to learn that the mere introduction of a new technology tells us little about the uses to which it will be put. No doubt the difference between uneven development in Asia and rapid exploitation in the West has something to do with the difference between ideographic and alphabetic systems of writing.

But other considerations are also pertinent. All the diverse ‘factors’ that have to be considered in any causal analysis—political, economic, intellectual, etc.—can be seen to have played a role. Religion in particular should not be overlooked. There are some non-Asian societies where alphabets were used but where printers were forbidden to apply their craft to sacred texts. In the vast empire governed by the Ottoman Turks, prohibitions against printing not only the Koran but any text in Arabic script remained in effect for hundreds of years. Of course, other variables are also significant. In Eastern Christendom, religious printing was sanctioned and, indeed, sponsored by the church. Yet in contrast to Western developments, Russian printers started almost a century after Gutenberg and thereafter maintained a very sluggish pace. Only within Western Christendom was the wooden handpress so energetically exploited by so many free-wheeling entrepreneurs that some forty thousand editions of books (not to mention indulgences, broadsides, and the like) had been issued in the first forty years.

This brief venture in comparative study may help to drive home the point that the most remarkable aspect of the story is not what did or did not happen in Gutenberg’s shop in Mainz; it is, rather, the way that so many presses went into operation in so many places in so short a time.”

The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2005, pages 335-336.

See also: The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers, Tom Standage, Walker & Company, 1998, page 57, Chapter 4 quote.

With the telegraph, and transoceanic cables, the world shrank drastically. On June 23rd, 1870, messages could then be sent from London to Bombay and back in five minutes. That changed businesses, newspapers, crime, policing, war, and for the technologically adept few: chatting, games, and love affairs. As with the steam engine and Carnot’s theory that led to therodynamics, a lot of this happened before Faraday’s theory of electricity explained what lay behind it. Also, experiment went on for three decades, then came an explosion, with 650,000 miles of cable laid in just a few years. There are many parallels between the internet of the 1800s and that of the 1900s.

‘AT&T’ stands for American Telephone and Telegraph, and telegraphy was its main business until the 1940s. Similarly, in France, an equivalent but public, system started as P&T (Postes et des Télégraphes) in 1879, then became PTT (Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones) in 1921. Thus, for example, radio was first called, ‘wireless telegraph.’ Just like today, the telegraph network had to deal with problems involving bandwidth, security, privacy, and layered communications standards.

It wasn’t a true internet. Aside from the transoceanic cables (and cables were easy to cut during war), it was largely national. More importantly, it was point-to-point, hub-and-spoke, not decentralized and packet-switched, so two arbitrary nodes couldn’t speak unless there was a physical link between them, or between them and hubs they linked to. So break a link and that was that—since it lacked computers, and thus an equivalent of TCP/IP, there was no automated routing.

However it was digital, not analog, but instead of three layers of abstraction (bits, signals, packets), there were only two (bits and signals). Also, it did have compression, authentication, congestion, and encryption. In Britain, it also had a sort of DNS (although there were no ‘domains’). Individuals and companies could reserve special ‘telegraphic addresses,’ assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, and each telegraph office had a list of all those addresses, so anyone could send them messages without knowing their real address. It also had intranets, since a large telegraph office might use pneumatic tubes within the building, or it might be fed by nearby small telegraph offices to shunt messages around. It also had routers, of a sort, since—when congested—large telegraph offices, as large hubs, would backup messages and retransmit as bandwidth became available. And its lines eventually went from half-duplex to duplex to multiplex, thus they became able to carry several messages at once.

But even today’s internet still has a lot of growing up to do. TCP/IP wasn’t designed for accountability, security, or mobility. It grew up in a hurry, in bits and pieces, as problems manifested and then became impossible to ignore anymore, and, since 1993, it has gone commercial and is thus highly competitive. More or less the same happened with the telegraph network a century ago. it was planned (to the extent that it was planned at all) for one thing but demand grew and diversified as it grew.

“The protocols used by modems are decided on by the ITU, the organization founded in 1865 to regulate international telegraphy. The initials now stand for International Telecommunication Union, rather than International Telegraph Union.” The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers, Tom Standage, Walker & Company, 1998, pages 206-207.

See also: The Passage East, John Maxtone-Graham and Ian Marshall, Howell Press, 1997. The Early History of Data Networks, Gerard J. Holzmann and Björn Pehrson, Wiley, 1995. Design and Validation of Computer Protocols, Gerard J. Holzmann, Prentice-Hall, 1991. When Old Technologies were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century, Carolyn Marvin, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Since Faraday’s discovery of magneto-electric induction, by far the greatest discovery in connection with the electrical industry was that of dynamo-electric induction, which is that permanent magnets in an electric generator can with enormous advantage be replaced by electro-magnets, the connections being so arranged that the current generated in the armature, or part of it, traverses the coils of the electro magnets, by which the magnetic field is produced. The discovery has been claimed by or on behalf of several eminent electricians, but it is fairly established that it was made almost simultaneously and independently by Werner Siemens, Wheatstone, and Varley in 1867. It is a curious fact that Sir William Siemens described his brother’s machine to the Royal Society at the meeting where Sir Charles Wheatstone’s paper on the same discovery was read. The meeting was held on February 14, 1867, but twelve years before, namely, in 1855, a Dane, Soren Hjorth, of Copenhagen, took out a patent for a machine, and in his specification clearly enunciated and described the dynamo-electric principle. To Hjorth is due the credit of being the first to announce the discovery, but there is no evidence that the machine was ever constructed.

The first dynamo machine built on a commercial scale was that of M. Zenobie Theophile Gramme, of Paris. This machine inaugurated the great ‘Age of Electricity’ in which we are now living. It was shown in London at the end of 1872, and in the course of the following year was installed in the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, the current generated being employed to produce the signal light on the top of the Clock Tower. A company was formed for the introduction of the machine and its application to electric lighting, electro-plating, and chemical industries. But it may fairly be said that this company was seven years before its time, for it was not until the years 1880-81 that the public became sufficiently educated in the practical commercial application of electricity on a large scale for any important demand to be possible. The Exposition Universelle held in Paris in 1878, and still more the Paris Exposition Universelle d’Electricité of 1881, gave a gigantic impulse to the electrical industry and from that time to this, industry after industry has sprung up and been developed, a large and an ever-increasing branch of the profession of the civil engineer has been established, and companies manufacturing electrical machinery and appliances have been formed in every part of the civilised world. Some idea of the enormous capital involved may be formed from the fact that in Great Britain and Ireland alone the aggregate capital of electrical undertakings, in shares, debentures, and loans, is something like £125,000,000.”

Great Britain: Her Finance and Commerce, SOUVENIR EDITION of The Morning Post, 1901, pages 175-176.

We’re also amassing more data than ever before. From 1999 to 2002 we almost doubled the amount of new data stored electronically or in print. In 1967, the largest text dataset on the planet was about a million words big; by 2006, that had grown to about a trillion words. From 2000 to 2005 a new robot telescope gathered more star data in its first two days of operation than we had managed to gather in six thousand years. From 2004 to 2007 we nearly doubled the number of proteins we knew—counting everything we had learned since the beginning of time (that is, since we found the first one in 1838). Further, by 2009 we had learned of 50 million chemicals. We had been discovering them mostly just since 1800, yet we found the latest ten million in just the last nine months of 2009. By then, we were finding a new one every 2.6 seconds. By 2013, the Large Hadron Collider poured out about 30 petabytes a day; that’s about 6.3 million DVDs worth.

We aren’t just creating and amassing ever more data; we’re also making it ever easier to spread. By 2010, our planet was spidered with well over a billion computers and over five billion phones, most of them mobile. Nor were those devices only in rich hands. For instance, in 1993 Bangladesh was one of our poorest countries and only two in a thousand of us there had phones. But by 2008, a quarter of us there did. By 2011, nearly half of us did. Such devices, soon to be bristling with sensors, likely will mean that just about everything that can be digitally encoded soon will be.

Not only are we creating, amassing, recombining, and spreading data, we’re adding to its testing, too—at least for some of our more technical data. From 1990 to 2005, the number of scientists and engineers in the United States was doubling every 16 years. In China, the doubling rate for researchers was every ten years. Our scientific tools are also changing, beginning to shoulder us out of the lab, just as robots are shouldering us out of the factory. For example, microfluidic devices plus laser confocal scanning microscopes plus computer chips to control them, are coming together to make robot lab assistants that do lab tests. In 2009, some prototypes were just five inches wide. They cost $8 U.S. They worked all day and all night. That same year came the first ever robot scientist. Not only did it do its own tests, it guessed which new things to test next, then it did those tests. Soon, entire labs may slip down the rabbit hole that transistors fell down. Similar teensytronics will almost certainly mean that big changes in biochemistry, biotechnology, nanotechnology, medicine, and materials science are ahead. Given our rapid tool changes in many fields, lots of small-scale phase changes may be ahead.

Growth of papers on slime molds: “I have lived with my beloved slime molds for a long time, and now suddenly I find myself quite overcome by the vast amount of new facts that have accumulated to account for every stage, every step (however small) of their life cycle. In the late 1940s and early 1950s (1945 to 1951) an average 3.4 papers on cellular slime molds were published a year; now, over the past seven years, there is an average of 224 papers a year! We are in danger of drowing in facts.” The Social Amoebae: The Biology of Cellular Slime Molds, John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, 2009, page vii.

Doubling data: “In 2007.... [g]eneral-purpose computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58%. The world’s capacity for bidirectional telecommunication grew at 28% per year, closely followed by the increase in globally stored information (23%).... Telecommunication has been dominated by digital technologies since 1990 (99.9% in digital format in 2007), and the majority of our technological memory has been in digital format since the early 2000s (94% digital in 2007).” From: “The world’s technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute information,” M. Hilbert, P. López, Science, 332(6025):60-65, 2011.

“...[T]raditional scientific publishing, that is publication in peer-reviewed journals, is still increasing although there are big differences between fields. There are no indications that the growth rate has decreased in the last 50 years. At the same time, publication using new channels, for example conference proceedings, open archives and home pages, is growing fast.” From: “The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation Index,” P. O. Larsen, M. von Ins, Scientometrics, 84(3):575-603, 2010.

See also: How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers, Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short, Global Information Industry Center, University of California, San Diego, 2009. “How Much Information,” P. Lyman, H. R. Varian, Journal of Electronic Publishing, 6(2), 2000.

Big data: “At Brown University, there is excitement of having access to the Brown Corpus, containing one million English words. Since then, we have seen several notable corpora that are about 100 times larger, and in 2006, Google released a trillion-word corpus with frequency counts for all sequences up to five words long. In some ways this corpus is a step backwards from the Brown Corpus: it’s taken from unfiltered Web pages and thus contains incomplete sentences, spelling errors, grammatical errors, and all sorts of other errors. It’s not annotated with carefully hand-corrected part-of-speech tags. But the fact that it’s a million times larger than the Brown Corpus outweighs these drawbacks. A trillion-word corpus—along with other Web-derived corpora of millions, billions, or trillions of links, videos, images, tables, and user interactions—captures even very rare aspects of human behavior. So, this corpus could serve as the basis of a complete model for certain tasks—if only we knew how to extract the model from the data.” From: “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data,” A. Halevy, P. Norvig, F. Pereira, Intelligent Systems, IEEE, 24(2):8-12, 2009.

Doubling stellar data: The project referenced in the text is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which uses a 2.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, slated to begin operations in 2016, will exceed SDSS data gathering by several orders of magnitude. “Data, data everywhere,” The Economist, February 25th, 2010. “A Data Deluge Swamps Science Historians,” R. L. Hotz, The Wall Street Journal, August 28th, 2009. “How to Channel the Data Deluge in Academic Research,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 4th, 2008. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Asteroids to Cosmology, The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, August 15-18, Chicago, 2008.

Doubling proteins: “The Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition: Expanding the Universe of Protein Families,” S. Yooseph, G. Sutton, D. B. Rusch, A. L. Halpern, S. J. Williamson, K. Remington, J. A. Eisen, K. B. Heidelberg, G. Manning, W. Li, L. Jaroszewski, P. Cieplak, C. S. Miller, H. Li, S. T. Mashiyama, M. P. Joachimiak, C. van Belle, J. M. Chandonia, D. A. Soergel, Y. Zhai, K. Natarajan, S. Lee, B. J. Raphael, V. Bafna, R. Friedman, S. E. Brenner, A. Godzik, D. Eisenberg, J. E. Dixon, S. S. Taylor, R. L. Strausberg, M. Frazier, J. C. Venter, Public Library of Science, Biology, 5(3):432-466, 2007.

Doubling chemicals: “50 Millionth Unique Chemical Substance Recorded in CAS REGISTRY,” Announcement, September 8th, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), The American Chemical Society, 2009. “Exponential growth of new chemicals and evolution of information relevant to risk control,” R. Binetti, F. M. Costamagna, I. Marcello, Annali dell’Istituto superiore di sanitá, 44(1):13-15, 2008. “Scientometric studies on chemistry I: The exponential growth of chemical substances, 1800-1995,” J. Schummer, Scientometrics, 39(1):107-123, 1997.

Doubling scientists: The figures are for doctorate holders in science and engineering in the United States who are employed outside academia in science or engineering fields. In 2005, the average annual growth rate was 4.6 percent (which means a doubling every 16 years). In China, the figures were 7.4 percent (10-year doubling) for ‘researchers.’ Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, Division of Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation, 2008, page 3-11.

Microfluidic robots: “An integrated microfluidic device for large-scale in situ click chemistry screening,” Y. Wang, W.-Y. Lin, K. Liu, R. J. Lin, M. Selke, H. C. Kolb, N. Zhang, X.-Z. Zhao, M. E. Phelps, C. K. F. Shen, K. F. Faull, H.-R. Tseng, Lab on a Chip, 9(16):2281-2285, 2009. “Toward an Artificial Golgi: Redesigning the Biological Activities of Heparan Sulfate on a Digital Microfluidic Chip,” J. G. Martin, M. Gupta, Y. Xu, A. R. Wheeler, S. Akella, J. Liu, J. S. Dordick, R. J. Linhardt, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(31):11041-11048, 2009. “Darwinian Evolution on a Chip,” B. M. Paegel, G. F. Joyce, PLoS Biology, 6(4):e85, 2008. “Microfluidic Serial Dilution Circuit,” B. M. Paegel, W. H. Grover, A. M. Skelley, R. A. Mathies, G. F. Joyce, Analytical Chemistry, 78(21):7522-7527, 2008. “Microfluidics for drug discovery and development: From target selection to product lifecycle management,” L. Kang, B. G. Chung, R. Langer, A. Khademhosseini, Drug Discovery Today, 13(1-2):1-13, 2008. “Microfabricated Monolithic Multinozzle Emitters for Nanoelectrospray Mass Spectrometry,” W. Kim, M. Guo, P. Yang, D. Wang, Analytical Chemistry, 79(10):3703-3707, 2007. “Digital microfluidics: Is a true lab-on-a-chip possible?” R. B. Fair, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 3(3):245-281, 2007. “Lab-on-a-chip: microfluidics in drug discovery,” P. S. Dittrich, A. Manz, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 5(3):210-218, 2006. “The origins and the future of microfluidics,” G. M. Whitesides, Nature, 442(7101):368-373, 2006.

Ever more scientific data: “Automating Science,” D. Waltz, B. Buchanan, Science, 324(5923):43-44, 2009. “Distilling Free-Form Natural Laws from Experimental Data,” M. Schmidt, H. Lipson, Science, 324(5923):81-85, 2009. “The Automation of Science,” R. D. King, J. Rowland, S. G. Oliver, M. Young, W. Aubrey, E. Byrne, M. Liakata, M. Markham, P. Pir, L. N. Soldatova, A. Sparkes, K. E. Whelan, A. Clare, 324(5923):85-89, 2009.

Increasing data spread: Half the world (four billion) was online by 2018. “Global Computing: Are We Losing Momentum?” C. Iglesias, D. Thakur, M. L. Best, Communications of the ACM, 63(2):22-24, 2020. The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014. The fourth billion by 2018. Then growth rate slowed. The second half of the world will take longer to get online.

Each dramatic reduction in the cost of information dispersal rearranged our groups, and brought more scientific and technological change. Our newest information proliferator, the global computer network, destroyed nearly all its more formal or commercial or ambitious electronic competitors because it was the simplest; it made no special demands to join, and it placed no special constraints on what could be added. The result was an information explosion we are still living through. But the only thing new about this latest surge is its speed.

The Christian conquest of Islamic Spain from the 1000s to the 1400s and the translations of ‘lost’ Greek and Latin books that followed the collapse of each Islamic city had already showed what happens when groups are inundated with an avalanche of knowledge. The ‘new’ knowledge pounded the frozen structure of European countries, chopping at them like an axe on a frozen pond, and leading to the rise of the first European universities, the slow breakup of feudal Europe under the pressure of the new questioning spirit, new entrepreneurialism, new architecture, new art, new trade, and even a small increase in income mobility. We might expect similar consequences today, except larger and more globally.

Before the printing press, whether in Europe or anywhere else on the planet, most of us couldn’t read, nor could we travel far—so we thought in terms of our village, town, or perhaps county. Then with the press in Europe, local languages began to freeze, Latin began to die, and nations became more of a thing. Religion fragmented and war spread. Similar things happened elsewhere around the planet wherever the press managed to worm its way in. Then, by the railroad era, our urge to merge grew even stronger since we could meet over longer distances. It grew stronger still when steamships and cheap steam-printed newspapers linked us yet more. But such tools didn’t bind all of us together. Rather, they bound our local groups more tightly together—against groups farther away. All we really changed was our definition of ‘local.’

Like drops of mercury pooling on a sheet of glass, from many small weak groups we puddled into fewer larger stronger groups—able to do much more, both to the planet and for each other, but also to each other. Once upon a time, getting us to go out and kill or die took flags and banners representing the ruling tribe, and later, an amalgam of nearby ruling tribes. Then it took uniforms and pageants and borders and heroic statues and such. Through all that period, gearing up for war was a long, drawn-out, expensive process, and mostly the resulting armies were small, horse-drawn, and mercenary. But while a rising flight to cities, rising literacy, compulsory schools, and compulsory military service changed the landscape, they didn’t necessarily change the game. Brightly colored postage stamps, specially minted coins, stirring national anthems, spectacular fireworks days, and military parades followed. Then the press added, then radio added, then film added, then TV added. Once masses of us could be more easily reached, masses of us could be more easily manip—er, educated.

As the printing press slashed the cost of books from 1450 to 1500, we made vastly more books. But while idea volume went up, idea reliability didn’t—at least, not at first. It didn’t have to until our credulity began to change. So most of our first printed books were copies of previously popular manuscripts. Nor had that supply-demand relationship necessarily changed 500 years later. In the United States in 1960, we published 15,012 new books, and in 2000, we published 96,080. Wow. So in just 40 years we got six times more new books. Gosh! But that needn’t mean that the ideas in those books were six times more reliable, more insightful, more innovative, more anything. Although it probably did mean that more writers with less to say got more space in which to say it.

Further, all that new data isn’t spreading, nor can it spread, uniformly. A wealth of data means a poverty of attention. We only have so much time to attend to anything. More data needn’t even make us any smarter, or even more informed—it can just make us more quickly and more deeply informed about stuff we wish to be informed about, which might only reinforce our earlier beliefs. So while a lot more data might be out there, what we each hear may only reflect things we want to hear, and deflect things we don’t want to hear. It may not much matter whether either of those is true or not.

Also, like a food web, a large and dense data-flow network supports parasites, and the larger and denser the network, the more parasites it can support. For instance, fossil remnants of parasitic genes take up around two fifths of our genome. So as network linkage rises, that not only means more idea trading, it can also mean more idea raiding, and more idea trashing. Art and graft can become grafitti.

Today, more of us can both talk and listen than ever before—both in terms of the billions who can, and in terms of the proportions of the billions alive. However, while many more of us can talk, we can’t listen to everyone else who’s talking. So will our future be one of considered opinion and careful argument to reach consensus? Not likely. More likely we’ll fragment—listening only to those who agree with us, or to those whom we already agree with. So our mass of talk might more and more become splash and hype and flag-waving. The deeper the pool, the more might we flounder.

It’s hard for us to separate opinion from knowledge. Of all the things it’s possible to know, we don’t know much. So when faced with anything new, we each try to integrate the new thing into our own—admittedly large, but still tiny—mental model of how things might work (which itself is neither complete nor well tested), then try to extend that into what we think (wish?) will be an accurate new model of how things might now work. Sometimes (often? always?) that new model is what we want things to be like, not how things will actually be like. We see what we want to see.

It’s easy, or maybe just comforting, to assume knowledge rather than presume ignorance, so we get many pretenders, and few seekers. We invent a steam printing press, and thus cheap newspapers, but not to spread knowledge, to control and manipulate each other; then next thing you know, we invent tabloid news. We invent radio, but out of it comes talk radio. We invent television, then it’s reality tv. We invent the internet, and soon it’s a medium for cat videos.

Nationalism and the growth of the concept of a nation: The point here is partly based on two books, both of which focus mostly on Europe (although the later does much more than the earlier), but the point is more general than that. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe, Patrick Geary, Princeton University Press, 2002. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson, Verso, 1983, especially Chapter 3.

Parasites and fossils on the human genome: Of our whole genome, about 5 percent is functional (that is, goes to protein), around 10 percent is structural (that is, controls protein expression in some way). But LINE and SINE parasitic genes contribute about 20 percent + 11 percent = 31 percent of the genome. ERVs add between 5-8 percent. Transposons add another 3 percent, making up maybe 42 percent of the genome. “A Comparative Assessment of the Pig, Mouse and Human Genomes: Structural and Functional Analysis of Genes Involved in Immunity and Inflammation,” H. D. Dawson, in: The Minipig in Biomedical Research, Peter A. McAnulty, Anthony D. Dayan, Niels-Christian Ganderup, and Kenneth L. Hastings (editors), CRC Press, 2012, pages 323-342.

Growing numbers of books from 1960 to 2000: The Digital Hand: How Computers Changed the Work of American Financial, Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment Industries, Volume 2, James W. Cortada, Oxford University Press, 2006, page 272.

Here’s the whole poem (from Varia Sebastiani Brandt Carmina, Basel, 1498). “Quid sibi docta cohors sibi quid studiosa caterva / gratius, utilius, commodius ve petet? / Quam sanctum, et nuper compertum opus atque lituras / quo premere edocuit grammata multa simul. / Quodque prius scriptis vix ullus mille diebus: / nunc uno solus hac aget arte die. / Rara fuit quondam librorum copia doctis: / rara inquam et paucis bibliotheca fuit. / Singula perque olim vix oppida pagina docta: / nunc per quasque domos multiplicata iacet. / Nuper ab ingenio Rhænanæ: gentis et arte: / librorum emersit copia larga nimis: / et qui divitibus vix regi obvenerat olim: / nunc liber in tenui cernitur esse casa. / Gratia diis primum, mox impressoribus æqua / gratia: quorum opera hæc prima reperta via est. / Quæ doctos latuit Græcos Italusque peritos / ars nova Germano venit ab ingenio. / Dic age si quid habes Latialis cultor agelli: / quod tali invento par sit et æquivalens? / Gallia tuque adeo: recta cervice superbam / quæ præfers frontem par tamen exhibe opus: / Dicite si post hac videatur barbara vena: / Germanis: quorum hic prodiit arte labor? / Cræde mihi cernes (rumparis Romule quamvis) / Pierides Rhæni mox colere arva sui. / Nec solum insigni probitate excellere et armis: / Germanos orbis scæptra tenere simul: / quin etiam ingenio studiis Musisque beatis: / præstare et cunctos vincere in orbe viros: / iampridem in cæpit doctos nutrire Platones: / Theutonia: invenies mox quoque Mæonidas. / Mox tibi vel Celsum dabimus iurisque peritum / Messalam, aut quales Roma vetusta tulit: / iam Cicero in nostra reperitur gente: Maroque: / novimus Ascræi: et cæcucientis opes: / Nil hodie nostram prolem latet atque iuventam: / Rhænus et Europæ fert modo noster aquas. / Cirrha Heliconque sacer nostras migravit ad Alpes. / Hercynium ingressa est Delphica silva nemus. / Iurassi pineta ferunt laurumque hederamque: / Rhetica tellus habet nectar et ambrosiam. / Idque impressorum processit ab arte operaque / nostrorum: hoc fruimur quippe beneficio: / namque volumina tot: totque exemplaria libros / præstiterant nobis: gratia multa viris. / Magna tibi hos inter debetur gratia: nostra / fragmina qui multis fors placitura premis. / Religiosa cohors: grates aget usque pudicis / plus elegis nostris carminibusque piis: / luxuriosa procum dederit quam turba Catullo. / Vel tibi quem pepulit Musa petulca Gethos.”

Then the different nations and races of men will stand, as it were, in the presence of one another. They will know one another better. They will act and re-act upon each other. They may be moved by common sympathies and swayed by common interests. Thus the electric spark is the true Promethean fire which is to kindle human hearts. Men then will learn that they are brethren, and that it is not less their interest than their duty to cultivate goodwill and peace throughout the earth.”

Conclusion of speech by David Dudley Field, an important lawyer and law reformer, at the Samuel Morse banquet, Boston, December 29th, 1868. (That’s two years after the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph.) Journal of the Telegraph, 2(3):31, 1869. See also: Life of David Dudley Field, Henry Martyn Field, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898.

See also: The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers, Tom Standage, Walker & Company, 1998, pages 83, 90-91, 103-104, 159, 161-163, 207.

The abuse of so tremendous an influence would be so harmful, that the Government, acting for all the people, may be relied upon to insure fairness in the use of broadcasting apparatus, and, used with fairness, its value to the public will be inestimable.

It is not too early to calculate the use of the radio as a means of bringing nations into closer communication. When, in November, 1921, President Harding opened the largest wireless telegraph station in the United States, he received answers from twenty-six nations that read his message, the farthest being Australia. Peace ought to be brought nearer and war be more quickly banished from the earth when the executives of all the nations can confer as if around a council table.”

“Radio will Help Bring World Peace,” W. J. Bryan, Wireless Age, 11(8):17, 1924.

There were several similar predictions. A riposte came in 1929:

“Do you remember, a few years ago, how we all felt a vague sort of elation when the wonder of radio came to our attention? Ah, at last, we said, here is something... something... we were not quite sure what. Something overwhelming that was going to broaden American life and culture. Something that was going to bring peace on earth and good will to men. Something that was going to do everything but change the actual physical line of North America. Do you think I exaggerate? Get out the papers of a few years back and read the editorials.

And now we know what we have got in radio—just another disintegrating toy. Just another medium—like the newspapers, the magazines, the billboards, and the mailbox—for advertisers to use in pestering us. A blatant signboard erected in the living room to bring us news of miraculous oil burners, fuel-saving motor cars, cigar lighters that always light. Formerly, despite the movies, the automobile, the correspondence course, and the appalling necessity most of us feel for working at two or three jobs in order to be considered successful, we still had some leisure time. But radio, God’s great gift to man, eliminated that last dangerous chance for Satan to find mischief for idle hands. There is now very little danger that Americans will resort to the vice of thinking. [...]

The marvel of science which was to bring us new points of view, new conceptions of life, has degenerated in most homes into a mere excuse for failing to entertain. Mr. and Mrs. Babbitt, who used to make a feint at conversation by repeating to each other and their guests the ideas which they had gleaned from the editorials in the morning paper, now no longer go to that trouble. Bridge is too much of an exertion. It is not necessary even to serve ice cream and cake. All the modern host needs is his sixteen-tube Super-sophistication and a ration of gin. The guests sit around the radio and sip watered gin and listen to so-called music interspersed with long lists of the bargains to be had at Whosit’s Department Store by those who get down early in the morning. If they are feeling particularly loquacious, they nod to each other. Thus dies the art of conversation. Thus rises the wonder of the century—Radio! [...]

Anyone not knowing America, knowing nothing of radio, knowing nothing of our national temperament, would conclude, seeing these loud speakers stuck up everywhere, that some tremendous message of vital import was being given to the citizenry. If he could not understand the English language—and had no idea what we use the language for, principally—he would expect to see a great change come over the ordinary run of folks after this vital message had been blared forth everywhere day after day, week after week. And, indeed, it would be possible for a change to be effected. Americans—at least ninety per cent of them—spend the larger part of their waking hours snatching dollars from each other, making each other extremely uncomfortable in doing so, and rushing through their short lifetimes hell-bent to arrive somewhere with a fist full of money. A stranger watching their expressions would conclude that they had a straight tip to the effect that if they could only accumulate a million somehow they could purchase an immortality surrounded by oceans of good wine, platoons of willing women, a perfect climate, and free motion pictures.”

“Radio—a Blessing or a Curse?” J. Woodford, The Forum, 81(29):169-171, 1929.

On the same page, Standage refers to Michael Dertouzos, head of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, claiming that: “A common bond reached through electronic proximity may help stave off future flareups of ethnic hatred and national breakups.” What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives, Michael Dertouzos, HarperCollins, 1997.

Only about one in five scientists who cite a paper have actually read that paper. “Do you sincerely want to be cited? Or: read before you cite,” M. Simkin, V. Roychowdhury, Significance, 3(4):179-181, 2006. The original: “Read before you cite!” M. V. Simkin, V. P. Roychowdhury, Complex Systems, 14(3):269-274, 2003. See also: “Manipulating the Online Marketplace of Ideas,” X. Lou, A. Flammini, F. Menczer, to appear, 2021?. “Competition among memes in a world with limited attention,” L. Weng, A. Flammini, A. Vespignani, F. Menczer, Scientific Reports, 2:335, 2012. The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date, Samuel Arbesman, Penguin, 2012. The Production of Knowledge: The Challenge of Social Science Research, William Starbuck, Oxford University Press, 2006.

“We are predisposed to see order, pattern and meaning in the world and we find randomness, chaos and meaninglessness unsatisfying. Human nature abhors a lack of predictability and an absence of meaning. As a consequence, we tend to ‘see’ order where there is none and we spot meaningful patterns where only the vagaries of chance are operating.” How We Know What Isn’t So, Thomas Gilovich, Free Press, 1991, page 9.

This idea goes way back. Here’s Jonathan Swift in 1710: “Few Lyes carry the Inventor’s Mark, and the most prostitute Enemy to Truth may spread a thousand, without being known for the Author. Besides, as the vilest Writer hath his Readers, so the greatest Lyar hath his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lye be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther Occasion for it. Falshood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect: Like a Man who has thought of a good Repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the Company parted: or like a Physician, who hath found out an infallible Medicine, after the Patient is dead.” The Examiner, No. XIV (Thursday, November 9th, 1710) A Modest Proposal and Other Prose, Jonathan Swift, Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2004, pages 195-196.

“A few months ago two of the great historic figures of European physics, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli, believed that they had made an essential step forward in the direction of a theory of elementary particles. Pauli happened to be passing through New York, and was prevailed upon to give a lecture explaining the new ideas to an audience that included Niels Bohr, who had been mentor to both Heisenberg and Pauli in their days of glory thirty years earlier when they made their great discoveries. Pauli spoke for an hour, and then there was a general discussion during which he was criticized sharply by the younger generation. Finally Bohr was called on to make a speech summing up the argument. ‘We are all agreed,’ he said, ‘that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.’

The objection that they are not crazy enough applies to all the attempts which have so far been launched at a radically new theory of elementary particles. It applies especially to crackpots. Most of the crackpot papers which are submitted to the Physical Review are rejected, not because it is impossible to understand them, but because it is possible. Those that are impossible to understand are usually published. When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer himself it will be only half-understood; to everybody else it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope.

The pace of fundamental advance in physics is set by human stupidity. The pace is, and has always been, very slow. The rapid expansion of experimental work in the last ten years has had the consequence that experimental knowledge is now far ahead of theory. This is a healthy situation. But fundamental understanding will not be hurried. It could easily happen that all conceivable experiments that can be done with accelerators by bashing elementary particles together will be done, and the results will be accurately recorded, and still we will have no understanding of what is happening. Then we will have to sit and wait for ideas, or for radically new kinds of experiments. Somehow, sometimes, we believe the logjam will be broken. But we can push at only one log at a time, and few of them move when we push them.”

From: “Innovation in Physics,” F. J. Dyson, Scientific American, 199(3):74-82, 1958. Reprinted in: From Eros to Gaia, Freeman Dyson, Random House Canada, 1992, Chapter 9.

“We must maintain, further, that the soul is also the cause of the living body as the original source of local movement. The power of locomotion is not found, however, in all living things. But change of quality and change of quantity are also due to the soul. Sensation is held to be a qualitative alteration, and nothing except what has soul in it is capable of sensation. The same holds of the quantitative changes which constitute growth and decay; nothing grows or decays naturally except what feeds itself, and nothing feeds itself except what has a share of soul in it.” The Works of Aristotle, Volume III: De Anima, Book II, Chapter 4, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by J. A. Smith, Oxford University Press, 1931, page 116.

Cronin and Walker argue that definitions of life should become more information-theoretic. “Beyond prebiotic chemistry: What dynamic network properties allow the emergence of life?” L. Cronin, S. I. Walker, Science, 352(6290):1174-1175, 2016.

The working definition of NASA’s astrobiology program, which included biochemist Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute is: “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” From: “Forming a Definition for Life: Interview with Gerald Joyce,” Astrobiology Magazine, July 25th, 2013. “The RNA World: Life before DNA and Protein,” G. F. Joyce, in: Extraterrestrials: Where are They? Ben Zuckerman and Michael H. Hart (editors), Cambridge University Press, 1995, Second Edition, pages 139-151.

Machery argues that definitions of life are pointless (if scientific) since astrobiology, artificial life, evolutionary biology, and other branches of biology (synthetic, molecular, origin of life) are interested in different things, and pointless if not, since for folk definitions no one can agree on edge cases (like crystals, fire, mules, and so on).

“Life definitionists have too often been careless: They have constantly mixed folk intuitions with scientific considerations. However, they have to decide whether the notion of life at stake is the folk concept of life or a scientific concept. In the first case, there is little hope of finding a definition of life since, like most folk concepts, the folk concept of life is not a definition, and it is unlikely to yield a set of intuitive judgments about what is alive that can be captured by a definition non-arbitrarily. In the second case, life can perhaps be defined. However, because the study of life spreads over several disciplines, life definitionists are likely to end up with several, intensionally and extensionally different definitions of life without having any means to choose between them. Defining life is then likely to be pointless.” From: “Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life... and why you should as well,” E. Machery, Synthese, 185(1):145-164, 2012.

Trifonov did a word-cloud analysis of all 123 known definitions to find that the most common ‘traits’ mentioned were self-reproduction and evolution. “Analysis of the vocabulary of 123 tabulated definitions of life reveals nine groups of defining terms (definientia) of which the groups (self-)reproduction and evolution (variation) appear as the minimal set for a concise and inclusive definition: Life is self-reproduction with variations.” From: “Vocabulary of Definitions of Life Suggests a Definition,” E. N. Trifonov, Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, 29(2):259-266, 2011.

See also: “What is life?” M. A. Bedau, in: A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, S. Sarkar and A. Plutynski (editors), Blackwell, 2007, pages 455-471. “Definitely life but not definitively,” J. D. Oliver, R. S. Perry, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere: The Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, 36(5-6):515-521, 2006. Between Probability and Necessity: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life, Radu Popa, Springer, 2004. “Defining ‘Life’,” C. E. Cleland, C. F. Chyba, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere: The Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, 32(4):387-393, 2002. “The Seven Pillars of Life,” D. E. Koshland, Jr., Science, 295(5563):2215-2216, 2002.

There are four main theories for the origin of life.

• [Heritage-First] Life developed from some early form of RNA inside a cell then developed a metabolism around that.
• [Eating-First] Life developed from some early form of metabolism inside a cell then developed a hereditary mechanism around that.
• [Cell-First] Life developed as cells first then developed a metabolism and a hereditary mechanism inside those.
• Life did all three (that is, it developed some sort of early cell and some form of early metabolism and some type of early heredity, which then all together grew more complex and interdependent).

A molecular biologist might say that metabolic networks need not be template autocatalytic, they can instead be synergetic, in the sense used in the text (also called ‘collectively autocatalytic’ or ‘network autocatalytic’ in the literature.) That may have been how they started 3.5 thousand million or more years ago. Depending on changes in the environment—what molecules rose in concentration or fell in concentration, what new molecules became available, what others vanished—a synergetic network, if robust enough, might change to accommodate external change.

Further, so-called ‘feed-down’ synergetic networks replicate themselves by their very metabolism. The Krebs cycle built on citric acid is an example. So evolution may not have needed template autocatalysis (promoted by things like DNA or even RNA) to get going. But, really, right now we have no idea.

The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, Harold J. Morowitz, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 74.

However, Orgel had this to say: “Lack of specificity rather than inadequate efficiency may be the predominant barrier to the existence of complex autocatalytic cycles of almost any kind.” From: “The implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth,” L. E. Orgel, PLoS Biology, 6(1):e18, 2008. In the absence of definite knowledge and meaningful labwork, debate (or perhaps just wild speculation...) continues.

There are, however, may different ways to give meaning to the term ‘random’ because our everyday notion of what ‘random’ means is very fuzzy. In statistics and probability theory, a random process is often taken to mean the same thing as a stochastic process, but since, outside mathematically technical fields, ‘random’ is a common word and ‘stochastic’ is rare, the text draws the distinction. In mathematics and computer science, a random process can have several definitions depending on what we choose to consider important at the time.

The simplified version that the text gives corresponds to what computer scientists call Kolmogorov complexity. A process is said to be random in that sense if its sequence of states isn’t very compressible—that is, if there’s no significantly shorter algorithm to produce the sequence other than to list the sequence itself. By that definition, nearly all possible sequences are random. (Note that that’s different from saying that all possible processes are random.) The only sequences that aren’t random in that sense possess some pattern (which is what would make them compressible). Determined ones (more normally called deterministic in computer science) however, are highly compressible. (Note that a sequence can appear random yet still be determined; chaos theory is all about such sequences.) In time series analysis, a roughly analogous statement would be that a sequence can be non-singular (that is, not deterministic) and also non-regular (that is, not purely nondeterminstic). More strictly, it’s a non-stationary, non-ergodic stochastic process. Or to put it more prosaically, usually a sequence has both signal and noise. It’s almost never pure signal or pure noise. Long-Memory Time Series: Theory and Methods, Wilfredo Palma, Wiley, 2007. Probability, Random Variables and Random Signal Principles, P. Z. Peebles, McGraw-Hill Inc., 2001. An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications, Ming Li and Paul Vitányi, Springer, Second Edition, 1997.

Also, John von Neumann solved, in theory, the related problem of self-building automata (at least with Turing-complete automata) long ago. “Von Neumann’s Self-Reproducing Automata,” 491-552, in: Papers of John Von Neumann on Computing and Computer Theory, William Aspray and Arthur Burks (editors), The MIT Press, 1987.

A lot of this started with the work of Stuart Kauffman. “A History of Autocatalytic Sets: A Tribute to Stuart Kauffman,” W. Hordijk, Biological Theory, 14(4):224-246, 2019. “Autocatalytic networks in biology: structural theory and algorithms,” M. Steel, W. Hordijk, J. C. Xavier, Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 16(151):2018. “Population dynamics of autocatalytic sets in a compartmentalized spatial world,” W. Hordijk, J. Naylor, N. Krasnogor, H. Fellermann, Life, 8(3):33, 2018. “Coupled catabolism and anabolism in autocatalytic RNA sets,” S. Arsène, S. Ameta, N. Lehman, A. D. Griffiths, P. Nghe, Nucleic Acids Research, 46(18):9660-9666, 2018. “Chasing the tail: The emergence of autocatalytic networks,” W. Hordijk, M. Steel, BioSystems, 152:1-10, 2017. “Autocatalytic sets in E. coli metabolism,” F. L. Sousa, W. Hordijk, M. Steel, W. F. Martin, Journal of Systems Chemistry, 6:4, 2015. “Algorithms for detecting and analysing autocatalytic sets,” W. Hordijk, J. I. Smith, M. Steel, Algorithms for Molecular Biology, 10:15, 2015. “Spontaneous network formation among cooperative RNA replicators,” N. Vaidya, M. L. Manapat, I. A. Chen, R. Xulvi-Brunet, E. J. Hayden, N. Lehman, Nature, 491(7422):72-77, 2012. “The structure of autocatalytic sets: Evolvability, enablement, and emergence,” W. Hordijk, M. Steel, S. Kauffman, Acta Biotheoretica, 60(4):379-392, 2012. “Evolution before genes,” V. Vasas, C. Fernando, M. Santos, S. Kauffman, E. Szathmáry, Biology Direct, 7:1, 2012. “Mechanosensitive Self-Replication Driven by Self-Organization,” J. M. A. Carnall, C. A. Waudby, A. M. Belenguer, M. C. A. Stuart, J. J.-P. Peyralans, S. Otto, Science, 327(5972):1502-1506, 2010. “Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks: A constraint on the metabolism-first path to the origin of life,” V. Vasas, E. Szathmáry, M. Santos, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(4):1470-1475, 2010. “Autocatalytic Sets and the Origin of Life,” W. Hordijk, J. Hein, M. Steel, Entropy, 12(7):1733-1742, 2010. “Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life,” V. Vasas, E. Szathmáry, M. Santos, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(4):1470-1475, 2010. “Question 1: Origin of Life and the Living State,” S. Kauffman, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 37(4-5):315-322, 2007. “Random biochemical networks: the probability of self-sustaining autocatalysis,” E. Mossel, M. Steel, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 233(3):327-336, 2005. “On the crucial stages in the origin of animate matter,” S. Lifson, Journal of Molecular Evolution, 44(1):1-8, 1997. The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Stuart Kauffman, Oxford University Press, 1993.

Incidentally, Kauffman deserves credit not just for this work but also for being one of the first to think up and follow through on modeling autocatalytic sets (and now gene regulatory networks) with boolean networks, which are much simpler, and more mathematically (and computationally) tractable. The following paper goes into more mathematical details of the spontaneous evolution and repeated catastrophes of synergetic (that is, collectively autocatalytic) sets: “Graph Theory and the Evolution of Autocatalytic Networks,” S. Jain, S. Krishna, Handbook of Graphs and Networks: From the Genome to the Internet, Stefan Bornholdt and Heinz Georg Schuster (editors), Wiley-VCH, 2003, pages 355-395.

Several later books, with varying levels of mathematical sophistication, have the same connectivity theme: Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan J. Watts, W. W. Norton, 2003. Linked: The New Science of Networks, Albert-László Barabási, Perseus Publishing, 2002. Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, Mark Buchanan, W. W. Norton, 2002.

However, note that the claims made in each of those books about an absence of prior research needs to be treated with caution, as their authors seem to be largely ignorant of earlier relevant research in sociology. See, for example: “Social Physics and Social Newtworks,” J. Scott, in: The SAGE Handbook of Social Network Analysis, John Scott and Peter J. Carrington (editors), SAGE Publications Ltd., 2011, pages 55-66. “Small-World Networks, Complex Systems and Sociology,” N. Crossley, Sociology, 42(2):261-277, 2008.

The usual probabilistic network connectivity argument is an intuitive version of the original, more technical, mathematical argument on the evolution of connectivity in random graphs: the appearance of a giant connected component happens abruptly during edge addition. “On the Evolution of Random Graphs,” Paul Erdös and Alfred Rényi, Magyar Tud. Akad. Mat. Kutató Int. Közl., (Publications of the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) 5:17-61, 1960. See, for example: Graphical Evolution: An Introduction to the Theory of Random Graphs, Edgar M. Palmer, John Wiley & Sons, 1985.

Frampton gives a somewhat more colorful reading, hewing closer to the original Greek: “Animals and plants come into being in earth and in liquid because there is water in earth, and pneuma in water, and in all pneuma is psychical heat, so that in a sense all things are full of soul. Therefore, living things form quickly whenever this pneuma and psychical heat are enclosed in anything. When they are so enclosed, the corporeal liquids being heated, there arises, as it were, a frothy bubble similar to semen.” Embodiments of Will: Anatomical and Physiological Theories of Voluntary Animal Motion from Greek Antiquity to the Latin Middle Ages, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1300, Michael Frampton, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, 2008, page 85. See also: “Spontaneous Generation and Kindred Notions in Antiquity,” E. S. McCartney, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 51:101-115, 1920.

At least some of what Aristotle said may be him passing off local myth as his own thought. For instance, he thought that eels sprang from mud. But then, perhaps that’s just because he couldn’t figure out how they had sex. On cutting them open, he couldn’t see any sex organs. Clams, and mussels, and many other small animals, including most insects, also probably puzzled him. In all such cases, either their gonads are too small for him to see with his naked eye, or they develop only when he can’t get at them. So maybe that’s why he just assumed that they simply spring into being.

Nor is that silly. After all, many of us believed the same at least until around 1880. And some of us still believe it. Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation, James E. Strick, Harvard University Press, 2000.

Today, many tales are told about Aristotle as if to make fun of him. But he was a far more subtle thinker than they might suggest. For example, a Greek belief at the time held that blacks had black semen. That particular Greek folktale goes back at least as far as Herodotus, 2,400 years ago: “...The sexual intercourse of all these Indians that I have been describing takes place in the open, as with cattle; and all have skin of the same colour, like that of Ethiopians: and the semen that they emit when they have intercourse is not white like other men’s, but as black as their skins; and so is the Ethiopians’.” The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Herodotus, Book III, section 101, translated by Harry Carter, The Heritage Press, 1958, page 206. Aristotle debunked it. “Herodotus does not report the truth when he says that the semen of the Aethiopians is black, as if everything must needs be black in those who have a black skin.” The Works of Aristotle, Volume V: De Generatione Animalium, Book II, section 2, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by Arthur Platt, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1912.

The relating of breath and ‘life-force’ is a common idea. It shows itself in the word spiritus in Latin, pneuma in Greek, ruah in Hebrew, ruh in Arabic, qi in Mandarin, ki in Japanese, prana in Sanskrit, ka in Ancient Egyptian, awen in Welsh, ai in Irish, and Silap Inua in Inuit.

“Nec nimio solis maior rota nec minor ardor / esse potest nostris quam sensibus esse videtur. / nam quibus e spatiis cumque ignes lumina possunt / adiicere et calidum membris adflare vaporem, / nil illa his intervallis de corpore libant / flammarum, nil ad speciem est contractior ignis. / proinde, calor quoniam solis lumenque profusum / perveniunt nostros ad sensus et loca fulgent, / forma quoque hinc solis debet filumque videri, / nil adeo ut possis plus aut minus addere, vere.”

“The wheel of the sun and its heat cannot be much greater or less than is perceived by our senses. For from whatever distances fires can project light and breathe warm heat upon our bodies, they diminish nothing by these intervals from their mass of flame, and the fire is made no narrower to the eye. Therefore, since the sun’s heat and flooding light reach to our senses and the world shines with its rays, the shape also of the sun and its size must so truly be seen from the earth that you can add nothing at all to it and take nothing away.”

De Rerum Natura, Lucretius, Book V, 564-574, Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, by Titus Lucretius Carus, translated by W. H. D. Rouse and M. F. Smith, (Loeb Classical Library No. 181), Second Revised Edition, Harvard University Press, 1924, pages 422-423.

For his beliefs on spontaneous life from damp earth (which influenced Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century, and his views on the plague), see: Book VI, lines 1093-1102, pages 575-577. See also: Book II 1150-60, Book V, 797-98, and 827-36. “Mater Matters: The Female in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura,” G. S. Nugent, Colby Quarterly, 30(3):179-205, 1994. And: “Spontaneous Generation in Lucretius III, 713-740,” W. M. Read, The Classical Journal, 36(1):38-40, 1940.

“Happy Violence: Bentley, Lucretius, and the Prehistory of Freethinking,” J. C. Williams, Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700, 38(1):61-80, 2014. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton, 2011.

“And for this reason those have the right conception who believe that the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body, and a body of such and such a kind.” Book II, Chapter 2, 414a19ff. De Anima, Aristotle, Books II and III (With Passages from Book I), translated by D. W. Hamlyn, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1993, page 14. The older (standard) translation is: “Hence the rightness of the view that the soul cannot be without a body, while it cannot be a body; it is not a body but something relative to a body. That is why it is in a body, and a body of a definite kind. It was a mistake, therefore, to do as former thinkers did, merely to fit it into a body without adding a definite specification of the kind or character of that body. Reflection confirms the observed fact; the actuality of any given thing can only be realized in what is already potentially that thing, i.e. in a matter of its own appropriate to it. From all this it follows that soul is an actuality or formulable essence of something that possesses a potentiality of being besouled.” The Works of Aristotle, Volume III: De Anima, Book II, Chapter 4, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by J. A. Smith, Oxford University Press, 1931. A literal translation might go something like this: “And for this reason those have the right conception who hold that the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it... exists in a... body of such and such a kind. Not as our predecessors supposed, when they fitted it to... (just any kind of) body... it is clear that one chance thing does not receive another.”

However, in other parts of the same book, he tells us that ‘active intellect’ is eternal. He can’t quite seem to decide. Plato, his tutor, was quite firmly in the dualist camp: the soul was a separate and surviving thing. Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, Martha C. Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (editors), Oxford University Press, 1995, especially Chapters 4, 6, 7, and 10. “Aristotle’s Definition of the Soul and the Programme of the De Anima,” S. Menn, in: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Summer 2002, David Sedley (editor), Oxford University Press, 2002, pages 83-140.

There are other kinds of enzymes than the two described in the text (which are the lyases, which cut, and the ligases, which join). Some, like the transferases, both cut and join. Some, like the isomerases, neither cut nor join; they rearrange the atoms in one molecule. Also, technically, the lyases, aren’t the only cutters; the hydolases can also break chemical bonds (via hydrolysis—that is, they accelerate a molecule’s interaction with water) (or via condensation).

About 95 percent of all enzymes are catabolic—they break down molecules (that is, cut pieces off). Metabolism is the interplay between catabolism and anabolism (the buildup of bigger molecules from smaller ones). Anabolic reactions mostly need energy to build bigger molecules from smaller one or store energy (or both), while catabolic reactions usually break down bigger molecules into smaller ones and release energy, and that energy then drives anabolic reactions.

As in much of science, accurate terminology is a problem for popularizers. ‘Sucrase’ is a generic name for a whole family of more specific enzymes, one of which is Oligosaccharide alpha-1,6-glucosidase. Similarly, the actual name for ‘sucrose synthase’ is NDP-glucose:D-fructose 2-alpha-D-glucosyltransferase. (Other common names are: UDPglucose-fructose glucosyltransferase, sucrose-UDP glucosyltransferase, sucrose-uridine diphosphate glucosyltransferase, and uridine diphosphoglucose-fructose glucosyltransferase). It catalyzes the reaction:

NDP-glucose + D-Fructose <=> NDP + Sucrose

Another example of a ligase is DNA ligase; it joins up two chunks of DNA. A bacterium has about a thousand different enzymes. As of 2015, the Protein Data Bank lists about 100,000 different proteins.

The genome of the synthetic organism JCVI-syn1.0 (based on Mycoplasma mycoides) is 1,079 kilobase pairs long but it is capable of continuous self-replication. (Note: it has 8 single tRNA genes and 5 clusters of 2 to 9 genes, for a total of 30 tRNA genes.) As of 2016, that has been reduced down to JCVI-syn3.0 (which has 531,490 base pairs with 473 genes, of which 438 encode proteins and 35 encode annotated RNAs). So far, 149 the 473 genes are mysterious; and while we can guess at 70 of them, 79 of them have completely unknown function. The rest are basically about three main things: making proteins and RNA, keeping the genetic information safe, and creating the cell membrane. Proportionally, they divide into: expression of genome function (41 percent), cell membrane (18 percent), cytosolic metabolism (17 percent), and preservation of genome information (7 percent) It lacks DNA-modifying and restrictions genes, and also genes responsible for encoding lipoproteins.

“Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome,” C. A. Hutchison III, R.-Y. Chuang, V. N. Noskov, N. Assad-Garcia. T. J. Deerinck, M. H. Ellisman, J. Gill, K. Kannan, B. J. Karas, L. Ma, J. F. Pelletier, Z.-Q. Qi, R. A. Richter, E. A. Strychalski, L. Sun, Y. Suzuki, B. Tsvetanova, K. S. Wise, H. O. Smith, J. I. Glass, C. Merryman, D. G. Gibson, J. C. Venter, Science, 351(6280):aad6253, 2016. “Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome,” D. G. Gibson, J. I. Glass, C. Lartigue, V. N. Noskov, R.-Y. Chuang, M. A. Algire, G. A. Benders, M. G. Montague, L. Ma, M. M. Moodie, C. Merryman, S. Vashee, R. Krishnakumar, N. Assad-Garcia, C. Andrews-Pfannkoch, E. A. Denisova, L. Young, Z.-Q. Qi, T. H. Segall-Shapiro, C. H. Calvey, P. P. Parmar, C. A. Hutchison III, H. O. Smith, J. C. Venter, Science, 329(5987):52-56, 2010. “Essential genes of a minimal bacterium,” J. I. Glass, N. Assad-Garcia, N. Alperovich, S. Yooseph, M. R. Lewis, M. Maruf, C. A. Hutchison, III, H. O. Smith, J. C. Venter, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(2):425-430, 2006. “Determination of the Core of a Minimal Bacterial Gene Set,” R. Gil, F. J. Silva, J. Peretó, A. Moya, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 68(3):518-537, 2004. “A modular minimal cell model: Purine and pyrimidine transport and metabolism,” M. Castellanos, D. B. Wilson, M. L. Shuler, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(17):6681-6686, 2004. “The genome of Nanoarchaeum equitans: Insights into early archaeal evolution and derived parasitism,” E. Waters, M. J. Hohn, I. Ahel, D. E. Graham, M. D. Adams, M. Barnstead, K. Y. Beeson, L. Bibbs, R. Bolanos, M. Keller, K. Kretz, X. Lin, E. Mathur, J. Ni, M. Podar, T. Richardson, G. G. Sutton, M. Simon, D. Söll, K. O. Stetter, J. M. Short, M. Noordewier, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(22):12984-12988, 2003.

How such a thing might have evolved is difficult to say, but one ‘just-so’ story might be that perhaps ancestral microbes were once able to survive only on glucose, unable to eat lactose. Then, some came along that could eat lactose, but couldn’t eat glucose. Then, some came along that could do both, and those may have outcompeted both prior kinds because they could survive on either sugar. Then, they, too, were out-competed by some new ones that could choose only one sugar or the other, depending on what was available, because that was more efficient.

“Cellular regulation is believed to evolve in response to environmental variability. However, this has been difficult to test directly. Here, we show that a gene regulation system evolves to the optimal regulatory response when challenged with variable environments. We engineered a genetic module subject to regulation by the lac repressor (LacI) in E. coli, whose expression is beneficial in one environmental condition and detrimental in another. Measured tradeoffs in fitness between environments predict the competition between regulatory phenotypes. We show that regulatory evolution in adverse environments is delayed at specific boundaries in the phenotype space of the regulatory LacI protein. Once this constraint is relieved by mutation, adaptation proceeds toward the optimum, yielding LacI with an altered allosteric mechanism that enables an opposite response to its regulatory ligand IPTG. Our results indicate that regulatory evolution can be understood in terms of tradeoff optimization theory.” From: “Tradeoffs and optimality in the evolution of gene regulation,” F. J. Poelwijk, M. G. J. de Vos, S. J. Tans, Cell, 146(3):462-470, 2011.

See also: Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, David L. Nelson and Michael M. Cox, W. H. Freeman and Company, Fourth edition, 2007, Chapter 28, pages 1082-1089. The Logic of Life: A History of Heredity, François Jacob, translated by Betty E. Spillmann, Princeton University Press, 1993. The Statue Within, François Jacob, translated by F. Philip, Basic Books, 1988. Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, Jacques Monod, translated by Austryn Wainhouse, Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.

If the attacker finds that the cell’s indicators suggest that the cell is likely not under attack by lots of others, and is likely in good growth conditions, the cell’s future looks bright. So it tries to sneak into the cell’s genes, and also protect the cell from other attackers. If successful, it would then get passed on to all cell copies, until at some point in the future, it can erupt from many of them, making a vast number of copies. However, if the indicators suggest that the cell is either already under serious attack by others, or is in a bad growth situation anyway, the cell’s future looks dim. So the attacker then just tries to cut and run, getting what it can now with no plan for the future. It then tricks the cell into making as many copies as it can, killing it, getting away with as many copies as it can in the short time, likely, remaining before the cell dies anyway.

“Phage lysis-lysogeny switches and programmed cell death: Danse macabre,” S. Benler, E. V. Koonin, BioEssays, 42(12):2000114, 2020. “High-resolution studies of lysis-lysogeny decision-making in bacteriophage lambda,” Q. Shao, J. T. Trinh, L. Zeng, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 294(10):3343-3349, 2019 “Communication between viruses guides lysis-lysogeny decisions,” Z. Erez, I. Steinberger-Levy, M. Shamir, S. Doron, A. Stokar-Avihail, Y. Peleg, S. Melamed, A. Leavitt, A. Savidor, S. Albeck, G. Amitai, R. Sorek, Nature, 541(7638):488-493, 2017. “Lysis-lysogeny coexistence: prophage integration during lytic development,” Q. Shao, J. T. Trinh, C. S. McIntosh, B. Christenson, G. Balázsi, L. Zeng, Microbiology Open, 6(1):e00395, 2017.

In his words: “An autopoietic machine is a machine organised (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components which:

• (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realise the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and
• (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realisation as such a network.”

The definition (for molecular networks) has since been reformulated to: “A system is autopoietic if and only if:

1. It is a network of physical and chemical processes.
2. This network chemically produces a subset of the components which are parts of the network.
3. This subset of components, by means of relations among its members and with the components of its surroundings, generates the conditions necessary to maintain the components of the network in physical proximity, collectively forming a spatially discrete individual unit over time.”

Autopoiesis has not (yet?) been accepted in biology, outside of systems biology and xenobiology. Versions of autopoiesis has since been adopted by several fields outside biology, most notably in cognitive science, machine intelligence, cybernetics, artificial life, and—with increasing levels of vagueness—sociology, management, political science, and law. “Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal,” P. L. Luisi, Naturwissenschaften, 90(2):49-59, 2003.

The whole approach was anticipated by the remarkable and monumental: Living Systems, James Grier Miller, McGraw-Hill, 1978. Miller traced similarities in autonomous systems from the cell all the way to the supranational organization. It, in turn, was anticipated by the systems approach to biology of von Bertalnaffy as far back as the 1940s. General Systems Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, George Braziller, 1968.

Another, somewhat similar treatment: “A Model for the Origin of Life,” F. Dyson, Journal of Molecular Evolution, 18(5):344-350, 1982. “Recyclying, Reproduction, and Life’s Origins,” G. A. M. King, Biosystems, 15(2):89-97, 1982. For more recent treatments, see: “Spontaneous Emergence of a Metabolism,” R. J. Bagley, J. D. Farmer, and also “Evolution of a Metabolism,” R. J. Bagley, J. D. Farmer, W. Fontana, both in Artificial Life II, Proceedings of the Workshop on Artificial Life Held February, 1990 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Christopher Langton, Charles Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, and Steen Rasmussen (editors), Addison-Wesley, 1992, pages 93-140 and pages 141-158. The Hypercycle: A Principle of Natural Self-Organization, Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster, Springer-Verlag, 1979. The Principles of Life, Tibor Gánti, Oxford University Press, 2003. (Originally published in Hungarian in 1971, nearly at the same time as Rössler’s and Eigen’s and Kauffman’s first work in this area.) Information and the Origin of Life, Bernd-Olaf Küppers, translated by Manu Scripta, The MIT Press, 1990. At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, Stuart Kauffman, Oxford University Press, 1995.

In this last book Kauffman attempts to ground his theory in thermodynamic work cycles, but lab support was lacking. However, work has been done recently on autocatalytic networks in the lab. “Self-sustained replication of an RNA enzyme,” T. A. Lincoln, G. E. Joyce, Science, 323(5918):1229-1232, 2009. “Cross-catalytic replication of an RNA ligase ribozyme,” D. E. Kim, G. F. Joyce, Chemistry & Biology, 11(11):1505-1512, 2004. “Self-replication of complementary nucleotide-based oligomers,” D. Sievers, G. von Kiedrowski, Nature, 369():221-224, 1994.

Note that Eigen’s work is on cycles of replicators (intended to model early RNA replication) without mutation. Kauffman’s model is on biochemical reactions, again without mutation (which makes sense, but there could be ‘mutation’ of a kind via biochemical replacement). One big problem area remains in all three of these approaches: no one is yet modelling spatial distribution. Paulien Hogeweg and her group at Utrecht are doing so now in simulations of spatially distributed replicators intended to model early RNA replication. No one has yet modeled stigmergic reactions between such hypercycles of replicators (or even enzymes) and some surrounding semi-stable container. Gánti’s model, however, explicitly has both a container and a replicator, as well as a metablism. Ultimately that, plus some variant of Hogeweg’s work on spatial distribution of such entities, and the resulting coevolution of all those parts, might be the right next step to take.

[...] [T]he living state inherently requires a considerable degree of spatial organization [...] It suggests that life will have begun not with naked protogenes, but with chemical systems that progressively came to display the hallmarks of cells: boundaries, metabolism, spatial order, energy transduction, autopoiesis. Heredity based on nucleic acids will not have been first on stage, but its advent made possible evolution by variation and selection and marked the appearance of recognizable life.” From: “Molecules into Cells: Specifying Spatial Architecture,” F. M. Harold, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 69(4):544-564, 2005.

Kinesins take about 100 microseconds to move a distance of about 8 nanometers from one microtubule binding site to another. “An atomic-level mechanism for activation of the kinesin molecular motors,” C. V. Sindelar, K. H. Downing, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(9):4111-4116, 2010. “Kinesin Is an Evolutionarily Fine-Tuned Molecular Ratchet-and-Pawl Device of Decisively Locked Direction,” Z. Wang, M. Feng, W. Zheng, D. Fan, Biophysical Journal, 93(10):3363-3372, 2007. “Kinesin’s Biased Stepping Mechanism: Amplification of Neck Linker Zippering,” W. H. Mather, R. F. Fox, Biophysical Journal, 91(7):2416-2426, 2006. “Kinesin Walks Hand-Over-Hand,” A. Yildiz, M. Tomishige, R. D. Vale, P. R. Selvin, Science, 303(5658):676-678, 2004.

“The eukaryotic cytoskeleton appears to have evolved from ancestral precursors related to prokaryotic FtsZ and MreB. FtsZ and MreB show 40−50% sequence identity across different bacterial and archaeal species. Here I suggest that this represents the limit of divergence that is consistent with maintaining their functions for cytokinesis and cell shape. Previous analyses have noted that tubulin and actin are highly conserved across eukaryotic species, but so divergent from their prokaryotic relatives as to be hardly recognizable from sequence comparisons. One suggestion for this extreme divergence of tubulin and actin is that it occurred as they evolved very different functions from FtsZ and MreB. I will present new arguments favoring this suggestion, and speculate on pathways. Moreover, the extreme conservation of tubulin and actin across eukaryotic species is not due to an intrinsic lack of variability, but is attributed to their acquisition of elaborate mechanisms for assembly dynamics and their interactions with multiple motor and binding proteins. A new structure-based sequence alignment identifies amino acids that are conserved from FtsZ to tubulins. The highly conserved amino acids are not those forming the subunit core or protofilament interface, but those involved in binding and hydrolysis of GTP.” From: “Evolution of the cytoskeleton,” H. P. Erickson, Bioessays, 29(7):668-677, 2007.

Geological records reveal details about the chemical environment under which life spread for the first time. This event has been dated between the earliest Archean eon that followed the late heavy bombardment, likely between 4.1 and 3.5 billion years ago, when the first unequivocal traces of life have been dated” From: “Non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway-like reactions in a plausible Archean ocean,” M. A. Keller, A. V. Turchyn, M. Ralser, Molecular Systems Biology, 10(4):725, 2014.

“A bacterium growing in a salt solution containing a single type of carbon source, such as glucose, must carry out a large number of chemical reactions. Not only must it derive from the glucose the chemical energy needed for many vital processes, it must also use the carbon atoms of glucose to synthesize every type of organic molecule that the cell requires. These reactions are catalyzed by hundreds of enzymes working in reaction ‘chains’ so that the product of one reaction is the substrate for the next; [...]

Originally, when life began on earth, there was probably little need for such elaborate metabolic reactions. Cells with relatively simple chemistry could survive and grow on the molecules in their surroundings. But as evolution proceeded, competition for these limited natural resources would have become more intense. Organisms that had developed enzymes to manufacture useful organic molecules more efficiently and in new ways would have had a strong selective advantage. In this way the complement of enzymes possessed by cells is thought to have gradually increased, generating the metabolic pathways of present organisms. [...]

If metabolic pathways evolved by the sequential addition of new enzymatic reactions to existing ones, the most ancient reactions should, like the oldest rings in a tree trunk, be closest to the center of the ‘metabolic tree,’ where the most fundamental of the basic molecular building blocks are synthesized. This position in metabolism is firmly occupied by the chemical processes that involve sugar phosphates, among which the most central of all is probably the sequence of reactions known as glycolysis, by which glucose can be degraded in the absence of oxygen (that is, anaerobically). The oldest metabolic pathways would have had to be anaerobic because there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere of the primitive earth. Glycolysis occurs in virtually every living cell and drives the formation of the compound adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is used by all cells as a versatile source of chemical energy. Certain thioester compounds play a fundamental role in the energy-transfer reactions of glycolysis and in a host of other basic biochemical processes in which two organic molecules (a thiol and a carboxylic acid) are joined by a high-energy bond involving sulfur. It has been argued that this simple but powerful chemical device is a relic of prebiotic processes, reflecting the reactions that occurred in the sulfurous, volcanic environment of the early earth, before even RNA had begun to evolve.

Linked to the core reactions of glycolysis are hundreds of other chemical processes. Some of these are responsible for the synthesis of small molecules, many of which in turn are utilized in further reactions to make the large polymers specific to the organism. Other reactions are used to degrade complex molecules, taken in as food, into simpler chemical units. One of the most striking features of these metabolic reactions is that they take place similarly in all kinds of organisms, suggesting an extremely ancient origin.”

Molecular Biology of the Cell, Bruce Alberts, Dennis Bray, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and James D. Watson, Garland Publishing, Third Edition, 1994, pages 13-14.

See also: “Optimizing ring assembly reveals the strength of weak interactions,” E. J. Deeds, J. A. Bachman, W. Fontana, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 109(7):2348-53, 2012. “Evolution of increased complexity in a molecular machine,” G. C. Finnigan, V. Hanson-Smith, T. H. Stevens, J. W. Thornton, Nature, 481(7381):360-364, 2012. “How a neutral evolutionary ratchet can build cellular complexity,” J. Lukeš, J. M. Archibald, P. J. Keeling, W. F. Doolittle, M. W. Gray, IUBMB Life, 63(7):528-537, 2011. “The reducible complexity of a mitochondrial molecular machine,” A. Clements, D. Bursac, X. Gatsos, A. J. Perry, S. Civciristov, N. Celik, V. A. Likic, S. Poggio, C. Jacobs-Wagner, R. A. Strugnell, T. Lithgow, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 106(37):15791-15795, 2009. “Evolution of the molecular machines for protein import into mitochondria,” P. Dolezal, V. Likic, J. Tachezy, T. Lithgow, Science, 313(5785):314-318, 2006.

“Cytoskeletal proteins are important mediators of cellular organization in both eukaryotes and bacteria. In the past, cytoskeletal studies have largely focused on three major cytoskeletal families, namely the eukaryotic actin, tubulin, and intermediate filament (IF) proteins and their bacterial homologs MreB, FtsZ, and crescentin. However, mounting evidence suggests that these proteins represent only the tip of the iceberg, as the cellular cytoskeletal network is far more complex. In bacteria, each of MreB, FtsZ, and crescentin represents only one member of large families of diverse homologs. There are also newly identified bacterial cytoskeletal proteins with no eukaryotic homologs, such as WACA proteins and bactofilins. Furthermore, there are universally conserved proteins, such as the metabolic enzyme CtpS, that assemble into filamentous structures that can be repurposed for structural cytoskeletal functions. Recent studies have also identified an increasing number of eukaryotic cytoskeletal proteins that are unrelated to actin, tubulin, and IFs, such that expanding our understanding of cytoskeletal proteins is advancing the understanding of the cell biology of all organisms. Here, we summarize the recent explosion in the identification of new members of the bacterial cytoskeleton and describe a hypothesis for the evolution of the cytoskeleton from self-assembling enzymes.” From: “A growing family: the expanding universe of the bacterial cytoskeleton,” M. Ingerson-Mahar, Z. Gitai, FEMS Microbiology Reviews, 36(1):256-266, 2012.

In exchange, though, the store’s rent will be higher, so its profits have to be higher, so it has to specialize more to stay in the mall. Freed of general worry, it has more intense special worry. It’s like a cell inside a cell—like a mitochondrion inside any of our cells, which once upon a time was a separate cell but now mainly worries about making energy and not much else. Its outer cell takes care of the overall things that all cells have to worry about while it takes care of just one worry—but it has to do that one thing really well. That’s like like one of us moving from a village to a city. Like a city, a mall can grow quite large because its parts are compartmentalized, which leads to division of labor, which leads to specialization.

All stores and all malls have to pay their rent, or they die out, and they each have a chance of starting off with various traits (water, power, parking, security, and such), except that stores can have one trait that malls don’t have—namely, merchandise—and malls can have one trait that stores don’t have—namely, number of stores.

To spawn a new store or mall, suppose we just roll dice to decide which traits it will have, and how much. Each trait—for example parking space—is a plus because it can attract customers, but it’s also a minus because it has a cost, which, in the end, must be extracted from customers. A store has to gain at least its rent from its traits, or it dies. Each trait of each store may harm, help, or not affect it, but that may or may not affect the store’s mall. For example, if a store dies, its mall might just sweep it away, so that won’t help its mall, but may not harm it much, either; but if all a mall’s stores die, the mall dies, because it couldn’t pay its rent. Just as stores, malls, too, have traits, and some variations might kill all their stores, even if they might otherwise have survived. For instance, if a mall has no power, it dies; it doesn’t matter what its stores have.

For any mall, whatever traits it has, there’s no pressure on any store inside that mall to keep such traits. Each such store would be driven to shed them, because they cost; it could make more money if it gave up that trait and spent the money on more merchandise. Or rather, (since in this simple model there’s no one to think that) it’s more accurate to say that, over time, a store with a trait already provided by its mall would tend to lose out to other stores in the same mall that just happened to not have that trait. And the larger the mall, the more such competing stores there would likely to be.

But malls are competing against each other, too, because all traits cost. So there would be pressure on malls to gain or keep all traits besides merchandise so that their stores could then shed such traits, so that those stores could make more money, so that those malls could make more money. Or again, since there’s no one to think that, it’s more accurate to say that, over time, a large mall with few traits would tend to lose out to other large malls with more traits. Stores in such malls, and thus the malls that contain them, would tend to win out, because other malls with fewer traits would be placing a common burden for all their stores, which would cut into their money-making ability, which would cut into their mall’s money-making ability.

So after a while, many malls would have all non-merchandise traits, and most stores in those malls would shed all such traits—since their malls would provide them.

In this thought experiment, customers are like bees, stores are like flowers, and malls are like gardens. The malls that persist would be those that attract the most bees for the fewest flowers. They attract bees in lots of different ways (not just a variety of merchandise, but also food, services, entertainment, and so on), but the most attractive way is to have a variety of attractive ways—namely, a set of traits that most flowers need and thus that most bees want.

The essential point here is that if (somehow!) there came to be frothy bubbles with frothy bubbles inside them (in this case, malls with stores, but it could also be cells with compartments inside them), then there would likely be one kind of (generalist) pressure on the malls as they compete against each other, but another kind of (specialist) pressure on the stores inside those malls, dependent on what their malls offered them, and those two pressures would be linked.

Real malls are, of course, far more complicated. For example, mall owners actively seek anchor stores, that is, large department or grocery stores with well-known reputations and large independent advertising budgets. Such stores may either own the entire mall, take up more than half of it, or may be attracted into the mall with the offer of vastly lower rents (paid for by higher rents for non-anchor stores). If they fail, the entire mall can fail.

“Empirical Entry Games with Complementarities: An Application to the Shopping Center Industry,” M. A. Vitorino, Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2):175-191, 2012. “Spatial Versus Non-Spatial Determinants of Shopping Center Rents: Modeling Location and Neighborhood-Related Factors,” F. Des Rosiers, M. Thériault, L. Ménétrier, Journal of Real Estate Research, 27(3):293-319, 2005. “Contracts, Externalities, and Incentives in Shopping Malls,” E. D. Gould, B. P. Pashigian, C. J. Prendergast, Review of Economics and Statistics, 87(3):411-22, 2005. “Internalizing Externalities: The Pricing of Space in Shopping Malls,” B. P. Pashigian, E. D. Gould, Journal of Law and Economics, 41(1):115-142, 1998. The Mall: An Attempted Escape from Everyday Life, Jerry Jacobs, Waveland Press, Inc., 1984.

One of the oldest malls dates back almost two millennia and didn’t look much like today’s malls.

Unstructured cells (prokaryotes—just archaea and bacteria) showed up sometime after 4Gya, which is just after the LHB—the Late Heavy Bombardment, when the earth seems to have experienced its last unusually large number of asteroid impacts. Structured cells (eukaryotes—plants, animals, fungi, and protists, which is the single-celled ’everything else’ grab-bag, the most popular of which is amoeba) showed up sometime after 2Gya. Those, over time, evolved into the multicellular or colonial life-forms that we see with the naked eye today. As yet, we have no evidence for that in the lab. We have a related theory (endosymbiosis) and supporting evidence for that (like mitochondria), but we don’t know for sure how cells compartmentalized billions of years ago.

As far as we can tell, the first cells were prokaryotic (no isolated nucleus, no organized compartments). Today, those are divided into archaea and bacteria, and those two, apparently, merged at some point, perhaps 2.1 thousand million years ago (perhaps more), or perhaps less (up to perhaps 1.6 thousand million years ago), yielding the first eukaryotic cells. In energy-gradient rich surroundings, mitochondria generate useful energy in eukaryotic cells by coupling the transport of electrons along the respiratory chain to a current of protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane, which in turn lets them make ATP. Mitochondria, and chloroplasts (which power plant cells), descend from some original bacteria entering into symbiosis with some original archaea, then actually entering as endosymbionts, then becoming actual organelles. Once they reached that stage, duplicating those organelle meant that the cell could get increasing amounts of energy without having to pay increasing costs to maintain all the associated genes that once were ancilliary to energy production. All such genes could migrate to the cell’s central gene store, which could then become the nucleosome. That’s a crude outline of one theory, anyway. But there are many theories, and all have holes. How did genes move from what was to become the mitochondrion to what was to become the nucleus? What determined what was to become the germline? How did the mitochondrion gain its second membrane? How did two separate genomes integrate and coordinate? We know it must have happened. But we don’t know how.

“The energetics of genome complexity,” N. Lane, W. Martin, Nature, 467(7318):929-934, 2010. “The origin and evolution of Archaea: a state of the art,” S. Gribaldo, C. Brochier-Armanet, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 361(1470):1007-1022, 2006. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, Nick Lane, Oxford University Press, 2005. “Evolution of mitochondrial gene content: gene loss and transfer to the nucleus,” K. L. Adams, J. D. Palmer, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 29(3):380-395, 2003.

This was followed in 2015 and 2020 with more synthetic ribosomes. The work is being done in the leigh lab at Manchester, the Orelle lab at Illionis (or Lyon), and the Jewitt lab at Northwestern. “In vitro ribosome synthesis and evolution through ribosome display,” M. J. Hammerling, B. R. Fritz, D. J. Yoesep, D. S. Kim, E. D. Carlson, M. C. Jewett, Nature Communications, 11(1):1108, 2020. “Engineered Ribosomes for Basic Science and Synthetic Biology,” A. E. d’Aquino, D. S. Kim, M. C. Jewett, Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 9(1):311-340, 2018. “Protein synthesis by ribosomes with tethered subunits,” C. Orelle, E. Carlson, T. Szal, T. Florin, M. C. Jewett, A. S. Mankin, Nature, 524(7563):119-124, 2015.

He would agree, though, that there are major differences, too. Self-maintaining networks need not arise as one unit, as he had supposed his soul must. Nor need they recur, unchanged, in new instances of the same species forever, as he had supposed his souls did. Nor do they drive their parts, as he had supposed his soul drives the body. They don’t interact with, operate on, act on, rule, order, guide, direct, orient, animate, motivate, energize, force, or in any other way affect their parts. Instead, ‘a self-persistent network’ is merely how we describe how its parts work together. Like a wave in water, all that really exists is its parts. They interact in such a way that their pattern of interaction persists. And when something interferes with that self-perpetuating pattern of interaction, it ceases to exist. That’s all. Further, (although we don’t know this for sure yet) such networks might arise solely by chance, an idea that he had firmly rejected. Finally, (and again we haven’t done this yet), one day we might be able to make such networks from scratch for ourselves. He, though, argued that we can’t make souls. (His argument was simple: They’re non-material, so what would we make them out of?)

Further, on each point of difference, he could always claim that one day he’ll be found to have been right. Nor, if he takes that position, can he be argued out of it. Proving that purpose need not always be necessary isn’t the same as proving that it doesn’t exist (outside ourselves and perhaps some other animals, that is). He could always claim that it must be somewhere, hidden beyond the power of our reason and instruments to detect. So he may still choose to believe that the cosmos has some, so far undetected by science, overall purpose.

“Genetic information can be copied, but only in the context of a system that supplies energy, the requisite precursors and a permissive environment. Additional machinery is required to segregate the duplicated copies and to express their functional meaning. Genes replicate but it takes a cell to reproduce, and that entails a high degree of structural organization. Natural selection seldom sees genes, only the cellular system that they collectively encode.

[...] Offspring resemble their parents because they share the latter’s genes, but also because they were built upon the same template. The new cell is physically and architecturally continuous with its progenitor; and the chief agents of structural continuity are the cytoskeleton and cellular membranes.”

In Search of Cell History: The Evolution of Life’s Building Blocks, Franklin M. Harold, The University of Chicago Press, 2014, pages 92-93. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Oxford University Press, 2009, page 83. “The replicator in retrospect,” P. Godfrey-Smith, Biology and Philosophy, 15(3):403-423, 2000. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, 1976. Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, John von Neumann and Arthur W. Burks, University of Illinois Press, 1966.

(Note: E. O. Wilson proposed the term ‘sematectonic communication’ for the more general idea; see: Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University Press, 2000, page 186.)

‘Self-reproductive’ is also not represented by a special word in the text. A possible good existing word might be ‘autotypic.’ Of course, ‘hermaphroditic’ and similar words would be overkill—not to mention highly misleading as it would imply sex. Also, there are several terms that mean more or less the same thing as autopoietic: spontaneous, emergent, endogenous, autogenous, autochthonous, autocatakinetic, self-organized, self-generated, and self-assembled.

Note: of all the above words (written in the early 2000s), one (‘autogenous’) has since been coined by Terrence Deacon in a 2011 book: Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, Terrence Deacon, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. By it, he means a somewhat simplified form of autopoietic, where, essentially, there is an impermeable barrier instead of a semipermeable boundary with gradient pumps to an outside. But other than that, everything else is similar. He uses it to make metaphors for mental processes, not (physical) living systems.

It says something about our low level of understanding of self-organizing systems that we don’t yet have compact, everyday words for key concepts: self-regulating, self-regenerating, self-steering, self-stimulating, self-building, self-maintaining, self-describing, self-repairing, and self-writing. (Here, ‘self-writing’ is taken to mean both self-productive (generating itself; that is, ‘autopietic’ since poiesis means ‘bringing forth’), and self-replicating (generating a copy of itself). Whenever recursion pops up, it baffles us.

“Complex networks are studied across many fields of science. To uncover their structural design principles, we defined ‘network motifs,’ patterns of interconnections occurring in complex networks at numbers that are significantly higher than those in randomized networks. We found such motifs in networks from biochemistry, neurobiology, ecology, and engineering. The motifs shared by ecological food webs were distinct from the motifs shared by the genetic networks of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae or from those found in the World Wide Web. Similar motifs were found in networks that perform information processing, even though they describe elements as different as biomolecules within a cell and synaptic connections between neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. Motifs may thus define universal classes of networks. This approach may uncover the basic building blocks of most networks.” From: “Network motifs: simple building blocks of complex networks,” R. Milo, S. Shen-Orr, S. Itzkovitz, N. Kashtan, D. Chklovskii, U. Alon, Science, 298(5594):824-827,2002.

See also: “QuateXelero: An Accelerated Exact Network Motif Detection Algorithm,” S. Khakabimamaghani, I. Sharafuddin, N. Dichter, I. Koch, A. Masoudi-Nejad, PLoS ONE, 8(7):e68073, 2013. “Network Motif Discovery Using Subgraph Enumeration and Symmetry-Breaking,” J. A. Grochow, M. Kellis, RECOMB 2007, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4453, pages 92-106, 2007.

That isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. RNA itself is able both to catalyze reactions and to hold information. So maybe heredity acts to stabilize the copying process, making self-writing networks more persistent than merely autopoietic ones. Alternately, maybe RNA (or some similar template mechanism) acts as a signal from one ‘generation’ to the next about living conditions that the parent ‘generation’ experienced, thus influencing the daughter generation’s metabolic activity. Who knows. Perhaps all three of the most basic parts needed for life—metabolism, template, and membrane—developed separately, each as independent autocatalytic networks, then they somehow joined into one system, perhaps by developing catalytic links between the metabolic and hereditary subsystem so that the template began to control the metabolism, and catalytic links between the metabolic and container subsystems, so that metabolism began to produce membrane parts. The membrane allowed both the metabolism and the template to persist, the metabolism produced energy and parts for both the membrane and template to persist, and the template snapshotted and controlled both the membrane and the metabolism. How that happened, though—if it did—is anyone’s guess.

Here is a recent paper on two interesting simulations of this possible process based on Tibor Gánti’s work: “The Chemoton: A model for the origin of long RNA templates,” C. Fernando, E. A. Di Paolo, Artificial Life IX: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Jordan Pollack, Mark Bedau, Phil Husbands, Takashi Ikegami, and Richard A. Watson (editors), The MIT Press, 2004, pages 1-8.

Today, the strongest line of disagreement in the origin of life argument lies between those who believe in heredity first and those who believe in metabolism first. For a recent survey, see: “Controversies on the origin of life,” J. Peretó, International Microbiology, 8(1):23-31, 2005.

Maybe we’ll one day figure out how repair and replication can be made to work. If so, we’ll know how to break down repair (and replication) into smaller pieces, just as we’ve now begun to break down our vague idea of ‘living things’ into smaller, more precise pieces. Beyond that, though, we know nothing certain.

Colonies progress from juvenile to mature stages and eventually decline. The juvenile stage is differentiated from the adult by the production of reproductives. Caste proportions alter in characteristic ways during the different stages of colony development. In Kenya, juvenile colonies of the litter-feeding and fungus-cultivating termite Macrotermes michaelseni grow rapidly and the population comprises 50% or more of larvae. On reaching a population of ca. 1.2 million, the colonies become mature and start to release reproductives. The proportion of larvae then falls to ca. 41% and the colony growth rate subsequently declines. In the final or senile stage, the queen’s fecundity declines and the colony vegetates and dies. In some species, supplementary reproductives may assume the former queen’s role and these termite colonies are potentially longeval. Although the reason is unknown, all colonies eventually decline and die, even in the apparent absence of obvious causative factors, Colonies may exist for considerable periods; those of the Australian species Drepanotermes perniger may survive for substantially more than 50 years.”

Soil Ecology, Patrick Lavelle and Alister V. Spain, Kluwer, 2001, pages 301-302.

Two particular species with supplementary reproductives are Kalotermes and Reticulitermes. “Sociochemicals of Termites,” P. E. Howse, in: Chemical Ecology of Insects, William J. Bell and Ring T. Cardé (editors), Chapman and Hall, 1984, pages 475-519, especially pages 481-482. Coptotermes formosanus and Zootermopsis (formerly Termopsis) also have supplementary reproductives.

At least in ants, food-gathering changes depending on the nutritional needs of the colony as a whole. A colony’ foragers are in a strong sense the colony’s ‘hands’ and not independent animals. “Communal Nutrition in Ants,” A. Dussutour, S. J. Simpson, Current Biology, 19(9):740-744, 2009.

For Aristotle, ‘male’ meant an animal that generates in another and ‘female’ meant one that generates in itself. So, for him, a ‘king’ isn’t necessarily ‘male’ in today’s sense; nor is a ‘queen’ necessarily ‘female.’ For Aristotle, men and women combine both male and female aspects. Also, none of his surviving books mention termites, but he did write about ants, wasps, and bees.

The Honey Bee and Apian Imagery in Classical Literature, Rachel D. Carlson, doctoral thesis, University of Washington, 2015, pages 7-9. The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or Rationalization, Robert Mayhew, University of Chicago Press, 2004, chapter 2, especially pages 19-26. “King-Bees and Mother-Wasps: A Note on Ideology and Gender in Aristotle’s Entomology,” R. Mayhew, Phronesis, 44(2):127-134, 1999. The Works of Aristotle, Volume V: De Generatione Animalium, Book III, section 9, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by Arthur Platt, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1912, page 759.

Bee gender wasn’t determined until the 1700s. Jan Swammerdam used the new microscope to do so in a painstaking decade-long work. Bybel der Natuure, Jan Swammerdam, Isaak Severinus, Boudwen Vander, Pietr Vander, 1737-1738. A German translation (Bibel der Natur) appeared in 1752, then an English translation (The Book of Nature) in 1758.

The Works of Aristotle, Volume IV: Historia Animalium, Book V, Part XXI, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Oxford University Press, 1912.

“There is much difficulty about the generation of bees. If it is really true that in the case of some fishes there is such a method of generation that they produce eggs without copulation, this may well happen also with bees, to judge from appearances. For they must (1) either bring the young brood from elsewhere, as some say, and if so the young must either be spontaneously generated or produced by some other animal, or (2) they must generate them themselves, or (3) they must bring some and generate others, for this also is maintained by some, who say that they bring the young of the drones only. Again, if they generate them it must be either with or without copulation; if the former, then either (1) each kind must generate its own kind, or (2) some one kind must generate the others, or (3) one kind must unite with another for the purpose (I mean for instance (1) that bees may be generated from the union of bees, drones from that of drones, and kings from that of kings, or (2) that all the others may be generated from one, as from what are called kings and leaders, or (3) from the union of drones and bees, for some say that the former are male, the latter female, while others say that the bees are male and the drones female). But all these views are impossible if we reason first upon the facts peculiar to bees and secondly upon those which apply more generally to other animals also.”

The Works of Aristotle, Volume V: De Generatione Animalium, Book III, section 10, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by Arthur Platt, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1912, page 759.

The Bible, The King James Version, Proverbs 6:6-8.

In 1982, Dawkins argued that the effects of genes in the body (the phenotype) and its surroundings (the extended phenotype) is as important as the genes themselves (the genotype). “The gene’s extended phenotypic effect, say an increase in the height of the [beaver] dam, affects its chances of survival precisely in the same sense as in the case of a gene with a normal phenotypic effect, such as an increase in the length of the [beaver’s] tail. The fact that the dam is the shared product of the building behaviour of several beavers does not alter the principle: genes that tend to make beavers build high dams will themselves, on average, tend to reap the benefits (or costs) of high dams, even though every dam may be jointly built by several beavers.” The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene, Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, New Edition, 1999, page 209.

In 2000, Turner argued that we might also consider animal-built structures as ‘external organs,’ just as if they were hearts or lungs. “On the Mound of Macrotermes michaelseni as an Organ of Respiratory Gas Exchange,” J. S. Turner, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, 74(6):798-822, 2001. The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures, J. Scott Turner, Harvard University Press, 2000. (Although see: “Extended phenotype redux. How far can the reach of genes extend in manipulating the environment of an organism?,” P. Hunter, EMBO Reports, 10(3):212-215, 2009. “Extended Phenotype — But Not Too Extended. A Reply to Laland, Turner and Jablonka,” R. Dawkins, Biology and Philosophy, 19(3):377-396, 2004.)

The treatment in the text goes only one step further to combine this with the idea of Blackboard Systems from Artificial Intelligence to point out that (short-term) scent trails and (longer-term) structural damages and (long-term) nest structure and (longest-term) genetic structure are also (synergetically bonded) parts of a termite swarm. It’s ‘brain’ thus has four levels of memory: the (shortest-term) scent trails, the (longer-term) nest damages, the (long-term) persistent nest structure, and the (longest-term) termite genetic structure. Like any brain, it also has sensors to detect changes in its world. It also has an attention mechanism to specify what changes to focus on when. And it has effectors to alter its world. All those parts are synergetically bonded into one distributed being. “What are the differences between long-term, short-term, and working memory?” N. Cowan, Progress in Brain Research, 169:323-338, 2008. “Blackboard Systems,” D. D. Corkill, AI Expert, 6(9):40-47, 1991. See also: “Swarm Cognition: an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Self-organizing Biological Collectives,” V. Trianni, E. Tuci, K. M. Passino, J. A. R. Marshall, Swarm Intelligence, 5(1):3-18, 2011. “Swarm Cognition in Honey Bees,” K. M. Passino, T. D. Seeley, P. K. Visscher, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 62(3):401-414, 2008.

The analogy to our species, the things we do and say, the artifacts we build and pass on, and our genetic inheritance, then follows. The idea is also related to recent work in both anthropology and in cognitive science on ourselves as cyborgs. For example, see: Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, Andy Clark, Oxford University Press, 2003.

That’s not the case for cockroaches, and thus termites (since, genetically speaking, termites are roaches). A further problem with it is that bees, wasps, and ants all belong to the order Hymenoptera, most of which are haplodiploid, but yet aren’t eusocial. Termites, which are eusocial, belong to another order, Isoptera. Yet a further problem is that female genetic similarity only applies to females of the same brood. Yet a queen may mate with several drones and thus attenuate the relatedness of her broods. Even further, both paper wasps and honey bees are haplodiploid, and they share many genes, but they are separated by about 100 million years and have evolved different strategies. So it’s not clear what, if anything, haplodiploidy might explain about eusociality. Newer theories are considering things like the effect of varying levels of nutrition on bodyplans as a means of control within the nest. We’re still missing something fundamental. “Brain transcriptomic analysis in paper wasps identifies genes associated with behaviour across social insect lineages,” A. L. Toth, K. Varala, M. T. Henshaw, S. L. Rodriguez-Zas, M. E. Hudson, G. E. Robinson, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277(1691):2139-2148, 2010. “Death of an order: a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches,” D. Inward, G. Beccaloni, P. Eggleton, Biology Letters, 3(3):331-335, 2007. “A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of termites (Isoptera) illuminates key aspects of their evolutionary biology,” D. J. G. Inward, A. P. Vogler, P. Eggleton, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 44(3):953-967, 2007. “Wasp Gene Expression Supports an Evolutionary Link Between Maternal Behavior and Eusociality,” A. L. Toth, K. Varala, T. C. Newman, F. E. Miguez, S. K. Hutchison, D. A. Willoughby, J. F. Simons, M. Egholm, J. H. Hunt, M. E. Hudson, G. E. Robinson, Science, 318(5849):441-444, 2007. “Nutritional status influences socially regulated foraging ontogeny in honey bees,” A. L. Toth, S. Kantarovich, A. F. Meisel, G. E. Robinson, Journal of Experimental Biology, 208(24):4641-4649, 2005. “Bivoltinism as an Antecedent to Eusociality in the Paper Wasp Genus Polistes,” J. H. Hunt, G. V. Amdam, Science, 308(5719):264-267, 2005. The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, P. J. Gullan and P. S. Cranston, Wiley-Blackwell, Third Edition, 2005, pages 320-324.

Moonlighting is different from pleiotropism (where a single gene affects several, usually unrelated, phenotypic traits in one organism). Pleiotropic effects usually result from inactivation of a single function that’s involved in multiple cellular processes, for instance: a protein that has multiple interaction partners in different pathways, or a macromolecular catalyst that’s important in several metabolic pathways. Instead, moonlighting proteins do different things that differ mechanistically.

“An introduction to protein moonlighting,” C. J. Jeffery, Biochemical Society transactions, 42(6):1679-1683, 2014. “Moonlighting proteins: An intriguing mode of multitasking,” D. H. Huberts, I. J. van der Klei, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Cell Research, 1803(4):520-525, 2010. “Moonlighting proteins—an update,” C. J. Jeffery, Molecular BioSystems, 5(4):345-350, 2009.

See also: “Complementary symbiont contributions to plant decomposition in a fungus-farming termite,” M. Poulsen, H. Hu, C. Li, Z. Chen, L. Xu, S. Otani, S. Nygaard, T. Nobre, S. Klaubauf, P. M. Schindler, F. Hauser, H. Pan, Z. Yang, A. S. M. Sonnenberg, Z. W. de Beer, Y. Zhang, M. J. Wingfield, C. J. P. Grimmelikhuijzen, R. P. de Vries, J. Korb, D. K. Aanen, J. Wang, J. J. Boomsma, G. Zhang, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(40):14500-14505, 2014. “High symbiont relatedness stabilizes mutualistic cooperation in fungus-growing termites,” D. K. Aanen, H. H. De Fine Licht, A. J. M. Debets, N. G. Kerstes, R. F. Hoekstra, J. J. Boomsma, Science, 326(5956):1103-1106, 2009. “Social insect fungus farming,” D. K. Aanen, J. J. Boomsma, Current Biology, 16(24):R1014-R1016, 2006. “Fungus-Growing Termites Originated in African Rain Forest,’ D. K. Aanen, P. Eggleton, Current Biology, 15(9):851-855, 2005. “Fungus-farming insects: Multiple origins and diverse evolutionary histories,” U. G. Mueller, N. Gerardo, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(24):15247-15249, 2002. “The evolution of fungus-growing termites and their mutualistic fungal symbionts,” D. K. Aanen, P. Eggleton, C. Rouland-Lefèvre, T. Guldberg-Frøslev, S. Rosendahl, J. J. Boomsma, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(23):14887-14892, 2002.

Turner had estimated 75 to 150 million years, but that may be for termite genera as a whole, not for the fungus-farmers, Macrotermitinae, specifically, since termites are over 150 million years old. The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures, J. Scott Turner, Harvard University Press, 2000, page 179. Wilson had earlier estimated 50 million years for (attine) ants, which also farm fungus (as do ambrosia beetles). The Insect Societies, Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University Press, 1971.

At least one termite species has been mutualist (that is, carrying and depending on stomach protozoa to digest cellulose) for at least 97 to 110 million years. “Description of an early Cretaceous termite (Isoptera: Kalotermitidae) and its associated intestinal protozoa, with comments on their co-evolution,” G. O. Poinar, Jr., Parasites & Vectors, 2(1):12, 2009.

It does so because, like a cell, a long time ago it must have phase changed into a state where all its reactions recursively closed on themselves. In that state, it must have had enough of just the right parts. And those parts were near enough each other to interact fast enough to continue to fetch or make all the resources that it needed to fetch or make the parts that it needed to keep on fetching or making more of just the right set of parts in an endless cycle. So it has catalytic and operational closure. So leakage of its vital resources is low.

However, like a cell, it doesn’t bother to make every vital resource. It doesn’t make air, for example, yet it would die without it. Only limited-supply vital resources matter. And each one has immediate use within the network because the network already has, or can soon get, every other such resource that it needs to put together with that particular resource to make use of it.

Similarly, in a cell, if small non-catalyst helpers, like vitamins or cofactors or whatever, can come from the surroundings, they aren’t ‘regenerated.’ The point is that if the network is operationally closed, it has access to everything it needs to keep working. Such things may come from the surroundings, but if they don’t, it regenerates them. Energy, however, always comes from outside.

“Ants are a globally distributed insect family whose members have adapted to live in a wide range of different environments and ecological niches. Foraging ants everywhere face the recurring challenge of navigating to find food and to bring it back to the nest. More than a century of research has led to the identification of some key navigational strategies, such as compass navigation, path integration, and route following. Ants have been shown to rely on visual, olfactory, and idiothetic cues for navigational guidance. Here, we summarize recent behavioral work, focusing on how these cues are learned and stored as well as how different navigational cues are integrated, often between strategies and even across sensory modalities. Information can also be communicated between different navigational routines. In this way, a shared toolkit of fundamental navigational strategies can lead to substantial flexibility in behavioral outcomes. This allows individual ants to tune their behavioral repertoire to different tasks (e.g., foraging and homing), lifestyles (e.g., diurnal and nocturnal), or environments, depending on the availability and reliability of different guidance cues. We also review recent anatomical and physiological studies in ants and other insects that have started to reveal neural correlates for specific navigational strategies, and which may provide the beginnings of a truly mechanistic understanding of navigation behavior.” From: “How to Navigate in Different Environments and Situations: Lessons From Ants,” C. A. Freas, P. Schultheiss, Frontiers in psychology, 9:841, 2018.

“Not just going with the flow: foraging ants attend to polarised light even while on the pheromone trail,” C. A. Freas, N. J. R. Plowes, M. L. Spetch, Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 205(5):755-767, 2019. “Experimental Ethology of Learning in Desert Ants: Becoming Expert Navigators,” C. A. Freas, P. N. Fleischmann, K. Cheng, Behavioural processes, 158:181-191, 2019. “The Role of Landscapes and Landmarks in Bee Navigation: A Review,” B. Kheradmand, J. C. Nieh, Insects, 10(10):342, 2019. “Individual experience alone can generate lasting division of labor in ants,” F. Ravary, E. Lecoutey, G. Kaminski, N. Châline, P. Jaisson, Current Biology, 17(15):1308-1312, 2007.

“If dynamics play such a central role in biological systems, why have genome-scale computational analyses of interaction and network dynamics remained elusive? One central reason is that the most widely-applied large-scale technologies to determine protein interactions, such as yeast two-hybrid and TAP-MS to detect protein-protein interactions or in vitro proteome microarrays to detect phosphorylation interactions, do not provide spatial, temporal or contextual information about detected interactions. ChIP-chip or ChIP-seq approaches for uncovering regulatory interactions have been used to uncover reactive contextual variation but have only recently started to be used to uncover temporal variation over a dynamic time course. Thus, even if all possible interactions in an organism could be determined using these technologies, for any given protein, it would generally not be known when and where each of its interactions occurs.” From: “Toward the dynamic interactome: It’s about time,” T. M. Przytycka, M. Singh, D. K. Slonim, Briefings in Bioinformatics, 11(1):15-29, 2010.

See also: “Evolutionary Network Analysis: A Survey,” C. Aggarwal, K. Subbian, ACM Computing Surveys, 47(1):article 10, 2014. “Dynamic modular architecture of protein-protein interaction networks beyond the dichotomy of ‘date’ and ‘party’ hubs,” X. Chang, T. Xu, Y. Li, K. Wang, Scientific Reports, 3:1691, 2013. “Protein-protein interaction networks: unraveling the wiring of molecular machines within the cell,” J. De Las Rivas, C. Fontanillo, Briefings in Functional Genomics, 11(6):489-496, 2012. “Revisiting date and party hubs: novel approaches to role assignment in protein interaction networks,” S. Agarwal, C. M. Deane, M. A. Porter, N. S. Jones, PLoS Computational Biology, 6(6):e1000817, 2010. “Statistical inference of the time-varying structure of gene-regulation networks,” S. Lèbre, J. Becq, F. Devaux, M. P. H. Stumpf, G. Lelandais, BMC Systems Biology, 4:130, 2010. “Understanding modularity in molecular networks requires dynamics,” R. P. Alexander, P. M. Kim, T. Emonet, M. B. Gerstein, Science Signaling, 2(81):pe44, 2009. “Inferring time-varying network topologies from gene expression data,” A. Rao, A. O. Hero III, D. J. States, J. D. Engel, EURASIP Journal on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, 2007:51947, 2007. “Dynamic Network Evolution: Models, Clustering, Anomaly detection,” C. C. Bilgin, B. Yener, IEEE Networks, 2006. Systems Biology: Properties of Reconstructed Networks, Bernhard Ø. Palsson, Cambridge University Press, 2006. “Genomic analysis of regulatory network dynamics reveals large topological changes,” N. M. Luscombe, M. M. Babu, H. Y. Yu, M. Snyder, S. A. Teichmann, M. Gerstein, Nature, 431(7006):308-312, 2004. “Evidence for dynamically organized modularity in the yeast protein-protein interaction network,’ J. D. Han, N. Bertin, T. Hao, D. S. Goldberg, G. F. Berriz, L. V. Zhang, D. Dupuy, A. J. Walhout, M. E. Cusick, F. P. Roth, M. Vidal, Nature, 430(6995):88-93, 2004.

“I will not here enter on these several cases, but will confine myself to one special difficulty, which at first appeared to me insuperable, and actually fatal to my whole theory. I allude to the neuters or sterile females in insect-communities: for these neuters often differ widely in instinct and in structure from both the males and fertile females, and yet, from being sterile, they cannot propagate their kind.

The subject well deserves to be discussed at great length, but I will here take only a single case, that of working or sterile ants. How the workers have been rendered sterile is a difficulty; but not much greater than that of any other striking modification of structure; for it can be shown that some insects and other articulate animals in a state of nature occasionally become sterile; and if such insects had been social, and it had been profitable to the community that a number should have been annually born capable of work, but incapable of procreation, I can see no very great difficulty in this being effected by natural selection. But I must pass over this preliminary difficulty. The great difficulty lies in the working ants differing widely from both the males and the fertile females in structure, as in the shape of the thorax and in being destitute of wings and sometimes of eyes, and in instinct. As far as instinct alone is concerned, the prodigious difference in this respect between the workers and the perfect females, would have been far better exemplified by the hive-bee. If a working ant or other neuter insect had been an ordinary animal, I should have unhesitatingly assumed that all its characters had been slowly acquired through natural selection; namely, by individuals having been born with slight profitable modifications, which were inherited by the offspring, and that these again varied and again were selected, and so onwards. But with the working ant we have an insect differing greatly from its parents, yet absolutely sterile; so that it could never have transmitted successively acquired modifications of structure or instinct to its progeny. It may well be asked how it is possible to reconcile this case with the theory of natural selection? [...]

But I must confess, that, with all my faith in natural selection, I should never have anticipated that this principle could have been efficient in so high a degree, had not the case of these neuter insects led me to this conclusion. I have, therefore, discussed this case, at some little but wholly insufficient length, in order to show the power of natural selection, and likewise because this is by far the most serious special difficulty which my theory has encountered.”

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Charles Darwin, 1859, Hayes Barton Press, Reprint Edition, 2007, pages 233 and 238.

For something of Darwin’s extensive struggles over many years with this particular problem, see: Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior, Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago Press, 1987, pages 142-156.

Most biologists are in the ‘individualist’ camp; only a few are in the ‘group’ camp, with various variants of multilevel or group selection (some even argue that inclusive fitness, the current form of the old classical fitness, which is a weighted sum that includes close as well as lineal kin, can be viewed as a kind of group selection), trying to grope toward some understanding of how it could fit in to the rest of well-understood selection. This is especially touchy when it comes to us because of how valued altruism is in human societies. The biology of how all life works gets confused with the philosophy of human action. This argument has been going on since at least the 1960s when G. C. Williams (Adaptation and Natural Selection) clashed with V. C. Wynne Edwards (Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior), and it flares up from time to time, most recently between E. O. Wilson (and fellow travelers, like D. S. Wilson and M. J. Wade) versus at least a hundred others in 2010.

Cooperation is a problem if all biology is purely individual. In 2010, biologists were still arguing about cooperators, and termites in particular. Using Hamilton’s theory of kin selection, geneticists might be able to explain why eusocial ants, bees, and wasps (members of order Hymenoptera) behave as they do, since they’re haplodiploid. But not termites (order Isoptera), and also aphids, naked mole-rats, damaraland mole-rats, and snapping shrimp, since they’re diploid. Termites in a nest aren’t near-clones the way bees in a hive are. They aren’t even a separate order of animals. They’re really cockroaches. Why aren’t they loners, like other roaches—and nearly all other animals? They just make no sense to the neo-Darwinian model.

“The evolution of eusociality,” M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita, E. O. Wilson, Nature, 466(7310):1057-1062, 2010. “Darwin’s ‘one special difficulty’: celebrating Darwin 200,” J. M. Herbers, Biology Letters, 5(2):214-217, 2009. “Ancestral Monogamy Shows Kin Selection is Key to the Evolution of Eusociality,” W. H. O. Hughes, B. P. Oldroyd, M. Beekman, F. L. W. Ratnieks, Science, 320(5880):1213-1216, 2008. “One Giant Leap: How Insects Achieved Altruism and Colonial Life,” E. O. Wilson, BioScience, 58(1):17, 2008. “The emergence of a superorganism through intergroup competition,” H. K. Reeve, A. Hölldobler, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(23):9736-9740, 2007. “Kin Selection as the Key to Altruism: its Rise and Fall,” E. O. Wilson, Social Research, 72(1):159-166, 2005. “The rise, fall and resurrection of group selection,” M. E. Borrello, Endeavor, 29(1):43-47, 2005. “Evolution of eusociality and the soldier caste in termites: a validation of the intrinsic benefit hypothesis,” E. A. Roux, J. Korb, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 17(4):869-875, 2004. “Influence of environmental conditions on the expression of the sexual dispersal phenotype in a lower termite: implications for the evolution of workers in termites,” J. Korb, S. Katrantzis, Evolution and Development, 6(5):342-352, 2004. “The origin of a ’true’ worker caste in termites: mapping the real world on the phylogenetic tree,” P. Grandcolas, C. D’Haese, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 17(2):461-463, 2004. “On the origin of termite workers: weighing up the phylogenetic evidence,” G. J. Thompson, O. Kitade, N. Lo, R. H. Crozier, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 17(3):720, 2004. “Evolution of eusociality and the soldier caste in termites: Influence of intraspecific competition and accelerated inheritance,” B. L. Thorne, N. L. Breisch, M. L. Muscedere, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(22):12808-12813, 2003. “Longevity of kings and queens and first time of production of fertile progeny in dampwood termite (Isoptera; Termopsidae; Zootermopsis) colonies with different reproductive structures,” B. L. Thorne, N. L. Breisch, M. I. Haverty, Journal of Animal Ecology, 71(6):1030-1041, 2002. “Within-colony relatedness in a termite species: Genetic roads to eusociality?” C. Husseneder, R. Brandl, C. Epplen, J. T. Epplen, M. Kaib, Behaviour, 136(9):1045-1063, 1999. “Evolution of Eusociality in Termites,” B. L. Thorne, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 28:27-54, 1997. “The Evolution of Eusociality,” M. Andersson, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 15:165-189, 1984. “The Evolution of Eusociality in Termites: A Haplodiploid Analogy?” R. C. Lacy, The American Naturalist, 116(3):449-451, 1980.

In particular, Queller and Strassman argue that: “many of the traits commonly used to define organisms are not essential. These non-essential traits include physical contiguity, indivisibility, clonality or high relatedness, development from a single cell, short-term and long-term genetic cotransmission, germ-soma separation and membership in the same species.”

Also, Dawkins, while not arguing for superorganisms but arguing against the somewhat modish idea of ‘niche construction’ wrote this: “the analogy of [termite] mound with organism stands up well. The fact that we have a heterogeneously sourced genetic input to the embryology of the phenotype doesn’t matter.... Each new [termite] nest is founded by a single queen (or king and queen) who then, with a lot of luck, produces a colony of workers who build the mound. The founding genetic injection is, by the standards of a million-strong termite colony, an impressively small bottleneck. The same is, at least quantitatively, true of the gut symbionts with which all termites in the new nest are infected by anal licking, ultimately from the queen—the bottleneck. And the same is quantitatively true of the fungus, which is carefully transported, as a small inoculum, by the founding queen from her natal nest. All the genes that pass from a parent mound to a daughter mound do so in a small, shared package. By the bottleneck criterion, the termite mound passes muster as an extended organism, even though it is the phenotype of a teeming mass of genes sitting in many thousands of workers.... every organism (conventionally defined) is already a symbiotically cooperating union of its ‘own’ genes. What draws them, in a Darwinian sense, to cooperate is again ‘bottlenecking’: a shared statistical expectation of the future.”

The general idea of an ‘organism of organisms’ goes back at least as far as Harvard entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1911. Over time it died out then was revived, particularly by another Harvard entomologist, E. O. Wilson. It’s an idea that falls into and out of favor depending on how much biologists are willing to consider whether a ‘superorganism’ can be a unit of natural selection, the same way that an organism is.

The use in the text, though, is less about whether a ‘superorganism’ can be selected for by evolution than what might be the beginnings of a more detailed analysis of whether such a thing might be considered to even be alive. The very name ‘superorganism’ begs the question since it implicitly assumes that to be the case. It needs to be jettisoned, at least for the time being, until what it’s describing is better understood. Hence the substitute term ‘swarm.’

“Reported values in the literature on the number of cells in the body differ by orders of magnitude and are very seldom supported by any measurements or calculations. Here, we integrate the most up-to-date information on the number of human and bacterial cells in the body. We estimate the total number of bacteria in the 70 kg ‘reference man’ to be 3.8·10¹³. For human cells, we identify the dominant role of the hematopoietic lineage to the total count (≈90%) and revise past estimates to 3.0·10¹³ human cells. Our analysis also updates the widely-cited 10:1 ratio, showing that the number of bacteria in the body is actually of the same order as the number of human cells, and their total mass is about 0.2 kg.” From: “Revised Estimates for the Number of Human and Bacteria Cells in the Body,” R. Sender, S. Fuchs, R. Milo, PLoS Biology, 14(8):e1002533, 2016. “Are We Really Vastly Outnumbered? Revisiting the Ratio of Bacterial to Host Cells in Humans,” R. Sender, S. Fuchs, R. Milo, Cell, 164(3):337-340, 2016.