Godless Chronicles Omy Has Registered an Average Growth of 8% Per Year in the Past Decade
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BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT promoting and expanding cooperation SCIENCE AND RELIGION between farmers and the same corpora- tions that Ziegler wishes to send to the gal- lows. Partly because of improvements in agricultural production, Ethiopia’s econ- Godless chronicles omy has registered an average growth of 8% per year in the past decade. Glenn Branch goes for a dip in the antitheologic. Rights cannot be wished into existence. They need institutions to become realities. hen the producers of the 2008 instruction, he exults In 2010, Ethiopia created the Agricultural creationist film Expelled asked to “as nematodes writhe Transformation Agency (ATA), mirroring interview PZ Myers, they misrep- over the surfaces, elements of Brazil’s Agricultural Research Wresented the nature of their project and the etching the words Corporation (Embrapa), which has helped purpose of the interview. By the time the film with slime and replac- to bring technical support and credit to screened, Myers knew that his brief clip would ing the follies of dead farmers. The ATA focuses on empowering portray the scientific establishment as dog- men with the wisdom farmers to become more entrepreneurial matically suppressing dissent from evolution. of worms”. Myers’s by helping them to improve productivity Ironically, when he arrived at the cinema, he favourite weapon is the and participate in local and global mar- was excluded — unlike a colleague who was The Happy Atheist extended metaphor, kets. Ethiopia is also interviewed for the film. Myers repaired PZ MYERS deployed to expose Pantheon: 2013. also now a member “Rights cannot to a nearby computer store to post a hilarious his targets as arbitrary of the Grow Africa be wished into account of his expulsion on his widely read and absurd. He wields consortium, which existence. blog, Pharyngula. Expelled was quickly show- it adroitly, comparing religious diversity to includes private They need ered with unwelcome publicity as a result. hat variety and theologians to courtiers fawn- enterprises, the institutions Myers is a developmental biologist, ing over the Emperor’s new clothes. These African Union and to become who named his blog after the pharyngula conceits are often amusing and occasionally the World Eco- realities.” stage of embryonic development — both, instructive, but the tactic is cheap. nomic Forum, and he jokes, are notable for the appearance of Whether infuriating or invigorating, ridi- has pledged to invest more than US$3.5 brain and jaw. Pharyngula is a freewheeling cule is no substitute for a considered critique, billion in African agriculture. China, India mix of explanations of developmental biol- and Myers often fails to do justice to his tar- and Brazil, among other countries, are also ogy, denunciations of creationism, com- gets. For example, his analysis of the idea actively tackling hunger with more inclu- mentary on politics, feuds with critics and that God guides evolution by acting unde- sive approaches, accommodating all major rivals, and the sort of in-jokes and recurrent tectably at the quantum level, if amusing, is players including private corporations. features that typify the blogosphere, enliv- a popular rather than a scholarly treatment, Ziegler rightly emphasizes the role of ened by a raucous chorus of commenters. and incorporates value judgements that farmers, but fails to note how technical Its slogan is: “Evolution, development, and are unsupportable by science. Myers might training can strengthen their political random biological ejaculations from a god- respond that his targets are too ridiculous to influence. Innovations such as the US less liberal”. warrant anything more serious, but such a land-grant university model, formal- A major theme of Pharyngula, and Myers’s response presupposes, rather than compels, ized 150 years ago to bring agricultural first book, The Happy Atheist, is what he agreement. research, teaching and extension under views as the incompatibility of science and The chief problem with The Happy Athe- one roof, played a key part in educating religion. In addition to excoriating various ist, however, is that it seems to break no new US farmers. The Green Revolution that absurdities and atrocities that he associates ground. By my count, Pharyngula posts pro- helped countries such as India and Mexico with faith, such as the bad science deployed vide the basis for at least 26 of the 38 essays to avert major famines relied heavily on by anti-abortion zealots, Myers repeatedly and 5 more are adapted from a talk he gave scientific research, participation of the asserts that science and religion are necessar- in 2010. private sector and the upgrading of farm- ily in conflict: “One is a method of analysis Admirers and detractors alike will be dis- ers’ skills. and experiment; the other is pretense and appointed by the book as a missed oppor- The right to food will continue to be lies.” He is fierce with regard to the propo- tunity for Myers to refine, systematize and a major global challenge as pressure on nents of old-fashioned creation science extend his thoughts on science and religion. natural resources increases. But solutions (“trying to get their Old Testament super- It is not comparable with Jason Rosenhouse’s will not come from traditional appeals for hero to adhere to the rules of physics, chem- Among the Creationists (Oxford Univer- popular uprisings. They will come from istry, biology, and ordinary common sense”) sity Press, 2012), Steve Stewart-Williams’s increased inclusivity in partnerships, and the adherents of newfangled intelligent Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life (Cam- involving rather than punishing private design (who “hide the bearded old sky god bridge University Press, 2010), or that corporations. To feed the hungry, the from the public eye”). He also castigates sci- ‘summa antitheologica’ of our day, The God world needs new approaches that expand entists who accept evolution while retaining Delusion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006) the practical use of human creativity, not their faith. by Richard Dawkins. It was Dawkins, by the more pleas for hollow revolutions. ■ Whatever Myers’s target, his weapons way, who was admitted to the screening of are taken from the arsenal of ridicule. He is Expelled when Myers was excluded. Was Calestous Juma is professor of the in good company — writers such as Jona- Voltaire’s prayer, “O Lord, make our enemies practice of international development at than Swift and George Orwell spring to ridiculous,” ever better answered? ■ Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, mind. Myers’s prose, although serviceable, Massachusetts, and author of The New isn’t quite in the same class, but sometimes Glenn Branch is deputy director at the Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in reaches lyrical heights. Explaining his deci- National Center for Science Education in Africa. sion to bury, rather than burn, unwanted Berkeley, California. e-mail: [email protected] books of scripture sent for his spiritual e-mail: [email protected] 8 AUGUST 2013 | VOL 500 | NATURE | 149 © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.