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Litanies, Mantras and Fatal Flaws: Bjorn Lomborg's Perpetual Motion Machine: An Essay Review of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg. 2001. Cambridge university Press, 515 p. Ward Chesworth

Volume 30, Number 1, March 2003

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Cite this article Chesworth, W. (2003). Litanies, Mantras and Fatal Flaws: Bjorn Lomborg's Perpetual Motion Machine:: An Essay Review of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg. 2001. Cambridge university Press, 515 p. Geoscience Canada, 30(1), 25–29.

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ESSAY REVIEW

LITANIES, MANTRAS scientists who write in support of opponents views with a label like the Lomborg are quoted on the back cover Litany, you don't need lessons in AND FATAL FLAWS: of the book as follows: "At last a book rhetoric. He also says that we should Bjorn Lomborg's that gives the environment the scientific proceed by sound analysis, then fails to Perpetual Motion analysis it deserves" (Lewis Wolpert) and perform any objective evaluation of the "A btilliant and powerful book" (Matt quality of his data, nor of its significance Machine Ridley). However, the general tenor of to a finite world. He appears to have the argument is more accurately been highly selective, which would have An Essay Review of THE SKEPTICAL conveyed by the following quotations. been fine had he shown that the ENVIRONMENTALIST: Measuring The Economist believes that selection was representative of the the Real State of the World by Bjorn "lair minded readers will find that most whole. As an antidote, check Pimm Lomborg. 2001. Cambridge University of the concerns they had about the (2001) to see how an ecologist uses Press, 515 p. future of the planet have given way to much the same data, from much the fury at the army of dissembling same sources, clearly recognizes its Ward Chesworth environmentalists who have dedicated shortcomings, and clearly states the Department of Land Resource Science themselves to stirring up panic by implications for a finite biosphere. University ofGuelph concealing the truth". Pimm's comments on the quality of Guelph, Ontario NIG 2W1 On the other hand, Paul Ehrlich international data (p. 251-252) are (who with David Pimentel and Lester particularly noteworthy in the present Imagine the world as a perpetual motion Brown appears in Lomborg's text as a context. machine, unconstrained by the laws of representative "dissembler") says that the What Lomborg (p. 4) calls the thermodynamics, inhabited by a book "is packed with nonsense, old and Litany is actually his caricature of dominant organism forever immune to new." Lomborg's websites at http:// reasonable environmental concerns that the negative feedback of the struggle for www.lomborg.com/biograph.htm and reads: "Our resources are running out. survival, and with a human economy http://www.lomborg.com/books.htm are The population is ever growing, leaving totally separate from the biosphere, and a convenient source of published critical less and less to eat. The air and the set to expand forever. This is precisely comments of this kind, together with his water are becoming ever more polluted. the world that Bjorn Lomborg has responses. The planet's species are becoming depicted in his controversial book. In Lomborg's subtitle reveals that extinct in vast numbers — we kill off this essay I will dispute his view of the his intention is to discover the 'Real more than 40,000 each year. The forests world. A comprehensive critique will not State of the World'. That phtase is one are disappearing, fish stocks are be attempted - it would require a book of many digs at Lester Brown and his collapsing and the coral reefs are dying. as long as the original. Instead, I will Worldwatch Institute's annual We are defiling our Earth, the fertile briefly examine Lomborg's intentions publication The State of the World. I topsoil is disappearing, we are paving and methodology, then look at a few applaud his objective even so. It is, after over nature, destroying the wilderness, areas an earth scientist might usefully all, the fundamental agenda of science. decimating the biosphere, and will end comment upon. What Lomborg says and what Lomborg up killing ourselves in the process. The Lomborg calls the debate stirred does however, lie on opposite sides of a world's ecosystem is breaking down. We up by The Skeptical Environmentalist a kind of behavioural transform fault. He are fast apptoaching the absolute limit of 'firestorm'. Actually, it's more of an old says that we should avoid rhetoric, yet viability, and the limits of growth are fashioned donnybrook between immediately introduces a rhetorical becoming apparent". C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures'. Lomborg device of his own, which he calls "The The problem says Lomborg comes out swinging from the non- Litany". He then uses the word (p. 4), is that the Litany "does not seem scientific corner, strongly supported by throughout the book as code for the to be backed up by the available the general and business press. Most beliefs of the "dissembling evidence". scientists fight from the other side of the environmentalists" - a usage which has Lomborg's reading of the runes is ring, aided and abetted by Scientific been gleefully appropriated by the much more comforting, and to continue American, Science, and Nature. Two business press. If you can brand your his liturgical metaphor I call it the "Lomborg Mantra", a palliative reckless predictions that don't fit well years ago. How fast soil forms depends concoction that can be summarized as with Lomborg's Panglossian view of the on a number of factors including the follows: don't become prey to world. Brown (1995), for example, nature of the geological substratum (the "unproductive worries" (p. xxiii), we are suggests that feeding China may soil parent material), climate, not overexploiting our renewable someday become a problem. No way, hydrodynamics, vegetation and so on. resources, the forests have not been says Lomborg and the boys down at Typically, it takes between 103 to 104 eradicated - forest cover has remained "Resources for the Future" (p. 102- years to produce a mature soil profile. constant, water is plentiful and 104). For the biosphere, in the absence of renewable, there don't seem to be any The problem of feeding people is human intervention, soil is a renewable serious problems with non-renewable worth looking at more closely, because component. On the scale of a human resources such as energy and raw it is indeed a major problem on a planet lifetime it isn't, though commonly we materials, and future generations will with more than six billion human treat it as such. This is a major reason have ever more options (Chapter 14). inhabitants, more than a billion of why our record of soil conservation That "ever more" is a muted echo of the whom will go to bed hungry tonight. from the early agriculture of the infinitely expandable future foreseen by The FAO, one of Lomborg's main Neolithic, to the high-input farming of one of Lomborg's heroes, the late sources of information, reported for today, is dismal. economist Julian Simon, who in a BBC instance that bad harvests in Africa, Cultivating a soil, except where Horizon documentary entitled Western Europe and Australia put the such techniques as "no tillage" farming Doomsday (produced by Claire planet within a few weeks of a general are practiced, involves exposing the Walmsley in 1992) said famine in 1995. When Lomborg cherry- surface to erosion by wind and water. "the entire history of civilization is an picks his data, he ignores items of that Although avoiding tillage certainly cuts increase in population, therefore kind. down on erosion, it requires the farmer increased problems, people responding The food supply depends to an to spread pesticides and other chemicals to these problems with ingenuity and immense degree on geological resources on the landscape in order for the crop having an ever better standard of living — soil, water, energy and fertilizer raw to produce high yields. Figuratively Forever." materials, among the most obvious. speaking, it's an agent-orange approach Forever — that's great news; we Lomborg, like a cornucopian James to farming, with crop varieties need fear no extinction for Homo sapiens Hutton, sees no prospect of an end to selectively bred to withstand the then, or even a decline in the status the resource supply, and in spite of the biocides designed to eliminate all quo. fact that he recognizes that some competition - a new twist on the Lomborg justifies the Mantra in resources are non-renewable, he writes survival of the fittest: the survival of the terms of averages of grain production, as if our resource base is infinite e.g. genetically engineered. mineral extraction, fossil fuel reserves, "when we do not find even more In regular farming — that is to say where and so on, from the World Bank, deposits even faster it is because tillage is practiced - the solum (soil International Monetary Fund, Food and searching costs money" (p. 146). In horizons A and B), the part of the soil Agriculture Organization (FAO), World other words, he sees "good economics, richest in both organic matter and Trade Organization, United States and not ecology" (p. 15) as the available nutrients, tends to be carried Department of Agriculture and other determining factor, and believes that we away. Thanks to the current (albeit global and national agencies. He can always increase our reserves by ephemeral) availability of oil and gas for attempts no formal analysis of sampling increasing efficiency of extraction, of the manufacture of artificial fertilizer, it techniques nor of the statistical use, and by recycling. Regarding the is relatively cheap to replace the lost significance of the trends he divines - latter, he says: "it is important to point fertility with the stuff you buy in bags at strange for a man who (p. xix-xx) out that metals, in contrast to energy, the farmers' co-op. From this Lomborg, counters his admission of a lack of do not perish but only change form and following Crosson (1995), reaches the expertise "as regards environmental location with use" (p. 147) - a conclusion that it doesn't pay to worry problems", with the claim that his skills characteristically sloppy sentence that about soil erosion or the downstream "consist in knowing how to handle denies the first law of thermodynamics problems it causes (p. 104-106). To the international statistics". Handle, I (energy doesn't "perish") while ignoring ecologist, this is a dangerously short- suppose, is a loaded word and perhaps the implications of the second (with term view that considers soil solely in Lomborg's stated preference for "fluency use, materials typically "waste" to higher terms of immediate profit, and ignores over cumbersome accuracy" (p. xxi) entropy forms, energetically expensive its many functions within the totality of provides a revealing indication of his to recycle). an ecosystem. But, out of sight, out of tendency to cut corners. Probing of the In sustaining civilization, soil is mind - the long-term consequences will quality of data only occurs when the the most important part of the solid be for our progeny to deal with in the effect is to discredit opponents of the earth. By cultivating crops we have been post-oil and gas future. The really Mantra. Nobody comes in for more mining the soil for nutrients and frightening thing is that people may be criticism in this regard than Lester exploiting its biological resources since hard-wired to seek short-term profit Brown, who is castigated for making agriculture was invented some 10,000 (Brooks 2002), and I suppose that that Volume 30 Number 1 March 2003 will be the lawyer's plea when Lomborg, globally we have gone from 100017 eventually find itself banging up against Crosson, Simon and economists of person/day to twice that over the last a ceiling dictated by the food supply, similar stripe, are rounded up and century, and that this is particularly due and if case histories in support of the called to account when Gabriel blows to the increase in agricultural use that proposition are required, the literature his horn. allows "irrigated farms to feed us better of ecology provides many. Consider the For most of human history, and to decrease the number of starving fate of the population of Easter Island, extending the area of cultivated soil has people" (p. 150). It also gives us as a specific instance from human been the principal means by which we salinization problems from the Aral Sea ecology. The original islanders probably increased our food supply. Suitable soils to California. A rigorous discussion of got there by chance, but once there, for further expansion are now scarce, the water cycle would have helped in they were marooned. They flourished and a favourite answer to resource dus context, though it is clear that for a while, built up a complex society, scarcity for the cornucopians is Lomborg's grasp of such basics is rather then as their population outgrew the substitution. For soil there is no viable tenuous. For example, on page 150 he resources of die island and its alternative, though there are those who appears to deny the principle of the immediate seas, lapsed into barbarism argue that hydroponic systems offer a conservation of mass when he talks of and even cannibalism (Diamond 1997). possible substitution. In his master's water being "irretrievably" lost through Lomborg, however, believes that thesis Wada (1993) compared the evaporation or transpiration. Not to the well-established Malthusian collapse productivity of high-tech heated worry, "Kuwait, Libya and Saudi Arabia of Easter Island is a poor model for the hydroponic greenhouses with that of all cover a large part of their water planet as a whole. He states that out of high-input conventional agriculture in demand by exploiting die largest water 10,000 Pacific islands, only 12 the Lower Mainland of British resource of all — through desalination of underwent such a decline (p. 29). What Columbia. He concluded that in terms sea water". Reasonable concerns about he's missing here, is that Easter Island, of all energy and material flows, die die energy demand are ignored because unlike most Pacific islands, was ecological footprint (Rees 2003) of a "these countries also have great energy essentially an isolated system. There hydroponic tomato was 14 to 20 times resources". Energy is never a problem were no nearby territories to provide larger than for the high-input field farm. in Lomborg's world of no limits - he help when indigenous resources grew Similarly, aquaculture is sometimes ignores thermodynamics and the finite scarce; nowhere for the islanders to touted as a means of dealing with food nature of oil and gas resources, and extend their ecological footprint. And shortages, and Lomborg states concentrates on what is for him the all- it's precisely this point that makes the approvingly that the Norwegian salmon important factor: economics. "We can fate of Easter Island germane to the fate "with genetic enhancement and modern have sufficient water, if we can pay for of the Earth. We are isolated in the fish farming" (p. 63) has become twice it" (p. 153) is Lomborg's Vivendi- same sense - there are no nearby planet as productive since the early 1970s. He friendly conclusion. earths to overrun or trade with when doesn't tell you that for an output of one For economists in general, one we've degraded all the low-entropy calorie, modern fish farming requires of the great bogeymen is also one of resources on this one. an input of up to 60 calories (Lavigne their own: Thomas Malthus. His 1798 Anyway, Lomborg assures us 2002). How sustainable is that? classic An Essay on the Principle of that we are not going to starve. We A necessity, for which no Population is available online at http:// constantly use our ingenuity to ratchet conceivable substitution is possible, is www.ac.wwu.edu/-stephan/malthus/ up the linear increase in food water. The recently released World malthus.O.html. Lomborg tells us that production predicted by Malthus. This Water Development Report (UN 2003) "many reputable scientists have fallen is a valid observation: we have been states that a billion people lacked access for" his theory. That must include able to ratchet up the base level of the to a clean water supply in the year Thomson (1998), who points out that Malthusian increase in food supply a 2000, and that estimates will soon rise Malthus's idea has never been falsified. number of times over the last 500 years to 4 billion. Similarly, water shortages Moreover if it ever is falsified, the or so. It doesn't falsify Malthus - it just mean that sanitation is a problem for theory of natural selection - in Darwin's means that if populations and 2.4 billion people. Lomborg, however, words "the doctrine of Malthus, applied consumption continue to grow, the believes "basically we have sufficient to the whole animal and vegetable crunch is postponed. Moreover, a less water" (p. 149), and I guess that surfing kingdoms" - will bite the dust too. For cursory analysis of the situation shows pools in Las Vegas and the West most of us, the astounding success of that we have done it by two Edmonton Mall, and the lush green golf "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (see unrepeatable strokes of luck more than courses maintained in the semi-deserts Dennett 1995) clinches the argument by ingenuity. of the southwestern USA and the United that Malthus was on to something. The first astonishing piece of Arab Emirates, might fool anyone into Basically, Malthus says that good fortune, assuming you are not thinking that there is no shortage of population when unchecked, tends to Amerindian, was the European water on Earth, but for "dissembling increase exponentially, whereas food encounter with the Americas. This is environmentalists" such usage is short­ supply tends to increase arithmetically. the supreme example in modern history sighted waste. Lomborg states that This means that a population will of the use of conquest to increase carrying capacity. It really paid off when belief, though he would no doubt economy grows is at the expense of the the steam locomotive opened up the counter any criticism by pointing to biosphere. Undoubtedly, the biosphere grasslands of Canada and the USA to perfunctory genuflections towards a defines the absolute limit on earth to the markets and bellies of the Old finite view of the world that occur the imperial ambitions of our species, World. Catton (1980), incidentally, scattered throughout the book like and it is reasonable to think that long considers that this event began an "age exotic blooms in a wasteland. Clearly, before we achieve a complete takeover, of exuberance" which sparked the kind he knows that some resources are non­ we can expect to suffer a global version of optimism that Lomborg displays - an renewable, and as he says "in principle of Easter Island's collapse — unless of age which he now sees as drawing to an exhaustible" (p. 159). "In principle" is course, we find a new planet Earth to end. an inspired piece of obfuscation annex. As a second stroke of luck, we designed to camouflage the stark word A general rejection of the notion have inherited a vast capital pool of exhaustible. Yet he still feels able to say of limits to growth must also account energy from earlier versions of the "that we have more and more oil left, for Lomborg's uncritical belief in the biosphere - the fossil sunlight of coal, not less and less" because "we explore fatally ambiguous concept of gas and oil. It is a truism of ecological new areas and find new oil" (p. 125). "sustainable development", perhaps the as opposed to economic commentary On this matter it is worth stating defining oxymoron of the late twentieth on the subject that our material that oil discoveries in the USA peaked century. In fact, ambiguous is hardly civilization is precariously dependent on about 1930, while extraction peaked in adequate for a phrase that has as many gas and oil. Take the "Green the 1970s. The USA now imports 55% definitions as Heinz has soups and salad Revolution" for example. Here is a case of its petroleum needs. Globally, dressings - see individual papers by where human ingenuity did indeed discovery peaked in the early 1960s and Robinson, Lavigne, Clark and Brooks ratchet-up the food supply. On the the extraction peak is expected to be in Chesworth et al. (2002). When whole, it didn't work in Africa, and it within the next decade. Campbell Lomborg states that the World Bank only worked in Asia until the population (2001) published an estimate that in the defines sustainable development as increase nullified the gain (as Malthus year 2000 total oil discovery was 11.2 "development that lasts", and that "in predicts). High-yielding varieties of Gb - less than half the consumption, this respect our society certainly seems staple crops were bred, and with an and what he (p. 3) finds inexplicable is: to be sustainable" (p. 160), a little elaborate husbandry, irrigation systems "our great reluctance to look reality in semantic exposition of the concept and liberal doses of pesticides and the face and at least make some plans would not have come amiss. What we fertilizers, the new breeds of plant were for what promises to be one of the do know is that the palliative Mantra used to replace indigenous agricultural greatest economic and political reflects a view of sustainability that pays crops and techniques. The whole discontinuities of all time." close attention to the dollars and cents, syndrome of this type of agriculture is Again, Lomborg says "if we while ignoring calories, the true energy intensive, and the heavy continued to use resources with no currency of biospheric transactions. applications of nitrogen fertilizers the change in technology, we would A second and more fundamental new crops were developed to exploit eventually run out. But the fact that this flaw in Lomborg's interpretation of accounts for a large component of the chapter [Chapter 14] can conclude that "The Real State of the World" is his energy input. Essentially all fertilizer- significant scarcities are unlikely is disinclination to test his Mantra against nitrogen comes from the industrial because we continuously find new certain important default positions of fixation of atmospheric N2, a process resources, use them more efficiently, science. Consider that word real, for kept affordable, yet again, by the biggest and are able to recycle them and to example. Too much of the "real" world agricultural subsidy of all, the ancient substitute them" (p. 148). Faith (and of the economist is solipsistic, and as sunlight represented by the diminishing faith is what it is) in the technological insubstantial as a stockmarket bubble. resource of natural gas. Since the fix, is integral to this belief in an ENRON-type scams would hardly be energetics of a process are never essentially infinite economy. Optimism possible otherwise. Most people, and seriously analyzed by Lomborg, he feels is justified by an uncritical Micawber- that includes all scientists, believe that free to make the ludicrous statement like assurance that something will there is a real world outside our heads. that since "air contains about 78% always turn up. We also believe that in spite of the nitrogen, there are no limits to It is a viewpoint that is only strictures of deep thinkers from Plato to consumption" (p. 144). The phrase "no possible if the human economy is Popper, we can know something about limits" should be added to the Lomborg considered in some way divorced from it. Our scientific model of reality is Mantra. the biosphere that contains it, whereas built on foundations that go back at Phrases such as "no limits" are the truth is that the economy squats like least 7000 years to the early hydraulic symptomatic of one of the fatal flaws in an overfed cuckoo in a nest from which civilizations of Asia and Africa, and Lomborg's thinking - belief in an all other occupants are in danger of over the last two hundred and fifty years infinitely expandable economy. being excluded. This deception enables we have elaborated this view Lomborg's "don't worry, be happy" cornucopians like Lomborg, to deny considerably. To judge by the message, depends entirely upon this that the only material way that the astonishing technological achievements Volume 30 Number 1 March 2003 of our species, the model now thundered back to ask why "is a panel ACXNOW1CDGEMEN1S approximates material reality rather with a name such as this investigating I thank colleagues - particularly E-an well, and we continue to refine it using complaints against a book which makes Zen, Denis Shaw and Paula Antunes - the powerful, self-correcting mechanism no claim to be a scientific treatise? "The for helpful comments. called science. Some of the important Skeptical Environmentalist" is explicidy clues we have picked up along the way not concerned with conducting REFERENCES include the fact that we cannot create scientific research. Rather, it measures Brooks, R.J., 2002, Ecovicws: Pathology and something out of nothing, that when we the "litany" of environmental alarm that the meaning of life: p. 443-444 in Darwin use something up it does not become is constantly fed to the public against a Day Collection One, ed. by Amanda nothing, and that energy eventually range of largely uncontested data about Chesworth: Tangled Bank Press, Albuquerque, NM, 446 p. drains into an ultimate sink from which the state of the planet. The litany comes Brown, W., 1995, Who Will Feed China':'W. W it cannot be extracted to do useful off very badly from the comparison." Norton, N.Y. 163 p. work. We have also learned that we are Well it would, wouldn't it - a straw man Campbell (2001) Hubbert Center Newsletter it animals, whose life-support system, the isn't constructed to withstand a 2001/2-1: M. King Hubbert Center For earth, is finite, and that together with all pounding, it's constructed (in harmony Petroleum Supply Studies, Colorado School other species inhabiting the biosphere, with the Danish Committees' judgment) Of Mines, 3 p. Chesworth, W., Moss, M.R. and Thomas, we have been shaped by the implacable to make the fight one-sided. V.G., 2002, Sustainable Development: process of competition called natural The Economist goes on: Mandate or Mantra (The Hammond selection. Any attempt we make to "the environmental movement was right Lectures for 2001, broadcast by the CBC on discover the 'real' nature of the world, to find the book a severe the program Ideas): Faculty of including the 'real* nature of human embarrassment. But since the book was Environmental Sciences, University of society, must accord with these default not conducting scientific research, what Guelph, 140 p. positions or be judged wanting (see business is it of a panel concerned with Catton, W, 1980, Overshoot: University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 298 p. Hardin 1993, Chapter 19). Lomborg's scientific dishonesty?" Crosson, P., 1995, Soil erosion estimates and model, where economics trumps Here, the Economist seems to be saying costs: Science, v. 269, p. 461-464. ecology every time, is no match for that Lomborg, despite calling himself Diamond, J., 1997, Guns, Germs and Steel: science as a means of finding reliable the "skeptical environmentalist", should W.W. Norton, N.Y. 480 p. answers to the tough environmental be allowed to disarm scientific criticism Dennett, D., 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: questions that face us. by his incongruous admission that in Evolution and the Meanings of Life: Simon fact, he lacked any expertise at all "as and Schuster, N.Y. 586 p. Finally, some of Lomborg's Hardin, G„ 1993, Living Within Limits: regards environmental problems" (p. reviewers have been mightily impressed Ecology, Economics and Population Taboos: by the masses of data and the pages of xx). Oxford University Press, 339 p. references and notes in The Skeptical A book need not be scientific to Lavigne, D., 2002, Ecological footprints, Environmentalist. I have already given present a reasonable argument, but if doublespeak, and the evolution of the Machievellian mind: in Chesworth et al. reasons for questioning his treatment of your objective is to argue against a (op. cit.) p. 63-91. data, while others have criticized his scientific position, your argument, Rees, W.E., 2003, A blot on the land: Nature, heavy reliance on secondary sources unlike Lomborg's, must at least be v. 421, p. 898. (see http://www.lomborg.com/ logical, and must be based on a model Stuart L. Pimm, Stuart L, 2001, The World biograph.htm. But even if Lomborg's of the world that the long history of According to Pimm: McGraw-Hill, N.Y. choice of data had been the best in the human curiosity and experience tells us 285 p. world, and even if he had treated it with approximates reality. A deconstruction Thomson, K.S., 1998, Darwin and Malthus: American Scientist, v. 86, p. 226-229- impeccable rigour, his faith in an of all the Economists huffing and UN, 2003, Water for People - Water for Life - economy of virtually no limits would puffing, leads inevitably to the damning The United Nations World Water still lead him to an ideological position conclusion that Lomborg, who replaced Development Report: UNESCO, Paris, 576 at odds with the ecology of a finite and the parody he calls The Litany, with the P- isolated planet. feel-good Mantra of business as usual, Wada, Y., 1993, The Appropriate Carrying On January 7 2003, the Danish has written a book that attempts to Capacity of Tomaio Production Comparing counter scientifically testable claims by the Ecological Footprints of Hydroponic Committees on Scientific Dishonesty Greenhouse and Mechanized Field judged that in The Skeptical inappropriate rhetorical means. His Operations: MSc Thesis, University of Environmentalist Lomborg was idea of the "real" state of the world is British Columbia, Vancouver, 132 p. "systematically one-sided", and that the ecological equivalent of a perpetual "objectively speaking, the publication of motion machine, set on a fantasy planet Accepted as revised 8 March 2003 the work under consideration is deemed where the principle of the conservation to fall within the concept of scientific of energy does not hold, entropy is of dishonesty". Two days later the no consequence, and Charles Darwin Economist online at http:// was never born. www.economist.com/science/ displayStorv.cfm?story id= 1522706