Trump's Approach to Herd Immunity Would Result in 26 to 32 Million American Deaths

 

It has just been revealed that the White House is pushing a plan for the pandemic that will result in 25 to 30 million American deaths. In this post, I lay out the recently discovered facts about the Administration's plans, and the true American carnage that these plans will lead to. Finally, I will suggest actions that you, the reader, can take to stave off this monumental catastrophe.

The Plan 

In August, Scott Atlas, M.D. joined the White House staff as a special advisor to President Trump on the pandemic. Dr. Atlas is not an epidemiologist (a specialist in how diseases spread), nor is he a specialist in infectious diseases of any sort. He is a neuroradiologist, who specializes in imaging of the brain and branches of the nervous system, and the diagnosis and description of abnormalities in these areas. All of which gives him next to nothing in the way of pandemic expertise; however, as his Wikipedia entry notes, Dr. Atlas has been a medical advisor to Republican politicians, and wants to eliminate Obamacare--and that seems to be enough for the President.

The Washington Post and Yahoo News reported yesterday that Dr. Atlas has been pushing--and the Administration is supporting--an approach to the COVID-19 pandemic that involves an extremely crude implementation of a "herd immunity" strategy. To understand just how bad this approach is, let us consider just what herd immunity is.

Herd Immunity: The Good, the Bad, and the Hideously Ugly

The basic idea behind herd immunity is that, if enough people are immune to a given disease, then that disease cannot "reach" the people who are not immune. 

For example, let's take you, the reader. Let us say you have never had COVID-19 and have no immunity to it. If enough people around you do have immunity to COVID-19, then the disease simply cannot get to you. Hurrah! 

According to Noreen Iftikhar, M.D., for most diseases, "80 to 95 percent of the population must be immune to the disease to stop its spread." Okay. But wait . . . how do people become immune?

Basically, there are only two ways for people to become immune to a disease:

1. People might have been immunized (basically, vaccinated) against the disease. 
2. People might have acquired immunity because they have had the disease and developed antibodies to it. 

That's it. The immunization route would be great, but unfortunately we do not have a vaccine, and as of right now, we'll be lucky to get an effective and safe vaccine sometime in 2021.

The acquired immunity route requires that large numbers of people become infected with the disease; this is a crude approach, something like "infect them all, let God sort them out." I'm calling this bad. However, the hideously ugly part kicks in when we are dealing with a disease that is as deadly as COVID-19 is.

The True Case Fatality Rate of COVID-19

I am sure that some of my readers are of the opinion that COVID-19 "isn't that bad," and is about as lethal as the flu (0.1 percent lethality). I am sure that some other of my readers are thinking that they heard the fatality rate is "about 1 percent." All of these readers are 'way, 'way off.

When a pandemic is over and done, epidemiologists look at the number of people who died from the disease, and divide that by the number of people who ever had the disease, to derive the case fatality rate. But you should not use this method when you are in the middle of a pandemic, because you will underestimate the actual fatality rate--perhaps by a great deal. 

For a pandemic that is in progress, like the COVID-19 pandemic, the closest approximation we can get to the true case fatality rate is the Closed Cases Method. This method divides the number of deaths by the total number of closed cases (all cases that have resulted in death, recovery, or discharge from the hospital). Using the Closed Cases Method on data from the United States as of today, we see that the best approximation we have for the case fatality rate of COVID-19 is 5 percent. 

Five percent. Perhaps that is not impressive to you. But 5 percent is 50 times worse than the fatality rate of the seasonal flu, and much more than the fatality rate of the dreaded Spanish Flu of 1918 (between 2.5 percent and 3 percent).

Now let's see what happens when you apply that 5 percent fatality rate to a crude, acquired immunity approach to herd immunity in the United States.

The Mathematics of Millions of Deaths

In 2019, the population of the United States was 328.2 million. As I mentioned earlier, 80 percent to 95 percent of a population have immunity for herd immunity to kick in. That means 262.6 million to 311.8 million Americans must have immunity to achieve herd immunity.

But wait: Trump's new pandemic advisor, Dr. Atlas, wants to achieve herd immunity, not through immunization in the near future, but through infection right now. What does that look like when the disease has a fatality rate of 5 percent? Like something out of apocalyptic nightmare, that's what.

Applying the 5 percent fatality rate to the number of Americans that would have to be infected to achieve herd immunity results in a staggering number of deaths: 13.1 million to 15.6 million deaths. to be exact.

That's right: the best case scenario, applying a strategy of mass infection leading to herd immunity the hard way, we will see between 13.1 million and 15.6 million Americans die.

But wait. It gets much, much worse.

You see, that 5 percent fatality rate only applies to a situation where our hospitals are all functioning within capacity, not in an overload situation where patients must be turned away because there simply is not any room in the hospital for them. The entire American hospital system only has a capacity of under a million staffed beds. When you start talking about 260+ million people infected with COVID-19, of whom about 20 percent (52 million plus patients) require hospitalization, then you are talking the entire American hospital situation in overload situation. We're talking millions upon millions of patients receiving no hospital treatment at all. 

When that happens, we are not talking a 5 percent fatality. We are talking at least a 10 percent fatality rate--or more.

The result? Between 26 million and 32 million American deaths.

The cost in human suffering and death is beyond one human being's capacity to comprehend. I can calculate the numbers. But when I think of the meaning behind those numbers, I am horrified almost out of my wits.

What the Reader Can Do to Avert This

In the face of this potential monumental catastrophe, an American Holocaust worse than anything that the nation has ever suffered, the reader actually has some options other than despair. I strongly recommend that the reader do each of these things:

1. Contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress, right now--really, today--and tell them that you expect them to vigorously reject the Administration's plan to implement any sort of strategy involving mass infection leading to herd immunity. Tell them that to do otherwise will lose your vote, now and forever. (At the risk of mentioning the obvious, this is life and death, folks.)
2. Practice the most rigorous precautions that you ever had, and then some: masks, social distancing, washing everything in sight. Why? Because some people will follow the Administration's directions as they push their fatal approach, and you need to protect yourself from those people.
3. Prepare for conditions to get more than a bit gnarly. Store food, enough for weeks, even months. Why? Because if, despite all these warnings, the White House does force its fatal strategy on the people, it may not be safe to shop, and my guess is that no one will be delivering food for awhile.
4. Surely someone reading this will be able to pass a message to someone who knows someone who knows someone in the White House who can get this post, with the following Memo, before the President.

May peace be upon us all.

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Memo to President Trump

Consider what the economy would look like in the scenario described in this post, one in which a "mass infection" approach to herd immunity results in 26 million to 32 million American deaths.

Consider a country with 26 million to 32 million fewer consumers. A country where the survivors struggle to survive without going outside to buy anything. A country with 26 million to 32 million fewer workers. Even the stock market will tank below Great Depression levels.

In this scenario, one need not be concerned about the election. One will need to be concerned about pitchforks and torches, and massive hordes descending upon the White House, hordes so huge that no fence, no troops, and no bunker can offer protection.

Wise men will choose carefully here.

Please join "The On The Mark Social Issues Blog" community on Facebook here. Copyright 2020 Mark Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.

Permission is hereby granted to re-post or quote this blog entry, if and only if Mark Koltko-Rivera, Ph.D., is credited as the author. 

The image of the statue of Death at the Cathedral of Trier, Germany, is the work of Jbuzbee, and appears here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en) license.

Two Recommendations to Prepare for the Coming Post-Election Chaos

 

In this post, I describe a serious problem that I see on the horizon, and my suggestions for how to address it.

A recent article described a piece of an interview that the CEO of Bloomberg-funded political data firm Hawkfish gave to Axios (broadcast Monday night on HBO, 8/31/20). In the interview, that CEO predicted "mass chaos" after Election Day, because of what he calls the "Red Mirage."

It would work like this. On the night of Election Day, the more-easily counted in-person ballots may indeed show a narrow Trump victory. (Why? As I see it, a narrow in-person-voting Trump victory occurs because DT urges his followers to vote in person, not caring whether they are dead from COVID-19 by Inauguration Day). However, as that CEO noted, over the weeks following Election Day, this Red State 'victory' is seen to be a mirage, as the mail-in ballots are counted and Trump's illusory "win" erodes to a loss.

The result? "Mass chaos," the article says. I will go farther.

I think that the result could be substantial violence in many places in America.

One scenario that I consider more than plausible is that, as the mail-in ballots are counted, Trump loses his shizzle, attempts to declare the election invalid, and tries to send in troops or his own armed followers to confiscate mail-in ballots and put down the ensuing protests (which I expect would be epic).

After that? That all depends on how reasonable the U.S. military leadership and other agencies' armed officers are willing to be in dealing with a President who erupts in a Constitutional crisis. We might see a relatively brief period of civil unrest. Or, we might see a Second Civil War.

My Recommendations

For right now, focusing just on the safety of oneself and one's family, I suggest this:

1. Plan right now to stay inside your home, not going out past your mailbox, from the day after Election Day, for up to three weeks.
2. Start right now to store at least three weeks of food, supplies, and medications, to use during the three-week period following Election Day.

Why three weeks? Here is my thinking.

Week One: Trump celebrates his "win" by declaring himself the victor, and sending in armed troops and his armed followers to put down demonstrations against his premature declaration of victory.

Week Two: Trump begins to lose his fingernail-thin grip on his impulses as the mail-in ballots start to be counted, revealing that Trump's supposed victory margin is eroding. Trump orders mail-in ballots to be confiscated from all U.S. State Boards of Elections. Bigger protests ensue. Trump sends in armed troops to enforce his confiscation order, with directions to shoot to kill. Trump encourages his armed followers (militias and what he once called "Second-Amendment people") to "stand up for America" and take matters into their own hands.

Week Three: This is the minimum period of social unrest that we should prepare for. Stay away from the windows, folks. Don't count on Instacart, Amazon Prime, or other such services to be making deliveries during this period.

This leaves two questions for me to answer.

First Question: Should you protest Trump's actions during this period? I cannot answer that. Different factors--home and family circumstances, your responsibilities to others, your own and others' health statuses--need to be taken into consideration.

Second Question: Is this "mass chaos" scenario really plausible? Think about it. DT has already stated that he wants to call out military troops to deal with protesters--moments before he had police use tear gas to clear out DC protesters, just so that he could have a meaningless photo op at a church. DT has already expressed support for the illegally armed militia member who killed two people at a recent protest over police violence in Kenosha WI.

It has been said that the best predictor of future behavior in a given context is past behavior in that context. The scenario that I outlined is entirely plausible.

Get ready. If you start now (I post this early on September 1st), you have over two full months to prepare.

Peace be with you all.

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The "Trump Wins!" Norpoth Primary Model Election Prediction Is Built on Bubbles. Let Me Pop Them For You.

In some circles, a lot of attention is being given to the Helmut Norpoth "Primary Model," which shows Trump winning over Biden by a landslide.

Time to burst the bubbles here. The website of the Helmut Norpoth "Primary Model" states that this projection was first posted on March 2, 2020, and was not revised since.

Of course the brunt of the damage to the U.S. population and our economy from COVID-19 have occurred since that time--not to mention the revelations of Trump ignoring Russian bounties on U.S. troops, the attempted manipulation of the election through fiddling with the Post Office, and all the social unrest fomented by Trump. Anyone who thinks that these issues won't affect the election outcome is delusional. I would put no faith in this model.

Quite frankly, one needed no special knowledge of statistics to see what was wrong with this projection. It was there on the first page of their website, and the date was there for all to see, with less than five minutes of looking--for anyone who cared to look.

#thedevilisinthedetails

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That CDC Report--and Malicious Ignorance

Some people have made a very great deal of fuss regarding a recent report from the CDC stating that "94% of COVID-19 deaths had underlying medical conditions" (news report here, original CDC report here, as of August 26, 2020). These people cluck approvingly that this 'proves' (1) that COVID-19 deaths are much ado about nothing, (2) that healthy people--that is, people without these underlying conditions--have nothing to fear from COVID-19, especially because (3) relatively few people have these underlying conditions.

People who say these things are deeply ignorant people who know nothing about medical statistics or epidemiology. Worse, their gullible ignorance endangers the health of each of us, and our families.

What the Report Actually Found

The news report misreports the actual ranking of some of the underlying conditions. Looking at the actual CDC report, we see that the top 9 named diseases that are listed as "underlying medical conditions" in COVID deaths are as follows (percentages are percentages of total COVID-19 deaths in the study; percentages add up to more than 100 percent because of overlap):

#1: 42% influenza and pneumonia

#2: 34% respiratory failure

#3: 22% hypertensive diseases (i.e., high blood pressure)

#4: 16% diabetes

#5: 14% adult respiratory distress syndrome

#6: 12% cardiac arrest

#7. 12% vascular and unspecified dementia

#8: 8% chronic lower respiratory disease (formerly chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, or COPD)

#9: 8% renal failure

#10: 6% heart failure

These diseases fall into two categories: those that are known to be caused, or made more likely, or made worse by COVID-19, and those that are widespread underlying conditions that are known to be associated with "bad outcomes" (read: death) when it comes to COVID-19.

Diseases That Are Caused, Made More Likely, or Made Worse by COVID-19

We know that COVID-19 viciously attacks the lungs, making them highly vulnerable to complications such as flu and pneumonia (#1), leading to adult respiratory distress syndrome (#5) and, often enough, ultimately to respiratory failure (#2), as patients drown in their own lung secretions.

Of those who survive, previously healthy adult athletes--including at least one real-life friend of mine--find their lung capacity diminished, possibly for the long term.

(And yes, I am saying that because COVID-19 paves the way for influenza virus and pneumonia bacteria, COVID-19 in large part makes flu and pneumonia more likely. Of course, COVID-19 does cause a type of pneumonia all by itself.)

We also know that COVID-19 viciously attacks other organs, besides the lungs.

It attacks the heart muscle, leading to cardiac arrest (#6) and heart failure (#10).

We know that COVID-19 sometimes viciously attacks the brain and seems to cause dementia, which can lead to death (#7).

We also know that COVID-19 can attack the kidneys, leading to renal failure (#9).

Widespread Preconditions That Make People Vulnerable to COVID-19

We know that high blood pressure and other hypertensive diseases (#3) predispose people to death from COVID-19. What nobody seems to mention is that roughly one-third of the American population has hypertension. So, saying that "hey, 22 percent of COVID deaths had hypertension" doesn't mean that "the vast majority of people are safe from COVID," as the ignorant people I mentioned above seem to think. Rather, it means that one-third or more of adult Americans are at special risk for dying from COVID on this basis alone.

In addition, we know that diabetes (#4) predisposes people to death from COVID-19. What nobody seems to mention is that over 10 percent of Americans have diabetes.

Finally, we know that chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD, #8), which includes asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema, predispose people to death from COVID-19. What nobody seems to mention is that about 10 percent to 12 percent of Americans have CLRD.

CONCLUSIONS

COVID-19 causes, makes more likely, or greatly exacerbates 7 of the 10 top "underlying medical conditions" found in COVID deaths. The other 3 top "underlying medical conditions" are widespread conditions that predispose people to COVID deaths, held in total by over half of Americans.

Anyone who takes the reports that "94% of COVID-19 deaths had underlying medical conditions" to mean that "the great majority of people are safe!" are gullible, ignorant, and foolish. And their ignorance endangers the health of all of us and our families.

Please join "The On The Mark Social Issues Blog" community on Facebook here. Copyright 2020 Mark Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.
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The Rebirth of the "On The Mark" Blog

 

Consider it a sunrise: the beginning of a new day.

I have been very little active on this blog in recent years. Perhaps it was the divorce. Perhaps it was the medical condition requiring me to get two stents in my coronary arteries. 

Whatever it was does not matter now. The United States is being thrown into a dumpster fire of chaos, multiple ways:

• President Donald Trump is behaving more like a wannabe-Fascist dictator every day, trampling over Constitutional law and the Bill of Rights. Perhaps worse, his actions demonstrate that he is preparing to either ignore the 2020 election results, or declare them invalid, essentially making himself an actual Dictator Over America--perhaps for life.

• The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. has resulted in 6.2 million infections and 188,000 deaths--all in a period of barely 8 months (August 31, 2020 figures). It shows no signs of stopping. To the contrary, with the opening of schools and the forthcoming Labor Day holiday festivities, and with the approaching cooler weather forcing activities indoor, we are only likely to see more infections and deaths. And yet, we still have no national plan for testing or containing the pandemic. Instead, Trump touts fake cures, encourages people to believe in a promised "miracle," and runs superspreader events as part of his presidential campaign (as he did at Tulsa, OK and the White House).

• Despite the grim reality of the COVID catastrophe, we see vast amounts of misleading information, disinformation, and outright lies being posted in social media and elsewhere online, discouraging people from taking the pandemic seriously and taking appropriate protective measures, and encouraging risky behavior.

• The U.S. real economy is in tatters. Tens of millions are unemployed. Double-digit percentages of small businesses have closed for good. Many of those originally "furloughed" from their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic are now being informed that their jobs are gone for good. To make it worse, millions have lost their employer-based healthcare. To make it even worse, tens of millions of Americans are in immediate danger of eviction.

• There is widespread social unrest in the U.S., stemming from only the most recent public shootings of unarmed Black men by police, particularly in the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake; the way that police let escape an illegally armed, long-rifle-carrying minor--who murdered two protesters of the Blake shooting--has not helped the situation.

I've got kids. They're all long grown up, and now they've got kids. This is not the America I want to pass on to them. What I have to change the situation are ideas expressed in logic and words. 

That's what this blog is about: addressing the threats to America, Americans, and the best version of the American way of life. 

So may it be. And may you say, "so say we all."

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Copyright 2020 Mark Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby granted to re-post or quote this blog entry, if and only if Mark Koltko-Rivera, Ph.D., is credited as the author. 

How We Should Be Celebrating Independence Day

John Trumbull, Declaration of Independence, 1818.

As I write these words, military tanks have been rolled into Washington, DC, to participate in the Independence Day “Salute to America,” as dictated by the President--who has also ordered that military service chiefs stand next to him at the observances.

Let us put aside for the moment that all of this seems to be meant as one huge stroke to someone’s ego. Let us ignore that this all smacks of how the old Soviet hierarchy used to gather their political and military leaders on the stand for their highly militaristic May Day parades. Let’s just bracket the idea that this smells of what an insecure leader of a banana republic would command.

Instead, at the risk of mentioning the obvious, let me point this out:

·         Independence Day is not supposed to be a military-oriented celebration.

·         Independence Day is supposed to be a celebration of American freedom and values.

So, this is what I propose instead.

Celebrate the “self-evident truths” stated near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence states this, in the beginning of its second paragraph (according to the text reported by the National Archives):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

These are doubtless among the most thought-provoking and inspirational words ever composed by human beings. So, in a proper Independence Day celebration, let us have displays, floats, and speeches that celebrate these ideals:

·        Let us celebrate the idea that, in America, all people are supposed to be equal--under the law, and as treated by the guardians and enforcers of the law--regardless of sex, gender, race, ethnic background, religious orientation (including no religion at all), personal creed, political party, or status on the socio-economic ladder.

·        Let us celebrate the idea that no one group of people are to be singled out for harassment, imprisonment, or--worst of all--extra-judicial execution, based simply on who they are. (I could go on for pages here, what with the insane things that government executives and legislators in Alabama, Florida, West Virginia and elsewhere have gone on the record saying about people of different gender or sexual orientations than themselves, and even worse, what with the actual killings. by law enforcement officials, of unarmed people of color.)

But wait--there’s more.

Celebrate the rights granted in the Bill of Rights

 You see, although the 1776 Declaration of Independence started the process of building a nation, that process was not complete until the 1788 ratification of the Constitution. Part of that Constitution--a part without which the Constitution as a whole might never have been ratified by the States--is the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments). The rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights were revolutionary at the time the Constitution was ratified, when compared with the way other

governments in the world were run at the time. Take just the First Amendment, which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 So, let’s have displays, floats, and speeches celebrating this: 

• There is to be no state-sponsored or sanctioned religion in the United States.
• We are to have freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press.
• We are to have the right to assemble peaceably (yes, this includes demonstrations).
• We are to have the right to petition the Government to fix what we think is wrong.

I could go on this way about each of the parts of the Bill of Rights, but there’s enough here to get the idea.

Independence Day should be about celebrating our ideals and our rights as Americans.

The fact that the national celebration in 2019 in Washington DC is not about this should give us all pause.

Have a great Fourth.

And keep November 2020 in your thoughts. And prayers.

Because a real celebration of American ideals and the rights of the people—especially expressed via the ballot box—is truly On The Mark.

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(Copyright 2019 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

SOTU 2018, Part 1: National Unity

If one had no prior experience of Donald J. Trump—in particular, if one had paid no attention to anything he had said or done from the day before he announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, until yesterday afternoon, January 30, 2018—then one could be forgiven for thinking that his State of the Union (SOTU) address last night was a fine example of rationality and patriotism in action, from a rational, caring man.

But since I doubt that many of my readers have been in a coma for over two and one-half years, not one of us has an excuse to think that. As one of the members of the “Pod Save America” podcast said on a rare live episode of CBS TV’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” broadcast soon after the State of the Union address had concluded, “I don’t know how you take a speech and divorce it from an entire year of actions.” I don’t, either. So, with the realities of the first year of the Trump Presidency in mind, let us look at one particular topic as addressed in the State of the Union speech.

Calls for National ‘Unity’

In the SOTU, Pres. Trump made much of his desire for national unity. But his actions suggest that he wants national unity by way of papering over his very real prejudices and the very real issues raised by race in America today:

• Pres. Trump lionized a hero who flew support missions to rescue people from the recent hurricane-induced floods in Texas. However, he produced no such hero from the rescue of Puerto Rico, which endured massive damage in the same storms—because there were relatively few federal officers sent to PR. The entire federal response to Puerto Rico has been disgracefully poor. Over four months after the disaster, 20% of the population of Puerto Rico is still without electricity and has no running water—and yet FEMA is ceasing the distribution of water and food today. Of course, at the very time he initiated his presidential campaign, Trump stated that Mexicans in the United States were basically rapists and drug dealers. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are the two largest groups of Hispanics in the United States—and Pres. Trump clearly does not care for them. By his actions, Pres. Trump is demonstrating that he has one way for dealing with people in a predominantly non-Hipanic White area, and another altogether for dealing with Hispanic people.

• Pres. Trump pushed shows of respect for the American flag and national anthem almost to the point of religious reverence, pointedly saying that the proper way to show such respect for the latter is to stand while it is played. Of course, this was a pointed rebuke to the take-a-knee silent protests, associated with Colin Kaepernick, other African-American NFL players, and players of all races in several sports. The problem here is that these protests are made with reference to police violence directed against African-Americans—including the shooting of unarmed African-Americans—virtually without legal consequences. Trump made no reference to these problems, aside from saying that police officers deserve “unwavering support.” In other words, the well-expressed concerns of the African-American community regarding their very safety and survival are of no concern to Pres. Trump.

• Pres. Trump made a point of saying that he wanted to support what he called “religious liberty.” But the context of the last year makes clear that what he wants to do is grant the right to people of faith to discriminate against others on supposedly religious grounds: no wedding cakes or flowers or pizza for gay couples, for example. So instead of really promoting unity—by taking the very reasonable position that religious liberty does not include the right for businesses to discriminate against anyone on religious grounds—the President is simply declaring that national unity, for him, does not include anyone of whom certain evangelical Americans disapprove. Forget you, LGBT folks.

• As far as immigrants are concerned, in the SOTU, Pres. Trump essentially equated them with gang members such as those in MS-13. So immigrants are not really a part of the drive to national unity, either. Forget you too, immigrants.

Here’s the bad news for the President’s push for national unity. Hispanic-Americans, non-Hispanic African-Americans, LGBT people in the United States, and legal immigrants (making generous allowances for overlap) together comprise about 31% of the American population. This is sad news for a President who cares for very few if any of them. It is very sad news for America that this President does care very little for them. 

A notion of ‘national unity’ that leaves out almost a third of the population is simply not real unity at all. As the illustration above suggests, we need a unity with all our colors and differences to be truly On The Mark.

- - - - -

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(Copyright 2018 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Earth 2.0 and God

Earth has “an older, larger cousin.”

Yesterday, NASA made the announcement that its Kepler mission had confirmed the existence of “the first near-Earth-size planet in the ‘habitable zone’ around a sun-like star,” a recently discovered exoplanet designated Kepler-452b.

This is a momentous announcement for two reasons. First, this is a milestone in the search for life—including intelligent life—on other worlds. Second, as we approach closer each year to the technology for interstellar spaceflight, it is important for us to find Earth-like planets as candidates for potential human colonies. (If you find this idea of interest, please visit our Facebook group, “Humanity Must Go to the Stars.”)

A Huffington Post columnist has taken this discovery and confirmation in a controversial direction, a direction with important implications for human cultures on Earth—and a direction that I believe is stunningly misinformed, and that has the potential to do great harm.

Jeff Schweitzer, a Ph.D. in marine biology and neurophysiology, and former White House senior policy analyst, published a column on HuffPost yesterday with the (rather arrogant) title, “Earth 2.0: Bad News for God.” Schweitzer starts off well enough:

The discovery of Kepler-452b is not likely to see the public swoon with a collective rendition of Kumbaya. But this Earth 2.0 is a huge if under-appreciated discovery, not because Kepler-452b is unique but for just the opposite reason; there are likely thousands or millions or even billions of such earth-like planets in the universe. The discovery of just one such world is good evidence for many more: after all, we know of 100 billion galaxies each with as many as 300 billion stars (big variation per galaxy). Astronomers estimate that there are about 70 billion trillion stars. Math wizardry is not necessary to conclude we did not by chance find the only other possibly habitable planet among that huge population of stars.
 With this discovery, we come ever closer to the idea that life is common in the universe. 

At this point, however, Schweitzer begins to go off the rails.

… let me speculate what would happen should we ever find evidence of life beyond earth even if you think such discovery unlikely. I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world's major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens. I am not alone in this conclusion that religion will contort to accommodate a new reality of alien life.

It is important to look at that link that Schweitzer produces to support his contention that “religion will contort to accommodate” the discovery of alien life. The link is a quick survey of what the astronomer David A. Weintraub found in the course of researching his book, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It? Contrary to what Schweitzer implies, Weintraub shows that several religions—including Hinduism, some forms of Buddhism, and Islam—have long held that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. Together, these religions have about 3 billion adherents, or close to half the population of the world, who will not have to do any special contortions at all to “accommodate” the discovery of alien life; they already believe that alien life exists, and in intelligent forms, as well. (Adherents of some smaller religions, such as the Bahá'í, also have this belief.)

As the survey of Weintraub’s book points out, even some Christian religions—including my own, the faith of the Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormonism—have long embraced the belief that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. (The LDS read this belief described in their unique scriptures, including the Doctrine and Covenants [D&C 76:24] and the Book of Moses [Moses 1:29-35].)

The largest Christian group in the world, of course, is the Roman Catholic Church (with over 1 billion adherents). Some Roman Catholic scholars have been receptive to the idea of extraterrestrial life for a long time. Yes, the friar Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for this belief at the beginning of the 17^th century, and Galileo’s support for extraterrestrial life was suppressed soon after. However, starting in the 20^th century, a number of Catholic thinkers have found room for the concept of intelligent extraterrestrial life within a Catholic framework. (For example, the essays published in 2000 by Ernan McMullin and George V. Coyne, S.J., are particularly stimulating; see the references below.)

Despite what Schweitzer claims and implies, then, many of Earth’s religions have believed—some for millennia—that the universe contains a multitude of worlds with intelligent inhabitants.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because Schweitzer’s essay is another instance of the long-standing claim that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion. Although there certainly have been times when religionists have done monumental harm to the cause of scientific knowledge—as scientists have said some remarkably stupid things about religion—I do not believe in an inherent, logically necessary conflict. Beyond that, I think that we do harm to ourselves and the human voyage to knowledge of our inner and outer universe when we fall prey to the belief that there is such an inherent conflict.

Accurate knowledge about both religion and science—and mutual respect and understanding between those who are illuminated by one, the other, or both—would truly be On The Mark.

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References

McMullin, E. (2000). Life and intelligence far from Earth: Formulating theological issues. In S. Dick (ed.), Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life and the theological implications (pp. 150-175). Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

Coyne, G. V. (2000). The evolution of intelligent life on the Earth and possibly elsewhere: Reflections of a religious tradition. In S. Dick (ed.), Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life and the theological implications (pp. 176-188). Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

[The image of Earth and “Earth 2.0” is an artist’s conception. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle.]

(Copyright 2015 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

On Millennia and Marriage: Memo to SCOTUS

United States Supreme Court Building, Washington, DC

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) began hearing arguments on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. One of the concerns raised on the issue by the justices themselves (as reported in today’s New York Times) is the sheer amount of time over which marriage has been defined solely in terms of the union of a man and a woman. As the Times reported in another article today:

“The word that keeps coming back to me in this case is millennia,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy….
            “You’re asking us to decide it for this society when no other society until 2001 ever had it,” added Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justices Kennedy and Scalia are indisputably correct: same-sex marriage has never been recognized as legal in any culture at any time, throughout human history, until legalized by Massachusetts, effective 2004. Some would build upon this fact to argue that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, and should never be legalized, because such legalization would break with millennia of precedent. To many people, this would be a compelling argument. However, there are problems with this line of thought:

This argument is totally illogical—it is, in fact, a classic error of logic. It also runs completely against the most basic of American values. It is contrary to the Enlightenment values that have advanced Western civilization over the last four centuries. As such, it is one of the worst arguments that it is possible to make against same-sex marriage.

The “it’s been done this way for millennia” argument is another way of saying that “it is this way, and so it ought to be this way,” a type of argument that was identified as deeply illogical by the Scottish philosopher David Hume over 300 years ago. (The basic issue is simple: there just is no logical connection between the descriptive statement that something is a certain way, and the prescriptive statement that it ought to be that way.)

But let’s get beyond logic, to values. As I’ve pointed out, the “millennia” approach says, “everyone’s always done it this way, so we should keep on doing it this way.”

How American is that?

Not very.

Let’s look at four important areas in which the U.S., and Western civilization generally, have rejected the “everyone’s always done it that way” argument.

Government

The very founding of the United States was a literally violent break with the past. Before the establishment of the U.S., there had not been a real democracy as the basis of a major national government since the days the ancient Athenian Council of the Areopagus and the Roman Republic—each of which was eradicated before the days of Jesus of Nazareth. That would be two millennia ago. Aside from those two examples of democracy, governance by an absolute ruler was the practice throughout all of human history—for over fifty-five centuries, or over five millennia—until the founding of the U.S.

Rule by king, emperor, or pharaoh, throughout almost all human cultures, over almost the entire prior history of humankind, was the ultimate historical precedent. The ratification of the Constitution of the United States changed all of that, fifty-five centuries of human tradition, by establishing a representative democracy. Somehow, the founders of the nation found it possible to toss over five thousand years of precedent, to forklift over five millennia of all-but-universal practice. As a country, we’ve never looked back.

Religious Freedom

Much has been made about the implications of same-sex marriage for religious freedom. Although that topic must be addressed separately, we should consider how precedent-shattering the American notion of religious freedom was when the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified effective 1791. From at least as far back as the days of ancient Egypt, states had sponsored some religion or religions, and often forbidden or strictly regulated the exercise of others. This was the nigh-universal practice of the major civilizations of the West from the days of Alexander the Great and the glory days of Greece, right through the days of the Roman Empire, continuing on through the middle ages and the Renaissance. Only during the European Enlightenment did this begin to be questioned. It was only with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution that the right to believe and worship as one pleases become established in a major Western nation.

Here again, somehow, the founders of the nation found it possible to toss over five millennia of all-but-universal practice—without regrets.

Slavery

The institution of slavery has existed since the earliest days of recorded human history, at least since the empires of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Sumer, and the Indus. The Bible—both the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian New Testament—describe slavery without giving any indication that the basic institution should be abolished. Slavery was common throughout the ancient Greek city states, and the entire Roman Empire, as well as through many countries of medieval Europe. Slavery was certainly the rule in many European colonies, including many that later became the United States.

When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and when the U.S. ratified the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, America was breaking with over five millennia of tradition and accepted practice. Somehow Lincoln wasn’t swayed much by the “I think of millennia” argument.

Women

Until quite recently, women throughout Western civilization were completely subservient to men, virtually as controlled as slaves, and had been so for many millennia. Just considering the Roman Empire, women could not own property or make contracts in their own names; they could not vote or hold public office; and, they were totally subject to the rule of their fathers until marriage, and their husbands thereafter. The Roman practice was itself built on millennia of precedent in most nations of the ancient world, and the Roman way continued to be practiced throughout many of the nations of Europe into the 19^th century and even beyond.

In the United States, the right of women to vote was not secured until the ratification of the 19^th Amendment in 1920. Women’s legal rights in other areas—such as access to credit—were not established for many years after the right to vote, based on the millennia-old practice that I described above.

Giving women the right to vote, own their own property, and make their own financial decisions, broke with five millennia and more of tradition and precedent. Last time I looked, the sky had not fallen. 

Conclusion

America was built upon a willingness to abandon millennia-old practices on the basis of moral principles. The “it’s been done this way for millennia!” line of thought has been rejected time and again as America progressed from being a set of colonies oppressed by Great Britain, colonies where slavery was widespread, women were all but men’s property, and certain religions were ‘official,’ to being an independent and democratic nation where slavery has been abolished, women have equal rights to men, and the right to choose one's own religion is unimpeded.

The Supreme Court now has an historic opportunity to give full rights to another portion of our population. May it not be swayed by the idea that they are changing the practice of millennia.

That’s just being American.

And it is certainly On The Mark.

- - -

I invite you to become a “follower” of this blog through the box in the upper-right hand corner. I also invite you to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.)

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[The photo of the Supreme Court of the United States building was created on October 28, 2010 by Wikipedia user 350z33 and cropped by Wikipedia user Pine. It appears here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License and the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.]

(Copyright 2015 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)