ECOSCIENCE:

POPULATION,
RESOURCES,
ENVIRONMENT

PAUL R. EHRLICH
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

ANNE H. EHRLICH
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

JOHN P. HOLDREN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

a
W. H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY
San Francisco
The ecological constraints on population and
technological growth will inevitably lead to social
and economic systems different from the ones in
which we live today.
In order to survive, mankind will have to develop
what might be called a steady state.
The steady state formula is so different from the
philosophy of endless quantitative growth, which
has so far governed Western civilization, that it
may cause widespread public alarm. <—
-Rene Dubos, 1969

Mistrust of technology is an attitude that ought

to be taken seriously. It has positive value in
avoiding grave disasters.
-Roberto Vacca, 1974 CHAPTER 14
Changing
American Institutions

Changing individual attitudes on population size in
general and family size in particular is only part of the
problem facing humanity today. This chapter and the
next examine the need for institutional changes to meet
the population-resource-environment crisis. Here we
focus primarily on the institutions of the most influential
country in the world. It is the United States that in the
past few decades has been the leader in humanity's
reckless exploitation of Earth; it was also in the United
States that the resistance to that exploitation first became
well organized. It seems unlikely to us that disaster can
be averted without dramatic changes in the structure of
many American institutions—changes that could support
and consolidate gains in such areas as family size,
resource conservation and environmental awareness that
have already been made on the basis of transformed
individual attitudes.
Many of the institutional problems discussed here also
have relevance to other nations, especially other DCs that
since World War II have emulated the United States in
many respects. Readers in other countries, therefore, may
find some of this text directly relevant, even though the
focus is on the United States In Chapter 15 we expand
nnr outlook to examine international institutions. All
these institutions must be altered—and soon—or they
and society as we know it will not survive. Whether
significant changes in attitudes can occur fast enough to
affect humanity's destiny is an open question. In our
discussion we have held to one overriding principle:
today's problems cannot be solved by destroying the

805
806 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
existing institutions; there is neither the time nor the
leadership to dismantle them completely and replace
them with others. Today's institutions must be bent and
reshaped but not destroyed.
No one is more acutely aware than we are of the
difficulties and hazards of trying to criticize and com-
ment constructively on such broad areas as religion,
education, economics, legal and political systems, and the
psychology of individuals and societies. We believe,
however, that in order for people to translate into
effective and constructive political action what is now
known about the roots of the crisis, new, far-reaching and
positive programs must be undertaken immediately.
In this chapter and the next, we therefore depart from
the realm of relatively hard data in the physical, biologi-
cal, and social sciences to embark on an exploration of the
many other areas of human endeavor that are critically
important to a solution of our problems.1 In doing so we
are making the assumption that many reforms are
essential. The dangers of making the opposite assump-
tion are beautifully set forth in the following quotation
from biologist Garrett Hardin's article, "The Tragedy of
the Commons":
It is one of the peculiarities of the warfare between
reform and the status quo that it is thoughtlessly
governed by a double standard. Whenever a reform
measure is proposed it is often defeated when its
opponents triumphantly discover a flaw in it. As
Kingsley Davis has pointed out, worshippers of the
status quo sometimes imply that no reform is possible
without unanimous agreement, an implication con-
trary to historical fact. As nearly as I can make out,
automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based on
one of two unconscious assumptions: (i) that the status
quo is perfect; or (ii) that the choice we face is between
reform and no action; if the proposed reform is
imperfect, we presumably should take no action at all,
while we wait for a perfect proposal.
But we can never do nothing. That which we have
done for thousands of years is also action. It also
produces evils. Once we are aware that the status quo is
action, we can then compare its discoverable advan-
'Many of these topics are treated in greater depth in Dennis C. Pirages
and Paul R. Ehrlich, Ark IL.Social response to environmental imperatives;
its footnotes and bibliographies provide further access to the peninent
literature, especially in political science.
tages and disadvantages with the predicted advantages
and disadvantages of the proposed reform, discounting
as best we can for our lack of experience. On the basis
of such a comparison, we can make a rational decision
which will not involve the unworkable assumption
that only perfect systems are tolerable.
RELIGION
Religion, broadly defined, would include all the belief
systems that allow Homo sapiens to achieve a sense of
transcendence of self and a sense of the possession of a
right and proper place in the universe and a right and
proper way of life. In short, everyone wants to feel
important and in tune with a right-ordered world. The
attempt to achieve a sense of well-being in these terms is
so pervasive among human cultures that it may be
counted as a necessity of human life. With religion so
broadly defined, political parties, labor unions, nation
states, academic disciplines, and the organized structure
of the environment-ecology movement would have to be
counted among our religious institutions. Certainly, t
representatives of all those groups have struggled to
protect and propagate their views as assiduously (and
sometimes as fiercely) in our time as Genghis Khan, the
Christian Crusaders, or the Protestant Christian mis-
sionaries did in theirs. In this discussion, however, we
limit our attention to those groups customarily called the
world's j^reat religions, the traditions of belief and
practice belonging to members of the Tudeo-Christian.
Moslem, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions.
Religion must always be viewed in its two parts: the
firsthand more readily evident element being the formal
structure of authority and administration that in our
Western tradition is called "the church;" and the second,
more elusive, and in the long run more important
element, the system of attitudes called, in the Western.
manner, "the faith." In our treatment of the two parts, we
concentrate upon the relationship between organised
religion and population control because that^ is the area
where contemporary social needs and imperatives have
most clearly come into conflict with cherished traditional
values usually promulgated and supported by religions.
Moreover, humane population control calls for the

integration of contraceptive techniques into culturally
accepted sexual practices, and sexual practice is the area
of human activity that is typically most extensively
regulated by taboo. Thus, the acceptance or rejection of
birth control and various methods of carrying it out have
been important issues in organized Western religion for
several decades.
Our treatment of religious attitudes also focuses upon
perceptions of the environment, because how an indi-
vidual perceives and treats the world is determined by his
or her overall view of his or her place in that world. The
Christian concept of life in this world, as voiced by Saint
Paul, that "here we have no abiding city," for example,
conceivably could help explain why some people show
rather little concern for the long-term future of the global
environment or for the well-being of future generations.
Most of our attention is on the Western. Juden-..
Christian religious tradition because it is primarily
within that tradition that the population-resource-
environment crisis has been engendered.
Organized Religious Groups
and Population Control
Within the theological community in the Western
world, there has recently been a heartening revolution in
thought and action on such varied social concerns as the
quality of life in urban areas, civil rights for minority
groups, and the war in Vietnam. Since the late 1960s,
environmental deterioration and the population explo-
sion have become important concerns. Protestant, Cath-
olic, and Jewish clergy have come more and more to the_
forefront of public activities in these areas, often at
considerable personal sacrifice and risk.
Conspicuous among clergy who have risked their
careers have_been Catholic theologians who opposed the
official pronatalist position of the Vatican. For example,
Father John JA. O'Briem a distinguished professor of
theology at Notre Dame University in Indiana, edited the
excellent book Family planning in an exploding popula-
tion in 1968, He also was a leader in criticizing Pope Paul
VI's 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which reiterated
the church's condemnation of contraceptives. Com-
menting on the encyclical, Father O'Brien wrote, "Since
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 807
the decision is bound to be reversed by his [Pope Paul's]
successor, it would be far more honorable, proper and
just for the Pope to rescind it himself."2 Ivan Illich, who_
renounced his priesthood after a controversy over hirtb-
cpmrol in Puerto Rico., wrote that the encyclical "lacks
courage, is in bad taste, and takes the initiative awayjrom^
Rome in the attempt to lead modern man in Christian
humanism."3 Thousands of others, from cardinals to lay
people, have also spoken out. Since its publication, the
encyclical has caused immense anguish among Catholics,
millions of whom have followed their consciences and
used contraceptives, often after a period of intense
soul-searching.4 Indeed, clergyman sociologist Father
Andrew Greeley attributes the recent substantial erosion
in religious practices and church support among Ameri-
can Catholics almost entirely to Humanae Vitae.5
Adamant opposition to birth control by the Roman
Catholic Church and other conservative religious groups
for many years helped delay the reversal in developed
countries (including the United States) of laws restricting
access to contraceptives and the extension of family-
planning assistance to LDCs. Support of outdated dogma
among Catholic spokespeople still sometimes hinders
effective attacks on the population problem in Catholic
countries and in international agencies that support
family-planning programs. Thus, as late as 1969, elderly
Catholic economist Colin Clark claimed on a television
program that India would, in a decade, be the most
powerful country in the world because of its growing
population! He also wrote, "Population growth, however
strange and unwelcome some of its consequences may
appear at the time, must be regarded, I think, as one of
the instruments of Divine Providence, which we should
welcome, not oppose."6
By the mid-1970s, however, the influence of such
persons was on the wane—so much so that a reaffirma-
tion by Pope Paul of his anti-popuiation-coptrol dngrna,
at the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome was greeted
by almost universal ridicule^ Within the church, Pope
2
ReaJcr's Digest, January 1969.
'Celebration of awareness.
4
F. X. Murphy and J. F. Erhart, Catholic perspectives on population
issues. Population Bulletin, vol. 30 (1975), no. 6.
^Catholic schools in a declining church, Sheed & Ward, Mission,
Kans., 1976.
6
Z,os Angeles Times, November 9, 1969.
808 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
Paul's influence seems likely to decline as older members
of the hierarchy are replaced by administrators more in
touch with humanity and modern times. Growing
numbers of priests and other clerics in the lower ranks of
the hierarchy no longer condemn the use of contracep-
tives—some even condone abortion under some circum-
stances, although the hierarchy is, if anything, even more
rigidly opposed to that. A great many Catholic laymen
are ahead of the Church in changing their attitudes; by
the mid-1970s more than 80 percent of Catholics in the
United States approved of the use of contraceptives.7
The new look in attitudes is typified by those of
Catholic' hinlfigisr Tnhn H Thomas of Stanford Univer- .
siry, who in 1968 wrote to San Francisco's Archbishop
Joseph T. McGucken:
The Church must affirm that the birth rate most soon
be brought in line with the death rate—i.e., a growth
rate of zero. This is the responsibility of all people
regardless of race or religion. The Church most
recognize and state that all means of birth control are
licit . . . (it) must put its concern for people, their
welfare, and their happiness above its concern for
doctrine, dogma, and canon law . . . It is time that
the Church stop being like a reluctant little child,
always needing to be dragged into the present.
John Thomas was also a prime mover in promoting the
Scientists' statement against the birth-control encyclical,
which within five weeks in 1968 was signed by more than
2600 scientists.8 He was joined by two other Catholic
biologists, Dennis R. Parnell (California State Univer-
sity at Hayward) and Brother Lawrence Corey (St.
Mary's College, Moraga, California) in mailing the
statement with their endorsement to the approximately
150 Roman Catholic bishops in the United States.
Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that physician
John Rock, who played a leading role in developing the
contraceptive pill, is a Catholic. He also participated in
the theological debate on the morality of birth control
until the encyclical was issued, effectively squelching the
debate.
Except for the Roman Catholic church, all major
Western religious groups had by 1970 officially sanc-
tioned "artificial" contraception, although some contin-
7
Greeley, Catholic schools.
s 9
J. J. W. Baker. Three modes of protest action.
ued to oppose liberal abortion policies. Religious leaders
of various faiths in the United States have helped
overcome ancient cultural taboos related to reproduction
by emphasizing the quality of human life rather than its
quantity. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish theologians,
for example, have been active in promoting sex education
in schools, and many Protestant and Jewish theologians
and lay people have supported liberal abortion policies.
Bishop C. Kilmer Myers, of the Episcopal diocese of
California, for example, in the late 1960s established the
Ad Hoc Metropolitan Planning Group, which has been
deeply concerned with the problems of population and
environment. The Social Ministry of the Lutheran
Church in America promulgated a highly enlightened
policy on population in the 1960s; Methodist groups
were in the forefront of abortion-law reform in the
United States. Thus, there is good reason to hope that
organized Western religious groups may become a pow-
erful force in working toward population control world-
wide, especially as the human suffering caused by
overpopulation becomes more widely recognized.
i. Nop-Wcst£r3|i religions] The possible rolf*s of pon-
Western r lisdous institutions in the population crisis are
rnorejrohlemaTiral th^n rhar nf Western religion;. For
example, withimlslamic religTon)there is no organized,
deep involvement in social problems, although Islamic
scholars have tried to find religious justification for
practicing birth control in some countries h; d-pressed _
by exploding populations. There are^t least 500 milliony
• Moslem^ in the world (roughly half the number of
ristians), more than 95 percent of whom live in Africa
and Asia, with high concentrations in such problem
regions as Indonesia and the Indian subcontinent. Paki-
stan, by establishing a government-supported family-
planning program as early as 1960, made it clear that
Moslem countries can attempt to solve their population
problems without religious conflict.9 Several other Mos-
lem countries have since established family-planning
programs and/or changed their laws to permit broader
access to birth control. In the foreseeable future, how-
ever, it^ seems unlikely that Islam itself will bfrf)rr"' a-
positive force for population control.
M. Viorst, Population control: Pakistan tries a major new experiment.

Much the same can be said of Buddhism, which—if
those who also subscribe to Shinto, Taoism, and Confu-
cianism are also counted as Buddhists—has perhaps 700
million adherents, most of them in Asia. The barriers to
population control in Asia and the potential for accepting
it both seem to be connected much more with social
conditions than with religion. Therefore, it seems un-
likely that changes in the religion would have any
substantial effect on establishment of population policy,
although religious support for small families might
encourage acceptance of family planning.
Similarly, it is hard to picture Hinduism, as an entity,
becoming a force in population control. More than 99
percent of the 450 million or so Hindus live in Asia,
mostly in India, Like Buddhism, it is a rather heterogen-
eous, relatively noninstitutionalized religion. There is
still considerable opposition to population control
among Hindus, perhaps based more on medical beliefs,
local superstitutions, and a sense of fatalism than on
anything inherent in the religious structure.
For Westerners who favor population control, nnp n£
the best courses of action seems to lie in working with the
already establisheoyreligious groupspto change people's^,
attitudes toward population growth.. In the rest of the
world, the relative fragmentation of religious groups,
their lack of hierarchic organization, and their psychoso-
cial traditions would seem to limit their capacity to
influence population control efforts.
Religious Attitudes and the Environment
In the United States, the unorthodox but constructive
and quasi-religious attitudes first expressed widely in the
1960s by members of the whole-Earth, hippie movement
may well help save the environment. The initial phase of
the hippie movement was characterized by a groping and
testing that produced, among other things, the dangerous
macrobiotic diet and the horror of the Manson family.
Aside from such excesses, however, the hippies borrowed
many religious ideas from the East, particularly Zen
Buddhism, combined them with the collectivist, passivist
element from Christian tradition, and attempted to forge
a code based on close personal relationships, spiritual
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 809
values, a reverence for life, group self-reliance, and an
abhorrence of violence. By the mid-1970s this code had
become well established in a more mature and praise-
worthy form that might be called the independence
movement. People in that movement are attempting to
find simpler, more ecologically sound modes of exis-
tence, and to reduce their dependence on fancy, nones-
sential, and vulnerable technological gimmickry. Their
unofficial publications such as Mother Earth News and
CoEvolution Quarterly abound with suggestions for
disconnecting oneself from the "effluent society." If any
one idea binds members of the movement together, it is
the belief—essentially religious—that human beings
must cooperate with nature and not attempt to subdue
nature with brute force.
Many people in our society are unhappy with these
attitudes, which go against long-cherished and reli-
giously sanctioned political and economic beliefs. They
feel that turning away from a consumer orientation has
grave implications for the future of the economy. Others
see in the independence movement the vanguard of a new
social revolution that could lead to a very different, far
better society.
C*Lynn White, Jr., professor emeritus of history at t h e ]
CUni versify of California, Los Angeles^nd past president
of the American Historical Association^ has suggested
that the basic cause of Western society's destructive
jttitude toward nature lies in the Judeo-Christian tradi-
tion. He pointed out, for instance, that before the
Christian era, people believed trees, springs. hills2
streams, and other objects of nature had guardian spirits.
Those spirits had to be approached and placated before__
one could safely invade their territories: fBy destroying
fgagan animisrnyhristianitv made it possible to exploit
nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural .
objects."1,0 Christianity fostered the basic ideas of
"progress'^nd of time as something linear, nonseparat- __
ing, and absolute, flowing from a fixed point in the past to.
an end point in the future. Such ideas were foreign to the
Greeks and Romans, who had a cyclical
and did not envision the world as having a beginning.
Although a modern physicist's concept of time might be
somewhat closer to that of the Greeks than to that of the
'"The historical roots of our ecological crisis.
810 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
Christians, the Christian view is nevertheless the preva-
lent one in the Western world: God designed and started
the universe for the benefit of mankind; the world is our .
oyster;, made for human society to dominate and exploit..
Western science and technology thns can he seen to have
their historical roots in the Christian dogma of human-_
ity's separation from and rightful mastery over nature^
Europeans held and developed those attitudes long
before thp opportunity ^n exploit the Western hemi-
sphere arrived.JThe frontier or cowboy economy that has
characterized the United States seems to be a natural _
extension of that Christian world view/Therefore, White
claimed, it may be in vain that so many look to science
and technology to solve our present ecological crisis:
Both our present science and our present technology
are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance
toward nature that no solution for our ecologic crises
can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of
our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must
also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or
not.
A number of anthropologists and others have taken,
issue with White's thesis, pointing out that environmen-
tal abuse is by no means unique to Western culture, and
that animism had disappeared, at least in western
Europe, before Christianity was introduced. As examples
they cite evidence of ancient and prehistoric environ-
mental destruction, such as the human-induced extinc-
tion of Pleistocene mammals and the destruction of the
fertility of the Near East by early agricultural activity, as
well as the behavior of non-Western cultures today.
Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan of the University of Minne-
sota observed that there is often a large gap between
attitudes toward the environment expressed in a religion
or philosophy and the actual practices of the people who
profess those attitudes." While Chinese religions, for
example, stressed the view that man was a part of nature
(rather than lord of it) and should live in harmony with it,
the Chinese did not always live by that belief. Concern
for the environment, especially preserving forests and
protecting soils, were expressed throughout Chinese
history, but Yi-Fu Tuan suggests that this may often
'Our treatment of the environment in ideal and actuality.
have been in response to destruction that had already
taken place. The fact that China was a complex civiliza-
tion complete with a bureaucracy and a large population
doubtless militated against fulfillment of those ideals. By
the twentieth century, China's once-plentiful forests had
been nearly destroyed to build cities and clear land for
agriculture. All that remained in most areas were small
patches preserved around temples. Ironically, the present
government, which explicitly rejects the traditional reli-
gions, has attempted to restore the forests on a large
scale.12
Lewis W. Moncrief of North Carolina State Univer-
sityj^who might be described as an environmental
anthropologist, feels that the religious tradition of the
West is only one of several factors that have contributed,,
to the environmental crisis.13 Along with some other
anthropologists, he has suggested that an urge to improve
one's status in society is probably a universal human
characteristic and that expressing this urge through
material acquisitiveness and consumption of resources is.
if not universal, at least common to a great variety of
cultures. Perhaps what is unique about Western culture
in this regard is the degree of its success.
Moncrief postulated several factors that he felt were
just as influential as the Judeo-Christian outlook in
determining European and North American behavior
toward the environment. The first were the development
of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, which
together provided individual control over resources (if
only a family farm) for a far greater proportion of the
population than before and simultaneously provided the
means to exploit those resources more efficiently. The
existence of a vast frontier fostered the belief in North
America that resources were infinite; all of our wasteful
habits derive from that. Moncrief thinks it is no accident
that the first conservation movement appeared just as the
frontier was closing; Americans suddenly and for the
first time began to realize that their resources were, after
all, finite.
In 1893, moved by a remark from the 1890 census
J3
For an overview of present Chinese attitudes, see L. A. Orleans ana
R. P. Suttmeier, the mass ethic and environmental quality, Science, vol.
170, pp. 1173-1176 (December 11, 1970); a related account of Japanese
attitudes toward the environment is Masao Watanabe, The conception of
nature in Japanese culture.
13
The cultural basis for our environmental crisis.

about the disappearance of public land and the con-
sequent disappearance of the frontier, Frederick Jackson
Turner, then at the University of Wisconsin and sub-
sequently at Harvard, observed:
American social development has been continually
beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial
rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion
westward with its new opportunities . . . furnish the
forces dominating American character.14
A generation earlier, E. L. Godkin, editor of the
Nation, had written that the American frontier popula-
tion had "spread itself thinly over a vast area of soil, of
such extraordinary fertility that a very slight amount of
toil expended on it affords returns that might have
satisfied even the dreams of Spanish avarice."15
Traditional North American (and, to some extent,
European) attitudes toward the environment thus are not
exclusively products of our religious heritage, although
that doubtless played an important part. These attitudes
may just spring from ordinary human nature, which in
Western culture was provided with extraordinary social,
political, technical, and physical opportunities, particu-
larly connected with the nineteenth-century American
frontier. Such opportunities were bound to engender
optimism, confidence in the future, and faith in the
abundance of resources and the bounty of nature. That
they also produced habits of wastefulness and profligacy
was not noticed. Past institutions in the United States_
rarely dealt with environmental problems; if they were
recognized at all, they were usually considered to be
someone else's responsibility.
In the twentieth century, as the growing population
became increasingly urban and industrialized, the en-_
vironmental effects multiplied, and the nation was rather
suddenly confronted with a crisis. How today's Ameri-
cans ultimately resolve the environmental crisis will
depend on much more than changes in philosophical
outlook, but such changes unquestionably must precede
or at least accompany whatever measures are taken.
Individual conduct is clearly capable of being modified
and directed by an appropriate social environment—the
'"The significance of the frontier in American history, in The early
writings of Frederick Jackson Turner, ed. f , J. Turner.
"Aristocratic opinions of democracy.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 811
change in reproductive habits in the United States
testifies to that, as does the great increase in environ-
mental consciousness. Unfortunately, the environmental
problem may prove more difficult because it requires
changing more than the altitudes and behavior of indi-
viduals: those of firmly established, powerful institu-
tions—primarily business and governmental Organiza-
tions—must alSQhp i-hangerj
How large a role organized religion may play in
guiding the needed changes in individual attitudes
toward the environment or in influencing the behavior of _
other institutions is still uncertain. Many religious
groups have already shown leadership, including some
already mentioned in connection with population-
related issues. A particularly hopeful sign was the^
concern expressed in January 1976 by the National^
Council of Churches about the ethics of using and _
spreading the technology of nuclear power, and the
discussion promoted by the World Council of Churches^
onjhe nuclcar jssue_an,d_on. the relation of energy policy
to the prospects for adjust and sustainable^ world.16
Ecological Ethics
Many persons believe that an entirely new philosophy
must now be developed—one based on ecological reali-
ties. Such a philosophy—and the ethics based upon
it—would be antihumanist and against Judeo-Christian
tradition in the sense that it would not focus on an
anthropocentric universe.17 Instead, it would focus on
human beings as an integral part of nature, as just one
part of a much more comprehensive system.
This is not really a new perspective. In one sense,
Western philosophy has been a continuous attempt to
establish the position of Homo sapiens in the universe,
and the extreme anthropocentrism of thinkers like Karl
Marx and John Dewey has been strongly attacked by,
among others, Bertrand Russell.18 Russell, for example,
'6See The plutonium economy: A statement of concern, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, January 1976, pp. 48-49; P. M. Boffey, Plutonium: its
morality questioned by National Council of Churches, Science, vol. 192,
pp. 356-359 (April 23, 1976); Paul Abrecht, ed., Facing up to nuclear
power, Anticipation, no. 21, October 1975, pp. 1-47.
1
'See Frank E. Egler, The way of science: A philosophy of ecology for the
layman; and George S. Sessions, Anthropocentrism and the environmen-
tal crisis. The latter is a good, brief summary with a useful bibliography.
"A history of Western philosophy; die debate is summarized in Sessions,
Anthropocentrism.
812 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
jointed out Marx's .philosophical closeness to classical
Judeo-Christian thought:
His purview is confined to this planet, and, within this
planet, to Man. Since Copernicus, it has been evident
that Man has not the cosmic importance which he
formerly arrogated to himself . . . There goes with
this limitation to terrestrial affairs a readiness to
believe in progress as a universal law . . . Marx
professed himself an atheist, but retained a
optimism which only theism could justify.19
is nnf primarily that
of considering the human pngi'ti™ ir. thp ff^rnnc but
rather of considering the roles played by human beings in
the ecosphere. It takes a view diametrically opposed to_
the position expressed by Aristotle 2300 years ago^'Now,
if Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain^
the inference must HP that e has made all animals for
the sake of man."20
From the standpoint of ecological ethics., the world is,
thus seen to be not humanity's oyster but a
system that supports us, of which we are a part, and
toward which we have moral responsibilities^ Ethical
theorist Joseph Margolis has written:
But it may well be that the ethical visions of the
future—assuming the earth has a future—will be
discarded as beneath debate if they do not include,
centrally, an account of the ethics of the human use of
the inanimate and non-human world. Such a dis-
cipline . . . might be called moral ecology. . . .21
Whether or not such a philosophy is incorporated into
religious dogma is immaterial. What counts is that
something like it has influenced many Americans and
Europeans already, and may come to be accepted in other
places as well. (In some cultures, of course—some native
American world views and some aspects of Hinduism
come to mind—the idea of humanity as a part of nature
has always predominated.) The sooner an ethic based on
respect for the natural world can be adopted, the better.
The beneficiaries will be not only ourselves but our
children and grandchildren.
"Quoted in Sessions (ibid).
^Politics 1,88.
2
'Joseph Margolis, Values and conduct, p. 212.
The Conservation Movement
The fascination and profound emotions —
religious feelings— aroused in many people by wilder-
ness areas, wildlife, and beautiful natural scenery are not
easily explained to those who do not share them._
Disparate beliefs and attitudes are obvious every time
conservationists find themselves defending aesthetic val-
ues against people who are equally dedicated to "prog-
ress." This divergence of views was elegantly sum-
marized by the brilliant French anthropologist Claude _
Levi-StrausSj who noted that any secies of bug that
people spray with pesticides is "an irreplaceable marvel,
equal to the works of art which we religiously preserve in.
museums."22
For many years now, people in the conservation
movement have fought individually and in groups to halt,
the extinction of animal species and the destruction of the
last vestiges of the primitive areas of Earth. Some of the
campaigns conducted by such organizations as the Sierra
Club, the Audubon Society, the Defenders of Wildlife,
the Wilderness Society, and the Nature Conservancy in
the United States, and by the World Wildlife Fund and
similar organizations in other countries,22" have been
successful. It is becoming clear, however, that in the long_
run the conservation movement as a whole has been
fighting a losing battle.
Perhaps the most obvious reason the battle is being lost
is that conservation is a one-way street: each organism or
place conserved essentially remains in perpetual jeo-
pardy. Each gain is temporary, but every loss is perma-
nent. Species cannot be resurrected; places cannot be
restored to their primitive state. Consequently, even if
the conservationists were evenly matched against the
destroyers, the battle would probably remain a losing
one. But, of course, the battle has been far from even.
Powerful economic interests and government agencies,
pushed by population pressures, have promoted the
development of every possible inch of the United States
by building dams in desert canyons, driving roads
through the remaining wilderness areas, cutting the last
"Discussion of the Special Commission on Internal Pollution, Lon-
don, October 1975.
22a
For an interesting history of the parallel (but quite different) growth
of the conservation movement in the U.K., see Max Nicholson. The
ecological breakthrough.

of the.primeval forests, grilling for oil on the northern)
C slope of Alaska} and so on. It is a tribute to the
conservationists, past and present, that any of our primi-
tive areas remain relatively unspoiled.^ Political and
financial power tend to be arrayed against conservation,
and, as people increase and resources dwindle, the
situation seems bound to deteriorate further. In many
parts of the world the situation is worse than in the
United States; in a few it is better.
There are encouraging signs that a new thrust is_
appearing in the conservation movement. Growing
numbers of people have realized that conservation is a
global problem, that in the long run it is not enough to
such icnistpri trppc^p-c as a grove of redwood
trees. If global pollution causes a rapid climatic change,
the grove cannot long survive. Many conservationists
now recognize that if the growth of the human popula-
tion is not stopped, and the deterioration of the planetary
environment is not arrested, nothing of value will HP
conserved.
This understanding and the growing general public
awareness of the problems of the environment have given
rise to a number of new organizations. Some of them, like
Friends of the Earrh f FOF.1. are more militant offshoots
of older conservation groups. Others, including^ En-
vironmental Action (which grew from the organization
that sponsored the first Earth Day in 1 970) ano* Kcology
Action, are new. Zero Population Growth (ZPG1 is
primarily concerned with the population problem but is
also interested in the environmental consequences of it.
ZPG, one branch of the Sierra Club. Environmental
Action, and FOE have foregone the tax advantages of an
apolitical posture in order to campaign and lobby for
their goals, frequently combining their efforts on issues
of common concern.VThey also cooperate in environ-/
Cmentalist lawsuits! (see "The Legal System," below)
through organizations such as The Environmental Pe-_
fense Fund (EDFJ and the Natural Resources Defense _
Council (NRDC). Such organizations generally diifer
from many of the older conservation groups in being
more oriented to humanity as an endangered species than
to preserving wilderness and wildlife only for their
aesthetic and recreational values^ Sister organizations of
FOE, as well as ZPG, have been established in other
countries.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 813
In Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, the environ-
mental movement has established its own political par-
ties, known in Britain as the Ecology Party, in France as
Ecologie et Survie, in New Zealand as the Values Party,
etc. These parties have succeeded in winning seats in
Britain's Parliament and gaining significant percentages
of the vote in several countries.2211 In March 1977, the
ecology party in France won a nationwide average of 10
percent of the vote in municipal elections. In some towns
in Alsace (where the party originated) they won 60
percent.220
It seems likely that conservationist and environmentaL
organizations will become still more militant and morg
united—especially in their global concerns. While im-
portant local battles must continue to be fought, more
general programs of public education and political action
should become predominant. Obviously, it is no longer
necessary to plead for conservation only on aesthetic or
compassionate grounds, since the preservation of the
diversity of life and the integrity of the ecological
systems of Earth is absolutely essential for the survival
of civilization.
SCIENCE
For many people, science and technology have taken on
the aspect o^a religion) How often one hears statements
beginning, "any society that can send a man to the moon
can. . . ." and ending with some problem—usually
immensely more complex and difficult than space
travel—that science and technology are expected to
solve!23 The population-food imbalance is a common
candidate; others are various types of pollution or other,
ecological problems.
Three things are generally wrong with these state-
ments of faith. First, science and technology have not yet
reached the point relative to those problems that they had
reached relative to the man-on-the-moon project by
22t)
Edward Goldsmith, Ecology—the new political force.
—''Ecologists emerge as a potent force in French election, New York
Times, March 20, 1977.
- JOne book on the human predicament written from this point of view
(but in which the science is often very weak) is John Maddox's The
doomsday syndrome. See the retrospective review written three years later
by John Woodcock. Doomsday revisited.
814 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
1955. The general outlines of a solution are not clear to
all competent scientists in the pertinent disciplines.
Second, and equally important, there is no sign of a
societal commitment to a crash program to solve those
,1 nonspace problems.fThjrd, any solutions to those prob-
lems would spell significant changes in the ways of * jff pf—
millions of people, which the space program did not.
The public, indeed, has developed a touching but
misplaced faith in the ability of science and technology to
pull humanity's chestnuts out of the fire. There is not the
slightest question that with clever and cautious use of
scientific and technological resources, a great deal of
good could be accomplished. But can the required
amount of cleverness and caution be found? Despite
enormous scientific advances during the past thirty years,
it is perfectly clear that the absolute amount of human
misery has increased (because of the enormous growth in
the numbers of poverty-stricken human beings), while
the chances that civilization will persist have decreased.
There has been an abundance of science and technology,
but they have been unbalanced and out of control.
Priorities and Planning
Tt has been estimated that more than 400.000 scientists
and engineers^-about half the technical community of
the world—are working on weapons of war. Each year,
military research and development worldwide cost about
$25 billion, some 4 times what is spent on medicaL
research (and perhaps 1000 times that spent on ecological
research).24 Medicine and public-health measures have
attacked the death rate with vigor but for a long time
ignored the birth rate, in the process threatening human-
ity with unprecedented catastrophe. Physics has pro-
duced nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, a legacy so
weighty on the minus side of the balance that it is
difficult to think of any serious pluses with which to
counter it. Biology has provided weapons for biological
warfare and has seen many millions of dollars poured
into molecular genetics, a field offering little immediate
J4
See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Why arms
control fails. Of course, the causes of the lack of balance and control are
complex, and we do not have space to discuss them here. For an
introduction to the subject, see Robin Roy, Myths about technological
change, New Scientist, May 6, 1976, pp. 281-282.
improvement in human welfare but possessing great
potential for curing or preventing inborn defects or for
curing cancer, and the like. The greatest contribution of
molecular genetics to human welfare has been the Ames
test (Chapter 10), which, ironically, will help protect
humanity from the "triumphs" of organic chemistry!
Meanwhile, support for environmental studies has been
relatively insignificant, despite repeated warnings by
ecologists for more than a quarter of a century that
human action was threatening to destroy the life-support
systems of the planet. The behavioral sciences -still in
their infancy—have also languished despite their poten-
tial value in helping to solve human problems.
Most of the fireat "advances" in technology, from
DDT and X-rays to automobiles and jet aircraft, have
caused serious problems for humanity. Some of those
problems would have been difficult to anticipate (Box
14-1), but most were foreseen, were warned against, and
could have been avoided or ameliorated with sensible
societal planning. The question now is, how can such
planning be done in the future so as to minimize the
unfortunate consequences of technological "advances"
made thus far—to say nothing of those yet to come?
It is clear from the records of organizations such as the
American Medical Association and the_AECJnow the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC), and from
statements by technological optimists and scientific
politicians that scientists (like other groups in our
population) cannot be relied upon to police themselves.
Some way must be found to foster greater participation
by other segments of society in the major decison-making
processes affecting science and technology. This is
essential, of course, to the survival of society, but it is also
important as protection for scientists themselves. Bur-
dens of guilt, like those borne by the physicists involved
in developing atomic weapons, must be avoided wher-
ever possible, or at least more broadly shared.
We are not in a position here to propose a detailed
structure for controlling science and technology, but we
can suggest some general directions. Gover lent agen-
cies such as the Optional Science Foundation} and
•MM
 BOX 14-1 Risks, Benefits, and New Technologies
As previously indicated, it is common for un-
foreseen difficulties to arise with new technolo-
gies, and the more grandiose the technological
enterprise, the greater the problems seem to be.
Supertankers provide a classic example of the
difficulties encountered in scaling up an already
hazardous technology.* Oil tankers have always
been prone to accident, but the frequency (and
environmental consequences) of accidents have
escalated dramatically as their size has increased.
In 1945 the largest oil tankers were 18,000
deadweight tons (dwt). In the early 1960s the
maximum size had risen to 100,000 dwt and by
the end of that decade had exceeded 300,000 dwt.
In the 1970s planners were looking forward to
constructing tankers in the megaton range.
Both the stresses imposed upon the structures
of the larger ships and their different handling
characteristics were unanticipated. Supertankers
sometimes crack when being loaded and show a
distressing tendency to disintegrate spontane-
ously at sea. The huge cleaning machines used to
wash out their tanks after unloading apparently
create minithunderstorms in the cavernous
spaces. These thunderstorms even produce
lightning, which can detonate oil fumes if the
fume-air mixture is neither too rich nor too lean,
blowing the tank or the ship apart.
The hydrodynamic properties of the huge
ships are such that they must begin "putting on
the brakes" three miles before reaching a full
stop. They are difficult to maneuver and their
captains require special training. Yet because of
their great draft they are often operated in waters
where their keels extend to within two feet of the
charted bottom. This is a dangerous practice
both because hydrodynamic factors reduce man-
euverability in shallow water and because in
some areas the depth of the bottom is contin-
uously changing. These factors, among others,
have led to a rash of collisions and groundings,
often with disastrous results. For example, in
1970 the relatively small supertanker Polycom-
mander ran aground near the Spanish coast and
ignited. Some 16,000 tons of oil burned, gen-
erating a fire storm whose updrafts carried oil
high into the atmosphere and created a black rain
along the coast, doing extensive damage to crops,
livestock, homes, and gardens.
Some of the difficulties with supertankers can
"The discussion of tankers is based on N. Mostert's fascinating
Supership and D_ F- Boesch et al.? Oil spills and the manna
environment, Ballinger. Cambridge, Mass., 1974.
be blamed on dangerous economies undertaken
by the owners. Ships can be designed that are
stronger, more maneuverable, and more resistant
to explosion than most of those now in service.
And personnel on many ships could be much
better trained; many officers running ships reg-
istered under flags of convenience such as Pan-
ama and Liberia are not properly certified, and
some have proven hopelessly incompetent.
There is little doubt, either, that the Intergov-
ernmental Maritime Consultative Organization
(IMCO), a specialized United Nations agency,
has proven ineffective as a regulatory body.
But the familiar saga of profits-before-safety-
or-environment, so characteristic of the energy
industry, is not the whole story. The unantici-
pated characteristics of the big ships threaten
both safety and profits, since the disaster rate has
pushed insurance premiums toward uneconomic
levels. What will happen as these ships age (they
were designed to be written off after ten years)
remains to be seen. The prospects are not
cheering.
One does not, however, have to turn to such
exotica as the supertankers to see the impact of
the unexpected in new technologies. The heavily
regulated safety-oriented aviation industry pro-
vides more than enough examples. A classic was
the series of fatal crashes of De Havilland Comet
jets, caused by unanticipated fatigue failures of
the cabin under pressurization, that lost the
United Kingdom its lead in the race to develop
passenger jet aircraft. The success of the United
States industry (and its fine safety record) was
due in no small degree to the Boeing 707, which,
unlike the Comet, was not a novel design but had
behind it a long operating history with military
jet tankers of similar size and configuration.
Design flaws have often led to one or more
fatal crashes of new transport aircraft. Gas
leaking into heating systems during transfer
from one tank to another destroyed a Douglas
DC-6 with the loss of fifty-two people, and it
nearly destroyed another before the problem was
identified and corrected. Unexpected stresses
transmitted from propeller to wing caused the
disintegration in midair of two Lockheed Electra
propjets.** After correction of the problem, the
aircraft had a fine safety record in civil and
"Stephen Barlay, The search for air safety. The following
material on T-tail jets is largely from this source also. For a
balanced, rcadahlf account of aviation accidents in the prejet
age, see Robert J. Serling, The probable cause.
(Continued)

by ecological systems. On the other hand,
strip mining often permanently destroys
the land, many pollutants are extremely
slow to degrade, and the toxic effects of a
nuclear power plant accident could persist
for half a million years.
5. Uncertainty. How does one evaluate the
unknowns?
We do not pretend to have answers to these
complex questions, of course, especially when
both benefits and risks tend to be hard to
identify, let alone quantify early in the develop-
ment of a technology. We do suggest, however,
that the tendency to develop and deploy tech-
nologies helter-skelter with little or no public
airing—at least until capital and other commit-
ments are such that the economics of an industry
become a part of the issue—should be controlled
somehow. In particular, the benefits should be
(J^ationai Institutes of Health] regularly employ ad hoc
committees and panels of scientists to evaluate research
programs and individual research projects. Universities
also on occasion use such groups to evaluate programs or
departments. Ad hoc panels of nonscientists might be
integrated into these systems, drawn perhaps from citi-
zens serving their sabbaticals (see "Education" below).
Such panels could both advise agencies directly and
report to a paragovernmental central body (perhaps
elected), empowered to intervene whenever it was felt
that the public interest was endangered. This power
would extend to research under any auspices—govern-
ment, military, university, or industry. The central body
could also be charged with continually informing both
government and the public of pertinent trends in science
and technology.
Increased awareness and scrutiny of science and
technology will not, in themselves, suffice. Although
laymen can become very knowledgeable about science
and technology, as the performances of several congress-
men involved in appropriations for scientific and techni-
cal projects have demonstrated, it is often very difficult or
impossible for individuals, whether scientists or not, to
foresee the consequences of certain trends. A second
element is therefore required in the control system: an
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 81 7
most carefully considered, since in certain situa-
tions the maximum benefits may be rather clear
while the maximum risks may be utterly unan-
ticipated. A good example is the use of aerosol
cans with fluorocarbon propellants to spray un-
derarm deodorants. The risks of inhaling a fine
mist of deodorant are not clear (but in our
opinion it is not a good idea to inhale regularly a
fine mist of anything except, perhaps, water), and
the risks to the ozone layer are, at this writing, in
some dispute. But it seems unlikely that the
benefits of this sort of deodorant application (in
comparison to many others) would be considered
by a normal person to be worth any risk to life or
health or to the integrity of Earth's ecological
systems.ft
"The whole question of the evaluation of hazards is considered
in an important book by W. W. Lowrance, Of acceptable risk:
Science and the determination of safety (Kaufmann, Los Altos,
Calif., 1976.)
apparatus—possibly in the form of research institutes—
concerned solely with such assessment and reporting to
the central body suggested above, as well as to the general
public. Perhaps a set percentage of all funds used in
government, university, and industrial research should
be assessed for the support of those organizations, which
should be kept strictly independent of each of those three
interests.
Some of the work that might be done by such institutes
would be an extension of the sort of programs now being
run by systems ecologist fL E. F. Watt's group at the,
University of California at Davis, by systems analysts Jay
W. Forrester of the Massachusetts Institute of Tp^[innl-_
ogy, and Dennis and Donella Meadows of pan-month —
Watt has forecast the dismal consequences of continuing
various prevailing strategies of resource management and
social policigs. The Meadows, Forrester, and their col-
leagues have shown most convincingly that many of the
various proposed courses of action may have unex-
pected—and often very undesirable—results. The studies
of this group were made familiar to the world by the
publication of Limits to Growth2,5 (see Box 12-2).
In addition to such broad-scope evaluations as those,
"Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972.
818 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
some research institutes need to be investigating and
reporting on much more detailed questions. For exam-
ple, is medical research being done with adequate
attention to the needs of all segments of the population
and to birth control as well as death control? Are the
benefits and risks of the breeder reactor being studied in
proper depth? What are the possible dangerous con-
sequences of further investigating the properties of a
given virus or biocidal compound?
These questions have been settled largely by the
scientific community in the past, with results that can
most charitably be described as mixed.26 For a long time
the thrust in research was that whatever could be tried
should be tried. Physicists exploded the first atomic
bomb after Germany had been defeated and Japan's
defeat was a certainty, although some of them apparently
thought at the time there was a nonzero chance that the
explosion would destroy all life on Earth.27 It is difficult to
find parallels, outside nuclear weaponry, displaying quite
this degree of willingness to risk total environmental
disaster, but traces of it arguably are present in proposals
to "wait and see" what the consequences of assaulting the
ozone layer withfluorocarbonsor SST fleets will be. -
On the bright side, microbiolo^ists Paul Berg
Stanley Cohen of Stanford and Herbert Boyer of the
University of_ California in mid-1974 called on their
colleagues to bring to a halt research on recombinant
DNA, studies involving transfers of genetic material
from one species to another.28 They recognized that
hybrid microorganisms could cause extraordinarily vir-
ulent infectious disease and that the experimental work
Ccould conceivably lead to the spread of r^sjsTanre
rantibioticsjpr to the escape of bacterial strains carrying
oncogenic (cancer-inducing) viruses. A distinguished
molecular biologist^Robert Sinsheimerjhas written:
~6See, for example, the contrasiing views of F. J. Dyson, The hidden
cost of saying "no!"; and P. R. Ehrlich, The benefits of saying "yes."
J7
N. P. Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer. There is no doubt, in light
of present knowledge of nuclear reactions, that the chance of igniting the
atmosphere with a nuclear bomb and thereby extinguishing ail life on
Earth is truly zero. A completely persuasive case on the point is made by
H. A. Bethe, Ultimate catastrophe? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, June
1976, pp. 36-37. Bethe's further contention, however, that the scientists
on the nuclear bomb project were completely sure of this in 1945, is not
persuasive.
38
P. Berg, et al., Potential biohazards of recombinant DNA molecules.
Could an Escherichia coli strain [a variety of a ubiqui-
tous bacterial resident on the human digestive tract]
carrying all or part of an oncogenic virus become
resistant in the human intestine? Could it thereby
become a possible source of malignancy?yfmild such a_
strain spread throughout a human population? What
would be the consequence if even an insulin-secreting
strain became an intestinal resident? Not to mention
the more malign or just plain stupid scenarios such as
those which depict the insertion of the gene for
botulinus toxin into Escherichia coh">M
In early 1975 an international scientific meeting es-
tablished a set of safety principles under which such
research could be continued. The scientists at the meet-
ing concluded that the more dangerous experiments
should be deferred until special "crippled" strains of
organisms could be developed—that is, strains with a
very low probability of surviving outside the laboratory
(experience has shown that there is no such thing as an
"escape-proof" microbiological laboratory). Some of the
scientists, however, argued against social control of the
experiments, claiming an absolute right to free inquiry.
Since that meeting, various attempts have been made to
draft rules that would permit doing this dangerous
research, and there has been continuing controversy.30
In these cases, scientists themselves have assessed the
risks and then "voted" for all of humanity. With regard
to the atomic bomb, the possible savings in American
(and Japanese) lives by shortening World War II may
have come into the calculus, and perhaps also the thought
that sooner or later someone else would blow up an
A-bomb without knowing for sure that it would not
destroy the planet. But would the people of the planet (to
say nothing of the other living organisms) have voted yes
to taking, say, a one-in-a-million chance on oblivion in
order to speed victory for the United States in World
War II? (That the chances of killing all life on the planet
turned out to be zero is beside the point—the scientists
involved were not sure of that at the time.)
"Troubled dawn for genetic engineering. The article also contains a
good, brief, layperson's introduction to the technology of DNA
manipulation.
30
Sinsheimer, Troubled dawn; Nicholas Wade, Recombinant DNA:
NIH Group Stirs storm by drafting laser rules; Bernard Dixon, Recom-
binant DNA: Rules without enforcement?

Similarly, in the case of recombinant DNA, although
scientists seem to be acting much more responsibly, we
must still ask whether they are the appropriate ones to
make the decision. No laboratory safeguards can g^uaran^.
tee that an accidental escape will never occur. Are the
possible benefits to medicine and agriculture of this
research worth any risk of releasing a serious plague or
cancer-inducing organism? We do not know the answer,
but we think the franchise on the decision should be
extended to include at least representatives of those who
will be taking the risks and (perhaps) receiving the
benefits.
( The Science Court ^
One danger in allowing scientists to decide an issue for
society is that often the specialists in a field disagree
violently on the proper course of action for society tn
take, even though they may have no serious disagreement
on the known salient facts. For example, qualified
scientists have been assembled on both sides of issues.
such as whether to develop the SST, ban the use of
pesticides and aerosols, or develop nuclear power, to
name a few. As Stephen Schneider and Lynne Mesirow
observed regarding the SST battle:
An interesting point here is that most of the bitter
scientific antagonists in the SST debatejwere probably
in far greater agreement on what was known and
unknown scientifically, and on the odds that state-of-
the-art estimates would be correct, than they were over
whether the evidence justified opposition to the planes.
That is, the interpretation of the weight of the
evidence that guided their opposition or support was
based not only on the scientists' technical knowledge
of the issues, but also on their personal philosophies—
on whether or not they wanted the SSTs and on
whether they thought the benefits of the project were
worth the risks of ignoring the worst possibilities. This
is not to suggest that most testimony was deliberately
misleading, but rather that scientists, like most people,
shade to some extent their perception of the merits of
conflicting evidence with the shadow of their personal
philosophy . . . . The issues facing future generations
are too critical to permit the technical components to
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 81 9
be obscured in attacks on the personal philosophies of
experts. . . ."
As they pointed out, some mechanism is needed so the
public and decision-makers can separate the technical
opinions of scientists from their political opinions.
One suggestion for opening up the process of ethical
decision-making in science has been put forward by
physicist Arthur Kantrowitz.32 He proposed that in
science policy disputes (such as those over SSTs and
ozone, DDT and ecosystems, the risks and benefits of
recombinant DNA research) the technical aspects of the
cases be, in essence, tried in a scientific court. The first
step would be to separate the scientific from the moral
and political questions. What might be done with genetic
engineering technology is a disputable scientific ques-
tion, in principle soluble by experiment; what should be
done is a political-moral question not in principle
amenable to experimental solution.
Once the separation had been accomplished, then
advocates of the different scientific points of view would
"try" them before scientific judges. Thus, scientists
convinced that DDT posed a serious threat to ecosystems
could present their case, and the scientific advocates of
the ecosystemic safety of DDT could present theirs. Each
side could cross-examine the other. The judges would be
selected for their neutrality on the issue, but would have
the benefit of scientific training to help them evaluate the
opposing views. The final step would be publication
(within the limits of national security) of the opinions of
the scientific judges.
It is easy for anyone familiar with scientific disputes to
attack these proposals. In some cases the separation of
scientific from moral and political questions is difficult.
Is the question "Are blacks genetically less intelligent
than whites?" scientific or moral? We would claim that
the very posing of the question is a political act about
which a moral judgment can be made—but in theory it is
a question amenable to experimental investigation.
A thornier problem would be selection of judges. In
many cases today, disputes concern the negative direct or
indirect effects of technology on humanity or on the
i!
77iegenesis strategy, pp. 188—189.
2
See? for example. Controlling technology democratically.
820 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
ecosphere. The split within the scientific community on
this is deep and bitter, and finding judges satisfactory to
both technologists and environmentalists (for want of
better terms) might often prove exceedingly difficult.
In spite of the difficulties, we support Kantrowitz's
proposal for the test establishment of an institution for_
making scientific judgments as described above.. The
present methods of making such judgments are so bad
that any promising alternative or modification deserves a
chance. Installation of such a system will, as Kantrowitz
points out, take place only over strong objections. It
would threaten the vested interests of the politicians who
wish to make politically expedient decisions supported
by "facts" provided by their pet science advisers. And
those scientists who have made lucrative careers and
gained much personal power by telling politicians what
they want to hear would not be pleased by the prospec-
tive dilution of their influence.33
Of course, even the most sophisticated scientific
assessment apparatus could not avert all mistakes, but if
it were backed by a growing feeling of social responsi-
bility among scientists, it should be possible to improve
the record greatly. In addition, ways must be found to
increase public participation in technological decision-
making—a need that is being increasingly recognized.34
The remainder of the solution of learning to live with
science and technology is to leave plenty of margin for
error. For safety, we must learn to operate somewhat
below our capability: not to push ourselves and Earth's
ecosystems to the absolute limit, and not to do research in
areas where a single slip can produce catastrophe.
Scientific Societies
Is there any way that scientific societies can improve
the process of technology assessment? Unfortunately,
scientists, like other professionals, have been slow to
approach their social responsibilities corporately. For
instance, the paramount scientific organization
•gar in the
United States is the quasigovernmenta^National
35 Acacft
"Ibid., p. 508.
M
For example, see John P. Holdren, The nuclear controversy and the
limitations of decision-making by experts.
of Sciences (NAS). Being elected to that organiza-
tion is a high honor for a research scientist, and commit-
tees operating under its aegis often perform excellent
studies on topics of broad interest to both scientists and
society as a whole. Unfortunately, however, the NAS
suffers from a number of difficulties that make some of its
work suspect and often ^ive the public an erroneous
impression of its conclusions.35
First of all, the NAS, under its charter, is advisory to .
the government, and as a result its studies are often
funded by government agencies. This has at times led to
results being colored or suppressed. Similarly, the NAS
also accepts funds from industry, another questionable
procedure if results are to be unbiased. Since, however,
the NAS must have funds if studies are to be done, its
choices appear to be limited, and in fairness we might say
that the objectivity of NAS studies has been fairly
respectable, considering the constraints under which it
operates. But, as Ralph Nader has stated, its "prestigious
talents are all too often subverted from working in
pursuit of the public interest."36
Perhaps a more fundamental problem is that, admit-
tance being honorary, the NAS membership is generally
elderly (the median age of its 866 members in 1970 was
62) and therefore likely to contain a rather conservative,
status-quo-oriented sample of the universe of scientists.
Worse yet, many of the most talented scientists among
NAS members remain immersed in their own research,
leaving those with a talent for politics to exercise the
academy's influence, sometimes against the public good.
Although periodically some interest is shown in "re-
formipg" rhp NA S it tp^mc h'flhly unlikely that any real
will HP marip jn ffrst direction. Instead, other
gfj^ptifir nrgam'yqrjons are gaining prominence that have
open memberships, are member-supported, and are
independent of government and big business; and they
are beginning to give science a respected voice on social
issues. Prominent among them is the(Federatioriof)
"For a detailed critique, see P. Boffey. The brain bank of America. This
commentary has been described as harsh by some academy members, but
its fundamental validity seems indisputable to anyone who has observed
the functioning of the NAS for any period.
"Introduction to Boffey, The brain bank, p. xxiii. See also Harold
Green's analysis of NAS president Philip Handler's defense of DDT, The
risk-benefit calculus in safety determination; and Handler's reply, A
rebuttal: The need for a sufficient scientific base for government
regulation.

CArnerican Scientists (FASX which has about 7000 mem-,
bgrs (compared to the NAS 1000), including half of
America's Nobel laureates. The FAS declines, rather
than relies upon, government contracts, which may
explain why its budget is only one five-hundredth as
large as that of the NAS. But its voice is already more
persuasive to many because of its independence.
Outer Space and the Environmental Crisis
Repeatedly, since it has become clear that population
growth was moving humanity into an ever-worsening _
crisis, the suggestion has been made that Han'" ^pif^^
seek relief from the pressures it was generating by
(. migrating away irornTEartfi) That this is an unsatisfactory
long-term solution follows immediately from arithmetic.
Under any scenario of exponential growth at rates close
to those on Earth today, everything in the visible,
universe would have to be converted into human flesh in _
a few thousand years, and a cosmic ball would
soon thereafter be expanding with the speed of light. At a
more mundane level, biologist Garrett Hardin in 1959
published some simple calculations demonstrating the
utter impracticality of launching spaceships from Earth
on a large enough scale to solve human population
problems by interstellar migration.37 Soon thereafter,
physicist John Fremlin pointed out that, at then current,
growth rates, any time humanity wished to "solve" the
population problem by extraterrestrial migration, it
would take only about a half -century to populate Venus,
Mercury, Mars, the moon, and the moons of Jupiter and.
Saturn to rhp same population density as Earth — since
the surface areas of these planets and moons are not 3
times that of Earth, they would reach the Earth popula-
tion density in less than two doubling times.38
Recently a new and rather different approach to
solving human problems in outer space has been pro-
posed, not by science fiction writers but by a respected
professor of physics, Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton
University. The basic idea is to colonize not planetary
"Interstellar migration and the population problem, Heredity, vol. 50
(1959), pp. 68-70.
J8
How many people can the world support? New Scientist, October 29,
1964.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 821
surfaces but space itself, drawing energy from the sun,
and materials first from the moon and then from the
asteroid belt. O'Neill and his colleagues have done
extensive preliminary calculations and conclude that,
without the development of radically new technologies:
1. We can cojonize space1 and do so without robbing
or harming anyone and without polluting anything.
2. If work is begun soon, nearly all our industrial
activity could be moved away from Earth's fragile
hinspVipre within ]cfjfi than a century from now.
3. The technical imperatives of this kind of migration
int
of people anrMrj^ffl-y " sparg. are likely to
encourage self-sufficiency, small-scale governmen-_
talunits, cultural diversity and a high degree of
independence/
4. The ultimate size limit for the human race on the
newly available frontier is at least 20,000 times its
present value [about 500 years of growth at present
rates].39
The general plans for O'Neill Colonies have been
widely discussed and need not concern us in detail
here.40 An ingenious plan has been devised for propel-
ling materials excavated from the moon's surface to the
assembly sites of the first colonies where the materials
would be processed on the spot. The processing would
take advantage of the abundant solar energy, convenient
heat sink, and zero gravity of space. The colonies would
be both self-replicating and virtually entirely self-
sustaining. Oxygen, for instance, would be recovered
from the lunar soil—although hydrogen to be combined
into water would be one of the few imports from Earth.
The first colony might well be a space manufacturing
facility (SMF) established at Lagrange 5 (L5), a point in
space that follows the Earth and the moon, has zero
gravity, and about which thousands of colonies could
move in quasielliptical orbits.
The first products of the SMF could be huge solar
power plants (Satellite Solar Powered Stations, SSPS)
"O'Neill. The colonization of space.
40
For example, O'Neill, The colonization of space; Colonies in orbit,
AVrc York Times Magazine, January 18, 1976; and The high frontier;
Colonizing space. Time, May 26, 1975; Issac Asimov, Colonizing the
heavens, Saturday Review, June 28,1975; Gwyneth Cravens, The garden
of feasibility, Harpers, August 1975; Graham Chedd, Culonizaiiun ai
Lagrangea, New Scientist, October 24, 1974, pp. 247-249.
822 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
which would beam low-density microwaves to Earth
where they would be received by antenna arrays, con-
verted to electricity, and fed into power lines.41 Sub-
sequently, colonies could be built as space habitats of
what at first seem to be daunting dimensions—for
instance, cylinders of up to 16 miles in length and 4 miles
in diameter, as in O'Neill's earlier plans, or perhaps
spheres of similar volume, which he now thinks supe-
rior.42 The colonies would be shielded from cosmic
radiation, would receive day-length sunlight with a
system of mirrors, and would rotate to produce normal
gravity on their inner surfaces. Within the colony,
O'Neill envisions a very pleasant environment for up to
10,000 people, including large areas of "natural" envi-
ronment with trees, grass, birds, bees, butterflies, and
bodies of water. A wide variety of sports and diversions
would be available, enhanced by the options of pursuing
them at normal gravity on the inner surface of the station
or at zero gravity at the rotational axis. Industry would be
carried on largely at zero gravity, which provides great
benefits;43 agriculture would be assigned to separate
chambers where it could take advantage of an infinite
variety of light regimes, gravities, atmospheres (includ-
ing high CO2), and so on.
The prospect of colonizing space presented by O'Neill
and his associates has had wide appeal, especially to
young people who see it opening a new horizon for
humanity. The possible advantages of the venture are
many and not to be taken lightly. In theory, many of
humanity's most environmentally destructive activities
could be removed from the ecosphere entirely; the
population density of the Earth could be reduced; and a
high quality of life could be provided to all Homo sapiens.
It might even make war obsolete.
What can one say on the negative side about this
seeming panacea? At the moment the physical technol-
ogy exists largely on paper, and cost estimates depend in
part on numbers from the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA)—not necessarily a de-
pendable source.44 There appear to us, however, to be no
more technical barriers inherent in the further develop-
4
'O'Neill, Space colonies and energy supply to the Earth.
"O'Neill, personal communication, February 1, 1976.
"See, for example, Harry C. Gates, Materials processing in space.
"For example, Les Aspin, The space shuttle: Who needs it?
ment of the O'Neill technology than in others in which
society has committed itself to large, open-ended and
highly speculative investments—fusion power technol-
ogy being a prime current example, the atomic bomb one
from the relatively recent past.
On the biological side, things are not so rosy. The
question of atmospheric composition may prove more
vexing than O'Neill imagines, and the problems of
maintaining complex artificial ecosystems within the
capsule—or anywhere—are far from solved. The micro-
organisms necessary for the nitrogen cycle and the
diverse organisms involved in decay food chains would
have to be established, as would a variety of other
microorganisms necessary to the flourishing of some
plants. "Unwanted" microorganisms would inevitably
be included or would evolve from "desirable" ones
purposely introduced. Furthermore, in many cases the
appropriate desirable organisms for introduction are not
even known. Whatever type of system were introduced,
there would almost certainly be serious problems with its
stability. Biologists simply have no idea how to create a
large, stable artificial ecosystem. For a long time it is
likely that the aesthetic senses of space colonists would
have to be satisfied by artificial plants, perhaps supple-
mented with specimen trees and flower beds.
The problems in the agricultural modules might be
easier to solve but are far from trivial. Since, according to
O'Neill, agricultural surface is relatively cheap to con-
struct, it seems likely that early stations should have
perhaps 4 times as much as is required to sustain the
colony, and that it should be rather highly compart-
mented and diverse to minimize the chances for a disaster
to propagate. A great deal of research will have to go into
developing appropriate stable agricultural systems for
space. The challenge is fascinating—especially because
of the variety of climatic regimes possible, the potential
for excluding many pests, and the availability of abun-
dant energy.
We can say, then, that although there appear to be no
absolute physical barriers to the implementation of the
O'Neill program, potentially serious biological barriers
remain to be investigated. What about psychological,
social, and political barriers? The question of whether
Homo sapiens can adapt to the proposed space station
environment seems virtually answered. Six thousand

men live for long periods on a navy supercarrier orders of
magnitude smaller than a proposed space habitat, with-
out women and without numerous amenities of life
envisioned by O'Neill. Many city dwellers pass their
lives in similarly circumscribed areas and in much less
interesting surroundings (travel among stations and
occasionally back to Earth is envisioned). There is little
reason to doubt that most people would adapt to the
strange situation of access to different levels of gravity.
Whether or not society will support the venture is
another matter. Much may depend on whether O'Neill's
calculations45 on the profitability of the solar-power
generating enterprise stand up under closer scrutiny and
limited experiment.
The strongest objections that will be raised against
space colonization are that it cannot help humanity with
the problems of the next crucial decades; that it will
divert attention, funds, and expertise from needed proj-
ects on Earth; and that it is basically just one more
technological circus like nuclear power or the SST. That
space colonies will have no immediate impact is recog-
nized by O'Neill, but he argues that society should look
to medium-range as well as short-range solutions. Di-
version of funds and expertise also do not seem to be
extremely serious objections. There is, for instance, no
sign that capital diverted from, say, a boondoggle like the
B-l bomber would necessarily be put to "good" use.
Equally, it does not follow that money for space colonies
must be diverted from desirable programs. The expertise
needed is superabundant—many trained aerospace engi-
neers, for example, were unable to find appropriate
employment in the mid-1970s.
The possibility of diverting attention from immediate
problems like population control is much more serious
and can only be avoided by assiduous care on the part of
O'Neill and other promoters of the project. Some of
O'Neill's associates have done his cause grave harm by
not realizing this. At every stage people must be re-
minded that, for the potential of space even to be
explored, a functioning society and economy must be
maintained for the next three decades.
Environmentalists, including us, had a strong negative
reaction to O'Neill's proposals when first presented with
"Space colonies and energy supply.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 823
them.46 The proposals smack of a vision of human beings
continually striving to solve problems with more and
bigger technology, always turning away from learning to
live in harmony with nature and each other and forever
dodging the question of What is a human being for? But,
again, O'Neill's vision shares many elements with that of
most environmentalists: a high-quality environment for
all peoples, a relatively less populated Earth on which a
vast diversity of other organisms can thrive in an
unpolluted environment with much wilderness, a wide
range of options for individuals, and perhaps time to
consider those philosophical questions. The price of this
would, of course, be a decision that a substantial portion
of humanity would no longer dwell on Earth.
Environmentalists often accuse politicians of taking
too short-term a view of the human predicament. By
prematurely rejecting the idea of space colonies, they
could be making the same mistake.
MEDICINE
By the 1970s members of the medical profession in the
United States and elsewhere were becoming aware of the
seriousness of the population problem and the role that
medicine has played in creating it, as well as the role that
profession must play if the problem is to be solved. More
and more physicians now realize that medical interven-
tion in lowering death rates must be balanced by
intervention in lowering birth rates. In the United States,
courageous doctors openly defied antique abortion laws
and risked grave financial loss by performing vasec-
tomies before the legal climate became favorable to those
procedures. Interest in the problems of environmental
medicine has been rising also, and medical doctors have
been at the forefront in sounding warnings (often ig-
nored) about the hazards of air pollution, water pollu-
tion, and other environmental threats to public health.
On the debit side, the medical profession as a whole
was tardy in backing even such elementary programs as
the repeal of laws limiting sex education, the distribution
of contraceptive information, and the establishment of
*GSee, for example, Coevolution Quarterly, Spring 1976.
J
824 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
family-planning services for the poor. Furthermore,
medical training has militated against abortion except
under extremely limited circumstances, and the record of
the profession (in contrast to those of some courageous
individual physicians) in the area of abortion reform was
atrocious. For some time after a so-called liberal abortion
law was enacted in California, a substantial portion of the
abortions in that state continued to be performed by a
single group of doctors. Even two years after abortion
was legalized nationwide in 1973, only 17 percent of
public hospitals and a pitifully small number of private
clinics offered abortion services.47 The medical profes-
sion should have taken the lead in abolishing not only the
abortion laws but all of the pseudolegal hospital rituals
attendant to performing abortions.
The history of the medical profession's attitude toward
voluntary sterilization in the past also has generally been
reactionary and moralistic. For example, "quotas" based
on a woman's age and the number of living children she
had were commonly used to determine whether that
woman could obtain voluntary sterilization in many
United States hospitals during the 1960s.48 The doctor
has the responsibility of establishing that a patient fully
understands the consequences of sterilization and any
possible temporary side eifects, and that he or she would
not be physically harmed by the operation. But the
doctor should have no right to make the ultimate decision
whether an adult should be voluntarily sterilized.
The American Medical Association is an extremely
powerful organization and an enormous potential force
for good. But, as in many other areas of social reform,
such as in providing decent health care to all Americans,
the AMA has conspicuously dragged its feet on the
population controversy. Rather than leading the crusade
for population-control measures, particularly those that
pertain to medical practice, the AMA finally went on
record as supporting these policies only after pressure
was applied from outside by the public and from within
by the younger members.
Whether the medical profession in the United States
will become a strong force for population control re-
47
Gutlmacher Institute, Provisional estimates of abortion need and
services in the year following the Supreme Court decision, New York, 1975.
"Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Population, resources, envi-
ronment, 2 ed., W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1972,
chapter 9.
mains to be seen. It has a great potential for helping to
solve the population problem, both at home and through
technical aid to other countries. Many medical profes-
sionals in the United States, for instance, have actively
assisted in training programs for understaffed family-
planning and general public-health services in less
developed countries. Such activities could be expanded
and encouraged within the profession.
In addition, the medical profession can be taken to task
for concentrating far too little effort on "health care" and
far too much on "disease care." Again with outstanding
exceptions among individual physicians, organized
medicine has, for example, failed to take any lead in
questioning the public-health consequences of the large-
scale technologies used in agriculture, power generation,
transportation, and other sectors of modern life. While
medical and biological scientists have wasted billions of
dollars in ill-conceived searches for cancer cures, the
AMA has been largely silent about the environmental
causes of the vast majority of cancers (see Chapter 10). It
is high time that the medical profession as a whole threw
its enormous prestige into the battle against environ-
mental deterioration, particularly those aspects that
threaten public health.
Finally, we must note that the entire pattern of modern
health care has been strongly attacked by that prince of
intellectual iconoclasts, Ivan Illich. Illich claimed that
modern medicine is destroying our health, turning us
into "slaves of a monopolist international medical in-
dustry"—consumers of a product called health.49 As with
Illich's devastating critique of education (see "Educa-
tion"), his opinions deserve careful attention even if they
are extremely heterodox, and even if his suggestions for
change seem impractically individualistic.50
EDUCATION
In the United States and around the world there clearly
has been an almost total failure to prepare people to un-
derstand and make decisions relating to the population-
resource-environment crisis. The universities, which
49
Medical nemesis: The expropriation of health.
'"Other critiques of the medical system include Rene Dubos, The
mirage of health; and Rick Carlson, The end of medicine.

should be leading the way in education, have been too
conservative and too compartmentalized. Unfortunately,
most human problems do not fall neatly into such
academic categories as sociology, history, economics,
demography, psychology, or biology. The solutions to
these problems require the simultaneous application of
the best ideas from many academic disciplines. The
failure to provide a multidisciplinary education partially
explains the optimism of many physical scientists, econ-
omists, technologists, and others relative to the environ-
mental crisis. Their kind of optimism is exemplified by a
statement by physicist Gerald Feinberg, who wrote in
1968, "Most of our immediate problems will be solved in
a relatively short time by the march of technology and the
worldwide spread of those aspects of Western culture
that are responsible for our high living standards.""
Consequences of Overspecialization
There are many examples of such naive optimism
mixed with cultural chauvinism that testify to the failure
of schools to provide a broad appreciation of science and
technology and to place them in a sociopolitical context.
The illusion that the Green Revolution would save
humanity from starvation, common in the early 1970s,
illustrated a faith in science and technology characteristic
of the "well-informed" layman. That faith is all too often
shared by academicians who have acquired little insight
into biology and into what is involved in raising crop
yields or in establishing agricultural development in poor
countries. Ignorance of the environmental consequences
of population expansion leads many social scientists to
underrate the significance of population growth in the
DCs and the immediacy of the environmental threat.
Such narrowness of outlook is not exclusive to any
particular group of scientists. For example, an oceanog-
rapher, ridiculing some of the ecological problems asso-
ciated with agriculture, once told an audience at the
University of California at Berkeley that, with modern
fertilizing techniques, soil only serves to prop plants up.
The president of the United States National Academy of
5
'Quoted in Hhrlich and Ehrlich, Population, reso
p. 357.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 825
Sciences, writing in the journal Science, at various times
has attacked scientists who were trying to have DDT
banned and has downplayed the health effects of air
pollution and the probable overall impact of nuclear war.
Many of the solutions put forth by technological op-
timists are based on ignorance of ecology, demography,
anthropology, sociology, and other nontechnological
fields. Those who see a panacea in nuclear agroindustrial
complexes, for instance, are simultaneously required to
ignore (among other things) economics, the scale of the
food problem, the state of reactor technology, the poten-
tial ecological damage, and an entire spectrum of politi-
cal and social complexities. Those few technologists who
still propose migration (to Australia or to other planets)
as a solution to the population problem, or who would
accommodate surplus people in concrete cities floated on
the sea, simply need remedial work in arithmetic. Even
projects that might be technically feasible can provide no
amelioration of the dilemmas of the near future, because
rate problems guarantee too great a lag-time.
\X7hen highly trained and presumably knowledgeable
people are so uninformed, it is hardly surprising that the
average person has difficulty evaluating the situation.
Not only do most citizens of the United States and other
developed countries lack even a skeleton of the necessary
technical background, but many do not feel confident
enough of their analytic abilities to do even the elemen-
tary "back-of-the-envelope" calculations that might per-
mit them to decide which of two "experts" is correct on a
given question. For instance, exposing as fraudulent the
notion that the Alaskan oil field would be a panacea for
American energy needs would require only dividing U.S.
annual consumption of oil (6 billion bbl~l into known and _
estimated Alaskan reserves (9 billion and 45 billion bbl,
respectively). Unfortunately., few people think nf rriflfcing
such checks for themselves. Those who might, often
would not know where to find the information on
comsumption and reserves—high schools and universi-
ties turn out few students well versed in the use of
libraries.
The fast-aporoachinp problems of the future will-
require a citizenry equipped to make difficult choices and
to_evaluate the qualities of leaders, whether in politics or_
business. Too few graduates of any educational level
(high school to Ph.D.) today have the broad backgrounds
826 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
necessary to make such choices intelligently. Too few
citizens understand the workings of the political and
economic systems well enough in begin making apprn^
priate changes in those systems—such lessons are not
taught in school.
New Priorities for Education
The of the educational system in
States need to be reexamined. and new prioritjpff nppH tn
be set. At present, the system is largely failinp to meet
even the old stated goals. But such an overhaul of the
educational system will require the cooperation of some
elements of society who may see in it a threat to their own
interests— from the small group of the ultra-rich, who
control much of the power in the United States and who
want no changes in the system, to entrenched university
professors whose doctrinaire defense of rigid boundaries
between their separate disciplines is one more obstacle to
solving the world's problems.
One would think that many of the needed educational
reforms could be introduced relatively easily at the
university level. Unfortunately, like all other mature,
institutions, universities ^rp qnitp rreistant to rhnrcp<: '"
their antiquated structures. Nevertheless, the possibility
does exist of loosening the rigid departmental organiza-
tion in order to provide some exchange of information
and ideas among disciplines, even though the rate of
movement is still very slow.ffianford University^ with,
the help of th^Ford Foundation in 1970. developed an.
jJ1TfintiSCiP*'narY ""dergraduate curriculum in (jlumaifr
j" with the express purposes of avoiding the trap_
of disciplinary myopia and of preparing students to .
engage pressing human problems. By 1975 the program
included 350 undergraduate students and was the third
most popular major on campus. In 1973,
v^of California at Berkeley instituted a campuswide inter-
disciplinary graduate program it/Energy and Resources^
which now has tenured facultv^not assigned to anv^
department— a significant break with tradition.
Many other colleges and universities have also insti-
tuted interdisciplinary programs of various sorts, while
courses dealing with the problems of the survival of
civilization are proliferating on lower educational levels
as well. Such reforms, however, must continue to accel-
erate if the educational system is to contribute in any
significant degree to improving civilization's chances.
Without a growing cadre of well-educated people, the
kinds of citizen-participation programs we suggest later
in this chapter will not constitute much of an improve-
ment over the present political system.
The Role of Students
Perhaps the greatest hope for action in our universities
and colleges lies with the students. Although the activism
of the late 1960s has faded, students in the mid-1970s as a
group are still much more socially aware than were the
students of the 1950s and early 1960s. Many seem
determined to change our society for the better and are
actively working for political and social change. In our
opinion and that of many colleagues, the majority of the
most exciting and progressive changes in higher educa-
tion during the 1960s had their roots in student activism.
We hope that those former students, who are now
beginning to take responsible roles in business and the
professions, may in the 1970s and 1980s produce equally
salutary changes in other institutions as well.
To a large extent, recent college graduates and stu-
dents today have more realistic views of the world than
their parents because they do not see it through the
rose-colored glasses that were constructed for earlier
generations by society and its educational system. Those
who matured just before World War II were young
during a time when personal financial insecurity was an
overriding consideration for much of the population.
Since World War II, students have grown up in an era
when, for most, financial security could be taken for
granted, so other social issues could claim their attention.
The period was also one of unprecedented change. The
world was brougnt into students' homes through the
medium of television, and they were forced into a global
outlook by global threats to their personal safety. Many
of these young people are change-oriented and concerned
about other people, and they think about subtle problems
that involve all of humanity. That they show such
concern should not be viewed as anything but a hopeful
sign.

Although the educational system below the college
level is in some ways less resistant to change than colleges
and universities, it is similarly inadequate in preparing
people for the realities of the world crisis. In some of the
better school systems, however, there have been
changes—sometimes at the initiative of students. Ele-
mentary and junior high school students in many areas
have in various ways demonstrated their concern about
environmental deterioration. Many teachers have en-
couraged interest in population growth and the environ-
ment, with or without administrative support. Since
Earth Day 1970, in particular, there has been a wide-
spread effort to introduce environmental concern into
schools at virtually every level. Programs to encourage
environmental and population education in schools have
also been established at the federal level in the Depart-
ment of Health, Education and Welfare.
Sex Education
A lack of adequate sex education is still a serious
problem in the United States and many other countries.
We face both a population problem and a venereal
disease epidemic in the United States, and yet powerful
groups are determined to keep the "facts of life" from our
young people. No subject is more likely to bring out a
mob of angry parents than the thought of introducing the
most innocuous sex-education curriculum into a school,
even if the program is endorsed by educators, psychia-
trists, and clerics of many faiths. Some parents in our
sex-saturated society even claim that a straight-foward
description of sexual intercourse, of the sort that should
be perfectly acceptable reading for any child, is part of a
communist plot to destroy our youth! This is a vicious
cycle, with a minority of ignorant or disturbed parents
fighting to guarantee that their children grow up equally
ignorant or disturbed.
There are, of course, formidable barriers to reasonable
sex education in schools, churches, and in the home. One
is a lack of training for potential teachers, who must have
a thorough understanding of the subject. The second is
the nearly ubiquitous feeling that sex education must be
tied up with moral judgments. In the face of massive
ignorance and our current population crisis, however, it
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 827
is difficult to construct an argument against teaching
about three basic aspects of sex in the schools. First,
children must be thoroughly informed about the anat-
omy of sex organs and the physiology of sex and
reproduction. Second, they must be taught the difference
between "sex" and reproduction and about the methods
of contraception. Third, they should be informed of the
dangers of venereal disease.
These straightforward factual matters are easy. In-
troducing the student to the role sex plays in society, the
attitudes toward it in different religious and social
groups, attitudes toward contraception, illegitimacy,
marriage, divorce, virginity, and sex-as-just-plain-fun
must be handled with great care and by specially trained
teachers. But the cycle of the blind leading the blind, that
of embarrassed and uninformed parents "educating"
their children, must be broken somehow. The experience
of Planned Parenthood and other organizations that help
teenagers with sexual problems (often unwanted preg-
nancies) is that keeping youngsters ignorant does not
prevent early experimentation with sex, as is usually the
intention. On the contrary, informed youngsters seem
much less likely to engage in sexual adventures before
they are emotionally ready and are even less likely to find
themselves incipient parents.
One way in which school systems have successfully
introduced sex-education programs is by giving parents a
preview of the material. The parents are invited to
evaluate the program—in fact, one purpose is to educate
them. Such preparation of the adult population would
seem essential to avoid perpetuating ignorance. A sex-
education program has even been initiated in West
Germany for grandparents, who often care for children
while parents work. Perhaps sex education should be
promoted for all parents of preschool children in the
United States.
In recent years, at least, several frank and competent
books have become available for those interested enough
to educate themselves. For preadolescents, the book
Wliere did I come from? by Peter Mayle is excellent, and
for young women, Our bodies, ourselves by the Boston
Women's Health Book Collective has produced a revo-
lution of understanding. At a more comprehensive and
intellectual level, we can recommend Fundamentals of
human sexuality by psychiatrists Hcrant Katchadourian
828 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
and Donald Lunde, which has enjoyed great success as a
college text and is highly recommended for any adoles-
cent or adult who wants to understand his or her
sexuality.
The Brain Drain
Our educational system is failing to produce not only
those competent to teach sex education, but also the
ecologists, agricultural scientists and technicians, social
scientists, paramedical personnel, and various other
specialists needed to help solve the pressing problems of
the world—especially in the less developed countries.
Indeed, for decades there has been a brain drain. Trained
personnel from the LDCs, especially medical doctors,
are understandably attracted to the United States and
other DCs, where they can earn a good living. Ironically,
this often happens because, despite their great needs for
trained people, LDCs may have no jobs for them. That
many individuals from the LDCs who are educated in
the DCs do not wish to return to their homelands is even
sadder. Although some DCs, notably the Soviet Union,
virtually force a return to the homeland, most do not.
One relatively simple and humane solution would be for
the DCs to establish and help staff more training centers
within the LDCs. This should have the additional ben-
efits of training local people to work on problems of local
significance and of familiarizing visiting faculty mem-
bers from the DCs with those problems.
Changing the Educational Structure
While a great deal can be done to improve the
educational system within the general framework now
recognized, more fundamental changes will probably be
required if large technological societies are to discover
ways to govern themselves satisfactorily while solving or
preventing the social and environmental problems that
now threaten to destroy them. Ivan Illich has suggested
the abolition of formal education and the making of
educational materials and institutions available to all on a
cafeteria basis.32 To those struggling in the present
system, the idea has considerable appeal; but even Illich
j2
Deschooling society.
recognizes the enormous drawbacks inherent in such an
unstructured approach.
We would suggest another strategy, one that expands
on ideas already current in education. First of all, we
think that a major effort should be made to extend
education throughout the life span, rather than attempt-
ing to cram all education into the first fifteen to twenty-
five years. It is becoming widely recognized that maturity
and experience are often a benefit in learning. Students
who have dropped out, worked, and then returned to
school generally do so with renewed vigor and increased
performance. Experience in the real world can lead
students to avoid much wasted effort in the educational
world. A program of encouraging interruption of educa-
tion, perhaps for one or two years during or directly after
high school and another two years after receiving an
undergraduate degree might be a good start. For exam-
ple, a student interested in becoming a physician might
spend two years after high school doing clerical work in a
hospital or doctor's office or serving as an orderly. When
his or her undergraduate education was completed, two
additional years could be spent working with a doctor as
a paramedic. Similarly, individuals going into business,
government, science, bricklaying, plumbing, or what-
have-you should have a chance to try out their chosen
professions and trades at the bottom before completing
their educations.53
The benefits of the program would be many, including
better understanding of the problems faced by associates
(a doctor who has been an orderly should have more
insight into the situation of the orderlies), and fewer cases
of people committing themselves to careers too early,
with too little knowledge of what the commitment
involves, and discovering the error too late to make
another choice. Students who, on completing high
school, were unsure of what their futures should be,
could try out several possibilities.
What about youngsters who have no desire to go
beyond high school or vocational school? Should their
educations end at that point? In the United States, for
instance, nearly 1 adult in 5 reportedly lacks "those skills
and knowledges which are requisite to adult compe-
"For a more detailed discussion of restructuring our educational
system, see Dennis C. Pirages and Paul R. Ehrlich, Ark II: Social response
to environmental imperatives, chapter 6.