Author: Andrew Sullivan

Bouie thinks it’s possible, if not likely:

[W]hen it comes to analyzing black voters, conservatives need to stop treating them as irrational or stuck on some kind of “Democratic plantation.” Like any coherent group of citizens, black Americans have a strong sense of their individual and collective interests. And in their correct view, they do better under Democratic presidents, which contributes to their overwhelming support for Democratic politicians. Put another way, if conservatives want to make inroads with black Americans and other minorities, they have to show them they’ll succeed under Republican governance and have to deliver when the opportunity comes.

Unfortunately for the GOP, research suggests that African Americans have good reason to vote Democratic:

According to a recent paper from Zoltan L. Hajnal and Jeremy D. Horowitz – both political scientists at the University of California–San Diego – there’s clear evidence that when the nation is governed by Democrats, black well-being “improves dramatically” across multiple dimensions. Specifically, looking at data from 1948 to 2010, Hajnal and Horowitz found that “African Americans tend to experience substantial gains under Democratic presidents whereas they tend to incur significant losses or remain stagnant under Republicans.” On average, under Democratic presidents, blacks gained $895 in annual income, saw a 2.41 point drop in their poverty rate, and a 0.36 point drop in their unemployment rate. By contrast, under Republicans, blacks gained $142 a year, along with a 0.15-point increase in poverty and a 0.39-point increase in unemployment.

OpenWorm, an informal collaborative group of biologists and computer scientists from several countries, aims to create a complete digital model of a simple organism:

On May 19th this group managed to raise $121,076 on Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website. The money will be put towards the creation of the world’s most detailed virtual life form—an accurate, open-source, digital clone of a critter called Caenorhabditis elegans, a 1mm-long nematode that lives in the soils of the world’s temperate regions. … The idea, says Stephen Larson, a neuro- and computer scientist, who is the project’s co-ordinator, is to model the biochemical behaviour of every one of the worm’s cells, and how they interact with each other. If that can be done, then movement—and all the beast’s other behaviour patterns—should emerge by themselves from that mass of interactions.

George Dvorsky reviews the brief history of virtual organisms and why scientists are eager to create more of them:

To be fair, scientists have already created a computational model of an actual organism, namely the exceptionally small free-living bacteria known as Mycoplasma genitalia. It’s an amazing accomplishment, but the pathogen — with its 525 genes — is one of the world’s simplest organisms. Contrast that with E. coli, which has 4,288 genes, and humans, who have anywhere from 35,000 to 57,000 genes. Scientists have also created synthetic DNA that can self-replicate and an artificial chromosome from scratch. Breakthroughs like these suggest it won’t be much longer before we start creating synthetic animals for the real world. Such endeavors could result in designer organisms to help in the manufacturing of vaccines, medicines, sustainable fuels, and with toxic clean-ups.

There’s a very good chance that many of these organisms, including drugs, will be designed and tested in computers first. Eventually, our machines will be powerful enough and our understanding of biology deep enough to allow us to start simulating some of the most complex biological functions — from entire microbes right through to the human mind itself (what will be known as whole brain emulations).

Simon Lewsen traces “our whale fixation [to] the fraught, shifting relationship between humans and the non-human world”:

Anthropologist Arne Kalland explains that, with the rise of the green movement, cetaceans became icons of environmental utopianism. They epitomized the complexity of the natural world: a realm that could teach us a thing or two, if we didn’t destroy it first. Whales were imagined as highly sensitive creatures swimming peacefully through rarified water. Many whale behaviours jibe with human notions of compassion: they sing to each other, nurture their infants into maturity, and care for their wounded and elderly. Given their longevity (they predate humanity by at least 25 million years) and brain size (larger than that of any other creature), it is possible to envision them as sage-like and profound—a species that has outgrown our territorial and violent impulses. Their ability to communicate across hundred-mile expanses seemed to indicate an otherworldly, near-telepathic sensitivity.

As Kalland makes clear, this eco-utopian “super whale” is actually a mash-up of different species-specific traits:

the grey whale’s friendliness, the sperm whale’s braininess, and the humpback’s phenomenal ability to project sound across large ocean basins. In ecological terms, this hybrid creature is every bit as mythical as the unicorn.

Lewsen adds that a global whaling moratorium in 1982 shifted the real threat from human hunters to more complex problems, such as industrial pollution:

Some whales, like the humpback and blues, really do need our protections; other species, like the minke, could probably sustain a limited harvest. Of course, the thought of an intelligent mammal being brutalized with harpoons is obscene, but from a conservation perspective, there’s little to be gained from scapegoating small-time hunters for global problems. The super whale became the sacred cow of the green movement, and after the 1980s moratorium, many pods regenerated briskly; meanwhile, carbon emissions continued to rise.

(Photo of breaching humpback whale by Gregory “Greg” Smith)

Somaly Mam and Nicholas Kristof in happier times. seems nick wont even acknowledge her existence these days pic.twitter.com/XjF1YqQFpT

— Tom Bender (@tbendu2) May 31, 2014

In Newsweek‘s latest cover-story, Simon Marks exposes the exaggerations, inconsistencies, and outright fabrications of Cambodian anti-sex trafficking activist Somaly Mam:

At the heart of the questions surrounding Mam is a debate within the nonprofit sector on the acceptable tactics for fundraising and educating the public. For a long time, there has been a strong push to move away from using children to raise funds. … Experts in sex trafficking say that while it is a serious problem, the scale and dynamics of the situation are often misunderstood, in part because of lurid, sensationalistic stories such as those told by Mam and her “girls.” In 2009, 14 organizations and academics, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, wrote a letter to Salty Features, an independent film production company based in New York, to thank it for its interest in making a film about Mam’s work in Cambodia. But they advised against having the documentary focus on Mam due to [her organization’s] lack of understanding of the sex industry. In an interview for Euronews in 2012, Mam said girls as young as 3 are being held in Cambodian brothels. Experts in the field say that is almost unheard-of.

The accumulated allegations have effectively ousted Mam from her own foundation. Erik Loomis rips into Nicholas Kristof for having taken Mam’s bait:

Wait, Nic Kristof? No! You mean, Mr. Helicopter Rich White Man Rescuer was ready to buy lurid, falsified stories hook, line, and sinker? Who could have guessed! Here’s a 2011 Kristof article lauding Mam and her story, in what has to be the most prototypical Kristof column. Here’s another, on Pross, entitled, “If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?” Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something that actually happened. …

The history of prostitution reform in Progressive Era America tells a similar story.

There were Kristof’s then too, freaking out about the white slavery traffic. They wanted to hear the most lurid stories possible and then publicize them to make points about the evils of prostitution. They didn’t bother fact-checking either. And time and time again, these stories about young women didn’t pan out. The impact of this movement was to make sex work illegal, making it far more dangerous, as it largely remains today.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown is disturbed at the revelations:

Perhaps the story is indicative of nothing more than how motivated, mentally ill manipulators can really thrive if they find the right angle. But some say it highlights the downside of nonprofits using tragedy porn to raise funds. “If your goal is fundraising, you actually have an incentive to pull out the most gory story,” one activist told Marks, “and so we get completely false realities of the world.”

These false realities are then used not just to tug at the heart and purse strings of potential donors but to launch initiatives and make lawmakers weepy-eyed at Congressional hearings. They inspire policy, and that’s scary. Boogeymen make frighteningly good lobbyists.

But Marcotte offers a somewhat more sympathetic take:

It’s easy to see why non-profits trying to fundraise, as well as the media industry used to raise attention to various social justice issues, are drawn to the “heroes beating the odds” stories that Mam told not only of herself but of the various girls she used for media and fundraising appeals. It’s simply easier for audiences to connect with the story of an individual than to examine dry, statistical data charting economic, public health, or educational outcomes. The fantasy of being able to rescue some beautiful, charming girl from the hell of sex slavery and put her on the road to a “normal” life has the kind of power that a chart detailing maternal health outcomes after various public health interventions will never have. The faces of young heroes who have overcome adversity make for good magazine covers. All the economic incentives are in place.

Unfortunately, the need to hear a relentless drumbeat of tales that start in horror and squalor and end in uplift and hope also creates incentive to fudge the facts, as Mam’s story shows. It might also mislead people about what problems are most pressing.