Vol 31, Part I - forums.sou.edu • Index page - Southern Oregon ...

ABSTRACTS – Contributed Oral Papers
continent was designated a protected natural area. Parks—
and the land ethics and conservation agendas they represent—infuse
the frozen Andean borders of Argentina and
Chile making up the region of Patagonia and they permeate
the boundary between Peru and Brazil that share, along with
several other countries, the region of Amazonia. The parks
form contiguous transnational swaths of nature but they exist
in a historical vacuum; little is known about their comparative
declaration, evolution, and meaning despite a collective
consciousness at home and abroad about the extensive wilderness
areas they protect. This paper provides an overview
of the similarities and contrasts between nature protection in
tropical and temperate South America with attention to the
global trends in national parks. It argues that the role of individual
scientists, state agencies, international organizations,
and local stakeholders shaped conservation agendas and
actions in distinct ways that serve to temper global debates
about conservation refugees and exclusion. The paper gives
special attention to the role of scientific research in defining—and
being defined by—transnational natural areas, the
significance of these areas in the constitution of national
identities through frontier settlement, and the ways global
exchanges shaped the categorization of landscapes and their
growth as inter-connecting webs of land use.
147 Millennial Biology: The National Science Foundation
and the Life Sciences, 1975-2005, DONALD J McGRAW
(“Dr. Donald J. McGraw, Independent Scholar/Contractor,”
P.O.Box 515, Ephraim, UT, 84627; donaldmcgraw@mac.
com).
At the past several meetings of the AAAS/Pacific Division,
Dr. McGraw has presented several talks in a series of
interim reports on the status of his book being written under
contract to the National Science Foundation. In his earlier
reports, the author described the contract and the research
period efforts and discussions of completed draft chapters.
The present report is the final in the series. It will describe
work accomplished on all sections of the ten-chapter book of
some 650 pages and its present status.
148 A Novel Explanation of Creationism’s Frustrating Persistence,
LAWRENCE H WOOD (Physicist, Retired, 8433
Camano Loop NE, Lacey, WA 98516; marylar@comcast.
net).
Despite significant Scientific advances over the past
2500 years, polls continually reveal that a majority of Americans
prefer Creationism, which avers that “There is no reason
not to believe that God [an undetectable, supernatural
“magician”] created our universe, earth, plants, animals, and
people just as described in the book of Genesis (www.bestbiblescience.org/mainpts.htm).”
The tenaciousness of this
belief can be shown to result from a variation on the bold
Jesuit claim “give me a child until he is seven and I will give
you the man.”
Thus “Creationism indoctrination” given young children
explains Creationism’s persistence; viz., the Creationism
concept is relatively simple, thus, a young child can easily
understand it, but hasn’t enough knowledge to realize that
it is preposterous. The Creationism indoctrination continues
until the child reaches High School and encounters Evolution
for the first time, but by then has been “brain washed”
against it. This paper presents a clear explanation of Creationism’s
origin including its bizarre belief in a supernatural
magician, something I haven’t seen articulated but which
aids in understanding Creationism’s persistence. In addition,
the futility of anti-Creationism efforts presenting “mountains
of evidence” supporting science, which are unfortunately
easily “cherry picked” by creationists are analyzed.
Finally a clear explanation of how the Process of Evolution
works which might be understandable by a young child is
presented. This paper should be of interest to any Scientist
interested in understanding Creationism’s origin, why it is so
persistent and possible techniques for changing Creationists
beliefs.
149 From 1953 Genetics: Molecular Biology to the Wider
Pictures of Both Science and its Religious Basis, Danielle
Mihram 1 * and G ARTHUR Mihram 2 ( 1 USC
Libraries and Department of French and Italian, University
of Southern California, 650 W 35 th Street, Los Angeles, CA
90089-2571; 2 P.O. Box 1188, Princeton, NJ 08542-1188;
dmihram@usc.edu).
The history of modern biology has been enhanced since
the 1953 discovery of the double helix [James Watson, Francis
Crick (plus Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin)], the
physical context by which the transmission of characteristics
(between successive generations) can qualify quite explicitly
as the explanation for biological evolution.
We relate three post-1953 historical developments. First,
the quickly ensuing (new) discipline of molecular biology
quite naturally appeared; yet, this itself has only served as a
further confirmation of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection. One can now note the
ensuing fascination with ‘chromosomal abnormalities’ present
in cancers, leading to the promise of medical cures.
Second, an examination of the founding basis of the very
human activity (extracorporeal model-building) has led not
only to neurologist JZ Young’s recognition [Model of the
Brain] of this as the biological characteristic uniquely defining
Mankind among the species but also to our consequent
conclusion [Teorema 28(2): 35-44 (2009)] that Science is
conducted, as properly implemented natural philosophy, in
a six-stage model-building process (Scientific Method). This
very process, first conducted without cognition by the ‘gene
pools’ of each plant and animal species, has been followed
by the ‘higher’ species of animals, those having the neural
capability of memory-and-recall, to construct mental models
enhancing survival.
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