The Beak Of The Finch Essay Example For Students

The Beak Of The Finch Essay The Beak of the Finch The Bogus Logic of The BeakPeople who have served in the Armed Forces may be familiar with the expression, If you cant dazzle then with your brilliance, baffle them with your baloney. The Beak of the Finch uses such laughable logic, it is remarkable that anyone would believe it. The book does such a terrible job of presenting a case for evolution and history, that the only logical conclusion is that the books true intent is to disprove it. Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. ISBN 0679400036. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. Thoreau, WaldenThis book claims to be about evolution, centered in the location made famous by Charles Darwin, the Galapagos Islands. I read this book on the recommendation of a good friend who knows I am interested in birds and thought I might get something out of it. Indeed, the few parts of the book actually about the Gouldian Finches of the Galapagos Islands are fascinating. The book records in detail some of the trials the Dr. Peter Grant family endured in studying these birds on a hot volcanic rock. However, the writers and editors of the book avoid simple logic and put a spin on history that is misleading. The facts and logic presented in The Beak of the Finch really make the books author out to be a closet creationist. It just so happened that at the same time I read this book, I was reading The Storm Petrel and the Owl of Athena by Louis Halle. Half of The Storm Petrel is on the bird life of the Shetland Islands, another isolated natural system. Halle, though an evolutionist, devotes a whole chapter on how the Shetlands and other islands conserve species. (Halle. 1970, 155ff.) Where species have changed their habits, it is most often due to adaptation to humanity. He compares the wild starlings, house sparrows, and rock doves found on the Shetlands with the more domesticated versions of these birds found on the continentsand to some degree even in the main village of the Shetlands. The island birds are more like their original wild forebears. I mention this now because it will come back to haunt us later. Logical FallaciesBy the first thirty or so pages I had found two logical fallacies and at least one historical inaccuracy in The Beak of the Finch. The fallacies were significant. The historical point was minor, but could be misleading. The fallacies would continue through the book. Page 10 says Evolutionists are watching life ev olve on different islands. Well, not on the Shetlands, if Halles observations are accurate. One reason given is that islands are a closed system. I am not sure how closed any place on earth is any more; however, the Grants (the scientist couple doing the research reported by The Beak) were certainly careful to keep their little island as closed as possible. They washed themselves carefully, watched for any alien seeds they might bring, and so on. The great irony is that after twenty five years of observing, the net result is no change: Individual variation from year to year, surely, but nothing even remotely approaching one species turning into something else. The Problem with Using Breeders for AnalogiesPage 30 describes the law of succession (not plant or forest succession). This is adjunct to evolution. Is it truly a law? Can it be observed? Can it be repeated experimentally? Well, he says, Darwin showed that breeders can produce varieties of breeds of dogs and pigeons. Both Darw in and Weiner spend a lot of time on pigeons. There are several problems with this. One, breeders are outside intelligent operators. They are not natural forces. Second, and what will prove to be most significant, they still breed pigeons. The pigeons never become another species, regardless of the exotic traits they display. They are still pigeons. Even Darwin backer Sir Charles Lyell noted, There is no good evidence of spontaneous generation, and breeders know only too well that they cannot change one species into another. (Ruse, 1979, 81)1 Now Darwin suggested that at some point perhaps species could become something else. He was speculating. He used pigeon fanciers as an analogy for the forces of nature. Page 30 says it was an analogy. There is a problem with using analogies for science. They can be useful to explain things, but analogy is not the scientific method (inductive reasoning). Darwin would write that old Aristotle was his god. (Loomis, 1943, xxxii) While Aristotle did write about logic, he mostly used analogy when observing nature. Here is one quick example: Winds shake the air, earthquakes shake the earth, therefore earthquakes are caused by underground winds. (Meteorology, 2.8.23ff) Whenever you argue from analogy, you must be certain that the two items being compared are truly comparable and that the similarity of one feature truly means a similarity in another. We have a right to question whether pigeon breeders, or dog breeders, bean growers, etc. are behaving in a manner that nature does. We also must ask the question whether a visible similarity (Weiners definition of species) means common ancestry. I tell the story of when I caddied. There was another caddie who had red hair, a round face, and freckles like me. We were about the same height and had a similar build. Once when I was caddying, my golfer said to me, I had your brother the last time I played golf. Well, Chris Murphy was not my brother. We were not related at all. Just because we had some physical similarities did not mean we had a common ancestor. The argument by analogy continues for some time in the book. Yet these two questions about breeders and analogies are never addressed. The author also misses the obvious pointthose fancy pigeons are still pigeons. This analogy hardly appears like a law of science. Differences Among Individuals Not the Same as Transitional FormsThe book notes on page 40 that Darwin himself asked, Why are there not transitional forms? Darwins answer was that they had died off. The next question that follows logically is perhaps relevant here. Why are there not more fossils of transitional forms? That unanswerable question is why Niles Eldridge, Stephen Jay Gould, and others came up with the punctuated equilibrium theory (a.k.a. the hopeful monster theory) that there were sudden massive genetic changes which produced new species. Indeed, some fossils thought to be transitional have been proven otherwise. When I was in college we were taught that man evolved from Australopithecus. Now, if the Leakeys are to be believed, we find that Australopithecus and Homo were alive at the same time. The January 1998 issue of Scientific American describes an ongoing discussion of whether or not Neanderthal Man is a human ancestor. (Wong, 1998) Regular bird fossils have also been found at the same level as Archaeopteryx. As we shall see, the fossil record shows extinction rather than transition. And extinction is an argument against natural selection producing new species. Time and time again the book tells of individual variation among finches. The average person would not notice these differences. The Grants noticed. Some of the subtle differences in bill thickness could mean the difference between survival and death. The Fortis finch, the main subject of the Grants study, with a slightly narrower bill had an advantage in good growing years because the more general bill could eat a variety of available seeds. One with a thicker bill would do better in dry seasons when the only available seeds were those survivors with thicker hulls that the smaller bill could not crack. We note individual differences among humans, too. But just because there are individual differences does not mean that they evolve into something else. Individuals are just different. Lets celebrate diversity and acknowledge individual differences. Darwinism as Neither Proven Nor ScientificPage 52 has another wild statement that challenges logic. Darwin himself never tried to produce experimental confirmation of this particular point that individual variation led to changes into new species. It is at once extremely logical and extremely hard to prove. Hmm! I let that statement speak for itself. The author does not demonstrate the logic of itprobably not because it is hard, but because it is impossible. Perhaps, too, I am beginning to suspect that the author is not familiar with rules of logic. Note two things about that statement. O ne, no experimentation. That means no scientific method. Therefore Darwin was not in the strict sense being scientific. Two, the logic on how natural selection causes new species is very difficult. In fact, the author does not even try to show it. If There Is No Net Change, Doesnt That Disprove Evolution?For a number of pages in what is really the core of the book, the author describes how the Fortis Finches of the island specialize according to subtle differences in beak size during dry years. As a result, several strains appear. However, in wet years, the strains interbreed and the net result over a period of time is no change! This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what the theory of evolution would predict. As a result, after about page 80 or 90, the rest of the book is devoted to a literary subterfuge to try to convince the reader otherwise in spite of the evidence. The kindest thing I can say is that the author is preaching to the converted. By page 81 the author says thi s is evolution in action, yet there is nothing about new species. The Gouldian Finches are still Gouldian Finches. Indeed the alternating natural forces keep them from changing. The author admits on page 106 that reversals of fortune are common. What does that mean? Change goes in various directions. Survivors in a recent generation can be more like a distant generation than the parental generation. What is the net result? No change, hence no evolution! The author tells of the stratification of guppies according to the type of stream bed they are found in. Again, somehow this is supposed to show evolution, but instead it shows stabilization. The guppies are still guppies. There are individual variations, certainly, and some individuals have a better chance to survive in certain environments, but they do not become something else. This demonstrates the dirty secret of natural selection. Natural selection is generally conservative. It preserves species, it does not make new ones. This has always been the scientific criticism of Darwin since he and Wallace first published their theories. The examples that The Beak of the Finch use really show the same thingthat natural selection is conservative. It does not speak of the origin of species as much as it does the preservation of species. Darwins Logic in the First Half of His TitleDarwins books full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. If we look at the first clause of the title we can see that there are really three parts to Darwins logic. One is that species exist. Species are Darwins given. Second, Darwin tries to demonstrate that species adapt over time to changes in the environment. This is what he calls natural selection. Third, Darwin then tries to make the connection that these natural adaptations result in the formation of new, discrete species. Or as he put it in his title, species originate by means of this natural selection. There is also the uniformitarian implication that these changes are subtle and gradual and take a long time to have a visible effect. Hence, the earth is old, and Lyells anti-diluvialism or anti-catastrophism best explains the geological record. We will look at the second clause of the title later. The Beak of the Finch is one of a number of studies which show that subtle changes within species can occur in just a few generations when environmental circumstances change. For the sake of argument we will call this natural selection. The next step in Darwins theory seems to be the most significantthat these changes will eventually result in new species. The results recorded in The Beak of the Finch appear to be saying just the opposite of this. The net change over time is nil or insignificant. And if there are any changes, they are conservativethey preserve the present species, they do not mutate the species into something else. A Few More Questionable QuotationsI like this line on page 131: The opposition to Darwinism arises, as Darwin himself observed, not from what reason dictates but from the limits of what the imagination can accept. I will let that statement speak for itself. Reason and observation do not explain evolution. We can only imagine it. Is it unreasonable and imaginary? Page 144 also states another problem. It explains that Darwins thesis predicts the general absence of competition. Yet the observations of the Grants in particular show lots of competition for space and food in the small island territory. In addition, the author explains, because there should be no competition, evolution will usually be unobserved! If it is unobserved then how do we know it happens? Science and the scientific method require observation. At the very least, this means that Darwinian evolution will always be a theory. Indeed, after a quarter of a century on the Galapagos, the Grants evidence does demonstrate that actual evolution is not observed. Here the author is explaining why Darwinism cannot be proved, how the Grants observations show things that Darwin said would not happen, and yet the author still sounds like an advocate of Darwin. Doesnt that sound like blind faith? The Irrelevant Crossbill ExperimentPage 182 contains one experiment, but it has nothing to do with evolution. Perhaps its an example of analogy gone wild. The author describes experiments done with the bird known as a crossbill. Crossbills have crossed bills which enable them to reach into pine cones and extract the seeds. Someone took a group of crossbills and clipped the crossed portion of their bills so that they could no longer open pine cones. The birds could eat other seed put out for them. The bills grew back. Then they were able to eat pine seeds again. It makes sense, but does it have anything to do with evolution? While it does show how bill shape determines a birds ability to eat certain foods, I still have not figured out what that has to do with evo lution. There have been many other experiments where scientists removed or altered body parts of creatures. They could not function normally in most cases until that part grew back. All it tells us is that most body parts have a function. Perhaps it does illustrate the utility of bill structure, but there is nothing to do with heredity or genes in this one. The book states that this exercise with the crossbills refutes the anti-evolutionist book Darwin on Trial, but since the experiment has nothing to do with Darwinian heredity, it is impossible to see the relevance. Ultimately, the author is stuck and he knows it. He wants to believe in evolution, yet all the evidence he has been presenting is really showing that natural selection is conservative. What can he do? Talk of finches, guppies, and crossbills: interesting but largely irrelevant. Self-Contradiction and Laughable LogicThe author admits he is lost on page 192. This quotation sums up the shaky ground he has found himself on. The amazing illogic of it should be obvious even to a ten year old: Fortis has done a lot of evolving just to stay in place!As Shakespeare would say: That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow. (A Midsummer Nights Dream, 5.1.63)I almost laughed out loud when I read that sentence. The finches changed so much that they didnt change at all? Evolution is proven because it doesnt happen? A recent review in Scientific American complains that science in America on the decline because relativistic thinking has crept into science, that science is a subjective human construction, like art or music. (Morrison, 1997, 114) The article blames the influence of social science which does not take seriously the ultimate importance of objective facts. (Morrison, 1997, 117) Clearly, if the above passage reflects contemporary scientific thinking, then at least some of the blame is the responsibility of science itself, not just sociology. I find it even more remarkable that a book which such nonsense as the above passage could win a nonfiction Pulitzer Prize. One of the three panelists which made the final selection is a writing teacher at a well-known technical university. Would he accept such stuff if one of his students wrote that in a paper? One of the other panelists is an editor of a well-known high-circulation magazine. Would she allow such thinking in an article that she edited? (1995 Pulitzer Prizes, 1997) Such a prize is usually given to the best in its field. If this is the best evolution can do, evolution is in sad shape. Even the old agnostic himself, T.H. Huxley, wrote: Science is simply common sense at its best; that is rigidly accurate in obervation and merciless to fllacy in logic. (Gould, 16)A few years ago in article in Natural History magazine, biogeographer and evolutionary apologist Jared Diamond wrote of a genetic study done of Jews. He noted that some genetic changes had taken place in the Jewish Diaspora of the last two thousand years in Europe. He also not ed that some inherited traits such as fingerprints and certain blood antibodies had not changed. In many ways European Jews, in spite of their outward appearance, are genetically closer to Arabs in the Near East (where the Jews came from) than to Europeans with whom they have lived for two millennia or more. Diamond then very emphatically stated that thisalong with the sainted peppered mothsproves that evolution is a fact his italics. (Diamond, 1993, 19) I am not sure how. After two thousand years and thousands of miles migrated, the genotypes of this population are still identifiable. Is it the same kind of logicthat they evolve by not changing? I should really stop there. At first I thought the author just thought all his readers were dense. But I get the impression he really believes this stuff! One person I shared this with simply passed it off because Weiner was writing for a popular audience. Logic is not important for the mass of people? Is science the new priesthood which th e laity must trust blindly? The aristocracy to which the serfs owe total allegiance? Natural Selection Stabilizes, It Does Not Cause New SpeciesOn page 227 the author even speaks of stabilizing selection. Ah! What is this? A scientific oxymoron? Not if you are a Darwinist. You see, that phrase illustrates precisely the main argument against Darwin from the beginning, before Huxley and Wilberforce turned the whole discussion into a sideshow. Natural selection stabilizes species, it does not change them. The book even shares another little secret of evolution: Evolutionists are forever dividing and subdividing into schismatic sects. (231). This is what began to make me personally doubt evolution in college. The Anthropology, Biology, and Sociology classes all taught it, but they didnt agree on much and even criticized the others interpretation of it. There was no common ground except a materialist bias. It did not strike me as very objective. The author then describes a number of spec ies with very short generations. Two that he focuses on are a type of fruit fly and the human intestinal bacteria. The most he can say about the fruit flyintroduced into areas where it was not nativeis that it may be diverging into new species. (233) This is after he criticized the book Darwin on Trial for using the word may. (182) If it is good for the goose Interestingly, the book documents one really long-term change among Gouldian Finches on page 240 and thereabouts. The Galapagos Islands are now densely populated in some places. Like the rock doves, house sparrows, and starlings of Eurasia and North America, they have adjusted to human habitation. They are learning to eat scraps and seeds from people. The various types of finches which before were distinguished by differences in bills are becoming a hybrid swarm in towns. They are changing, but this is not due to natural forces, but due to manmore like the pigeon fanciers. Even here, though, natural selection is working not to change the species, but preserve it. The various strains are coming together to survive. This is the same phenomenon Halle (1970) observed on the Shetlands as he compared the village starlings, sparrows, and rock doves with those in remote areas. This also is the same phenomenon observed among the Lake Victoria cichlidstraditionally seen as a model for evolution like the Galapagos finches. These fish display highly specialized races in this large but isolated African lake. Within ten years after the introductin of a predatory Nile perch species, we read that observers noticed a kind of hybrid that seems to display a resistance to the perch. (Trachtman, 119) This reviewer called this phenomenon an irony. Well, irony is wonderful in drama and literaturesomething unexpected happens. However, when an irony happens in a scientific model, it is time to re-examine that model. The author refers in a few places to the peppered or speckled . I recall my high school text book used this to prov e evolution. That text was first published in 1962 and was first American textbook at the high school level to present evolution as scientific fact. The moth was white with some dark morphs. It lived in white birches. As the industrial cities and white birches in England became more grimy, the dark morphs became predominant. That was in the 1960s. With anti-pollution laws, the cities today are less grimy, there is virtually no soot in the air and the birches are white again. So now, again, most of the moth morphs are white. This is clearly not evolution! They have gone back to what they were. And, indeed, they have always been speckled moths, whether white or black. (Just like people!) Again, if there is natural selection, it is conservative, preserving the species, not transforming it into something else. .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .postImageUrl , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:hover , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:visited , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:active { border:0!important; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:active , .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u28fed74ff2ad57b49730c9f785c9a59f:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Homelessness Essay We will write a custom essay on The Beak Of The Finch specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now New Evidence on the Peppered MothsSince The Beak of the Finch came out, new evidence has emerged which appears to show that the Speckled Moth experiments were stacked. This is documented by M. E. N. Majerus in Melanism: Evolution in Action (Oxford, 1998). Majerus claims to believe in evolution, by the way. The moth experiments of Bernard Kettlewell in the 1950s have not been verified by other observers. For one thing, neither morph of the moth spends any time on rocks or tree bark. Kettlewells associates admit that photographs were faked and moth specimens were glued onto a tree and photographed. This admission is comparable to the Piltdown Man hoax or W. E. LeGros Clarks admission that he deiberately doctored his pictures of fossil primates to make them look like they were intermediate forms between apes and men. Weimer can be forgiven for not knowing about the moth experiments, since this information came out after his book. However, this does not excuse his logic, even assuming the observations were valid. This moth business illlustrates not only poor logic but flawed scientific method. It appears as though the establishment will grasp at any straw uncritically when it has the appearance of supporting its world view. For reviews of this see Nature, 5 Nov. 1998, and Back to Genesis, Apr. 1999. See also Star Course, Notes from Nature. The Second Part of Darwins TitleAnd, you know, that is precisely the language used by Darwin himself in the second part of the title of his Origin book: the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Whats that word? Preservation. Here is a curious contradiction in the very title of the evolutionists holy writ. As we have seen, the first clause says that species originate via natural selection. The second clause says that races are preserved by the same process. They change without changing! So if I observe a species change, that proves evolution. If I see a species persevere, that is natural selection which also proves evolution. No wonder Weiner said Darwins logic was complicated! It is actually bogus logic. Can a statement and its negative can both be true at the same time? Even if both are impossible to observe? More Problem QuotationsBy page 280 the book describes people as causing their own genetic change: We modified the hyoid bone. Human evolution in the first person? HmmWhen I was a teenager I sure would have liked to have modified a few thing about my bone structure. Most teenagers would. I couldnt. Could the author? Page 284 Species of finches cannot diversify on Cocos Island Pacific island owned by Costa Rica because the island is too small. And I thought islands were laboratories of evolution. The island in the Galapagos archipelago that the Grants worked on was even smaller. Interestingly, this year a popular boo k on biology came out called The Song of the Dodo. One of its premises is that islands are laboratories of extinction, not evolution. While it is written from an evolutionary perspective, it admits that on islands, speciation could be disregarded as a factor in wildlife populations. (Quammen, 414) Bacteria + Moths + Birds + Guppies + Flies = Preservation of the SpeciesThe author tells of E. coli bacteria, the common human intestinal bacteria. These bacteria, we are told, have a generation that lasts about two hours. Strains appear and adjust due to environmental f..actors. They change when a person gets a cold, comes in close contact with another person, or eats a certain food; and some strains develop resistance to antibiotics. These things, though, do not prove evolution. They demonstrate the opposite. Bacteria resistant to antibiotics or insects resistant to pesticides do not demonstrate evolutionthey demonstrate that natural selection is conservative. They preserve the species; they do not change it into something else. Similarly, those cotton-eating Heliothis moths which the book mentions are still eating cotton. They are still the same insect. Some individuals may resist insecticides, but this trait preserves the species, it does not change the creature into something else. And yet the author mocks the Bible-belt cotton farmers who disbelieve evolution. In fact, those farmers recognize perfectly well that the same kind of moth still eats their cotton. The example of E. coli is an especially obvious refutation to evolution. With nearly six billion human laboratories carrying this bacteria on earth and with the bacteria reproducing every two hours, we would have the equivalent of millions of years of human or mammalian evolution observable just in our lifetime. Yet, while various strains of E. coli may appear or may become predominant in a certain environment, they do not become something else. They are still E. coli. Six billion people defecating every da y, youd think wed notice if they had become something else! The book lists a number of examples of natural selection in species: Gouldian Finches, guppies, cotton moths, fruit flies, sandpipers, (the crossbill experiment does not count since clipping bills does not change the genetic makeup of the population), speckled moths, and the very fecund E. coli. What do we observe over generationsin the case of E. coli, twelve per day? That the species do not change! Indeed, with the speckled moths, Gouldian finches, and bacteria at least, they will clearly revert to a past type. What does this show? It shows the precise opposite of what Darwin was attempting to prove. It shows that species do not change. Any individual variations which may be selected by nature preserve the species. The alternative is extinction. That is precisely what the fossil record and even the current natural record showsnot species changing into something else but species not changing and disappearing. In spite of a nearly a hundred and fifty years of Darwinistic indoctrination, when we think of survival of the fittest, we think of extinction, of the unfit that dont survive. That is real. That is a fact. Change into another life form is still speculative at best.2 The Earliest Known Critique of DarwinismA critique of Darwin and Wallaces earliest publications on evolution (prior to The Origin) appeared in 1860 in an article in the Journal of the Geological Society of Dublin. This article notes that the propagation of special varieties is simply a provision to guard against the destruction of the species by any, the least, change.3 The only problem, the article said, with Darwins idea that the healthiest specimens of a group survive is want of novelty. (Brackman, 1980, 74) If it means what it says, it is a truism; if it means anything more, it is contrary to fact. (Brackman, 1980, 74) Indeed, the only reason the article says that the publications of Darwin and Wallace were considered seriously a t all is because of the social status of the Darwin family and the backing of publication by Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker. This speculation of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace would not be worthy of notice were it not for the weight of the authority of the names under whose auspices it has been brought forward. (Brackman, 1980, 75) Darwin was from a prominent family and his wife from an even more prominent family. He and Wallace were published at the instigation of Lyell and Hooker. Both of these men were baronets and members of the Royal Society. Lyell, of course, had Principles of Geology to his credit. Hooker was a well-traveled botanist and curator of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. Its not what you know, its who you know. Perhaps this rebuttal to the Darwin-Wallace hypothesis did not receive more attention because it came from Dublin. It did not have the aristocratic or social pedigree that Darwin and his Royal Society friends had. Of course, today it would be politically incorrec t to snub someone because of his or her nationality, but it is academically acceptable to ridicule another type of person, one with a status similar to the Irish in nineteenth century England. We see The Beak of the Finch do this. Who Are Contemporary Equivalent of the Irish in America Today?The author, of course, wants to sell books. He wants approval from the academic establishment. Twenty years ago Harpers ran an article on natural selection being conservative. (Bethell, 1976)4 It did not sell. The prize-winning Beak of the Finch will sell. Especially since it does include the obligatory elitist slam at fundamentalists. It is clear the author does not know what the word means since the one specific example he uses of a fundamentalist is a Jehovahs Witness. One of the seven fundamentals of a Christian fundamentalist is that Jesus is God. While the Jehovahs witnesses do believe in a special Creator, they deny that He is Jesus. The author quotes Peter Grant that Creationists have th e appearance of closed minds. Dr. Grant then admits he does not know any. He can be forgiven for that because he has spent most of the last two and a half decades on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. He clearly is not aware of what has happened in American courts in the last twenty years. It has been the evolutionists who have effectively silenced the discussion of any opposition not by logic, not by evidence, but by court order! If the creationists are closed-minded, then the evolutionists are censors. The other ironic thing about that statement is that Dr. Grant himself may be the one with the closed mind. Here is all this evidence to show that natural selection does not make new species, and he cant see it. Or maybe he can, he just is afraid of becoming an academic pariah. So he presents evidence refuting Darwinists all the while pretending he still is one. That is why I suspect that either Dr. Grant, the researcher, or Mr. Weiner, the author, is a closet creationist. Why D id Darwin Drop Out?While logic is the main problem of the book, there are two historical inaccuracies worthy of note in The Beak of the Finch. The author suggests that when Darwin left England for the Beagle that he was still a seminary student, and that it was the trip on the Beagle and reading Lyells Principles of Geology that changed him. If Darwins Autobiography is to be believed, that is not exactly what happened. Darwin dropped out of seminary because he no longer believed the Biblethe three things Darwin mentions specifically are the story of Noah, the Tower of Babel, and the doctrine eternal hell for the unbeliever. Darwins father did not know what to do. His father is the one who sent him to seminary in the first place because being a minister seemed like a job that Charles was suited for. When Charles dropped out, his father recognized Charles interest in science, so he arranged for him to take the job a ships surgeon on the Beagle, where he could see some of the world and learn a suitable trade. One of Lyells original intentions was to sink the diluvialists, people who believed in the Genesis Flood and that that explained most geological sediments and fossils. (Gillispie, 1960, 299) It appears that Darwin and Lyell were kindred spirits since Darwin had admitted that the Genesis Flood was one of the teachings which kept him from Christianity. The authors misinformation on Darwin here is relatively minor. It perhaps suggests that the author wants his reader to convert from religious belief, too, but the detail itself is not that significant. Perhaps the author knows of evidence that I am unfamiliar with, though at least one other author interprets the account the way I do. (Gillispie, 1960, 348; cf. Darwin 1958, 85ff.) It really does not change the effect of the book much at all unless he is suggesting that Darwin is deceiving us in his autobiography. Indeed, one impression from reading Darwins autobiography is that even though he gradually changed fr om Christianity to universalism to deism to atheism, he remained a man of conscience.5 How The Beak Attempts to Rewrite HistoryThe second historical misstatement in The Beak is downright misleading. In fact, it changes the whole nature of the argument of the book. It may show what really motivates many evolutionists. On page 298 the book claims that the idea that God designed the universe no longer seemed compelling after Galileo and Newton discovered the celestial laws of motion. Where did Weiner come up with that idea? He clearly knows nothing about Newton and little about history. What did Newton devote his life to after he discovered and quantified the laws of motion? Theology! Most of his writings are theological. The order and design that he discovered led him to consider the One, as he put it, who wound the watch. Newton would write in his Principia: This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent a nd powerful BeingThis Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator, Universal Ruler.(Newton, 1687, 369, 370)6 This God no longer seemed compelling to Newton? Certainly we are not talking about the same Isaac Newton as is quoted here! Lets at least be honest! The scientific revolution which resulted in the acceptance of the scientific method went hand in hand with the Reformation. It was not that God had become irrelevantHe had become more relevant. The Reformation emphasized that the God of the Bible had created the universe. The scientific method worked because God was a God of order, not confusion. We could do inductive experiments and make observations and the results would not be random. Why? Because the universe is orderly. One could go on and detail the history of the period of Galileo and Newtonno time in European and American history before or since has the Christian religion been such a critical issue as the period between 1520 and 1789. Most of the wars and many political movements resulted from it or in reaction to it. English-speaking North America was settled in most places for religious reasons. One of the main motivations of the American Revolutionaries was resistance to Englands attempts to make a uniform state religion of the Anglican Church in the colonies. The concept of God was hardly irrelevant during this era!7 Who Was Behind the Attack on Galileo?OK, some say, what about Galileo? He got in trouble with the Pope. Well, the Pope was one of the reasons for the Reformation. The Roman Church in the Middle Ages had adopted Aristotle as a model for science, and even for a lot of theology. Luther in particular was very critical of this.8 The Popes opposition to Galileo was Aristotelian. It was Aristotle who taught differently than Galileo. (The Bible doesnt have word about the planet Jupiter or its moons) The Reformation succeeded in knoc king Aristotles influence down a few notches, in the area of science as well as theology. Galileo had to take the rap for using the scientific method just as Luther had to for emphasizing the Bible. But if it had not been Galileo, it probably would have been someone else who was using the scientific method who might have gotten into trouble with authorities. It is also important to note that Galileo actually had the support of Pope Paul V and the Jesuits, but the faculty at the Universities of Padua and Pisa hated his experiments and anti-Aristotelian views. He was sentenced by Pope Urban VIII, but the charges which brought him before the pope were filed by academics. It appeared that the churchs major sin was capitulating to the pressure from the scientific community and Galileos enemies. Only as a result from much pressure from the secular establishment and Aristotelian philosophers did the church side against Galileo. (Bergman, 1995)Even a general reference source acknowledges th at: Since the full publication of Galileos trial documents in the 1870s, entire responsibility for Galileos condemnation has customarily been placed on the Roman catholic church. This conceals the role of the philosophy professors who first persuaded theologians to link Galileos science with heresy. (Drake, 1996)It was not the church that led Galileos inquisition, it was academia. Today academia uses the secular courts rather than the ecclesiastical ones, but the result is the same, to try to silence the scientific opposition. Darwin, Aristotle, and Spontaneous GenerationThis leads into Darwin. As I mentioned earlier, Darwin called himself a disciple of Aristotle. I speak of Aristotelian sciencethe science of analogy. That is what evolution isanalogous traits in various species come from a common ancestor. Keep in mind that The Origin of Species was published in 1859. Most of Pasteurs work was done in the 1870s and 1880s .People did not know of the significance of microbes. It was s till common, for example, to say that malaria was caused by bad air. That is what the word malaria means. (Cf. Thoreau, 1854, 132) Though there were some experiments disproving it, it would still be possible to find intelligent men like Darwin who believed with Aristotle in spontaneous generation. For example, if you read Walden, published in 1854, it appears that Thoreau did. (Cf. Thoreau, 1854, 325ff.) The Origin of Species is an example of latent Aristotelian science. Some well-meaning scientists are still trying to spontaneously generate life out of chemicals. (If it could be done, we should be able to take a cadaverwhich already has the chemicalsand bring it to life. We cant even do that) By the nineteenth century, Aristotelian science was pretty much a historical relic. Darwin brought it back from the dead and it is an unreasonable, self-contradictory monster. Concluding ObservationsThe Beak of the Finch purports to be a book about the observation of evolution in our time. The actual observations recorded in the book, however, demonstrate the absence of evolution among the finches of the Galapagos Islands and other species like the peppered and cotton moths, intestinal bacteria, guppies, and fruit flies. The book uses a number of self-contradictory statements which illustrate the shaky logical foundation of Darwinian evolution. The conclusion from the evidence is that natural selection serves to preserve species, not alter them into something else. There are also some historical inaccuracies, including one which tells much more about the mindset of evolutionists than about history. When examined carefully, The Beak of the Finch shows how fragile and illogical the dogma of Darwinian evolution is. Since this book won a prestigious prize, it must have been considered one of the better works on the subject. If this is as good as can be done for evolution, it will not be long before evolution goes the way of Aristotles geocentricism. The book at its root can only be taken seriously as an anti-evolutionist tract. SynopsisThe prize-winning book The Beak of the Finch purports to be a book about the observation of evolution in our time. The actual observations recorded in the book, however, demonstrate the absence of evolution among the finches of the Galapagos Islands and other species mentioned by the book such as the peppered and cotton moths, intestinal bacteria, guppies, and fruit flies. The book uses a number of self-contradictory statements which illustrate the shaky logical foundation of Darwinian evolution. The conclusion from the evidence is that natural selection serves to preserve species, not alter them into something else. There are also some historical inaccuracies, including one which tells much more about the mindset of evolutionists than about history. When examined carefully, The Beak of the Finch shows how fragile and illogical the dogma of Darwinian evolution is. Notes1 There is a potential problem of logic worth invest igating in Darwins application of Lyells uniformitarianism. The principle of uniformitarianism is that geologically things continue in a gradual manner without any significant change. Significant changes would suggest diluvialism or catastrophism. To Darwin this meant simply that the earth was quite old. But Lyell believed that he was being consistent in applying uniformitarianism to the organic as well as inorganic world by saying that species do not change. Such a change would be more akin to catastrophism. See McKinney, 1972, 33 and 34. 2 This problem was recently illustrated in an article in American Scientist: There are, arguably, arguably some two to ten million species on Earth. The fossil record shows that most species survive between three and five million years. In that case, we ought to be seeing small but significant numbers of originations and extinctions every decade. .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .postImageUrl , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:hover , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:visited , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:active { border:0!important; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:active , .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9 .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u8dee2dbf66241c5147fd8b33cb2996f9:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The role of Antonio in Shakespeare's Tempest EssayKeith Stewart Thompson, Natural Selection and Evolutions Smoking Gun, American Scientist, Nov./Dec. 1997: 516. 3 A summary of the Dublin article is found in Brackman, 1980, 74 , 75. Quotation is from page 75. Interestingly, Darwin mentions this article in his Autobiography. He does not speak of the logic of the article or that it caused him to reflect or reconsider but simply that if he were to persuade anyone, the issue was one of propagation rather than of truth or logic. This shows, he said of it, how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse public attention. Darwin, 1958, 122. It appears that The Beak of the Finch tried to employ the same method, that is, repeat the idea at considerable length so that people will begin to believe it, regardless of the logic or interpretation of the evidence. 4 In this article T. H. Morgan says, Selection, then, has not produced anything new, but only more of certain kinds of individuals. Evolution, however, means producing new things, not more of what already exists. (Bethell, 1976, 74) This is actual ly the underlying message of The Beak of the Finch, too. 5This assessment was my own from reading the autobiographies of Lyell, Darwin, and Wallace. There is no suggestion of any unscrupulous action on the part of Darwin, and he appeared to behave in a scrupulous manner, though consistent with his beliefs. (For example, he refused to allow Karl Marx dedicate Das Kapital to him. He was an opponent to slavery, and though he was no longer a Christian, he gave money to a Christian missionary group whose activities he approved of.)Having said all that, nowadays, others are not quite so charitable in describing Darwins behavior towards Wallace. See, for example, Peter Quammen, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, (New York: Scribner, 1996) 111ff. He details the work of a number of researchers which suggest Darwin plagiarized Wallace. Quammen writes, Darwin had behaved weakly and selfishly at best. (113)Quammens book is also interesting in that, while it give s lip service to evolution, it emphasizes extinction, not adaptation. The biogeographic model that this book effectively presents is one of migration of species followed by isolationthe question of evolution is irrelevant. As he puts it, Speciation could be disregarded. (414) 6 This passage continues in a similar vein enumerating the attributes of God:The true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and from his other perfections, that he is supreme or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. (Newton, 1687, 370)This God hardly sounds like an irrelevant character! A physics professor from California State University at Long Beach testified in a court case that Newton would not be recognized as a credible scientist if he persisted in maintaining a creationist position as he did in Mat hematica Principia. (Vardiman, 1997) Who is having the appearance of a closed mind? 7The more I think about this, the more I am baffled. Even a cursory check of a high school European or American History text shows how important religion was in those three centuries or so. Even those who were opposed to religion (e.g., Voltaire) were very conscious of it and spent a lot of time and energy refuting itand not because of any supposed scientific evidence. That really came with Huxley. I begin to wonder that the author, the publisher, many reviewers, and the Pulitzer committee can all be so ignorant of history. Is it deliberate? Are they all stupid or careless, or are they conscious that they are misinforming us? If they are honest and intelligent, then they must be anti-evolutionists trying to show how shaky the theorys foundation is. 8 Luthers strong words against Aristotelianism can be found in Martin Luther, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, 1520, in Three Treatises, Ph iladelphia: Fortress, 1970, 92ff. (Proposition 25). Note 186 on page 92 of this particular edition notes that Roger Bacon and Erasmus also criticized the emphasis on Aristotle in medieval education. Roger Bacon is usually credited with being the developer of the scientific method in the fourteenth century. A Franciscan monk, he spent between two and ten years in prison for heresy. The record is sketchy, but likely this was because of his non-Aristotelian and non-scholastic views. Though he remained a Catholic, Erasmus, a contemporary and sometime friend of Luther, called for reforms similar to Luthers including more use of the Bible in the church. BibliographyLinks may be subject to change, especially links to articles. Links from longer works are as close as possible to relevant material or quotations. Some on-line sources are different editions or translations from those used in this text so the wording may vary. Some on-line articles may be condensed. Aristotle. c. 350. Meteorolo gy. Trans. E. Webster. The Internet Classics Archive. 1997. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/.22.iipart8.html (29 Dec. 1997). Bergman, Jerry. 1995. The Galileo Affair Continues. Contra Mundum. 1997. http://www.wavefront.com/~contra_m/cm/features/cm15_galileo.html (28 Dec. 1997). Bethell, Tom. 1976. Darwins Mistake. Harpers, Feb. 1976: 70-75. Brackman, Arnold C. 1980. A Delicate Arrangement: The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. New York: Times Books. Darwin, Charles. 1958. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. Rpt.; New York:W. W. Norton and Co., 1969. The date is not a mistake. Darwins heirs did not release his memoirs until 1958. _______. 1859. The Origin of Species. 1997. http://www.literature.org/Works/Charles-Darwin/origin/ (28 Dec. 1997). Diamond, Jared. 1993. Who Are the Jews? Natural History, Nov. 1993: 12-19. Drake, Stillman. 1996. Galileo. Microsoft Encarta, 1996 ed. CD-ROM. Gillispie, Charles Coulston. 1960. The Edge of Objectivity. Princeton NJ:Pr inceton Univ. Press. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1993. The First Unmasking of Nature. Natural History: April 1993: 14, 16-21. Halle, Louis J. 1970. The Storm Petrel and the Owl of Athena. Princeton NJ:Princeton Univ. Press. Loomis, Louis Ropes. 1943. Introduction. Aristotle. On Man in the Universe. New York: Walter J. Black. Luther, Martin. 1520. To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. Trans. Charles M. Jacobs and James Atkinson, 1966. Three Treatises. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970. See also http://iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/nblty-07.html. Majerus, M. E. N. 1998. Melanism: Evolution in Action. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. McKinney, H. Lewis. 1972. Wallace and Natural Selection. New Haven CT:Yale Univ. Press. Morrison, Douglas R. O. 1997. Bad Science, Bad Education. Scientific American, Nov. 1997: 114-118. See also http://www.sciam.com/1197issue/1197review1.html. Newton, Sir Isaac. 1687. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Trans. Andrew Motte and Florian Cajori, 1939. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Quammen, Peter. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions. New York: Scribner, 1996. The 1995 Pulitzer Prizes, General Nonfiction: Jurors. 1997. The Pulitzer Prizes. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1995/general-non-fiction/jury/ (28 Dec. 1997). Ruse, Michael. 1979. The Darwinian Revolution. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Shakespeare, William. c. 1598. A Midsummer Nights Dream. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993. See also http://quarles.unbc.edu/midsummer/amnd5-1.html. Thoreau, Henry David. 1854. Walden and Other Writings. Ed. Joseph WoodKrutch. New York: Bantam, 1962. See also http://dev.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction/thoreauh_wald/wald_ch1.html for malaria reference and http://dev.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction/thoreauh_wald/wald_ch17.html for chapter with references to spontaneous generation. Trachtman, Paul. Book Reviews. Smithsonian, Aug. 1998: 118-121. See also http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/aug98/bookreview_aug98.html#one Vardiman, Larry. 1997. Newtons Approach to Science. Impact, 296: i-iv. See also http://www.icr.org/research/lv/lv-r03.htm. Wong, Kate. 1998. Ancestral Quandary. Scientific American, Jan. 1998: 30, 32. See also http://www.sciam.com/1998/0198issue/0198scicit3.html.

An A to Z List of Countries That No Longer Exist

An A to Z List of Countries That No Longer Exist As countries merge, split, or simply decide to change their names, the list of countries that no longer exist has grown. The list below is far from comprehensive, but it includes the most notable former countries. Abyssinia Also known as the Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia was a kingdom in northeast Africa. In the early 20th century, it split into the states of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Austria-Hungary A monarchy established in 1867, Austria-Hungary (also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire) included not just Austria and Hungary but also parts of the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Romania, and the Balkans. The empire collapsed at the end of World War I. Bengal Bengal was an independent kingdom in southern Asia that existed from 1338 to 1539. The area has since been divided into the states of Bangladesh and India. Burma Burma officially changed its name to Myanmar in 1989. However, many countries still have not recognized the change. Catalonia Catalonia was an autonomous region of Spain. It remained independent from 1932 to 1934 and from 1936 to 1939. Ceylon Ceylon was an island country located off the coast of India. In 1972, it changed its name to Sri Lanka. Corsica This Mediterranean island was ruled by various nations over the course of its history but had several brief periods of independence. Today, Corsica is a department of France. Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia was a country in eastern Europe. It peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. East Pakistan This area was a province of Pakistan from 1947 to 1971. It is now the independent state of Bangladesh. Gran Colombia Gran Colombia was a South American country that included what is now Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador from 1819 to 1830. Gran Colombia ceased to exist when Venezuela and Ecuador seceded from the union. Hawaii Though a kingdom for hundreds of years, Hawaii wasnt recognized as an independent country until the 1840s. The country was annexed to the United States in 1898. New Granada This South American country was part of Gran Colombia from 1819 to 1830 and was an independent country from 1830 to 1858. In 1858, the country became known as the Grenadine Confederation, then the United States of New Granada in 1861, the United States of Colombia in 1863, and finally, the Republic of Colombia in 1886. Newfoundland From 1907 to 1949, Newfoundland existed as the self-governing Dominion of Newfoundland. In 1949, Newfoundland joined Canada as a province. North Yemen and South Yemen Yemen split in 1967 into two countries, North Yemen (a.k.a. the Yemen Arab Republic) and South Yemen (a.k.a. the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen). However, in 1990 the two rejoined to form a unified Yemen. Ottoman Empire Also known as the Turkish Empire, this empire began around 1300 and expanded to include parts of contemporary Russia, Turkey, Hungary, the Balkans, northern Africa, and the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire ceased to exist in 1923 when Turkey declared independence from what remained of the empire. Persia The Persian Empire extended from the Mediterranean Sea to India. Modern Persia was founded in the 16th century and later became known as Iran. Prussia Prussia became a Duchy in 1660 and a kingdom the following century. At its greatest extent, it included the northern two-thirds of modern Germany and western Poland. Prussia, by World War II a federal unit of Germany, was fully dissolved at the end of World War II. Scotland, Wales, and England Despite recent advances in autonomy, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, both Scotland and Wales were independent nations that eventually merged with England to form the United Kingdom. Sikkim Sikkim was an independent monarchy from the 17th century until 1975. It is now part of northern India. South Vietnam South Vietnam existed from 1954 to 1976 as the anti-communist counterpart to North Vietnam. It is now part of unified Vietnam. Taiwan While Taiwan still exists, it is not always considered an independent country. However, it did represent China in the United Nations until 1971. Texas The Republic of Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836. It existed as an independent country until it was annexed to the United States in 1845. Tibet A kingdom established in the 7th century, Tibet was invaded by China in 1950. Since then, it has been known as the Xizang Autonomous Region of China. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) For decades, this country was the most powerful communist nation in the world. In 1991, it broke into 15 new countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldovia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. United Arab Republic In 1958, non-neighbors Syria and Egypt joined together to form the United Arab Republic. In 1961, Syria abandoned the alliance, but Egypt kept the name United Arab Republic for itself for another decade.

Can Participatory Democracy Replace Representative Democracy Politics Essay

Can Participatory Democracy Replace Representative Democracy Politics Essay Over the past years, it has been observed that liberal democracy and it is choices of representations that is founded on appropriation of power through provoked consent has not been able to deliver freedoms and development and therefore, is considered a non functional choice. This essay is arguing that participatory democracy is not only a viable alternative to representative democracy. But it is the only viable option for the troubled societies of the modern era; it descends from democracy in its true form â€Å"direct democracy† and hence leads to progress and development. Which constitute it attraction as a renewed theory seeks response to representative democracy crisis. This essay used the model of Kerala in India to provide a case example of that participatory democracy with all its positive achievement is yet, to be empowered through proper participation and enriched experiences. Using critical analysis the essay will provide discussions on the notions of democracy in general, representative democracy and its critiques and overview of participatory democracy origins and features shortly try to draw the distinction between participatory democracy and deliberative democracy consecutively then overview of discussions around the Model of Kerala participatory democracy, finally discussions between PD/RD in the context of the developing world. Democracy: the contested notion According to William Connolly, democracy is a fundamentally contested notion on which it is impossible to reach an agreement (Barber, 1984). Although the differences in opinions might be frustrating it still does not destroy the worth of the contested concept. Before we indulge in the discussion whether participatory democracy is a viable alternative to representative democracy or not, we must understand what those terms stand for and how contested visions interpreted them, but first understanding the term democracy in its essence. Although a recent article by Nobel laureate Amarty a Sen (2005) highlights revealed evidences that democracy has been theorised in many civilisations including Asian, African as well as in European and American. But, as part of our â€Å"Eurocentric† knowledge (said 2003); the word democracy commonly makes its origins from ancient Greece. With the supremacy of the Roman Empire, the theory of democracy declined. However, it found its way back into the European thought with the fall of the Roman Empire, primarily because of the translation of Aristotle’s â€Å"politics† into Latin in the early 1260s. (Beetham 2005) Since then debates on democracy have become a vital part of the Western culture and have continued to grow and merge into mainstream thought process. It is interesting to note that when Aristotle spoke about democracy in his work, he meant direct democracy; a form in which people rule and are ruled in turn. The underlying issue is that self-government is deemed as a critical element of democracy or in f act the essence of democracy. In present times where most discourses on democracy are occupied by discussions on election; elections are held for relatively longer times, indulge in exhaustive policy-drafting roles, the conditions of democracy are not met and hence the government no longer remains a democracy but turns into an oligarchy, despite the participation of all citizens in the election process. However, with due course of time, with redefinition, the notion of democracy has gained a new history to a certain extent, one which has almost nothing to do with its roots in ancient Greece (Bruce 2004). The previous concept of democracy had evolved because of historical incidents where lower classes, mostly the peasants, acquired a more active and unique civic status. Hence this form democracy origin begins with European feudalism rather than Athenian democracy.

News Log Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

News Log - Essay Example The misconduct occurred in the Metropolitan Police Services, where the information of the Crown’s case was leaked to the News of the world. The investigation by the Metropolitan police revealed that this hacking activity was not restricted to a single reporter, but has a wide network with several people being involved in it, who would be caught soon. Casburn, with an annual salary of  £65000, was working as the Detective Inspector of terrorist activities in the Metropolitan Police Services, defended her act of hacking by saying that she wanted to bring the news in front as her departmental members were not serious about the case (Laville, 2013). Not being a very strong point, her defense was rejected by the jury committee. This conduct of hers has letdown the name of her police department and her colleagues have no soft corner for her. Eleveden and Tuleta, members of the operation panel said that Casburn has misused her position and in no ways deserves anything less than hig h penalty (Laville, 2013). They added that leaking or publicizing confidential information can be justified at some occasions, when the intention is to stop corruption. However, in Casburn’s case the intention was to make money and that cannot be justified in any case (BBC Radio, 2013). Two bomb blasts occurring in the interval of about 10 minutes took the life of more than 92 citizens with over 147 been injured. Early in the morning there was another blast in the marker area of Quetta, Baluchistan which killed 11 people and more than 27 were injured. It was followed by a series of two blasts back to back in the evening, occurring in an interval of just 10 minutes, killing further 87 people and about 120 being injured badly, as reported by the police officers. These blasts took place in the snooker hall at Quetta, where the majority of the gathering were Shia Muslims (BBC , 2013). This was another act of

The Transformational Power of Music Research Paper

The Transformational Power of Music - Research Paper Example Music has the power to move a person through more than just the sounds within the ear. Music is emotional, editorial, and connected to memory. The way music sounds gives cues to the meaning of imagery. Music is a culturally defined experience, the language of music designed by learned understandings of associations. How the memory creates emotional responses to music is defined by the associations that have been made. This is one of the reasons why writing about music can be difficult as it is better to describe the feeling it evokes than to try and write about the sound. How it feels can be described from one point of view, but how it sounds is defined through the interpretation of each individual. Music is a complex experience that stimulates the emotional memories within the mind. According to Meyer, the meaning of music is based upon cultural learning, societies determining how to take the cues that are placed through the sounds that are made in their music (2). Sounds are not un iversally understood, the semiotic language developed through the associations that are made to the music. According to Cohen â€Å"when we emphasize music’s universality, we might mislead ourselves into thinking that musical elements can be borrowed from here or there, without paying sufficient attention to distinct cultural meanings, such as the sacred dimensions of performance† (27). However, she goes on to say that the aptitude and capacity for music is universal even though how those capacities are shaped is defined by cultural learning (Cohen 28).

The film versions Essay Example for Free

The film versions Essay The setting in this version is very ominous. It begins with a boy, Pip walking along a road past the gallows, which gives the audiences the feeling that danger is about because gallows were we criminals were murdered so it hints that a criminal is about. The sky is gloomy and looks like it is going to rain. You can tell this even though it is not it colour. As Pip goes into the graveyard, you can see the empty moors in the background. The graveyard looks intimidating because of the gravestones that look like people so it seems like someone is watching Pip, this makes the audiences feel like someone is watching them too. As there is no one about, it makes it more frightening because there is no one to see what happens or anyone to look after Pip. This is exaggerated because there are no people around so it makes it daunting. All together the setting is a place that most people wouldnt go to unless there was a good reason or if they did go in they wouldnt go in alone. This makes the audiences fell nervous and part of the action. There is a lot of sound in the 1946 version, the wind is howling and you can hear the trees creaking, because of new technologies and special effects some people might say the it sounds fake but it would have sounded very atmospheric at the time it was made. The sounds make the audiences feel like they are in the situations where the wind is howling and the tress are creaking. When Pip speaks his voice sounds very innocent and childish which makes the audiences think he is more venerable, Magwitch voices is dark, menacing and forceful which would send a chill down the audiences spin. The differences in the voices and the atmospheric sounds build up the tensions in the first scene. Pip is dressed in poor-looking clothes but he still looks like he is well cared for because he is wearing warm clothes, we already know from the sounds that it was cold, the wind in the trees. Magwitch is wearing rags and looks poor and scruffy. We know that he is a criminal because of the shackles around his feet. Portraying them like this tells the audiences straight away who the people are so it doesnt need to be explained. The lighting is used to great effect and helps create the atmosphere which colour does now. Although there is not any colour they are still ably to show some things though light. You can tell if it is light black and white or dark black and white. The most effective part is when Magwitch has Pip on the gravestone, when you see the both together it looks like Pip is in the light and Magwitch is in the dark, this is trying to express that Pip is nice and innocent and Magwitch is the malevolence person, this is done by making the light and setting brighter behind Pip than it is behind Magwitchs this makes the audiences think Pip is nice and Magwitch isnt all though they my not notice it. Nonetheless the light helps you to feel what the setting is like for, example the dark sky suggests it gloomy, if you didnt use lighting it would make it harder to tell. Being in black and white some people say it looks boring but I think it creates a misty atmosphere that adds to build the tension. The camera changes between the two characters Pip and Magwitch and doesnt show them both together to start with, this is done quickly when each one is talking, doing these speeds up the pace of the first scene. It only showed part of their face to start with not all of it. Its also effective when Magwitch looks down at his feet, which shows us the shackles, this is done because it make the audience feel like they know what he is thinking. Having the camera change between the two doesnt give the audiences time to take in the face until it show them together, this makes the audiences eager to see what he looks like.

Value of Health Care Essay -- United States Healthcare

The Value of Health Care The development of value based healthcare reimbursement systems between healthcare payers and healthcare providers is evolving from the need to provide patients with beneficial healthcare technologies under conditions of significant economic uncertainty. The concept examined centralizes on shifting the focus of the healthcare system from volume to value. Value is measured by outcomes achieved based on a full cycle of care not volume of services rendered based on each service performed. Summary of Article The article chosen for this assignment was published on December 23, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine (Porter, 2010). The author, Porter (2010) examines the role of value in the healthcare system in the United States. According to Porter (2010) â€Å"Value should define the framework for performance improvement in healthcare.† Porter indicates that value in healthcare should be measured by outcomes achieved not the volume of services rendered. According to Porter (2010), â€Å"The proper unit for measuring value should encompass all services or activities that jointly determine success in meeting a set of patient’s needs. Posistive and Negative Affects, Cost, Quality, Access, Trade-offs The national pay for value based system development has positive and negative aspects. System implementation will require multiple entity participation. Hospitals, physicians, outpatient centers, and clinics all will be responsible for collaboration in developing an integrated communication system which will present additional expense on the front end. Government mandates will be required; from implementation dates to specified circumstances in which assistive funding may be available. Multi provider ... ...g outcomes are important actions towards improving outcomes. True reform will require both moving toward restructuring the care delivery system and a national system of consistency, regulation and payment. References Lee, T.H. (2010). Putting the value framework to work. New England Journal of Medicine. 363:2481-2483 Porter, M.E., (2010). What is the value in healthcare? New England Journal of Medicine. 363:2477-2481 Porter, M.E., (2009) A strategy for helath care reform – Toward a value-based system. New England Journal of Medicine. 361:109-112 Carlson, J.J., Sullivan S.D., Garrison, L.P., Neumann, P.J., Veenstra, D.L. (2010). Linking payment to health outcomes: A taxonomy and examination of performance-based reimbursement schemes between healthcare payers and manufacturers. Health Policy, 96(3), 179-190. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2010.02.005

Distingusih Between Assertive and Submissive Style of Communication

Distinguish between assertive and submissive style of communication What are assertive and submissive styles of communication? Assertive communication is a way of acting that does not make the people to hurt physically or emotionally. In addition, it allows us to declare our own rights and the rights of others. We are able to show our feelings, wants and needs openly. When we communicate with other people, we are open to listening their feelings or needs as well as are willing to compromise. Thus, it consists of strong self-esteem, self-respect and self-confidence.Submissive communication is a passive action that is self-denying and not searching for achieving goals. Moreover, it does not express needs, wants, opinions or feelings and then it always avoids conflict even though it is discomfortable. When we fail to communicate our concerns or hesitations, other people will not know how we feel or will misinterpret our actions. There are two differences between assertive and submissive style of communication such as behaviors and responses. To begin with, behavior is a difference of these communications.This is because assertive behavior is to pretend in a sense, which is neither passive nor aggressive. It demonstrates honest, self-confident and direct communication. When we are able to behave as an assertive person, we will express and use direct ways, which respect the feeling of the other people. For example, while you and your friend discuss about the assignment, you listen what your friend want to say first and then you give feedback honestly what it should be or not. Submissive behavior gives the priority to the other and is afraid of meeting conflict.It allows others to dictate to them, denies their rights and ignores the needs. In group projects, some group members take one task of their projects. Then, only one person needs to take two tasks of the projects but he has to do another project. Nevertheless, he does not refuse the tasks to take. And then he does not express the feeling that is not comfortable. Response is a kind of verbal and non-verbal interaction between the speaker and the listener. A basic assertive response may involve a simple request such as â€Å"You can help me how to calculate the equation†.But using â€Å"I† statement is not simply response to other people ‘s statement. For example, â€Å"I like the way you handled this project† or â€Å"I feel good when you accept my opinion†. In submissiveness, its response can encourage treatment that reinforces a passive role. While the underlying causes of passive responding are often poor self-confident and self-esteem, passive responding itself can serve to further reduce the feelings of self-worth. For instance, if a submissive person may tend to have poor eye contact that he has trouble looking others in the eye.He does not use any gestures when he is talking with someone as well as he doesn’t show much expression on his face . If he does responses an expression, it’s probably a constant smile or a blank look. In conclusion, behaviors and responses are the ways of acting in communication. We do need to be careful in using behaviors and responses as some of these actions will lead to bad attitude. We will apply suitable behaviors and responses in appropriate situation. I think that using assertive style can get successful in life because it is not anxious to face good things or bad things.However, submissive communication cannot achieve the goals hopping in the mind owing to the fact that it fears to experience an unmet thing. References Harris, G. (2011). The difference between Passive, Aggressive and Assertive Communication. The Recovering Engineer. Retrieved on March 19, 2013, from http://recoveringengineer. com/2011/10/ Changing Minds. (n. d. ). Submissive Behavior. Retrieved on March 20, 2013, from http://changingminds. org/techniques/assertiveness/submissive_behavior. htm

Cement Sector in Pakistan

1. INTRODUCTION 2. 1 Objective and Scope The report will present a holistic overview of the industry; current situation, industry structure, critical revenue and cost drivers, exposure of BOP in the sector and its future outlook. 2. 2 Cement Sector of Pakistan The Cement sector of Pakistan has 23 players, operating 29 units, with a total production capacity of 44. 8 million tons, divided into North and South, as follows: North Zone| South Zone| * Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa| * Sindh and Baluchistan| * 19 manufacturing units| * 10 manufacturing units| * 80% of rated capacity, i. . 35. 9 million tons| * 20% of total rated capacity, i. e. 8. 9 million tons| The overall capacity utilization of the sector, as per FY-10 dispatches is at 76%. The basic raw materials for cement include limestone (upto 80%), clay (upto 15%) and gypsum (5%), all of which are abundant in Pakistan making basic raw material very cheaply available to cement manufacturers. None of the cement producers in Pakist an enjoys any material product differentiation because of the highly standardized nature of product therefore consumers usually regard ‘price’ as a key determinant. Major constituents of the cost are energy & power – over 60% of cost of production of cement – and transportation costs. In addition to these elements efficiency of production process is critical in keeping the overall cost structure competitive. In this regard, size of the plant, its age, and origin – European or Chinese – are of importance. Until recent years, almost all the plants operating in the country were based on furnace oil, but the increasing furnace oil prices forced the cement industry to switch over to Coal-powered/dual-fuel plants. However, the price of coal has shown significant volatility over the recent periods therefore, some producers, having dual-fuel plants, use a mixture of coal and gas, alternating between the two as per changes in prices and availability. 2. 3 Cement Sales during FY-10 Compared To FY-09 Source: All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association As per All Pakistan Cement Manufacturer’s Association (APCMA), the cement sales in FY-10 totaled 34. 20 million tons, registering a decent Year-on-Year (YoY) growth of 9. 30% compared to 31. 29 million tons in FY-09. The local dispatches remained at 23. 54 million tons, up YoY 14. 63% compared to 20. 53 million tons in FY-09 whereas export sales in FY-10 remained almost flat with a minor decline at 10. 66 million tons, down YoY 0. 89% compared to 10. 75 million tons in the previous year. As shown in the table, the local sales were the primary driver behind the growth. It is pertinent to note that the growth on the local front was mainly private-sector driven rather than Government’s infrastructure spending, showing signs of recovery in the construction sector. 2. INDUSTRY STRUCTURE 3. 4 Industry Characteristics Cement industry is highly cyclical in nature and its performance depends largely upon the economic growth of the country. There is a high degree of correlation between the GDP growth and the growth in local cement consumption. Source: State Bank of Pakistan & All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association Cement exports depend largely upon the demand/supply situation, price levels and economic situation in the export regions. Cement, being a voluminous product, is a regional commodity. 3. 5 Critical Factors The cyclical nature of the sector along with excess supply situation, whenever it persists, makes cement price a very critical factor. Some level of industry ‘co-opetition’, i. e. cooperative competition, is evident in cement industries globally such as consensual pricing. In the absence of such an arrangement, along with a supply glut, cement industries have witnessed intense price wars. * Power & Energy costs c onstitute over 60% – 65% of the total cost of cement production. Therefore, smart inventory management of coal, along with hedging techniques etc. lead to significant savings in energy costs. * Plants closer to the port have cheaper access to exports and can maintain higher profit margins. Therefore, distance to port is an important consideration. * Leverage, both financial and operating, is a major concern owing to the price-sensitivity of the sector. Pakistan’s cement sector is highly leveraged. Cautious capital structure management and utilization of relaxations / incentives provided by the government, whenever possible, such as Export Refinance facility offered by the State Bank of Pakistan, create a significant difference. . 6 Industry Concentration Concentration refers to the number of major competitors in a given industry. This has important implications for the inherent profitability of a sector. We have applied the Eight-Firm concentration ratio to determine c oncentration in the cement sector. Concentration ratios can generally be categorized into low, medium, and high concentration being 0% – 50%, 50% – 80% and 80% and above, respectively. An eight-firm concentration ratio over 90% is a good indication of oligopoly, i. e. an industry dominated by a small number of sellers. Based on FY10 market shares, the Eight-Firm concentration ratio in cement sector is 80% which show clear signs of high industry concentration. Therefore, cement sector has an oligopolistic structure. However, given the excess capacity situation cement industry has been behaving like a ‘low concentration industry’ from time to time such as the intense price war in the recent past, spanning nearly a year, with participants vying for higher volumes. 3. 7 Market Share The following pie-charts show the local, export and total market shares of top 8 players in the sector for FY-10. The charts show that D. G. Khan Cement is the leading player in the local market (17% market share) closely followed by Bestway (16. 7%) and Lucky Cement (13. 3%). In the export market, Lucky cement leads with its roaring 32. 8% share, followed by D. G. Khan and Bestway cement’s 9. 3% share each. Overall, Lucky Cement appears to hold the highest market share (19. 4%), followed by D. G. Khan (14. 6%) and Bestway (14. 4%). Maple Leaf Cement ranks fourth in all three categories with 9%, 11. 1% and 9. 7% market share in the local, export and overall market. Source: Fortune Securities . SECTOR OVERVIEW – FY10 Cement Sector in FY-10 witnessed low prices, rising energy costs, slowdown in construction activities locally and regionally and a large amount of new supply availability in regional markets resulting in drying out of certain lucrative export avenues especially the Middle East. However, exports to African countries, Iraq, Sri Lanka etc. mitigated the effect and exports remained flat at 10. 66 million tones (YoY down 0. 89%). As expected by market participants and analysts local sales picked up to close the year at 24. 53 million tons (YoY up 14. 63%). Overall, the sector closed the year at 34. 20 million tones, registering a decent YoY increase of 9. 30%. Cement prices and energy costs remained the key issues in FY-10. Since the dismantling of the alleged cement cartel, after Competition Commission of Pakistan imposed a fine in the colossal sum of Rs. 6. 35 billion on 20 cement manufacturers (equivalent to 7. 5pc of each company’s FY08 net revenue), in August 2009, cement prices plunged and went down to Rs. 249/bag in North and Rs. 280/bag in the South zone, compared to Rs. 335/bag and Rs. 370/bag in FY09 in North and South, respectively. CCP’s decision has been challenged by the cement manufacturers on a number of grounds in the Lahore High Court, the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In all these cases stay orders have been granted by the Courts and the matter awaits court’s verdict. Given the increased overall supply in the regional markets, the cement export price hovered around $47-$52 per tone, compared to average export price of $60-$62 in FY09. On the other hand, energy costs remained on the rising trend and coal prices averaged around $88 (FoB) per ton compared to 2nd half FY-09 average of $70. Australian (Newcastle) coal price made its 18-month high of $108 (FOB) per ton on April 27, 2010, after making a low of around $61 (FoB) per ton in Mar-09 last year. Thus, as a result of subdued prices and increasing energy costs a sub-breakeven scenario prevailed in the industry for the most part of FY-10. In 9 months FY10, cement companies posted cumulative losses of Rs. 3. 3 billion compared to profits of Rs. 3. 7 billion in the corresponding period last year, YoY down 189%. Cement prices hiked by Rs. 40 per bag in North in June 2010. With no price moves in South – a region that was already enjoying higher prices due to lower intensity of price war largely for its geographical advantages – prices in the two regions finally came at par. FY-10 also saw the announcement of 35% inland freight subsidy, during March 2010, on cement exports. It is likely to make Pakistan’s cement exports more competitive in the regional market, as cement manufacturers will be able to reduce their export prices by almost 10% going forward, if needed, without hurting their margins. However, the government needs to make timely payments to the manufacturers for the subsidy to be of much use. Source: Invisor Securities Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics & Invisor Securities 4. SECTOR OUTLOOK 5. 8 Local market * Short Term Cement prices have risen by Rs. 24 per bag since the beginning of ongoing financial year to Rs. 312 and Rs. 325 per bag in North and South, respectively. This bodes substantially well for the sector after bleeding profusely in a price war and indicates a price consensus among the manufacturers. Also, we believe there is limited appetite for price wars going forward especially as seasonal 1Q demand slowdown kicks in (Monsoons, floods, Ramadan etc. ). The recent floods have severely affected the roads and the distribution network which will inevitably hurt the local cement sales as well as export sales to some extent. We expect cement demand from local market to remain subdued during first half of FY11, due to monsoons, flood related issues, slowdown in construction during winters etc. , and start picking up from 3Q FY-11, in the wake of reconstruction activities. Overall, we expect local dispatches to remain flat during FY-11 and believe that the real impact of the increased demand from reconstruction activities will materialize during FY-12. We believe the cement prices have hit the ceiling for now and do not expect further increase in them and expect the recent price hikes to sustain for a relatively longer time than the one-step ahead, two steps back situation that prevailed throughout FY-10. Going forward, Fauji Cement’s capacity expansion, due in FY-11, of 2. 27 million tons, would create downward pressure on utilization levels. However, we expect capacity utilization levels to remain between 70% to 75% range. * Medium to Long Term We have a positive outlook for the local market on a medium to long-term basis. The rehabilitation work along with construction of dams will boost demand and possibly push prices upwards as cement manufacturers operate on higher and higher capacity utilization levels. Construction of dams seems inevitable given the power crisis and the recent flood. The Council of Common Interests (CCI) unanimously approved the construction of Diamer Bhasha dam on July 18, 2010, leading the way for the release of funds from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The projected timeline for completion is stated till the end of 2019. Manufacturers estimate a total requirement of 9. 0 to 11. million tons cement for the project with annual demand in between 1. 0 to 1. 5 mn tons. While all northern manufacturers would directly or indirectly benefit from the project, we believe the big players such as Askari and Bestway would be the key beneficiaries with proximity to the project. 5. 9 Export Market We are pessimistic about the export dispatches during FY-11 owing to i) increased availabili ty of cement in the regional markets, especially after lifting of export ban in Saudi Arabia, ii) slowdown in construction in the Middle East and iii) local transportation problems ensuing from the flood. Therefore, we expect a decline of 10-15% in exports during FY-11. Our export price outlook remains flat around $45, keeping in view the competitive environment in the export market. During FY-10 exports to Qatar, Oman, UAE and Kuwait declined whereas exports to Afghanistan, Djibouti, Sudan, Sri Lanka and other African Countries increased, as shown in the chart. We expect the trend to continue going forward as cement producers penetrate further into the African markets. Source: TDAP 5. FINANCIAL ANALYSIS – CEMENT MAJORS 6. 10 Financial Analysis 6. 11. 1 Liquidity On 9M-FY10 basis, the top-7 cement players face a tight liquidity situation with Current ratio at 0. 71x, Quick ratio at 0. 63x, Cash Ratio at 0. 05x and an Operating Cash Flow ratio at 0. 16x. Among the Top-7, Attock Cement is most liquid with Current ratio at 2. 67x, Quick ratio at 2. 33x, Cash ratio at 0. 66x and Operating Cash Flow ratio at 1. 02x. Overall, the Top-7 Average liquidity ratios show a low ability to settle short-term financial obligations as well as finance additional sales without incurring further debt. 6. 11. 2 Financial Leverage Financial leverage (average) among the top-7 cement players is at 0. 1x, which seems moderate. Bestway, Maple Leaf and Pioneer Cement have financial leverage at 2. 32x, 3. 56x and 1. 64x, respectively, which is high. Lucky and Attock Cement have financial leverage in control, at 0. 35x and 0. 25x, whereas D. G. Khan Cement’s financial leverage stands at 0. 67x. The average Interest Coverage ratio is at 1. 04x, which means, on aver age, the cement players barely have enough earnings to meet their financial charges. Given the high financial leverage and low Interest Cover, we believe cement companies’ ability to take on further financing is highly subdued, with the exception of Lucky and Attock Cement. 6. 1. 3 Asset Utilization We have adjusted the Asset Utilization ratios to reflect the full year (extrapolated) sales by a 4/3 adjustment factor. The resulting ratios, fixed asset turnover at 0. 65x and total assets turnover ratio at 0. 45x, suggesting overall low asset utilization, point towards the capital intensive nature of the industry marred with low capacity utilization levels. Among the top-7 players, Lucky Cement seems to have the most efficient asset utilization with fixed assets turnover at 0. 90x and total assets turnover at 0. 75x levels. Lafarge Pakistan cement’s asset utilization ratios rank lowest among the Top-7, being 0. 3x and 0. 11x on a fixed and total assets turnover basis, res pectively. Lafarge’s extremely low asset utilization levels call for further investigation into the causes. 6. 11. 4 Profitability We have adjusted the Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) ratios to reflect the full year (extrapolated) sales by a 4/3 adjustment factor. The resulting ratios suggest moderate gross profitability and basic earnings power, at 21. 26% and 9. 68%, respectively. However the final profitability is extremely low at 0. 03% reflecting the sky-rocketing financial charges. Bestway, Maple Leaf, Lafarge and Pioneer have negative net margins at -6. 7%, -18. 33%, -24. 86% and -14. 38%. Attock Cement appears most profitable during the period under review, with Net margins at 13. 32% followed by Lucky Cement at 12. 02%. Both these players have managed to post decent net profitability partially due to higher retention prices in South, compared to North, and higher export contribution margins. During 9M-FY10, Maple Leaf, Lafarge and Pioneer Cement pos ted negative Basic earnings power at -3. 14%, -13. 94% and -10. 95%, respectively, which points towards the intense price war, especially in North, throughout the period under review. D. G. Khan cement has managed to post a decent EBIT margin, at 16. 91%, however, the financial charges, which amount to Rs. 1. 5 billion for 9M-FY10, have left only 3. 79% in net margin. 6. 11. 5 DuPont Analysis DuPont analysis is an expression which breaks Return on Equity (ROE) into three parts, profit margin, asset turnover and equity multiplier representing, the operating efficiency, asset utilization efficiency and financial leverage, respectively. Our DuPont analysis of the top-7 players suggests that the main reason behind the low industry ROE during the period under review has been low profitability. The price wars during the period under review, along with high financial charges have severely affected the ROE. Asset utilization is not too healthy either, but is moderate. 6. 11. 6 Conclusion Based on our financial analysis, we have a liking for Lucky and Attock Cement and feel that these are safe companies to lend to. D. G. Khan Cement seems to be under stress at the moment due to its current maturity of long-term debts, worth Rs. 4 billion (approx. ), and an O/S Forex loan of US$ 40 million (FY-09 carrying value Rs. 3. 5 bn), payments commencing June, 2011, therefore it is expected to go for re-financing arrangements with banks. However, strong sponsors’ support, good reputation, largest local and 2nd largest total market share, large portfolio of liquid investments worth Rs. 17 billion (approx. ), and Income from investments serve as strong mitigating factors. Bestway, Maple Leaf and Pioneer Cement have financial leverage ratios at 2. 32x, 3. 56x and 1. 64x levels which are certainly not sustainable. The DuPont suggests both profitability and leverage are a cause of concern for these companies. Lafarge Pakistan’s low profitability and poor asset utilization have greatly affected its financial results. Overall, we recommend caution for the above three players.

Review of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Review of 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell To over-generalize, there are two types of nonfiction books worth reading: those written by an eminent specialist summarizing the current state of his or her field, often focusing on the singular idea that defines the authors career; and those written by a journalist without special knowledge about the field, tracking a particular idea, crossing the boundaries of disciplines when required by the pursuit. Malcolm Gladwells Blink is a bravura example of the latter sort of book: he ranges through art museums, emergency rooms, police cars, and psychology laboratories following a skill he terms rapid cognition. Rapid Cognition Rapid cognition is the sort of snap decision-making performed without thinking about how one is thinking, faster and often more correctly than the logical part of the brain can manage. Gladwell sets himself three tasks: to convince the reader that these snap judgments can be as good or better than reasoned conclusions, to discover where and when rapid cognition proves a poor strategy, and to examine how the rapid cognitions results can be improved. Achieving three tasks, Gladwell marshals anecdotes, statistics, and a little bit of theory to persuasively argue his case. Gladwells discussion of thin slicing is arresting: In a psychological experiment, normal people given fifteen minutes to examine a students college dormitory can describe the subjects personality more accurately than his or her own friends. A cardiologist named Lee Goldman developed a decision tree that, using only four factors, evaluates the likelihood of heart attacks better than trained cardiologists in the Cook County Hospital emergency room in Chicago: For two years, data were collected, and in the end, the result wasnt even close. Goldmans rule won hands down in two directions: it was a whopping 70 percent better than the old method at recognizing patients who werent actually having a heart attack. At the same time, it was safer. The whole point of chest pain prediction is to make sure that patients who end up having major complications are assigned right away to the coronary and intermediate units. Left to their own devices, the doctors guessed right on the most serious patients somewhere between 75 and 89 percent of the time. The algorithm guessed right more than 95 percent of the time. (pp. 135-136) The secret is knowing which information to discard and which to keep. Our brains are able to perform that work unconsciously; when rapid cognition breaks down, the brain has seized upon a more obvious but less correct predictor. Gladwell examines how race and gender affect car dealers sales strategy, the effect of height on salary and promotion to top corporate positions, and unjustified police shootings of civilians to demonstrate that our unconscious biases have genuine and sometimes tragic consequences. He also examines how the wrong thin slice, in focus groups or in a single-sip test of soft drinks, can lead businesses to mistake consumer preferences. There are things that can be done to redirect our mind along lines more conducive to accurate thin-slicing: we can alter our unconscious biases; we can change products packaging to something that tests better with consumers; we can analyze numerical evidence and make decision trees; we can analyze all possible facial expressions and their shared meanings, then watch for them on videotape; and we can evade our biases by blind screening, hiding the evidence that will lead us to incorrect conclusions. Takeaway Points This whirlwind tour of rapid cognition, its be, efits and pitfalls, has only a few pitfalls of its own. Written in a forthright and conversational style, Gladwell makes friends with his readers but rarely challenges them. This is science writing for the broadest possible audience; people with scientific training may chafe at the substitution of anecdote for study results, and may wish that the author had gone into greater depth with any or all of his examples; others may wonder how they can broaden the reach of their own attempts at rapid cognition. Gladwell may whet their appetites but will not fully satisfy those readers. His focus is narrow, and this helps him meet his goals; perhaps this is appropriate for a book titled Blink.