Carter Phipps has been executive editor of the now defunct EnlightenNext magazine, formerly known as What is Enlightenment? In this role, Phipps did many interviews with leading authorities in the fields of science and spirituality. He also authored many essays, among which in 2007 an intriguing overview essay about the many meanings assigned to the term “evolution”, called “The REAL Evolution Debate”, in a special issue devoted to “The Mystery of Evolution”. Over the years, this essay grew into the book.
In this highly readable and informative essay, Phipps distinguished no less than twelve approaches to evolution. Usually only two or three reach the media spotlights (i.e. 1. neo-Darwinism and 7. Creationism, otherwise known as Intelligent Design), which severely limits the number of intellectual options available. (Though truth be told, perspectives 1-6 can be qualified as scientific; perspectives 7-12 are better seen as speculative, so Darwinism and Creationism are iconic for their respective fields).
Some of their current or historic representatives are listed here, Phipps mentions many more, including their main works and historical influences:
Gerald O. Barney, Council on Environmental Quality
5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligence with Integrity Ignored by Government and Private Sector,September 20, 2012
This treasure was included in my donation to George Mason University of my entire library, and only now do I wish I could pull it down to look at the table of contents and the conclusions. It *is* available online as a free pdf but I strongly recommend buying one of the used copies offered above, there is no substitute for the hand-eye-brain engagement with a physical book.
There has been no lack of intelligence in the USA, either in the IQ sense of the decision-support sense. What has been lacking is integrity at all levels. Junior bureaucrats follow orders from senior bureaucrats who follow orders from political appointees who follow orders from elected officials whose only priority is to get re-elected, to keep the USA in a two-party monopology, and to retire without having actually addressed any real problems.
I do not agree with the excessive conspiratorial thesis of the other review–none of the conspiracies would work if our electoral system and our government retained their integrity. That is in my view the central problem of our time: restoring integrity to government so that We the People may be well-served by all organizations, public and private.
VITAL POINT: The USA has been both the 25% innovator and the 25% waste producer including a plentitude of toxins beyond most people's imaginations. The onlything we might reasonably offer the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East is a model for getting it right — for ceasing with doing the wrong things more expensively, and instead doing the right things with applied intelligence — design — replete with integrity that produces sustainable outcomes. Absent that, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Wild Cards like Turkey will rule the world and we will — as they have been to the USA — mere collateral damage.
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Narrative–Could the Book Tour Spark a Revolution?, September 11, 2012
EDIT of 12 Sep 2012: I spent the night thinking about this book. Directly below [and now also loaded as a graphic to this Amazon page] are a graphic showing the preconditions of revolution in the USA, and the short paper on revolution from which the graphic was drawn Here's the deal: ample preconditions exist for a public overthrow of the two-party tyranny, but a precipitant (such as the fruit seller in Tunisia) has not occurred. Even though 18 veterans commit suicide day after day after day, this is hushed up. Occupy blew it–they should have occupied the home offices of every Senator and Representative and demanded the one thing Congress could deliver that would energize the public: the Electoral Reform Act of 2012. This book by Hendrick Smith, and the book tour, could be a first step toward mobilizing a complacent public. [search for phrases below to get right to them]. Don't miss all three graphics above with the cover.
Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today
1992 MCU Thinking About Revolution
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I received this book as a gift today (I am unemployed and can no longer afford to buy books very often), and a most welcome gift it was. The author's earlier books were in my library, now resting peacefully at George Mason University, and I was quite interested in seeing what he makes of the mess we are in.
The book is a solid five. I would have liked to see a great deal more outrage, a lot more calling of a spade a spade (abject corruption on the part of all concerned), but that is me. The author has created a very compelling narrative that manages to avoid offending anyone in particular, and I can only feel inadequate in admiration for his balance. If I were to re-write this book, most readers over 40 would be dead of a heart attack by chapter four. On second thought, not killing the reader with truth may have its own special merits!
“The Penguin and the Leviathan” it's the interesting book about the dynamics of cooperation and working in collaboration in the 21st Century. The main thesis of this book is to debunk the notion of a selfish human nature and how this knowledge can better serve our societies. Israeli-American author and professor of Law, Yochai Benkler, uses the latest in multiple converging scientific fields and a variety of examples to illustrate the power of cooperation. This 272-page is composed of the following ten chapters: 1. The Penguin vs. the Leviathan, 2. Nature vs. Culture, 3. Stubborn Children, New York City Doormen and Why Obesity Is Contagious: Psychological and Social Influences on Cooperation, 4. I/You, Us/Them: Empathy and Group Identity in Human Cooperation, 5. Why Don't We Sit Down and Talk About It?, 6. Equal Halves: Fairness in Cooperation, 7. What's Right Is Right — or at Least Normal: Morals and Norms in Cooperation, 8. For Love or Money: Rewards, Punishments, and Motivation, 9. The Business of Cooperation and 10. How to Raise a Penguin.
I'm a Bruce Schneier fan. I read his blog regularly and I think he's one of the smartest and most forward thinking security experts working today. I bought this book without even looking.
Perhaps I should have. It wasn't what I expected and because of that, I was let down and disappointed. Which reflects in my low rating. It's certainly a well written book and well researched and makes very good points. Too bad it wasn't very interesting to me.
5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Wake Up Call – The Democracy That Never Was….,September 3, 2012
It is a telling sign of the ignorance across the USA and elsewhere that there is no other review of this book, a book that was brought to my attention recently when I made it known that I was beginning to question the US Constitution's sanctity, having already concluded that the USA is as Matt Taibbi puts it so well in Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History, a merger between criminal corrupt complicit government and criminal corrupt financial gangs whose crimes are either legalized or ignored (“control fraud”).
I find it very sad that I had to reach the age of 60 and have several years of unemployment on top of my life experience and multiple graduate degrees before I could ingest the reality that the USA is a democracy but that this does not mean popular self-rule, nor did the Founding Fathers every intend for it to be a direct democracy. The USA is a republic of, by, and for the wealthy, and I consider it quite timely and helpful that this book may be making a comeback in the consciousness of the avant guarde that always sets the stage for a revolution–and I do believe a revolution is coming in the USA.
2.0 out of 5 stars Mind-Numbing Waste of Time and Money,September 2, 2012
I am *stunned* that any Comptroller General would sign off on this. In my 33 year government career this is the densest most meaningless compilation of words (no pictures, no figures, no timelines, no lists) of gobbly-goop I have ever seen (of course there are a great many such products from other government agencies I have not seen). If I were the Comptroller General, not only would I not sign off on this, I would consider permanent exile for the entire team responsible for this. It fails to enlighten or communicate — it is more like a “cover your ass” document.
In theory, this book is about independence of audits and the professional management of audits. In fact, this is strung together text, all of it making sense in isolation, and none of it useful to actually doing a real audit meaningful to We the People. This is a classic example of doing the wrong thing righter (Russell Ackoff).
The more I read into this the sadder I got. I have known for a long time that GAO, CBO, and CRS are creatures of a very corrupt Congress, and that Congress actually reserves the right to tell them what their assumptions (code for outcomes) will be, but until I read this I did not realize how disconnected the whole process is. Now I have to emphasize that I value actual GAO reports and I would never consider doing an internal executive audit without consulting both GAO and OMB (which does not do management, but you can at least try to find someone who's heard of the concept). What this book does is give me pause — if this is the GAO “foundation work” if causes me to wonder what else about GAO is so corrupt (in the holistic not making sense of the word).
This book is available free online at the GAO website. I bought it because it never occurred to me that GAO would produce something from the Stone Age, and for serious thinking, I have to have it in writing in front of me subject to annotation and hand-eye-brain coordination.
Here is the larger bottom line:
a) Congress authorizes and appropriates money based on corruption, personal, financial, and ideological — as long as Congress is getting its standard 5% kick-back, they will authorize and appropriate anything, from the bridge to nowhere to a stealth fighter that does not work as advertised, is unaffordable, and coated in toxins that kill the pilots stupid enough to fly something the USAF swears is safe.
b) GAO is only authorized to audit for compliance with the original corrupt authorization and appropriation. They are not authorized to blow the whistle on insane, unaffordable expenditures.
c) Within the Executive, taking NSA as a classic example, the focus is on keeping money moving and growing the pie because that is how the Executive creates more and more flag and senior executive positions, and that is how those flags and senior executives “pay forward” the reverse bribes that will get them follow-on careers with the contractors that will build any insane unafforable and generally inoperable (SAIC and Trailblazer come to mind) “capability” that Congress has authorized and appropriated.
d) When NSA is inspected from within the Executive, the focus is NOT on the why, on the cost, on the “fit” with any given strategy or other related programs, but on the allocation authority and whether NSA is spending the money as directed, never mind whether it works or not. This is one reason why I believe that both Inspectors General and Operational Test & Evaluation should be part of the Intelligence Directorate of any given Cabinet office, just as I believe that education, intelligence, and research must be asuthorized, appropriated, allocated, constructed, and evaluated as a whole.
It is with a grimace that I prepare to donate this book to the Oakton VA library. It is a perfect example of corrupt perfection. Argh.
Robert David Steele
INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability
The Evolution Religion: Making Sense of Evolution,August 15, 2012
A Very Good Book on Cooperation,July 14, 2012
