My comments about religion were comment about religion was independent of my comment about evolution. That is why they appear as separate comments. Mr Daly conflates the two to construct a false narrative.

I tried to explain to Mr Daly that evolution was all about and in particular that it is not so random as he suggests. It is unclear whether or not Mr Daley understands my point but I am dismayed that he responds with a non sequitur:

“Are we humans to accept Malthusian overpopulation just because the selective pressure of high death rates is required by neo-Darwinism?”

I do not think that there would be many scientists who would want to promote overpopulation. Indeed, am a scientist and I don’t personally know any who do. (OK, Freeman Dyson is denies both overpopulation and global warming, but Dyson has become more of an advocate for religion than science. Dyson has 6 children, so he practices what he preaches.) Neither did Malthus promote overpopulation, quite the contrary, Malthus seemed to be in great anguish about social structures that force continued population growth in the face of severe deprivation.

Since then, scientists have provided us with effective means of birth control. More importantly, “the light” of science has relieved us from “monkish ignorance” (Thomas Jefferson). Now a good number of men and women (unfortunately not all) have the freedom to control of their own fertility and even the ability to increase the odds that progeny will be healthy!

I certainly do not accept overpopulation. The Catholic Church (and the present Pope) categorically do accept the present level of overpopulation and accept further increases of overpopulation. When you look at the context around the Pope’s “Catholics should not breed like rabbits” statement you realize that it’s just another diversion.

It is fair to say that Hitler promoted population growth (for Germans) and that he implemented a program of unnatural selection. I doubt that Hitler was smart enough to have foreseen the structure of DNA let alone to understand the modern synthesis of evolution with genetics — what we properly call Neo-Darwinism. But let’s pretend that he did and that he approved of it. Does that discredit Neo-Darwinism? No more than it discredits men who don’t shave their upper lip.

As a scientist, I do not think that humans are biologically locked into overpopulation. Indeed, there is scientific evidence to the contrary and it is totally consistent with biological theory. Writing in 1980, Paul Colinvaux made an attempt to describe the human breeding strategy as follows:
“Each couple has as many children as they think that they can afford.”
This is not inconsistent with Darwin and it does not automatically condemn humanity to overpopulation.
But what it does show is that human perceptions matter to the issue — and perception must be based upon fact, not propaganda, and certainly not upon religious dogma.

This piece has made me take another look at carbon credits – until now I have been one of those who saw this as an example of trying to use the tool responsible for the breaking to do the fixing. I absolutely agree on a carbon price although that price has to be more realistic than what we currently have in BC. Being a Green Party member, I feel we should be using 3BL accoounting in all cases.

I also feel that a comprehesive, global financial breakdown would be the least dangerous of the options for visible catastrophe and am hoping for a spread of the “Greek problem”. This would probably be better than a fast destabilization of methane hydrates or continuing and expanding drought leading to worldwide famine over a short period of time.

I will eagerly await a Papal Encyclical based on the idea “that Catholics don’t need to breed ‘like rabbits,’” but without dangerously bated breath.

‘Contraction & Convergence’ (C&C) has always (since it was introduced in 1995/6) specifically meant and modeled that a ‘negative growth’ of the GHG emissions causing global climate change is necessary at a rate that is sufficient, to arrest this change.

Beyond that, C&C has explicitly said from 2000 onwards that if damages induced by climate change continue to out-pace ‘economic growth’, damages will swallow growth within a generation (this could be an interpretation of Herman Daly’s very helpful concept of ‘uneconomic growth’: – http://www.gci.org.uk/images/5_Stack.pdf

All this is now modeled in the 4 Domains of the ‘Carbon Budget Accounting Tool (CBAT).
CBAT is a heuristic ‘user-chooser’ (inter-active) on-screen tool embracing these issues: – http://www.gci.org.uk/CBAT_MkII_Explanation.html

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jun/23/the-pope-united-nations-encyclical-sdgs?CMP=new_1194&CMP=