Patrick wants to make Banana Argument the standard expression for non-starter arguments made by fundamentalists against science.
The irony runs further than that. The staple banana is, in fact, so perfectly designed for mass production and human consumption such that it's in perpetual risk of extinction. How? All the staple bananas you see in grocery stores belong to an Asian variety called the Cavendish. Perhaps "variety" is not the right word here -- they are clones to each other, genetically identical like twins. Therefore, if any disease can kill a banana plant, it can kill all banana plants. This hypothetical scenario is already happening: this month's issue (November 2008, p.) of National Geographic Magazine reports that Panama disease, caused by fungus, is wiping out the staple banana, starting from Malaysia. The same disease has done this before with a different, long-gone banana variety called Gros Michel ("Big Mike"). The Cavendish was thought to be immune to the disease, but the new strain of the fungus proved otherwise. In the evolutionary arms' race between host and disease, the one with less diversity runs out of ammo first.
Unfortunately, human civilization is becoming more and more like the doomed staple banana. Christianity alone has () followers, and the number grows by () each year. As Christianity spreads, other belief systems like paganism, indian tribe legends (used as a gross umbrella term here), Mayan? are driven to extinction. Ideas advocated by Christianity are accepted as matter-of-fact and written into laws. People consider themselves as managers of the resource on Earth, and one-step monogamous marriage to be part of their inherent nature. Numerous offsprings were considered a good thing, and to some extent still is for religious Americans.
To certain degree, this is inevitable. it's easy to see how belief systems advocating more offspring, asserting rights to use nature resources, and encouraging followers to evangelize every single foreign culture would win against more pacifist belief advocating living harmonious with nature. The same thing can happen even without supernatural belief -- Confucius believes, while explicitly agnostic, easily defeated the more pacifist 墨家 and more nature-harmonious 道家 , the forebear of Taoism to become the state-belief-system of China for thousands of years. More offsprings were also traditionally considered a good thing in China, even without obvious connection to Confucius believes.
Is such cultural monopoly a good thing? The answer so far is mixed at best, and most likely "No" in the foreseeable future. Recent report estimates that western diet caused () deaths around the world due to increased risks of (). Western cultural influences are also shown to have negative effects on females' idea of body image, causing diseases like anorexia. The western idea of marriage has disrupted the gradual approach to marriage in India, erroneously labelled as "child marriage" in the west. (bad consequences.) And if Coming of age in Samoa is anywhere near the truth, the matter-of-fact turbulent adolescence in the modern society is most likely just a problem manufactured by western culture, totally solvable. Sadly, it's now impossible to verify () Mead's work because the Samoa described no longer exists. We also have to walk in the dark now if we want to solve the adolescence problem instead of adolescents' problem, because significant society untouched by western culture or Christianity is now nowhere to find.
The most urgent issue is the preservation of the only known habitable planet, an idea somehow labelled environmentalism in English instead of just part of common sense. Sustainability is
Unfortunately, human civilization is becoming more and more like the doomed staple banana. Christianity and its close cousin Islam combined have () followers, and the number grows by () each year. At the same time, other belief systems like paganism, native American legends (used as a gross umbrella term here), (Persian fire-worshipping) are driven to extinction or near extinction. As ideas carr
Will human being's (almost) monoclonal culture eventually deny ourselves our future?
