Part 2 (From our archives)
THE WAR OF IDEAS NEVER RESTS BECAUSE IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. 

By Chris Talbot – wsws.org
This is the second of a three-part series comprising a lecture by WSWS correspondent Chris Talbot to meetings of the International Students for Social Equality in Britain. Part 1 was posted on June 17 and Part 3 on June 19. 

There is a wealthy and powerful movement of the Christian right in the United States that has, and still is, attempting to stop Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution being taught in schools as the basis of all biological science. It has done this by putting forward a completely unscientific defence of religious obscurantism, generally based on literal interpretations of the Bible. At first this was known as creationism. By the 1980s as many as 27 states in the US had proposed legislation that, whilst it couldn’t oppose Darwin being taught, demanded that so-called creation science was taught as well. Creationism was obviously religious. It proposed creation of the universe a few thousand years ago, a big flood, etc., so in 1987 its teaching was ruled to be illegal by the Supreme Court. As a result of the American Revolution, there is a separation of church and state and religion cannot be taught in schools, as it is in Britain.

The religious right in America found a way round this ban. They rewrote their material, avoiding any explicit religious references and simply replaced the word creationism with the phrase “Intelligent Design.” In this they received the backing of the Bush administration, which saw the Christian right as a key constituency.

In 2005 there was a famous federal court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Right-wing fundamentalists had taken over a school board in Pennsylvania and attempted to put Intelligent Design on the syllabus along with Darwinian biology. In the course of this case it was established beyond all doubt that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has been fully vindicated, is scientifically proven and is the basis for all biology. Moreover, the continuity between creationism and Intelligent Design was established as it was shown that the original Creationist text, Of Pandas and People, had been merely modified and that references to creationism had been replaced by “Intelligent Design.”

But demands for Intelligent Design to be taught in US schools or introduced into academia did not end. There is a lot of financial backing for reactionary religious ideology. We reported in 2005 on the World Socialist Web Site that the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, which is state-funded and the most prestigious natural history museum in the US, agreed to the showing of a documentary on Intelligent Design put out by the main body funding this attack on Darwin, the Discovery Institute based in Seattle. [8] January’s edition of Scientific American, which is devoted to evolution, discusses the work of the Discovery Institute and the campaign to demand “academic freedom,” portraying teachers who take up their agenda as unfairly victimised. They insist on being able to “teach the controversy” and to use “critical analysis” regarding evolution, as though Intelligent Design can be put on a par with Darwinism.

There are many influential voices in Britain who would like to promote the same strategy, and I’m not just referring to Biblical literalists. Writing recently in the Spectator, journalist Melanie Phillips attacked one of the scientists who played a key role in the Dover trial, Professor Ken Miller.[9] Miller explained how the religious right had repackaged creationism as Intelligent Design. “The court was simply wrong,” writes Phillips, “doubtless because it had heard muddled testimony from the likes of Prof Miller.”

Instead she demands that we accept the claims of the Discovery Institute, or, as she states: “Creationism comes out of religion while Intelligent Design comes out of science.”

Tony Blair and the Labour government recognized there were potential supporters on the Christian right, following, as in every aspect of politics, the Bush regime. They pioneered faith-based schools and allowed state schools to attract private cash by becoming academies. The Emmanuel Schools Foundation controls four of these academies in the North East of England. They are state schools, but they are effectively run by a Christian fundamentalist, Sir Peter Vardy, who made his money through the Reg Vardy Group of car dealers. The Foundation claims it no longer teaches creationism, but it certainly did do so for several years, as the British Centre for Science Education revealed.[10] It is only as a result of campaigns by such bodies, and because of lobbying from scientists, that the Labour government, after 10 years in office, eventually put out a statement in 2007 stating that “creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science.” It can still presumably be taught in other subject areas. I am sure that if Blair had got his way we would have Intelligent Design taught in schools everywhere.

Evidence for evolution

Perhaps I can digress slightly here by referring briefly to the wealth of material—some of it presented in the Dover case, some of it very recent—that confirms Darwin’s theory. This has been called the golden age of biological science, compared to the golden age of physical science in the early 20^th century and I think that assessment is correct.

One can certainly recommend as a starting point the recent BBC documentary by David Attenborough, “Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life,” in which he tackles the standard arguments against evolution in a clear and informative manner.[11] One of the issues raised by the Christian fundamentalists is the question of how the eye evolved. Nobody has ever seen a creature with half an eye, they say. Attenborough shows creatures with eyes or proto-eyes in various stages of development and refutes that objection to Darwinism.

Another common argument against evolution is the supposed gap in the fossil record between the Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian period. The fossil record shows what is often referred to as the Cambrian explosion of diverse species. Creationists claimed that some nonmaterial intervention is necessary to explain this phenomenon. But there is now an increasing body of fossil evidence from the Pre-Cambrian period. Attenborough shows some fossils from Charnwood near Leicester, 560 million years old, some of the oldest in the world, from well before the Cambrian period.

There does appear to be a considerable increase in the number of species dating from the Cambrian, found, for example, in the Burgess Shale formation in Canada, and involving some very strange looking creatures. When the famous paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould suggested that our conventional idea of evolution would need to be modified to explain this phenomenon, the Intelligent Design people seized on his remarks. However, one of the main experts on the Burgess Shale, Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University, has demonstrated that the Cambrian “explosion” can be explained by conventional Darwinian theory.[12]

This is just one example of the way in which scientific understanding of evolution has increased in the last few years. By comparing the DNA of many creatures, a vast mine of information has been built up that helps explain much more about evolution, giving a new kind of “fossil” record in the genes themselves. It is even possible to construct a “tree of life,” based on the hundreds of genomes that are now available, as well as the human genome.[13]

We have come to understand that the genes controlling the making of an insect’s body and organs are the same as the genes that control the making of our bodies. It is how these genes are used that determines the vast range of creatures stemming from the Cambrian. Sean B. Carroll, an expert in what is called “evo-devo,” has written popular books on this area of study. [14]

We should also briefly mention the important work done on bacteria, such asE.coli.[15] They make up 1 percent of the bacteria inside us, some million million (one and twelve zeros). Professor Richard Lenski and his team at Michigan State University have been studying evolution in the laboratory by investigating how E.coli breed under different conditions. They have found 100 beneficial mutations in 40,000 generations of bacteria, showing evolution actually at work. Scientists have also unravelled the metabolic pathway inE.coli, involving 1,260 genes and 2,077 chemical reactions, allowing them to construct computer models of these creatures.

Establishment religion

After considering the issue of Intelligent Design, right-wing opponents of Darwinian science and its teaching in schools, let us consider the position of the established Christian churches. They claim to be supporters of Darwinian evolution. Provided it is recognized that natural science applies only to the material world, they claim they can happily coexist with and even encourage Darwin’s theory. For the Church of England this was the position it had largely adopted by the time Darwin’s Origin was published. God had set the natural world in motion in biology, just as he had done before in Newtonian physics. However, the spiritual world, the world of morality and human consciousness, was the legitimate domain of the Church.

It would seem that science could happily coexist with this religious position in a sort of division of labour. I think this view is profoundly mistaken. It is not just religion as a private matter that is involved here. In the case of individual belief, we stand for freedom of opinion and are opposed to all forms of religious oppression. But what is involved here is the ideology of the religious establishment, an integral part of the ruling elite. Unlike the US we have in Britain a state-funded church, unelected Bishops in the House of Lords, and daily religious services are compulsory in schools. We also have church-run schools of many denominations.

The religious establishment’s claim to support science is misleading. The Theos think-tank,[16] backed and well funded by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, recently commissioned an opinion poll asking the question: Do you agree with the statement: “Evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages”? Fifty-one percent of those questioned agreed with the statement, while 32 percent agreed that “God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years.”

The cause for this level of ignorance is not hard to find. Science is taught in schools according to the Labour government’s National Curriculum and has suffered a longstanding decline. Evolution is not taught in schools at all, apart from the small numbers who specialize in biology. The science syllabus for Key Stage 4, which is taught to all 14 to 16-year-olds, does not mention Darwin’s theory. The low-level educational standard is reflected in a poll taken last year showing one third of science teachers thought that “creationism should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom.”

Theos is not about to take up the case for science education or to criticize the government. Instead the think-tank has used the results of the poll to promote a campaign against atheism. They have concluded, “Darwin is being used by certain atheists today to promote their cause. The result is that, given the false choice of evolution or God, people are rejecting evolution.”

Since virtually no prominent scientist apart from Richard Dawkins is widely reported speaking out against religion, we have the astonishing argument that ignorance about evolution is supposed to be caused by just one atheist academic. We should point out as well that Dawkins spends much of his time writing about and teaching Darwin’s theory, his post at Oxford being Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. Compared to the huge number of media hours devoted to religion, his atheist views get negligible coverage.

Dawkins is not a Marxist and we have disagreed with some of his political views, but his materialist outlook and vigorous defence of science is what brings down the wrath of the Church.

Theos then followed up their poll by organizing a letter to the press, calling on “those contemporary Darwinians who seem intent on using Darwin’s theory as a vehicle for promoting an anti-theistic agenda to desist from doing so, as they are, albeit unintentionally, turning people away from the theory.”

To their shame, it was signed by a number of prominent scientists and philosophers, persuaded to take up the Church’s cause.[17]

Expressed in the Theos letter is a definite anti-Enlightenment agenda that wishes to control and restrict science. It reflects a definite ideological outlook. Consider the approach taken by Simon Conway Morris, who is undoubtedly a very good paleontologist, but who belongs to that minority of scientists who are devout Christians.

In his recent book Life’s Solution, [18] he expresses the reactionary outlook of the religious establishment. Conway Morris says we must acknowledge there are limits to knowledge and science and there are areas that are “too dangerous in our present level of understanding to explore.” He warns that the “architecture of the universe need not be simply physical” and “unrestricted curiosity and the corruption of power are not necessarily fables.”

It is true that without foresight and careful planning, and certainly under the agenda set by corporations to maximize their profits, there can be unintended side effects resulting from technological developments. But what Conway Morris is saying is that science must be kept within narrow limits and to recognize that there are areas beyond its remit. Instead of a vision of human consciousness as the highest product of nature, understanding its laws and controlling it for the benefit of all, we are being enjoined to return to the fearful religious outlook from before the 17th century Scientific Revolution and before the Enlightenment. It is a perspective that expresses the inherent conflict between developments in biological science and the religious establishment.

To be continued

Notes:

[8] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/smit-j20.shtml

[9] http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3573761/creating-an-insult-to-intelligence.thtml

[10] http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/

[11] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1589429273035937450

[12] Simon Conway Morris, The Crucible of Creation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.

[13] See e.g. http://www.physorg.com/news152377707.html

[14] Sean B. Carroll, loc.cit., see also Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Pheonix, London, 2007.

[15] See Carl Zimmer, Microcosm, Heinemann, London, 2008.

[16] http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/

[17]http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Scientists_and_religious_leaders_call_for_end_to_fighting_over_Darwin%27s_legacy_.aspx?ArticleID=2867&PageID=110&RefPageID=110

[18] Simon Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

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Part 1 (From our archives)
By Chris Talbot, wsws.org

This is the first of a three-part series comprising a lecture by WSWS correspondent Chris Talbot to meetings of the International Students for Social Equality in Britain. Part 2 was posted on June 18 and Part 3 on June 19.

We have organised these meetings of the International Students for Social Equality in honour of Charles Darwin from a different standpoint from the many other bicentenary events. We want to bring out the connection between Darwin and that other great thinker of the mid-19^th century, Karl Marx.

Charles Darwin

The importance of Marx hits you when you take in the events of the last few months. We are now in a world economic crisis comparable to, if not more severe than, that of the 1930s, which will have a major effect on all of our futures. Current economic theory completely failed to predict this crisis. The economists cannot explain how it happened and have no answer to it [1]. In contrast, Karl Marx spent much of his life developing an economic analysis that explains the inherent instability of capitalism and provides a scientific basis for the development of the socialist working class movement.

Superficially, it may seem there is not much of a connection between Darwin, the retiring English gentleman, and Marx ,who along with Frederick Engels, was involved in revolutionary communist activity for most of his adult life. But Marx and Engels themselves immediately recognised the significance of Darwin’s theory when On the Origin of Species appeared 150 years ago. Engels wrote to Marx in 1859, just after he had read the first edition of Darwin’s book [2]:

Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.

The last sentence is a reservation that Engels and Marx held—only in private it must be stressed—regarding the methodological approach of Darwin. But throughout their lives they insisted on the importance of Darwin’s work. Teleology, meaning a divine purpose which was working itself out in nature, had been demolished.

Most importantly, Darwin’s theory could “demonstrate historical evolution in Nature.” Here was the most significant development in natural science in the 19^th century, the culmination of the revolution in science that began 200 years earlier. Science was at the core of the Enlightenment, the liberation from religious and dogmatic thought that had developed in the preceding century, the outlook of “Dare to Know” in Kant’s famous dictum.

However, the tremendous strides that science had made were largely in physics and chemistry and they did not really involve evolutionary development, or history. It is true that geology, a science that does involve history, had become established, and work in evolutionary biology had begun, but it was still lacking a scientific basis. Darwin had brought about a revolution in thought that would place biology alongside the other natural sciences. And at its core was an explanation of historical development in nature.

Marx and Engels were well aware that to develop a scientific outlook on society—which was the only way that the emerging movement of the working class could establish socialism—a historical approach was needed. When Marx wrote in 1861 on Darwin he stressed this [3]:

Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle.

This historical approach is the essence of Marx’s method. It is derived from the dialectical approach of the great German philosopher Hegel, another product of the Enlightenment. By the mid-1840s, Marx and Engels had firmly established a materialist and scientific analysis of the historical development of human society, but throughout their lives they continued to develop this work, especially in Marx’s great contribution to the politically economy of capitalism.

In parenthesis it can be pointed out that there was something of a division of labour between them and it was Engels who tended to lead their studies in the natural sciences, as the 1859 letter shows. Even so, we now know from research done on the extensive libraries of Marx and Engels by the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam [4] that Marx read widely in the natural sciences after 1870.

Most of you are familiar with the key mechanisms of Darwin’s historical theory of nature that is now regarded as central to the whole of biology. There are the two sides to it—Natural Selection and Modification by Descent. As Darwin explains himself in the first edition of On the Origin of Species [5]:

Can it, then, be thought improbable . . . that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations I shall call Natural Selection. (Chapter IV)

Several classes of facts . . . seem to me to proclaim so plainly, that the innumerable species, genera and families of organic beings, with which this world is peopled, have all descended, each within its own class or group, from common parents, and have all been modified in the course of descent. (Chapter XIII).

Perhaps in parallel to presenting this core idea of Darwin’s theory, I can briefly set out Marx’s historical approach to society by quoting a footnote that Marx adds in Chapter 15, Section 1, in the first volume of Capital [6]:

Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in this, that we have made the former, but not the latter? Technology discloses man’s mode of dealing with Nature, the process of production by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that flow from them.

I hope this quote establishes briefly the mechanism of social development understood by Marx and the central role played by labour, “the productive organs of man.” As Marx explains, the social relations of society—fundamentally class relations—and the ideology that flows from them are rooted in the process of production. I will add also the second part of this footnote, as it very much relates to the subject matter of this talk.

Every history of religion, even, that fails to take account of this material basis, is uncritical. It is, in reality, much easier to discover by analysis the earthly core of the misty creations of religion, than, conversely, it is, to develop from the actual relations of life the corresponding celestialised forms of those relations. The latter method is the only materialistic, and therefore the only scientific one. The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own specialty.

Marx took a scientific materialist position, particularly in relation to religion. I will come back to the question raised about abstract materialism in the last sentence.

A vast range of developments have been made in biology since Darwin’s day and the excerpts presented here are only intended to present the essential elements of his theory. But it must be stressed that the synthesis with genetics that took place in the 1930s and 1940s and then the discovery of DNA in the 1950s and the understanding of the biochemical basis of genes since then have only validated Darwin’s basic theory.

We could make the same point about Marx. The development of imperialism at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century that led to two world wars and fascism has had to be extensively studied and explained from the Marxist standpoint. The 1917 Russian Revolution was a tremendous confirmation of Marx’s theory. It established the first workers’ state. The rise of Stalinism and the bureaucratic degeneration and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union called for extensive analysis, which our movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International has carried out.

The two great historical theories of the 19^th century, of Darwin and Marx—the pinnacle of Enlightenment thought—have fundamentally changed our understanding of the world. They were part of the development of science in its broadest form—the desire to comprehend the natural and social worlds in order to change them for the benefit of mankind.

Consider the letter from Darwin to Marx in 1873. Marx had sent him a copy ofCapital, and it is true, as cynical writers today such as Francis Wheen in his biography of Marx have pointed out, that Darwin’s copy only has the first 100 or so pages opened. But Darwin had a fiercely exclusive focus on his own specialized study and seldom strayed outside it. He wrote [7]:

Though our studies have been so different, I believe that we both earnestly desire the extension of Knowledge, & that this is in the long run sure to add to the happiness of mankind.

This approach—to extend knowledge for the benefit of mankind—was taken for granted by both Marx and Darwin and was widely accepted by intellectuals and scientists in that period. I maintain it is possible to retain it today despite all kinds of arguments that it is naïve, or utopian, that it doesn’t take into account so-called human nature, and so on. The many attempts, stemming from the Frankfurt School of social theory and developed by poststructuralists and postmodernists in the last two or three decades, to deny the objective materialist basis of science and to pour scorn on the achievements of the Enlightenment do not diminish the fundamental importance of this approach to knowledge.

This is a vast subject area that is central to the development of a socialist movement in the twenty first century. In this talk I just want to focus on two contemporary Darwinian issues that relate to these many attempts to attack science.

Firstly, I want to look at how evolutionary science is actually viewed today and how it is being dealt with by the political and religious establishment. Secondly, I want to look at controversies that have arisen over the last three decades or so relating to Marx and Darwin and that have created much confusion in understanding the important relationship between these two great thinkers.

To be continued

Footnotes:

[1] See for example John Kay, “How economics lost sight of the real world,”Financial Times, April 21, 2009.

[2] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/letters/59_12_11.htm

[3] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/letters/61_01_16.htm

[4] http://www.iisg.nl/imes/mega-summ.php#iv-31

[5] cited in Sean B. Carroll, The Making of the Fittest, Quercus, London, 2008.

[6] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S1(footnote 4)

[7] cited in Francis Wheen, Karl Marx, Fourth Estate, London, 1999.

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The announcement Monday by the US Supreme Court that it will review a decision striking down provisions of Arizona’s unprecedented anti-immigrant law casts a shadow over what had been considered historically settled questions affecting the democratic rights of the entire population.

Arizona’s reactionary Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (Arizona Senate Bill 1070) was passed by the state legislature in April of last year in the midst of a campaign led by the Tea Party to whip up nationalist and xenophobic sentiment. It was struck down in part by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year.

There can be no doubt that the Supreme Court’s intervention in the case is politically motivated, spearheaded by the right-wing four-justice block of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. Numerous commentators have remarked that the Court has rarely intervened in as many highly controversial and politically explosive cases in a presidential election year as the Roberts Court in the current term.

In this case, Arizona v. United States, the court intervened on its own initiative, not waiting for a final ruling on SB 1070 in the lower courts. Just three days before, on December 9, the Court issued a stay on the implementation of a Texas congressional redistricting plan that had been ordered by federal courts in place of a plan enacted by the Republican state legislature. The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the federal court-ordered plan, which is considered more favorable to the Democrats than the state proposal.

Last month, the court agreed to hear challenges to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul law.

The court’s intervention in the immigration case was cause for celebration among the right-wing supporters of the Arizona law. The state’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, announced her support for the Supreme Court’s intervention in a statement. “I am confident the high court will uphold Arizona’s constitutional authority and obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens,” she declared.

Arizona SB 1070, couched in militaristic language, purports to make “attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona.” Thus, the law’s openly declared purpose, in the name of ridding the state of so-called “illegal aliens,” is to harass, intimidate, and tyrannize Arizona’s immigrant population.

The bill’s provisions constitute a threat not just to the democratic rights of immigrants, but to the population as a whole. The bill grants police officers historically unprecedented powers, which the law then requires them to exercise.

Among SB1070’s more draconian provisions is the authority it grants to police to demand identification papers of any person whom the police “suspect” to be an undocumented immigrant. Such a brazenly discriminatory and racist provision has long been a prominent demand of extreme right-wing and white-supremacist groups.

Arizona SB 1070 also requires police officers to investigate the immigration status of anyone they encounter, even if it is for a routine traffic stop.

With deliberately vague and expansive language, SB 1070 also makes it a crime to “conceal, harbor, or shield” an undocumented immigrant. This provision, echoing the language of the US federal government’s vague “material support for terrorism” laws and the USA PATRIOT Act, threatens to criminalize broad sections of the population.

It goes without saying that these police-state measures flout the historic democratic protections in the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1791, declares that the “ right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,” and also that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” Arizona’s SB 1070 would empower officers, without a warrant and without probable cause, to carry out arbitrary searches and seizures, including by demanding “identification papers” from any person, citizen or otherwise, on a mere “suspicion.”

State legislatures in Alabama, South Carolina, Utah, Georgia and Indiana have recently enacted their own versions of SB 1070 attacking undocumented immigrants.

The Obama administration mounted a legal challenge to SB 1070 in July of last year. Significantly, it did not challenge the law on the grounds that it violated basic democratic and constitutional rights. The administration argued instead that SB 1070 interfered with powers exclusively vested in the president to set nationwide immigration policy. In April of this year, on these very limited grounds, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that a number of the most onerous provisions of SB 1070 would be struck down and invalidated.

Contrary to the position of the Obama administration—which strives at every turn to accumulate unlimited power in the executive branch—the power to regulate all issues affecting immigration and naturalization has historically been vested in the federal Congress, not in the president. The US Constitution gives Congress alone the power to “establish [a] uniform Rule of Naturalization.”

That SB 1070 is invalid under federal law is not particularly controversial from a historical and legal standpoint. Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar and the author of an authoritative treatise on US constitutional law, opined that SB 1070 “is clearly preempted by federal law under Supreme Court precedents.”

Obama appointee Elena Kagan, because she worked in the Obama administration’s Department of Justice before joining the Supreme Court, has recused herself from the case. Kagan’s recusal increases in proportion the strength of the right-wing four-justice bloc bent on ripping up the Bill of Rights.

There is a history in the United States to the question of the separation of powers between the federal and state governments. Not more than 150 years ago, the question of whether a confederation of southern states had “rights” as states to enforce black slavery was settled in a conflict in which 3 million men fought and 640,000 died.

In the 20th century, significant democratic measures were largely implemented under the framework of federal legislation. State law and so-called “states’ rights” were used as bulwarks for the defense of anti-democratic laws and policies.

The civil rights legislation of the 1960s, child labor laws, minimum wage laws and countless other reform measures were implemented by the federal legislature over and against opposition from state governments. In light of this history, the assertion by the state legislature of Arizona of the “right” to enact police-state measures targeting immigrants—and the US Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case after the Arizona law had already been struck down—has far-reaching significance.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, in her statement cited above, observed, “This case is not just about Arizona… it’s about the fundamental principle of federalism, under which these states have a right to defend their people.”

In yesterday’s New York Times, journalist and lawyer Adam Liptak pointed out that in a 2009 case involving a conflict over the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its effect on the state of Texas, Chief Justice John Roberts openly criticized the act, suggesting that provisions enabling the federal Justice Department to oversee and even veto changes in election procedures and laws in southern states with a history of racial apartheid were no longer relevant. In that case, however, the court did not actually reach and decide the question of federalism.

Liptak pointed out that the federal judges who overrode the Texas congressional redistricting scheme and ordered the plan that has now been stayed by the Supreme Court based their action on the very provisions of the Voting Rights Act that were questioned by Roberts.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the case, by the very fact that it has decided to hear an appeal of federal court rulings striking down key aspects of the Arizona anti-immigrant law, the Supreme Court has lent credibility to overtly anti-constitutional measures and emboldened the most reactionary political forces in the country. If the Court overrules the Ninth Circuit and allows SB 1070 to stand, this will have vast implications, opening the door for an intensified attack on the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and on democratic rights more generally.

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Changing the practices of the food industry is a collective action dilemma, in which individuals are tempted to shirk from private sacrifices that have marginal effects on aggregate welfare.

Will our 22nd-century descendants be as horrified that we ate meat as we are that our ancestors kept slaves?

One impediment is meat hunger and the social pleasures that go with the consumption of meat. Though traditional Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains prove that a meatless society is possible, the 3 percent market share of vegetarian diets in the US shows that we are very far from a tipping point. While gathering the data for this chapter, I was excited to stumble upon a 2004 Pew Research poll in which 13 percent of the respondents were vegetarians. Upon reading the fine print, I discovered that it was a poll of supporters of the presidential candidacy of Howard Dean, the left-wing governor of Vermont. That means that even among the crunchiest granolas in Ben-and-Jerry land, 87 percent still eat meat.

These imponderables, I suspect, prevent the animal rights movement from duplicating the trajectory of the other Rights Revolutions exactly. But for now the location of the finish line is beside the point. There are many opportunities in which enormous suffering by animals can be reduced at a small cost to humans. Given the recent changes in sensibilities, it is certain that the lives of animals will continue to improve.

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