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 WHY WE BELIEVE CONSPIRACY THEORIES PAGE
58

THE
INNER
LIVES OF
NEUTRON
STARS
Inside the densest
objects in the universe

S
PLU

TOOL USE IN MONKEYS

Archaeology’s surprising finds PAGE 64

UNDISCOVERED ILLNESS
The opposite of depression PAGE 36

WEATHER AMPLIFIER MARCH 2019

Weird atmospheric waves cause heat waves and floods PAGE 42 ScientificAmerican.com
© 2019 Scientific American
 M a rch 2 0 1 9

VO LU M E 3 2 0 , N U M B E R 3

42

A STROPHYSIC S C L I M AT E

24 The Inner Lives 42 The Weather Amplifier

of Neutron Stars Strange waves in the jet stream
What is inside these odd little foretell a future full of heat waves
stars—the densest objects in the and floods. By Michael E. Mann
universe—has long been one of B I O LO G Y
the greatest mysteries in space. 50 Untangling the Genome
Thanks to new experiments, it is a New discoveries on ancient loops
mystery that scientists are starting in DNA offer clues into gene regu­
to crack. By Clara Moskowitz lation. By Erez Lieberman Aiden
A N I M A L B E H AV I O R P S YC H O LO G Y
30 The Orca’s Sorrow 58 Why We Believe
A spate of new observations of Conspiracy Theories
grief in animals is providing Baseless theories threaten our
insight into why some species safety and democracy. It turns
mourn and others do not. out that specific emotions make
By Barbara J. King people prone to such thinking.
P S YC H I AT RY By Melinda Wenner Moyer
ON THE C OVE R
36 The Undiscovered A R C H A E O LO G Y
Neutron stars form when stars of certain masses
Illness 64 The Other Tool Users die in supernova explosions, leaving behind
JOSH EDELSON Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of people Excavations of stone tools left dense remnants made mostly of neutrons.
experience mania without ever behind by nonhuman primates Inside these remnants, the neutrons themselves
may break down, or they might form a friction­
getting depressed. Why does are illuminating the origins of
less “superfluid.” New experiments should help
psychiatry insist on calling them technological innovation. scientists sort through the possibilities.
bipolar? By Simon Makin By Michael Haslam Illustration by FOREAL.

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 1

© 2019 Scientific American

 3 From the Editor
4 Letters
6 Science Agenda
Autonomous robots that kill may threaten civilians
and soldiers alike. By the Editors
7 Forum
Genomic studies need diversity to make medicine precise.
 y Jonas Korlach
B
8 Advances
How a warming planet is making humans sick. Wasps
turn spiders into zombies. Einstein was right about
6 gravity. Drunk witnesses remember more than we think.
20 The Science of Health
Why body parts such as the appendix and tonsils aren’t
truly expendable. By Claudia Wallis
22 Ventures
Technology can make beautiful music. By Wade Roush
72 Recommended
The art of anatomy gives life to extinct hominins. Ein­­
stein’s first wife’s contribution to physics. Why do hu­­mans
regard humans as special? B  y Andrea Gawrylewski
73 The Intersection
Too much data can stymie our decision-making.
By Zeynep Tufekci
8
74 Anti Gravity
Evidence for parachute intervention. By Steve Mirsky
75 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago
76 Graphic Science
High noon (or close to it). By Nadieh Bremer

ON THE WEB

Revisiting Fukushima
Scientific American l ooks at the legacy of the Fukushima
nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011, and the science still
being done to grapple with its continuing effects.
Go to www.ScientificAmerican.com/mar2019/fukushima
74

Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 320, Number 3, March 2019, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Springer Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562.
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2 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

 FROM
Mariette DiChristina is editor in chief of Scientific American.  THE EDITOR
Follow her on Twitter @mdichristina

“Outrageous” focusing on these unusual objects. Dive in, starting on page 24.
The human genome’s DNA forms some 10,000 wiggling

Objects and
minuscule loops in our cells, which somehow avoid “tangling
into a mess” that would disrupt crucial genetic messages. These
loops, which turn out to be ancient structures in biology, are

Other Adventures involved in gene regulation and may hold clues to how many dis-
eases arise. As geneticist Erez Lieberman Aiden writes, “We and

in Science
others have figured out how these loops form, dancing an ele-
gant tango that keeps the genome tangle-free.” Beginning
on page 50, you can unspool the mystery in his feature,
“Untangling the Genome.”
“The most outrageous object t hat most peo- Several stories will take you on fascinating intel-
ple have never heard of,” as one scientist calls lectual voyages into the mind and behavior—and
it, is the subject of our cover story—and, to my not just those of humans. Contributing editor
mind at least, such amazing adventures in discov- Melinda Wenner Moyer looks at why some
ery make up a theme that resounds throughout people refuse to accept facts and data in
this Scientific American i ssue, among many others. “Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories”
What’s this intriguing object? In “The Inner Lives (page 58). “The Undiscovered Illness,” by
of Neutron Stars,” senior editor Clara Moskowitz journalist Simon Makin, explores the
writes about these strange cosmic things, which pack question of whether some bipolar patients
the mass of roughly two suns into a space no wider than who experience only mania should have a separate diag-
a city. They are born when stars die and collapse on nosis (page 36). Two articles look at cognitive areas at least partly
themselves. The extreme density created by stellar cataclysms is shared among animals. “The Orca’s Sorrow,” by science writer Bar-
the greatest amount allowed naturally in our universe and impos- bara J. King, finds evidence that a wide variety of animals are capa-
sible to come close to approximating in any laboratory on Earth. ble of mourning (page 30). “The Other Tool Users,” by independent
Understanding the phenomena that result under such conditions researcher Michael Haslam (page 64), looks at excavations of stone
is the tantalizing challenge of researchers, who are positioned to tools left behind by nonhuman primates and the origin of inno-
gain new insights from detectors capable of measuring gravita- vation. And get ready for more extreme summer weather, as expert
tional waves from neutron star collisions, along with experiments Michael E. Mann takes us on a tour of the jet stream (page 42).

BOARD OF ADVISERS
Leslie C. Aiello Edward W. Felten Lene Vestergaard Hau Satyajit Mayor Daniela Rus
President, Wenner-Gren Foundation Director, Center for Information Mallinckrodt Professor Senior Professor, National Center Director, Computer Science and
for Anthropological Research Technology Policy, Princeton University of Physics and of Applied Physics, for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, M.I.T.
Robin E. Bell Jonathan Foley Harvard University of Fundamental Research Eugenie C. Scott
Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Executive Director and William R. Hopi E. Hoekstra John P. Moore Chair, Advisory Council,
Earth Observatory, Columbia University and Gretchen B. Kimball Chair, Alexander Agassiz Professor Professor of Microbiology and National Center for Science Education
California Academy of Sciences of Zoology, Harvard University Immunology, Weill Medical Terry Sejnowski
Emery N. Brown
Jennifer Francis Ayana Elizabeth Johnson College of Cornell University Professor and Laboratory
Edward Hood Taplin Professor of
Medical Engineering and of Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Founder and CEO, Donna J. Nelson Head of Computational
Computational Neuro­science, M.I.T., Research Center Ocean Collective Professor of Chemistry, Neurobiology Laboratory,
and Warren M. Zapol Professor Kaigham J. Gabriel Christof Koch University of Oklahoma Salk Institute for Biological Studies
of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School President and Chief Executive Officer, President and CSO, Robert E. Palazzo Meg Urry
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Allen Institute for Brain Science Dean, University of Alabama Israel Munson Professor of Physics
Vinton G. Cerf
Harold “Skip” Garner Morten L. Kringelbach at Birmingham College and Astronomy, Yale University
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
Executive Director and Professor, Associate Professor and Senior of Arts and Sciences Michael E. Webber
George M. Church
Primary Care Research Network Research Fellow, The Queen’s College, Rosalind Picard Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,
Director, Center for Computational
and Center for Bioinformatics University of Oxford Professor and Director, Affective and Associate Professor,
Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Genetics, Edward Via College Computing, M.I.T. Media Lab Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Robert S. Langer
Rita Colwell of Osteopathic Medicine David H. Koch Institute Professor, Carolyn Porco University of Texas at Austin
Distinguished University Professor, Michael S. Gazzaniga Department of Chemical Leader, Cassini Imaging Science George M. Whitesides
University of Maryland College Park Director, Sage Center for the Study Engineering, M.I.T. Team, and Director, CICLOPS, Professor of Chemistry and
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Mind, University of California, Space Science Institute Chemical Biology, Harvard University
Meg Lowman
of Public Health Santa Barbara Senior Scientist and Lindsay Chair Lisa Randall Amie Wilkinson
Drew Endy Carlos Gershenson of Botany, California Academy of Professor of Physics, Professor of Mathematics,
Professor of Bioengineering, Research Professor, National Sciences, and Rachel Carson Center Harvard University University of Chicago
Stanford University Autonomous University of Mexico for Environment and Society, Ludwig Martin Rees Anton Zeilinger
Nita A. Farahany Alison Gopnik Maximilian University Munich Astronomer Royal and Professor Professor of Quantum Optics,
Professor of Law and Philosophy, Professor of Psychology and John Maeda of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Quantum Nanophysics,
Director, Duke Initiative for Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, Global Head, Computational Institute of Astronomy, Quantum Information,
Science & Society, Duke University University of California, Berkeley Design + Inclusion, Automattic, Inc. University of Cambridge University of Vienna

Illustration by Nick Higgins March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 3

© 2019 Scientific American

LETTERS
[email protected]

“The problems with change “the process and criteria for re­
drawing state legislative districts during
slavery would not reapportionment.” (While many argued
have been fixed that the ballot wording was deceptive, one
needs examine the details. The full state­
simply by calling ment can be found here: www.sos.mo.gov/
for more regulation elections/petitions/2018BallotMeasures)
I wonder if any of the ideas or analyses
and stiffer penalties.” Duchin presents could be used toward
marianne hillsouth portland, me. validating the method outlined in the
constitutional amendment before actual
redistricting maps are constructed.
James K. Boyce makes about the links be­ Moritz FarbsteinSt. Louis, Mo.
tween environmental degradation and
inequality in “The Environmental Cost of The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
Inequality” [The Science of Inequality]. process for redistricting that Duchin de­
But Stiglitz’s list of needed policy changes scribes requires the public to trust both
falls short, as does Boyce’s reliance on en­ the mathematics and the mathemati­
November 2018 vironmental activists to save flora, fauna cians. The possible configurations are so
and natural resources. enormous that it reminds me of all the
We know that the problems with slav­ possible outcomes in a game of chess.
INEQUALITY CONTROL  ery would not have been fixed simply by And yet even beginners play chess with­
Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz’s article (“A calling for more regulation and stiffer out being overwhelmed by the vast num­
Rigged Economy” [The Science of In­ penalties. Our laws today ensure that a ber of moves.
equality]) on how we got to today’s la­ few can claim excessive wealth and pow­ Perhaps the entire process could be
mentable economic state in the U.S. is er. By what right do those owning firms treated more like chess, with the two sides
spot on. Yet let me give my own, more have the power to decide how the in­ taking turns choosing a district to maxi­
simple explanation: When I was a young come and wealth generated by the talent mize its number of voters instead of let­
man, during the three decades after FDR and labor of many are used? Stakehold­ ting one side make all the moves for both.
and the New Deal, the maximum federal ers—employees, customers, the commu­ If one side outnumbers the other, that side
tax rate (applied at the time to income ex­ nities affected by a company’s decisions— may be given proportionally more choices.
ceeding an amount that has ranged be­ have rights that require greater recogni­ The final result would be approved by a
tween $100,000 and $500,000) was be­ tion. Stakeholders’ interests should be judge or a redistricting committee.
tween 70 and 91 percent. As such, federal rep­resented on the boards of big firms. There is no need to resort to the mas­
taxation was highly progressive; the rich Those with revenues exceeding $1 billion sive computations in MCMC as long as
were few and were not so obscenely should be required to have a national the process of choosing the districts is fair.
wealthy, and most important, the middle charter that would lay out obligations Benjamin Jones v  ia e-mail
class was dominant. In 1981, shortly after and penalties.
taking office, Ronald Reagan slashed the Where would the power to institute DUCHIN REPLIES: T  he Missouri amend-
top bracket’s rate to 50 percent and then, such changes originate? My fellow econo­ ment that Farbstein refers to belongs to a
in 1986, to 28 percent—a tremendous mists are very reluctant to talk about poli­ crop of state-level reform measures ap-
wind­fall for the rich that continues un­ tical parties, yet we want to influence po­ proved by voters in 2018 (joining Colora-
abated (today’s top rate is 37 percent on litical platforms. We can at least begin to do, Utah, Ohio and Michigan). Missouri’s
income exceeding $500,000). identify not only where the public interest was especially detailed: specific criteria
One has only to look at Stiglitz’s graphs, lies but also what kind of political group is were laid out, including a formula to de-
in which everything takes a turn for the most likely to represent those interests. fine “partisan fairness” and a precise way
worse after 1980, to see how our current Marianne Hill S  outh Portland, Me. to measure “competitiveness.” A legiti-
tax code lines the pockets of the rich and mate worry for such reforms is that trade-
steadily erodes the middle class. We either REDISTRICT JUDGE offs in redistricting priorities are so com-
return to a progressive tax policy or con­ In “Geometry v  .Gerrymandering,” Moon plicated that well-meaning rules might
tinue the descent into plutocracy. Duchin describes mathematicians’ efforts actually conflict or have unintended con-
R. C. Gibson Irvine, Calif. to create statistical methods to detect sequences. This raises scientific questions,
and replace biased voting district maps. and they are approachable! Sampling
I agree with the points that Stiglitz (who Last November’s election in Missouri from the universe of plans can illustrate
is my former professor) makes about the had an amendment on the ballot, ap­ the cost to one priority as another is intro-
causes of inequality, as well as those that proved by about 62 percent of the vote, to duced and can give a state-specific base-

4 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

 ESTABLISHED 1845

EDITOR IN CHIEF AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Mariette DiChristina
Curtis Brainard Maria-Christina Keller Michael Mrak
line or normal range for metrics used to MANAGING EDITOR COPY DIRECTOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR

evaluate a commission’s proposals. EDITORIAL

CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR Seth Fletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR Michael D. Lemonick
Regarding Jones’s letter: One of the FEATURES
problems caused by rampant redistrict- SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Mark Fischetti SENIOR EDITOR, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY Madhusree Mukerjee
SENIOR EDITOR, CHEMISTRY / POLICY / BIOLOGY Josh Fischman SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY / MIND Jen Schwartz
ing abuse is precisely the erosion of public SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Clara Moskowitz SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY Kate Wong

trust, and restoring it will require trans- NEWS

SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN Gary Stix ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Andrea Thompson
parency. MCMC for redistricting needs to ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Lee Billings ASSISTANT EDITOR, NEWS Tanya Lewis

be open-source, peer-reviewed and fully DIGITAL CONTENT

MANAGING MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Eliene Augenbraun ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Sunya Bhutta
auditable. In terms of the problem’s com- SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Steve Mirsky COLLECTIONS EDITOR Andrea Gawrylewski

plexity, strategy games like chess—or Go— ART

ART DIRECTOR Jason Mischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR Jen Christiansen
are great examples. The rules are simple, PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Monica Bradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE Ryan Reid
but mastery is elusive. ASSOCIATE GRAPHICS EDITOR Amanda Montañez ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Liz Tormes

Note that advocates of outlier analysis COPY AND PRODUC TION

propose to use MCMC only to evaluate SENIOR COPY EDITORS Michael Battaglia, Daniel C. Schlenoff COPY EDITOR Aaron Shattuck
MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR Richard Hunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER Silvia De Santis
plans and not to select them. There must
D I G I TA L
still be a role for local knowledge, commu- TECHNICAL LEAD Nicholas Sollecito PRODUCT MANAGER Ian Kelly WEB PRODUCER Jessica Ramirez
nity input and all things human. But a CONTRIBUTOR S
bird’s-eye view of the possibilities can help EDITORIAL David Biello, Deboki Chakravarti, Lydia Denworth, W. Wayt Gibbs, Ferris Jabr,
Anna Kuchment, Robin Lloyd, Melinda Wenner Moyer, George Musser,
ensure that no group’s interests are tram- Christie Nicholson, John Rennie, Ricki L. Rusting
ART Edward Bell, Bryan Christie, Lawrence R. Gendron, Nick Higgins
pled, no matter what process is used.
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Ericka Skirpan SENIOR SECRETARY Maya Harty
CORRELATION TO MURDER
Maia Szalavitz’s story “Income Inequality
PRESIDENT
and Homicide” [Forum] refers to psy­ Dean Sanderson
chologist Martin Daly’s assertion that in­ EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Michael Florek
come inequality predicts murder rates
CLIENT MARKETING SOLUTIONS
better than other variables do. VICE PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL Andrew Douglas
PUBLISHER AND VICE PRESIDENT Jeremy A. Abbate
I am perplexed by Daly’s use of mur­ MARKETING DIRECTOR, INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT Jessica Cole
der rates alone to nail down his conclu­ PROGRAMMATIC PRODUCT MANAGER Zoya Lysak
DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED MEDIA Jay Berfas
sions rather than looking at a more rele­ DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED MEDIA Matt Bondlow
SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR, EXECUTIVE SERVICES May Jung
vant tally of violent assaults overall.
Death rates alone are often used in dis­ CONSUMER MARKETING
HEAD, MARKETING AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Richard Zinken
cussions of gun violence and highway E-MAIL MARKETING MANAGER Chris Monello
MARKETING AND CUSTOMER SERVICE COORDINATOR Christine Kaelin
speed limits. And yet death is just one of
several possible outcomes of a violent as­ ANCILL ARY PRODUC TS
ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Diane McGarvey
sault. The end-of-year murder rate is CUSTOM PUBLISHING EDITOR Lisa Pallatroni
RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS MANAGER Felicia Ruocco
more dependent on the access and ac­
tions of responding EMTs and hospital C O R P O R AT E
HEAD, COMMUNICATIONS, USA Rachel Scheer
trauma teams. The impact of trauma cen­
PRINT PRODUC TION
ter success stories in high-crime areas ADVERTISING PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Carl Cherebin PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Madelyn Keyes-Milch
may be ignored in statistical studies and
yet might be the primary reason for drops
in regional murder rates.
LE T TER S TO THE EDITOR
John Andrews M  ilford, N.J.
Scientific American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004-1562 or [email protected]
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SCIENCE AGENDA
O PINI O N A N D A N A LYS I S FR OM
S C IENTIFIC A MERIC AN ’ S B OA R D O F E D ITO R S

Don’t Let Bots

Pull the Trigger
Weapons that kill enemies on their own
threaten civilians and soldiers alike
By the Editors

The killer machines are coming. Robotic weapons that target

and destroy without human supervision are poised to start a
revolution in warfare comparable to the invention of gunpowder
or the atomic bomb. The prospect poses a dire threat to civil-
ians—and could lead to some of the bleakest scenarios in which
artificial intelligence runs amok. A prohibition on killer robots,
akin to bans on chemical and biological weapons, is badly need-
ed. But some major military powers oppose it.
The robots are no technophobic fantasy. In July 2017, for ex-
ample, Russia’s Kalashnikov Group announced that it had begun
development of a camera-equipped 7.62-millimeter machine gun Since 2013 the United Nations Convention on Certain Con-
that uses a neural network to make “shoot/no-shoot” decisions. ventional Weapons (CCW), which regulates incendiary devices,
An entire generation of self-controlled armaments, including blinding lasers and other armaments thought to be overly harm-
drones, ships and tanks, is edging toward varying levels of auton- ful, has debated what to do about lethal autonomous weapons
omous operation. The U.S. appears to hold a lead in R&D on au- systems. Because of opposition from the U.S., Russia and a few
tonomous systems—with $18 billion slated for investment from others, the discussions have not advanced to the stage of draft-
2016 to 2020. But other countries with substantial arms indus- ing formal language for a ban. The U.S., for one, has argued that
tries are also making their own investments. its policy already stipulates that military personnel retain con-
Military planners contend that “lethal autonomous weapons trol over autonomous weapons and that premature regulation
systems”—a more anodyne term—could, in theory, bring a de- could put a damper on vital AI research.
tached precision to war fighting. Such automatons could diminish A ban need not be overly restrictive. The Campaign to Stop
the need for troops and reduce casualties by leaving the machines Killer Robots, a coalition of 89 nongovernmental organizations
to battle it out. Yet control by algorithm can potentially morph into from 50 countries that has pressed for a such a prohibition, em-
“out of control.” Existing AI cannot deduce the intentions of others phasizes that it would be limited to offensive weaponry and not
or make critical decisions by generalizing from past experience in extend to antimissile and other defensive systems that automat-
the chaos of war. The inability to read behavioral subtleties to dis- ically fire in response to an incoming warhead.
tinguish civilian from combatant or friend versus foe should call The current impasse has prompted the campaign to consider
into question whether AIs should replace GIs in a foreseeable fu- rallying at least some nations to agree to a ban outside the forum
ture mission. A killer robot of any kind would be a trained assas- provided by the CCW, an option used before to kick-start multi-
sin, not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. After national agreements that prohibit land mines and cluster muni-
the battle is done, moreover, who would be held responsible when tions. A preemptive ban on autonomous killing machines, with
a machine does the killing? The robot? Its owner? Its maker? clear requirements for compliance, would stigmatize the technol-
With all these drawbacks, a fully autonomous robot fashioned ogy and help keep killer robots out of military arsenals.
using near-term technology could create a novel threat wielded Since it was first presented at the International Joint Conference
by smaller nations or terrorists with scant expertise or financial on Artificial Intelligence in Stockholm in July, 244 organizations
resources. Swarms of tiny, weaponized drones, perhaps even and 3,187 individuals have signed a pledge to “neither participate in
made using 3-D printers, could wreak havoc in densely populat- nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal
ed areas. Prototypes are already being tested: the U.S. Depart- autonomous weapons.” The rationale for making such a pledge
ment of Defense demonstrated a nonweaponized swarm of more was that laws had yet to be passed to bar killer robots. Without
than 100 micro drones in 2016. Stuart Russell of the University of such a legal framework, the day may soon come when an algo-
California, Berkeley, a prominent figure in AI research, has sug- rithm makes the fateful decision to take a human life.
gested that “antipersonnel micro robots” deployed by just a sin-
JOIN T HE CONVERSAT ION ONLINE
gle individual could kill many thousands and constitute a poten- Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
tial weapon of mass destruction. or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]

6 Scientific American, March 2019 Illustration by Chris Whetzel

© 2019 Scientific American

 FORUM
Jonas Korlach is chief scientific officer at Pacific Biosciences C OMM E N TA RY O N S C IE N C E IN
of California. He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular T H E N E W S FR OM T H E E X PE R T S
and cell biology from Cornell University.

cause had previously been found—such as Carney

complex, a rare disorder that causes tumors to appear
in various parts of the body, for example, or a mutation
that may contribute to bipolar disorder and schizo-
phrenia. And here, too, the effects may well vary from
one ethnic group to another.
I am pleased to say that the genomics community is
starting to tackle the challenge of improving the ethnic
diversity in our databases. As chief scientist at a DNA-
sequencing technology company, I witness these ef-
forts every day. For instance, a number of countries
have launched population-specific projects that aim to
produce high-quality reference genomes. Excellent re-
sults in Korea, China and Japan have led to genomic re-
sources that more accurately capture the natural diver-
sity present in those populations, with positive clinical
implications. Such sequences are also enabling large-
scale studies of specific ethnic groups to dramatically
improve their representation in genomic databases.

Genomic Studies
Already these projects have led to discoveries that
can make clinical trials and medical care more successful for par-
ticipants with these genetic backgrounds. For example, the Kore-

Need Diversity
an genome project found a population-specific variant in a gene
that regulates how some medications are metabolized by the body.
This is essential information for dosing and for gauging the like-
lihood that a patient will respond to a particular therapy.
A heavy skew toward white people In places with less developed infrastructure, including parts of
makes precision medicine imprecise Latin America and Africa, such efforts have lagged: the National
Human Genome Research Institute has begun gathering data
By Jonas Korlach
from these areas, but sequencing and analysis are usually done
Underrepresentation of nonwhite ethnic groups in scientific elsewhere. Still, as more such projects move forward, there will be
research and clinical trials has been a disturbing trend. One important discoveries that will be relevant to any number of eth-
particularly troubling aspect is that human genomic databases nic groups. One such program—a National Institutes of Health ef-
are heavily skewed toward people of European descent. If left fort called “All of Us”—aims to sequence a diverse sampling of
unaddressed, this inherent bias will continue to contribute to Americans across gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and race.
un­­­even success rates in so-called precision medicine. Being inclusive is its fundamental goal, and participation is free.
The problem stems from the underlying structure of science. In the field of rare diseases, genome sequencing has proved re-
In the early days of genomics, funding for sequencing projects was markable at increasing the diagnosis rate, giving answers to pa-
often highest among mostly white countries, so those populations tients who might otherwise have gone undiagnosed. Today that
are better represented in public databases. Also, some minorities approach remains most effective for Caucasian patients because
have been historically mistreated by scientists—the Tuskegee more of their DNA can be interpreted using current genomic data
syphilis experiment is one glaring example—and many members repositories. But as we build up data for people of other ethnici-
of those groups can be understandably reluctant to enter studies. ties, we can expect such successes to extend rapidly to patients of
Early studies were also biased by the types of genetic variation any background, which stands to dramatically improve health
the research focused on. Initially scientists looked at only tiny, care for hundreds of millions of people.
single-base-pair DNA differences between populations, ignoring Achieving the vision of precision medicine for individuals of
larger variations that were more difficult to assess but that turned any ethnic group requires more diverse representation in the bi-
out to be more significant than anyone expected. These are now ological repositories that underlie clinical programs. Advanced
known to cause genetic disease and influence the way drugs are DNA-sequencing technology is one tool of many needed to help
metabolized by different ethnic populations, not just individuals— generate better information about people from all ethnicities for
and advanced technologies allow scientists to identify variations the equitable application of those data in clinical practice.
that in many cases have never been seen before.
JOIN T HE CONVERSAT ION ONLINE
This is an exciting step forward: we are finding that some of Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
these structural differences can explain diseases for which no or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]

Illustration by Alexandra Bowman March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 7

© 2019 Scientific American

ADVANCES

Prolonged and deadly heat

waves are becoming more
common, leaving millions at risk.

8 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

D I S PATC H E S FR OM T H E FR O N TIE R S O F S C IE N C E , T E C H N O LO GY A N D M E D I C IN E IN S ID E

• Whale chatter stays constant over time

• Untangling how cyclists move in a pack
• Parasitic wasps bend spiders to their will
• Quantifying the microbial world’s
“dark matter”

C L I M AT E A N D H E A LT H

Feverish
Planet
A sobering report links climate
change to labor loss, disease
and death worldwide

A devastating heat wave s wept across

Europe in 2003, killing tens of thousands
of people, scientists estimate. Many were
elderly, with limited mobility, and some
already suffered from chronic diseases. But
climate change is making such extreme
weather more common—and the effects
will not be limited to the old and sick.
Warming temperatures do not only threat-
en lives directly. They also cause billions of
hours of lost labor, enhance conditions for
the spread of infectious diseases and reduce
crop yields, according to a recent report.
The report, published last December
in the Lancet, represents the latest findings
of the Lancet Countdown—a coalition of
international research organizations col-
laborating with the World Health Organi-
zation and the World Meteorological
Organization. The group tracks the health
impacts of—and government responses
to—climate change.
MATTEO COLOMBO G etty Images

“It affects everyone around the world—

every single person, every single popula-
tion. No country is immune,” says Nick
Watts, executive director of the Lancet
Countdown and one of many co-authors

J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter

© 2019 Scientific American

 ADVANCES

of the report. “We’ve been seeing these occupational health. But there comes a result of extreme weather, the report found.
impacts for some time now.” point at which it is simply too hot for the “Overall, the report does suggest very
The report found that millions of people body to function. For example, sweating serious concerns about the way in which
worldwide are vulnerable to heat-related heavily without replenishing water can climate change is evolving and its potential
disease and death and that populations in result in chronic kidney disease, Kjellstrom implications for human health,” says Andy
Europe and the eastern Mediterranean are notes. News reports have documented Haines, a professor of environmental
especially susceptible—most likely because farm workers in Central America dying change and public health at the London
they have more elderly people living in from kidney problems after years of work- School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,
urban areas. Adults older than 65 are par- ing in the hot fields. Richer countries such who was not involved in the 2018 report
ticularly at risk, as are those with chronic as the U.S. may avoid the worst effects but has co-authored previous Lancet
illnesses such as heart disease or diabetes. because of better access to drinking water Countdown assessments. “One of the
Places where humans tend to live are and, in the case of indoor work, air-condi- problems is that we don’t have enough
exposed to an average temperature tioning. But these solutions can be expen- data on the actual impacts, particularly in
change that is more than twice the global sive, Kjellstrom says. the low-income countries,” which will likely
average—0.8 versus 0.3 degree Celsius Then there are indirect effects. For be most affected, he says.
(graphic). There were 157 million more example, warmer temperatures have The report did find some bright spots: in
“heat wave exposure events” (one heat increased the geographical ranges of 2015, 30 of 40 countries surveyed by the
wave experienced by one person) in 2017 organisms that spread dengue fever, WHO reported having climate change
than in 2000. Compared with 1986 to 2005, malaria and cholera. The “vectorial health adaptation plans, and 65 percent of
each person was exposed to, on average, capacity”—a measure of how easily a cities have undertaken (or are undertaking)
1.4 more days of heat wave per year from disease carrier can transmit a pathogen— risk assessments that address threats to
2000 to 2017. That may not seem like a lot, of dengue virus, which is spread by the public health infrastructure. But worldwide
but as Watts notes, “someone who is 75 Aedes aegyptiand A  edes albopictusmosqui- spending on health adaptation is still under
and suffers from kidney disease can proba- toes, reached a record high in 2016. The 5 percent of all climate adaptation spending.
bly survive three to four days of heat wave percentage of coastline suitable for bacte- And funding has not matched that pledged
but not five or six.” ria in the Vibrio genus (which includes the in the Paris Agreement, the global climate
Sweltering temperatures also affect species that causes cholera) increased accord that is set to take effect in 2020.
productivity. A staggering 153 billion hours from the 1980s to the 2010s in the Baltic Among the biggest steps countries can
of labor—80 percent of them in agricul- region and northeastern U.S. by 24 and take to mitigate these health effects are
ture—were lost to excessive heat in 2017, 27 percent, respectively. In Africa’s high- phasing out coal-fired power and shifting to
the new report found, with the most vul- lands, environmental suitability for the greener forms of transportation, Watts says.
nerable areas being in India, Southeast malaria-causing P  lasmodium falciparum Electric vehicles are making inroads in plac-
Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South Ameri- parasite increased by nearly 21 percent es, he notes—and “active” transport, such as
ca. The first stage of heat’s impact is dis- from the 1950s to the 2010s. walking or cycling, is also important. Tallying
comfort, says report co-author Tord Kjell- Climate change also threatens food up the costs of climate change, Watts says,
strom, director of the Health and Environ- security. Our planet still produces more makes it clear that “our re­sponse or lack of

SOURCE: “THE 2018 REPORT OF THE LANCET COUNTDOWN ON HEALTH AND CLIMATE CHANGE: SHAPING THE HEALTH
ment International Trust in New Zealand than enough food for the world, but 30 response is going to determine our health
and a consultant on environmental and countries have seen crop yields decline as a over the next century.” —Tanya Lewis

OF NATIONS FOR CENTURIES TO COME,” BY NICK WATTS ET AL., IN L ANCET, VOL. 392; DECEMBER 8, 2018
A Hotter Planet Puts More People at Risk
+0.8 Average temperature change
(degrees Celsius)

Change in Heat Wave Exposure Events*

Change in Summer Temperatures

(millions per year)

+200 *A heat wave exposure event

in populated areas refers to one heat wave
experienced by one person
+0.6 Average global +150
temperature
change The average number of
+0.4 +100 heat wave exposure events
Overall trends from 1986 to 2005 was
about 25 million
+0.2 +50

Baseline Baseline

–0.2 –50
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

The graphs compare temperatures and heat wave events since 2000 with baseline values from the reference period 1986−2005.

10 Scientific American, March 2019 Graphic by Amanda Montañez

© 2019 Scientific American

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humpback whales produce during the ed 12 of them in both the earliest and most
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stantly changing. types recurred over at least three decades,
stantly changing. types recurred over at least three decades,
But in a new study, researchers investi- the scientists reported last September in

“ ”
But in a new study, researchers investi- the scientists reported last September in
gated the permanence of nonsong whale Scientific Reports. This finding led Fournet to Brilliant, Affordable Pricing
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vocalizations known as calls and found that conclude that these particular vocalizations —Arthur Frommer, Travel Editor
vocalizations known as calls and found that conclude that these particular vocalizations
the majority have remained stable over most likely are essential to the whales’ sur-
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they’re using calls,” explains Fournet, who ings of calls to humpbacks there. The goal
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they’re using calls,” explains Fournet, who ings of calls to humpbacks there. The goal
completed the work while at Oregon State is to test theories about the functions
G etty
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MIGNON

completed the work while at Oregon State is to test theories about the functions
University. These vocalizations, which typi- of different calls, she says, adding, “We’re
MIGNON

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cally last only a few seconds, are extremely going to go and start the conversation.”
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March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 11

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 11

© 2019 Scientific American

ADVANCES
G R O U P DY N A M I C S

Eyes of
the Peloton
Visual cues govern cyclists’
pack behavior

Like a school of fish o  r flock of birds, a

pack of bicycle riders (technically called
a “peloton”) often behaves like a unified
entity. When individuals engage in simple
small-scale behaviors, a collective pattern
emerges that helps the whole. But in
densely packed groups, it can be unclear
what determines each individual’s behav-
ior. Mathematicians and biologists have shaped pattern that optimizes their shape the group as a whole, but they did not
argued that cyclists’ movements within peripheral vision, helping them quickly explain how it shapes individual behavior. To
a peloton are primarily driven by optimiz- respond to others’ changes in motion. find out, researchers decided to study pro-
ing aerodynamics, but new research sug- Pairs of cyclists save the most energy fessional cyclists.
gests a different explanation. when one rider follows closely behind anoth- While examining helicopter footage
Jesse Belden of the U.S. Naval Under- er. But for pelotons, Belden says, “we don’t of Tour de France races, Belden, Truscott

 etty Images
sea Warfare Center and Tadd Truscott of see that pattern inside a group. Aerodynam- and their colleagues noticed two behaviors
Utah State University have found that visu- ics only matters at the outside edge—you that caused fluidlike ripples through the

JEFF PACHOUD G
al input plays a critical role in how cyclists save energy wherever you are inside a pack.” peloton. In one, a rider would brake and
position themselves within the pack: indi- Previous studies in animals ranging from other riders would slow to avoid a collision.
viduals subconsciously form a diamond- locusts to birds suggested that vision helps to In the other, a rider would move sideways

E C O LO G Y

Zombie
Spiders
Parasitic wasp larvae
make arachnid hosts
build their own tombs

Talk about a raw deal: d  eadly parasitic

wasps ruin the lives of adolescent spiders by
taking over their minds, forcing them to
become hermits and then eating them alive.
A remarkable species of social spider
lives in parts of Latin America, in colonies of
thousands. A  nelosimus eximius spiders dwell someone’s nightmare,” says Philippe Fernan- beside the web, apparently waiting for
in basket-shaped webs up to 25 feet wide dez-Fournier, now a doctoral student at a young spider to stray from its colony.
attached to vegetation near the jungle floor, Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. The wasps may prefer juveniles because
where they protect their eggs and raise But Fernandez-Fournier recently ob­­ of their softer shells and “less feisty”
broods cooperatively. A colony works served a wasp species—not previously natures, according to Fernandez-Fournier,
together to take down much larger prey, named or described in the scientific litera- lead author of a study describing the
such as grasshoppers, which sometimes fall ture—that can bend these social spiders to strange parasitism, published online last
into a web after blundering into silk lines its will in an even more nightmarish way. November in E cological Entomology.
ALAMY

that stick out of it vertically. “It could be This parasitic puppet master camps out Scientists do not know how a wasp larva

12 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

to skirt an obstacle or fill a gap. These move- New Version!
ments produced waves moving forward
and backward or left and right through the
peloton, respectively. The left-right waves
propagated relatively slowly—at the speed
it takes a human to respond to an immediate
neighbor’s motions. The forward-backward
waves, however, propagated much faster,
implying that individuals had anticipated
changes in response to the motion of some-
one two riders ahead.
These wave findings suggest that vision is
the main influence on individual rider behavior
because riders want to keep neighbors within
the range of peripheral vision most sensitive
to motion. Apart from long-term race goals,
each cyclist’s main objective is to avoid crash-
ing; riders do so by maintaining a position that
lets them focus on what is in front while keep-
ing more space between side-flanking neigh-
bors. The work was presented last November
at the 71st Annual Meeting of the American
Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics.
The researchers say their findings could be
applied to explain collective animal behavior,
help optimize exit plans in crowded spaces or
program collections of autonomous robots.
 —R
— achel Berkowitz
Rachel

ends up on the spider—but once there it starts

feeding on the arachnid’s abdomen. As the larva
grows, it starts to control the spider’s brain,
inducing it to leave the safety of its colony. Then
the young spider weaves a ball of silk that seals it
off from the outside world. The larva completes
its life cycle by eating the rest of the spider, using
the conveniently surrounding web to build its
own cocoon and pupate into an adult wasp.
Fernandez-Fournier believes the wasp lar-
vae most likely release a chemical that acti-
vates specific genes in their hosts, triggering
antisocial behavior. Other related spiders are
less social, leaving their colonies when they are
young. Andrew Forbes, an associate professor
of biology at the University of Iowa, who was Over 75 New Features & Apps in Origin 2019!
not involved in Fernandez-Fournier’s research, For a FREE 60-day
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“as an evolutionary arms race between the
25+ years serving the scientific & engineering community
spider and the parasitoid.” — —JJoshua
oshua Rapp Learn

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 13

© 2019 Scientific American

ADVANCES

Estimated Abundances of
BIOLOGY
Microbial Cells by Environment
Microbial Dark Matter
Most microorganisms have never been studied in a laboratory
Just as most of the matter in the universe is thought to be “dark matter,” much
of Earth is populated by a kind of microbial analogue: microorganisms that are
known to exist but have never been grown in a laboratory. Marine sediment
A new study, published last September in mSystems, suggests such microbes 2,900 × 1026 cells
could account for up to 81 percent of all bacterial genera that live outside the
human body. These little-known organisms could hold the secrets to new tools
for treating disease and could help us understand life in extreme environments,
such as those on other planets.
Microbes are the most abundant life-form on Earth. Researchers have
sequenced the DNA of many species out in the field, but they can be difficult to
culture in the lab, and scientists usually grow only one species at a time to study
them in a controlled setting. To determine how much microbial dark matter
exists, Karen Lloyd, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
and her colleagues compared all known microbial DNA sequences with the sub-
set from species that have already been cultured. They then inferred the fraction
of microbes that have been sequenced but never cultured (graphic). “We’re dis-
covering numerically that so many of the microbes on Earth are things we have
Soil
never really learned anything about,” Lloyd says. 2,560 × 1026 cells
The sheer number of microbial species—possibly close to a trillion—means
that scientists cannot possibly collect them all. Many species exist in hard-to-
reach places, such as at the bottom of the ocean or under frozen Arctic soil. Fur-
thermore, not all microbes can survive in cultures designed to nurture just one
strain. Some can grow only in a far more complex, natural environment, notes
environmental microbiologist Laura Hug of the University of Waterloo in Ontar-
io, who was not involved in the study. “They get what they need from their com-
munity,” she says, “so that means you can’t really grow them on their own.”
But Lloyd is optimistic. “We have made great strides with just the known
microbes, and there are potentially even more discoveries hidden in these [unknown
ones],” she says. “It leaves open the possibility for really grand discoveries.”
—Dana Najjar
Terrestrial subsurface
2,500 × 1026 cells

SOURCE: “PHYLOGENETICALLY NOVEL UNCULTURED MICROBIAL CELLS DOMINATE EARTH MICROBIOMES,”

Taxonomic Hierarchy Cultured to Uncultured to Uncultured to
species or genus, family, phylum, kingdom
Do dom

genus level order or class level or domain level

in
Ki m
Ge ies

Or ly
Fa s

ma
Cla r

ylu
nu

ss
de
ec

mi

ng

(darkest shade) (middle shade) (lightest shade)

BY KAREN G. LLOYD ET AL., IN MSYSTEMS, VOL. 3, NO. 5; SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
Ph
Sp

Lower Higher Animal hosts

(more specific) (more general)
Plant hosts
Scientists have pinpointed the Terrestrial
evolutionary identities of about subsurface
half of animal- or plant-dwelling Seawater
Soil 1,010 × 1026 cells
microbes to at least the genus level
of specificity. But the comparative- Seawater
ly enormous populations of
microbes inhabiting other Marine
environments remain largely sediment
mysterious. The phylum- or Freshwater Freshwater 1.3 × 1026 cells
higher-level classifications of
a third of microbes living in soil, 0 20 40 60 80 100 Plant hosts 1 × 1026 cells
for example, are unknown. Percent of Cells Animal hosts 0.2 × 1026 cells

14 Scientific American, March 2019 Graphic by Amanda Montañez

© 2019 Scientific American

ADVANCES

PHYSIC S
should tick at a more slug-

Galileo’s Loss, gish rate relative to one on a

satellite in orbit. This time

Einstein’s Win dilation is known as gravita-

tional redshift. Any subtle
deviation from this pattern
A satellite launch mishap might give physicists clues
tests general relativity for a new theory that unifies
Galileo satellite gravity and quantum physics.
In August 2014a rocket launched the fifth Even after the Galileo sat-
and sixth satellites of the Galileo global nav- “General relativity continues to be the ellites were nudged closer to circular orbits,
igation system, the European Union’s most accurate description of gravity, and they were still climbing and falling about
$11-billion answer to the U.S.’s GPS. But cel- so far it has withstood a huge number of 8,500 kilometers twice a day. Over the
ebration turned to disappointment when it experimental and observational tests,” course of three years Delva’s and Herrmann’s
became clear that the satellites had been says Eric Poisson, a physicist at the Univer- teams watched how the resulting shifts in
dropped off at the wrong cosmic “bus sity of Guelph in Ontario, who was not gravity altered the frequency of the satellites’
stops.” Instead of being placed in circular involved in the new research. Neverthe- superaccurate atomic clocks. In a previous
orbits at stable altitudes, they were strand- less, physicists have not been able to gravitational redshift test, conducted in 1976,
ed in elliptical orbits useless for navigation. merge general relativity with the laws of when the Gravity Probe-A suborbital rocket
The mishap, however, offered a rare quantum mechanics, which explain the was launched into space with an atomic clock
opportunity for a fundamental physics behavior of energy and matter at a very onboard, researchers observed that general
experiment. Two independent research small scale. “That’s one reason to suspect relativity predicted the clock’s frequency
teams—one led by Pacôme Delva of the that gravity is not what Einstein gave us,” shift with an uncertainty of 1.4 × 10–4.
Paris Observatory in France, the other by Poisson says. “It’s probably a good approx- The new studies, published last Decem-
Sven Herrmann of the University of Bre- imation, but there’s more to the story.” ber in P hysical Review Letters, a gain verified

P. CARRIL AND ESA

men in Germany—monitored the way- Einstein’s theory predicts time will pass Einstein’s prediction—and increased that pre-
ward satellites to look for holes in Einstein’s more slowly close to a massive object, cision by a factor of 5.6. So, for now, the cen-
general theory of relativity. which means that a clock on Earth’s surface tury-old theory still reigns. —Megan Gannon

NICARAGUA BRAZIL
IN THE NEWS Government authorities used deadly force against A metropolis of at least 200 million active termite

Quick students who were protesting social security tax

increases and reduced pensions; they also fired
mounds—covering an area the size of Great Britain—
was discovered in northeastern Brazil. The cone-

Hits professors and scientists who criticized the

crackdown. The president of the Nicaraguan
shaped structures, connected by vast tunnel
networks and hidden by scrubby forests, date from
B y Emiliano Academy of Sciences was forced to flee the country. about 700 to nearly 4,000 years ago.
Rodríguez Mega

THAILAND
PERU Thai lawmakers voted to pass
Scientists excavated the an amendment that legalizes
skeletons of more than the medical use of marijuana and
140 children and 200 baby kratom, a tropical tree native to
llamas from part of Peru’s Southeast Asia that is traditionally
northern coast, in what they consumed for its stimulant and
think may have been the painkiller properties.
world’s largest known child
sacrifice. They believe the SINGAPORE
ritual slaughter took place Researchers used a bacteria-
550 years ago in an attempt to infecting virus to manufacture tiny
combat rising sea tempera­ wires in a computer’s memory.
tures and coastal flooding. INDONESIA This advance makes it possible to
Before-and-after radar images show that a flank of Indo­ move data from memory to a hard
nesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano disappeared—possibly in drive in nanoseconds instead of
For more details, visit a landslide—during an eruption. This may have triggered milliseconds, which could help
www.ScientificAmerican.com/
mar2019/advances the tsunami that killed hundreds of people last December. create faster supercomputers.

16 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

 In
NANOSCIENCE
SCIENCE
Ultrasonic
scientists aimed the ultrasound at the rats’
visual cortices while flflashing
ashing light in their
We
Brain Beam
eyes. Brain activity in the targeted region
dropped when the beam was switched on,
then recovered within 10 seconds after
Trust
New technique delivers stimulation stopped, as the anesthetic
medication to specifi
specificc regions wore off off.. “A spatially and temporally pre- Join the nation’s
within the organ cise technology that allows us to intervene largest association of
very focally in the brain is a tremendous
Neuroscientists havehave limited tools for goal,” says neurosurgeon Nir Lipsman of freethinkers, atheists
understanding the human brain and treat- Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, and agnostics working
ing its illnesses. Surgery or inserted elec- who was not involved in the study. The
trodes are too invasive for most situations. team also saw metabolic activity reduced to keep religion
Existing noninvasive technology, such as in distant parts of the brain connected to out of government.
magnetic stimulation, is imprecise. Now target areas, suggesting the method could
neuroradiologist Raag Airan of Stanford be used to map brain circuitry.
University and his colleagues have demon- The researchers found no evidence of
For a free sample of
strated a method that could enable tissue damage from the procedure. “They
researchers to manipulate small, highly did a good job of demonstrating safety,” FFRF’s newspaper,
targeted brain areas noninvasively. Lipsman says. The study is only a proof-of- Freethought Today:
The study, published last November in concept, but Airan says translation to clini-
Neuron,
Neuron, uses
uses technology Airan has been cal use should be rapid. Ultrasound is Call 1-800-335-4021
developing for years—but this is the fifirst
rst already commonly used in medicine, and ffrf.us/reason
time it has been shown to work with the the nanoparticles are made from chemi-
necessary precision. The technique involves cals routinely used in radiology and cancer
injecting nanoparticle “cages” fifilled
lled with treatment. “We just have to show their
drug molecules into the bloodstream. combination isn’t unsafe,” Airan says.
Researchers then use a focused ultrasound “We’re talking a fifirst-in-human
rst-in-human trial within
beam to shake the drug particles loose from a year or two.”
their cages in the desired location. There Next up: testing whether the technology
they cross the blood-brain barrier (a mem- can simulate the eff ects of planned neurosur-
effects
brane between arteries and the brain that geries, by anesthetizing the surgical target
admits only tiny molecules), directly aff ect-
affect- area to confi
confirmrm it can be disabled safely. The
ffrf.org
ALFRED PASIEKA Getty Images

ing brain function in only that spot. approach could also be used to deliver psy-
Results from experiments in rats chiatric drugs to specifi
specificc brain areas, poten-
showed the action of the drug—an anes- tially reducing side eff ects and improving
effects
FFRF is a 501(c)(3) educational charity.
thetic—was limited to a three-millimeter effi cacy. “The mind boggles with the range
efficacy.
cube where the beam was focused. The of possibilities,” Airan says.
says. — —SSimon
Deductible for income tax purposes.
imon Makin

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 17

© 2019 Scientific American

 ADVANCES
NEUROSCIENCE
at different
different speeds.) The results suggest that

Boozy Recall intoxicated witnesses should be interviewed

sooner rather than later, according to
Conventional wisdom the study, which was published online last
October in P sychology, Crime & Law.
Psychology,
about drinking and memory
The findings
findings are in line with previous
may be wrong research, says Jacqueline Evans, an assistant
professor of psychology at Florida Interna-
Police officers
officers investigating a crime may All participants then watched a short filmfilm tional University, who was not involved in
hesitate to interview drunk witnesses. But depicting a verbal and physical altercation the new work. Evans co-authored and pub-
waiting until they sober up may not be between a man and a woman. The re­­ re- lished a 2017 study in LLaw
aw and Human Behav-
the best strategy; people remember more searchers next asked half the people in ior tthat
hat found similar results for moderately
while they are still inebriated than they each group to freely recall what they drunk witnesses. “Any effecteffect of intoxication
do a week later, a new study finds.
finds. remembered from the film.film. The remaining is not as big as the effect
effect of waiting a week
Malin Hildebrand Karlén, a senior psy- participants were sent home and inter- to question somebody,” she says.
chology lecturer at Sweden’s University viewed a week later. The new study also found that some
of Gothenburg, and her colleagues recruit- The investigators found that both the aspects of the drunk people’s recollections
ed 136 people and gave half of them vodka inebriated and sober people who were were not that different
different from those of the
mixed with orange juice. The others drank interviewed immediately demonstrated sober participants. For instance, both
only juice. In 15 minutes women in the better recollection of the film
film events than groups seemed particularly attuned to
alcohol group consumed 0.75 gram of their drunk or sober counterparts who were the details of the physical aggression por-
alcohol per kilogram of body weight, questioned later. The effect
effect held even for trayed in the film.
film. “This research should at
KRIS KESIAK Getty Images

and men drank 0.8 gram (that is equivalent people with blood alcohol concentrations least make us more interested in what
to 3.75 glasses of wine for a 70-kilogram of 0.08 or higher—the legal limit for driving intoxicated witnesses have to say,” Hilde­ Hilde-
woman or four glasses for a man of the in most of the U.S. (Intoxication levels varied brand Karlén says, “and perhaps take them
same weight, Hildebrand Karlén says). because different
different people metabolize alcohol a bit more seriously.”
seriously.” —A
— gata Boxe
Agata
© 2019 Scientific American

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 19

THE SCIENCE Claudia Wallis is an award-winning science journalist whose
OF HEALTH work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Fortune a nd the
New Republic. She was science editor at Time a nd managing editor
of Scientific American Mind.

or is closely associated with lymphoid tissue, which plays a role

in supporting the immune system. In humans, the appendix also
harbors a layer of helpful gut bacteria—a fact discovered by scien-
tists at Duke University. In a 2007 paper, they proposed that it
serves as a “safe house” to preserve these microbes, so that when
the gut microbiome is hit hard by illness, we can replenish it with
good guys holed up in the appendix. Some evidence for this idea
surfaced in 2011, when a study showed that people without an
appendix are two and half times more likely to suffer a recurrence
of infection with C  lostridium difficile, a dangerous strain of gut
bacteria that thrives in the absence of friendlier types.
The appendix may have more far-flung roles in the body—
including some that can go awry. A study published last October
found that misfolded alpha-synuclein—an abnormal protein
found in the brain of Parkinson’s disease patients—can accumu-
late in the appendix. Intriguingly, the study found that people
who had the organ removed as young adults appear to have some
modest protection against Parkinson’s.
New research has also shed light on the value of our tonsils and
adenoids. In a study published last July, an international team as­­
sessed the long-term impact of removing these structures, or leav-
ing them, in 1.2 million Danish children. Over a follow-up period
of 10 to 30 years, the 5 percent or so who had one or both sets of or­­­

Vital Organs? gans extracted before age nine were found to have a twofold to
threefold higher rate of upper respiratory diseases and higher
rates of allergies and asthma. Notably they suffered more frequent-
From the appendix to the tonsils, ly from ear infections and, in the case of adenotonsillectomies,
sinus infections—conditions thought to be helped by surgery.
there are no truly expendable body parts We have known for a long time that the adenoids and tonsils
By Claudia Wallis “act as a first line of defense against pathogens that enter through
the airways or eating,” says Sean Byars, a senior research fellow
Medicine has not always shown a lot of respect for the human at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health and
body. Just think about the ghoulish disregard early surgeons had lead author of the paper. The fact that these tissues are most
for our corporeal integrity. They poked holes in the skull and prominent in children, with the adenoids nearly gone by adult-
copiously drained blood with leeches or lancets—a practice that hood, has bolstered the view that they are not essential, but as
remained a medical mainstay through the late 19th century. Byars points out, “maybe there’s a reason they are largest in child-
Even today many of the most popular surgeries involve the hood.” Perhaps they play a developmental role, helping to shape
wholesale removal of body parts—the appendix, gallbladder, the immune system in ways that have lasting consequences.
tonsils, uterus (usually after the childbearing years)—with an Byars cautions that his study, large though it is, awaits confir-
assurance that patients will do just fine without them. There are mation by others and that the decision to treat any given child
many valid reasons for these “ectomies,” but what has be­­come must be made on an individual basis. Still, he says, “Given these
increasingly less defensible is the idea that losing these organs is are some of the most common surgeries in childhood, our results
of little or no consequence. suggest a conservative approach would be wise.”
Take the appendix. Or rather leave it be, if possible. Many of us It is worth noting that tonsillectomy rates have declined in the
learned in school that this tiny, fingerlike projection off the colon U.S., especially since the heyday in the mid-20th century. Sur-
is a useless, vestigial remnant of our evolution, much like the puny geons are also doing fewer hysterectomies, reflecting a growing
leg bones found in some snakes. But that idea has been debunked, view that the uterus does not outlive its usefulness once child-
says evolutionary biologist Heather Smith, director of Anatomi- bearing is done and that there are less drastic ways to address
cal Laboratories at Midwestern University in Arizona. A 2017 common issues such as fibroid tumors.
study led by Smith reviewed data on 533 species of mammals and So are any human body parts truly useless or vestigial? Per-
found that the appendix appears across multiple, unrelated spe- haps the best case can be made for the wisdom teeth. “Our faces
cies. “This suggests there’s some good reason to have it,” she says. are so flat, compared with other primates, that there’s often not
The reason appears to be immunological and gastrointestinal. room for them,” Smith observes. And given how we butcher and
In all species that have an appendix, Smith notes, it either contains cook our food, “we really don’t need them.”

20 Scientific American, March 2019 Illustration by Celia Krampien

© 2019 Scientific American

VENTURES Wade Roush is the host and producer of Soonish, a podcast
T H E B U S IN E S S O F IN N OVATI O N about technology, culture, curiosity and the future. He is
a co-founder of the podcast collective Hub & Spoke and a
freelance reporter for print, online and radio outlets, such as
MIT Technology Review, Xconomy, WBUR and WHYY.

And the Laptop If there was ever a path to business success in music, it would
seem that technology has closed it off. But here’s the thing: tech-

Played On
nology is a  lways roiling the music world. At the end of the 19th
century, publishers worried that the phonograph would slash
sales of sheet music, and it eventually did. But music flourished
anyway, as the phonograph itself helped give birth to new genres,
Technology is upending such as jazz. Today changes in the technology of music produc-
how music gets made tion and distribution are once again forcing musicians to find
new ways to make money. But they’re not impeding music cre-
By Wade Roush
ation—just the opposite.
Even for Jimi Hendrix, t he guitarist who used feedback and dis- I saw that at Mmmmaven, an electronic music academy in my
tortion to build sounds the world had never heard before, it hometown of Cambridge, Mass. When I visited this year, stu-
wasn’t easy to break into the music business. He joined his first dents were abuzz over recent upgrades to a popular sequencer
band in 1958 and spent years as a touring and backup musician program called Ableton Live. It was born in the early 2000s as a
before releasing his first hit record in 1966. By the late 1960s tool for live looping, or repeating a sampled section of music dur-
Hendrix was headlining top music festivals such as Woodstock, ing a live performance. But today, in combination with its chess-
where he earned more than any other performer. He died in boardlike Push controller, it’s changing what it means to write,
1970, but by then he had blazed a path to stardom and wealth record and perform music. DJs use Ableton to orchestrate all-
that other pop artists would follow for three decades. night sets of electronic dance music, or EDM. And producers
Next came the Napster Apocalypse. U.S. music revenues such as Jon Hopkins use it to synthesize haunting new sounds
peaked at $15 billion in 1999 and then contracted as peer-to-peer and assemble them into full songs. Hopkins’s 2018 release
sharing of MP3s undercut the need to buy music. The bleeding “Luminous Beings” opens with “a kind of psychedelic feedback
slowed, beginning in 2003, when Apple introduced the iTunes experience..., bounced down and pitched and distorted” in Able-
Store, and streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and ton, he told the podcast Song Exploder.
Pandora finally stopped it in 2016. But today, unless your name What really had Mmmmaven students “freaking out,” accord-
is Drake or Beyoncé, you have to make do with literal micropay- ing to the academy’s co-founder, David Day, was a collaboration
ments for your music. Drummer Damon Krukowski (of the feature called Link. “You can work on the same piece of music at
bands Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi) has written that “it the same time, in real time,” from different computers, Day
would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on explained. “So if I’m working with another user, and they up the
Pandora to earn us the profit of one—one—LP sale.” tempo, it ups my tempo. If they add a bass line, it adds it to my
bass line. That is your future of music, right there. Everyone’s a
musician. All we hear is new music, and it’s from u  s.”
Thanks to these user-friendly digital tools, there’s more new
music to sample than ever. The EDM club scene is booming in cit-
ies around the world. And the emergence of online platforms
such as SoundCloud, Beatport, YouTube and Bandcamp is help-
ing more independent music producers find fans, who then buy
digital tracks, merchandise and tickets to live gigs. Bandcamp
alone reports that 600,000 artists have sold tunes through its site.
In the big picture, it’s true, album sales are still dropping. The
producer lifestyle, with its incessant travel and long club nights,
is punishing. The studio session and concert backup jobs that
used to help many musicians pay the rent are going away, Kru-
kowski told me, as top stars realize that they can use computers
to record and perform without bands. Concerts, merchandise
sales and crowdfunding can bring in revenue, but they may nev-
er replace the losses from the recording industry’s implosion.
As always, music is a precarious career. But what’s encourag-
ing is that digital technology is drawing in a new generation of
music makers, who are using it to create their own brands of psy-
chedelic feedback. The spirit of Hendrix lives.
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]

22 Scientific American, March 2019 Illustration by Jay Bendt

© 2019 Scientific American

THE INNER
ASTROPHYSIC S

LIVES OF
NEUTRON
STARS
The insides of neutron stars—the densest form
of matter in the universe—have long been a mystery,
but it is one that scientists are starting to crack

W
By Clara Moskowitz
Illustration by FOREAL

hen a star the size of 20 suns dies, it becomes, in the words of astrophysicist
Zaven Arzoumanian, “the most outrageous object that most people have never
heard of”—a city-size body of improbable density known as a neutron star. A chunk
of neutron star the size of a Ping-Pong ball would weigh more than a billion met-
ric tons. Below the star’s surface, under the crush of gravity, protons and electrons
melt into one another to form a bulk of mostly neutrons—hence the name. At least,
that is what we think. The issue is far from settled. Astronomers have never seen a
neutron star up close, and no laboratory on works at nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Earth can create anything even approaching the They are also the most strongly gravitating form
same density, so the inner structure of these of matter known—add just a bit more mass, and
objects is one of the greatest mysteries in space. they would be black holes, which are not matter
“They are matter at the highest stable density at all but rather purely curved space. “What goes
that nature allows, in a configuration that we on at that threshold,” Arzoumanian says, “is
don’t understand,” says Arzoumanian, who what we’re trying to explore.”

24 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

 March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 25

© 2019 Scientific American

 There are several competing theories about what Clara Moskowitz is a senior editor
goes on at that threshold. Some ideas suggest that neu- at Scientific American, specializing
in space and physics.
tron stars really are just full of regular neutrons and
maybe a few protons here and there. Others propose
much stranger possibilities. Perhaps the neutrons
inside neutron stars dissolve further into their constitu-
ent particles, called quarks and gluons, which swim
untethered in a free-flowing sea. And it is possible that
the interiors of these stars are made of even more exot-
ic stuff, such as hyperons—weird particles composed
not of regular “up” and “down” quarks (the kind found
in atoms) but their heavier “strange quark” cousins.
Short of cutting open a neutron star and looking important difference. “A nucleus is held together by
inside, there is no easy way to know which of these nuclear interactions,” Lattimer says. “A neutron star is
theories is right. But scientists are making progress. A held together by gravity.”
big break came in August 2017, when terrestrial exper- Astronomers Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky pro-
iments detected gravitational waves—undulations in posed neutron stars in 1934 as an answer to the ques-
spacetime produced by the acceleration of massive tion of what might be left over after a supernova—a
objects—from what looked like a head-on collision of term they coined at the same time for the extra-bright
two neutron stars. These waves carried information explosions being spotted across the sky. It had only
about the masses and sizes of the stars right before been two years since British physicist James Chadwick
the crash, which scientists have used to place new lim- discovered the neutron. Initially some scientists were
its on the properties and possible compositions of all skeptical that such extreme objects could exist, and it
neutron stars. was not until Jocelyn Bell Burnell and her colleagues
Clues are also coming from the Neutron Star Inte- observed pulsars in 1967—and researchers over the
rior Composition Explorer (NICER), an experiment next year determined they must be spinning neutron
that started at the International Space Station in June stars—that the idea was widely accepted.
IN BRIEF
2017. NICER watches pulsars, which are highly mag- Physicists think that neutron stars can range from
Neutron starsare netic, furiously rotating neutron stars that emit roughly one to two and a half times the mass of the sun
born when stars
sweeping beams of light. As these beams pass over and that they probably consist of at least three layers.
within a certain mass
range run out of fuel
Earth, we see pulsars blink on and off at more than The outer layer is a gaseous “atmosphere” of hydrogen
and collapse, leaving 700 times a second. Through these experiments and and helium a few centimeters to meters thick. It floats
ex­treme­ly compact others, the prospect of understanding what is inside a atop a kilometer-deep outer “crust” made of atomic
remnants behind. neutron star finally looks possible. If scientists can do nuclei arranged in a crystal structure, with electrons and
They are the densest that, they will have a handle not just on one class of neutrons between them. The third, interior layer, which
form of matter in cosmic oddity but on the fundamental limits of matter makes up the bulk of the star, is a bit of a mystery. Here
the universe. and gravity as well. nuclei are crammed in as tight as the laws of nuclear
Scientists know
physics will allow, with no separation between them. As
that inside a neutron
S UPERFLUID SEAS you move inward toward the core, each nucleus holds
star, gravity crushes
protons and elec- Neutron stars are forged in the cataclysms known as ever larger numbers of neutrons. At some point, the
trons together to su­­pernovae, which occur when stars run out of fuel and nuclei cannot contain any more neutrons, so they spill
form neutrons, but cease generating energy in their cores. Suddenly gravi- over: now there are no nuclei anymore, just nucleons
they do not know ty has no opposition, and it slams down on the star like (that is, neutrons or protons). Eventually in the inner-
what forms these a piston, blowing the outer layers away and smashing most core, these may break down as well. “We are in the
neutrons take. the core, which at this point in a star’s life is mostly hypothetical regime where we do not know what hap-
Do they link up to
iron. The gravity is so strong it quite literally crushes pens at these insane pressures and densities,” Alford
create a viscosity-
free “superfluid”
the atoms, pushing the electrons inside the nucleus says. “What we think might happen is that the neutrons
or break down fur- until they fuse with protons to create neutrons. “The actually get crushed together, and they overlap so much
ther into the quarks iron is compressed by a factor of 100,000 in each direc- you can’t really talk about it as being a fluid of neutrons
and gluons that tion,” says Mark Alford, a physicist at Washington Uni- anymore but a fluid of quarks.”
constitute them? versity in St. Louis. “The atom goes from being a tenth What form that fluid takes is an open question. One
De­­tect­ors capable of a nanometer across to just a blob of neutrons a few possibility is that the quarks form a “superfluid,” which
of measuring grav­ femtometers wide.” That is like shrinking Earth down has no viscosity and, once set in motion, will theoretical-
itational waves
to the size of a single city block. (A femtometer is a mil- ly never stop moving. This bizarre state of matter is pos-
from neutron star
collisions and other
lionth of a nanometer, which is itself a billionth of a sible because quarks feel an affinity for other quarks,
new experiments meter.) When the star has finished collapsing, it con- and if they are pushed close enough together, they can
pro­mise to provide tains about 20 neutrons for every proton. It is much form bound “Cooper pairs.” By itself, a quark is a fermi-
insight into these like a single giant atomic nucleus, says James Lattimer, on—a particle whose spin has the quantum-mechanical
enigmatic objects. an astronomer at Stony Brook University—with an value of half an integer. When two quarks pair up,

26 Scientific American, March 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

 together they act as a single boson—a particle with spin
equal to zero or one or another integer. After this
change, the particle follows new rules. Fermions are
bound by the Pauli exclusion principle, which says that
no two identical fermions can occupy the same state—
but bosons have no such restrictions. When they were
fermions, the quarks were forced to take on higher
energies to stack on top of one another in the crowded
neutron stars. As bo­­sons, however, they can stay in the
lowest-possible energy state—any particle’s preferred
position—and still cram in together. When they do this,
the quark pairs form a superfluid.
Outside the densest part of the core, where neu-
trons are likely intact, neutrons can also pair up to
make a superfluid. In fact, scientists are fairly sure
neutrons in the crust of the star do this. The evidence
comes from observations of pulsar “glitches,” epi-
sodes in which a spinning neutron star rapidly speeds
up. Theorists think that these glitches occur when the
rotation speed of the star as a whole grows out of sync
with the rotation of the superfluid inside its crust.
Overall, the star’s rotation naturally slows with time;
the superfluid, flowing without friction, does not.
When the difference be­­tween these rates gets too
great, the superfluid transfers angular momentum to
the crust. “It’s like an earthquake,” Lattimer says. “You
get a hiccup and a burst of energy, and the spin fre- CASSIOPEIA A is the remnant of an ancient supernova. At its center
quency increases for a brief time and then settles back is a neutron star whose core may contain “superfluid.”
down again.”
In 2011 Lattimer and his colleagues suggested they collisions inside atom smashers such as the Large Had-
had also found evidence of a superfluid in a neutron ron Collider at CERN near Geneva. But in the extremely
star’s core, but he admits that this is still open to debate. dense interior of neutron stars, the up and down quarks
To find that evidence, Lattimer’s team, led by Dany Page inside neutrons might sometimes transform into
of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, stud- strange quarks. (The other unusual flavors—charm, top
ied 15 years of x-ray observations of Cassiopeia A, the and bottom—are so massive that they likely would not
remnant of a supernova that first became visible on form even there.) If strange quarks appear and remain
Earth in the 17th century. The scientists found that the bound to other quarks, they would make the mutant
pulsar at the center of the nebula is cooling faster than neutrons called hyperons. It is also possible that these
traditional theory suggests it should. One explanation is quarks are not contained in particles at all—they might
that many of the neutrons inside the star are pairing up roam freely in a kind of quark soup.
to become a superfluid. The pairs break and re-form, Each of these possibilities should change the size of
emitting neutrinos, which causes the neutron star to neutron stars in a measurable way. Intact neutrons
lose energy and cool off. “This is something we never inside the core would, in Arzoumanian’s words, act
thought we would see,” Lattimer says. “But lo and “like marbles and make a hard, solid core.” The solid
behold, there is this one star with the right age for us to core would tend to push on the outer layers and
see this. The proof in the pudding is going to come in increase the size of the entire star. On the other hand, if
another 50 or so years, when it should start to cool more the neutrons dissolved into a stew of quarks and gluons,
slowly because once the superfluid is made, there is no they would make a “softer, squishier” and smaller star,
more extra energy to be lost.” he says. Arzoumanian is a co-principal investigator and
science lead for the NICER experiment, which aims to
W EIRD QUARKS determine which of these alternatives is true: “One of
Superfluids are only one o  f the exotic possibilities wait- NICER’s key objectives is to make a measurement of
ing behind the mystery doors of neutron stars. It is also [neutron stars’] mass and radius that will help us pick
possible that they are home to rare “strange quarks.” out or exclude certain theories of dense matter.”
Quarks come in six kinds, or flavors—up, down, NICER is a washing-machine-size box mounted to
charm, strange, top and bottom. Only the lightest two, the exterior of the International Space Station. It
NASA, CXC AND SAO

up and down, are found in atoms. The rest of the flavors steadily monitors several dozen pulsars spread across
are so massive and unstable that they usually appear the sky, detecting x-ray photons from them. By measur-
only as short-lived detritus from high-energy particle ing the photons’ timing and energy, as well as how the

March 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 27

© 2019 Scientific American

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
inheritance, and the union of all the instruments of labour in a social
fund, which shall be exploited by association. Society thus becomes
sole proprietor, entrusting to social groups or social functionaries the
management of the various properties. The right of succession is
transferred from the family to the State.
The school of Saint-Simon insists strongly on the claims of merit;
they advocate a social hierarchy in which each man shall be placed
according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. This
is, indeed, a most special and pronounced feature of the Saint-Simon
Socialism, whose theory of government is a kind of spiritual or
scientific autocracy, culminating in the fantastic sacerdotalism of
Enfantin.
With regard to the family and the relation of the sexes, the school of
Saint-Simon advocated the complete emancipation of woman and
her entire equality with man. The ‘social individual’ is man and
woman, who are associated in the triple function of religion, the
State, and the family. In its official declarations the school
maintained the sanctity of the Christian law of marriage. On this
point Enfantin fell into a prurient and fantastic latitudinarianism,
which made the school a scandal to France, but many of the most
prominent members besides Bazard refused to follow him.
Connected with the last-mentioned doctrines was their famous
theory of the ‘rehabilitation of the flesh,’ deduced from the
philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of pantheism,
though they repudiated the name. On this theory they rejected the
dualism so much emphasised by Catholic Christianity in its penances
and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its
due place of honour. It is a vague principle, of which the ethical
character depends on the interpretation; and it was variously
interpreted in the school of Saint-Simon. It was certainly immoral as
held by Enfantin, by whom it was developed into a kind of sensual
mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction.[1]
The good and bad aspects of the Saint-Simon socialism are too
obvious to require elucidation. The antagonism between the old
economic order and the new had only begun to declare itself. The
extent and violence of the disease were not yet apparent: both
diagnosis and remedy were superficial and premature. Such deep-
seated organic disorder was not to be conjured away by the waving
of a magic wand. The movement was all too utopian and
extravagant in much of its activity. The most prominent portion of
the school attacked social order in its essential point—the family
morality—adopting the worst features of a fantastic, arrogant, and
prurient sacerdotalism, and parading them in the face of Europe.
Thus it happened that a school which attracted so many of the most
brilliant and promising young men of France, which was so striking
and original in its criticism of the existing condition of things, which
was so strong in the spirit of initiative, and was in many ways so
noble, unselfish, and aspiring, sank amidst the laughter and
indignation of a scandalised society.

[1]
An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon
and Enfantin was begun by survivors of the sect in
(Paris) 1865, and now numbers forty vols. See
Reybaud, Études sur les réformateurs modernes
(7th edition, Paris 1864); Janet, Saint-Simon et le
Saint-Simonisme (Paris, 1878); A. J. Booth, Saint-
Simon and Saint-Simonism (London, 1871).

FOURIER

Considered as a purely literary and speculative product, the socialism

of Fourier was prior to those both of Owen and Saint-Simon.
Fourier’s first work, Théorie des Quatre Movements, was published
as early as 1808. His system, however, scarcely attracted any
attention and exercised no influence till the movements originated
by Owen and Saint-Simon had begun to decline.
The socialism of Fourier is in many respects fundamentally different
from that of Saint-Simon; in the two schools, in fact, we find the two
opposing types of socialism which have continued to prevail ever
since. Saint-Simonism represented the principle of authority, of
centralisation; while Fourier made all possible provision for local and
individual freedom. With Saint-Simonism the State is the starting-
point, the normal and dominant power; in Fourier the like position is
held by a local body, corresponding to the commune, which he
called the Phalange. In the system of Fourier the phalange holds the
supreme and central place, other organisation in comparison with it
being secondary and subordinate.
The deviser of the phalange, François Marie Charles Fourier[1] was a
very remarkable man. He was born at Besançon in 1772, and
received from his father, a prosperous draper, an excellent education
at the academy of his native town. The boy excelled in the studies of
the school, and regretfully abandoned them for a business career,
which he followed in various towns of France. As a commercial
traveller in Holland and Germany he enlarged his experience of men
and things. From his father Fourier inherited a sum of about £3000,
with which he started business at Lyons, but he lost all he had in the
siege of that city by the Jacobins during the Reign of Terror, was
thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped the guillotine. On his
release he joined the army for two years, and then returned to his
old way of life.
At a very early age Fourier had his attention called to the defects of
the prevalent commercial system. When only five years old he had
been punished for speaking the truth about certain goods in his
father’s shop; and at the age of twenty-seven he had at Marseilles to
superintend the destruction of an immense quantity of rice held for
higher prices during a scarcity of food till it had become unfit for
use. The conviction grew within him that a system which involved
such abuses and immoralities must be radically evil. Feeling that it
was his mission to find a remedy for it, he spent his life in the
discovery, elucidation, and propagation of a better order; and he
brought to his task a self-denial and singleness of purpose which
have seldom been surpassed. For the last ten years of his life he
waited in his apartments at noon every day for the wealthy capitalist
who should supply the means for the realisation of his schemes. The
tangible success obtained by his system was very slight. His works
found few readers and still fewer disciples.
It was chiefly after the decline of the Saint-Simon movement that he
gained a hearing and a little, success. A small group of enthusiastic
adherents gathered round him; a journal was started for the
propagation of his views; and in 1832 an attempt was made on
lands near Versailles to establish a phalange, which, however, proved
a total failure. In 1837 Fourier passed away from a world that
showed little inclination to listen to his teaching. A singular altruism
was in his character blended with the most sanguine confidence in
the possibilities of human progress. Perhaps the weakest point in his
teaching was that he so greatly underestimated the strength of the
unregenerate residuum in human nature. His own life was a model
of simplicity, integrity, kindliness, and disinterested devotion to what
he deemed the highest aims.
The social system of Fourier was, we need not say, the central point
in his speculations. But as his social system was moulded and
coloured by his peculiar views on theology, cosmogony, and
psychology, we must give some account of those aspects of his
teaching. In theology Fourier inclined, though not decidedly, to what
is called pantheism; the pantheistic conception of the world which
underlay the Saint-Simon theory of the ‘rehabilitation of the flesh’
may be said to form the basis also of the social ethics and
arrangements of Fourier. Along with this he held a natural optimism
of the most radical and comprehensive character. God has done all
things well, only man has misunderstood and thwarted His
benevolent purposes. God pervades everything as a universal
attraction. Whereas Newton discovered that the law of attraction
governs one movement of the world, Fourier shows that it is
universal, ruling the world in all its movements, which are four—
material, organic, intellectual, and social. It is the same law of
attraction which pervades all things, from the cosmic harmony of the
stars down to the puny life of the minutest insect, and which would
reign also in the human soul and in human society, if the intentions
of the Creator were understood. In the elucidation of his system
Fourier’s aim simply is to interpret the intentions of the Creator. He
regards his philosophy, not as ingenious guesses or speculations, but
as discoveries plainly traceable from a few first principles;
discoveries in no way doubtful, but the fruit of clear insight into the
divine law.
The cosmogony of Fourier is the most fantastic part of a fantastic
system. But as he did not consider his views in this department an
essential part of his system, we need not dwell upon them. He
believed that the world is to exist for eighty thousand years, forty
thousand years of progress being followed by forty thousand years
of decline. As yet it has not reached the adult stage, having lasted
only seven thousand years. The present stage of the world is
civilisation, which Fourier uses as a comprehensive term for
everything artificial and corrupt, the result of perverted human
institutions, themselves due to the fact that we have for five
thousand years misunderstood the intentions of the Creator. The
head and front of this misunderstanding consists in our pronouncing
passions to be bad that are simply natural; and there is but one way
of redressing it—to give a free and healthy and complete
development to our passions.
This leads us to the psychology of Fourier. He recognised twelve
radical passions connected with three points of attraction. Five are
sensitive (tending to enjoyment)—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and
touch. Four are affective (tending to groups)—love, friendship,
ambition, and familism or paternity. The meaning and function of
these are obvious enough. The remaining three, the alternating,
emulative, and composite (which he calls passions rectrices, and
which tend to series or to unity), are more special to Fourier. Of the
three the first is connected with the need of variety; the second
leads to intrigue and jealousy; the third, full of intoxication and
abandonment, is born of the combination of several pleasures of the
senses and of the soul enjoyed simultaneously. The passions of the
first two classes are so far controlled by the passions rectrices, and
especially by the composite passion; but even the passions rectrices
obviously contain elements of discord and war. All, however, are
ultimately harmonised by a great social passion, which Fourier calls
Unitéisme. Out of the free play of all the passions harmony is
evolved, like white out of the combination of the colours.
The speedy passage from social chaos to universal harmony
contemplated by Fourier can, as we have seen, be accomplished
only by one method, by giving to the human passions their natural
development. For this end, a complete break with civilisation must
be made. We must have new social arrangements suitable to human
nature and in harmony with the intentions of the Creator. These
Fourier provides in the phalange. In its normal form the phalange
was to consist of four hundred families or eighteen hundred persons,
living on a square league of land, self-contained and self-sufficing for
the most part, and combining within itself the means for the free
development of the most varied likings and capacities. It was an
institution in which agriculture, industry, the appliances and
opportunities of enjoyment, and generally of the widest and freest
human development, are combined, the interests of individual
freedom and of common union being reconciled in a way hitherto
unknown and unimagined.
While the phalange is the social unit, the individuals composing it
will arrange themselves in groups of seven or nine persons; from
twenty-four to thirty-two groups form a series, and these unite to
form a phalange—all according to principles of attraction, of free
elective affinity. The dwelling of the phalange was the phalanstère, a
vast, beautiful, and commodious structure, where life could be
arranged to suit every one, common or solitary, according to
preference; but under such conditions there would be neither excuse
nor motive for the selfish seclusion, isolation, and suspicion so
prevalent in civilisation.
In such an institution it is obvious that government under the form
of compulsion and restraint would be reduced to a minimum. The
officials of the phalange would be elected. The phalange, itself was
an experiment on a local scale, which could easily be made, and
once successfully made would lead to world-wide imitation. They
would freely group themselves into wider combinations with elected
chiefs, and the phalanges of the whole world would form a great
federation with a single elected chief, resident at Constantinople,
which would be the universal capital.
In all the arrangements of the phalange the principle of free
attraction would be observed. Love would be free. Free unions
should be formed, which could be dissolved, or which might grow
into permanent marriage.
The labour of the phalange would be conducted on scientific
methods; but it would, above all things, be made attractive, by
consulting the likings and capacities of the members, by frequent
change of occupation, by recourse to the principle of emulation in
individuals, groups, and series. On the principle that men and
women are eager for the greatest exertion, if only they like it,
Fourier bases his theory that all labour can be made attractive by
appealing to appropriate motives in human nature. Obviously, also,
what is now the most disgusting labour could be more effectually
performed by machinery.
The product of labour was to be distributed in the following manner:
—Out of the common gain of the phalange a very comfortable
minimum was assured to every member. Of the remainder, five-
twelfths went to labour, four-twelfths to capital, and three-twelfths
to talent. In the phalange, individual capital existed, and inequality
of talent was not only admitted, but insisted upon and utilised. In
the actual distribution the phalange treated with individuals. With
regard to the remuneration of individuals under the head of capital
no difficulty could be felt, as a normal rate of interest would be given
on the advances made. Individual talent would be rewarded in
accordance with the services rendered in the management of the
phalange, the place of each being determined by election. Labour
would be remunerated on a principle entirely different from the
present. Hard and common or necessary work should be best paid;
useful work should come next, and pleasant work last of all. In any
case the reward of labour would be so great that every one would
have the opportunity of becoming a capitalist.
One of the most notable results of the phalange treating with each
member individually is, that the economic independence of women
would be assured. Even the child of five would have its own share in
the produce.
The system of Fourier may fairly be described as one of the most
ingenious and elaborate Utopias ever devised by the human brain.
But in many cardinal points it has been constructed in complete
contradiction to all that experience and science have taught us of
human nature and the laws of social evolution. He particularly
underestimates the force of human egotism. From the beginning
progress has consisted essentially in the hard and strenuous
repression of the beast within the man, whereas Fourier would give
it free rein. This applies to his system as a whole, and especially to
his theories on marriage. Instead of supplying a sudden passage
from social chaos to universal harmony, his system would, after
entirely subverting such order as we have, only bring us back to
social chaos.
Yet his works are full of suggestion and instruction, and will long
repay the study of the social economist. His criticisms of the existing
system, of its waste, anarchy, and immorality, are ingenious,
searching, and often most convincing. In his positive proposals, too,
are to be found some of the most sagacious and far-reaching
forecasts of the future landmarks of human progress. Most
noteworthy are the guarantees he devised for individual and local
freedom. The phalange was on the one hand large enough to secure
all the benefits of a scientific industry and of a varied common life;
on the other it provides against the evils of centralisation, of State
despotism, of false patriotism and national jealousy. Fourier has
forecast the part to be played in the social and political development
of the future by the local body, whether we call it commune, parish,
or municipality. The fact that he has given it a fantastic name, and
surrounded it with many fantastic conditions, should not hinder us
from recognising his great sagacity and originality.
The freedom of the individual and of the minority is, moreover,
protected against the possible tyranny of the phalange by the
existence, under reasonable limits and under social control, of
individual capital. This individual capital, further, is perfectly mobile;
that is, the possessor of it, if he thinks fit to migrate or go on travel,
may remove his capital, and find a welcome for his labour, talent,
and investments in any part of the world. Such arrangements of
Fourier may suggest a much-needed lesson to many of the
contemporary adherents of ‘scientific socialism.’
While, therefore, we believe that Fourier’s system was as a whole
entirely utopian, he has with great sagacity drawn the outlines of
much of our political and social progress; and while we believe that
the full development of human passions as recommended by him
would soon reduce us to social chaos, a time may come in our
ethical and rational growth when a widening freedom may be
permitted and exercised, not by casting off moral law, but by the
perfect assimilation of it.

[1] Fourier’s complete works (6 vols., Paris, 1840-46;

new ed. 1870). The most eminent expounder of
Fourierism was Victor Considérant, Destinée sociale;
Gatti de Gammont’s Fourier et son système is an
excellent summary.
 CHAPTER III

FRENCH SOCIALISM OF 1848

The year 1830 was an important era in the history of socialism.

During the fermentation of that time the activity of the Saint-Simon
school came to a crisis, and the theories of Fourier had an
opportunity of taking practical shape. But by far the greatest result
for socialism of the revolutionary period of 1830 was the definite
establishment of the contrast between the bourgeoisie and
proletariat in France and England, the two countries that held the
foremost place in the modern industrial, social, and political
movement. Hitherto the men who were afterwards destined
consciously to constitute those two classes had fought side by side
against feudalism and the reaction. Through the restricted franchise
introduced at this period in the two countries just mentioned the
middle class had become the ruling power.
Excluded from political privileges and pressed by the weight of
adverse economic, conditions, the proletariat now appeared as the
revolutionary party. The first symptom in France of the altered state
of things was the outbreak at Lyons in 1831, when the starving
workmen rose to arms with the device, ‘Live working, or die fighting.’
Chartism was a larger phase of the same movement in England. The
theories of Saint-Simon and Fourier had met with acceptance chiefly
or entirely among the educated classes. Socialism now directly
appealed to the working men.
In this chapter our concern is with the development of the new form
of socialism in France. Paris, which had so long been the centre of
revolutionary activity, was now, and particularly during the latter half
of the reign of the bourgeois King, Louis Philippe, the seat of
socialistic fermentation. In 1839 Louis Blanc published his
Organisation du travail, and Cabet his Voyage en Icarie. In 1840
Proudhon brought out his book on property. Paris was the school to
which youthful innovators went to learn the lesson of revolution. At
this period she counted among her visitors Lassalle, the founder of
the Social Democracy of Germany; Karl Marx, the chief of scientific
international socialism; and Bakunin, the apostle of anarchism.
The socialistic speculation associated with the three men last
mentioned was to have a far-reaching influence; but it did not attain
to full development till a later period. The socialistic activity of Louis
Blanc and Proudhon culminated during the revolution of 1848, and
exercised considerable influence on the course of events in Paris at
that time.

LOUIS BLANC

The socialism of Saint-Simon and Fourier was, as we have seen,

largely imaginative and Utopian, and had only a very remote
connection with the practical life of their time. With Louis Blanc the
movement came into real contact with the national history of France.
In Louis Blanc’s teaching the most conspicuous feature was that he
demanded the democratic organisation of the State as preparatory
to social reorganisation. His system, therefore, had a positive and
practical basis, in so far as it allied itself to a dominant tendency in
the existing State.
It is unnecessary here to recapitulate in detail the life of Louis Blanc.
He was born in 1811 at Madrid, where his father was inspector-
general of finance under Joseph during his uncertain tenure of the
Spanish throne. At an early age he attained to eminence as a
journalist in Paris, and in 1839 established the Revue du progrès, in
which he first brought out his celebrated work on Socialism, the
Organisation du travail. It was soon published in book form, and
found a wide popularity among the workmen of France, who were
captivated by the brilliancy of the style, the fervid eloquence with
which it exposed existing abuses, and the simplicity and democratic
fitness of the schemes for the regeneration of society which it
advocated.
The greater part of the book is taken up with unsparing
denunciations of the evils of competition, which, as common to Louis
Blanc with other socialists, need not detain us. More interesting are
the practical measures for their removal, proposed in his treatise.[1]
Like the socialists that preceded him, L. Blanc cannot accept the
views which teach a necessary antagonism between soul and body;
we must aim at the harmonious development of both sides of our
nature. The formula of progress is double in its unity: moral and
material amelioration of the lot of all by the free co-operation of all,
and their fraternal association.[2] He saw, however, that social reform
could not be attained without political reform. The first is the end,
the second is the means. It was not enough to discover the true
methods for inaugurating the principle of association and for
organising labour in accordance with the rules of reason, justice, and
humanity. It was necessary to have political power on the side of
social reform, political power resting on the Chambers, on the
tribunals, and on the army: not to take it as an instrument was to
meet it as an obstacle.
For these reasons he wished to see the State constituted on a
thoroughly democratic basis, as the first condition of success. The
emancipation of the proletarians was a question so difficult that it
would require the whole force of the State for its solution. What is
wanting to the working class are the instruments of labour; the
function of Government is to furnish them. If we had to define what
we consider the State to be, we should reply, ‘The State is the
banker of the poor.’
Louis Blanc demanded that the democratic State should create
industrial associations, which he called social workshops, and which
were destined gradually and without shock to supersede individual
workshops. The State would provide the means; it would draw up
the rules for their constitution, and it would appoint the functionaries
for the first year. But, once founded and set in movement, the social
workshop would be self-supporting, self-acting, and self-governing.
The workmen would choose their own directors and managers, they
would themselves arrange the division of the profits, and would take
measures to extend the enterprise commenced.
In such a system where would there be room for arbitrary rule or
tyranny? The State would establish the social workshops, would pass
laws for them, and supervise their execution for the good of all; but
its rôle would end there. Is this, can this be tyranny? Thus the
freedom of the industrial associations and of the individuals
composing them would not only remain intact; it would have the
solid support of the State. The intervention of a democratic
Government on behalf of the people, whom it represented, would
remove the misery, anarchy, and oppression necessarily attendant on
the competitive system, and in place of the delusive liberty of
laissez-faire, would establish a real and positive freedom.
With regard to the remuneration of talent and labour L. Blanc takes
very high ground. ‘Genius,’ he said, ‘should assert its legitimate
empire, not by the amount of the tribute which it will levy on society,
but by the greatness of the services which it will render.’ This is no
mere flourish of eloquence; it is to be the principle of remuneration
in his association. Society could not, even if it would, repay the
genius of a Newton; Newton had his just recompense in the joy of
discovering the laws by which worlds are governed. Exceptional
endowments must find development and a fitting reward in the
exceptional services they render to society.
L. Blanc therefore believed in a hierarchy according to capacity;
remuneration according to capacity he admitted in the earlier
editions of his work, but only provisionally and as a concession to
prevalent anti-social opinion. In the edition of 1848, the year when
his theories attained for a time to historic importance, he had
withdrawn this concession. ‘Though the false and anti-social
education given to the present generation makes it difficult to find
any other motive of emulation and encouragement than a higher
salary, the wages will be equal, as the ideas and character of men
will be changed by an absolutely new education.’[3] Private capitalists
would be invited to join the associations, and would under fixed
conditions receive interest for their advances; but as the collective
capital increased, the opportunities for so placing individual capital
would surely diminish. The tyranny of capital would, in fact, receive
a mortal wound.
The revolution of 1848 was an important stage in the development
of democracy. In ancient and also in mediæval times the democracy
was associated with city life; the citizens personally appeared and
spoke and voted in the Assemblies. The modern democracy has
grown in large States, extending over wide territories, and the
citizen can exercise political power only through elected
representatives. Hence the importance of the franchise in modern
politics. The evolution of the modern democracy has gone through a
long succession of phases, beginning with the early growth of the
English Parliament, and continued in the struggles of the Dutch
against the Spaniards, in the English Revolutions of 1642 and 1688,
in the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of
1789. In the early struggles, however, the mass of the people had
no very great share. It was hardly till 1848 that the working class
made its entrance on the stage of history—in Europe at least.
The revolutionary disturbances of 1848 affected nearly the whole of
western and central Europe. It was a rising of the peoples against
antiquated political forms and institutions; against the arrangements
of the Treaty of Vienna, whereby Europe was partitioned according
to the convenience of ruling houses; against irresponsible
Governments, which took no account of the wishes of their subjects.
In France, the country with which we are now specially concerned,
the revolution was a revolt of the people against a representative
monarchy with a very restricted franchise. It was not a deeply-
planned rising, and, indeed, was a surprise to those who wished it
and accomplished it. Yet it marked a most important stage in the
progress of the world, for, as a result of it, men for the first time saw
the legislature of a great country established on principles of
universal suffrage, and the cause of the working men recognised as
a supreme duty of government.
Louis Blanc was the most prominent actor in what may be called the
social-democratic side of the French Revolution of 1848. Through his
influence with the working classes, and as representing their feelings
and aspirations, he obtained a place in the Provisional Government.
He was supported there by others like-minded with himself, including
one working man, whose appearance in such a capacity was also a
notable event in modern history. But though circumstances were so
far favourable, he did not accomplish much. It cannot be said that
his plans obtained a fair hearing or a fair trial. He was present in the
Provisional Government as the pioneer of a new cause whose time
had not yet come.
The schemes for social reconstruction which he contemplated were
certainly not carried out in the national workshops of that year. From
the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the subject,
subsequently instituted by the French Government, and from the
History of the National Workshops, written by their director, Emile
Thomas, it is perfectly clear that the national workshops were simply
a travesty of the proposals of Louis Blanc, established expressly to
discredit them. They were a means of finding work for the motley
proletariat thrown out of employment during the period of
revolutionary disturbance, and those men were put to unproductive
labour; whereas, of course, Louis Blanc contemplated nothing but
productive work, and the men he proposed inviting to join his
associations were to give guarantees of character. It was intended,
too, by his opponents that the mob of workmen whom they
employed in the so-called national workshops would be ready to
assist their masters in the event of a struggle with the socialist party.
A number of private associations of a kind similar to those proposed
by Louis Blanc were indeed subsidised by the Government. But of
the whole sum voted for this end, which amounted to only
£120,000, the greater part was applied to purposes quite foreign
from the grant. It was not the intention of the moving spirits of the
Government that they should succeed. Moreover, the months
following the revolution of February were a period of industrial
stagnation and insecurity, when any project of trade, either on the
old or on the new lines, had little prospect of success. Under these
circumstances, the fact that a few of the associations did prosper
very fairly may be accepted as proof that the scheme of Louis Blanc
had in it the elements of vitality. The history of the whole matter
fully justifies the exclamation of Lassalle that ‘lying is a European
power.’[4] It has been the subject of endless misrepresentation by
writers who have taken no pains to verify the facts.
As one of the leaders during this difficult crisis, Louis Blanc had
neither personal force nor enduring political influence sufficient to
secure any solid success for his cause. He was an amiable, genial,
and eloquent enthusiast, but without weight enough to be a
controller of men on a wide scale. The Labour Conferences at the
Luxembourg, over which he presided, ended also, as his opponents
desired, without any tangible result.
The Assembly, elected on the principle of universal suffrage, which
met in May, showed that the peasantry and the mass of the French
people were not in accord with the working classes of Paris and of
the industrial centres. It did not approve of the social-democratic
activity urged by a section of the Provisional Government. The
national workshops also were closed, and the proletariat of Paris
rose in armed insurrection, which was overthrown by Cavaignac in
the sanguinary days of June. Louis Blanc was in no way responsible
for the revolt, which can be called socialistic only in the sense that
the proletariat was engaged in it, the class of which socialism claims
to be the special champion.

[1] Organisation du travail. Fifth edition. 1848.

[2] Preface to fifth edition, Organisation du travail.

[3] Organisation du travail, p. 103.

[4] Lassalle, Die französischen Nationalwerkstätten von
1848.

PROUDHON

Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born in 1809 at Besançon, France, the

native place also of the socialist Fourier. His origin was of the
humblest, his father being a brewer’s cooper, and the boy herded
cows and did such other work as came in his way. But he was not
entirely self-educated; at sixteen he entered the college of his native
place, though his family was so poor that he could not procure the
necessary books, and had to borrow them from his mates in order to
copy the lessons. There is a story of the young Proudhon returning
home laden with prizes, but to find that there was no dinner for him.
At nineteen he became a working compositor, and was afterwards
promoted to be a corrector for the press, reading proofs of
ecclesiastical works, and thereby acquiring a considerable knowledge
of theology. In this way he also came to learn Hebrew, and to
compare it with Greek, Latin, and French. It was the first proof of his
intellectual audacity that on the strength of this he wrote an Essai de
grammaire générale. As Proudhon knew nothing whatever of the
true principles of philology, his treatise was of no value.
In 1838 he obtained the pension Suard, a bursary of 1500 francs a
year for three years, for the encouragement of young men of
promise, which was in the gift of the Academy of Besançon. Next
year he wrote a treatise On the Utility of Keeping the Sunday, which
contained the germs of his revolutionary ideas. About this time he
went to Paris, where he lived a poor, ascetic, and studious life,
making acquaintance, however, with the socialistic ideas which were
then fermenting in the capital.
In 1840 he published his first work, Qu’est-ce que la propriété?
(What is Property?) His famous answer to this question, La propriété
c’est le vol (Property is theft), naturally did not please the academy
of Besançon, and there was some talk of withdrawing his pension;
but he held it for the regular period.[1]
For his third memoir on property, which took the shape of a letter to
the Fourierist, M. Considérant, he was tried at Besançon, but was
acquitted. In 1846 he published his greatest work, the Système des
contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère. For some
time Proudhon carried on a small printing establishment at
Besançon, but without success; and afterwards held a post as a kind
of manager with a commercial firm at Lyons. In 1847 he left this
employment, and finally settled in Paris, where he was now
becoming celebrated as a leader of innovation.
He regretted the sudden outbreak of the revolution of February,
because it found the social reformers unprepared; but he threw
himself with ardour into the conflict of opinion, and soon gained a
national notoriety. He was the moving spirit of the Représentant du
Peuple and other journals, in which the most advanced theories
were advocated in the strongest language; and as member of
Assembly for the Seine department he brought forward his
celebrated proposal for exacting an impost of one-third on interest
and rent, which of course was rejected. His attempt to found a bank
which should operate by granting gratuitous credit, was also a
complete failure; of the five million francs which he required, only
seventeen thousand were offered. The violence of his utterances led
to an imprisonment at Paris for three years, during which he married
a young working woman.
As Proudhon aimed at economic rather than political innovation, he
had no special quarrel with the Second Empire, and he lived in
comparative quiet under it till the publication of his work, De la
justice dans la révolution et dans l’église (1858), in which he
attacked the Church and other existing institutions with unusual fury.
This time he fled to Brussels to escape imprisonment. On his return
to France his health broke down, though he continued to write. He
died at Passy in 1865.
Personally, Proudhon was one of the most remarkable figures of
modern France. His life was marked by the severest simplicity and
even puritanism; he was affectionate in his domestic relations, a
most loyal friend, and strictly upright in conduct. He was strongly
opposed to the prevailing French socialism of his time because of its
utopianism and immorality; and, though he uttered all manner of
wild paradox and vehement invective against the dominant ideas
and institutions, he was remarkably free from feelings of personal
hate. In all that he said and did he was the son of the people, who
had not been broken to the usual social and academic discipline;
hence his roughness, his one-sidedness, and his exaggerations. But
he is always vigorous, and often brilliant and original.
It would obviously be impossible to reduce the ideas of such an
irregular thinker to systematic form. In later years Proudhon himself
confessed that ‘the great part of his publications formed only a work
of dissection and ventilation, so to speak, by means of which he
slowly makes his way towards a superior conception of political and
economic laws.’ Yet the groundwork of his teaching is clear and firm;
no one could insist with greater emphasis on the demonstrative
character of economic principles as understood by himself. He
strongly believed in the absolute truth of a few moral ideas, with
which it was the aim of his teaching to mould and suffuse political
economy. Of these fundamental ideas, justice, liberty, and equality
were the chief. What he desiderated, for instance, in an ideal society
was the most perfect equality of remuneration. It was his principle
that service pays service, that a day’s labour balances a day’s labour
—in other words, that the duration of labour is the just measure of
value. He did not shrink from any of the consequences of this theory,
for he would give the same remuneration to the worst mason as to a
Phidias; but he looks forward also to a period in human development
when the present inequality in the talent and capacity of men would
be reduced to an inappreciable minimum.
From the great principle of service as the equivalent of service he
derived his axiom that property is the right of aubaine. The aubain
was a stranger not naturalised; and the right of aubaine was the
right in virtue of which the Sovereign claimed the goods of such a
stranger who had died in his territory. Property is a right of the same
nature, with a like power of appropriation in the form of rent,
interest, etc. It reaps without labour, consumes without producing,
and enjoys without exertion.
Proudhon’s aim, therefore, was to realise a science of society resting
on principles of justice, liberty, and equality thus understood; ‘a
science, absolute, rigorous, based on the nature of man and of his
faculties, and on their mutual relations; a science which we have not
to invent, but to discover.’ But he saw clearly that such ideas, with
their necessary accompaniments, could be realised only through a
long and laborious process of social transformation. As we have said,
he strongly detested the prurient immorality of the schools of Saint-
Simon and Fourier. He attacked them not less bitterly for thinking
that society could be changed off-hand by a ready-made and
complete scheme of reform. It was ‘the most accursed lie,’ he said,
‘that could be offered to mankind.’
In social change he distinguishes between the transition and the
perfection or achievement. With regard to the transition he
advocated the progressive abolition of the right of aubaine, by
reducing interest, rent, etc. For the goal he professed only to give
the general principles; he had no ready-made scheme, no Utopia.
The positive organisation of the new society in its details was a
labour that would require fifty Montesquieus. The organisation he
desired was one on collective principles, a free association which
would take account of the division of labour, and which would
maintain the personality both of the man and the citizen. With his
strong and fervid feeling for human dignity and liberty, Proudhon
could not have tolerated any theory of social change that did not
give full scope for the free development of man. Connected with this
was his famous paradox of anarchy, as the goal of the free
development of society, by which he meant that through the ethical
progress of men government should become unnecessary. Each man
should be a law to himself. ‘Government of man by man in every
form,’ he says, ‘is oppression. The highest perfection of society is
found in the union of order and anarchy.’
Proudhon’s theory of property as the right of aubaine is substantially
the same as the theory of capital held by Marx and most of the later
socialists. Property and capital are defined and treated as the power
of exploiting the labour of other men, of claiming the results of
labour without giving an equivalent. Proudhon’s famous paradox,
‘Property is theft,’ is merely a trenchant expression of this general
principle. As slavery is assassination inasmuch as it destroys all that
is valuable and desirable in human personality, so property is theft
inasmuch as it appropriates the value produced by the labour of
others in the form of rent, interest, or profit without rendering an
equivalent. For property Proudhon would substitute individual
possession, the right of occupation being equal for all men.
With the bloodshed of the days of June French socialism ceased for
a time to be a considerable force; and Paris, too, for a time lost its
place as the great centre of innovation. The rising removed the most
enterprising leaders of the workmen and quelled the spirit of the
remainder, while the false prosperity of the Second Empire relieved
their most urgent grievances. Under Napoleon III. there was
consequently comparative quietness in France. Even the
International had very little influence on French soil, though French
working men had an important share in originating it.

[1] A complete edition of Proudhon’s works, including

his posthumous writings, was published at Paris,
1875. See P. J. Proudhon, sa vie et sa
correspondance, by Sainte-Beuve (Paris, 1875), an
admirable work, unhappily not completed; also
Revue des Deux Mondes, Jan. 1866 and Feb. 1873.
 CHAPTER IV

EARLY ENGLISH SOCIALISM

Compared with the parallel movement in France the early socialism

of England had an uneventful history. In order to appreciate the
significance of Robert Owen’s work it is necessary to recall some of
the most important features of the social condition of the country in
his time. The English worker had no fixed interest in the soil. He had
no voice either in local or national government. He had little
education or none at all. His dwelling was wretched in the extreme.
The right even of combination was denied him till 1824. The wages
of the agricultural labourer were miserably low.
The workman’s share in the benefits of the industrial revolution was
doubtful. Great numbers of his class were reduced to utter poverty
and ruin by the great changes consequent on the introduction of
machinery; the tendency to readjustment was slow and continually
disturbed by fresh change. The hours of work were mercilessly long.
He had to compete against the labour of women, and of children
brought frequently at the age of five or six from the workhouses.
These children had to work the same long hours as the adults, and
they were sometimes very cruelly treated by the overseers. Destitute
as they so often were of parental protection and oversight, with both
sexes huddled together under immoral and insanitary conditions, it
was only natural that they should fall into the worst habits, and that
their offspring should to such a lamentable degree be vicious,
improvident, and physically degenerate.
In a country where the labourers had neither education nor political
or social rights, and where the peasantry were practically landless
serfs, the old English poor law was only a doubtful part of an evil
system. All these permanent causes of mischief were aggravated by
special causes connected with the cessation of the Napoleonic wars,
which are well known. It was in such circumstances, when English
pauperism had become a grave national question, that Owen first
brought forward his scheme of socialism.
Robert Owen, philanthropist, and founder of English socialism, was
born at the village of Newtown, Montgomeryshire, North Wales, in
1771.[1] His father had a small business in Newtown as saddler and
ironmonger, and there young Owen received all his school education,
which terminated at the age of nine. At ten he went to Stamford,
where he served in a draper’s shop for three or four years, and, after
a short experience of work in a London shop, removed to
Manchester.
His success at Manchester was very rapid. When only nineteen years
of age he became manager of a cotton-mill, in which five hundred
people were employed, and by his administrative intelligence,
energy, industry, and steadiness, soon made it one of the best
establishments of the kind in Great Britain. In this factory Owen
used the first bags of American Sea-Island cotton ever imported into
the country; it was the first cotton obtained from the Southern
States of America. Owen also made remarkable improvement in the
quality of the cotton spun. Indeed there is no reason to doubt that
at this early age he was the first cotton-spinner in England, a
position entirely due to his own capacity and knowledge of the trade,
as he had found the mill in no well-ordered condition and was left to
organise it entirely on his own responsibility.
Owen had become manager and one of the partners of the Chorlton
Twist Company at Manchester, when he made his first acquaintance
with the scene of his future philanthropic efforts at New Lanark.
During a visit to Glasgow he had fallen in love with the daughter of
the proprietor of the New Lanark mills, Mr. Dale. Owen induced his
partners to purchase New Lanark; and after his marriage with Miss
Dale he settled there, in 1800, as manager and part owner of the
mills. Encouraged by his great success in the management of cotton-
factories in Manchester, he had already formed the intention of
conducting New Lanark on higher principles than the current
commercial ones.
The factory of New Lanark had been started in 1784 by Dale and
Arkwright, the water-power afforded by the falls of the Clyde being
the great attraction. Connected with the mills were about two
thousand people, five hundred of whom were children, brought,
most of them, at the age of five or six from the poorhouses and
charities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The children especially had
been well treated by Dale, but the general condition of the people
was very unsatisfactory. Many of them were the lowest of the
population, the respectable country-people refusing to submit to the
long hours and demoralising drudgery of the factories. Theft,
drunkenness, and other vices were common; education and
sanitation were alike neglected; most families lived only in one room.
It was this population, thus committed to his care, which Owen now
set himself to elevate and ameliorate. He greatly improved their
houses, and by the unsparing and benevolent exertion of his
personal influence trained them to habits of order, cleanliness, and
thrift. He opened a store, where the people could buy goods of the
soundest quality at little more than cost price; and the sale of drink
was placed under the strictest supervision. His greatest success,
however, was in the education of the young, to which he devoted
special attention. He was the founder of infant schools in Great
Britain; and, though he was anticipated by Continental reformers, he
seems to have been led to institute them by his own views of what
education ought to be, and without hint from abroad.
In all these plans Owen obtained the most gratifying success.
Though at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger, he soon won
the confidence of his people. The mills continued to prosper
commercially, but it is needless to say that some of Owen’s schemes
involved considerable expense, which was displeasing to his
partners. Wearied at last of the restrictions imposed on him by men
who wished to conduct the business on the ordinary principles,
Owen, in 1813, formed a new firm, whose members, content with 5
per cent of return for their capital, would be ready to give freer
scope to his philanthropy. In this firm Jeremy Bentham and the well-
known Quaker, William Allen, were partners.
In the same year Owen first appeared as an author of essays, in
which he expounded the principles on which his system of
educational philanthropy was based. From an early age he had lost
all belief in the prevailing forms of religion, and had thought out a
creed for himself, which he considered an entirely new and original
discovery. The chief points in this philosophy were that man’s
character is made not by him but for him; that it has been formed by
circumstances over which he had no control; that he is not a proper
subject either of praise or blame—these principles leading up to the
practical conclusion that the great secret in the right formation of
man’s character is to place him under the proper influences,
physical, moral, and social, from his earliest years. These principles,
of the irresponsibility of man and of the effect of early influences,
are the keynote of Owen’s whole system of education and social
amelioration. As we have said, they are embodied in his first work, A
New View of Society; or, Essays on the Principle of the Formation of
the Human Character, the first of these essays (there are four in all)
being published in 1813. It is needless to say that Owen’s new views
theoretically belong to a very old system of philosophy, and that his
originality is to be found only in his benevolent application of them.
For the next few years Owen’s work at New Lanark continued to
have a national and even a European significance. His schemes for
the education of his workpeople attained to something like
completion on the opening of the institution at New Lanark in 1816.
He was a zealous supporter of the factory legislation resulting in the
Act of 1819, which, however, greatly disappointed him. He had
interviews and communications with the leading members of
Government, including the Premier, Lord Liverpool, and with many of
the rulers and leading statesmen of the Continent. New Lanark itself
became a much-frequented place of pilgrimage for social reformers,
statesmen, and royal personages, amongst whom was Nicholas,
afterwards Emperor of Russia. According to the unanimous
testimony of all who visited it, the results achieved by Owen were
singularly good. The manners of the children, brought up under his
system, were beautifully graceful, genial, and unconstrained; health,
plenty, and contentment prevailed; drunkenness was almost
unknown, and illegitimacy was extremely rare. The most perfect
good-feeling subsisted between Owen and his workpeople; all the
operations of the mill proceeded with the utmost smoothness and
regularity; and the business still enjoyed great prosperity.
Hitherto Owen’s work had been that of a philanthropist, whose great
distinction was the originality and unwearying unselfishness of his
methods. His first departure in socialism took place in 1817, and was
embodied in a report communicated to the Committee of the House
of Commons on the Poor Law. The general misery and stagnation of
trade consequent on the termination of the great war were
engrossing the attention of the country. After clearly tracing the
special causes connected with the war which had led to such a
deplorable state of things, Owen pointed out that the permanent
cause of distress was to be found in the competition of human
labour with machinery, and that the only effective remedy was the
united action of men, and the subordination of machinery. His
proposals for the treatment of pauperism were based on these
principles.
He recommended that communities of about twelve hundred
persons should be settled on spaces of land of from 1000 to 1500
acres, all living in one large building in the form of a square, with
public kitchen and mess-rooms. Each family should have its own
private apartments, and the entire care of the children till the age of
three, after which they should be brought up by the community,
their parents having access to them at meals and all other proper
times. These communities might be established by individuals, by
parishes, by counties, or by the State; in every case there should be
effective supervision by duly qualified persons. Work, and the
enjoyment of its results, should be in common.
The size of his community was no doubt partly suggested by his
village of New Lanark; and he soon proceeded to advocate such a
scheme as the best form for the reorganisation of society in general.
In its fully developed form—and it cannot be said to have changed
much during Owen’s lifetime—it was as follows. He considered an
association of from 500 to 3000 as the fit number for a good
working community. While mainly agricultural, it should possess all
the best machinery, should offer every variety of employment, and
should, as far as possible, be self-contained. In other words, his
communities were intended to be self-dependent units, which should
provide the best education and the constant exercise of unselfish
intelligence, should unite the advantages of town and country life,
and should correct the monotonous activity of the factory with the
freest variety of occupation, while utilising all the latest
improvements in industrial technique. ‘As these townships,’ as he
also called them, ‘should increase in number, unions of them
federatively united shall be formed in circles of tens, hundreds, and
thousands,’ till they should embrace the whole world in one great
republic with a common interest.
His plans for the cure of pauperism were received with great favour.
The Times and the Morning Post, and many of the leading men of
the country, countenanced them; one of his most steadfast friends
was the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria. He had indeed
gained the ear of the country, and had the prospect before him of a
great career as a social reformer, when he went out of his way at a
large meeting in London to declare his hostility to all the received
forms of religion. After this defiance to the religious sentiment of the
country, Owen’s theories were in the popular mind associated with
infidelity, and were henceforward suspected and discredited.
Owen’s own confidence, however, remained unshaken, and he was
anxious that his scheme for establishing a community should be
tested. At last, in 1825, such an experiment was attempted under
the direction of his disciple, Abram Combe, at Orbiston, near
Glasgow; and in the same year Owen himself commenced another at
New Harmony, in Indiana, America. After a trial of about two years
both failed completely. Neither of them was a pauper experiment;
but it must be said that the members were of the most motley
description, many worthy people of the highest aims being mixed
with vagrants, adventurers, and crotchety wrong-headed
enthusiasts.
After a long period of friction with William Allen and some of his
other partners, Owen resigned all connection with New Lanark in
1828. On his return from America he made London the centre of his
activity. Most of his means having been sunk in the New Harmony
experiment, he was no longer a flourishing capitalist, but the head of
a vigorous propaganda, in which socialism and secularism were
combined. One of the most interesting features of the movement at
this period was the establishment in 1832 of an equitable labour
exchange system, in which exchange was effected by means of
labour notes, the usual means of exchange and the usual middlemen
being alike superseded. The word ‘socialism’ first became current in
the discussions of the Association of all Classes of all Nations,
formed by Owen in 1835.
During these years also his secularistic teaching gained such
influence among the working classes as to give occasion, in 1839,
for the statement in the Westminster Review that his principles were
the actual creed of a great portion of them. His views on marriage,
which were certainly lax, gave just ground for offence. At this period
some more communistic experiments were made, of which the most
important were that at Ralahine, in the county of Clare, Ireland, and
that at Tytherly, in Hampshire. It is admitted that the former, which
was established in 1839, was a remarkable success for three and a
half years, till the proprietor, who had granted the use of the land,
having ruined himself by gambling, was obliged to sell out. Tytherly,
begun in 1839, was an absolute failure. By 1846 the only permanent
result of Owen’s agitation, so zealously carried on by public
meetings, pamphlets, periodicals, and occasional treatises, was the
co-operative movement, and for the time even that seemed to have
utterly collapsed. In his later years Owen became a firm believer in
spiritualism. He died in 1858 at his native town at the age of eighty-
seven.
The causes of Owen’s failure in establishing his communities are
obvious enough. Apart from the difficulties inherent in socialism, he
injured the social cause by going out of his way to attack the historic
religions and the accepted views on marriage, by his tediousness,
quixotry, and over-confidence, by refusing to see that for the mass
of men measures of transition from an old to a new system must be
adopted. If he had been truer to his earlier methods and retained
the autocratic guidance of his experiments, the chances of success
would have been greater. Above all, Owen had too great faith in
human nature, and he did not understand the laws of social
evolution. His great doctrine of the influence of circumstances in the
formation of character was only a very crude way of expressing the
law of social continuity so much emphasised by recent socialism. He
thought that he could break the chain of continuity, and as by magic
create a new set of circumstances, which would forthwith produce a
new generation of rational and unselfish men. The time was too
strong for him, and the current of English history swept past him.
Even a very brief account of Owen, however, would be incomplete
without indicating his relation to Malthus. Against Malthus he
showed that the wealth of the country had, in consequence of
mechanical improvement, increased out of all proportion to the
population. The problem, therefore, was not to restrict population,
but to institute rational social arrangements and to secure a fair
distribution of wealth. Whenever the number of inhabitants in any of
his communities increased beyond the maximum, new ones should
be created, until they should extend over the whole world. There
would be no fear of over-population for a long time to come. Its evils
were then felt in Ireland and other countries; but that condition of