Brain Food is a website. Brain Food is for people who are intelligent and well educated. Brain Food is for people who are not scientifically illiterate.

A lack of education can not be compensated for by a website. If you are scientifically illiterate, don't bother going to the site. You won't be able to tell the difference between educated discourse and cocktail party name dropping. You won't be able to tell the difference between science and propaganda. Mr. Hanson does not need to be bothered by the hate mail which seems to be the knee-jerk reaction of scientific illiterates upon visiting such a site. "They can get their substitute for knowledge from Opra, Rush and Jerry."

Jay Hanson

Whatta Hero!

What percentage of Americans are equiped with the necessary education in the arts and sciences to understand Mr Hanson's magnificent collection of writings from Nobel Laureates, renowned scientists? By his reckoning, less than one percent. Buddycom feels confident with a figure of at least three percent.

Since you seem to be concerned with ecology, do you have any solar panels on your roof? "No."

Don't you want to help mankind? We are talking about some heavy duty stuff here, right? "No. I am not in the 'social services' business."

Asked why he does it, he replied that it's fun and he enjoys it.

More about Brain Food

For those individuals ranking in the top 98th percentile and who are compassionately concerned about the lives and future of all life forms including their own, the Brain Food website has been constructed with the adhesive quality of fly paper. Once drawn there one's first impression is that it's crazy. If one is a healthy skeptic, one has doubts, tries to find fault. Upon closer examination, one sees the names, the sources. Cousteau said that? Einstein said that? The volume is tremendous. You will find that all the things you have ever thought about, have ever meditated upon, have ever talked with your university professors about, are all there. And not only is it all there but, each minute point has been quoted by at least five brilliant minds. And foonoted to represent some twenty or thirty more. . It's as though somehow Mr. Hanson has found what every brilliant mind has written on the subject of ecology. You get an eerie felling that there are no original thoughts. That everything is known. That your thoughts are part of some normal progression towards discovery, or some predictible reaction to macrocosmic conditions. Fly paper indeed.One may experience thrilling sensations, tingling excitement. Yes, you say, yes! You know Mr. Cousteau said that. You've read Erwin Schroedinger's, "What is Life?" Sure, it was decades ago, but what a thrill to see it there in the footnotes. And you've written emails to Garrett Hardin; guess what? He's in there, too! Quacks? Political agendas? Dr Paul Ehrlich? The Union of Concerned Scientists? Guess again !

You may become euphoric. But reality is part of a continuum. You pause to watch a little news on CNN. In America, the great bastion of "freedom of educational opportunity for all, " you are reminded that the decline continues. Only twenty five precent of students from grades four to twelve can read the english language at their grade level. Only 40% of adults in another survey knew the difference between an atom and a molecule.

You realize that only a tiny few are interested. Fewer are able to comprehend. And fewer dare to contemplate the meaning and the implications of the truths to which you are privy. Spookier still is the realization that the majority of the individuals in that last category are employed in think tanks. Conservative think tanks. The folks who are most likely to have scoured the web and read this page. Brain Food material often rises to the fourth level of ecological understanding but, we don't need to get off on that tangent.

The epitome of irony. What would benefit everyone is nothing but heresy or worse. Minds renowned for brilliant achievements can be found and quoted on the subject of ecology, can even be collected together. But, what they know can only be freely discussed amongst themselves . A few well prepared minds. The big picture. What is written there 98% of Americans don't, can't and won't ever consider anything but lunacy. Traditional eschatological fantasies are simply too compelling.

We give a hoot about habitat, species extinctions, and biodiversity, in that order. Brainfood seems to have this thing about economics. That's ecology without the spirituality, without a hoot about habitat. The biggest problem we have with Brainfood, and for that matter with the Union of Concerned Scientists, ESA, Worldwatch, Jim Norton, or Noam Chomsky is that they don't put it all together. Surely they are verbose and they try to be complete. They have many long lists of problems. They have many long lists of solutions. They have many whistle blowing revelations. They have many utopian wish lists filled with verbs in the conditional and subjunctive tenses. They never give HOP the central importance it deserves. One is left to figure out for oneself that human overpopulation is the root cause of the problems of both humanity and ecology. They also lack a handy little tool which has been called, the contrarian viewpoint , which can allow them to appreciate the significance of HOP. The contrarian viewpoint gives airhead idealists a true assessment of the real problem they are up against. It may be just as well that they don't know about the contrarian viewpoint, because if they did they might become very quiet and sit down. They might just give it all up.

Mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru.

If you are intimidated, bored or angered by Plato, Aristotle, Cousteau, Malthus, Mill or Ehrlich, don't bother pointing your browser to Brain Food. It is interesting to consider that, "ehrlich" is an indication of Paul Ehrlich's truthfulness, for his very name means "honest, sincere and fair," in the German language.

Buddycom note: Have you ever noticed that some of the most insightful and eloquent on the subject of ecology aren't ecologists, nor are they biologists, but rather physicists? Why is that?

This is true liberty, when free-born men,
Having to advise the public, may speak free,
Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace:
What can be juster in a state than this?

Euripid. Hicetid.