VIEWPOINTS
EDITORIALS. OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Environmentalist hunger
strike will change little
■ OUR OPINION: !• .•<: , /,
is worthy, but the tactics
are ineffective
"If you don't incut our
demands, wc will refuse to
eat,"
For a while.
Two environmental
at tivists arc staging a
hunger strike to protest the
logging of old-growth
forests While hungei -trikes
have boon t>ff«K tive for
Mahatma Gandhi and mem
frets of the fnsfi Republican
Army, they only work when
Ihe strike! s are willing to
die for their c hum?.
Are Tim Ream and Shan
non Wilson willing to go the
distance to save the North
west 's timber from becom
ing two-bs fours? Both have
said they intend to stop
before they do any perma
nent damage to their bodies,
so death is probably out of
the question.
ft's doubtful, despite the
worthiness of the cause,
that this public demonstra
tion of self-induced suffer
ing will have any effect on
the logging of Oregon's tim
her The federal government
approved the cutting of pro
viouslv protected forests as
part of a larger budget bill
this summer Two hungry
guys with a lent and a Will
Bat Fot 1... sign area t
about to stop powerful tim
ber lobbies and the anti reg
ulatory Republican Con
gress. These types of
demonstrations only post
pone the inevitable and irri
tate the very people protest
ers are trying to influence
Public protest is most
effective when it involves
the rights of people The
civil rights movement of the
t>(K, the freeing of Nelson
Mandela and the end of
apartheid in South Africa,
the gay rights movement.
the women's suffrage and
equal rights movements
were all effective bet ause
thev were .ihle to ryillv pop
ular support around human
suffering.
It's difficult, if not impos
slide, to inspire the same
kind of passion and momen
tum for our forests. They're
worthy of that level of com
mitment. hut they probably
won't get it
Which is why domonstnt
' ems -.lit h as the hunger
strike seem }>olntless and a
little silly The participants
are only willing to take the
strike to a pre-illness level,
and as sue ii. they have
already shown their hand to
tin' opposing players
No bureauc rat ts going to
lose sleep over Hearn s emp
ty stomach
Rather than t hannelingso
mu< h energy to reverse
something that has aireads
taken place, these two men
would do better to turn their
attention to preventing
future logging.
Write commentaries for
local papers Ask people to
sign jietiUons Call our
elected officials Form a lob
bv. Watch CNN
All of these activities
would do more to save the
planet's ecosystem than a
month of uncomfortable
camping. Environmentalists
are to be commended for
iheir commitment to saving
our forests, but it's time to
examine thoir lai ties This
movement is different than
other grass roots uprisings,
and it needs .< new set of
weapons.
Ream and Wilson should
come out of the rain Being
vvet, hungry and weak won't
help them or us in the fight
ahead.
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Science may point to existence of God
Over the gates of the temple of u trru e are written
the words Vc must have faith It is a quality who h the
JLmmurndepending • •n whom sou talked to), this class
tJealt ss nil the fundamentals of both quantum mcchan
ics ami quantum s hetnisiry
Now . as much as I hate to admit it, I didn't really
team much in this class Don't get me wrong, the pro
fessor ss as great, it's just that yiw can't really ilo much
ssith only a term's ssorth of quantum nick knacks. If
you're going to do anything ss ith it, you need a Ph l)
However, there ssas one very interesting thing I
learned, am! that is that God just might esist between
the atswns ssithin the very bowels of modem science
and human umlerMamlmg _
i. lentist cannot dis/ieme utth
t/iit /‘Ian, A
act term I had the wonderful pleasure of tak
mg Chemistry 41 V l*hs steal ('hemistry
Affectionalch knossn as p-Chem (or Hell'
In quantum mechanic* (the vtudy
t>* physks at the Uumic level!,
there iv an experiment that pmfev
votv juvt love to show to undergradv
for the primary rcavw that it views
with vtuilents' heads and actually
forces them to think 11m little
giviviy iv called the two-slit expert
mens
Imagine it you will a wall with
two shiv cut into it On one side
you hase a phsston gun ami on the
Nnr
Ctancy
.»!!«-( men? is a pnotograproc pule when you snoot
that gun, the photons haxe an equal opportunity to go
thrinigh either sin. (This i* because of the wavc-ltkr
nature of the photon and bunch o( *>thrr stuff that
would give both you am) me 4 headache, trust me)
Thu process produces an interference pattern on the
photographic plate
t ou might be thinking, so what, quit wasting my
time " The interesting part 1* that no one knows which
slit each photon passed through without using a detec
tor However, when a detector is used, the interference
pattern changes drastically.
So what it ail boils down to is that if you don't know
w hich slit the photisns have traveled through, you get
one interference pattern, but if you Jo know w hich slits
the photons have passed through, you get an entirely
different pattern. Everything is still (he same in both
cases, the slits arc identical, the phot tins are all the
same, and (here’s no other holes in Ihc wall.
The only thing that changes is whether or not you
know which slits the phiWixts have pasved through.
After this was all evplamed to me (in much greater
depth, mind you), 1 pulled my twain out of the blender
and asked myself this question Docs anything physical
change if the only variation in the experiment is what
the observer sees ’ The answer I got back was no noth
ing changes Talk about a kick in the head.
Everything I had learned in science up to this point
told me that science c»»uld reasonably explain or prr
diet everything in nur universe, and that the only wav
the results front an experiment would change is if you
actually fooled around w ith the it.
The experiment wasn't supposed to give different
results based on thought alone. It was just a little hit too
weird I asked the professor, in his opinion, if he
believed that this was a link between the physical am)
metaphysical Much to my consternation, he said yes
Vk ith that, all science seemed to go flying out the
window Then it all flew right back in again. Vou see,
gravity was still working, as was every other law of
nature
The only thing that had changed was that in my
mind, physics and theology had just then gone off to
l-as Vegas to get hitched God (or whatever you care
to call him) was not only messing with my head, but
with my subatomic panicles as well. I was getting a lit
tle bit paranoid There had to be a rational explanation
for all ol this
xhhi w.isn ( s.i mucn an cnmv living ivmni tnc
ipiarks but rather the embodiment of everything we
ibm't understand wrapped up into one neat little pack
age k this simply another exercise In mental masturba
turn ' IVrhapv But think about il
Ibe lirvt time a caveman stink his head out of his
save and experienced lightning arid thunder, it probably
scared the hojec/us out of him He didn't know what
the hell it was. or more importantly, whs it happened
He couldn’t explain it. so he came up with the most
rational reason he could Someone or something else
had caused the tire to fail (torn the sky to frighten him.
Regardless of w hat he called it. Mr Caveman had
juvt come up with the notion of God That iv. some
thing much more powerful than he was and who he
couldn't really delmc physically
Then, as time passed and the human intellect grew,
this notion of God was pushed aside Now we can
explain what lightning is and that the earth isn't at tbc
ccntcr ol the universe But God is still in charge of
those things wc still don't understand such as the
notion of an afterlife, the wail, and that damn two-slit
experiment.
Eventually, perhaps thine things will also be
explained by sc ience, but thete is one thing that scicikc
will never be able to explain away, and that is the very
human spirit w hich created God in the first place.
Jesse / Bohrer-Ctancy. a senior majoring in bio
chemistry. is a columnist for the Emerald.
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