About "Studium generale"

Because in the "profile" there is not enough space I like to give an acount of my interests in science and research here.

I have studied history, biology and philosophy.

At the moment I'm interested in ...

... the evolution of (professional) commitment in complex societies: Especially in the relationship between kinship-altruism and the divsion of labour in complex societies. (The evolution of the "Prinzip Verantwortung".) Theory (W.D. Hamilton's r>C/B) proposes, that a) commitment (= altruism), b) the grade of economic complexity of a society and c) its demography are interwoven and connected with each other - not exclusively but also - via kinship-altruism, that means: kin-recognition and the finetuning of the grade of genetic relatedness between people in historical and current societies via endogamy/exogamy could be pivotal in the long run. And because of that there is also an interest in a lot of empirical questions like

- the demography of complex societies, their "Bevölkerungsweise" (in the word of Gerhard Mackenroth), their "demographic regimes".

- the archaeological research about the first complex societies of humankind: the pre-pottery and pottery neolithic cultures in the Near East and Europe, their demography and their division of labour.

- the research about the economic and social history of pre-industrial European farming societies, their demography and their division of labour.

- the reproductive benefits of religiosity ("Evolutionary Religious Studies").

- Lewontin's Fallacy (= ideology instead of science).

But I'm interested also in general questions

... about biological evolution (e.g. Joachim Bauer, Simon Conway Morris) and in all new trends in human genetics and sociobiology, in "group selection theory" and "social brain theory" (Robin Dunbar),

... about the evolution of altruism and spite, deception and self-deception, cheating and cheater detection, especially ...

... about the history and current political influence of Intelligence Services, Lobby groups, freemasonry, political murder, corruption, disinformation and manipulated democracy (e.g. Regina Igel's "Terrorjahre"; Wolfram Baentsch's "Doppelmord an Uwe Barschel", Kevin MacDonald's "A Culture of Critique"),

... about the philosophy of a naturalistic worldview and

... about new forms of non-monotheistic religiosity and philosophy in the 20. and 21. century in Germany, Europe and worldwide.

The reproductive benefits of an anthroposophic lifestyle

Abstract

Scientific data about people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" show that new forms of religiosity and spirituality developed mainly in the 20th century are able to enhance birth rates of people, also of those who have left the traditional Christian churches.

The german version of this article can be found ---> here.

Introduction

The young discipline of "Evolutionary Religious Studies" (ERS) has made a lot of progress in the last few years. (1 - 3) At the moment, this discipline is concerned in the first place with modern world religions or with tribal predecessors - like Judaism – which have survived in modern times. But what about their modern "successors"? Sometimes it is assumed that forms of atheism or "political ideologies" can be viewed as evolutionary and historical "successors" of the former, demographically successful world religions. But no one has ever been able to show, that atheism has a positive influence on birth rate, and on the stability of human groups over a longer time-span, which are some of the most important indicators of the evolutionary adaptability of elements in human culture.

So, we have to be aware that modern world religions and their most important tribal predecessor today - Judaism - are only a few thousand years old. This is a very short time measured in evolutionary periods. It is very plausible to assume, that they have been established in world history mostly by a process of cultural and genetic individual and group selection. Christianity for example has begun as a small religious sect and minority among other cultural, ethnic and religious groups which were formed by the majority of people in those days and which all had their own reproductive success and "group evolutionary stability" in their time. This means that they were able to maintain their own "evolutionary stable strategy" or "group evolutionary strategy", i.e., they were able to maintain their "reproductive regime". The last term is the English word for the German term "Bevölkerungsweise" introduced by the well known German demographer Gerhard Mackenroth (1903 - 1955).

But a lot of those cultural, religious and ethnic groups that have existed parallel to early Christianity have lost their former ability for reproductive success and group coherence in the centuries that followed, while Christianity successfully maintained its ability in world history for the next two thousand years. The roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, for example, was not able to maintain and reerect the former successful "group evolutionary strategies" of paganism of the ancient world in the face of upcoming Christianity in his times. There are a lot of other adherents of ancient religions and ethnicities worldwide who experienced failure in the face of the triumph of the world religions around the world.

There are a lot of good hypotheses why Christianity was so successful in evolution and history and why the old pagan religions were not able to maintain their "reproductive regimes". The most convincing is that it was the new scientific thinking of the Greeks which destroyed the former "reproductive regime" of the ancient world that was stabilized by tribal religiosity. And Christianity "imitated" the rationality in scientific thinking of the Greeks in the area of religion to an extreme that has never been seen in the world before. (25) But the rise of a naturalistic worldview and philosophy in the face of Christianity in the last thousand years has convinced a majority of people in the northern hemisphere that the old forms of world religions can not be any more the moral and religious stabilisators of a successful "reproductive regime" of progressive, enlighted, modern societies.

One may presume that from a historical point we are now at the beginning of another "phase transition" in world history (that is in the history of the northern hemisphere) which creates a new "reproductive regime", stabilized by a new, modern form of religiosity. *)

Today, more and more people are wondering about what kind of religiosity could stop the demographic decline of the western world and will thereby maintain the former reproductive success of the people in the northern hemisphere. It is obvious that atheism in the course of history has never had this quality. On the contrary, it has caused the described demographic decline. It does not even seem very plausible that atheism will achieve the quality to stop demographic decline in the future. (- Or will possibly such a fictitious world as the one shown in the famous novel "Brave new world" by Aldous Huxley come true by establishing such inhumane and apparently psychologically nearly impossible "reproductive regimes"?)

As far as I know at the moment, there is no scientific evidence in literature that shows a possibility by principle to enhance fertility rate of people in modern western societies by a modern religiosity of the 20th century and not only by the ancient forms of religiosity of traditional world religions. These ancient forms have an above-average reproductive success today; because their successful "group evolutionary strategies" have been selected many centuries ago. And maybe the inborn psychology of the ethnicities in the western world have also been adapted to these ancient forms of religiosity in some way or other by living thousand years under their "reproductive regime". This is also assumed for the "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence". (5) We can hypothesize about the decline of the frequence of "warrior genes" (MAOA-genes) or ADHS-genes in ethnicities of the northern hemisphere because of the more peaceful "reproductive regime" of Christianity, for example.

But most people in science at least do not assume, think, know or hope (6), that these old "reproductive regimes", these old "group evolutionary strategies" of the traditional world religions or of Judaism are of that kind of religiosity that will be of reproductive success for modern secular societies in the western world in the future. Atheism does also not seem to be a reproductive advantage to its adherents. There fore, could it be possible to establish a new religious "group evolutionary strategy" in modern societies, that is more successful in reproduction than atheism?

Methods

Is there any group that could be an example for this? A glimpse into literature about people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" could be a hint. Anthroposophy was founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925). He was an admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (7) but also in a way of Jesus and Buddha. Today, people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" can be found in Western Europe (Western Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain) as well as in the United States and Australia. In Germany they run the most private schools in which they practise the so called "Waldorf-education". In Western Germany there are about 200 schools with 80.000 children.

They have their own Kindergarten, too, as well as their own "anthroposophic medicine", physicians, hospitals and old people’s homes. These are all indicators for a high social engagement and shows social responsibility. These are also indicators for areas of prevailing female activity. Example: More females than males are among the patients of anthroposophic physicians. And it is a fact that only very few women are members of atheistic organisations - for example of the german "Giordano Bruno-Stiftung". (22, 23) (The same is true for the "Brights movement").

A lot of people following the "anthroposophic lifestyle" work at universities and in medical research, they have their own established research programmes and scientific journals. People who are living a so called "anthroposophic lifestyle" have been object of various studies and meta-studies in medicine (8 - 13). They have also been focused on in education research (14, 15) and religious studies (7, 16 - 20).

Results

Thousands of people with an "anthroposophic lifestyle" have been subject of scientific research in various areas. (8 - 20)

In general: The underlying trend and some of the more important results are: There are a lot more people among them with academic education than in control groups, and less people living alone compared to control groups. Children who experience Waldorf-education have more brothers and sisters than control groups. Family size or the "number of people per household" are slightly above the average. There are much less smokers and people being overweight among them.

Attitude towards the Steiner philosophy and Waldorf-education: What about religion? Regarding this group this is a very complex question, because the majority of people following the anthroposophic lifestyle seem not to identify themselves with the anthroposophic philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. The majority of them have a sceptical attitude towards the Steiner philosophy. But in what do they believe instead? 1.124 of persons who experienced Waldorf-education were asked in the winter of 2004/05 in questionnaires about their life, their religion and religious attitudes. This study group was born between the 1930s and 1970s. (14 - 16) The results: 60 % are sceptical towards the Steiner philosophy or reject it. But 80 % of them would repeat their Waldorf-education.

This means that there is obviously a high identification with the practical consequences of this philosophy but not with the philosophy itself. And this may be typical for people with an anthroposophic lifestyle. But we have to be aware of the fact that there might be a minority - an "inner core" of adherents of the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner - who seem to be essential for the coherence, the survival and the growth of the group and its social activities for over eighty years now.

Political orientation: Half of the mentioned 1.124 people sympathize with political parties. And half of those sympathizing with political parties are sympathizing with the German party "Bündnis 90/Die Grünen" (the green party). And half of the other halve of people sympathizing with political parties are sympathizing with social democracy.

Birth rate:

692 of the 1.124 had children (61 %) and 352 (30 %) did not have children. 50 % of them were between 30 and 37 years old. 253 were between 64 and 68 years old and had an average of 2,2 children per person. 236 were between 50 and 60 years old and had 2,0 children per person. 542 were between 30 and 37 years old and had 0,9 children per person till now. (15, p. 6) If these 542 with some plausibility will have at the end of their lives twice as many children as now, they will have 1,8 children per person. And this would mean a birth rate of the whole study group of 1,9 children per person. (24)

Membership in churches:

In Western Germany in the year 2004

19 % of the people were no members of a church and 74 % were members of a Christian church.

(In Germany as a whole in the year 2005 there were

32 % with no membership of a church and 65 % members of a church,

that is because in the former [predominantly atheistic] Eastern Germany in the year 2005 there were

70 % with no membership in a church and 27 % members of a church.)

In the whole study group of 1.124 people who experienced Waldorf-education (all from Western Germany) there were

43 % with no membership of a church and 57 % members of a church.

Briefly, among people following an anthroposophic lifestyle there are more than twice as many people who have left the traditional Christian churches than in the control group. This is also true for the older people, born in the 1930s, but there is an upward tendency among the younger persons.

This is a case that seems not to have been studied very often in "Evolutionary Religious Studies" yet: Non-membership in Christian churches twice as much than the average and birth rate above the average. And at the same time a group with members with academic education above the average too.

Here are some more details: Among the members of a church of the 1.124 (this means among the 57 % of the whole of the study group):

55 % are members of a protestant church,

17 % are members of the Catholic Church,

17 % are members of the anthroposophic "Christengemeinschaft" (founded in 1922 in cooperation with Rudolf Steiner but without him being a member and still without acknowledgement of the official and established protestant church in Germany)

10 % are members of Judaism, Buddhism or other religious communities.

We can recognize a development towards more Catholics (27 %) and less members of the "Christengemeinschaft" (12 %) among the younger persons of the study group.

Church-membership and attitude towards Steiner philosophy as demographic factors:

There is not so much difference in the identification with anthroposopical philosophy of Rudolf Steiner among members of a church and non-members of a traditional church. Only the members of the "Christengemeinschaft" identify significantly more with the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. Maybe they belong to the ideological “inner core” of the Steiner movement.

Among the 692 with children, 60 % are members of a church and 40 % are non-members. Among the 352 without children, 50 % are members of a church and 50 % are non-members. (15, p. 193) Among the 692 with children, 43 % have a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and 56 % do not. Among the 352 without children, only 34 % have a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and 65 % do not.

Thus, we can conclude that church-membership as well as a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner have positive effects on the birth rate. But church-membership has even stronger positive effects.

Religious orientation in a broader sense: The 1.124 were also asked to answer "Yes" or "No" to the sentence: "The thought about a higher cosmic order gives meaning and orientation to my life." ("Der Gedanke an eine höhere kosmische Ordnung gibt mir Sinn und Orientierung in meinem Leben.") 58 % answered "Yes."

Discussion

What can be said about the results all in all? Birth rates of church-members with Waldorf-education seem to mirror the birth rates of church-members of Germany as a whole. They are also slightly above the average.

But the most remarkable result is: Non-church-members with Waldorf-education seem to have birth rates not very much below birth rates of church-members. And because non-membership of churches in this group is above the average compared to the whole of Germany, the birth rate of people following an anthroposophic lifestyle which is slightly above the average cannot only be caused by the church-members in their rows. The non-members among them also have birth rates slightly above the average compared to Germany as a whole - and at least compared to non-members of churches of the whole of Germany.

This is simply what can be said at the moment about the published data. For a deeper understanding of the religious demography of people following an anthroposophic lifestyle we have to await more precise data than those published until now. E. g., there is still no answer to the question, if church-members have bigger families (i.e. more than two children) than non-church-members.

Michael Ebertz interpreted the results saying (16) that there are two kinds of religiosity in modern people (21). On the one hand there is the institutionalized one: people are members of churches. But on the other hand there is another one which he calls the "universal religion" that means the belief "in a higher cosmic order of the world". He also calls it "vitalistic" worldview – let me call it “monism” in the sense of Ernst Haeckel. Ebertz also assumes that the former kind of religion is often overlapped by the second kind of religiosity that differs in many ways from the former. And the data show that this second kind of religiosity seems to be able to influence the birth rates as well. - At least when it is framed by a social setting like the one of an "anthroposophic lifestyle".

And, to my mind, it is of the utmost importance to underline again that this modern belief and religion Albert Einstein and many other people and scientists have adhered to – or that is not refused by people like Richard Dawkins has also the quality - by principle - to establish a "reproductive regime" that seems to be necessary for the demographic survival of the western world.

Ingo Bading, M.A., Kassel, Germany

_____________________

*) One may presume even more within a pure naturalistic worldview - and together with philosopher John Leslie or palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris (4): That religiosity itself is hidden in the inner heart of all natural existence, in the heart of the big bang ("anthropic principle"), in the heart of evolution and human evolution - in the past as well as in the present and future. And this may be the reason, why human religiosity in itself has often such a high level of evolutionary adaptability. Even if these thoughts are only hypotheses, not proved facts, they can give motivation to formulate hypotheses that more easily can be proved than the philosophical hypotheses as such.

_________________

1. Wilson, David Sloan: Darwin's Cathedral. Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. University of Chicago Press 2002

2. Sosis, Richard (2000 - 2008)

3. Blume, Michael (2006 - 2007)

4. Conway Morris, Simon: Life's Solution. Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge University Press 2003
5. Cochran, Gregory; Hardy, Jason; Harpending, Henry: Natural history of Ashkenazi Intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science, 2006

6. Dawkins, Richard: The God Delusion. 2006

7. Blume, Michael: Anthroposophie - Religionsdemographische Betrachtungen von Ingo Bading. At: "Religionswissenschaft aus Freude", Scienceblog of Michael Blume, 20.02.2008, see here.

8. Roland Unkelbach u.a.: Unterschiede zwischen Patienten schulmedizinischer und anthroposophischer Hausärzte. In: Forsch Komplementärmed 2006; 13:349–355, Published online: November 3, 2006

9. Gunver S. Kienlea u.a.: Anthroposophische Medizin: Health Technology Assessment Bericht – Kurzfassung. In: Forsch Komplementärmed 2006; 13 (suppl 2):7–18

10. Helen Flöistrup u.a.: Allergic disease and sensitization in Steiner school children. In: J Allergy Clin Immunol, January 2006, Available online November 29, 2005

11. Harald J. Hamre u.a.: Anthroposophic vs. conventional therapy of acute respiratory and ear infections: a prospective outcomes study. In: Wien Klin Wochenschr (2005) 117/7–8: 256–268

12. H. J. Hamre u.a: Anthroposophic therapies in chronic disease: the anthroposophic medicine outcomes study (AMOS). In: Eur J Med Res (2004) 9: 351-360

13. Johan S Alm u.a.: Atopy in children of families with an anthroposophic lifestyle. In: Lancet 1999; 353: 1485 – 88

14. Barz, Heiner; Randoll, Dirk (Hg.): Absolventen von Waldorfschulen. Eine empirische Studie zu Bildung und Lebensgestaltung. 2. Aufl. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007 (St. gen.-Bookshop) [important parts of the text, introduction and formulars - all in german - can bee found at: www.waldorf-absolventen.de]

15. Randoll, Dirk; Barz, Heiner: Absolventenstudie zur Waldorf-Pädagogik (Deutschland). Tabellenband 1. (free download - pdf. ---> here.)

16. Ebertz, Michael N.: Was glauben die Ehemaligen? (= What do believe people that have experienced Waldorf-education?) In: see 14., p. 133 – 160

17. Hörtreiter, F.: Anthroposophie und christlicher Glaube. Eine Erwiderung auf Bernhard Grom SJ. In: Materialdienst der EZW 68/2005, S. 251 - 255 (---> here)

18. Bading, Ingo: Anthroposophen: Akademiker-lastige Gruppierung mit leicht überdurchschnittlicher Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 22.01.2008 (---> here)

19. Bading, Ingo: Anthroposophen: Auch Neue (nicht-monotheistische) Religiosität in westlichen Gesellschaften erhöht Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 15.2.2008 (---> here)

20. Bading, Ingo: Auch die konfessionslosen anthroposophisch Orientierten haben eine überdurchschnittliche Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 17.2.2008 (---> here)

21. Campiche, Roland J.: Die zwei Gesichter der Religion. Faszination und Entzauberung. Zürich 2004
22. Bading, Ingo: Die Atheisten in Deutschland sind stark "Männer-lastig". At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 20.11.2007 (---> here)

23. Salcher, Ernst: Ergebnisse der Befragung der Förderkreismitglieder der Giordano Bruno-Stiftung (Juli-September 2007) (pdf.) (free download: ---> here)

24. Bading, Ingo: Die positiven demographischen Auswirkungen eines anthroposophischen Lebensstils - Diskussion weiterer Details. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 26.2.2008 (---> here)

25. Assmann, Jan: Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Monotheismus. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2003 (The Mosaic distinction)

Simon Conway Morris, Stephen Jay Gould and Daniel Dennett

In an Interview (of "Monsters and Critiques") with Daniel Dennett (July 2007) there is a mention of Simon Conway Morris, which I appreciate:

M & C: (...) Before I move on to Consciousness Explained, let me sidestep a moment to your views on the late Stephen Jay Gould? You spent a good portion of 'Darwins Dangerous Idea' (= DDI) 'tattooing his intellectual ass.' What did you think of him as a thinker, scientist, and man? I ask because there was a famed brouhaha between the two of you. My opinion of Gould is generally favorable. In an essay and review of his final book I wrote:

(...) Yes, he had faults. His almost comical misinterpretation of the fossils found in the Burgess Shale, in his 1989 book Wonderful Life (one of his few published books that was not a collection of previously published essays), was totally devastated by Simon Conway Morris's 1998 book The Crucible Of Creation. He also denied that there were any trends in evolution when arguing against linearity or determinism, an addendum which kyboshed an otherwise valid point. (...) To his credit, in this book's preface, Gould admits his occasional faux pas: 'Although I have frequently advanced wrong, or even stupid, arguments, at least I have never been lazy.'

Would you generally agree with that assessment? You too seem to feel Gould totally flubbed the Burgess Shale fossils. In effect, he claimed that the Cambrian Explosion could have led to wholly different bodily forms than the symmetrical sort we see now. He mistook body parts for whole bodies, looked at front ends of bodies as rears, ups as downs, etc., and generally tried to impose his presuppositions for reality. Yet, despite that, he was a tireless defender of rationalism, even if his conclusions differed from others. If you agree with that view of Gould, why the hell are not real debates and disagreements in science, such as you vs. Gould, put out for debate amongst the masses? (...)

Daniel Dennett: I see Gould quite differently. He was an academic bully, who exploited his scientific credentials to push his political views—or maybe they were closer to religious views. (Remember: I started out as a friend of his; I often attended his seminars at Harvard but eventually I got so annoyed with the way he would misrepresent his critics and bully the students that I had to leave.) When I wrote DDI, I knew I was going to have to expose Gould's history of misrepresentation—since he was going to hate my book, and would pillory it with his usual tricks if I didn't attempt to preempt that vilification effort with an analysis of his own work. Gould had been selling America a watered-down and distorted version of basic evolutionary theory for decades, and when I pointed this out, he reacted--not unreasonably!-- with a venomous attack on what he called my "Darwinian fundamentalism," but, you know, the evolutionary biology community knew I was right, and said so. (I am not alone in incurring Gould's wrath: I'm proud to stand with Richard Dawkins, the late, great John Maynard Smith and Steve Pinker, as sane and forthright a team of "fundamentalists" as one could ask for.) (...).

Evolution of Religion - according to D. S. Wilson

David Sloan Wilson has a very important piece of critique of "The God Delusion" of Richard Dawkins. (Skeptic) "I recently attended a conference on evolution and religion in Hawaii that provided an opportunity to assess the state of the field." He gives a good overview of new research in the field. And he gives some very interesting informations about the ascetic ideals of the indian Janism (deutsch: Jainismus):

...

Jainism is one of the oldest and most ascetic of all the eastern religions and is practiced by approximately three percent of the Indian population. Jain ascetics filter the air they breathe, the water they drink, and sweep the path in front of them to avoid killing any creature no matter how small. They are homeless, without possessions, and sometimes even fast themselves to death by taking a vow of “santhara” that is celebrated by the entire community. How could such a religion benefit either individuals or groups in a practical sense? It is easy to conclude from the sight of an emaciated Jain ascetic that the religion is indeed a cultural disease — until one reads the scholarly literature.

It turns out that Jain ascetics comprise a tiny fraction of the religion, whose lay members are among the wealthiest merchants in India. Throughout their long history, Jains have filled an economic niche similar to the Jews in Western Europe, Chinese in Southeast Asia, and other merchant societies. In all cases, trading over long distances and plying volatile markets such as the gem trade requires a high degree of trust among trading partners, which is provided by the religion. Even the most esoteric (to outsiders) elements of the religion are not superfluous byproducts but perform important practical work.

For example, the ascetics must obtain their food by begging but their religion includes so many food restrictions that they can only accept food from the most pious lay Jain households. Moreover, the principle of non-action dictates that they can only accept small amounts of food from each household that was not prepared with the ascetics in mind. When they enter a house, they inspect the premises and subject the occupants to sharp questions about their moral purity before accepting their food. It is a mark of great honor to be visited but of great shame if the ascetics leave without food. In effect, the food begging system of the ascetics functions as an important policing mechanism for the community. This is only one of many examples, as summarized by Jainism scholar James Laidlaw in a 1995 book whose title says it all: Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society Among the Jains.

How then, is it possible to live by impossible ideals? The advantage for addressing this question to Jainism is that the problem is so very graphic there. The demands of Jain asceticism have a pretty good claim to be the most uncompromising of any enduring historical tradition: the most aggressively impractical set of injunctions which any large number of diverse families and communities has ever tried to live by. They have done so, albeit in a turbulent history of change, schism, and occasionally recriminatory “reform,” for well over two millennia. This directs our attention to the fact that yawning gaps between hope and reality are not necessarily dysfunctions of social organization, or deviations from religious systems. The fact that lay Jains make up what is — in thoroughly worldly material terms — one of the most conspicuously successful communities in India, only makes more striking and visible a question which must also arise in the case of the renouncers themselves.

Charles Lindbergh - a philosopher in life and death

An american reader of my german blog has asked me about the content of my german posts about Charles Lindbergh. Here I give some parts of my answer to him:

It would take some time to translate everything I have written on my blog about Lindbergh into english. But if I know about some interest into it now, in the future I can write more about Lindbergh in english - if there is an opportunitiy for me. - Mostly my thoughts about Lindbergh are based on the english literature.

But I can try to give you here a short account of my thoughts about Lindbergh.

1. Lindbergh died a very “philosophical” death

The first step for me was, that I was very impressed to learn in A. Scott Berg's biography about all what was going on in the days before the death of Charles Lindbergh. In my eyes he died like a "king". With a lot of philosophical souvereignty. And about this I was deeply impressed. And all my other questions stem from there: What sort of man was Lindbergh, that he was able to die with such an attitude? (With such earnestness and at the same time with such "coolness".)

So, first, I thought, it is important to understand, what it had meant in those days to be a pioneer with planes: always risk of death. In this posting I refer mostly to a letter and other thoughts, that his wife Anne has written, when one of his best friends, Phil Love came to death by an accident on 4th June 1943. I think this is the most important part of the diaries of Anne between 1939 to 44, because here she speaks about things, Charles Lindbergh for himself seldom is speaking about: "Death is always side by side with you." - And she speaks about the meaning of friendship for Lindbergh that is formed in days when they lived with every-day possibility of death by accident.

2. His interest into science

And as a pioneer you know more about this than everyone else. But there is more. There is his interest into the science of Alexis Carrel. Here I hope to learn a lot new things from the forthcoming book "The Immortalists". (Amazon) They had a lot of philosophical discussions of which not very much is known to us yet (as it seems to me - I do not know the literature very well). But may be this new book has more about all that. It is at the one side his pragmatic attitude in thinking about life and death - like a pure materialist - and on the other side ... difficult! It has something to do with courageness, with the will to live, with his idealism. In simple words: To be aware of death gives you more conscienceness for life.

This easily sounds like a triviality. But I think, this is all, what Charles Lindbergh's life has to say to us. And if you see, that someone shows in his own life, what this insight means for him, everything has another looking. And all this we can find in another aspect of his life mostly: his three german wifes and his seven german children. This story is very new and full of surprisings. The new german book of Rudolf Schröck (2005) (Amazon) has a lot of content, non-german-speaking readers cannot be aware of. I have tried to give an overview about the most important content of this book in my german posting. But I have not the opportunity now, to repeat all that here. "Life will work it out" was one of Lindbergh's words and his german children are happy to have had such a father. They learned and know more about their father than his american children - this is often the impression you get, if you read this new book. And all this has shown (to me): Philosophy and life were one thing for Lindbergh.

For example it is very surprising to learn, that Lindbergh - according to the diaries of his wife - in 1941 (or so) said to her, that it is most impressiv, that a women who is handicapped (not inherited) can have children, that are not at all handicapped. And 20 years later he came together with two sisters in Munich and had children with them, who were handicapped (not inherited). His german children had often discussions with their mother about death. And his first german wife had the same attitude to death and her own death as Charles Lindbergh had. She died 2001 with very like the same souvereignty.

3. His three german families

And she had the same "will for life" and the same will to give birth to children - even in a world, that can give you only pessimistic outlooks. Lindbergh was disappointed about his wife Anne, when she said in 1946 or so, that she had enough children now. He always wanted as many children as the Kennedy's had - or more, he spoke about 12 or so. This was his will for life and his longing for "immortality", I think. - But may be with the new book we will learn more about that.

I was disappointed about the autobiography of Lindbergh himself. I were not able to find there very much of what I had hoped for: A better understanding of his deeper personality. He makes a lot of very nice words. But I have learned more about his attitude towards life and death from his german children in the mentioned book of Rudolf Schröck.

So, this is only a "shorter version", of what I had to say yet about Lindbergh on my german blog. May be I will write more, if I have read the new book "The Immortalists".

Spencer Wells in Rio de Janeiro (13 of 13)

Here Spencer Wells says: "We are all African under the skin."

This is wrong and Spencer Wells knows that. Because: he is a geneticist. He says:

"Old fashioned concepts of race are not only socially divesive but scientifically wrong."

We know it a little bit better now. But Spencer Wells wants to have money for his research and he wants to avoid problems.

It is not easy to say, that you should "understand" that.

Spencer Wells with the Navajo (12 of 13)

There is some exchange of trivialities - but, ok.