IRIS

Freedom: Brief Story of a Question

Majid Fekri — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:55:05 +0000

If there is at least one point about freedom at which all the thinkers in some way agree, it is not but the difficulties involved in the meaning and interpretation of freedom. A long history of philosophical discussions and political discourses lay behind various ideas of freedom; still the evolving phenomenon of freedom doesn’t seem to be fully captured neither in theory nor in practice. As stated by Hume, it is “the most problematic question of modern metaphysics” (An enquiry concerning human understanding, P. 163). Kant has also thought that the transcendental idea of freedom, which has always put the speculative reason in a “big embarrassment,” is the “real stumbling block of the philosophy” (The critique of pure reason, P. 444). Even Schopenhauer considered the question of freedom of will as one of “the most profound and the most serious problems of modern philosophy” (Prize essay on the freedom of will, P. 114).
If freedom is the problematic question, the stumbling block, and the most troublesome problem of philosophy, it is not such a surprise that many philosophers have devoted some parts of their works to find solutions to the question of freedom. It involves defining the specifications of man and his actions in relation with the natural world surrounding him. In previous centuries our notion of the physical world was dogged by a series of causal events that occur mechanically based on a logical predetermined system of laws. The mechanical nature of natural laws of physics along with the logical aspect of causal effects has raised a serious question about the originality of human actions: Is human act merely determined as a result of natural reaction to stimulus? Are the laws of causal type enough for explaining human behaviors?
At least one of the sources of disbelief in freedom comes from theology. By translating these interrogations in their own terms, theologians found it hard to approve originality of freedom of mankind along with constant intervention of a divine grace. If existence of mankind is simply due to a creating God who is dominant and omnipresent, it is hard to suppose that his agents (humans) can be free, in other words it would be problematic to admit that a human being acts by himself against God’s will.
Although the manifestations of freedom were present in ancient Greece - given as an affair of soul by Plato - our modern notion of freedom dates back almost to enlightenment thinkers who fed the French revolution. In the middle of sixteenth century La Boetie thought that he had found a paradox in human behavior in the feudal system of the time. We are naturally born free and we are not servants of anyone else by birth, but the society assigns many as voluntary servants of a tyranny for benefit of few. “How is it so deep-rooted this voluntary servitude that love for freedom seems to be unnatural today?” (Le Discours de la servitude volontaire, P. 150) he asked boldly. He thought that people are so used to their yoke that they have lost their senses for freedom.
His thoughts was resonated by Rousseau: “Man is borne free but he is in bounds everywhere” (Du contrat social, I,1) . Rousseau tried to target the origin of inequality within humans and to explain in his Second Discourse, what the natural human is or what the nature of human is. After a comparison, in the first part, between physical aspects of human nature and that of other species of animals, he continues his discourse in the metaphysical and moral side. Though from the time of Aristotle human was known as the rational animal, Rousseau sets new criteria for radical contrast between species, by knowing freedom as the specified privilege of humans over animals. Man is man because he is a free agent. Nature commands animals and they obey it. Humans have the same impressions by their nature but they feel free to obey or to resist; and this is surely in the conscience of this freedom that spirituality of human nature appears. Physics can explain in some ways the mechanisms of senses and formation of ideas but in the course of decision making we don’t find but the spiritual actions that are not explained by mechanical laws.
At the same time another great thinker was not thinking exactly the same way. Voltaire believed that we are not totally free for willing what we want. When he was asked if he is free or not, he would have replied that he is not in prison, he has the key of his room, and he is therefore “perfectly free” (Le Philosophe ignorant, XIII). This answer, seems to be easy, but is indeed very deeply rooted in the conception of freedom inherited from John Locke for whom “the freedom consists of the ability to do or not to do, based on what we want.” For Voltaire the real freedom is the ability, the capacity and the power of acting as you want not the ability to desire the action. when I can do what I want I am free; but what I want is a necessity which is dictated by my situation, my environment, and my logical decision making. Voltaire said that the freedom of animals and humans are of the same quality if they can both do whatever they want, but the quantity of freedom can be different. So there are degrees of freedom. Freedom of animals is in the degree of wanting and operating based on desires, but men have an additional power to use some thoughts and to operate certain movement.
These ideas must have increased conscience about freedom and duplicated the importance of this notion among people for generations. It is not by chance that freedom had been the first slogan of French revolutionaries. These ideas have spread in geographical and chronological orders and have caused many traceable and invisible influences all around the world, and freedom still evolves and remains an important issue of humanity. In the next issue I will discuss some other selected ideas.

One Thousand and One Windows to the Truth

Ali Toussi — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:18:45 +0000

Preface

I could not agree more with the famous proverb which says, “When you are pointing to something as a reason of your failure, also care about those other four fingers of yours which are pointing to yourself.”
At some point in our lives, all of us have had some degree of difficulty in accepting that we have played a major role in our own failures. However, those of us who do acknowledge our own faults have made considerable progress in life. From this point of view, any supposed failure is not actually a failure. Rather, the act of properly analyzing our failures or weaknesses is a form of success by itself.
Although many of us may know that we would benefit from facing our failures, we often fail to put this into practice! For many, writing failures off as pitfalls is much easier than taking responsibility and reassessing how our failures might affect or alter any future goals. For some it is even possible that failures can become obsessions, causing serious disappointment that could result in giving up any or all effort. Nevertheless, failures, weaknesses, and the occasional bump in the road should not be buried in the back of our minds without both learning from the experience and making appropriate adjustments to our behavior.
The above paragraphs illustrate how considering a failure, or any experience, from a different perspective can alter our response to a situation dramatically.
When I accepted the opportunity to write a series of articles about history and religion, I realized that these topics needed to be discussed and represented with a great deal of care and responsibility. The thought of such tremendous responsibility caused several questions to race through my mind. How I should represent the history of religion? Can it be done by just narrating the history, or should I attach my own judgment to the narration as well? Furthermore, can someone claim that he or she is able to represent history without any judgment? Is there any advantage to studying history if we have any kind of bias?
Although an individual’s bias is inevitable and cannot be totally separated from an individual’s understanding of history, through recognition of the bias we can identify the fact that we may not necessarily be correct in our beliefs and judgments. Only through this realization that other perspectives besides our own are valid, can we reexamine and determine why we believe what we do. Also, through this process we can consciously avoid that which prevents us from seeing reality from more than one perspective. This ability is not only evidence of mental maturity, but this thinking can also protect us from many forms of ignorance. “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong,” Bertrand Russell says. In other words, a mature mind always considers a margin of uncertainty for what he believes in.
At times it has been challenging for me to deal with various occurrences and issues without thinking in terms of my prejudices and/or letting my current understandings and beliefs misguide me, particularly in regards to subjects such as history and religion. One possible means of ensuring an unbiased study of an issue or event is to step back, take an outside perspective, and from that point look at the situation differently.
However, while this is a promising start, it is not totally satisfying. The flaw of this method is that although you may start to observe an issue from a new perspective, there will always be a shadowed side that cannot be seen from where you stand. Thus, at this point, it is best to begin considering the subject from all possible angles while simultaneously keeping a particular distance – remaining close enough to the matter at hand to see the details, but not so close that you become blinded by the details.
In my future articles, I will experiment and use the above described method in an attempt to cover all angles and address different perspectives.
I have decided to pick certain stories from history or controversial religious issues and reexamine them. Then, I will try to analyze my methodology of how I considered the issue to determine whether or not I have been successful in presenting a fair, three-dimensional observation.
I have called the series of articles “One Thousand and One Windows to the Truth” to illustrate that even when you have looked through one thousand windows, it is still possible that there is some perspective or detail that you may not have seen or understood. So, as we begin our journey, keep an open mind.

On Social Sciences in Iran

Mohammad Hossein Rahmati — Sat, 16 May 2009 09:59:30 +0000

Why are social sciences weak in Iran? Some might ask why this question is even important. This question may be addressed from two possible points of view: normative and positive. In the positive view, this question is interesting because the prominence of experienced, respected philosophers in Islamic civilization during the 11th - 14th century A.D. significantly declined in successive centuries. What was special about these 400 years in which social sciences were a celebrated discipline? And why did the respect once held for the social sciences not survive the test of time? From a normative perspective, civilizations experience comprehensive and sustainable growth once they become capable of creating knowledge in all branches of thought. By this normative argument, the only way for Iran to progress will be to generate knowledge in all fields of science, thereby increasing their once major focus on the social sciences.
Mostafa Malekian, a prominent Iranian philosopher, has identified ten causes for the weakness of social sciences in Iran. I will discuss his ten points and then selectively argue some. It is important to note that these ten points have a dialectic interaction with each other. In other words, these points in many ways either support each other or result in each other. Thus the following points are not in any particular order.
In contrast with other scientific fields, those who study social sciences (in Iran especially) on average traditionally had lower IQs. These students eventually became professors in the social sciences, and found themselves lecturing the next generation of students. This trend created a continuous loop that has reduced proficiency in social science in the long-term.
Due to the low earning potential of social scientists, families have little incentive to encourage their children to study social sciences. Malekian insists that this fact results from the first cause above. The same principle may be seen among engineering students. For many years the best students have chosen electrical engineering or mechanical engineering (fields with great earning potential), while applicants with a lower ranking scores on the university entrance exam have chosen petroleum engineering (a field which had less earning potential).
Social sciences do not have any technological, physical presence. If a bridge collapses after the first use, everyone will realize that the designer is not a reliable engineer. However, in social sciences there is no objective criteria to help determine the validity of a social scientist’s work.
As an extension of the third point above, Malekian identifies a fourth cause: Judgment in social science is very difficult. There exists no concrete method to prove a claim in a social science thesis. As a result of the third and fourth causes, individuals without a background in logic and mathematics may desire to enter the social sciences. This is because others cannot verify the correctness of their argument. This seems consistent with reality in Iran.
The various disciplines that fall under the umbrella of social science are not studied in Iran in equal amounts. While in some disciplines much research and translation of historic books has occurred, other fields are hard pressed to find even one individual with basic knowledge of a given subject. Since social sciences are inter-related, it is problematic to only have translations in certain disciplines of the social sciences. Through this discrepancy in availability of historic work, this problem of researching the social sciences is further exacerbated.
A major problem in Iran is that many people (especially elite individuals) believe that social sciences are not a high priority. Therefore we should investigate other fields which are more relevant to everyday life. Although Malekian slightly accepts this idea, I would like to argue that in considering the big picture, we have a critical need for intellectual work in the social sciences. Social science includes politics, economics, law, government, religion, etc. The situation is dire. In a country like Iran, with a huge oil resource, a big responsibility is how to manage this endowment; in a country like Iran with a fading tradition, a major question is how to introduce religion to youth to help them maintain their tradition through the ages; in a country like Iran, which is located in the Middle East, politics is one of the most important issues.
Fundamental problems with the nature of social sciences have not yet been resolved in Iran. For example, how objective or subjective are the social sciences? How can we use the social sciences in our relations with oil exporting countries (economics) or in our relations with Muslim countries (psychology)? Which methods should be used in research, etc?
In developing countries, the fact that the existing social science research is not being used in policy making is problematic. It seems that research and decision-making are considered to be two different, unrelated issues. For this reason, there is no demand for research in the social sciences since findings from research are not considered important in policymaking anyway.
Since Iran has a religious government, the policy maker has no use for social science. The governors believe that they know the answers to all questions. If they do not already know an answer, at very least the answer exists in religious sources. This thought process leads people to believe that if the answers to all questions exists in Quran, then there is no need for research in the social sciences.
There is another side to the ninth point above. Some believe it is possible that the result of research should be restricted to predetermined answers. For example, although the elite individuals in society may believe that research in the social sciences is necessary, this is only true if the researcher’s findings prove a predetermined result; thereby not really using research to find the solution. This is very controversial in Iran. This last point really makes any study of the social sciences both pointless and useless.
The above identified points summarize the main reasons why social science as a discipline is currently not a prominent field in Iran. Determining how we will overcome this weakness remains an open question. To truly understand, much more must be learned about why the fields of social sciences have deteriorated in Iran.

The Fish and the Tank

Richard Ohanian — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:47:53 +0000

A group of fish was living in an aquarium (the tank). They had lived there all their lives. Their parents and their parents’ parents had been born there as well.
This group of fish was living in harmony, based on a code of ethics and a certain worldview. But as the tank started to deteriorate, the fish realized that things could not go on the way they had been going before. Something had to change.
But what should change? The fish could not figure out the solution to their problems. They did not know what they did not know. After all, they had lived their entire life in the tank; so no new code or world view could enter their world that was limited to the tank.
Finally, one day, a young fish decided that he had to be the one to bring in the new code and world view. He thought that one reason he could not think of the new “stuff” was his ultimate limitations by the tank. So he decided to jump out of the tank in order to be able to view the tank from the outside world. In so doing, perhaps he could see what was wrong with the tank and a new theory would dawn on him.
He tried and tried to jump out of the tank. It was hard, but every time he could jump higher and higher. All the others in the group were discouraging him since everyone was more or less content with their situation. Finally, one day, he jumped so high out of the tank that he reached the other side. On the way out he could see the “inside” from the “outside.”
It was fascinating.
When he reached the other side, he died. He had jumped out of the water…
Some time passed in the tank. The group of fish started to forget about the young fish that vanished, the one who wanted to bring in the new theory they needed so much. But there was another young fish who could not forget his best friend. Every day, he would go near the surface of the water and would look for any sign of his friend –nothing.
As he waited on the surface of the water, little by little, he started breathing from outside air too… it was something new that he had never experienced. After some time, the young fish decided to follow his friend’s path and jump to the other side. The life in the tank was not satisfying for him and the other fish were bothering him. They were thinking they knew the nature of their problems and were content with little fishy stuff. But for this young fish what others were did not make sense at all.
He thought to himself, “Memory is a stranger… history is for fools… these guys think they know, but in fact they don’t, they are just happy with this little fishy stuff.” I need to jump out and find the ultimate solution.”
So he started to jump. Little by little he could jump higher and higher until one day he jumped out of the tank and reached the other side!
From the outside world he could see inside the tank and the ultimate limitations of the tank.
It was fascinating.
He sat there and started to think, not noticing any change as he had already learned how to breathe the air. After some time, he found the solution! He thought to himself, “I should go back to the tank now. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know, and I can find the answers now!”
He started jumping up until one day he jumped into the tank.
Suddenly he noticed that he could not breathe in the water…As he was struggling to breathe he realized that he was not a fish anymore…
He died in the tank!

Mathemusics

Mahyar Salek — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:42:32 +0000

What is the acoustic difference between Bach’s sonatas and an engine roar in the emotionally blind eye of science? Where is the border that separates so-called music from other, different sounds? To what kind of audible waves do we choose to listen? What are the characteristics of sound waves that give us chills? The answers to such questions remain mysteries of the human mind. Only through the scholarly intersection of physics, musicology, cognitive science, biology and psychology can the answers to these questions begin to be explored.
In this article and following ones, I will attempt to scratch the surface in providing insight into the complex mystery of the human emotional perception of sound. This article requires a basic background in physics and a minimum familiarity with music. To get started, let me talk about the main elements of music from a music theory point of view and then provide a basic physical interpretation of that.
Pitch (melody and harmony) and rhythm are widely considered to be the two main elements of music. It is common to model rhythm in a (semi-) mathematical form. Rhythm is the frame that encompasses the pitch and moves it along as music. Therefore, it can be mathematically represented as the series of sounds and their distribution over time, which usually repeats, independent of the pitch. On the other side, pitch is a sequence of sound waves with different frequencies that ride over the rhythm. Is there any mathematical relation among different wave lengths in a music piece? It is well known that we don’t hear arbitrary frequencies in a song; rather, the frequencies seem to take on certain values which form a so-called scale. Two most common scales are major and minor scales. C major scale is perhaps the most famous one: Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si (Ti), or C D E F G A B. Once the scale finishes, a new scale starts where each note is within the octave distance of the corresponding note in the last scale.
There are several ways to assign frequencies to the notes in scales. However, there has been a consensus in both east and west that the pitch or frequency should double within an octave distance. For example, if you fix a note, for example A, with 440 hertz, you can receive different other As in an octave lower or higher on 220 hertz or 880 hertz. (Note: This is a famous frequency and it corresponds to the middle A on a piano, or the sound that you hear when the orchestra tunes right before the beginning of the concert).
Different intonation systems, however assign different frequencies to notes inside a scale. Interestingly enough, the Iranian scientist and philosopher, Abu Nasr Farabi was among the individuals that helped establish the equal temperament system. In short, in the proposed Farabi-Bach system, the notes within a scale are distributed uniformly according to logarithmic distance of the octaves. This is the way that modern western instruments are made and tuned nowadays. The second column of the following table is the frequency chart of a “Farabi-Bach Equal Temperament” C-major scale in the middle of the piano. Equal temperament is an approximation to another system that has been practiced for centuries in east: Just Intonation. In Just Intonation, notes within the scales form simple ratios of the first note in that scale called magical ratios. The third column shows these ratios in a C-major scale.
Despite the fact that equal temperament makes the music world much easier to work with (for instance because every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio), I personally have found its eastern sister quite insightful in explaining why we enjoy music in our own way. Below I give you one example of a music figure that we like.
If you have taken some music lesson in your life, you might still be able to play simple chords on your instrument since they are usually easy to play and sound surprisingly good. When you look at a, say, C major chord, it includes C, E, and G. C major is the most important chord in C major scale. You may observe that we have picked the note with the same name of the scale and the first two notes that are each one note away from the last note that was chosen in the scale. But this is not all. It is easy to verify that C major is the answer to the following optimization problem:
Pick three notes n1, n2, and n3 in C major scale such that they minimize the denominator of n1+n2+n3. (I mean summing up the fractions. Forgive me for the lazy notation!) At this point, you may wonder whether this is a phony argument and one could come up with other objectives that C major chord optimizes. In fact, I will show in the next issue that this objective function or rather a class of objective functions including this one has a physical meaning and is compatible with other music figures that we tend to like.

Evolution: Project De-mythification

Kasra Hassani — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:31:34 +0000

One of the major differences between the theory of evolution and other major scientific theories is that almost everybody thinks they understand it. However, dissemination of public discussion and personal opinion about any scientific theory can result in widespread misconceptions, inevitably arising due to a lack of proper knowledge about a given theory. The theory of evolution has been particularly vulnerable to uniformed public debate. Although the average person would most likely not discuss quantum or relativity theories with families and friends, evolution is a topic considered somehow more approachable.
In this column, I will discuss the theory of evolution by pointing to and dispelling different myths and/or misconceptions surrounding it.
To begin, I would like to discuss the mechanisms of evolution. For you, the reader, the term “natural selection” may immediately come to your mind. Yet, natural selection is only one mechanism of evolution. Let us go a bit slower and take a closer look at what exactly natural selection is.
First, imagine a population with its individuals bearing inheritable traits. Second, imagine that some of these traits might increase the chance of the individuals exhibiting it to produce more offspring. Third, imagine that there is a limitation of one or more resources that does not allow all of the individuals of the population to produce offspring to the maximum of their capacity – so, the population is either growing slower than its maximum capacity or staying more or less at the same number in the subsequent generations. Therefore, logically we expect the individuals that have the traits that give them higher chances of producing offspring to have more offspring in the next generation. As a result, in the following generation, the frequency of these traits in the population will increase. In other words, these traits are favored, or selected by the nature.
The change in the frequency of the inheritable traits from one generation to the other is called evolution. This is the very core definition of evolution. In the example above, evolution was caused by natural selection. But other forces can also alter frequency of inheritable traits in the population and thus cause the population to evolve. Consider in the same example above, what if none of the traits give their owners a higher chance in having more offspring? Are the frequencies of the traits going to stay the same as this generation? If all of the individuals have equal (or more realistic close to equal) chances of having offspring, then the frequency of the traits in the next generation is dependent on the current generation’s frequencies and luck! In other words, frequencies can vary from generation to generation (i.e. population can evolve) randomly or by a process called genetic drift.
In real populations, genetic drift and natural selection are two of the main mechanisms of evolution. They can be strong or weak, depending on many factors. One of the important factors in determining the power of these forces is the size of the population. For example, in a population of 10,000 rabbits, the ones that have longer ears (that might make them more alert to the predator), with a frequency of as low as 1%, still comprise 100 rabbits. Because these rabbits have lower chances of being eaten by their predators, they can produce more offspring. So little by little and generation by generation, the frequency of long-ear rabbits increases. On the other hand, in the population of the foxes that hunt on these rabbits, which might be about 100 individuals, a trait that enables them see a little better in the dark with the same frequency (1%) could comprise of only one or two foxes and they might not even get the chance to mate and produce offspring. In this scenario, the trait might even be lost in the next generation. To put it in a nutshell, genetic drift is a more powerful evolutionary force in smaller populations. This means that in those smaller populations, the frequencies tend to vary more randomly. In contrast, natural selection is a more powerful mechanism in the evolution of larger populations.
In the next issue, I will provide more examples about the effect of natural selection in opposition to genetic drift and will also introduce yet another mechanism of evolution named migration.

Oil Production Peak

Mohammd Morovvati — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:18:36 +0000

If you google “peak oil” you might become quite disconcerted by what you find. (Do it yourself!) Your second search result will read as follows: “Life After the Oil Crash: Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.” Websites such as this one join the ranks of the many journalists, authors and scientists who assert that world oil production has reached its maximum. According to their scenario, oil production will decline sharply in a few years so human civilization will enter a new “dark age,” resulting from a severe energy shortage. The picture will become even more tragic if you agree with some journalists in their anticipation of international conflicts and world wars over energy resources that will destroy civilization in its entirety. In considering current international crises and wars, you might even be persuaded to agree with these dire predictions.
Peak oil theory was first proposed by M.K. Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell research lab. In 1956 he presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute, predicting that the United States oil production would reach its peak in the early 1970s and the global oil production would also peak five decades later in the beginning of the 21st century. Hubbert’s forecast was proven correct in 1971 when U.S. oil production in fact reached its maximum and started to decline thereafter. To many journalists, this was a satisfactory reason to believe that if Hubbert was right about U.S. peak oil, it is likely that he would be right on global peak oil too. Will there be any reason to suppose Hubbert was not right about global peak oil? The answer is in fact mixed: both yes and no.
Hubbert was right about what happened in the United States, but before making global predictions it is important to notice the fundamental economic structure involved in the oil market. Since the United States is only one of many oil producers, a decline in its production will be offset by other producers. A single producer alone cannot influence global oil prices significantly. In contrast, if global oil production declines, the resulting shortage would affect prices significantly. These high prices would play a major role in postponing peak oil for a long time.
If people anticipate that global oil production will peak at a certain time, they also understand that at some point the monetary value of oil will be significant. This awareness makes oil even more valuable today. An investment in oil now may have great monetary returns later once the product becomes scarce. This buying of oil will raise the current oil demand and consequently drive its price higher. This increase in price and its major effect is what peak oil theories ignore.
If the price increases, extraction of many abandoned high cost oil wells (such as deep wells or low pressure ones) will become profitable, hence motivating oil companies to extract from high cost oil wells. High prices will also stimulate new exploration activities leading to discovery of new reserves. Moreover, as oil price goes up, more scientific effort is directed towards oil-related research hence improving extraction technology which also increases the available resources. For instance, it is worth noticing that total proved reserves in 1980 has been 667 billion barrels while after 25 years of production, the proved reserves not only did not decrease but almost doubled in 2005! According to a recent report from U.S. Department of Energy, based on updated information about proved oil reserves and without any significant change in oil price, global oil production is likely to reach its peak in 2050.
Furthermore, if the high oil price decreases its demand, the peak time predicted by Department of Energy could even be delayed by a few decades. Many people tend to believe that oil price does not affect its demand. This might be true in the short run because it is hard to find a substitute for it quickly (You cannot get rid of your huge American SUV right away nor can electricity producers turn off fuel inefficient power plants!) However, in the long term high prices will lower demand (making you buy a Toyota next time you plan to buy a car, or making electricity producers build more efficient power plants or switch to alternative energy sources). Unless the price of oil goes up and stays high enough, it is not profitable for people and firms to invest in reducing their demand for oil or switching to alternative sources of energy. Once people and firms invest in efficiency and alternative sources of energy, there is no reason to switch back even if the energy prices drop significantly.
Oil is a non-renewable resource and for several reasons, including its exhaustibility, we should reduce our dependence on it. Hubbert’s prediction about peak oil was based on assuming fixed available resources and a fixed consumption trend. It was true for U.S. oil production but it will not be true on a global scale. If we do get close to peak oil, the price of oil will increase significantly, resulting in increased production and decreased consumption, thereby smoothing the peak effect. Thus, peak oil is not within the lifespan of the current generation of human beings.