Going bananas: Why the approach to the latest banana blight misses the point

You may not know it. But your bananas have been under attack for more than a decade by a small fungus, Fusarium oxysporum. Half of the global production of bananas is in a variety called Cavendish which has become susceptible to a new strain of the fungus. A previous strain of Fusarium wiped out the Gros Michel variety of bananas which used to dominate world markets until the 1950s.

The Cavendish seemed immune to the previous strain and could therefore be planted on the same land—Fusarium lives in the soil—that the Gros Michel occupied. The Cavendish is what is mostly exported to countries that do not grow bananas and therefore what most people see in modern supermarkets and greengrocers. It is named after William Cavendish, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, who received a shipment from a friend who had gotten them from Mauritius. Cavendish's gardener proceeded to cultivate them in the duke's greenhouses.

If you are a banana eater, you may have noticed that the Cavendish you peel and eat every morning has no seeds. It turns out that the Cavendish is propagated by cloning—which means that Cavendish banana trees around the world are genetically identical. And so, every one of them will likely eventually succumb to the new strain of Fusarium as it spreads worldwide.

From Plato to AI: Are we losing our minds?

Plato, through the words of the central character in his famous dialogues, the philosopher Socrates, tells us that the invention of writing severely impaired human memory. The impairment resulted in part from disuse. We humans no longer had to commit to memory important information that could now be rendered on the page. Socrates insists that living memory is far better and far more responsive to inquiry than the written word.

Human learning has not, however, disappeared or even diminished in the age of the written word, but rather prospered as the wisdom of the ages can be readily passed down to each generation. The invention of moveable type in the 15th century spread the written word across world, making it accessible as never before. Plato must have realized the irony that he was preserving Socrates' argument against writing for future generations by writing it down. Plato could not have guessed, however, that 2500 years later his writings would be part of the canon of Western philosophy and that moveable type and modern transportation and communications would make his writings available practically anywhere.

Modern communications devices and adjuncts to learning and investigation such as artificial intelligence (AI) programs bid us to remember how writing itself was once critiqued and how that critique in large part was dispelled by subsequent events. But ought we be so sanguine about our reliance on such devices as cellphones, computers, and the emerging AI programs? Do these aid us or dull our abilities? Do they allow us to inquire deeper into the human world or become more divorced from it?

I suppose the general answer is: It all depends on how we use these tools.

Taking a holiday break - no post this week

I am taking a holiday break this week and plan to post again on Sunday, September 8.