How can social conservatives deny Darwin's theory of evolution while espousing social Darwinism?
I confess my heresy: like the Jesuit theologian/paleontologist Pierre Teilhard did 50 odd years ago, I'm a believer whose made his peace with evolution. But then, I've never understood why science and faith are discussed as if they're mutually exclusive. Folks who think evolution is an inherently atheist argument or those who think evolution disproves the existence of God are people with little imagination. The evolution vs. creationism debate may be an unavoidable political fight but much more relevant and revealing is what many evolution-believing secular conservatives and evolution-denying religious conservatives have in common: a belief in social Darwinism. A popular misconception is that Darwin coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." Actually, Darwin's thing was "natural selection," which turns out to involve lots of cooperation.
So while science battles evolution-opponents, I'm trying to understand a conservative political species that opposes evolution on religious grounds while supporting social Darwinism on the political and economic grounds. There's a missing link here.

Indonesia — If, as you read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you might be interested to know that these products contain palm oil that is linked to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As our new report "How the palm oil industry is cooking the climate" shows, it's a recipe for disaster. The manufacturers of these products - Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever - are sourcing their palm oil from suppliers who aren't picky about where they site their plantations. As the volunteers at the Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra have seen, this includes tearing up areas of pristine forest then draining and burning the peatlands. Indonesia's peatlands act as huge carbon stores so replacing them with plantations them not only threatens the amazing biodiversity, including the rare Sumatran tiger, it also releases huge volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They only cover 0.1 per cent of the land on Earth, but thanks in part to the activities of the palm oil industry they contribute 4 per cent to global emissions. If expansion of the palm oil industry continues unabated, that figure can only rise. What's to be done? The Indonesian government should urgently introduce a moratorium on forest and peatland destruction, which will provide a chance to develop long-term solutions and prevent further emissions from deforestation. And our eyes are fixed firmly on the UN climate meeting in Bali next month, where the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol will be discussed. With deforestation accounting for up to a fifth of global emissions, including financing for forest protection as a core part of the plan to tackle climate change is essential.

Biotechnology in agriculture, bio-fuel, climate change and energy security are top on the agenda of the European Union’s new offer for science and technology cooperation with India. I am confident that we are embarking upon a new eara in science and technology cooperation between the European Union and India. Our S&T cooperation agreement is about to be renewed for a further 5 years and we are about to announce new exciting opportunities for collaborative research, which may include biotechnology in agriculture, bio-fuel, climate change, energy security and computational material science. We will establish a road map of our strategic S&T cooperation for 2008 and beyond.

It is being widely suggested that humanity can "geo-engineer" a global solution to climate change; that is, modify the Earth's biosphere at a planetary scale. Many methods are suggested. Most include either reflecting additional solar radiation away from the Earth, or using the ocean to store more carbon. Geo-engineering represents the shameless extreme nature of societal refusal to cut energy use and emissions. We have not even really tried in earnest as a human family to do so through conservation, efficiency and alternatives. Yet, before we have even begun, we are going to bet the human family's future on technological fixes that we hope will allow us to continue consuming, and pumping out babies and emissions, without end? I am furious; absolutely certain with every thread of my ecological knowledge, intuition and being that no good and a large amount of harm will come from geo-engineering. Proposed global scale experimental environmental fixes will be disastrous. Under no circumstances may untested planetary manipulations commence until all other options have failed. The seeds of an operable biosphere remain, they must be given time and space to reestablish themselves; and humanity challenged and aided by all means to embrace necessary radical change. The biosphere belongs to all people and tribes, and should it come to wild once off experiments with the Earth, the decision must be made by United Nations' consensus. Until then, government prohibitions on unsanctioned activities must be implemented with all haste. Given the lack of regulation against such planetary scale climate experiments, direct action to stop arbitrary and capricious geo-engineering implementation is warranted and necessary.