Yelp’s Black-owned tag was designed to help business owners like Don Studvent attract more customers. His restaurant closed in 2018 after nine years in business.AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
When the online review platform Yelp added a “Black-owned” tag in 2020, it boosted the visibility of Black-owned restaurants in Detroit. It also caused their ratings to drop, according to our recent study.
Both local and nonlocal reviewers who showed awareness of a restaurant’s Black ownership rated restaurants 3.03 stars on average. Those who did not acknowledge Black ownership gave a rating of 3.78 stars on average. The tag seems to have caused the average rating to drop by attracting more reviewers who were aware of Black ownership.
Why it matters
Technology companies often introduce new features and tools to influence user behavior and make their platforms more usable.
Although Yelp intended to support Black communities with the Black-owned tag, the design intervention was harmful to Black restaurant owners in Detroit because Yelp failed to consider platform and community-based factors that significantly shape user interactions.
Yelp’s user base is predominantly white, educated and affluent. Making Detroit’s Black-owned restaurants more visible to Yelp users may have amplified cross-cultural interactions and frictions. For example, non-Black users sometimes mentioned “slower” and “rude” service as justifications for lower ratings. Close readings of these reviews hinted at intercultural and communicative clashes.
Even if Black-owned restaurants businesses didn’t select the tag, they appeared in searches for “Black-owned restaurants,” in 2022 when we conducted the study and as recently as 2025. Businesses can remove the “Black-owned” tag, but Yelp doesn’t provide a way for them to opt out of search results.
How we did our work
To examine the local impacts of Yelp’s Black-owned tag, we collected over 250,000 Yelp reviews of Black- and non-Black-owned restaurants in Detroit and Los Angeles.
We identified Black-owned restaurants through community-sourced lists for Detroit and Los Angeles and then generated a random sample for the non-Black-owned restaurants.
We then identified reviews that explicitly noted “Black ownership” for closer analysis.
Detroit’s Black-owned businesses saw a greater loss in business compared with “ownership-unreported” restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. This means they also potentially had more to gain from the new tag.
We found the awareness of Black ownership on Yelp significantly increased following Yelp’s addition of the Black-owned tag in June 2020. A year after the tag was added, reviews in Detroit mentioned Black ownership 4.3% more often than a year before it was rolled out.
Detroit Black-owned restaurants also saw a small temporary spike in their number of reviews, largely around the time Yelp added the Black-owned tag. At the same time, the restaurants’ average star ratings dropped from 3.91 to 3.88. In contrast, non-Black-owned restaurants’ ratings stayed relatively steady at 3.90.
This metric is an aggregate of all Detroit restaurants’ Yelp reviews over their entire existence, so a .03-star rating change is small but significant.
Adding obstacles in digital platforms serves to reproduce and amplify inequalities these businesses already face, rather than alleviate them. For example, Black-owned businesses have a harder time getting loans and are relatively underrepresented in Michigan as a whole.
These findings may seem surprising given that Detroit is a majority Black city. However, Black users on Yelp are a minority. Keeping in mind the skewed user base of Yelp, we hypothesize the lower reviews for businesses featuring a Black-owned tag reflect existing racial and digital divides in the city.
Generally, our study provides additional evidence that digital interventions are not “one-size-fits-all,” nor is digital visibility inherently positive for all businesses.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
_This article was updated to clarify how labels are added to profiles.
This research was supported by a research grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Matthew Bui does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Cameron Moy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Long de 81 mètres et équipé de 3 000 m² de voilure, l’_Anemos_ de l’entreprise française TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT) est capable de transporter 1 200 palettes de marchandises.Ronan Gladu/TOWT
Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, les marchandises voyagent à travers le monde grâce à des navires à moteur, alimentés par des combustibles fossiles. Pour décarboner le secteur, pourrait-on revenir à la voile ? C’est ce que proposent certaines entreprises, avec des voiliers-cargos modernisés, et l’objectif de changer les représentations du transport maritime.
Si elle a persisté à travers les sports nautiques et la navigation de plaisance, la voile se réinvente aujourd’hui dans le secteur du transport marchand pour répondre au triple enjeu de décarbonation, de réindustrialisation et de résilience.
Pour autant, l’alternative qu’elle propose n’est pas exempte de critiques. Pour ses défenseurs, le principal défi consiste à démontrer qu’elle a toute sa place dans un avenir décarboné. Dans un article publié en décembre 2024 dans la revue Développement durable et territoires, j’analyse comment le secteur doit proposer de nouveaux récits, adaptés à un monde écologiquement contraint.
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Un secteur dominé par l’imaginaire thermo-industriel
Utilisée dès l’Antiquité, la voile a connu un déclin croissant dès la fin du XIXe siècle dans le transport marchand, puis une disparition, au profit du moteur thermique, plus efficace dans le cadre du commerce international et des ambitions coloniales des nations occidentales.
En poursuivant les imaginaires de puissance et de liberté, héritages des révolutions industrielles successives, le triptyque énergies thermique, chimique et électrique, structuré autour des énergies fossiles et fissiles, se définit toujours comme le modèle de référence, mais désormais sous un prisme écologique.
Là où la complexité figure historiquement comme un gage de modernité technologique, la relative simplicité de la voile paraît hors sujet. Pour autant, comme mentionné par l’Ademe, « l’imaginaire dominant à l’origine de nos modes de vie modernes est aujourd’hui insoutenable puisqu’il met en péril l’habitabilité de la planète ».
Pour sortir de cette « fossilisation » des imaginaires, questionner la taille des navires du transport maritime devient légitime.
Les super-conteneurs sont devenus les emblèmes de l’industrie maritime moderne fondée sur les énergies fossiles. Artefacts répondant aux normes de « l’économie du gigantisme », ils incarnent un idéal de paix, porté par le « doux commerce » et son école de pensée libérale, et un idéal d’abondance : leur capacité de transport a été multipliée par plus de 20 en quarante ans.
À l’inverse, les bateaux à voile font en moyenne entre 90 et 150 mètres. Citons, par exemple, le projet Windcoop et ses 91 mètres, ou encore le projet Neoline, considéré comme l’un des plus longs cargos à voile du monde, et ses 136 mètres.
La coopérative Windcoop lancera fin 2025 la construction d’un cargo à voile de 90 mètres de long, capable de transporter 210 conteneurs (environ 2 500 tonnes de marchandises). Le navire sera équipé de trois ailes rigides de 350 m² et pourra économiser jusqu’à 90 % de carburant selon ses promoteurs. Une mise à l’eau est envisagée pour mai 2027. Windcoop
Le transport à voile visait jusqu’ici des produits à forte valeur ajoutée comme le vin, le café ou encore le chocolat. Mais l’arrivée de cargos à voile de plus en plus grands, à l’image du Williwaw de 160 mètres, annoncé par l’entreprise Zéphyr & Borée, permet d’augmenter les volumes de cargaison, de les diversifier et de réduire les coûts actuels par des économies d’échelle. La filière s’ouvre ainsi au transport de véhicules par exemple.
… et celui de l’hypervitesse
Le vent ne soufflant pas tout le temps, le transport maritime à voile reformule le paradigme de la grande vitesse contrôlée, qui figure comme une impasse énergétique : plus on va vite, plus on consomme. À titre indicatif, la majorité des porte-conteneurs actuels ont une vitesse de 15 à 23 nœuds (28 à 43 km/h), alors que le cargo à voile de Neoline de 136 mètres affichera une vitesse réduite de 11 nœuds (environ 20 km/h).
La résurgence du transport maritime à voile pose aussi la question du temps social, en repensant notre rapport au territoire et à nos rythmes de vie. D’ailleurs, à la différence des fantasmes qui ont émergé dans le monde du transport terrestre ou aérien avec, par exemple, l’Hyperloop ou l’avion supersonique, la vitesse n’est pas une question primordiale pour le transport maritime, l’enjeu de la ponctualité étant bien plus important.
À ce titre, l’ambition d’autonomie des cargos à voile (installation de grues de chargement/déchargement à bord pour gagner en fluidité, ouverture de lignes commerciales secondaires en dehors des grandes routes internationales congestionnées, etc.) remettrait en question l’hégémonie des méga porte-conteneurs thermiques dans cette course à la vitesse. Réduire la vitesse des navires est aussi une mesure en faveur de la biodiversité marine, puisque cela diminue le bruit sous-marin et les risques de collision avec des cétacés.
Une symbiose entre low-tech et high-tech
Avec la révolution des outils numériques disponibles à bord, des simulations en temps réel permettent de suivre les meilleures trajectoires. Déployer ou replier une voile se fait désormais de manière automatisée. Ces nouveaux cargos à voile sont des concentrés de technologies, et bien qu’ils exploitent une technique millénaire, ils s’appuient également sur des outils contemporains, à l’image de l’IA et des prévisions satellitaires qui permettent d’optimiser les trajectoires. Des technologies matures et éprouvées issues du secteur aéronautique et des sports nautiques (matériaux carbone) sont intégrées dans l’élaboration des nouveaux voiliers.
Le transport maritime à voile s’inscrit dans un choc de la vitesse. Le modèle de la décélération (à l’image aussi du retour des dirigeables dans le transport aérien de marchandises) côtoie de plus en plus celui de la grande vitesse. Pareillement, la filière connaît un choc de la conception innovante, où la low-tech (la voile) va s’associer avec la high-tech.
Le défi du changement d’échelle
Pour autant, l’incertitude et le risque associés au caractère pionnier de ces premiers cargos modernes rendent par nature la levée de fonds plus délicate.
Afin de s’assurer de la rentabilité économique du projet, les promoteurs des cargos à voile doivent trouver des clients (chargeurs ou logisticiens) qui s’engagent sur un nombre de conteneurs annuels pendant une durée généralement assez longue. Le processus de légitimation du transport à voile repose sur ces premiers clients qui parient sur la filière, parmi lesquels on peut trouver des start-ups/PME mais aussi des grands groupes.
Le cargo hybride Canopée amarré au port de Bordeaux en octobre 2024. Long de 121 mètres et conçu pour transporter la fusée Ariane-6, le navire est capable d’économiser de 30 à 40 % de carburant classique grâce à ses quatre mâts de 37 mètres de haut. Sylvain Roche, Fourni par l’auteur
Le concours actif de ces premiers clients est dès lors crucial, tout comme le soutien des acteurs publics. Le moindre coût de carburant doit permettre d’amortir l’investissement supplémentaire propre à la construction de cargos à voile de nouvelle génération. Le processus de légitimation et d’innovation marketing oblige à jongler continuellement entre un imaginaire romantique véhiculé par les bateaux à voile au sein du grand public et un discours technique pragmatique de rentabilité financière.
Une réappropriation territoriale et citoyenne des échanges
Enfin, le changement de paradigme reste à effectuer en premier lieu du côté des citoyens et des consommateurs. Le surcoût lié à l’usage de la voile – la taille des méga porte-conteneurs thermiques permet des économies d’échelle – doit encore pouvoir être répercuté sur le prix des marchandises. Une évolution décarbonée du transport maritime se fera pour des raisons marchandes et citoyennes plus que technologiques.
L’évolution des usages et des mentalités est donc un élément structurant pour constituer un véritable marché. Le transport de marchandises restant un secteur opaque d’un point de vue social et environnemental, la voile pourrait lui donner une nouvelle éthique. À ce titre, de nombreux armateurs véliques ont fait le choix d’une rémunération juste de leurs marins.
En 2014, la navigatrice Isabelle Autissier rappelait que la mer est un vecteur de l’imaginaire où « le marin devient le porte-drapeau d’une humanité plus vraie et plus désirable ». Tout comme les éoliennes (avec toutes les controverses qu’elles provoquent), la résurgence des mâts des navires se présente dès lors comme un symbole paysager fort qui redonne à voir le monde maritime (les cargos étant les grands invisibles de la mondialisation) et le transport.
Sachant que la durée de vie d’un navire de commerce actuel est de vingt-cinq ans en moyenne, les bateaux en chantier aujourd’hui sont ceux qui devront réduire les émissions du secteur maritime dans le futur. Ainsi, bien que l’avenir énergétique du transport maritime se veuille pluritechnologique, une compétition est en cours autour de l’imaginaire du progrès.
Sylvain Roche ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old woman from Georgia who had been declared brain-dead in February 2025, spent 16 weeks on life support while doctors worked to keep her body functioning well enough to support her developing fetus. On June 13, 2025, her premature baby, named Chance, was born via cesarean section at 25 weeks.
Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she suffered multiple blood clots in her brain. Her story gained public attention when her mother criticized doctors’ decision to keep her on a ventilator without the family’s consent. Smith’s mother has said that doctors told the family the decision was made to align with Georgia’s LIFE Act, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and bolsters the legal standing of fetal personhood. A statement released by the hospital also cites Georgia’s abortion law.
“I’m not saying we would have chosen to terminate her pregnancy,” Smith’s mother told a local television station. “But I’m saying we should have had a choice.”
The LIFE Act is one of several state laws that have passed across the U.S. since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision invalidated constitutional protections for abortion. Although Georgia’s attorney general denied that the LIFE Act applied to Smith, there’s little doubt that it invites ethical and legal uncertainty when a woman dies while pregnant.
Smith’s case has swiftly become the focus of a reproductive rights political firestorm characterized by two opposing viewpoints. For some, it reflects demeaning governmental overreach that quashes women’s bodily autonomy. For others it illustrates the righteous sacrifice of motherhood.
In my work as a gender and technology studies scholar, I have cataloged and studied postmortem pregnancies like Smith’s since 2016. In my view, Smith’s story doesn’t fit straightforwardly into abortion politics. Instead, it points to the need for a more nuanced ethical approach that does not frame a mother and child as adversaries in a medical, legal or political context.
Birth after death
For centuries, Catholic dogma and Western legal precedent have mandated immediate cesarean section when a pregnant woman died after quickening, the point when fetal movement becomes discernible. But technological advances now make it possible sometimes for a fetus to continue gestating in place when the mother is brain-dead, or “dead by neurological criteria”– a widely accepted definition of death that first emerged in the 1950s.
The first brain death during pregnancy in which the fetus was delivered after time on life support, more accurately called organ support, occurred in 1981. The process is extraordinarily intensive and invasive, because the loss of brain function impedes many physiological processes. Health teams, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, must stabilize the bodies of “functionally decapitated” pregnant women to buy more time for fetal development. This requires vital organ support, ventilation, nutritional supplements, antibiotics and constant monitoring. Outcomes are highly uncertain.
Adriana Smith’s baby was delivered by cesarian section on June 13, 2025.
Smith’s 112-day stint on organ support ranks third in length for a postmortem pregnancy, with the longest being 123 days. Hers is also the earliest ever gestational age from which the procedure has been attempted. Because time on organ support can vary widely, and because there is no established minimum fetal age considered too early to intervene, a fetus could theoretically be deemed viable at any point in pregnancy.
Postmortem pregnancy as gender-based violence
Over the past 50 years, critics of postmortem pregnancy have argued that it constitutes gender-based violence and violates bodily integrity in ways that organ donation does not. Some have compared it with Nazi pronatalist policies. Others have attributed the practice to systemic sexism and racism in medicine. Postmortem pregnancy can also compound intimate partner violence by giving brain-dead women’s murderers decision-making authority when they are the fetus’s next of kin.
From the perspective of reproductive rights advocates, postmortem pregnancy is the bottom of a slippery slope down which anti-abortion sentiment has led America. It obliterates women’s autonomy, pitting living and dead women against doctors, legislators and sometimes their own families, and weaponizing their own fetuses against them.
A medical perspective on rights
Viewed through a medical lens, however, postmortem pregnancy is not violent or violating, but an act of repair. Although care teams have responsibilities to both mother and fetus, a pregnant woman’s brain death means she cannot be physically harmed and her rights cannot be violated to the same degree as a fetus with the potential for life.
This response does not necessarily stem from conscious sexism or anti-abortion sentiment, but from reverence for vulnerable patients. If physicians declare a pregnant woman brain-dead, patienthood often automatically transfers to the fetus needing rescue. No matter its age and despite its survival being dependent on machines, just like its mother, the fetus is entirely animate. Who or what counts as a legal person with privileges and protections might be a political or philosophical determination, but life is a matter of biological fact and within the doctors’ purview.
Even the Supreme Court recognized this entangled duality in their 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade, which established both constitutional protections for abortion and a governmental obligation to protect fetal life. Whether a fetus is considered a legal person or not, they wrote, pregnant women and fetuses “cannot be isolated in their privacy” – meaning that reproductive rights issues must strike a balance, however tenuous, between maternal and fetal interests. To declare postmortem pregnancy unequivocally violent or a loss of the “right to choose” fails to recognize the complexity of choice in a highly politicized medical landscape.
Second, maternal-fetal competition muddles the right course of action. In the U.S., competent patients are not compelled to engage in medical care they would rather avoid, even if it kills them, or to stay on life support to preserve organs for donation. But when a fetus is treated as an independent patient, exceptions could be made to those medical standards if the fetus’s interests override the mother’s.
For example, pregnancy disrupts standard determination of death. To protect the fetus, care teams increasingly skip a necessary diagnostic for brain death called apnea testing, which involves momentarily removing the ventilator to test the respiratory centers of the brain stem. In these cases, maternal brain death cannot be confirmed until after delivery. Multiple instances of vaginal deliveries after brain death also remain unexplained, given that the brain coordinates mechanisms of vaginal labor. All in all, it’s not always clear women in these cases are entirely dead.
Ultimately, women like Adriana Smith and their fetuses are inseparable and persist in a technologically defined state of in-betweenness. I’d argue that postmortem pregnancies, therefore, need new bioethical standards that center women’s beliefs about their bodies and a dignified death. This might involve recognizing pregnancy’s unique ambiguities in advance directives, questioning default treatment pathways that may require harm be done to one in order to save another, or considering multiple definitions of clinical and legal death.
In my view, it is possible to adapt our ethical standards in a way that honors all beings in these exceptional circumstances, without privileging either “choice” or “life,” mother or fetus.
This research was supported by a grant from The Institute for Citizens and Scholars.
Les banques centrales sont incitées à prendre des décisions dont les motifs dépassent leurs objectifs traditionnels de stabilité des prix et des systèmes financiers. Mais en ont-elles la légitimité ? Cela ne risque-t-il pas d’affecter leur indépendance ? Ne faudrait-il pas alors engager une révision de leurs missions ?
Cet article est publié dans le cadre du partenariat les Rencontres économiques d’Aix–The Conversation. L’édition 2025 de cet événement a pour thème « Affronter le choc des réalités ».
On résume trop souvent les missions des banques centrales au maintien de la stabilité des prix, d’une part, et à la stabilité du système bancaire, d’autre part. Mais, en réalité, selon les mandats qui leur sont assignés et/ou selon la façon dont elles les interprètent, le champ de ces missions est généralement bien plus vaste.
Ainsi, la Fed est investie d’un « double mandat » : la stabilité des prix et niveau d’emploi maximum. D’autres banques centrales (dans des pays en développement) ont pour mission de stabiliser la parité de leur monnaie avec celle d’une devise étrangère… La Banque centrale européenne (BCE), de son côté, est censée, sans préjudice de l’objectif de prix, apporter un soutien aux politiques générales « en vue de contribuer aux objectifs de la Communauté ». Ce qui constitue un ensemble de missions potentiellement très (trop ?) large.
Par ailleurs, pour répondre aux crises qui se sont succédé, au cours des vingt dernières années, les autorités monétaires ont su modifier l’ordre de priorité de leurs missions et, parfois, en étendre le champ. Durant les crises financière puis sanitaire, elles ont accompagné les politiques budgétaires pour soutenir l’activité, mais aussi pour limiter le coût de l’endettement public en achetant massivement des titres de dettes publiques (des politiques dites non conventionnelles). Elles ont alors pris le risque d’accepter une « dominance budgétaire ». Ce qui a pu leur être reproché.
Mais ces observations ne signifient pas que les banques centrales ont toute liberté pour interpréter ou même compléter les termes de leurs mandats. Car l’aménagement de leurs missions se heurte au moins à deux contraintes majeures :
D’une part, on sait qu’il est sous-optimal de poursuivre plus d’objectifs que l’on a d’instruments (règle de Tinbergen). Or, même si les banques centrales peuvent (à la marge et si cela est pertinent) augmenter la gamme de leurs instruments, leur nombre est fatalement limité.
D’autre part, lorsque la politique monétaire pénètre dans un domaine qui relève aussi de la compétence d’autres volets des politiques économiques (par exemple, la politique budgétaire, industrielle ou sociale…), la coordination que cela suppose peut mettre en danger son indépendance et, donc, la crédibilité de ses objectifs censés orienter les anticipations des agents. Car toute collaboration avec d’autres décideurs (des agences ou le politique) ouvre l’éventualité de concessions susceptibles de dévier par rapport aux annonces. À cela s’ajoute le fait que l’indépendance en question met en cause la légitimité des autorités monétaires à prendre des décisions qui supposent des choix de nature politique, qui affectent par exemple la distribution des revenus ou des richesses. Peut-on, dès lors, laisser les banques centrales mener des politiques dérogeant à ce principe ? Notamment des politiques sélectives.
Aller au-delà de la régulation conjoncturelle ?
Comme bien d’autres institutions, les banques centrales ont été interpellées par la montée des désordres environnementaux et en particulier par leur probable influence sur la stabilité des systèmes financiers. Mais les réactions des autorités monétaires à cette sollicitation ont été divergentes voire discordantes : Jerome Powell (Fed), par exemple, a répondu que la Fed n’était pas un « climate policymaker »
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Il n’empêche qu’en 2017, s’est constitué un réseau comprenant des banques centrales et des régulateurs, Network for Greening the Financial System, qui compte aujourd’hui 145 membres, afin d’étudier et de suggérer des solutions à cette question qui devrait devenir cruciale dans les années à venir. Il en ressort notamment des propositions visant à renforcer les réglementations prudentielles pour prendre explicitement en compte les risques portés par les actifs détenus par les institutions financières qui sont la contrepartie de financements d’investissements contribuant aux déséquilibres écologiques dits « investissements bruns ». Ce qui est théoriquement tout à fait justifié, même si la mise en pratique de cette idée est compliquée et prendra sans doute du temps.
Par ailleurs, certaines banques centrales se sont engagées dans des refinancements privilégiés pour les « actifs verts » (c’est-à-dire compatibles avec la transition écologique) et, plus généralement, dans le « verdissement » de leur bilan. Il s’agit alors d’une sorte de retour à une politique de crédit sélective du type de celles qui avaient été pratiquées dans l’après-guerre, avant d’être balayée par la vague de libéralisation financière des années 1970-1980. On a alors considéré que les banques centrales ne devaient pas contrarier le rôle des marchés dans l’allocation des capitaux et donc ne pas intervenir dans la formation des structures par terme et par niveaux de risque des taux d’intérêt. On se situe par conséquent ici aux limites, évoquées précédemment, des révisions envisageables.
France 24, 2025.
L’écueil des chocs d’offre
De façon plus générale, il est vraisemblable que, dans les années qui viennent, les politiques économiques vont se trouver davantage confrontées à des problèmes de régulation de l’offre plutôt que de la demande. Parce qu’il leur faudra principalement répondre aux chocs sur les conditions de production que vont entraîner les évolutions technologiques, les ruptures et la recomposition des échanges commerciaux et des chaînes de valeur, les éventuelles pénuries de matières premières… Au cours des années récentes, c’est bien à ce type de problèmes que les politiques conjoncturelles ont été confrontées : la crise sanitaire a provoqué une contraction de la production, puis des ruptures d’approvisionnement. Elle a été suivie du déclenchement de conflits armés occasionnant, entre autres, une hausse des prix de l’énergie et donnant lieu à un brusque retour de l’inflation.
Or, on sait que les politiques monétaires conventionnelles sont démunies pour répondre à des chocs d’offre, car dans ce cas l’ajustement des taux d’intérêt ne peut assurer à la fois la stabilité des prix et celle de l’activité. C’est d’ailleurs pourquoi plusieurs banques centrales ont souhaité flexibiliser leur objectif d’inflation en allongeant l’horizon de son calcul, en l’inscrivant dans une marge de fluctuation…
Au demeurant ces chocs d’offre génèrent des déséquilibres de caractère micro ou méso-économiques qui relèvent plutôt d’une politique du crédit apte à rétablir la compétitivité de la structure productive. Mais ceci nécessite alors une stratégie industrielle et des choix que des banques centrales indépendantes n’ont pas la légitimité (ni toutes les compétences) pour en décider. C’est, alors, qu’une coordination qu’une coordination entre les politiques économiques devient inévitable.
De nouvelles missions dans un système monétaire international en restructuration ?
D’un tout autre point de vue, ajoutons que nombre d’observateurs considèrent aujourd’hui que le dollar devrait perdre progressivement sa prédominance en tant que monnaie d’échange, de facturation et de réserve. La monnaie américaine tenait une place essentielle dans le système monétaire international qui avait été recomposé dans l’immédiat après-guerre. Mais cette place a été remise en cause par la fracturation, qui s’accélère, de cet ordre économique mondial, par la baisse du poids relatif de l’économie américaine et sans doute aussi par le fait que les États-Unis se sont affranchis des responsabilités qu’impliquait le « privilège exorbitant » dont bénéficie leur devise.
Dans le monde multipolaire qui semble se mettre en place, il serait juste et cohérent que d’autres monnaies, notamment l’euro et le yuan chinois, se substituent en partie à la monnaie américaine. C’est du reste une revendication ancienne de nombre de pays émergents, les BRICS+.
Ceci représenterait pour les monnaies considérées une « captation de privilège », mais imposerait aussi de nouvelles obligations. Il faudra faire en sorte que la parité de ces monnaies soit assez stable, libéraliser (en Chine) les mouvements de capitaux, introduire des monnaies numériques de banques centrales pour faciliter et réduire les coûts des règlements transfrontières…
Mais, aussi et surtout, assurer le développement de marchés financiers profonds et liquides, afin de rendre attractive la détention à l’étranger d’actifs émis dans les pays considérés. Ces exigences impacteront sans doute les missions des banques centrales, mais elles vont bien au-delà. Par exemple, la nécessité de conforter l’offre de placements suppose, en Europe, une unification des marchés de capitaux ainsi qu’une uniformisation des dettes publiques émises par les différents États de la zone. Ce qui renvoie à des initiatives que la banque centrale peut suggérer et accompagner, mais dont elle ne peut pas décider du fait de leur dimension politique.
Cet article est publié dans le cadre d’un partenariat de The Conversation avec les Rencontres économiques, qui se tiennent du 3 au 5 juillet, à Aix-en-Provence. Plusieurs débats y seront consacrés au rôle des banques centrales.
Jean-Paul Pollin ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
“Bill Moyers? He’s spectacular!” George Clooney said – and no wonder.
I mentioned this legendary television journalist to the actor and filmmaker after Clooney emerged from the Broadway theater where he just had been portraying another news icon: Edward R. Murrow. Or as the Museum of Broadcast Communications put it in a tribute to Moyers, he was “one of the few broadcast journalists who might be said to approach the stature of Edward R. Murrow. If Murrow founded broadcast journalism, Moyers significantly extended its traditions.”
Moyers, who died at 91 on June 26, 2025, was among the most acclaimed broadcast journalists of the 20th century. He’s known for TV news shows that exposed the role of big money in politics and episodes that drew attention to unsung defenders of democracy, such as community organizer Ernesto Cortés Jr..
Despite his prominence, Moyers was the same down-to-earth guy in person as he seemed to be on the screen. In 1986, he was commanding a television audience of millions, and I was a historian at home with a preschooler, teaching the occasional college course in a dismal job market. Seeing that Moyers would be speaking at the conference on President Lyndon B. Johnson where I would be giving a paper, I wrote to him.
To my utter amazement, he replied and then showed up to hear my paper, on Johnson’s experiences as a young principal of the “Mexican” school in Cotulla, Texas, where he championed his students but also forged links to segregationists. Cotulla was “seminal” to LBJ’s development, Moyers said. In 1993, he recommended me for a grant that helped me finish a book: “LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power.
A few years later, he asked me to head up a project researching the documents related to his time in Johnson’s administration. His memoir of the Johnson years never materialized. Instead, I edited the bestselling ”Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times.“
Part of what always impressed me about Moyers was his belief that what matters is not how close you are to power, but how close you are to reality.
‘Amazing Grace’
Moyers didn’t just dwell on politics and policy as a journalist. He also delved into the meaning of creativity and the life of the mind. Many of his most moving interviews spotlighted scientists, novelists and other exceptional people.
He was also arguably among the best reporters on the religion beat. Even if it wasn’t always the main focus of his work or what comes to mind for those familiar with his legacy, still, he was a lifelong spiritual seeker.
He once told me that his favorite of the many programs that he produced was the PBS documentary ”Amazing Grace.“ It featured inspiring renditions of this popular Christian hymn as performed by country legend Johnny Cash, folk icon Judy Collins, opera diva Jessye Norman and other musical geniuses. As they share with Moyers their personal connections to this song of redemption, he draws viewers into the stirring saga of its creator, John Newton: a slave trader who became an abolitionist through “amazing grace.”
Bill Moyers interviews Judy Collins about singing ‘Amazing Grace,’ following the production of his PBS special about the hymn.
Life’s ultimate questions
This appreciation of the ineffable clearly informed Moyers’ blockbuster TV series exploring life’s ultimate questions, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.”
To my surprise, Moyers knew about this Trappist monk, telling me, “I always wished that I could have interviewed Merton,” who died in 1968.
It turned out that Moyers had been introduced to Merton by Sargent Shriver, founding director of the Peace Corps, where Moyers was a founding organizer and the deputy director.
Mentored by LBJ
Moyers characterized his Peace Corps years as the most rewarding of his life. When Johnson, his mentor, became president, he asked Moyers to join the White House staff. Moyers turned down the offer, so Johnson made it a presidential command.
The wunderkind – Moyers was 29 years old in 1963, when Johnson was sworn in after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination – coordinated the White House task forces that created the largest number of legislative proposals in American history. Among the programs and landmark reforms established and passed during the Johnson administration were Medicare andMedicaid, a landmark immigration law, the Freedom of Information Act, the Public Broadcasting Act and two historic civil rights laws.
Johnson’s war on poverty, in addition, introduced several path-breaking programs, such as Head Start.
Moyers served as one of Johnson’s speechwriters and was a top official in Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. The following year, the Johnson administration began escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson named a new press secretary: Bill Moyers. Again, the young man tried to decline, but the president prevailed.
As Moyers had feared, he could not serve two masters – journalists and his boss – especially as the administration’s Vietnam War policies became increasingly unpopular.
Moyers left the Johnson administration in 1967, turning to journalism. He became the publisher of Newsday, a Long Island, New York, newspaper, before becoming a producer and commentator at CBS News. His commentaries reached tens of millions of viewers, but the network refused to provide a regular time slot for his documentaries. He had previously worked at PBS. In 1987, he decamped there for good.
Moyers’ programs won many journalism awards, including over 30 Emmys, along with the Lifetime Emmy for news and documentary productions.
He helped millions of Americans appreciate the world around them. As he reflected in 2023, in one of the last interviews he gave, to PBS journalist Judy Woodruff at the Library of Congress: “Everything is linked, and if you can find that nerve that connects us to other things and other places and other ideas – and television should be doing it all the time – we’d be a better democracy.”
Judy Woodruff interviews Bill Moyers about his life’s work in government and the media, including his contributions to the launch of PBS, at the Library of Congress.
“It takes time, commitment” to dig below the surface and discover the deeper meaning of people’s lives, Moyers noted. He sought to understand, for example, why so many folks in his own hometown of Marshall, Texas, have become much more suspicious – resentful, even – of outsiders than when he gave these folks voice in his poignant, prize-winning 1984 program Marshall, Texas; Marshall, Texas.
In this era of growing threats to democracy, what can a young person do who aspires to follow in Bill Moyers’ footsteps – whether in journalism or public life?
Woodruff asked Moyers that question, to which he responded: “You can’t quit. You can’t get out of the boat! Find a place that gives you a sense of being, gives you a sense of mission, gives you a sense of participation.”
Today, with the future of journalism – and of democracy itself – at stake, I think it would help everyone to take to heart the insights of this late, great American journalist.
Julie Leininger Pycior edited the book “Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times.” She also was hired by Moyers to direct the 18-month “LBJ Years” research project.
In addtion, she served as an unpaid, informal historical adviser for some of his public television programs.
Alors qu’un cessez-le-feu, fragile et incertain, est entré en vigueur entre la République islamique d’Iran et Israël, une autre guerre, moins visible mais tout aussi décisive, gagne en intensité : la guerre économique. Car, au-delà des frappes et des missiles, ce sont les finances publiques, la stabilité monétaire et la résilience industrielle qui façonnent les rapports de force.
Le 20 juin, les États-Unis frappent le site de Fordo, une installation hautement sécurisée construite à flanc de montagne près de Qom, conçue pour résister à d’éventuels bombardements. Ce site incarne l’avancée clandestine du programme nucléaire iranien et sa destruction – inachevée selon plusieurs sources –marque une nouvelle étape dans l’escalade militaire entre Israël et la République islamique d’Iran (RII).
Les guerres ne se décident pas seulement sur le terrain militaire. Elles reposent sur les capacités économiques des États qui les mènent. Une armée peut tirer, avancer, frapper, seulement si son pays peut financer ses armes, entretenir ses troupes, réparer ses infrastructures et maintenir sa cohésion interne. Sans ressources, sans capacité de production et sans marge budgétaire, l’effort de guerre s’effondre, quelle que soit la stratégie militaire.
Tous ces travaux convergent vers un même enseignement : la force militaire dépend de la solidité économique. Une économie dégradée limite les capacités d’armement, désorganise les chaînes logistiques, fragilise la mobilisation de la population – et réduit, in fine, les chances de victoire.
Dans cette perspective, et au-delà du verdict militaire encore incertain, une question s’impose dès aujourd’hui : dans le conflit ouvert entre Israël et la RII le 13 juin 2025 et interrompu 12 jours plus tard par un cessez-le-feu fragile et incertain qui ne garantit point l’apaisement des tensions, qui gagne la guerre économique – celle qui conditionne toute victoire sur le terrain ?
État des forces économiques des belligérants au seuil de la guerre
Lorsque la guerre éclate le 13 juin 2025, l’économie de l’Iran est déjà exsangue. Selon le FMI, sa croissance réelle du PIB pour l’année est estimée à seulement 0,3 %, contre 3,7 % pour Israël au premier trimestre.
Le chômage illustre également ce déséquilibre. En 2024, il atteint 9,2 % en Iran, chiffre bien en-deçà de la réalité, contre un taux contenu entre 3,0 et 3,5 % en Israël. Ce différentiel traduit une dynamique socio-économique défavorable pour la République islamique, dont la population appauvrie est bien moins mobilisable dans la durée.
Côté finances publiques, le déficit budgétaire iranien atteint 6 % du PIB, alourdi par des subventions ciblées et des dépenses idéologiques. Israël, de son côté, parvient à contenir son déficit à 4,9 %, malgré une forte hausse des dépenses militaires. Là encore, le contraste signale une dissymétrie stratégique structurelle.
La situation monétaire renforce ce déséquilibre. Le rial s’est effondré, passant de 32 000 IRR/USD en 2018 à près de 930 000 IRR/USD en 2025. À l’inverse, le shekel reste stable autour de 3,57 ILS/USD. Une monnaie stable permet à Israël de maintenir ses importations critiques et de financer son effort de guerre dans des conditions soutenables. La RII, au contraire, voit sa capacité de financement militaire minée par une défiance monétaire généralisée.
Enfin, l’ouverture économique creuse davantage l’écart. L’Iran reste largement isolé du système financier international, frappé par les sanctions et déserté par les investisseurs étrangers, évoluant ainsi dans une autarcie contrainte. Israël bénéficie au contraire d’une intégration industrielle et technologique consolidée par ses alliances stratégiques.
Au total, la République islamique d’Iran entre dans le conflit dans une position structurellement défavorable : faible croissance, inflation galopante, déficit public incontrôlé, monnaie en chute libre, isolement économique, et population précarisée mécontente. Israël s’engage quant à lui avec un socle économique solide, des indicateurs de résilience et une profondeur stratégique qui lui permettent d’envisager un effort militaire prolongé.
Le coût quotidien de la guerre : une pression inégale sur les économies
Le conflit entre Israël et la RII s’est caractérisé par des campagnes aériennes intensives, des bombardements ciblés, des tirs de missiles longue portée et des cyberattaques. Les frappes israéliennes ont prioritairement visé des infrastructures militaires et logistiques.
Les dépenses engagées sont considérables : munitions guidées, missiles, drones, avions de chasse, radars, systèmes antiaériens, dispositifs de guerre électronique, salaires et primes militaires, ainsi que toute la logistique liée au front. Selon le Middle East Monitor, s’appuyant sur des données relayées par le Wall Street Journal, le coût quotidien du conflit s’élèverait à environ 200 millions de dollars pour Israël.
Pour la RII, aucune estimation indépendante n’est disponible à ce jour dans des sources reconnues. Toutefois, certains observateurs avancent, sans vérification rigoureuse, une fourchette allant de 150 à 200 millions de dollars par jour. Cette hypothèse doit être prise avec prudence, en l’absence de sources publiques confirmées.
Mais ces montants, similaires en valeur absolue, n’ont pas du tout le même poids économique selon les pays. Leurs effets, leur soutenabilité et leur impact sur la durée dépendent directement de la structure et de la santé économique de chaque État. Là où Israël peut absorber le choc, l’Iran semble déjà en tension.
Financer la guerre : entre ressources disponibles et épuisement des leviers
Israël soutient son effort de guerre grâce à un environnement financier solide, un accès complet aux marchés internationaux et un tissu productif performant. Il bénéficie aussi d’un appui logistique et stratégique direct des États-Unis (ravitaillements, batteries THAAD, intercepteurs, présence navale) et de renforts britanniques. L’OECD Economic Survey : Israel 2025 conclut qu’Israël conserve une stabilité macroéconomique robuste malgré les tensions géopolitiques.
La RII, en revanche, reste privée d’aide bilatérale et exclue des marchés de capitaux. Son financement de guerre repose sur :
1) Des exportations pétrolières résiduelles ;
2) Un endettement intérieur via des bons du trésor ;
3) Des collectes informelles religieuses (ṣadaqa maḏhabī, naḏr o niyāz) depuis l’été 2025.
Dans le budget 2025, l’augmentation des crédits alloués aux Gardiens de la Révolution et aux entités religieuses dépasse 35 %, tandis que les salaires publics grimpent de 18 à 20 %, dans un contexte d’inflation estimée à plus de 40 %. Ainsi, l’Iran oriente ses ressources vers la survie idéologique plutôt que la soutenabilité économique à long terme.
Conclusion : l’Iran mène la guerre dans une fragilité croissante – sans marges fiscales, sans soutien extérieur et dans un climat de défiance généralisée – tandis qu’Israël conserve pour l’heure une capacité d’action durable.
Une asymétrie stratégique à portée systémique
À l’issue de cette analyse, un constat s’impose : Israël est en train de remporter la guerre économique, indépendamment de l’évolution militaire immédiate.
Le pays s’appuie sur des alliances solides, des marges budgétaires substantielles et un environnement financier stable qui lui permettent de soutenir son effort de guerre dans la durée. Ce socle est consolidé par un soutien logistique et diplomatique direct des États-Unis – et, dans une moindre mesure, du Royaume-Uni – qui étend sa profondeur stratégique bien au-delà de ses frontières.
La République islamique d’Iran, en revanche, mène ce conflit dans un isolement quasi total, sans appui extérieur et avec des ressources internes de plus en plus fragiles : exportations pétrolières limitées, endettement intérieur peu soutenable, captation de fonds religieux. Cette situation ne reflète pas seulement deux modèles économiques distincts, mais deux trajectoires institutionnelles divergentes, désormais soumises à l’épreuve d’une guerre prolongée.
L’histoire récente – de la Yougoslavie des années 1990 à la Russie de 1917, en passant par l’Allemagne impériale en 1918 ou la Syrie après 2012 – montre que l’effondrement économique peut précipiter la défaite, même sans effondrement militaire immédiat.
Dès lors, la question centrale devient celle de la soutenabilité. La République islamique d’Iran peut-elle poursuivre son engagement militaire sans déclencher de ruptures budgétaires, monétaires ou sociales ? Israël, malgré sa solidité, pourra-t-il maintenir le soutien de sa population dans le cas d’un enlisement ou d’un choc stratégique externe ?
Dans ce face-à-face, l’économie ne joue pas un rôle secondaire. Elle est le révélateur du déséquilibre stratégique – et peut-être, à terme, le facteur décisif du basculement. Une stratégie comparable à la « guerre des étoiles » de Reagan, qui avait épuisé l’URSS en l’entraînant dans une course aux dépenses militaires insoutenables, semble aujourd’hui appliquée à la République islamique d’Iran.
Djamchid Assadi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton
The parents who brought the case had requested that their children be excused when books with LGBTQ+ characters were used in class.SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images
The Supreme Court tends to save its blockbuster orders for the last day of the term – and 2025 was no exception.
Among the important decisions handed down June 27, 2025, was Mahmoud v. Taylor – a case of particular interest to me, because I teach education law. Mahmoud, I believe, may become one of the court’s most consequential rulings on parental rights.
An interfaith coalition of Muslim, Orthodox Christian and Catholic parents in Montgomery County, Maryland – including Tamer Mahmoud, for whom the case is named – questioned the school board’s refusal to allow them to opt their young children out of lessons using picture books with LGBTQ+ characters. Ruling in favor of the parents, the court found that the board violated their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion by requiring their children to sit through lessons with materials inconsistent with their faiths.
Case history
The parents in Mahmoud challenged the use of certain storybooks that the board had approved for use in preschool and elementary school. “Pride Puppy!” for example – a book the schools later removed – portrays a family whose pet gets lost at a LGBTQ+ Pride parade, with each page devoted to a letter of the alphabet. The book’s “search and find” list of words directs readers to look for terms in the pictures, including “(drag) queen” and “king,” “leather” and “lip ring.” Other materials included stories about same-sex marriage, a transgender child, and nonbinary bathroom signs.
Initially, school administrators agreed to allow opt-outs for students whose parents objected to the materials. A day later, however, educators changed their minds. School officials cited concerns about absenteeism, the feasibility of accommodating opt-out requests, and a desire to avoid stigmatizing LGBTQ+ students or families.
In August 2023, a federal trial court rejected the parents’ claim that officials had violated their fundamental due process right to direct the care, custody and education of their children. The following year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed in favor of the board, finding that officials did not violate the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religious beliefs, as protected by the First Amendment.
On appeal, a 6-3 Supreme Court reversed in favor of the parents. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the court’s opinion, was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, plus Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Supreme Court
In brief, the court held that by denying the parental requests to opt their children out of instruction inconsistent with their beliefs, school officials violated their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Alito largely grounded the court’s rationale in a dispute from 1925, Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, and even more heavily on 1972’s Wisconsin v. Yoder. Both cases recognize the primacy of parental rights to direct the education of their children. According to Pierce’s famous dictum, “the child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
In Yoder, Amish parents – an Anabaptist Christian community that avoids using many modern technologies – objected to sending their children to school after eighth grade because this would have violated their religious beliefs. The justices unanimously agreed with the parents that their children received all of the education they needed in their communities. The justices added that requiring the children to attend high school would have violated the parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Accordingly, the court acknowledged that the parental right “to guide the religious future and education of their children” was “established beyond debate.”
Similarly, in Mahmoud the court declared that “the Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion.”
Thomas agreed fully with the court, yet wrote a separate concurrence, which emphasized “an important implication of this decision for schools across the country.” Citing Yoder, Thomas contended that rather than support inclusion, the board’s policy “imposes conformity with a view that undermines parents’ religious beliefs, and thus interferes with the parents’ right to ‘direct the religious upbringing of their children.’”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, feared “the result will be chaos for this Nation’s public schools. Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools.”
Supporters of LGBTQ+ rights demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor on April 22, 2025. Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images
She maintained that “simply being exposed to beliefs contrary to your own” does not violate a person’s free exercise rights. Insulating children from different ideas, she wrote, denies them of an experience that is crucial for democracy: “practice living in our multicultural society.”
Implications
After the decision was handed down, Montgomery County’s Board of Education issued a statement promising to “analyze the Supreme Court decision and develop next steps in alignment with today’s decision, and as importantly, our values.”
Mahmoud raises challenging questions about the scope or reach of how far parents can question curricular content.
On the one hand, parents should not be able to micromanage curricular content via the “heckler’s veto,” because this can lead to larger issues. Moreover, while Mahmoud concerns religious rights, what happens if parents question teachings based on another type of sincerely held belief – discussing war if they are pacifist, for example, or capitalism if they are socialists? While Mahmoud dealt with free-exercise rights, it may open the door to other types of First Amendment challenges from parents wishing to exempt their children from lessons.
On the other hand, Mahmoud highlights the need to take legitimate parental concerns into consideration. While educators typically control instruction, how can they be respectful of parents’ rights as primary caregivers of their children when conflicts arise?
Mahmoud may go a long way in defining parents’ free-exercise rights in public schools. Still, such disputes are likely far from over in America’s increasingly diverse religious culture.
Charles J. Russo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The 1925 Scopes trial, in which a Dayton, Tennessee, teacher was charged with violating state law by teaching biological evolution, was one of the earliest and most iconic conflicts in America’s ongoing culture war.
Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” published in 1859, and subsequent scientific research made the case that humans and other animals evolved from earlier species over millions of years. Many late-19th-century American Protestants had little problem accommodating Darwin’s ideas – which became mainstream biology – with their religious commitments.
But that was not the case with all Christians, especially conservative evangelicals, who held that the Bible is inerrant – without error – and factually accurate in all that it has to say, including when it speaks on history and science.
One hundred years after the trial, and as we have documented in our scholarly work, the culture war over evolution and creationism remains strong – and yet, when it comes to creationism, much has also changed.
Holding to biblical inerrancy, these “fundamentalists” believed in the creation account detailed in chapter 1 of Genesis, in which God brought all life into being in six days. But most of these fundamentalists also accepted mainstream geology, which held that the Earth was millions of years old. Squaring a literal understanding of Genesis with an old Earth, they embraced either the “day-age theory” – that each Genesis day was actually a long period of time – or the “gap theory,” in which there was a huge gap of time before the six 24-hour days of creation.
This nascent fundamentalist movement initiated a campaign to pressure state legislatures to prohibit public schools from teaching evolution. One of these states was Tennessee, which in 1925 passed the Butler Act. This law made it illegal for public schoolteachers “to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”
The American Civil Liberties Union persuaded John Thomas Scopes, a young science teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, to challenge the law in court. The WCFA sprang into action, successfully persuading William Jennings Bryan – populist politician and outspoken fundamentalist – to assist the prosecution. In response, the ACLU hired famous attorney Clarence Darrow to serve on the defense team.
Inside the courtroom, the trial became a verbal duel between Bryan and Darrow regarding science and religion. But as the judge narrowed the proceedings to whether or not Scopes violated the law – a point that the defense readily admitted – it seemed clear that Scopes would be found guilty. Many of the reporters thus went home.
But the trial’s most memorable episode was yet to come. On July 20, Darrow successfully provoked Bryan to take the witness stand as a Bible expert. Due to the huge crowd and suffocating heat, the judge moved the trial outdoors.
The 3,000 or so spectators witnessed Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan, which was primarily intended to make Bryan and fundamentalism appear foolish and ignorant. Most significant, Darrow’s questions revealed that, despite Bryan’s’ assertion that he read the Bible literally, Bryan actually understood the six days of Genesis not as 24-hour days, but as six long and indeterminate periods of time.
American lawyer and politician William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. Hulton Archive/Getty Image
The very next day, the jury found Scopes guilty and fined him US$100. Riley and the fundamentalists cheered the verdict as a triumph for the Bible and morality.
The fundamentalists and ‘The Genesis Flood’
But very soon that sense of triumph faded, partly because of news stories that portrayed fundamentalists as ignorant rural bigots. In one such example, a prominent journalist, H. L. Mencken, wrote in a Baltimore Sun column that the Scopes trial “serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land.”
The media ridicule encouraged many scholars and journalists to conclude that creationism and fundamentalism would soon disappear from American culture. But that prediction did not come to pass.
Instead, fundamentalists, including WCFA leader Riley, seemed all the more determined to redouble their efforts at the grassroots level.
But as Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan made obvious, it was not easy to square a literal reading of the Bible – including the six-day creation outlined in Genesis – with a scientific belief in an old Earth. What fundamentalists needed was a science that supported the idea of a young Earth.
“The Genesis Flood” and its version of flood geology remains ubiquitous among fundamentalists and other conservative Protestants.
Young Earth creationism
Today, opinion polls reveal that roughly one-quarter of all Americans are adherents of this newer strand of creationism, which rejects both mainstream geology as well as mainstream biology.
AiG’s tourist sites – the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, and the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky – have attracted millions of visitors since their opening in 2007 and 2016. Additional AiG sites are planned for Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Presented as a replica of Noah’s Ark, the Ark Encounter is a gigantic structure – 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, 51 feet high. It includes representations of animal cages as well as plush living quarters for the eight human beings who, according to Genesis chapters 6-8, survived the global flood. Hundreds of placards in the Ark make the case for a young Earth and a global flood that created the geological strata and formations we see today.
Besides AiG tourist sites, there is also an ever-expanding network of fundamentalist schools and homeschools that present young Earth creationism as true science. These schools use textbooks from publishers such as Abeka Books, Accelerated Christian Education and Bob Jones University Press.
The Scopes trial involved what could and could not be taught in public schools regarding creation and evolution. Today, this discussion also involves private schools, given that there are now at least 15 states that have universal private school choice programs, in which families can use taxpayer-funded education money to pay for private schooling and homeschooling.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With burgers sizzling and classic rock thumping, many Americans revel in summer cookouts – at least until that wayward cousin asks for a “pop” in soda country, or even worse, a “coke” when they actually want a Sprite.
Few American linguistic debates have bubbled quite as long and effervescently as the one over whether a generic soft drink should be called a soda, pop or coke.
The word you use generally boils down to where you’re from: Midwesterners enjoy a good pop, while soda is tops in the North and far West. Southerners, long the cultural mavericks, don’t bat an eyelash asking for coke – lowercase – before homing in on exactly the type they want: Perhaps a root beer or a Coke, uppercase.
As a linguist who studies American dialects, I’m less interested in this regional divide and far more fascinated by the unexpected history behind how a fizzy “health” drink from the early 1800s spawned the modern soft drink’s many names and iterations.
The process of carbonating water was first discovered in the late 1700s. By the early 1800s, this carbonated water had become popular as a health drink and was often referred to as “soda water.” The word “soda” likely came from “sodium,” since these drinks often contained salts, which were then believed to have healing properties.
Given its alleged curative effects for health issues such as indigestion, pharmacists sold soda water at soda fountains, innovative devices that created carbonated water to be sold by the glass. A chemistry professor, Benjamin Stillman, set up the first such device in a drugstore in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1806. Its eventual success inspired a boom of soda fountains in drugstores and health spas.
These flavored, sweetened versions gave rise to the linking of the word “soda” with a sweetened carbonated beverage, as opposed to simple, carbonated water.
Seltzer – today’s popular term for such sparkling water – was around, too. But it was used only for the naturally carbonated mineral water from the German town Nieder-Selters. Unlike Perrier, sourced similarly from a specific spring in France, seltzer made the leap to becoming a generic term for fizzy water.
So how did “soda” come to be called so many different things in different places?
It all stems from a mix of economic enterprise and linguistic ingenuity.
The popularity of “soda” in the Northeast likely reflects the soda fountain’s longer history in the region. Since a lot of Americans living in the Northeast migrated to California in the mid-to-late 1800s, the name likely traveled west with them.
As for the Midwestern preference for “pop” – well, the earliest American use of the term to refer to a sparkling beverage appeared in the 1840s in the name of a flavored version called “ginger pop.” Such ginger-flavored pop, though, was around in Britain by 1816, since a Newcastle songbook is where you can first see it used in text. The “pop” seems to be onomatopoeic for the noise made when the cork was released from the bottle before drinking.
A jingle for Faygo touts the company’s ‘red pop.’
Linguists don’t fully know why “pop” became so popular in the Midwest. But one theory links it to a Michigan bottling company, Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works – today known as Faygo Beverages – that used “pop” in the name of the sodas they marketed and sold. Another theory suggests that because bottles were more common in the region, soda drinkers were more likely to hear the “pop” sound than in the Northeast, where soda fountains reigned.
As for using coke generically, the first Coca-Cola was served in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta and the founder of the company. In the 1900s, the Coca-Cola company tried to stamp out the use of “Coke” for “Coca-Cola.” But that ship had already sailed. Since Coca-Cola originated and was overwhelmingly popular in the South, its generic use grew out of the fact that people almost always asked for “Coke.”
Due to the growing popularity of soda water concoctions, eventually “soft drink” came to mean only such sweetened carbonated beverages, a linguistic testament to America’s enduring love affair with sugar and bubbles.
With the average American guzzling almost 40 gallons per year, you can call it whatever you what. Just don’t call it healthy.
Valerie M. Fridland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The fossil thrips discovered in the Orapa Diamond Mine.Dr Sandiso Mnguni, CC BY-NC-ND
Thrips are tiny insects – their sizes range between 0.5mm and 15mm in length and many are shorter than 5mm. But the damage they cause to crops is anything but small. A 2021 research paper found that in Indonesia “the damage to red chilli plants caused by thrips infestation ranges now from 20% to 80%”. In India, various thrips infestations in the late 2010s and early 2020s “damaged 40%-85% of chilli pepper crops in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana”.
In Africa, a number of thrips species feed on sugarcane and have been known to damage nearly 30% of the crop in a single hectare of a farm. High rates of destruction have been recorded in Tanzania and Uganda on onion and tomato crops.
Now it’s emerged that thrips are hardly new to the African continent and the southern hemisphere more broadly. South Africa’s first and only Black palaeoentomologist, Sandiso Mnguni, who studies fossil insects, recently described a fossil thrips from Orapa Diamond Mine in Botswana that’s more than 90 million years old. He discussed his unique fossil find with The Conversation Africa.
What are thrips and how do they cause damage?
Thrips, also known as thunderflies, thunderbugs or thunderblights, are small, slender and fragile insects. They can be identified by their typically narrow, strap-like, fringed and feathery wings. Over time, they have also evolved distinctive asymmetrical rasping-sucking mouthparts consisting of a labrum, labium, maxillary stylets and left mandible. Most species use these to feed primarily on fungi. Some feed on plants and eat the tender parts of certain crops like sugarcane, tomatoes, pepper, onions, avocado, legumes and citrus fruits, focusing on the buds, flowers and young leaves.
This, along with their habit of accidentally distributing fungal spores while feeding or hunting, makes them destructive crop pests. They tend to feed as a group in large numbers, causing distinctive silver or bronze scarring on the surfaces of stems or leaves.
However, not all thrips are harmful. A small fraction of the 6,500 species that have already been described so far are pollinators of flowering plants; and a handful are predators or natural enemies of moths and other smaller animals such as mites.
Larva, pupa and adult Weeping fig thrips (Gynaikothrips uzeli) fcafotodigital
Tell us about the fossil thrips you’ve discovered
This is the first time that a fossil thrips has been recorded anywhere in Africa – or the entire southern hemisphere.
The Orapa Diamond Mine in Botswana is one of the most important fossil deposits on the continent. It’s about 90 million years old, dating back to the Cretaceous period.
The deposit is situated 960 metres above sea level in the Kalahari Desert, about 250km due west of Francistown in Botswana, and 824km away from Johannesburg in South Africa. It was first discovered in 1967 and started producing carat diamonds in 1971.
Roughly 90 million years go, steam and gas caused a double eruption of diamondiferous kimberlites. These are vertical, deep-source volcanic pipes that form when magma rapidly rises from the Earth’s mantle, carrying diamonds and other minerals up to the surface. They create a distinctive rock formation that gets studied by geologists. This explosive volcanic eruption formed a deep crater lake at the centre of the mine.
Mining excavations during the 1980s and earlier uncovered and exposed fine-grained sedimentary rocks containing well preserved fossil plants and insects. These have already been studied by many researchers in the past. At the time, geology and palaeontology researchers from what was then the Bernard Price Institute, which has since been renamed the Evolutionary Studies Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, were invited to collect the fossil material.
Although some of the material has been studied in the past, the fossil thrips hadn’t yet been put under the microscope. And that’s just what we did. By using its body characteristics and comparing it to living thrips, we can say for sure that it’s a thrips. But we didn’t give it a formal scientific name because it doesn’t have enough characteristics to classify it at the species level and describe it either as a new species or one that still exists today.
We think that the thrips either flew into the palaeolake that was formed by the volcanic eruption or was transported there through grass from a bird’s nest.
Why is this useful to know?
This discovery sheds light on the biodiversity and biogeography of thrips and many other groups of insects during a time when we know flowering plants that heavily relied on insect pollination were rapidly diversifying. This plant-insect reciprocal interaction goes back to the Devonian period, a time when there was a large super-continent called Gondwana. That’s when the first land plants evolved and dominated the Earth, and inadvertently led to many groups of insects, including thrips, diversifying to keep up with drastic changes in their preferred plant diets and habitats due to the dramatic environmental and climatic changes.
The fossil find also contributes to a more accurate documentation of life on Earth during the Cretaceous and helps scientists in reconstructing the past environment and climate in Botswana.
Hopefully there are more fossil insects waiting to be discovered in Botswana and elsewhere in Africa, to keep improving our picture of this long-ago world, and preserve the heritage of our continent.
Sandiso Mnguni receives funding from the GENUS: DSTI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (Grant 86073). He is affiliated with the Agricultural Research Council Plant Health and Protection (ARC-PHP) and the Sophumelela Youth Development Programme (SYDP).
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