INTEGRATIVE CENTERS FOR
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
Annual Report 2010
Re-inaugurating Sir Francis Bacon’s Novum
Organum (1620) in the New World
Authored By:
Noel T. Boaz, Ph.D., M.D.
President,
Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine, Inc.
12 Starling Avenue
Martinsville, VA 24112, U.S.A.
[email protected]
ICSM ANNUAL REPORT
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PAGE 2
Executive Summary
The domestic agenda of ICSM underwent a significant evolution in 2010. The Board
incorporated on September 15, 2010 its own educational institution, the College of
Henricopolis, named after the first English-speaking institution of higher education
founded in the New World, chartered in Virginia in 1618. The sitting ICSM Board is its
first Board of Trustees. The newly reformed College of Henricopolis encompasses ICSM’s
commitment to health care education focused on indigenous peoples while maintaining
adherence to the broad-minded Renaissance philosophical principles of Sir Francis Bacon,
one of the original founders. ICSM relocated to Virginia in order to consolidate operations
in April, 2010 and through its Center for Biomedical Education is pursuing viable
collaboration with Native American and educational partners to develop an educational
pipeline for health care education.
2010 was an active international research year for ICSM. Three field expeditions and two
successful museum development projects in Libya were carried out by the ICSM
International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research. The latter included completion
of exhibits and the May, 2010 opening of the Museum of Vertebrate Paleontology at
Garyounis University, Benghazi, which is dedicated to housing the fossil collections from
the important fossil of Sahabi and Jabal Zaltan. At Libya’s National Museum in Tripoli the
major operation of restoring and packing Libya’s national fossil, the four-tusked elephantid
Stegotetrabelon syrticus, in preparation for transport to its new museum in Benghazi was
accomplished. Significant new fossil and geological discoveries were made in the field, all
of which are in the process of being published in peer-reviewed journals. In 2010 the first
publication from the ICSM Laboratory of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy appeared
in the journal Clinical Anatomy, and other publications in Evolutionary Medicine are in
preparation.
Income from research grant support in 2010 was $19,500, and research expenditures were
matched with income. ICSM invested in the development of educational programs in 2010
for secondary school science, premedical college, and post-graduate medical training that
are central to its mission. Earned income from delivery of these programs will return this
investment in the coming year. Giving re-birth to and building up the College of
Henricopolis will be a major fund-raising and development challenge ahead.
Members of the Board of Directors
Noel T. Boaz, Ph.D., M.D., President
Martinsville, Virginia
Alan Almquist, Ph.D., Secretary
San Anselmo, California
Russell Ciochon, Ph.D,
Iowa City, Iowa
Scott Obenshain, M.D.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Timothy Wolf
Ellicott City, Maryland
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Evolutionary Medicine, a Hopeful Pathway to the Future
European medicine and European medical schools seem to have been much more receptive to the messages and
lessons of the nascent discipline of Evolutionary Medicine, the application of human evolutionary biology to
healthcare and prevention, than have American medical schools. A unique conference organized by medical students at the University of Porto, Portugal’s largest medical school, brought together a large number of researchers,
scientists, and physicians, including several Nobel laureates, in the Fifth Young European Scientists (YES) Meeting in September, 2010. ICSM was represented by its President, Dr. Noel Boaz, who presented one of the two
keynote lectures to a standing-room-only crowd.
Evolutionary Medicine forms the core of ICSM’s narrative approach to its Premedical Institute, slated to begin in
2011. It also underlies a new “Onto-Phylogenetic” five-year-long medical curriculum being developed through a
multi-university consortium that includes European and Libyan universities. Libyan International Medical University serves as the coordinator for this program and Noel Boaz, its consultant Head of Medical Education for 201011, is Principal Investigator. This experience will be brought back to the U.S. as ICSM builds the Evolutionary
Medicine curriculum for the College of Henricopolis.
ICSM received top billing at Europe’s largest medical-student-organized scientific meeting, the YES Meeting, held at the University of Porto, Portugal in September, 2010. Keynote speakers in the featured session
on “Darwin, M.D.? - Evolution in Medicine” were Dr. Noel Boaz , ICSM (center) and Dr. David Haig,
Harvard University (left). Dr. Jorge Rochas, University of Porto (right) moderated.
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ICSM and the Web
The year 2010 saw moderate success in ICSM’s efforts to
expand its base and reach a broader audience with its educational messages. Visitorship on the Integrativemedsci.org
website increased by a third over 2009 levels, and interest
throughout the year was consistent in the three online publications offered by ICSM online via issuu.com. Through the
end of 2010, ICSM publications had reached 779 readers and
received 2550 page views through the issuu.com website. An
attempt to reach a broader audience for the ICSM “HandsOn Human Evolution” educational cast program via yahoo.com was disappointing and was discontinued. A new
ICSM website is planned for 2011 that will target specific
groups and increase ICSM web presence.
The web presence of ICSM in 2010. Some 26,000 visitors to the ICSM website,
integrativemedsci.org, were recorded in 2010, with a average number of hits
per day of 118. This was an increase of 32.9% over the previous year.
Re-Founding the College of Henricopolis
Sir Francis Bacon, architect of the Scientific Revolution and one of the founders
of the original College of Henricopolis, wrote in 1620 that “[i]t would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet
been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.” Thus
it is with founding an institution of higher education in the Americas that purports to give equal footing to indigenous and colonizing ethnicities alike, one that
is committed at the outset to the scientific method and the central role of research, one that is embued with the idea that the health sciences are the place to
start, one that is committed to learning and not just teaching, and one in which
the tenets of human evolution, ecological sustainability, international human
rights, and the empowering role of knowledge are central. In this age when tribalism, magical thinking, and xenophobia are resurgent, it may seem quixotic to pick
up a 400-year-old broken thread of an enlightened idea and tie it to the future.
Yet, knowledge is power (“ipsa scientia potestas est,” the motto of Henricoplis
College and another quote of Bacon), and there is hope that knowledge of humankind can be turned to good use to benefit society (“Hominem sapientia pro
hominibus,” the motto of the Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine). The
light of scientific reason can disperse the darkness and eventually expand our view
past our ancient tribal ways of looking at the world.
On September 15, 2010 the College of Henricopolis was officially incorporated in
Virginia and began an existence that was snuffed out on March 22, 1622. As an
outgrowth of the English Renaissance led by Sir Francis Bacon, Henricopolis
College started with the revolutionary idea that all people, be they of European or
Native American ancestry, had the same capabilities and the same social right, to
learn.
Sir Francis Bacon (at right), architect of the Scientific Revolution, Lord Chancellor of England, and
Council Member of the Virginia Company of
London, laid out his design for a modern research
university in 1620 in his treatise Novum Organum.
The frontispiece of this work (at left) depicts a ship
in full sail with Bacon’s aspirations leaving Europe
through the Gates of Hercules and heading westwards, toward Virginia.
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Despite the overall influence and eventual ascendancy of Bacon’s educational and philosophical ideas, their impact in the place for which
they were first intended ended abruptly in 1622 at the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. In a surprise attack led by
Powhatan Chief Opecancanough, the fledgling city and College of Henricopolis along the James River were razed, the College’s Deputy,
George Thorpe, was killed, and one quarter of the entire population of the colony of Virginia died in one day. In addition to the college
and the East India School, also swept away were America’s first hospital and first library.
The Anglo-Powhatan Wars marked the end of a decade-and-a-half-long period of imperfect but attempted peaceful coexistence between
the English and the Indians. It convinced colonists to reverse the enlightened policy of the Virginia Company of London and henceforth
to attempt to “root out and supplant” all Native Americans. Active warfare began in 1622 that in fact continued for the next 250 years
across the entire North American continent. In 1624 King James rescinded the charter of the Virginia Company, which supported the
continuing effort to establish the college, orchestrated the removal of Francis Bacon from the government, and took over Virginia as a
royal colony. It was not until 1693, after the English Civil War and during the reign of King William and Queen Mary, that a college was
finally established in Virginia, and by then the founding Renaissance and Baconian principles of the College of Henricopolis had been
forgotten. Bacon’s philosophy, however, lived on, found fertile ground elsewhere, and grew into the modern research university, as exemplified by Berkeley, Cambridge, and Johns Hopkins. ICSM has now given re-birth to the College of Henricopolis, and with it a renewed
vision of an institution based on empirical science, dedicated to the spirit of inquiry, and committed to global inter-cultural benefit, particularly in regard to the health of all peoples.
Monument to the college located at the historical “Citie of Henricus, Chesterfield County, Virginia.
Its inscription reads:“The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Virginia A.D. 1910 erect this
monument on the site of the Town of Henricopolis to commemorate the College and University
which on May 26, 1619 the Virginia Company of London decreed should be established here.”
Research indicates that the actual charter date of the college was in 1618.
Reconstruction of America’s first hospital at “Citie of Henricus.” It was
originally built in 1612 upon a high bank along the James River at
Coxendale, near Henricus. The location was chosen to protect against
the “miasmic fevers” that had plagued the low-lying first settlement at
Jamestown. It had forty beds and was referred to by the colonists as
“Mount Malady.”
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Field Activities by the International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research
ICSM’s International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research is investigating the Libyan Miocene fossil sites of Sahabi (Late Miocene,
ca. 7 million years old) and Jabal Zaltan (Middle Miocene, ca. 14-17 million years old). ICSM signed a memorandum of understanding
with Garyounis University, Benghazi, Libya, in 2006, and renewed in 2009, to establish and jointly administer the East Libya Neogene
Research Project. Three periods of fieldwork by teams from U.S., European, and Libyan universities were carried out during 2010. Research of the East Libya Neogene Research Project has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and Shell Libya
Exploration and Production GmbH.
The February, 2010 field crew of
the East Libya Neogene Research
Project working at the Late Miocene site of Sahabi. Left-to-right:
N. Boaz, A. Muftah, P. Pavlakis, R.
Salem, T. Argyriou, and D.
Michailidis.
Shown at right is a well-preserved
fossil cercopithecid monkey humerus discovered by this team.
Fieldwork also was undertaken at the older Miocene site of Jabal Zaltan some 250 km to the southwest of Sahabi.
Left: During August, 2010 fieldwork at Jabal Zaltan located a rich new area of fossiliferous deposits in a
previously unsurveyed area. Here a complete skull of a fossil deinothere, an extinct form of proboscidean, is
excavated. Center: A fossil crocodilian skull (18Z131), probably of a new species, found at a new locality
north of Jabal Zaltan. Right: Dr. Daryl Domning of Howard University College of Medicine, an ELNRP
paleontologist and specialist on sirenians, discovered more remains of a new genus and species of these marine mammals at Jabal Zaltan which he is describing in a forthcoming paper.
ICSM ANNUAL REPORT
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Development of Research-Related Museum Resources in Libya
Paleontological research in Libya starting in the late 1970’s and continuing to the present day has amassed almost 10,000 specimens.
ICSM has taken the lead in ensuring that these fossil collections are well catalogued and curated in the state-of-the-art Museum of Vertebrate Paleontology at Garyounis University in Benghazi. ICSM obtained a grant from Shell Oil Libya to construct and install an exhibit on the fossil sites of Sahabi and Jabal Zaltan which opened May 19, 2010. The exhibit is supported by a popular article “Libya
Before the Sahara,” available online at integrativemedsci.org.
As part of the effort to ensure the proper curation of all fossils from these sites, additional funding was obtained to repair and restore
the type specimen of the famous four-tusked elephantid, Stegotetrabelodon syrticus from Sahabi, Libya’s “national fossil.” This work was
successfully completed at the Libyan National Museum in Tripoli during the month of October, 2010.
Above: Invitation to the opening exhibit of the Garyounis University
Museum of Vertebrate Paleontology in Benghazi, May 19, 2010. Right:
Pre-opening tour of the exhibit by visiting Shell geologists (second and
third from left) hosted by the Earth Sciences Department and the
ELNRP.
During early October, 2010 a team of museum technicians led by long-time ELNRP preparator Hans-Jurgen Lierl of the University of Hamburg, Germany
(rightmost in above left photo) undertook the difficult task of repairing and packing for transport the fossil skeleton of the four-tusked elephantid Stegotetrabelodon
syrticus, Libya’s “national fossil” excavated in the 1930’s from the fossil site of Sahabi. The work was successfully carried out under the direction of Dr. Saleh Abdala, Director of the National Museum of Libya (leftmost in the above right photo) and Dr. Noel Boaz, International Director of the ELNRP (second from right in
above right photo). The work was supported by a grant from Shell Exploration and Production Libya GmbH to ICSM.
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Sketch map of the unusually shaped Qasr as-Sahabi, with photographic views of its western wall
(left) and partially buried Roman centenarium, the oldest part of the fort.
In December, 2010, ICSM submitted a proposal to the U.S. State Department Ambassadors Fund for “Restoration of
the Romano-Turkish Fort of Qasr as-Sahabi, Libya.” The restored fort, which dates back some 1700 years, is proposed
to be used as an interpretive and research center for future research at Sahabi. The project was recommended for funding by the U.S. Embassy, Tripoli and a final decision is pending.
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The new ICSM Laboratory of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy published its first paper online in Clinical Anatomy in
2010. This laboratory is working in areas of clinical anatomy, human biology, functional morphology, and paleoanthropology.
ICSM ANNUAL REPORT
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ICSM Balance Sheet 2010
Assets
Grants
Assets - Field Equipment
Total
15,250
75,000
$90,250
Liabilities
Staff Salaries, Wages, and Taxes
Occupancy and utilities
Printing and shipping
Telecommunications
Contract services
Fieldwork
Research Lab Expenses
Collection Management
Total
19,500
2,940
450
2,400
2,500
8,796
3,756
2,699
$43,041
Assets Less Liabilities
$
47,209
Fund Balances at Year Start
$
6,937
Balance sheet of ICSM for 2010, pending final audit.
Fund Balances at Year End