Second Sight

Of course we haven’t yet studied the major natural law problem, but this Blog is never afraid to tackle the most controversial topics. I write of a flagrant breach of the natural law which is extremely common. Indeed the Pope himself is guilty of it.

Why do a large number of males, indeed a majority in western countries, deliberately remove their secondary sexual characteristics? That is, why do they shave off their beards?

On a prima facie basis we must recognise that to remove such an obvious characteristic given to us by our Creator is a flagrant insult to his generosity and is clearly a perverse denial of our sexual natures. More careful examination reveals that the mutilation involved is, as the theologians say, intrinsice malum – and no circumstances whatsoever, except a secondary effect resulting from extreme medical necessity — can justify it.

Not that I am the first to draw attention to this neglected area of morality. The Albany Argus of 1855 was clear that removing beards was a violation of the laws of nature. It contradicted the purpose of a beard which is clearly to keep the face and throat warm. Shaving involves wasting some 40 inches of hair a year, and – over a lifetime – using up a solid three month’s worth of effort. It is, the Argus said, a “barbarous practice” quite unsuited to modern man.

You may think the issue of beards is trivial, but in fact the instinctive response to facial hair lies deep in the human psyche. While the most respectable and wise have worn beards, they nevertheless constitute a threat to those whom I may charitably call “would-be eunuchs”.

You will recall (if only because it has recently been revived) the 1960s musical, Hair. Its significance lay in the fact that the new, questioning – and so threatening – generation majored on the growth of long hair and beards. They were a sexual threat.

I worked for many years for a large international financial company, and, even as late as the ‘90s, my UK boss told me that the international powers that be had always held back my promotion on the grounds that my beard gave the wrong image.

I have been fortunate in my women friends, and I enjoy the proximity of the fair. So I had the opportunity to observe what happened when I grew a beard in middle life – a grizzled version of which is still with me today. About half my women friends retreated to a safer distance, while the other half came in closer. The contrast was most marked. But I suppose the epitome came when I asked my wife whether or not she liked my beard. She answered: “It’s like committing adultery, without all the hassle.”

The beard stays on.

So we have renewed confirmation that every human being alive today is descended from a single mother, who lived 200,000 years ago. Hallo, cousins!

The lady in question is known as mitochondrial Eve. The name comes from examining the mitochondria which are the energy factories in each human cell. Conveniently they are only inherited through the female line, and have 37 genes which rarely change. In addition they have a variable region which changes fast enough and regularly enough to time the small genetic variations which do occur.

These observations need to be matched against genetic models which use different sets of assumptions about migration, and expansion, and take into account random growth and extinction. In this study, published in the journal Theoretical Population Biology, ten different models were studied side by side – making the result the most robust and reliable to date.

Of course the genetic identification of a single ancestor does not mean that we have discovered the first woman. We know nothing about her predecessors, and it is generally thought that a number of small human populations lived in different habitats before dying out. It would appear that mitochondrial Eve mothered the only line which happened to survive.

An interesting thought strikes me. Traditional moralists have argued that there are certain extreme circumstances in which polygamy would not be forbidden by the natural law.  But polyandry is always forbidden. However, in the case of mitochondrial Eve, polyandry would certainly be beneficial in order to achieve more general genetic diversity. Indeed if there were only one woman around – and several males, polyandry would be almost inevitable. Perhaps polyandry was simply too unthinkable for the male moral theologian.

Of course this is small beer compared with a new fossil discovery, published in Nature Geoscience (also on August 17). These take us back 650 million years, and are the earliest evidence of animal body forms, somewhat like a primitive sponge – 70 million years earlier than previous evidence.

Perhaps they are our ancestors too – but this might be harder to demonstrate.

Here’s a problem – and a solution.

A recent study in the August issue of the British Journal of Urology reported that almost two thirds of women reported sexual dysfunction. Six key areas were noted: lack of desire, arousal issues, lack of lubrication, lack of orgasm, lack of satisfaction and/or pain during intercourse.

These problems strongly relate to age. For example, lack of desire was reported by 48% (44%) of women in the 31 to 45 age group. And by 65% (48%) of women in the 46 - 57 age group. The figures in brackets refer to difficulties in achieving orgasm. By the age of 70, lack of desire, satisfaction and orgasm is around the 90% mark.

The sample was large enough to give significant results, but the participants were all attenders at a urology (trouble with the waterworks) clinic, which may mean that they were untypical. However the results correlated well with a Turkish study suggesting that the prevalence of female sexual dysfunction, and its relationship to age, is biological rather than sociological. You can read a fuller summary here.

Does this have any special significance for us? Perhaps not – unless one considers the evidence that women tend to be more sexually interested around the time of ovulation. Since this is the time when sexual congress is ruled out in natural family planning the best chance for women prone to sexual disorders to promote the relationship through satisfying sexual connection has to be eschewed.

However, take heart. Another very recent study tells us that women have a tendency to be more erotically aroused by men wearing red garments, in preference to any other colour. So the whole problem might be solved by the purchase of a pair of bright red pajamas. Good luck!

I want to raise the topic of sex education on the Blog rather than in the CH, because I know much more about the questions than I do about the answers.

First, I should confess that I only have the most anecdotal knowledge of what material is currently being used by Catholic schools – and how it is taught. As a grandparent it has not been my duty to interrogate any schools, but any of you who have your own children at school should know what is being done in their case. And if you don’t know, I am inclined to ask you why you have not felt it your duty to find out. As we have discovered through the Blog some very strange approaches have been used in the past. This was the link

Equally I have seen highly orthodox material written in a way which shows no understanding of the Teflon coating of the adolescent mind, when it is being taught material which does not relate to their experience.

In broad terms I imagine that we want our children to have a good understanding of sexuality; to have taken aboard that its full expression is reserved to the sacrament of marriage; to have understood the relationship between sexual expression as a consummation of committed love, and formed around its purpose of procreation.

We will want them to know that sexuality is a gift from God, and so essentially good. Yet they must realise that there are many ways in which it is possible to misuse it. But this should not lead to an association of sexual expression with guilt or shame.

At a more practical level they must realise that a misuse of sexuality can lead to great emotional harm and also to the outcome of disease or pregnancy. Both or either of these can have long term consequences on their own life or on the lives of other people.

But we have to be realistic about this. The facts appear to be that many Catholic children pick up quite different ideas, or, if they accept them in principle, they fall away very quickly in practice. And this is not surprising. As my granddaughter, when aged 15, said to me: “Most women don’t get married until they’re twice my age. It’s a bit much to ask me to be celibate for 15 years.” I could see her point. And since I can’t be theoretical about my own granddaughter I find myself very concerned that she avoids the worst outcomes of “unsafe” sex, because there is a high probability that she, like most of us, will not live her Catholic life to perfection. How should this be handled without conveying the impression that I think it probable that she will transgress, and that I will understand, and so condone? (Of course it’s not my direct problem – she has perfectly good parents of her own; I use this as an illustration.)

This is by no means the first time I have considered the problem. Back in 1972 I wrote (with my wife) a 50 page pamphlet called Choices in Sex. Since young people, even at that time, appeared to ignore lectures in orthodoxy, we presented it in a way which was designed to get them thinking about the issues – partly through having correct information and partly through raising questions for them to consider and internalise.

The pamphlet received an Imprimatur, but this was withdrawn at the imprecation of a group of conservative clergy. And, perhaps not surprisingly, there was trouble with the Holy Office. Ironically one paragraph which they chose to castigate had in effect been dictated to us by an archbishop in good standing. We were styled as “corrupters of youth” in the Irish press which – given that this was the heyday in Ireland of clerical paedophilia, and institutionalised cruelty by Catholic nuns – seems to us in retrospect to be something of a sick joke.

So it would seem that straight, orthodox teaching makes no imprint on the youthful mind, or contaminates it with a sense of guilt. Accepting youth as it is, and not as perhaps it should be, and teaching them how to navigate the sexual jungle only encourages them towards sin. Giving the young the hard facts – psychological, biological, social and spiritual – and helping them to think about how they should best behave, while respecting their decisions, is corrupting.

So what are your children, or the children of your Catholic friends, getting from the Catholic school and their parents? How do you think sexual education should be done?

We have, during this year, discussed whether the Neanderthals, despite not being our direct ancestors, could plausibly have immortal souls. This time, some new discoveries are the occasion of looking at homo antecessor – an extinct species thought to have been present in Europe about a million years ago.

The most northerly point which we believe that they reached is Happisburgh in Norfolk, not far from Norwich. The site is an early course of the Thames, now revealed by erosion. At that time of course England was joined to continental Europe, and a walk directly eastward would take one to the area of modern Amsterdam. If you know the loucher parts of Amsterdam you might well reflect on the degree of progress man has or hasn’t, made over the last million years.

No direct Antecessor fossils have been foundon the site, and we do not know whether they died out there or retreated to warmer southern climates: the winters were very harsh. Later settlements at other sites have been found in Europe, but during a time when the climate was milder.

Antecessor had a somewhat smaller brain than modern humans, but the Norfolk finding demonstrates that they were manufacturers of sophisticated stone tools and certainly hunters. It is thought likely that they made clothing from animal skins and were capable of using fire. Without these skills they would hardly have survived at all. Indeed the experts had previously found it hard to believe that survival would be possible that far north.

I have not attempted to write in greater detail because those who need this might like to visit the site at Nature, where there is a good video and a very clear explanatory article: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html There is also a good Wiki piece on homo antecessor, which already writes about the latest finds.

And we are left with the old question of the point at which the homo line was immortally ensouled. We know when it is night, we know when it is day – it’s twilight which cases the problem. So we have evidence of behaviour, both in Antecessor and Neanderthal, which suggests the presence of the unique powers through which we recognise the soul. But the evidence appears gradually, while a human soul either is or isn’t present. I would not care to come down on one side or the other.

In a recent column (June 4) and a feature article (May 28) I discussed two remarkable scientific advances: the creation of synthetic life and the unwrapping of the Neanderthal genome. Is it too tempting to look at the two together and ask whether it would be possible to reconstruct a synthetic Neanderthal?

But before I come to that we will benefit from looking at some of the reflections on synthetic life from people of standing, who have now had a little time to contemplate what has happened.

Have we really mastered the creation of artificial life? This first example required the injection of synthetically built DNA into a natural bacterium from which the native DNA had been removed. So the result was a hybrid of natural and synthetic elements. But the second and subsequent generations were  a response to the synthetic DNA’s instructions. So it was wholly synthetic but had required a “live” ancestor.

Opinions vary but I would hold that to create artificial life all the elements must have been combined from scratch. But, either way, no philosophical or religious difficulty is involved, provided that we are not considering intelligent life. Scientists may or may not succeed, but that is another question. Understanding the nature of God’s creative act is above my pay grade (and yours); we only know that it is infinitely different from any human activity. We have to make do with the thin milk of metaphor - and with never forgetting the limitations of that.

Back to making our Neanderthal. I don’t think we should hold our breath awaiting the event. It would be an immensely complex task, with no obvious commercial advantage. But scientists will try - there is no stopping their curiosity. Currently we only have 60 per cent of the Neanderthal genome to work from and even if that percentage increased we would have to combine it with human cells. The resulting hybrid might turn out to be a very strange creature. Undoubtedly it would be condemned as an unlawful breach of the dignity of human nature - but the theological status of the living result would be interesting to discern.

Presumably our reconstructed Neanderthal blastocyst would be implanted in a human womb and would grow up in a human culture. Once born we would be immediately aware of his stocky frame and heavy brow ridges. And, given that the later Neanderthals may well have adapted their own culture through imitating their human cousins, it might be difficult to distinguish innate characteristics from learned ones.

We could expect him to be able to master the simple language needed for cooperative activity, but we do not know how far he could get beyond that. His grasp of abstract or symbolic ideas might remain elementary. And he might be deficient in ingenuity or capacity to explore new ideas. He could no doubt be steered away from cannibalism, to which some of his brothers appear to have been inclined. But we would expect him to value the dead and to look to an afterlife. In many ways he would resemble early modern humans, but lacking the capacity for adaptation to new circumstances which was the key to our continuing development. These speculations are based on characteristics which are inferred from fossil remains, and would explain why Neanderthals made slower progress than early man.

A mite more practical than developing a Neanderthal would be to unearth more recent DNA - say Charles Darwin, or Shakespeare. And to use that to produce a twin sibling of identical genius. But perhaps on a shorter horizon, and with no ethical problems, we might succeed in creating woolly mammoth by using an enucleated elephant’s egg.

These bizarre and uncertain possibilities remind us that the truly important fact here is the skill which is being developed in the deliberate creation of new forms of life, and to do so through the copying of complete or partial DNA which can be used to change characteristics across species. People have been rightly concerned about genetically modified crops, but I think there is a growing understanding that these can solve certain problems under certain conditions - although a high degree of care required. But it is a further step to move from developing a better form of, say, wheat to developing an artificial new species. A further step again is required when the move is into the animal kingdom, and a huge jump when it comes to man.

A great deal of concern has been expressed about the danger of these gene manipulations escaping into the outside world. Various precautions ensuring that the organisms are built with fail-safe characteristics have been considered. But there is huge money in developing the techniques and plenty of regimes happy to ignore international law. While it is relatively difficult to develop a nuclear bomb in private, it is easy to conceal work on the development of synthetic life when it is performed in a small laboratory. Even the information published so far is sufficient to help scientists down a track which has now been proved feasible.

If we add to that the capacity for this new life to breed at a geometric rate, and to evolve through mutations into forms we cannot visualise now, the hazards are very great indeed.

You might like to review some of these opinions at Edge.org . Track down to “The Reality Club” May 10 , where you will also read the remark by Freeman Dyson, the veteran distinguished physicist: “I feel sure of only one conclusion. The ability to design and create new forms of life marks a turning-point in the history of our species and our planet.”

You may have some views on whetherthe genetic modification of our species would be a great advance or a great disaster.

st. joseph, a regular contributor to the blog, has referred from time to time to methods of contraception which are claimed to act as abortifacients. This subject hasn’t fitted easily into the other posts but it is such an important question that it ought to be discussed. In effect it leaves on one side, for the time being, the issue of the unqualified prohibition on contraception in Humanae Vitae, and challenges everyone to consider the morality of several methods which are in common use.

I claim no particular expertise on this matter, although I have accumulated research files over the years, so this brief introduction is more than usually open to corrections and additions. And of course updating by those who have the relevant statistics and experience to hand.

First, we should distinguish between the lay view on very early abortion and the Church’s teaching. In this country the House of Commons took the view that ‘a pregnancy begins at implantation’ (rather than at conception) and that this was ‘the accepted legal and medical view’.

By contrast the Church teaches that the essential human being is present from conception. Guided by its DNA, modified by its environment, it develops to maturity not only in the womb but thereafter. Implantation takes place by about day 7, and the “primitive streak”, which is the first sign of the nervous system appears at day 15. There is good evidence that the axis of the embryo is set by the point at which the seed enters the egg. Put “axis” into the search box and you will find “Human beings from conception” (9 Oct 08) for fuller details.

Let’s start with the ordinary contraceptive pill. Or perhaps we should use the plural because different combinations of chemicals are used, usually with the aim of finding the best formula for the individual woman. The mini pill for example contains no oestrogen, and for that reason it suits many women. But in a substantial proportion of cases it will not suppress ovulation and so achieves its objective by inhibiting implantation through causing a thinning of the wall of the womb. The standard pill contains both oestrogen and progesterone, and is more effective in suppressing ovulation. However ovulation occurs between 2 and 10 percent of the time. Here, again, the conceptus will not implant because of the effect on the uterine lining. In both these cases the rate of unsuppressed ovulation is much higher than the rate of actual pregnancy. It has been inferred that this difference is, in sexually active women, a measurement of the number of abortions which are taking place. This is difficult to measure in other ways because, in many instances, a woman will not know whether she has miscarried or merely carried on with her usual cycle.

The “morning after” pill can work by preventing or delaying ovulation or the meeting between the seed and the egg. But it also works, on a long-stop basis, by affecting the uterine lining, as in the case of the long term pill.

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) have a contraceptive effect — either from the material from which they are constructed or by their production of hormones. But they also have the effect of making the womb inhospitable to implantation.

As st.joseph implies, the moral questions which arise are not often discussed. And we must remember that the long term pill at least can have therapeutic qualities such as regularising cycles, reducing cramps and minimising pre-menstrual symptoms. The Church permits the pill for such benefits, accepting the temporary sterilisation as an unwanted side effect. But, by the normal application of moral theology, the intended and unintended effects must be proportionate. For a sexually active woman the symptoms which the pill is intended to relieve might have to be very disabling to provide justification in the face of the abortion danger.

I have not attempted to reach a conclusion on these matters, and I hope that your comments and thoughts will help me to do so. It may even be possible to publish a column in the CH in due course based on what I have written, but taking your comments into account.

I wonder who would make the best patron saint for the Science and Faith column. The first candidate who springs to my mind is Thomas Aquinas (13th century). And I have several good reasons for this.

I like his instinctive refusal to accept establishment ideas lying down; his objective was the truth. While he was expected to become an abbot to swell his family’s coffers, he joined the Dominicans – an order taking a vow of poverty. He was even kidnapped by his relatives, but succeeding in escaping.

Both the Dominican and Fransiscan, mendicant orders, were very unpopular with a church which had become fat and comfortable in its position of power and profitable revenue. Not only was Thomas frequently attacked during his life, he was condemned after his death – although this was corrected before long.

Intellectually he was something of a rebel. Much of the philosophy and the theology of his time was NeoPlatonist. That is, it focussed on the ideals of mystical perfection, and regarded the world as very second rate. But Thomas was not afraid of taking a pagan philosopher, Aristotle, as his starting point. Much truth, he believed, could be learnt from studying the realities of this world, because it was a fundamentally rational example of God’s work. What we knew from Revelation would then deepen and complete the picture.

He welcomed the work of recent non Christian philosophers – Islamicists like Avicenna and Averroës, and the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. Indeed he referred to Averroës simply as “The commentator” – because of his superb commentaries on Aristotle.

But I reserve my highest admiration for the methodology of his work. The scholastic approach was characterised by adversarial debate. You proceeded by pitching different points of view against each other, and seeing which view survived the test. Thomas developed this to its highest form. Typically he would start by presenting the very strongest arguments  against the position he held. And he had to do this genuinely, giving himself the least quarter. He would explain his points, giving full reasons. Finally, he would take the objections one by one and demonstrate their inadequacy.

But you can see what I mean by Googling Summa Theologica, and reading for yourself. It’s challenging and stimulating reading. Dip where you like.

In his early day, his teacher Albertus Magnus said: ”We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”

Finally, right at the end of his life, he reported that he had had a vision. He had been shown that everything he had written (over 8 million words) was so much straw. He was not told that his teaching was untrue – merely that it has fallen infinitely short of the full reality of truth.

On this blog we would not dare to compete with Aquinas, but we can share his readiness to question establishment positions, if that is where truth seems to lead. We do believe that good science leads us towards the wonder of God and not away. We are enthusiastic to look at contributions from any quarter - Catholic or otherwise. We are set up in such a way that objections and debate are strongly encouraged. And our friend Advocatus Diaboli is growling in the wings if he feels we aren’t being tough enough on ourselves. But withal, we acknowledge that however hard we try we shall always fall short of the truth that we seek

I wonder whether you agree that Thomas Aquinas is a good patron saint for us. And perhaps you have some sub patron saints to add. I look forward to your suggestions.

So we have a new set of cousins: the Neanderthals. We were already aware of a distant relationship - although they were never our direct forebears - because we shared a common ancestor some half a million years ago. But what we have discovered is a much closer similarity in our genetic codes, and strong evidence that interbreeding with humans took place. So once again we must look at what constitutes a being with an immortal soul, and whether Neanderthals qualify.

The first archaeological discovery was made in 1829, although it was then assumed to be from a primitive human ancestor. Fossils found in the German Neander valley some years later were eventually identified as a distinct species, homo neandertalensis. First signs of the species seem to have appeared over 400,000 years ago, complete characteristics were present 130,000 years ago and it survived until about 30,000 years ago. Its last community is thought to have been at Gibraltar - a fine place to see out such a history. We have only been around for less than 200,000 years - mere babes by comparison.

The signs of interbreeding (1 per cent to 4 per cent of the human genome) may not be of functional significance, but it demonstrates that we were so closely linked that we could breed fertile children together. This is a rule of thumb indication of a shared species. The interbreeding dates from about 60,000 years ago — around the time that we migrated from Africa into the Neanderthal heartland, which ranged from Europe to southern Siberia. Humans with pure African ancestry do not have Neanderthal genes.

But in general there seems to have been little mixing between Neanderthals and modern humans, and there are plenty of competing ideas about why they died out. These suggest the possibility that they were much weakened by frequent glacial climate change, that they had larger energy needs, they were ill-suited to forming diverse societies, that they simply weren’t so sophisticated and ingenious. But since there were different Neanderthal populations, spread wide geographically, there may well have been more than one cause.

In fact the stocky Neanderthal body was well set up for cold weather, and the wide spread of territory they covered suggest that they were good at adapting to different environments. Nor do we have to assume a slow, lumbering gait, although I would imagine that ballroom dancing would not have been a forté.

It is difficult to grade intelligence - if only because evolution would favour its development. And, should we use brain size as a measure, the Neanderthals, with slightly larger brains, would score more highly than modern humans. But in assessing true human characteristics it is the kind rather than the level of intelligence which counts. The ability to work with abstract concepts, or the existence of a mind which can introspect, reason and make free judgments are all signs of the immaterial qualities we would associate with the spiritual soul - even if they operated at a lower level.

Certainly they manufactured tools and weapons which were quite sophisticated for the time. We know that some of the lower animals, and some birds, are skilful toolmakers, but these are of a different order of inventiveness. So much so that it has been suggested that the Neanderthal techniques were copied from their modern human neighbours. However, their capacity to hunt large herd animals, requiring substantial courage and co-ordination, seems to have been very high. They could control fire and build complex shelters.

Some claim that objects buried with bodies were grave goods - witnessing to a belief in immortality; other have claimed that these were just incidental trash, and that burial was simply a way of disposing of a rotting corpse. There is always room for another explanation. But perhaps the recent discovery, in territory only used by Neanderthals, of perforated and painted sea shells, personal jewellery and containers for pigment used for skin painting is more difficult to explain away. As Professor Zilhao (Bristol University) put it: “This discovery, along with research on the rock strata at other cave sites, has huge implications for how we view the European Neanderthals… The differences between Neanderthals and modern humans may be much less than had been previously thought…”

In fact the use of symbolic communication suggests, some would say - implies - speech. And the substantial cooperation required for large-scale hunting or the communication of tool making skills would seem to require at least a simple language. Interestingly, very recent work has discovered that the mutations on the “language gene” FOXP2 which are not present in the chimpanzee and were thought to be unique to humans, are now known to be present in the Neanderthal. They appear, at least, to have the genes to speak.

The work on the Neanderthal genome, published in May, shows that the variations in proteins compared with ours are remarkably few - in fact 160 times fewer than the differences between man and chimpanzee. I know that the significance of this is hard to grasp for us who are not experts in this field so I use the summary given by Professor Hannon (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), who did this part of the work: “The news, so far, is not about how we differ from Neanderthals, but how we are so nearly identical, in terms of proteins.”

Everything which I have described is well backed by plausible evidence, but there is plenty of detail disagreement and speculation. If I speculate that we know of a sub-species of homo sapiens, who was intelligent, capable of abstract thought, revered its dead, and could communicate through language, then I speculate that we have someone with an immortal soul. What do you think?

You will no doubt have heard that the Charities Commission, which effectively prevented Catholic adoption societies from continuing to operate under a Catholic banner, has been instructed by the Court to review its decision. It seems very likely that our adoption societies will be able to meet the remaining criteria without difficulty.

The key Regulation in the Equality Act reads like this:
18.—(1) Nothing in these Regulations shall make it unlawful for a person to provide benefits only to persons of a particular sexual orientation, if—
(a) he acts in pursuance of a charitable instrument, and
(b) the restriction of benefits to persons of that sexual orientation is imposed by reason of or on the grounds of the provisions of the charitable instrument.

There is an irony here, Apparently the regulation was inserted at the behest of the homosexual lobby to prevent their charities being sued for discrimination by heterosexuals.

Of course schadenfreude is unknown on this blog, but I have to admit that I greeted the news with a cheery smile. Any group of people, which seeks to restrict basic Catholic rights, while enhancing its own, is always likely to slip on its own  banana skin.

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It was announced last week that Ed Balls, whom we have discussed much in connection with sex education, has been invited to appear on Any Questions (Radio 4. Friday evening and Saturday lunchtime). If he appears and is asked to speak on such matters it may well be that some of you will have a comment or two to make on this blog. I hope so.