Post-Normal

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, offers us a marvelous example of how the post-modern disdain for "truth" has begun to infect the practice of science. It's no longer objective facts that matter, at least for some scientists, but rather what has purchase with the reader, what resonates with him or her, what he/she discerns to be the truth from his/her perspective. Thus the near panic over global climate change regardless of what the facts of the matter might be is an example of what one advocate calls "post-normal" science.

Phillips begins with this:

From the horse's mouth - climate change theory has nothing to do with the truth. In a remarkable column in today's Guardian Mike Hulme, professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia and the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research - a key figure in the promulgation of climate change theory but who a short while ago warned that exaggerated forecasts of global apocalypse were in danger of destroying the case altogether - writes that scientific truth is the wrong tool to establish the, er, truth of global warming. Instead, we need a perspective of what he calls 'post-normal' science:

"Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken. It has been labelled 'post-normal' science ... The danger of a 'normal' reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow."

Indeed! Facts first, conclusions afterwards is the very basis of scientific inquiry. But not any more, it seems, where the religion of global warming is concerned. Here the facts have to fit the theory.

Read the whole thing to see how "post-normal" science works. Here's a preview: It has nothing to do with truth.

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Islam and the West

Bernard Lewis is a highly respected expert on the history of the Islamic world who has several fine books on the subject to his credit. He was invited to deliver the 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture earlier this month and gave a very interesting speech. It should, in fact, be read by everyone who desires a deeper understanding of the conflicts between the Western world and Islam. You can find the speech here.

RLC

Power to the People

A site called Indoctrinate U. is fighting the good fight against overbearing political correctness and ideological homogeneity on campus. Go see their three minute film trailer here. It, ahem, rocks.

We'd be interested in anecdotal evidence of the kind of suppression of free speech they talk about on the trailer. If you have first hand knowledge of such repression at a public university or college, let us know. We'll run your story.

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Chickens Coming to Roost

Bill sends along this news about North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong:

The North Carolina State Bar on Tuesday set a June 12 trial date to hear complaints against Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong for his handling of the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case. If found guilty, Nifong could be disbarred.

In a complaint filed in December, the State Bar cited more than 100 examples of public statements Nifong made to the media, including WRAL, since the case broke in March 2006. In part, the Bar said those comments "have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused."

In January, the Bar amended the complaint, adding that Nifong allegedly had withheld DNA evidence from defense attorneys-exculpatory evidence that could show a defendant is not guilty.

The attorney general's office said Wednesday that it hopes to finish its review within the next few weeks.

Mr. Nifong apparently sought to advance his political career by destroying the lives of several young Duke students. Disbarment is perhaps the least of what he deserves. Too bad that the sundry North Carolina race hustlers and the Duke administration, which pusillanimously threw the students to the wolves almost as soon as the accusations were made and which punished the whole lacrosse team by canceling their season, can't also receive the equivalent of "disbarment."

RLC

The NAE on Torture (Pt. III)

This post is the third in our series on the National Association of Evangelicals' statement on torture. See also Part I and Part II of this critique.

The NAE document states that:

... the articles of the Geneva Convention and of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights are unambiguous:

Article 3:1c of the 3rd Geneva Convention (1949) says:

Persons taking no active part in hostilities ... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: violence to life and person, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

According to the Geneva Conventions, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment (CIDT), although falling short of torture, is still completely prohibited along with all forms of torture. "The overriding factor at the core of the prohibition of CIDT is the concept of [the] powerlessness of the victim."

This raises very difficult problems however for anyone serious about trying to survey the moral boundaries of the war against terrorism.

At first glance it would seem that the proscription of humiliating and degrading treatment is a prohibition that every nation, including ours, should respect. But in fact it's meaningless and dangerously restrictive. It is little more than a feel-good clause that allows the signatories to present themselves to the world as humane when in fact, if taken seriously, it's virtually impossible for any nation to abide by.

What determines whether an act is humiliating or degrading, after all, is more the individual's reaction to the act than the act itself. Most people would probably feel humiliated if yelled at or insulted. Many Muslims would feel humiliated if placed in a subordinate position to a woman. If we are to take the Geneva article seriously, which the NAE insists we do, then we should never allow a Muslim detainee to be interrogated by a woman if he would find that humiliating. Most of us would find prison both humiliating and degrading. Suppose the Muslim jihadis do as well. If so, 3:1c would, if strictly followed, forbid us to incarcerate terrorists. In other words, the sensibilities of the prisoner must determine what measures we can take against him, but this is an absurdly untenable position to place ourselves in.

Perhaps the NAE would reply that I exaggerate when I claim that 3:1c would effectively proscribe incarceration, but how could it not? Are some forms of humiliation, like imprisonment, acceptable to use against detainees but others not? If so, how are we to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable forms of humiliation? Who decides what's humiliating for a detainee and what isn't? The interrogator? The secretary of defense? The detainee?

Even if the military would be arbitrarily permitted to "degrade" terrorists by confining them to a cell and depriving them of their freedom, there are lots of things they would not be allowed to get away with: Shouting at prisoners, for example, or questioning their manhood, long-term solitary confinement, the use of deception to get information, giving the prisoner Western food, shackling, limiting trips to the restroom to whatever number. In short, anything the prisoner found demeaning would be proscribed by a serious reading of the clause to which the NAE would have us fully submit.

Perhaps they would respond that we must not take 3:1c so literally, but if not then how do we ascertain how it should be understood and how can it be binding if we don't know what it means?

In lieu of some clear and meaningful definition of humiliating and degrading treatment, adherence to 3:1c places needless restrictions on our military authorities. Military and civil interrogators, afraid of crossing some invisible line that could get them hauled before a war crimes tribunal, will tend to do as little as possible to elicit life-saving information from terrorist prisoners. In an environment where our children's lives are at constant risk from the machinations of those who will stop at nothing to kill them, it would be irresponsible to insist that our interrogators adhere to such vague guidance as 3:1c offers, much less that something as vague as 3:1c could be morally binding.

The NAE document, by embracing the nebulous imperatives of 3:1c, renders itself irrelevant in the task of determining what, exactly, is morally permissable in attempting to extract life-saving information from a detainee and what is not.

RLC

Ad Man Fired

The creator of the Big Brother Hillary ad has been found out and fired for his efforts.

Don't feel bad for the guy, though. This kind of talent will find a home somewhere in politics. I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't hire him herself.

RLC

Unspeakable Depravity

These are the people Michael Moore once referred to as Iraq's version of the American Minutemen:

Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.

After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

"And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle," the official said.

"It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured," the official said.

Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.

Here are Moore's exact words: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?"

One thing we all "get" is that, given the facts about the sort of people we're dealing with in Iraq and elsewhere, Michael Moore is either a very uninformed man or he is morally comatose. Yet this is a man whom the left lionizes. It says, I suppose, something important about their standards.

RLC

Five for One?

Philosopher Peter Singer has an essay in The Guardian in which he poses a pair of ethical dilemmas, the responses to which are being studied by some Harvard post-docs:

...you are standing by a railroad track when you notice that a trolley, with no one aboard, is heading for a group of five people. They will all be killed if it continues on its current track. The only thing you can do to prevent these five deaths is to throw a switch that will divert the trolley on to a side track, where it will kill only one person. When asked what you should do in these circumstances, most people say you should divert the trolley on to the side track, thus saving a net four lives.

In another dilemma, the trolley is about to kill five people. This time, you are standing on a footbridge above the track. You cannot divert the trolley. You consider jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley, thus sacrificing yourself to save the people in danger, but you realise you are too light to stop the trolley. Standing next to you is a very large stranger. The only way you can prevent the trolley from killing five people is by pushing this stranger off the bridge into the path of the trolley. He will be killed, but you will save the other five. When asked what you should do in these circumstances, most people say that it would be wrong to push the stranger.

Why do most people think it right to divert the trolley but not to push the stranger in front of the trolley? It's an interesting question and Singer speculates on some possible evolutionary explanations which unfortunately don't sound very persuasive.

More interesting to me is the question of whether we ever have the right to kill an innocent person who is no threat to ourselves, even if it saves more lives. This is a no-brainer for a utilitarian, perhaps, who would doubtless answer that the right act is always the act that produces the greatest net good (i.e. happiness). In these cases the greatest good would be saving the most lives, but for one whose ethics are grounded in the Gospels it's much more complicated and perplexing.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

RLC

Crawley and Dawkins (Pt. II)

In his interview with William Crawley, Richard Dawkins offers three counter-arguments to the claim that the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe points to a cosmic designer.

Dawkins asks first where such a designer comes from. If a designer (let's say God) designed the universe, in other words, then what designed God? Dawkins holds elsewhere that if the extraordinary complexity of the universe makes the universe's existence highly improbable then the designer of the universe, which must be even more complex, must be even more improbable, in fact vanishingly so. So improbable must the desiger be that one is not rationally justified in believing it exists.

We have addressed this argument in a previous post and found it to be very unpersuasive.

His second counter-argument, which he conflates with the third in the interview but which is really a distinct argument, is what is called the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP). It says that we should not think it so very special that the universe is as it is for were it not we would not be around to notice it. The fact that we exist means that the universe must be tuned precisely as it is.

Well, yes, but this misses the point. The question is whether the fine-tuning is a dumbfounding coincidence or whether it is intentional. Using the WAP as a counter-argument to the cosmic fine-tuning problem has been compared to the scenario where a man finds himself kidnapped and imprisoned by a psychopathic killer. The kidnapper has placed in the prison cell one hundred machines which are designed to simultaneously dispense a single playing card when a button is pushed. The kidnapper then tells his victim that when he pushes the button each of the one hundred machines wil produce a card at random from a deck that has been shuffled inside the machine. If any machine produces any card other than an ace of spades the prisoner will be automatically gassed and instantly killed.

The kidnap victim despairs of his chances of survival. They seem infinitely slim. The button is pushed. The victim tenses. And nothing happens. No gas. He looks at the machines and every one of them has produced an ace of spades. The man is astonished at his good fortune. How could it be that he is alive? Professor Dawkins would tell him that he shouldn't be astonished that each machine produced the correct card because had it not he wouldn't be alive to to take note of the fact.

This seems like a dodge, and it is. The prisoner has every right to wonder how such an improbable course of events could have unfolded to allow him to survive. He has every reason to suspect that the machines weren't selecting cards at random at all, but that the outcome was intentionally foreordained.

Sensing, perhaps, the absurdity of a resort to the WAP, Dawkins quickly imports a completely unscientific, non-empirical speculative hypothesis called the Multiverse theory. According to this, our universe is just one of an innumerable array of universes each having different parameters, values and laws. Given the existence of so many worlds, the chances are greatly increased that at least one world would be structured the way ours is. Think of it this way: The chances that somebody is going to be holding the winning lottery ticket increase as the number of tickets sold increases. Thus we shouldn't be astonished that our universe is tuned as precisely as it is because, given the number of worlds, at least one has to be suitable for life, and ours is it.

This might be an effective response to cosmic fine-tuning were there any shred of evidence that any other worlds exist, much more a vast number of them, but there is none. The theory is pure speculation invoked for no good reason other than to enable one to avoid the conclusion that our universe is intentionally designed.

Moreover, since the idea of multiple worlds is untestable, it's not a scientific theory. It also violates the principle of Occam's Razor which tells us that the simplest explanation that accounts for the facts is the best (a plenitude of worlds is far more complicated an explanation than the hypothesis that there's just one world plus a designer of that world), nor does it explain where the universes all come from and what creates them.

We have proof, of course, that information, beauty, harmony, etc. can be produced by a mind, but we have no proof that they can be produced by random chance. Yet, in order to evade the force of the evidence posed by the exquisite fine-tuning of the cosmos, we are asked to accept that chance has produced zillions of worlds, one of which has beauty, elegance, and law-like order.

To be sure, Dawkins could be correct. It's possible that the world is one of an immeasurable number of universes, but why believe that unless one is so dead set against the idea that there's a mind superintending it all that one will believe almost anything to escape having to believe that such a mind exists.

Part I of our discussion of this interview can be found here.

RLC

Something for Everyone

Senator Clinton has her bases covered:

RLC

Kurt G�del

Students of math and science among our readers will probably have heard of Kurt G�del, one of the premier mathematicians and logicians of the 20th century. G�del was brilliant. It also turns out that he was a committed theist. Hector Rosario has an interesting article on G�del's theism at Metanexus. Here's a part of it:

Kurt G�del, the preeminent mathematical logician of the twentieth century, is best known for his celebrated Incompleteness Theorems; yet he also had a profound rational theology worthy of serious consideration. "The world is rational," asserted G�del, evoking philosophical theism, "according to which the order of the world reflects the order of the supreme mind governing it."

G�del was a self-confessed theist, going as far as developing an ontological argument in an attempt to prove the existence of God. He chose the framework of modal logic, a useful formal language for proof theory, which also has important applications in computer science. This logic is the study of the deductive behavior of the expressions 'it is necessary that' and 'it is possible that,' which arise frequently in ordinary (philosophical) language. However, according to his biographer John Dawson, he never published his ontological argument for fear of ridicule by his peers.

An important aspect of G�del's theology - one that has been greatly overlooked by those studying his works - is that not only was he a theist but a personalist; not a pantheist as some apologetic thinkers may portray him. To be precise, he rejected the notion that God was impersonal, as God was for Einstein.

"Spinoza's god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person." This is significant since a god who lacks the ability to "play the role of a person" would obviously lack the property of omnipotence and thus violate a defining property universally accepted as pertaining to God. Therefore if God existed, reasoned G�del, then He must at least be able to play the role of a person. The question for G�del was how to determine the truth value of the antecedent in the previous statement.

Atheists and agnostics usually portray their philosophy as rational, discarding the theist conclusion as a mere psychological refuge of the ignorant or self-deceiving. Nevertheless, ultra-rational thinkers like G�del, Leibniz, and Descartes have reached the theist conclusion. Is there an apparent disconnect between rational thinkers and rational thought, or is it that the theists' view is the rational conclusion, even if often embraced by fanatics in unimaginably irrational ways?

Many scientists would argue that even though they cannot completely (or partially) explain the origin of the universe - or the origin of life, or the nature of consciousness, or the nature of time - the answers would certainly not involve God. They have placed their faith in their cognitive processes and in their colleagues. They submit to those authorities; but faith they have, nonetheless.

Rosario concludes the article with a discussion of G�del's version of the ontological argument.

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC

The Ugliness of American Politics

American politics has grown exceedingly ugly in the last ten years or so. It is no longer, if it ever was, a contest of ideas about how best to achieve mutually agreed upon ends. It has morphed into a battle to destroy the other side, to destroy as many careers as possible and discredit the other side to whatever extent one can.

Thus we find ourselves mired in perpetual charges of scandal: We are told that the administration lied to get us into war, that the administration illegally eaves-drops on our enemies, that the administration illegally detains enemy combatants, that prisons like Guantanamo Bay are hell-holes, that our troops are less than ideally equipped and outfitted for their mission, that Dick Cheney didn't immediately report a hunting accident, that a CIA agent was illegally "outed" for political reasons, and the current outrage du jour, that federal district attorneys were improperly dismissed.

None of these are genuine scandals. In each case the charges are either trivial, untrue or, if true, there was nothing illegal or improper in the administration's actions. Yet the Democrats and their media mouthpieces daily demand human sacrifice: Destroy Don Rumsfeld. Hang Scooter Libby. Get Karl Rove. Ruin Dick Cheney. Impeach George Bush. It's a mob mentality based on hate and deceit, driven by a lust for power, and it's destroying our politics and paralyzing governance.

Not that there are not genuine scandals in this White House, but the real scandals are ones in which the Democrats are complicit. The biggest is Bush's feckless approach to securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration. His insouciance about this problem is a dereliction of his duty as commander in chief and is negating, in the minds of many Americans, much of the good he has wrought.

The good includes his liberation of more people from tyranny than any other president in history, his steadfastness in the war on terror, the appointment of quality Supreme Court and federal jurists, tax cuts which have given us one of the best economies in the last sixty years, and his resolve to stay the course in the war on terrorism despite the howling and shrieking of his enemies both foreign and domestic.

Bush could have been a great president. Despite the tragic mistakes that were made in the post-invasion phase of the Iraq war, he could have emerged from his tenure in the White House with Reaganesque stature, but his handling of illegal immigration is a disgrace that will be very difficult for him to overcome no matter what happens in Iraq. His failure is sad for what it will do to his legacy, and it could well be calamitous for the country.

RLC

Socs Rocks

Any teacher who has ever been evaluated by his or her students will find much that sounds familiar in these student evaluations of Socrates' teaching abilities.

HT: No Left Turns

RLC

1984 in 2008

Goodness. Somebody on the Democrat side has put together an anti-Hillary ad that, in terms of political image-making and propaganda, is just devastating. It plays off of George Orwell's vision of mind-numbed, lobotomized citizens forced to watch a droning Big Brother on a large theater screen.

Obama denies any connection to the ad even though the tag line implicates his supporters.

Watch it here.

RLC

A Different Perspective

This news will not be welcome in many ideological quarters of the nation but it seems as if things are not as bad in Iraq as the administration critics in Congress and the media keep telling us they are:

Most Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today.

The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.

One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.

Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.

Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said the findings pointed to progress. "There is no widespread violence in the four southern provinces and the fact that the picture is more complex than the stereotype usually portrayed is reflected in today's poll," she said.

And here we thought the whole country was in flames, chaos and confusion just as John Murtha and Chris Matthews have been telling us. Wonder what they'll say now.

RLC

NAE on Torture (Pt. II)

With this post we continue our examination of the National Association of Evangelicals' statement on torture. See here for Part I of this critique.

The NAE takes the position that torture, or any treatment which degrades another human being, is categorically wrong. It is our position at Viewpoint, however, that while torture is grossly immoral to the point of evil when used as a means of punishment or revenge, or almost always when used in interrogating prisoners, or when done simply to entertain and amuse the torturers, as apparently was the case at Abu Ghraib, there are nevertheless circumstances in which torture is not only not wrong, but morally incumbent. Indeed, the NEA drafters admit as much, albeit inadvertantly, when they write that:

Human rights are not first of all about "my rights," but about the rights of the vulnerable and the violated. And they are about responsibility, indeed obligation, to defend the weak. All people, all societies, and all nations have a responsibility to ensure human rights.

This is certainly true, but the weak and vulnerable are often the intended victims of brutes and thugs. If in order to carry out our mandate to defend the weak and vulnerable we find that the only way to keep them from harm is to use coercive force against someone who has information that would save the victims, whose rights, those of the victim or those of their would-be killers, should we regard as paramount? Just as in the case of a policeman defending himself or a bystander from an aggressor, when someone is an active (or a passive threat) to another their right not to be harmed is no longer in effect.

Consider the case of a terrorist named Rauf, captured last August by the Pakistanis. It was information obtained from interrogating Mr. Rauf that uncovered the plot to simultaneously blow up ten airliners last summer using liquid bombs. Suppose now the following circumstances obtained at the time: The authorities knew that something terrible was in the works and that Mr. Rauf knew what it was. Imagine, too, that Mr. Rauf could not be enticed to yield his knowledge of the plot through any means other than being subjected to pain, fear, or humiliating treatment. Finally, imagine that your spouse and children would have been aboard one of those planes. Would you maintain that, these hypotheticals notwithstanding, if you had your way the Pakistani intelligence service would not have been permitted to employ the methods they apparently did employ to persuade Mr. Rauf to talk? A simple yes or no will suffice.

If you answered yes, try this: Imagine looking your loved ones directly in the eyes and telling them that.

Or consider a case similar to that of John Couey who kidnapped nine year old Jessica Lunsford, tortured and raped her, and then buried her alive and left her to die. A similar crime occured in Florida some years ago where the victim was buried in a box that had enough air to allow her to live for about a day. Suppose, counterfactually, that the kidnapper had been apprehended, admitted that he had abducted the girl, told the police that she was in the box with only a few hours left to live, but he refused to tell them where she was.

Suppose further that the girl is your daughter. Finally, suppose that one cop, against all regulations, applies excruciating coercion against the kidnapper until he yields the information, resulting in the rescue of your daughter. Subsequently, you discover how her rescue was achieved. Would you register disapproval with the authorities? Would you insist that the cop be prosecuted for his violation of the rights of the kidnapper? Would you feel that the police officer's act was morally inexcusable or repugnant?

If not, then you do not agree with this statement in the NAE document:

Human rights apply to all humans. The rights people have are theirs by virtue of being human, made in God's image. Persons can never be stripped of their humanity, regardless of their actions or of others' actions toward them. In social contract theory human rights are called unalienable rights. Unalienable rights are absolute and completely inviolable; a person cannot legitimately cease to have those rights, whether through waiver, fault, or another's act.

As we suggested in part one this is a very bad argument. What are these unalienable rights? Surely they include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But if these rights are unalienable, as the NAE insists, then not only is it always and everywhere wrong for policemen and soldiers to use deadly force, it is also wrong to incarcerate criminals. If one were to protest that criminals and enemy combatants forfeit their rights, at least so long as they are a threat to soldiers, police officers or to society, then it is being conceded that the rights in question are not "unalienable." They are rights we possess as human beings until such time as we become a threat to the welfare of others.

The NAE continues:

An expansive approach argues that there are three dimensions of human rights, and all must be equally valued by any society that respects any of them: the right to certain freedoms, especially including religious liberty, the right to participate in community, and the right to have basic needs met.

But surely the NAE understands that these are prima facie rights. That is, a person has them until such time as they become a threat to society or otherwise disqualify themselves from possessing them. A man whose religion calls for him to behead infidels, for example, surely does not have the right to practice his religion freely.

The NAE document also says this:

Human life is expressed through physicality, and the well-being of persons is tied to their physical existence. Therefore, humans must have the right to security of person. This includes the right not to have one's life taken unjustly (equivalent to the right to life), ...

Now the NAE is contradicting itself. Having declared human rights to be absolute they set out in this statement to qualify them. Apparently a just taking of a life is permitted by the NAE, but if so, why could not similar qualifications be imposed on the following:

...the right not to have one's body mutilated, and the right not to be abused, maimed, tortured, molested, or starved (sometimes called the right to bodily integrity or the right to remain whole). The right not to be arbitrarily detained (an aspect of due process) and the writ of habeus corpus are also based specifically on the concept of bodily rights. In particular, the writ of habeus corpus is based on the right not to have the government arbitrarily detain one's body.

It is acceptable, in fact obligatory, for the state to detain people, deprive them of their right to freedom, as long as it is not "arbitrary," but then what is happening to the absolute proscriptions that the NAE insisted upon earlier on. In other words, no right is unalienable or absolute. Whether someone can be deprived of life or freedom or any other property depends upon why these things are taken from the person. The NAE, however, disagrees:

Even when a person has done wrong, poses a threat, or has information necessary to prevent a terrorist attack, he or she is still a human being made in God's image, still a person of immeasurable worth.

Perhaps, but so are the people whose lives and well-being hang in the balance. Why should the terrorist's life be regarded as of greater worth than theirs? Why should the terrorist's rights count more heavily than the rights of your family aboard that plane or your nine-year old daughter suffocating in that box? If subjecting the terrorist to harsh treatment offers the only possibility of saving innocent lives it is morally incumbent upon us to do that. To stand by and do nothing when we could possibly have saved peoples' lives is immoral.

It is also absurd. If the terrorist succeeds, even though he's in custody, and innocent lives are lost, he can be executed according to the NAE's reasoning. But until he succeeds he cannot be in any way treated harshly even though it is reasonably certain that apart from harsh measures he will cause the murders of innocents and consequently be put to death. It's better to allow the innocents to die and their killer to be executed, according to the NAE's logic, than to prevent all that death by causing the murderer to suffer temporary discomfort or pain. It's hard to see how this makes any sense at all.

More on the NAE's argument later.

RLC

Question On Prayer

Consider for a moment these passages from the Gospels where Jesus offers assurance in no uncertain terms that prayer will be answered...

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:6

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Matthew 7:9-11

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Luke 11:13

Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24

Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Mark 11:22-23

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Matthew 17:20

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 18:19

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall be do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
John 14:12-14

Yet is there anyone who can honestly say that they experience such reliability and consistency of God granting that which they ask for? And if not, then why not? There are too many passages to support the belief and expectation that God will, in fact, answer prayer as promised.

I can think of two possible answers and there certainly may be others. First, it may be that the Gospels and perhaps the book of Acts belong to a different dispensation than the one we are living in now. Just as the Old Testament or Old Covenant is a different dispensation, a dispensation of the law which has been superceded by the New Testament or New Covenant - a dispensation of grace. If this is the case, then the passages above applied specifically to those Jesus spoke to and not to future generations of believers. This would explain why I don't move mountains.

While this may be the case, I'm reluctant to believe it is so as otherwise I'm hard pressed to understand the point of prayer for contemporary believers including Paul and his exhortation and example as found in the epistles (also belonging to the present dispensation). The second possibility is that there is a relationship that exists between the degree of one's spirituality, that is, the degree to which they are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and, as a result, the faith they possess, and the reality of God answering their prayers. Interestingly, I believe we are blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit through sincere and constant prayer to the Father in a total, selfless desire to be possessed by His Spirit.

If this is so, then I suspect such individuals, rare though they may be, are so in tune with the will of God that the passages above are a reality for them. Less blessed folk simply wouldn't recognize it. But even this thought seems to be contradicted by the first verse quoted above from Matthew 6:6

Of course, if any of our readers have another answer to this question, feel free to respond via the Feedback page.

The Pursuit of Truth

Henry Waxman personifies the dispassionate search for truth in his polite and probing questioning of the woman who wrote the law concerning what constitutes "outing" covert agents. When the witness responds to his questions the congressman takes the opportunity to sit back and learn and to let the nation be edified by the witness' expertise ....

Okay, I'm fantasizing. Check out the video for yourself at HotAir.

RLC

Cheney Variant of BDS

Someone named Michelle Cottle at The New Republic argues that Dick Cheney is losing his grip, probably because of his heart disease. Cottle's article is the typical mean-spirirted stuff we've come to expect from the administration's critics, marinated, however, in faux compassion.

If you read it then you have to read Charles Krauthammer's devastating reply. In fact, just read Krauthammer's essay. It's a masterwork of polemical rebuttal. If Cottle reads it she might be ashamed to ever write anything so silly again.

RLC

Retrocausality

Physicist Paul Davies, the author of many fascinating books on cosmology and the origin of life, has come up with a novel explanation for how the universe could be so exquisitely fine-tuned for life without having to invoke the dread concept of a Creator God. Davies hypothesizes that the precise calibrations of dozens of cosmic parameters were set during the Big Bang by a phenomenon called "retrocausality":

If retrocausality is real, it might even explain why life exists in the universe -- exactly why the universe is so "finely tuned" for human habitation. Some physicists search for deeper laws to explain this fine-tuning, while others say there are millions of universes, each with different laws, so one universe could quite easily have the right laws by chance and, of course, that's the one we're in.

Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, suggests another possibility: The universe might actually be able to fine-tune itself. If you assume the laws of physics do not reside outside the physical universe, but rather are part of it, they can only be as precise as can be calculated from the total information content of the universe. The universe's information content is limited by its size, so just after the Big Bang, while the universe was still infinitesimally small, there may have been wiggle room, or imprecision, in the laws of nature.

And room for retrocausality. If it exists, the presence of conscious observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments, shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. This may seem circular: Life exists to make the universe suitable for life. If causality works both forward and backward, however, consistency between the past and the future is all that matters. "It offends our common-sense view of the world, but there's nothing to prevent causal influences from going both ways in time," Davies says. "If the conditions necessary for life are somehow written into the universe at the Big Bang, there must be some sort of two-way link."

In other words, since causality is not limited by the laws of physics to only one direction, it's theoretically possible, Davies argues, that sentient life was able to somehow reach back to the Big Bang and calibrate the forces of physics and the expansion rate of the universe and a host of other values. Billions of years later intelligent beings would arise which had the ability to retroactively create their own universe.

This sounds bizarre even for a cosmologist, suggesting as it does the notion that the universe is the creation of its own inhabitants. Davies' theory is interesting, however, for what it implies. First, it's a tacit admission by Davies that the universe is inexplicable apart from having been tinkered with by an intelligent mind, and second, it illustrates the philosophical contortions some people will put themselves through in order to avoid the conclusion that the intelligent agent responsible for the universe is God.

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC