The Question <i>Du Jour</i>

The blogosphere is abuzz with this question: Why is it that our MSM have no hesitation about inflaming Muslim anger by showing the latest Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos, but they steadfastly refuse to show the cartoons which have incensed Muslims around the world?

Could it be that the media movers and shakers aren't concerned about the welfare of those against whom Muslim outrage over the Abu Ghraib photos may be directed, but they are very much worried that they would be targeted by furious Muslims if they ran the Muhammed drawings? Is the decision to run one and not the other a matter of being willing to fight to the death to defend the right to free expression as long as it doesn't really mean having to face literal harm?

The MSM seems indifferent to the danger to which they expose others by running inflammatory photos, but don't ask them to put their own necks on the line. Little wonder so few admire the work they do.

Abusing Others' Generosity

This piece at The Smoking Gun will make you feel all warm and fuzzy about having contributed your hard-earned money to relief for victims of Katrina:

Some victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita used federal assistance money to pay for "adult erotica," a pistol, strip club fees, and at least one $450 tattoo, according to a new government audit. A Government Accountability Office review of weaknesses in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's distribution of aid describes some of the abuse connected with FEMA's dispensing of $2000 debit cards. While most of the February 13 GAO report addresses the use of multiple social security numbers to secure unwarranted handouts, auditors also examined where some of those funds were expended.

This is just one more reminder that throwing money at people is no way to help anyone. It provides a disincentive for those in need to do what they can to help themselves and makes the providers of the largesse cynical about the recipients. Wouldn't it have been better to use some of the $60 billion or so that's gone south to set up an oversight agency to make sure that it's going to meet real human needs and not just to gratify human wants?

And while we're sounding like churlish curmudgeons, why is it that taxpayers are still paying to put storm evacuees up in hotels? Six months after the storm shouldn't these people be expected to find their own accomodations? Don't they have friends or family who can help them get resettled? Who is ensuring that recipients of taxpayer munificence are out looking for work so that they no longer rely on public help? Or is there simply no incentive to resort to self-reliance and extended family when taxpayers are standing by to give you what you need for free?

Liberating Mordor

The Mudville Gazette has a copy of a letter sent from the Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Iraq to the men and women of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and their families:

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall' Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi's followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom. Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.

God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.

Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I haven't the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families.

NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID AL-JIBOURI

Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Ninewa, Iraq

Mudville Gazette informs us that members of the regiment are now returning home to Ft Carson, Colorado.

We're waiting to hear the inevitable "Yes, but...." from the antiwar left whose catechism instructs that Americans are universally hated and despised by Muslims in the Middle East, and justly so because all that we've accomplished there is violence and destruction. Letters like the above are for them cognitively unassimilable aberrations which can safely be dismissed as military propaganda.

We're also waiting for the MSM to read this letter to their viewers and suscribers, if they can manage to squeeze it in amongst their reports on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

If the John Murtha/Nancy Pelosi Democrats had had their way American troops would have pulled out of Iraq long ago, and Tall'Afar, and virtually every other town in Anbar Province, would still be the fear-ridden havens for butchers and savages that they were before American troops showed up. Thank goodness people on the left-wing of the Democratic party have no real power. If they did the whole Middle East would soon look like the land of Mordor in Lord of the Rings.

The Left's Golden Opportunity

Those who think that the current media excitations over the Dick Cheney shooting mishap are simply due to media narcissism and pique at having been kept in the dark are, in my opinion, misreading this affair.

The left once again has had their hopes and expectations raised to the point where they can scarcely contain themselves. Maybe Cheney was drunk. Maybe Mr. Whittington will die. Maybe this will be a case of negligent homicide. Oh, if only. Then Cheney can be removed from office, and the way would be clear to impeach Bush, if they win the Senate in November, without having to worry about Cheney taking over. What a godsend!

Look for the left-wing media to refuse to let this episode go. It has breathed new life into their heretofore moribund hopes for toppling the administration and exacting the desire for revenge that has lay festering in their hearts since January of 2000. All their other anticipations and fantasies have come to naught. Like Wile E. Coyote trying to dynamite the RoadRunner, their machinations keep blowing up in their face, but maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time the stars are favorably aligned.

It is sad, though, that the left seems always reduced to having to hope for calamity in order to gain a political triumph. They have to hope for failure in Iraq, a faltering economy with people out of work, and now the death of a 78 year old gunshot victim. If you think this is too cynical, ask yourself this: How many leftists would be delighted at a complete success in Iraq and a booming economy, if these developments made Bush look good, and how many would view Mr. Wittington's potential death as a tragedy if it made Dick Cheney vulnerable to criminal prosecution?

Science and Pseudo-Science

Amanda Gefter has written an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer which considers the claim that string theory is pseudo-science and that in the wake of the Dover trial scientists would do well to shun it. She thinks this is wrong-headed and that any comparisons between string theory and Intelligent Design are inapt.

Her column is interesting, but in the end she fails to make her case. Excerpts from her essay are set off in block quotes followed by my comments:

The recent ruling in Dover, Pa., against the mention of intelligent design in biology textbooks was a small cultural victory for science - not because intelligent design posed a genuine threat to the theory of evolution, but because the decision showed the public that there is an important difference between science and pseudoscience.

In the wake of the trial, scientists are being criticized, even by their own colleagues, for working on anything that might be construed as pseudoscience - and string theory is drawing most of the heat. An intense controversy has erupted regarding the status of this potential "theory of everything," which aims to describe the whole universe in one fell swoop: space, time, and everything in it.

According to string theory, the fundamental building blocks of matter are not dimensionless point particles but tiny, one-dimensional strings. What appear to us as different kinds of particles are actually different vibrations of the same string. String theory might be able to reconcile Einstein's general relativity (the theory of gravity) with quantum mechanics (the theory of matter), but that's because in the theory, gravity turns out to be just another string vibration.

String theory requires extra dimensions of space that have never been detected, and it describes not one universe but a near infinity of them. Parallel universes, invisible dimensions... these fantastic concepts are not directly observable, so the critics cry: "It's not science!" They appeal to the philosopher Karl Popper, who said that what distinguishes science from pseudoscience is that science can be falsified through experiment. In Popper's scheme, string theory and intelligent design can be lumped into the same category of untestable claims, and critics can make allegations that string theory is no better than religion.

There they go again. Repeat after me, Amanda, ID is not religion - unless religion is defined in so broad a way as to include almost everything, including naturalistic materialism, within its scope. ID holds that some aspects of the universe and life bear the marks of intentional, purposeful agency. It makes no claims about the agent itself much less what our responsibilities and relationship to that agent may be.

ID does not claim that the agent is the ultimate reality or that it is the ultimate source of all that is, or that it is independent of all else. These are standard divinity claims, the sorts of claims that make any belief system religious, and they are simply absent from Intelligent Design theory. Parenthetically, we might note that they are not absent from materialism which does make such assertions about the material universe. Thus materialism is more of a religious belief system than is Intelligent Design.

Case Western physicist Lawrence Krauss, whose latest book, Hiding in the Mirror, has stirred the controversy, feels that science's current struggle against political and religious agendas makes string theory a dangerous liability. As he writes in the journal Nature, the scientific status afforded to string theory "opens us up to otherwise avoidable attacks, particularly from those who would include religious ideas in high school science curricula."

But the real danger is not string theory's lack of experiments - it is the misrepresentation of what scientific theories are all about. Sure, falsifiability is a key component of the scientific method. But there is something that matters more: the power of explanation. History reveals that the structure of a theory itself - its internal mathematical consistency, its scope, and its beauty - often determines whether it is accepted as science.

This is misleading. These qualities are not used to decide whether or not a theory is genuine science but rather to arbitrate between competing scientific explanations. It's ironic that when some ID advocates argue that their theory is appropriate in a science class it's objected that ID is pseudo-science because it can't be tested. When, however, other hypotheses that are welcomed in science classes are challenged as being non-science the criteria of what constitutes genuine science are shifted to aesthetic appeal or elegance.

For instance, it is commonly said that the 1919 observation of the bending of starlight around the sun was fantastic confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity. And in the public eye, it was. But in reality the results were far from conclusive - perhaps only 30 percent. Still, no one would have rejected the theory based on the outcome of that experiment. When Einstein was asked what he would have done had the experiment falsified his prediction, he replied, "I would feel sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct."

Ms Gefter is now getting confused. She's jumping from talking about whether a theory is legitimate science to how scientists decide whether a theory is superior to its competitors. These are two completely different matters, and nothing she says about Einsteinian relativity here helps us to answer the question of how we can tell whether a theory is scientific. That relativity was a scientific theory was never questioned because it was testable and, indeed, Gefter describes one such test. The question the bending of starlight raises for relativity has nothing to do with whether its valid science but rather whether or not it's a better explanation than the classical Newtonian model.

Why this confidence? Because the theory is breathtakingly beautiful. It takes phenomena once thought to be separate and unifies them to simplify the world, to pare it down, to inch closer to the core of reality. It enlightens and it explains. General relativity might eventually fail a test, but it will be replaced only by a better explanation.

Indeed, but we need to remind Ms. Gefter that she's wandered off the topic. Again, the questions before us are what constitutes a genuine scientific theory, and do string theory and/or ID qualify?

In the Dover courtroom, proponents of intelligent design could be heard repeating their mantra: "Evolution is just a theory. It's not a fact." Scientists would then point out the categorical error: A theory is a framework to explain the facts. A theory is one level up from fact, so the mantra ought to go, "Evolution is not just a fact. It's a theory."

The theory of intelligent design is not only not falsifiable; there is simply no way to test it. But that is not the main reason it is not science. The main reason is, that ID does not actually explain anything. When we ask, "Why is the world the way it is?" it answers, "Because it was designed that way." The world is the way it is because it is that way. That might be the furthest from a useful, satisfactory explanation you can get.

This is incorrect. ID does not answer that question by saying "because it was designed that way." At least, I've never heard anyone give that answer. The world is the way it is because if it were much different in any of its fundamental laws, constants, or parameters, life, at least conscious life, could not exist in it.

This claim, by the way, affords us the opportunity to test ID. Scientists could simply construct computer models of possible worlds with significantly different initial conditions or physical and chemical laws and then show that such worlds would still be compatible with conscious life. If it could be demonstrated that life could indeed exist in a wide spectrum of possible worlds that would certainly undermine the ID argument that this world is fine-tuned for living things. I doubt that anyone will try this, though, because very few scientists believe that such a test would bear fruit. Most of them acknowledge that the fine-structure of our cosmos is precisely adjusted to astonishingly fine tolerances, and that if it weren't almost exactly the way it is life would have either never arisen or never survived.

String theory has problems, too. But while intelligent design is untestable in principle, string theory is just really hard. It is quite possible some clever scientist will devise a way to test it. Physicists have some ideas, but it is not going to be easy. In his new book The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, string theory's inventor Leonard Susskind writes: "To divine the fundamental laws of nature that govern a world 16 orders of magnitude smaller than any microscope will ever see is a very tall order. It will take not only cleverness and perseverance, but it will also require tremendous quantities of chutzpah."

How does Ms. Gefter know that ID is in principle untestable? Aside from the fact that I just mentioned a possible test there's nothing of which we know that tells us that intelligence is undectable. One need not be able to detect the designer, after all, in order to be able to detect purposeful design. The evident design of the universe may someday turn out to be so overwhelming to anyone who examines the evidence that scientists will not even try to escape the conclusion that there is a designer, but if so they will not have to be able to detect the designer in order to come to that conclusion.

But why assume that the designer itself cannot be observed? We could only conclude that a designer cannot be observed if we knew a priori that the designer is by nature an unobservable entity, but how does Ms Gefter know that? Just because the designer is not part of this universe doesn't mean that it cannot be detected. If string theorists hold out hope that other universes will someday be detected why not hold out the same hope that we will one day muster the "cleverness, perseverance, and chutzpah" to detect intelligent agents in those other universes who are capable of designing things in ours?

As Columbia University physicist Brian Greene says, "String theory is a work in progress. It is science because in its decades of development it has always adhered to the well-established methodology of theoretical physics. So far, we have not revealed enough about string theory to extract detailed predictions that are within reach of today's technology. If, however, we believed that this latter goal of testing string theory were permanently unattainable - as it most certainly is for ID as currently presented - we would no longer work on the theory. As of now, there is no way to tell how things will pan out. But that's what theoretical physics is all about: Devise theories, analyze them with rigorous mathematical tools, do your best to extract experimental predictions, and test them. No one can predict how long each individual step in this progression will take." So be patient!

In other words, string theory does not meet the standards of real science just yet, but it will someday. How do we know this? Because we earnestly believe that it really is science. This sounds very much like a religious faith commitment or incantation rather than the words of a scientist, but in any case, why couldn't something similar be said on behalf of ID? Conducting a test for an intelligent designer is surely very hard, but maybe someday we'll figure out a way to do it.

If, for example, we could figure out a test to see if specified complex patterns with high information content could be produced purely by chance and physical processes, then ID would be disconfirmed. We don't know yet how such tests would be put together or how they will pan out, but be patient!

In the meantime, mathematical consistency could provide its own sort of falsification. Mathematics is the language science uses to describe the world, and if the equations of a theory lead to nonsensical results, the theory is mathematically falsified. Intelligent design cannot be described mathematically, so, to use physicist Wolfgang Pauli's famous phrase, "it's not even wrong."

Perhaps ID is "not even wrong," but Ms Gefter's claim certainly is. Simply because something cannot be described mathematically does not mean that it's not good science. If it did mean that then large chunks of paleontology, archeology, botany, forensic entomology and a host of other disciplines would not be real science.

Moreover, just because something can be described in mathematical terms does not mean that it is science. With no empirical content or basis for testable predictions it's hard to see how string theory could be anything other than theoretical mathematics. If it's objected that it should nevertheless be studied in physics departments because it may offer a true explanation for the universe then it could be replied that we should also study intelligent design in science classes since intelligence may well turn out be the true ultimate explanation for the universe.

It may be that the claim that the universe and life did not arise solely through natural forces cannot be analyzed mathematically, but even if that's true what follows? Can the claim that life arose from non-life be described mathematically? Can the proposition that purely physical processes sufficiently explain the origin and subsequent diversification of life be described mathematically? Ms. Gefter wants to set the bar high enough that IDers can't leap over it, but in so doing she inadvertantly eliminates from the science department of many universities a lot of people whose work is regularly published in scientific journals.

But the fate of string theory is unlikely to be decided by experiment. It will be decided when a physicist wakes up one day and slaps his forehead and yells, "Aha! Now it all makes sense!" If string theory can stitch together the facts of the world that do not quite fit, if it can explain why the universe is the way it is, no one will conjure the ghost of Popper. Yes, string theory is lacking in testable predictions, but more important, it is lacking some underlying principle to give it deep explanatory power. Still, scientists pursue it because they see paths of unification, shards of beauty, glimmers of ultimate reality. And that determination to explain the mysteries of the universe no matter how difficult the task, and the refusal to accept easy pseudo-explanations in place of truth, is a telltale sign of genuine science.

So, the telltale sign of genuine science is that it offers simplicity of explanation, elegance, and insight into ultimate reality. In other words, Ms. Gefter assures us, genuine science is thoroughly metaphysical. This being so, we wonder what it is about the assertion that the cosmos and life display evidence of having been purposefully designed and do not appear to have been produced solely by chance and blind forces that disqualifies that assertion as a genuinely scientific claim?

According to Amanda Gefter's reasoning, nothing at all.

The Lesser Evil

This might be an intentional leak to concentrate the minds of the mullahs in Tehran, or it might mean that Iran is in for a couple of rough nights sometime in the next year or so:

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme. "This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.

The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack. Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear programme.

We are deeply concerned about the consequences of a military strike on Iran. If a dozen simple drawings can throw the Muslim world into an apoplectic rage imagine what a massive bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities would do. Oil shipments from the region will probably be stopped and suicide terrorism will skyrocket. Worse, if it's just a bombing mission with no invasion and regime change then the problem will just be deferred, not solved, but if there is an invasion it would doubtless become an extremely ugly affair.

Nevertheless, John McCain is correct when he says that as bad as a last-resort military strike might be, a nuclear-armed Iran would be far worse.

Slogan Contest

Bookworm Room has a slogan contest going on in which readers can vote for their favorite conservative slogans in a number of different categories. Some of them are really clever and funny. One of our favorites is in the slogan about Democrats category:

Democrats: A 40 year war on poverty and still no exit strategy.

Clever. There are many more at the link.

Accidents Happen. Ask Bill.

As the whole civilized world has heard by now V.P.Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting companion Saturday. Michelle Malkin braces for the inevitable:

I'm very thankful [the injured man] is doing fine. Unfortunately, this is very bad news for the White House--and not just because of the inevitable late-night jokes that will inundate the airwaves over the next week. The Dems will exploit this accident to smear Cheney as incapable of being trusted, weak of mind, etc. The resignation rumors will fly again. And the biography of a man who has served this country so well and so honorably for so many years will be overshadowed by a single, ill-fated hunting mishap.

Malkin's right, it's bound to happen, but one of her readers puts matters in perspective. Says he: "I'd [still] rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy."

Me too.

Anyway, the Democrats are in no position to try to use unfortunate accidents to discredit the Veep, not after the lengthy skein of accidents and other misfortunes that befell so many who were drawn into the Clinton orbit over the years.

Too Eager to Cast the First Stone

Jimmy Carter, exemplar of ethical rectitude, played Nathan to George Bush's David as he castigated the president last week for conducting warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists. Mr. Carter stood strong and tall in his condemnations and denunciations of the encroachments upon our civil liberties perpetrated by the Bush administration, who, in their perfidy, he inadvertantly likened to the Kennedy administration.

So, it comes as a minor surprise that St. Jimmy, when he was president, engaged in exactly the same nefarious behaviour for which he flogs President Bush. Here's the lead of this interesting story:

Former President Jimmy Carter, who publicly rebuked President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program this week during the funeral of Coretta Scott King and at a campaign event, used similar surveillance against suspected spies. "Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision -- we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Mr. Carter said Monday in Nevada when his son Jack announced his Senate campaign.

"And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act," he said.

The next day at Mrs. King's high-profile funeral, Mr. Carter evoked a comparison to the Bush policy when referring to the "secret government wiretapping" of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

But in 1977, Mr. Carter and his attorney general, Griffin B. Bell, authorized warrantless electronic surveillance used in the conviction of two men for spying on behalf of Vietnam. The men, Truong Dinh Hung and Ronald Louis Humphrey, challenged their espionage convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which unanimously ruled that the warrantless searches did not violate the men's rights.

In its opinion, the court said the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons."

That description, some Republicans say, perfectly fits the Bush administration's program to monitor calls from terror-linked people to the U.S.

I don't know what they call this sort of behavior in Georgia, Mr. Carter, but around here, it's called H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y. You can read about it in the Bible under P-H-A-R-I-S-E-E-S.

Creeping Dhimmitude

Diana West offers a lesson on the meaning of dhimmitude:

We need to learn a new word: dhimmitude....Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as "people of the book [the Bible]," were tolerated, allowed to practice their religion, but at a dehumanizing cost.

There were literal taxes (jizya) to be paid; these bought the dhimmi the right to remain non-Muslim, the price not of religious freedom, but of religious identity. Freedom was lost, sorely circumscribed by a body of Islamic law (sharia) designed to subjugate, denigrate and humiliate the dhimmi. The resulting culture of self-abnegation, self-censorship and fear shared by far-flung dhimmi is the basis of dhimmitude. The extremely distressing but highly significant fact is, dhimmitude doesn't only exist in lands where Islamic law rules.

This is the lesson of Cartoon Rage 2006, a cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Muhammad appearing in a Danish newspaper. We have watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there is little recognition that its poisonous fallout is fear. Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall, which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which have failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in Europe, to salute, we have seen the proud Western tradition of a free press bow its head and submit to an Islamic law against depictions of Muhammad. That's dhimmitude.

Not that we admit it: We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of "tolerance," "responsibility" and "sensitivity." We even congratulate ourselves for having the "editorial judgment" to make "pluralism" possible. "Readers were well served... without publishing the cartoons," said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: "We've taken a decision not to go further... in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number" of Muslim viewers worldwide. Left unmentioned is the understanding (editorial judgement?) that "gratuitous offense" leads to gratuitous violence. Hence, fear - not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation - and a condition of dhimmitude.

How far does it go? Worth noting, for example, is that on the BBC Web site, a religion page about Islam presents the angels and revelations of Islamic belief as historical fact, rather than spiritual conjecture (as is the case with its Christianity Web page); plus, it follows every mention of Mohammed with "(pbuh)," which means "peace be upon him"-"as if," writes Will Wyatt, former BBC chief executive, in a letter to the Times of London, "the corporation itself were Muslim."

There's more of this excellent column at the link.

Muslim Moderates

Charles Krauthammer writing on Muslim moderates in the WaPo:

Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?

A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West.

And these "moderates" are aided and abetted by Western "moderates" who publish pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung and celebrate the "Piss Christ" (a crucifix sitting in a jar of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but who are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject is Muhammad.

If a true moderate is one who condemns desecrations of all faiths then there are precious few Muslim moderates in the world. Of course, by this standard there are doubtless too few moderates of any faith or ideology. It's a sad thing that it's so easy for us to be outraged when our sacred icons are attacked but to yawn indifferently when those of others are gratuitously insulted.

Claiming Too Much

From time to time we read the claim that evolution is the heart of modern biology and the even more extravagant claim that it actually drives all of science. Next time you read that and wonder if it's true remember this essay by Philip S. Skell, Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. We noted Skell's paper some time ago, but it seems to be currently receiving new exposure and appeared in our Sunday paper just today:

Darwin's theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of years ago to all the plants and animals around us today. Much of the evidence that might have established the theory on an unshakable empirical foundation, however, remains lost in the distant past. For instance, Darwin hoped we would discover transitional precursors to the animal forms that appear abruptly in the Cambrian strata. Since then we have found many ancient fossils - even exquisitely preserved soft-bodied creatures - but none are credible ancestors to the Cambrian animals.

Despite this and other difficulties, the modern form of Darwin's theory has been raised to its present high status because it's said to be the cornerstone of modern experimental biology. But is that correct? "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,' most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas," A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000.[1] "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."

I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word - "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

When I recently suggested this disconnect publicly, I was vigorously challenged. One person recalled my use of Wilkins and charged me with quote mining. The proof, supposedly, was in Wilkins's subsequent paragraph:

"Yet, the marginality of evolutionary biology may be changing. More and more issues in biology, from diverse questions about human nature to the vulnerability of ecosystems, are increasingly seen as reflecting evolutionary events. A spate of popular books on evolution testifies to the development. If we are to fully understand these matters, however, we need to understand the processes of evolution that, ultimately, underlie them."

In reality, however, this passage illustrates my point. The efforts mentioned there are not experimental biology; they are attempts to explain already authenticated phenomena in Darwinian terms, things like human nature. Further, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive - except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed - except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.

Darwinian evolution - whatever its other virtues - does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit. None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.

Good thing Professor Skell is retired. If he weren't he soon enough would be with opinions as heretical these.

Happy Darwin Day!

Viewpoint wishes all of our readers a safe and happy Darwin Day as you celebrate the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin today. We hope you enjoy the festivities that you surely have planned for this happy occasion, even though it would have no doubt mortified the self-effacing Mr. Darwin to know that his birthday was being marked by the sorts of raucous merrymaking being planned throughout Europe and the United States.

While we're at it, there's something odd about this particular memorial. Can you think of any other commemoration that is observed on the 197th anniversary? The 100th, 200th, 250th anniversaries, sure, but the 197th?

In any event, party up. Or down. Whatever.

Convincing Proof

Gosh. These photos are certainly damning. You thought the Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons was violent, wait until MoveOn.org circulates among their faithful these pictures of Bush being chummy with Jack Abramoff. Screaming lefties by the zillions will be storming the White House gates like French peasants storming the Bastille.

Well, Bush and Abramoff are in the same room, aren't they? He is shaking hands with Abramoff's Indian clients, isn't he? What more proof do you need that Bush is corrupt?

Media Dhimmis

More examples of media hypocrisy courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

"Thursday, CNN broadcast a story on how common anti-Semitic caricatures are in the Arab press and illustrated it with - you guessed it - one virulently anti-Semitic cartoon after another. As the segment concluded, Wolf Blitzer looked into the camera and piously explained that while CNN had decided as a matter of policy not to broadcast any image of Muhammad, telling the story of anti-Semitism in the Arab press required showing those caricatures. He didn't even blush," - Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, today.

Rutten has a challenge to the mainstream media: will they avoid any images of the upcoming anti-Catholic movie, "The Da Vinci Code"? Of course, they won't. And, I might add, I hope they won't. Here's a bleg to readers: please keep your eyes open for media representations of objects or images blasphemous to strict Christians and Jews. Last week, for example, the cartoon series, "Drawn Together," depicted Jesus refusing to extend compassion for one of the characters and eventually puking. Have you heard of it? South Park has Jesus as one its regular characters, and a recent South Park episode portrayed a statue of the Virgin Mary, with blood exploding out of her [rectum] onto the face of the Pope.

So Fox won't portray tame images of Muhammad, but they will broadcast "Passion of the Christ II: Crucify This." Here's the full compendium of Jesus references on Family Guy. You wanna see Jesus turn water into "funk"?

Why is this hypocrisy? Because except for a few outlets and a number of blogs the media adamantly refuses to show the cartoon depictions of Muhammad that have stirred up turmoil around the world. They have no qualms about publishing degrading portrayals of Christ and the Virgin Mary in their news reports, but they're suddenly seized with multicultural sensitivity when it comes to a few banal drawings of the Islamic Prophet.

So much for liberal pieties about being willing to fight to the death for your right to be offensive. Those words are easy to utter as long as the danger is far away, but when it gets a little close the number of people on the left who really mean it shrinks to a close approximation of zero. The media should either refuse to participate in the gratuitous trashing of symbols sacred to all theistic religions, including Christianity, (our recommendation) or grow a spine, refuse to truckle to the threats of the Islamists, and show the cartoons.

Update: Michelle Malkin has more on the incomprehensible absurdity of the Islamic protestors here. You read this stuff and all you can do is shake your head that so many people can be so benighted.

The War on Drugs

Jonathan Last argues persuasively in The Weekly Standard that we are winning the war on drugs:

There's a wonderful scene in the movie Traffic in which a captured drug kingpin, played by Miguel Ferrer, is being interrogated by two federal agents. Ferrer says to them disdainfully: "You people are like those Japanese soldiers left behind on deserted islands who think that World War II is still going on. Let me be the first to tell you, your government surrendered this war a long time ago."

It's a brilliant bit of filmmaking; it's also bunk. Over the last five years, while no one was paying attention, America has been winning its war on drugs.

The cosmopolitan view has long been that the fight against drugs is a losing battle; that the supply of drugs pouring into America is never-ending; that drug lords are unrelenting zombie-supermen--kill one, and five more spring up.

The American drug problem grew to epidemic proportions throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1979, agencies of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health performed a national household survey of illicit drug use; substances included marijuana, cocaine, heroin, banned hallucinogens and inhalants, and unauthorized use of sedatives, stimulants and analgesics. As of 1979, the numbers were horrifying: 31.8 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 had used drugs; 16.3 percent of them had used in the last month. Among those ages 18 to 25 it was worse: 69 percent had used at some point; 38 percent in the last month.

But throughout the '80s, those numbers shrank. Sophisticates derided "Just Say No," but by 1993, only 16.4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had used, and only 5.7 percent had used in the last month. In the 18-to-25 age bracket, 50.2 percent had tried drugs, but only 15 percent had used in the last 30 days. It was a remarkable success.

From 1993 to 2001, the numbers become less rosy: Among ages 12 to 17, the percentage of youths who had tried drugs increased almost twofold. In the 18-to-25 crowd, the increase was less marked, but still noticeable.

There's a reason we pay so much attention to these two age groups. As Tom Riley, the director of public affairs at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), explains: "If people don't start using drugs as teenagers--the mechanism of addiction clicks much more quickly in the developing brain--then they are unlikely to ever go on to serious drug abuse. If we can reduce the number of teens who use drugs, we change the shape of the problem for generations to come."

After 2001, the tide turned again. Since then, teen drug use is off nearly 19 percent. Which means that 700,000 fewer teens are using drugs today than just a few years ago.

Last goes on to explain why. Check it out at the link. Meanwhile, we're wondering why we're not hearing about this marvelous news in the MSM. Or is the answer so obvious that we sound utterly foolish and disingenuous suggesting that we're puzzled by the MSM not reporting good news?

Aligning With the Strong Horse

There's not been much in the news lately about developments in Iraq, but Bill Roggio is on the job to update us about what is transpiring between the Sunnis and al-Qaeda in Anbar province. Here's his lead:

Further details emerge about the developing rifts between the native elements of the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaeda and their Islamist allies. Army Major General Rick Lynch, the spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, acknowledged the infighting has occurred in Anbar province; "Many times these citizens are urged by their local tribal leaders to rid the area of the insurgent influence... In Fallujah and Ramadi, citizens have established checkpoints to keep insurgents out and six al Qaeda leaders have been killed in the area since September."

According to Maj. Gen. Lynch, the increase in tips from over a year ago has skyrocketed by 240 times the number reported last year. The Department of Defense reports "Iraqi civilians provided more than 1,300 tips to coalition and Iraqi security forces... That is a huge improvement from the 47 tips received in January 2005... Of all the valid calls received by the Ministry of Interior's national tips hotline, 98 percent provided actionable intelligence... Most calls are about terrorist activity... but calls also come in about kidnapping, murder and other criminal activity."

Knight Ridder Newspapers indicates that neighborhood watches are forming in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hai al-Salam, which consists of "Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Christians." The increase in "kidnappings, assassinations and random violence" pushed the residents to band together across sectarian lines and defends their neighborhoods. When the Iraqi Army and police were unable to provide the security needed for the neighborhood, the residents of Hai al-Salam "erected roadblocks and checkpoints and put neighborhood men to work as guards."

The conventional media wisdom is that Iraq is unravelling faster than we can keep it tied up, but, unsurprisingly, the conventional media wisdom is evidently wrong. To be sure, it is taking longer to bring Iraq under control than most in the administration thought that it would, and it's virtually certain that more Americans have died than had to. Yet, despite the awful cost in blood and treasure, something unprecedented in human history is happening in that tragic land.

A diverse, mostly Arab nation of twenty five million people, riven by ethnic and religious animosities, is gradually shaking off the dysfunctional habits formed over decades of oppression and moving slowly but inexorably toward a stable democracy. It really is remarkable, and if it does happen, and if Afghanistan continues to develop along the lines already established, George Bush will ultimately be regarded as the most visionary foreign policy leader in the history of the free world.

Two Kinds of Democrats

This column in the New York Times by Adam Nagourney and Sheryl Stolberg quotes Democratic leaders who lament the missed opportunities and woeful state of the current Democratic party. These pols and party leaders believe that the Bush administration is weakened and that they should be poised to sweep the field in November, but for the reasons they adumbrate, they're just not likely to pull it off. The article has received a lot of acclaim, even from conservatives, and is worth the time to read.

Our take, though, is that much of what the Democrats quoted in the Times' piece are complaining about is really symptomatic of a more fundamental crisis within the party. Their problem is this: There are basically two kinds of Democrats. There are those who deep down know that were they president they probably would have read the intelligence reports on WMD in Iraq the same as Bush did and privately, at least, don't really blame him for taking the action he did. Nor do they really fault him for the messy post-war situation because a lot of it was unforseeable and some of it has been overblown. Nor do they blame him for the NSA surveillance that he's authorized. They know that were they in his shoes they'd probably do the same thing. They also have to acknowledge that his economic measures have brought us out of a recession and have given us a healthy economy, at least in the near term. In other words, Bush's policies have not been very much different than what a moderate Democrat might himself endorse if he were president.

The second kind of Democrat, by contrast, is fervently anti-war, anti-tax cut, anti-Patriot act, pro-appeasement, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, and pro-socialism.

The first group, the moderates, can't present a significant alternative to the American people because they simply don't have one. They're reduced to criticizing Bush around the margins, but largely they have no voice because whatever they would advance as policy is not substantively different from what the president is already doing.

The second kind of Democrat has a dramatic alternative to Bush's policy but they dare not present it in toto to the American people, at least not ingenuously, because they know the American people would contemptuously reject it. Thus, they're left with no recourse but to either shut up, which they won't do, or to so vilify and smear Bush that if people won't vote to elect them at least they'll vote to eject him and his party.

They're blinded by their contempt for Bush personally and frustrated by their inability to thwart him. Driven by their loathing, they emerge regularly in the media to disparage his administration in the most uncivil, hate-filled accents, and to seek to salvage whatever political victories they may by whatever means necessary, whether it be through obstructionism, personal vilification, or perhaps, should they win enough seats in 2006, impeachment. If their only motivations were hate and a lust for power they would behave in no different fashion than the one in which they are presently behaving. Their behavior conveys the clear impression that the nation's welfare and that of its people is not for them a genuine, or at least not a primary, concern.

The fundamental problem for the Democratic party, then, is that those who could wield power have no clear alternative to what Bush is doing to offer the voters, and those who have a clear alternative are not attractive, either in terms of the image they present nor in terms of the alternative they offer. Compounding the problem is that it is this latter group which dominates and controls the levers of power within the party.

The only solution to this crisis is for the party to sever its left wing, to rid themselves of the influence of the extremists in the blogosphere and Hollywood, and to mute liabilities like Howard Dean, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, et al. Even this, however, is a measure fraught with dangers. Should the left, disenchanted with, or divorced from, the Democratic party, start up a third party with their not inconsiderable bankrollers, it would siphon away so many votes from the Democrats that they'd be relegated to permanent minority status.

It seems as if no matter what they do they lose unless Bush is caught in some scandal. It's a shame that they've come to the point where their only hope of finding favor with the electorate is that the other guy disgrace himself.

Moral Non-Equivalence

The local paper had a blurb yesterday on the cartoon wars. I can't link to it because the paper's web site can only be navigated by those who can also solve Rubik's Cubes in under sixty seconds, and consequently I am unable to locate an e-copy of the article. Here is the relevant portion, in any event:

A well-known Dutch-Belgium Islamic militant organization, the Arab-European League, posted anti-Jewish cartoons on its website, calling the crude drawings an exercise in free speech. One showed Anne Frank, a young Jewish victim of a Nazi concentration camp whose diary was published posthumously, lying naked in bed with Adolf Hitler.

A couple of things to note here: First, we're surprised that Islamic militants are suddenly enthusiastic about free speech. We shouldn't be, of course, since one of their favorite tactics has been to use the values of the West against it. The same cultural-religious milieu that produced the Taliban and al-Qaeda is likely to quickly grow weary of free expression, especially since it is the greatest threat to the tyrannies they would impose.

Secondly, anyone who thinks that the largely innocuous cartoons depicting Mohammed which have inspired mindless frenzy in the Islamic world are in any way similar to the coarse depiction of a young girl murdered by the Nazis in a sexual embrace with her murderer is a hopeless bonehead.

Surely one reason why Islamic culture still languishes in the deserts of medievalism is that it cultivates little imagination for anything other than creative ways of destroying and killing, and what it does inspire, such as the Anne Frank drawing, is too often suitable fare only for the very dim-witted.

There is cleverness, however, in the use of violence and threats to intimidate the Western media. Now that Muslims have shown that they can impose their will and their religious beliefs on much of the non-Muslim world (see here for an appeasement update), the question arises as to what they will demand next.

Having insured that few newspapers will see fit in the future to run anything that might outrage tender Muslim consciences, will they next demand that all images of women in slacks or skirts be expunged from public spaces because they offend Muslim sensibilities? Will they insist, on pain of rioting in the streets, that advertisements for alcohol be prohibited? Or that Western markets cease their sale of pork? On what grounds will the West resist such extortions if they will not defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the present circumstance?

If Muslims are successful in bullying the West into suppressing the basic freedoms it has long cherished, they will have made a giant stride toward coercing the West into tacitly accepting the bleak standards of their primitive religion and submitting to a state of de facto, and abject, dhimmitude.

Michael Behe's Defense

In a twelve page tour de force Michael Behe presents his response to Judge Jones' criticisms of him in Kitzmiller. Since Behe was the defendants' lead witness much of the Judge's opinion derogated his testimony. Behe considers the relevant passages from the decision and TKOs the Judge's finding in about the first page or two. In his calm, professional manner Behe implicitly confirms the point we made in our own analysis of the decision - the Judge, whose experience in scientific matters was doubtless limited in his previous capacity as state liquor control board chairman, was clearly out of his depth. Sensing his inadequacy, perhaps, the judge simply chose to play it safe by accepting uncritically whatever the plaintiff's witnesses told him and rejecting whatever he heard from the defendants. His claim that Intelligent Design is not genuine science has about it the scent of a purely arbitrary judgment on his part, and Behe explains why.

Here's his conclusion:

The Court's reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; an incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID. The Court has accepted the most tendentious and shopworn excuses for Darwinism with great charity and impatiently dismissed evidence-based arguments for design.

All of that is regrettable, but in the end does not impact the realities of biology, which are not amenable to adjudication. On the day after the judge's opinion, December 21, 2005, as before, the cell is run by amazingly complex, functional machinery that in any other context would immediately be recognized as designed. On December 21, 2005, as before, there are no non-design explanations for the molecular machinery of life, only wishful speculations and Just-So stories.

Behe's paper is a masterwork of well-reasoned argument and will repay anyone interested in this issue for the time invested in reading it.