John Kenneth Galbraith, 97

Those of us who came of age in the sixties will recall John Kenneth Galbraith and his entertaining debates with Bill Buckley every presidential election season. Galbraith, a physically imposing man at 6'8" or thereabouts, was a liberal of the Hubert Humphrey school and the hero of many Democrats during the sixties and seventies. He was perhaps the most influential economist of his era.

I remember going to hear him speak at my alma mater and sitting close to the front, just behind a couple of middle-aged women who were apparently on the faculty. When Galbraith, in his seventies at the time, strode out onto the stage, both women gasped and sighed like two thirteen year-olds favored with a smile from Mick Jagger. One of the women turned to the other in a half swoon and proceeded to make invidious physical and intellectual comparisons between the magnificent liberal demigod on the stage and the pipsqueak conservative who was currently the president of the university. They both smirked acidly at how poorly the president fared in the comparison. It was as pathetically childish as it was cruel.

Anyway, J.K. Galbraith has passed away at the age of 97.

Just One Bubble in the Bath

VOA News has an article about the debate among some scientists as to whether there is just one universe or whether there are an infinite number of universes, like bubbles in an enormously vast bubblebath. It's an interesting question, I guess, but even more interesting is the reason why some scientists would seriously entertain a proposal that cannot be tested and which certainly contravenes the conventional preference for simplicity and parsimony in our explanations.

The driving motive for such speculation is that there are really only two live options from which we can select an explanation for the exquisite fine-tuning of the cosmos: Either there are a near infinite number of universes or this universe is the product of intentional design. If the latter option is metaphysically repugnant, which naturalists find it to be, then the first must be true.

Why are these the only two options? Scientists have realized over the last twenty five years that the parameters, forces, constants, and other physico-chemical and geo-physical properties of our cosmos are so incredibly precise that were just one of hundreds of values different in the slightest degree either our universe wouldn't exist, or, if it did, complex life would never have arisen. The universe looks as if it is a pre-planned home for living things like ourselves. This is called the Anthropic Principle and in the last decade a number of authors have been published in support of the argument that our universe is strongly teleological.

This, of course, is like finger nails drawn across a blackboard to materialist scientists who every morning before breakfast retreat to their prayer closets to meditate on the immortal words of Carl Sagan who assured us that "The universe is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be." The problem is that the impression of apparent design is overwhelming, and unlike the case of biological design which can be dismissed with a wave of a copy of the Origin of Species, evolution cannot rescue the materialist from the appearance of a designed cosmos.

There's only one escape from the conclusion that there is an intelligent designer lurking about in the cosmic bushes. If there are an infinite number of universes then all possible universes would exist. Our universe is certainly possible, if highly, even ridiculously, improbable, therefore our universe must exist, regardless of how unlikely it is. Since this allows materialists to evade the conclusion that the religious rabble would have them accept, it appears to them, like an ugly woman to a sailor who's been at sea for six months, ravishingly attractive.

Since there's no evidence of other universes and no way to test the hypothesis that they exist, to talk about them is to speak the language of metaphysics rather than of science. This would incur the censure of such as Judge John Jones and the ACLU were it not for the fact that the "multiverse" serves such a noble purpose, i.e. it allows materialists an escape hatch through which they can wriggle away from the conclusion that the universe has a designer. There will, therefore, be no parents in Dover bringing lawsuits against teachers who discuss the multiverse in their science classrooms. Not all philosophical ideas, after all, are equally unsavory.

We'd like to pose some questions to those who promote the idea of a multiverse: If these hypothesized universes transcend our own does that make them supernatural? If so, then aren't the scientists who talk about these things actually dabbling in religion? And if not, then why must a designer which transcends our universe necessarily be supernatural? Just wondering.

The Hunt For Al-Zarqawi

Here's a fascinating story from the Marine Corps Times that suggests that being a friend of the Sheik of Slaughters makes for a disappointingly short-term relationship:

Just nine days before al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released his latest video, a special operations raid killed five of his men, captured five others and apparently came within a couple of city blocks of nabbing Zarqawi himself. Then, the day Zarqawi's video debuted, special ops forces killed 12 more of his troops in a second raid in the same town.

The raids in Yusufiyah, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, were the latest battles in a small, vicious war being waged largely in the shadows of the wider counterinsurgency effort.

It is a war fought by a secretive organization called Task Force 145, made up of some of the most elite U.S. troops, including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. They have one goal: hunting down Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, and destroying his al-Qaida in Iraq organization. Zarqawi's escape in Yusufiyah was not the first time special ops troops have nearly had him. In early 2005, they came so close they could see the Jordanian's panicked face as he fled.

The first of the two Yusufiyah raids began at 2:15 a.m. April 16 when SEAL Team 6 operators and Army Rangers approached a terrorist safe house, a U.S. special operations source said. A U.S. Central Command news release said "coalition forces" - the usual shorthand for Task Force 145 elements - were "searching for a wanted al-Qaida associate."

When the U.S. troops arrived, the enemy opened fire with small arms. In the fight that followed, the special ops troops killed five terrorists, three of whom wore suicide belts, according to Central Command. "Two of the suicide bombers were killed before either could detonate his vest, and the third detonated his body bomb, killing only himself and injuring no one else," the news release said.

A woman in the house also was killed. Three other women and a child were wounded and were medically evacuated to the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. U.S. forces detained five other occupants, one of whom was wounded. One of the five was later confirmed as "the wanted al-Qaida terrorist for whom the troops were searching," according to Central Command.

"The terrorist, whose name is currently being withheld, was involved in the planning and execution of improvised explosive device attacks and allegedly was associated with al-Qaida foreign fighter operations," the command said. The other four suspects are being "assessed for knowledge of and involvement in terrorist activity," the news release said.

Yusufiyah is Zarqawi country. Indeed, intelligence later suggested the terrorist kingpin "was probably 1,000 meters away" at the time of the raid, a special operations source said.

In addition to the suicide vests, U.S. forces recovered four AK-series assault rifles, a pistol and several grenades. In an indication of the intensity of the close-quarters, indoor battle, "one grenade was found with the pin pulled, but not yet expended, in the hand of a dead terrorist," according to Central Command.

Five U.S. troops were hurt in the raid, but they have either returned to duty or are expected to shortly.

Among items recovered from the safe house, the special operations source said, was a video showing Zarqawi at various times in "black pajamas with New Balance running shoes on."

The source said the video seized in Yusufiyah was the same one released April 25. One section of the video shows Zarqawi firing an M249 squad automatic weapon outside, and another depicts him sitting inside next to an M4 assault rifle. In the video, Zarqawi mocks President Bush, and makes clear his fierce opposition to attempts to establish democracy in Iraq.

Produced by al-Qaida in Iraq's "Media Committee," the video reflects "Zarqawi's number one thing ... the information campaign," said the special ops source.

But on the same day that video was released, "coalition forces" killed 12 other fighters at another Yusufiyah safe house "associated with foreign terrorists," according to Central Command.

The special operations source confirmed that this was another TF 145 raid. The news release said "multiple intelligence sources" led troops to the safe house. As they approached, a man ran out brandishing what Central Command described as "a shoulder-fired rocket," which he was attempting to launch when the operators shot and killed him.

More fighters appeared and exchanged fire with the special ops troops, who were supported by helicopter machine-gun fire. The U.S. fire killed another four terrorists outside the safe house. When those inside continued to fire, the special operators called in an airstrike that destroyed the building. A search of the rubble revealed the bodies of seven men and a woman. Each man wore webbing holding two loaded magazines and two grenades.

"The troops also discovered suicide notes on one of the terrorists [and] body bombs," Central Command said. U.S. forces believed two "wanted terrorists" were operating from the safe house. At press time, Central Command was still trying to identify those killed.

There's more at the link on the team tasked to hunt Zarqawi. Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the tip.

Did He Really Say <i>That</i>?

Tapscott has an astonishing quote made by Senator John McCain during a recent appearance on the Don Imus show. McCain said that he would dispense with the first amendment if he could get "clean government" in return. His exact words were:

"He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."

Given the choice between preserving the constitution and eliminating government corruption McCain would sacrifice the constitution. His desire to rid the government of the sleaze of venality and greed is praiseworthy. His willingness to jettison the constitution to get us there is abhorrent. The senator votes as though he were generally conservative, but no Burkean or Reagan conservative would ever dream of letting such a thought make it past his lips. One wonders if he realized what he was saying and how much damage these words will do to him in 2008.

Thanks to Captain's Quarters for the tip.

This Can't Be Good

From the link:

Numerous economists have expressed optimism about Iran's ambitions, saying that the impact of the Iran oil bourse on the American dollar-and U.S. economy could be worse than Iran launching a "direct nuclear attack."

While the article is somewhat dated and keeping in mind the need to consider the source, aljazeera.com, it still speaks to the implications of their effort.

And this (also dated) article:

The Bush administration will never allow the Iranian government to open an oil exchange (bourse) that trades petroleum in euros. If that were to happen, hundreds of billions of dollars would come flooding back to the United States crushing the greenback and destroying the economy. This is why Bush and Co. is planning to lead the nation to war against Iran. It is straightforward defense of the current global system and the continuing dominance of the reserve currency, the dollar.

...

With economies so interdependent and interwoven, a global, not just American Depression would occur with a domino effect throwing the rest of world economies into poverty. Markets for acutely less expensive US exports would never materialize.

The result, some SME's estimate, might be as many as 200 million Americans out of work and starving on the streets with nobody and nothing able to rescue or aid them, contrary to the 1920/30 Great Depression through soup kitchens and charitable support efforts.

Can You Live With That?

Tens of thousands of antiwar protestors marched in New York yesterday.

"We are here today because the war is illegal, immoral and unethical," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is certainly an expert in such things. If the Reverend Sharpton needed proof of his claims, this sign-holder had it ready to hand:

The claim asserted by this sign is so bizarre, so stupid, that it immediately discredits whatever arguments the sign-holder might otherwise make.

We also note that not everyone marching against the war is opposed to war itself. They're just opposed to this war.

There are politically correct wars and politically incorrect wars. The way to tell the difference is that the latter is any war Bush happens to have initiated. The former is, inter alia, a war that we are not currently fighting.

Here are two questions every protestor should be required to answer before they get their official protestor certificate: "What do you think will happen in, and to, Iraq once American forces are withdrawn?" And secondly, "Can you live with that?"

I have no way of knowing, of course, but I wonder how many in yesterday's crowd would have answered the first question by saying "I don't care." I wonder, too, how many would have answered the second question by saying "Damn right I can."

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the photos.

Iran Oil Exchange

According to this article it looks like Iran is moving foward with its oil exchange.

Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said on Wednesday that the establishment of Oil Stock Exchange is in its final stage and the bourse will be launched in Iran in the next week.

I guess it will soon be time to start prepping those B1 bombers.

Evil Energy

Here are some facts I've gleened from the current events regarding oil.

The country's three largest petroleum companies - Exxon Mobil (XOM) Corp., Chevron (CVX) Corp. and ConocoPhillips (COP) - posted combined first-quarter income of almost $16 billion, an increase of 17 percent from the year before.

No doubt we have a Dr. Evil here...but wait...

Taken together, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips made a profit of $8.19 on every $100 in sales. In contrast, Internet bellwethers Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and eBay (EBAY) Inc. collectively turned a $19.20 profit on every $100 of their combined revenue.

And of course, despite the outrage from our congressmen, the government sees to it that it gets its share of the windfall...

In the first quarter, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips turned over a combined $13.8 billion in sales taxes - about 7 percent of their total revenue.

This supports my claim stated in an earlier post...

Economists are perhaps most troubled by the possibility that lawmakers will consider suspending the federal 18.4-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. All that would do is raise demand and worsen the government deficit - a lose-lose proposition, they said.

And here is a statement that affirms the logical conclusion of free markets...

Art Smith, chief executive of energy consultant John S. Herold, said $75 oil is "the best thing that could happen to the alternative energy business" and is the greatest force for change in the market. He and other analysts said SUV sales are already declining, and they expect Americans to think more critically about the energy efficiency of their homes and the lengths of their commutes in the years ahead.

We haven't seen much about this in the news yet but the cost of increases in petroleum reflected at the pump are only the beginning. Keep in mind that everything you buy is transported to the stores you frequent by rail and truck. The increased transportation costs will eventually and most assuredly appear in the price tag of the goods you purchase as transportation costs will inevitably be passed on to the consumer.

Also note that petroleum is a vital component in the manufacture of many of the products we buy today. The increase in the cost of petroleum will eventually be reflected there as well.

Sure, higher energy prices are tough to take but you don't have to be a victim. You can invest in energy companies to offset the losses due to higher prices of petroleum and related products. Another positive note is that higher energy prices enable alternative energy technologies to be developed. This, and only this, will free us from our dependency on OPEC.

God Save Their Souls

For some people the death penalty would be a sentence of unfathomable mercy compared to what they deserve:

Prosecutors won't seek hate-crime charges against two white teens accused of brutally beating and sodomizing a 16-year-old Hispanic boy after he tried to kiss a young girl, officials said.

If the teenagers are convicted, though, jurors will be told during sentencing about the ethnic slurs used during the attack, Harris County prosecutor Mike Trent told the Houston Chronicle for Friday's editions. David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17, are both charged with aggravated sexual assault in the attack that left the unidentified victim in critical condition with massive internal injuries.

Authorities said the two dragged the boy from a house party Saturday and into the yard, where they sodomized him with a plastic pipe from a patio table umbrella and poured bleach on him. Trent on Friday described the pipe as being sharpened at one end and said Tuck stomped on the boy with steel-toe boots and kicked the pipe into him. At one point, the teens tried to carve something on the boy's chest with a knife, he told CNN Friday.

"I don't know that the very beginning of the attack was racial," Trent said, "but there's no question that they were venting quite a bit of hatred in their hearts."

The victim lay behind the house for more than 10 hours before he was found and someone called an ambulance. Trent said there were witnesses to the beating, though no one else had been charged. "You do certainly have to wonder why anyone not report that for as long as they did," he told CNN.

Investigators said the attack happened at an unsupervised house party in Spring after the 16-year-old tried to kiss a 12-year-old Hispanic girl.

Bleach was poured over the boy's body in an attempt to destroy DNA evidence, Sheriff's Lt. John Denholm said. Trent said Friday that doctors had also told investigators they suspected some kind of toxicity in his internal organs that may have been caused by foreign substance, "which makes me wonder if they didn't pour bleach down the pipe as well."

The sexual assault charges are punishable by five years to life in prison. Trent said if the victim dies, the teens could face murder charges punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.

Never mind their ages and the Supreme Court's refusal to allow minors to be executed. Anyone who would do what these two young men did is an animal that should be put to rest just as would be done with a vicious dog. Even if the victim doesn't die, his attackers should at the very least spend the rest of their lives in prison. They don't belong in human society.

I know. Someone will ask what room such sentiments leave for Christian compassion and human redemption. Christian compassion consists in resisting the temptation to treat these wretches in the same savage fashion that they treated their victim. They should be executed quickly and painlessly and then forgotten.

As for redemption this a theological matter and as such is of no concern to the state. Redemption is the prerogative of God, not society. The state's responsibility is to dispatch justice tempered with mercy (compassion). We do pray, nonetheless, that God save the souls of these monsters even as we wish that the justice system could, and would, make their souls available for saving.

Causes of Decline

A friend notes an interesting item from an article in our local paper. In a speech marking a celebration of a local councilwoman being named Democrat of the Year, state representative Daylin Leach (D) pointed to three events from the 1960s and 1970s which caused the current decline of the Democratic party - the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and Roe vs. Wade. Since 1974, he said, Democrats have not had a banner year in national politics.

The article doesn't say exactly how these issues precipitated the Democrats' fall from popular grace, but we can guess. The Vietnam war, for instance, branded the Democrats for two generations as soft on national defense. The current crop of Democrats have only reinforced that perception among the public.

The Civil Rights Movement, which could have been the crowning achievement of the Democrats in the last half of the twentieth century, turned out to be a mixed bag. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and others get much of the credit for the progress of civil rights in the 60's and 70's, but it was also Democrats in the south who opposed the national leadership and fought to maintain segregation and racial inequality. Moreover, although minorities made enormous strides under LBJ's Great Society they also suffered from the dysgenic effects of the welfare state, plunging to greater depths of dependency and crystalizing into an American underclass. Other aspects of the civil rights movement also alienated voters - affirmative action, for example, and the waste of millions, if not billions, of dollars which did nothing to lift people out of poverty, but only lined the pockets of politicians and con artists.

Lastly, it has taken thirty five years for the American public to realize the moral impoverishment of our abortion culture, but it is dawning upon increasing numbers of people that, as Ramesh Ponnuru says in his new book, the Democrats, in their zeal for the right to kill unborn children, have become the party of death. There is a majority of people in this country who still find that repulsive.

We'd probably want to cite a few more events or trends of the sixties and seventies that have led to voter disenchantment with the Democratic party, but Leach's statement is interesting, and all the more since it was contained in a speech given by a Democrat to Democrats. Unfortunately, for those who would like to see a return of the Democratic political hegemony, few in the current leadership will be receptive to messages like his, and even fewer will be in a position to do anything to change the perceptions Leach laments.

Something to Think About

Victor Davis Hanson gives those who argue that we should set a date for Iraq to get its act together and that if they don't meet it we should begin withdrawing immediately something to think about:

As for the Iranian crisis, the only peaceful solution, given Russian meddling and Western fear over oil prices, may be through the emergence of democracy in Iraq, which would then galvanize dissidents in Iran. Anyone who rules out force in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions should support unequivocally the democratic experiment in Iraq.

An Iraqi democracy may well serve as a model for Iranians tired of the oppression of the imamocracy they've endured for thirty years. If Iraq is allowed to fail, however, then it will exert no positive pressure on Iran to change, and the current leadership in Tehran will continue its mad pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In other words, one consequence of failure to "stay the course" in Iraq is that it will become more likely that it will be necessary to go to war with Iran. No one who shudders at that prospect should be urging us to get out of Iraq even one day before that country is stable and able to go it alone against its enemies.

DOW / Gold Ratio

Here's an interesting chart that I look at from time to time.

The lower chart illustrates the DOW / Gold ratio for over the last 100 years. If you move your mouse to hover over the lower right corner of the chart an icon appears that enables you to zoom in on the chart (at least in Internet Explorer).

It's informative for several reasons. It shows that prior to a bull market in stocks, the price of gold was relatively close to the price of the DOW. We see this prior to 1929, during the '50s and '60s and then again just before the bull market of the '90s. For example, in 1980 when gold was around $800 and the DOW was around 1600, the ratio was 2 to 1 and one could "buy" the DOW with two ounces of gold.

We also see that during the bull markets the ratio diverged greatly with the last period being the year 2000 when gold was around $265 and the DOW just under 12000. That's a ratio of around 45 to 1. It took almost 45 ounces of gold to "buy" the DOW.

Since 2000 the ratio has been declining again and is presently at around 17 to 1. Over the last 100 years the ratio has always reverted to its mean and it doesn't look like this time will be any different.

What this chart doesn't tell us is what the prices will be for gold and the DOW when the mean ratio of 2 to 1 is achieved again. At today's price of $650 per ounce of gold the DOW would have to drop to about 1300. Not a likely scenario. On the other hand, if the DOW were to stay near 12000 for the next several years, the price of gold would have to rise to about $6000 per ounce. Also not too likely. And for you stock market bulls out there a third scenario is that the DOW goes to 36000 but then the price of gold would have to climb to $18000 per ounce.

The more probable scenario is that they will meet somewhere in between. The DOW could drop to 8000 and the price of gold could rise to $4000 per ounce. Or the DOW could drop to 6000 and the price of gold could rise to $3000 per ounce.

Looking at the chart and the trend that's been in place for the last six years it seems apparent that the mean ratio will be achieved before the next divergence begins causing the ratio to increase yet again.

Given all of this, it certainly appears that $1 invested in gold is a much better play than the same $1 invested in the DOW.

Teaching Evolution, Pt. II

Part II of John Timmer's summary of the New York University Conference on teaching science is here. Timmer writes that:

The first talk in the morning session [of the second day] was from Gerald Skoog, who runs a science education center at Texas Tech.

Skoog noted that there are three pressures for teaching creationism (including ID) in public schools. The first is simply to provide a historic context for evolution, which can be appropriate or abused, depending on the teacher. The second is that some are convinced that there is positive scientific evidence for creationist views, which is where improving scientific education and outreach should come in. The final issue is probably the most challenging: teaching all sides of an issue as a matter of fairness. He suggested that science needs to come up with a compelling slogan in answer to the "teach the controversy" demand used by its opponents, but I did not hear one offered during the conference.

Actually, there is a slogan already in circulation. It says "There is no controversy." It's a form of denial, to be sure, but it's symptomatic of those about to suffer an unexpected defeat that they first resort to denying the imminent realities.

Skoog was followed by Jennifer Miller, a biology teacher in Dover...Miller's talk ... made clear that the school administration, which typically lacks scientific training, played a key role at many stages in Dover, and it was noted during the discussion that they also have ultimate control over the hiring of science faculty, and can thereby shape the teaching of science in their schools. As such, it seems that raising the scientific literacy at the administration levels of schools should also become a priority.

Fat chance of that happening. Most school administrators were not science teachers before they got their administrative certification, and many of them were scarcely even teachers in any discipline. To raise their science literacy to the point where they could be expected to make competent decisions about the content of science curricula, or make informed judgments concerning the nuances of the demarcation problem, would require many credits of science-oriented education. Not many administrators have either the time or the inclination to subject themselves to that.

Next up was Glenn Branch of the NCSE (National Council for Science Education), which, as he puts it, spends its time putting out brushfires of evolution controversy around the nation. His talk focused on the efforts of creationists to gain a footing in collegiate settings, with the ultimate goal of gaining credentialed supporters to advance their cause. He tracked how many formerly religious or creationist campus organizations have recently morphed into pro-ID "IDEA Clubs." Branch noted that the religious nature of the national IDEA organization was obvious in the fact that it has only recently dropped its requirement for members to be Christian. These clubs hope to foster debate on campus, but Branch suggested they were best avoided. Many creationists are far more skilled at arguments that appeal to a non-scientific audience than scientists are, and debates draw a crowd. In the absence of the legitimacy conferred by debate, the attendance at IDEA clubs is usually limited to a few committed activists.

So, these clubs are suspect because they contain Christians and because their members are skillful debaters. It's best not to engage these creationists in open debate, evidently, lest the rabble be misled to believe that the evolutionists don't have much of a case. This is odd advice to give to the materialist evolutionists. They're being instructed to avoid a public discussion of the issues, a course of inaction which could only serve to keep people in the dark as to what the controversy is all about. The irony of this is that this advice is given at a conference on how to improve science education and public scientific literacy.

One wonders, by the way, if Mr. Branch would be similarly dismissive of a club comprised mostly of atheists devoted to the promotion of evolution. In fact, come to think of it, that's pretty much what the NCSE is.

Branch's final topic was how to handle a situation where a biology department winds up with a creationist as a graduate student. This was both of general interest, as creationists tend to use their degrees as rhetorical weapons, and of personal interest, as I was part of the Berkeley class that produced the noted Discovery Institute fellow Jon Wells. Unfortunately, his conclusion was that there are no easy answers. He did, however, note that graduate departments exist to serve the scientific community by providing qualified individuals to perform research and teaching services. There is no ethical requirement for graduate faculty to be complicit in the training of someone who is ultimately going to actively harm the field.

Hmm. Now here's an interesting dilemma for the evolutionary inquisitors. They keep insisting that creationism is religion, and now they're saying, or at least Mr. Branch is saying, that students should be discriminated against if they're creationists. I.e. universities should actively discriminate against students on the basis of their religious beliefs. That doesn't sound to us like it would pass constitutional muster, but we could be wrong.

Does Mr. Branch also think that a grad student could be discriminated against because of his/her political views? What about students who have ethical objections to experimenting upon, or dissecting, animals? What about students who oppose stem cell research, or cloning, or who favor policies that would result in environmental degradation? Would Mr. Branch say that no graduate school need confer a degree on students who hold to politically unfashionable opinions in the science community? Or is it only a student's religious views which would justify denying him a degree?

[Ken] Miller and Branch were asked what they felt the next development will be now that the latest creationist effort, ID, has been rejected in court. Miller suggested the redefinition of science to include the supernatural, as has happened in Kansas, while Branch expected efforts to "teach the controversy" to predominate.

I think they're both right, although I would quibble with Miller's use of the word "supernatural." In the present climate it's not clear what that word denotes. As we've pointed out before, the word "supernatural" seems to refer to anything which transcends our universe, yet physicists and philosophers discuss the possibility of other universes without thinking that they're discussing anything supernatural.

It would be more precise, perhaps, to say that science might eventually be redefined to allow for extra-cosmic intelligence as a causal agent, and why not, if there's evidence which points that way?

Gas Relief

Well it's the end of the week and I was due for a good laugh and today I got it complements of our government. Our congressmen are thinking about giving us back the dollars we have given them in taxes to pay for the increase in the price of gasoline. What a hoot! But I'm not sure since the article referenced below refers to "millions of taxpayers". Does that include you or me?

At any rate, the idea is totally preposterous as it's simply another example of government intervention in the immutable laws of supply and demand. What our government is attempting to do is enable people to be able to afford to buy gasoline at higher prices and in so doing they are perpetuating the demand for gasoline!

The law of supply and demand tells us that if the price of gasoline goes too high, demand will be diminished because people simply can't afford it. That diminishment in demand causes the price to drop and eventually reach a point of equilibrium. Obviously our government leaders think they are all wise and will solve the problem by throwing money at it.

From the link: WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans unveiled a 10-point plan Thursday that offers a $100 "gas tax holiday" rebate check to millions of taxpayers. Meanwhile, Democrats are proposing a 60-day gasoline tax holiday.

Since our trusted government is in control of the matter, I suspect the price of gasoline will go much, much higher.

From The Mogambo Guru

The Mogambo Guru tells it like it is. For those who will listen this is a must read article.

But what all these groups of people have is common is that they all want to be paid in their own units of purchasing power, which (at $75 a barrel) is about ten pizzas. It makes no difference to them what kind of money you use to pay for the oil, as long as they can exchange it for ten pizzas Preferably, they would like to be paid in units of purchasing power that GAIN in purchasing power, so that tomorrow they can buy eleven pizzas for a barrel of oil. And if not gain, then at least not lose purchasing power, and tomorrow only be able to buy six pizzas!

Unfortunately, the dollar is NOT a currency that is going to gain in purchasing power. It is, on the other hand, one of those currencies that are going to lose purchasing power. So, everybody, including foreign oil exporters, have to charge a higher price for oil just to make up the losses in purchasing power they will suffer until they can actually get around to spending the damned dollars on pizzas!

And it is going to get worse, much worse, as you can readily conclude from Chuck Butler at his famous Daily Pfennig site, who reports that at the latest G-7 meeting (representatives of the seven or so biggest economies in the world), they announced that they all decided that "it was 'critical' for the Asian currencies to let their currencies rise versus the dollar. I would not be surprised if China started spending its dollar reserves on all the crude oil supplies they can purchase - at any price. What will be more valuable to their economy next year, $75 U.S. dollars or a barrel of oil?" In short, will seven pizzas be more valuable than six pizzas next year?

...

So, the next time you are watching in horror as that gasoline pump is sucking the money out of your wallet ("sluuuurrrrp!") and you wonder why gasoline costs so much, don't be like me and get mad and go running up to the clerk and calling him a cheating, thieving little over-charging bastard from hell. Experience has shown that it won't help.

And anyway, it usually turns out that the kid had nothing to do with the price of gas, but instead the price of gasoline is up because the purchasing power of the dollar fell! And the dollar fell in purchasing power thanks to the horrid Federal Reserve, which has been creating excess money and credit with their every waking moment since the dreadful moment when that hideous creature of fraud and corruption was created in 1913, which was (as Mogambo musicologists know) the inspiration behind the classic Mogambo reggae tune, "The Fed'ral Reserve Be Killin' Me Money, Mon!" which contains the immortal line "Based on lies, and founded on the sly, based on lies and founded on the sly in 1913, mon, me money goin' down, mon, me money goin' down!"

Atlas Shrugged

Here's news for Ayn Rand fans. We've heard these rumors before, but perhaps now plans to make the movie will finally come to fruition:

Ayn Rand's most ambitious novel may finally be brought to the bigscreen after years of false starts. Lionsgate has picked up worldwide distribution rights to Atlas Shrugged from Howard and Karen Baldwin, who will produce with John Aglialoro.

As for stars, the book provides an ideal role for an actress in lead character Dagny Taggart, so it's not a stretch to assume that Rand enthusiast Angelina Jolie's name has been brought up. Brad Pitt, also a fan, is rumored to be among the names suggested for lead male character John Galt.

Atlas Shrugged, which runs more than 1100 pages, has faced a lengthy and circuitous journey to a film adaptation.

The rest of the article explains why.

Raping Reputations

The alleged victim of the alleged unsolicited advances of three members of the Duke Lacrosse team, none of whom anyone would want dating their own daughter, has apparently put the kibosh on the District Attorney's hopes of looking like a hero in the coming election:

The woman who says she was raped by three members of Duke's lacrosse team also told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men, filing a 1996 complaint claiming she had been assaulted three years earlier when she was 14. Authorities in nearby Creedmoor said Thursday that none of the men named in the decade-old report was ever charged but they didn't have details why.

They weren't charged because she declined to press charges, claiming to be afraid for her safety. Okay, that happens. But there was apparently an absence of physical evidence both ten years ago as well as in the recent case, and once a jury hears this history it'll be next to impossible to convict the accused of anything beyond being Division I sleazoids.

A lot of people hitched their wagon to this woman's story. It resonated with people who wanted to believe the very worst of rich white males. Consequently, these young men's lives, and those of their parents, have been seriously compromised. Without any real evidence that a crime had been committed, the president of the university cancelled the lacrosse season, punishing the whole team based on an unsubstantiated allegation against three of its members. Without any proof, pictures of these students, in association with the word "rape," were plastered all across the nation's newspapers and television sets, debasing and humiliating both them and their parents. African-American race hustlers seized the opportunity to blather about the awful history of white on black rape as if it were not the case that interracial rape since the 1960s is overwhelmingly perpetrated by blacks against whites.

We wonder how, if the charges indeed eventually come to naught, all these people will ever apologize to the young men, and to the nation as a whole, for their debased attempt to exploit this sordid event for their own various ignoble purposes. Perhaps a sincere apology will be a lot more than any of the students or their families can reasonably expect.

Two Bad Arguments and Two Better Ones

Here's a link to a very good paper by philosopher of science Jeffrey Koperski on the ID/ evolution issue. He discusses two arguments often made against ID that he identifies as bad arguments and two critical arguments that he feels are more promising.

The "bad" arguments are familiar to anyone who has kept up on the controversy. The first is the attack on the motives of IDers. Critics of ID often seek to dismiss it as a thinly veiled attempt to smuggle religion into science, but they commit a fallacy when they attack their opponents' motives rather than their arguments. The second argument is the complaint that ID is not genuine science. Koperski skillfully skewers both of these.

The critics, however, are on firmer ground when they point to the the lack of a well-developed research plan for ID. The second "good" argument against ID is that it is too radical. This latter argument is quite provocative, and it will be interesting to see how ID theorists respond to it.

Koperski's paper is a little long and probably not appropriate for the casual reader, but if you've done some thinking about this controversy and are interested in the arguments, it's worth a look.

Pass This on to W.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.

"But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

There was a different breed of men in 1907, apparently. Few who have any visibility in Washington today would have the pluck to say something like this for fear that some editorialist at the New York Times or Washington Post would write something mean about him. To assert some bold truth like Teddy did might cause one to be called shameful names like racist, chauvinist, or xenophobe. Unlike TR, our modern politicians are deathly afraid of offending the arbiters of political fashion in the media.

Unfortunately for them, the visages of such tremulous souls will never adorn a future Mt. Rushmore.

Teaching Evolution, Pt. I

John Timmer of Ars Technica reports on a New York Academy of Sciences program titled Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science. His report is in three parts which, unfortunately, don't link to each other. Part I is found here. Timmer writes:

As readers of this Journal know, science literacy in the US and its close cousin, the teaching of evolution, are major concerns of mine. So, when the New York Academy of Sciences announced a program entitled "Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science", I got in touch as soon as I found out about it, and received a press pass to cover the event. The talks were specifically targeted to science teachers at the high school and college levels, as well as policymakers, and took place on the west side of Manhattan. The sessions were formatted to allow two 30 minute talks on related topics, followed by a half hour of discussion, and I was able to attend the majority of them. The talks and discussions were generally very good, and I'm planning on covering them in three entries to be posted on consecutive days.

Teaching evolution even in the absence of controversy can be a challenging thing. Focus too much on the detailed evidence, and the big picture can get lost. Present the broad overview of evolution's explanatory power, and it's easy to skip over the wealth of data that supports the theory. Things get much worse when students come prepared with creationist arguments and the teachers are faced with opposition from a combination of the school administration, the school board, and the state government. The meeting was intended to provide a status report, teaching suggestions, and advice for how to handle the controversy in the future.

Made worse? Why is it a bad thing for students to question the orthodoxies of the scientific establishment? Why is it a bad thing for students to ask questions and challenge the information they're being presented by their teachers? Here's a possible answer: It's bad because it embarrasses teachers who, by and large, don't really understand evolution very well themselves, let alone the criticisms of evolution, to have their lack of knowledge, depth, and preparation exposed to their students.

The first session was on the nature of science and biology, presented in part by Robert T. Pennock of Michigan State, who testified at the Dover trial. He suggested that teachers should present evolution as part of a discussion of the nature of science, as the development of the theory is an example of science done right....Ultimately, however, he suggested that the key feature of evolution is that it passes the pragamatic test: evolutionary processes work in both engineering and computer programming, producing efficient products that would not have been proposed by intentional design, including an antenna used by NASA.

I'm not sure I understand what Timmer is saying here, but if I read him correctly he's claiming that Pennock employs the success of engineers and computer programmers as models of the ability of evolution to generate novel designs. If this is the correct reading it's a most peculiar example that Pennock is using. To the extent that engineers and programmers assist in the evolution of novelty the fact simply confirms ID since the input of the engineer or the programmer is the input of an intelligent agent. What Pennock needs to show to discredit ID and support materialist versions of evolution is that this novelty, whether in some physical system or in a computer program, arises without the supervision or input of an intelligent being.

Pennock's talk was supposed to detail the "scientific virtues", but he only got to these at the very end. He considers them to be curiosity, skepticism, attentiveness, meticulousness, objectivity, and integrity.

Skepticism? It's certainly not a virtue in the scientific community to be skeptical of materialistic evolution. In fact, there's a word for scientists who are skeptical of any established dogma. Their colleagues refer to them as "crackpots."

The next speaker, Bruce Alberts, formerly the president of the National Academies of Science, [gave a talk the first half of which] was devoted to his research on DNA polymerases, and included a mind-blowing real time animation of the enzyme at work making a copy of the DNA. Oddly, he explicitly and repeatedly used the term "machine" to describe this collection of proteins, despite acknowledging that ID proponents had used his words to suggest such enzymes were analogous to human designed machinery.

The people who work in the labs just can't help themselves. The systems they study are indeed biological machines, and they can't avoid calling them that despite the telic implications of their own language. Biologists have to constantly remind themselves that what they're looking at is not designed by an intelligence but is rather a product of purely blind, mechanical forces.

Alberts was the first to raise what also became a recurring theme at the meeting: the science education system is broken from the top down. This starts in the colleges that train our teachers, which rely on the same general science education classes that those on the research track take, and provide little help in training future teachers to present science to a general audience. Nobody takes responsibility for ensuring that the teachers-to-be have a general understanding of the nature and practice of science.

This is true. A lot of high school science teachers are really not scientists themselves in any but a superficial way. They're simply dispensers of information. Many of them perform this task with considerable skill and artfulness, of course, but they have limited experience actually doing science themselves. Until they start doing graduate work (and sometimes not even then) they have little familiarity with the practice of science except what they gain as a student sitting in a classroom. One way to remedy this would be to require prospective science teachers to serve an internship in a research lab, or doing field research, as part of their education. The experience of actually doing science under the tutelage of a genuine scientific researcher could be very helpful in giving the future teacher a deeper, fuller appreciation of what science is all about.

We'll comment on Part II of Timmer's report tomorrow.