Determined Not to Win

Defying a veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted today on their plan for Iraq:

The vote, which passed 50-48, means little since the president has vowed to veto it, and there are not enough votes to override his veto. What today's vote will do, however, is guarantee that money our troops need to prepare them to face the enemy will be slower in coming and troops needed for the surge in Iraq will find their deployments delayed.

It'll be interesting to see which side caves on this. Will the president, in order to get the needed funding, eventually agree to the timeline for troop withdrawal which is attached to the funding bill, or will the Democrats, in order to avoid responsibility for insisting on withdrawal at precisely the moment when things appear to be turning around, drop their demand for a timeline?

RLC

Two Americas

Former Senator John Edwards has declared he will stay in the race for his party's presidential nomination despite his wife's illness. She suffers from a cancer which can be treated but not cured.

Mr. Edwards is a very wealthy attorney who made his fortune suing doctors. I wonder how Mrs. Edwards' physicians feel about treating her, knowing that the slightest misstep will probably cost them everything they've worked all their life to obtain.

It's interesting to compare how Edwards made his fortune with how physicians make theirs. Doctors charge us for bringing their skills to bear to improve the quality of our lives. Edwards made millions by persuading juries to take the money we pay doctors from them and give some of it to him.

And he wants to be president. Yikes!

RLC

The NAE on Torture (Pt. IV)

This post is the culmination of our series on the statement by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in which they categorically condemn any and all resort to the use of torture. Previous posts in the series can be found here: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

The drafters of the NAE document state that:

The U.N. Convention Against Torture puts it this way: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

Deterring evil ends without resorting to evil means are tasks in tension, but any democracy must face dealing with this tension.

When torture is employed by a state, that act communicates to the world and to one's own people that human lives are not sacred, that they are not reflections of the Creator, that they are expendable, exploitable, and disposable, and that their intrinsic value can be overridden by utilitarian arguments that trump that value. These are claims that no one who confesses Christ as Lord can accept.

This is a very odd assertion. Remember that the NAE, following the Geneva Convention, includes in its proscription of torture any humiliating or degrading treatment which, as we argued in part III, could include almost anything from yelling at the detainee, to employing a female to interrogate him, to placing him in prison. Even if the detainee had information that would save lives the NAE would prohibit us from obtaining that information if doing so was demeaning to the prisoner. But let's set that aside for now.

Let's talk just about inflicting physical distress. As we have said in previous posts this is a great evil when done under almost all circumstances in which it usually occurs in this fallen world, but it is simply fallacious to argue that therefore it is always a great evil.

Consider the classic scenario in which a terrorist has planted a suitcase nuke in a major city set to go off in a few hours. The authorities have captured the terrorist and he has admitted as much, but he refuses to say where the bomb is located. Tens of thousands of people will die in the blast and subsequent radiation fallout. Many more will be gravely sickened. The economy of the nation will collapse if the city is a financial hub and millions will be made destitute. The entire nation may collapse if the target city is Washington, D.C.

It is known that there is a form of physical coercion called waterboarding which actually does no harm to the subject but induces the sensation of drowning which results in panic. No one has been able to endure it for more than a minute or two without breaking and talking. The terrorist could in a matter of minutes be made to produce the location of the bomb, but the NAE would absolutely prohibit obtaining the information in that manner. They say that we would be "communicating to the world and to our own people that a human life (the terrorist's) is not sacred, that it is not a reflection of the Creator, that it is expendable, exploitable, and disposable, and that its intrinsic value can be overridden by utilitarian arguments that trump that value."

I would suggest that the NAE is communicating that exact same message by refusing to save the lives of tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children simply because it would entail subjecting their murderer to extreme discomfort until he provided the information necessary to save them. I suggest that the NAE statement places greater value on the life of the terrorist than it does on the lives of innocent Americans. It is a case of moral inversion that is so bizarre as to be literally incredible.

But let's set aside the question of the justification of torture and ask why we should think that this particular technique, waterboarding, constitutes torture. What are some possible answers to that question that the NAE might give?

Perhaps they'd say it's torture because it's painful.

But apparently there's not much pain involved, and if there were it would only be brief since people only hold out for a few seconds when subjected to it.

Perhaps it's torture because it does lasting harm to the detainee.

Evidently not. The individual is no doubt shaken but none the worse for the experience. In fact, interrogators have had it done to them just so they know what it feels like.

Perhaps it's torture because it's done to punish.

But it's not. It's done to elicit information. Once the subject cooperates the treatment ceases.

Perhaps it's torture because it's unpleasant.

Surely, though, an unpleasant experience is not ipso facto torture. If it were, then putting someone in restraints or feeding them institutional food would be torture.

Perhaps it's torture because it frightens the terrorist.

Indeed, it does frighten the terrorist, but so does the prospect of being executed for their crimes or being put in prison for the rest of their life. Should they not be threatened with these possibilities? Why must we be so squeamish that we are reluctant even to scare people who are trying to murder our children?

Perhaps it's torture because it elicits information against the detainee's will.

It certainly does motivate the terrorist to divulge information, but the fact that they don't do so willingly is hardly reason to think that the method is somehow tainted. If it were then phone taps, etc would be torture since they are means by which we obtain information from people who would not otherwise willingly give it.

Perhaps, it's torture because some men are exerting power over another.

Yes, but so is a cop who stops you for a traffic violation, and we don't consider that torture.

The fact is that the suspect has complete control over how long the process lasts or whether it will even begin. This is an important point. The terrorist is essentially in total control of what, if anything, happens to him. He's no more damaged when it's over than when it started. He experiences no sensation other than panic and though he's frightened, he knows that he really is not drowning. So why would waterboarding be considered torture but, say, lengthy imprisonment, which may do some, or even all, of the things mentioned above, is not?

I really have no answer to the question. It simply makes no sense to me to ban this technique, but if someone can point out something that I'm overlooking I'm certainly willing to reconsider. Meanwhile, the NAE should rescind their document in order to recraft a statement which is more rigorously thought out and which does justice to the complexities of the issue.

RLC

No Friend of UF

Is there anyone more petty or childish than the self-important Brahmins who staff university faculties? The University of Florida has taken the unprecedented step of denying an honorary degree to one of the finest governors the state of Florida has ever had. We are left to guess at the reasons, but we're going to assume, while we speculate, that those reasons have little if anything to do with the ostensive rationalizations offered by committee spokespersons:

University of Florida President Bernie Machen said Friday he was "tremendously disappointed" with the school's Faculty Senate vote to deny former Gov. Jeb Bush an honorary degree.

The Senate voted 38-28 Thursday against giving the honorary degree to Bush, who left office in January.

"Jeb Bush has been a great friend of the University of Florida," said Machen, adding that the Senate's action is "unheard of."

Some faculty expressed concern about Bush's record in higher education.

"I really don't feel this is a person who has been a supporter of UF," Kathleen Price, associate dean of library and technology at the school's Levin College of Law, told The Gainesville Sun after the vote.

Bush's approval of three new medical schools during his tenure has diluted resources, Price told the newspaper.

Bush has also been criticized for his "One Florida" proposal, an initiative that ended race-based admissions programs at state universities.

Machen maintains, however, that Bush has benefited the university, such as by providing the funding to attract nationally recognized faculty.

Machen also pointed to Bush's First Generation Scholarship program, modeled after a University of Florida effort to help high school students at risk of not making it to college.

University officials said they could not recall any precedent for the Senate rejecting the nominees put forth by the Faculty Senate's Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee. The committee determines whether nominees deserve consideration according to standards that include "eminent distinction in scholarship or high distinction in public service."

"The committee endorsed him," Machen said. "It is unheard of that a faculty committee would look at candidates, make recommendations and then (those candidates) be overturned by the Senate."

Any of our readers who think that maybe Bush was denied this honor not because he was "not a friend of UF" but rather because he is a Republican named Bush should just be ashamed of themselves for thinking that.

RLC

Intellectual Diversity at Indoctrinate U.

How do Darwinian professors show their students that Intelligent Design is bad science? They demand that ID presentations on campus be shut down. If students don't hear the arguments, their profs evidently believe, then they won't find them persuasive.

Free speech in the marketplace of ideas is okay for Marxists and Vagina Monologuers, but when students start holding conferences that seek to inform people about current controversies in the philosophy of science, well, that's just going too far, at least at Southern Methodist University:

Science professors upset about a presentation on "Intelligent Design" fired blistering letters to the administration, asking that the event be shut down. The "Darwin vs. Design" conference, co-sponsored by the SMU law school's Christian Legal Society, will say that a designer with the power to shape the cosmos is the best explanation for aspects of life and the universe. The event is produced by the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based organization that says it has scientific evidence for its claims.

The anthropology department at SMU begged to differ:

"These are conferences of and for believers and their sympathetic recruits," said the letter sent to administrators by the department. "They have no place on an academic campus with their polemics hidden behind a deceptive mask."

Similar letters were sent by the biology and geology departments.

The university is not going to cancel the event, interim provost Tom Tunks said Friday. The official response is a statement that the event to be held in McFarlin Auditorium April 13-14 is not endorsed by the school:

"Although SMU makes its facilities available as a community service, and in support of the free marketplace of ideas, providing facilities for those programs does not imply SMU's endorsement of the presenters' views," the statement said.

Many SMU science professors say they are worried that merely allowing "Darwin vs. Design" on campus could give the public impression that Intelligent Design has support from scientists at the school.

The collision started last year, when law student Sarah Levy learned that the Discovery Institute wanted to hold a series of "Darwin vs. Design" conferences, including one in Dallas. Ms. Levy is president of the SMU chapter of the Christian Legal Society, which has about 100 members. SMU requires outside groups to have an official university organization as co-sponsor for any event to be held on campus.

"It is a very pertinent topic of debate right now and one that has some legal controversy around it," Ms. Levy said. "So it seemed that it was an appropriate event for the legal society to sponsor."

The two-day event will feature well-known supporters of Intelligent Design. Dr. Michael Behe is author of the book Darwin's Black Box and was a key witness in 2005 at a federal trial that produced a ruling that Intelligent Design was religion rather than science.

While some who are leading the protest acknowledge the need for free speech and academic freedom, they say this event doesn't qualify.

"This is propaganda," said Dr. John Ubelaker, former chairman of the biology department. "Using the campus for propaganda does not fit into anybody's scheme of intellectual discussion."

Other biologists compared the conference to a presentation by Holocaust deniers. Would the university allow that to happen?

"Propaganda"? "Holocaust deniers"? What's next, IDers portrayed as Nazis? People have to be very insecure in their convictions to resort to such desperate tactics to try to prevent the other side from being heard.

Physics professor Randy Scalise regularly teaches a class that is called "The Scientific Method," but is generally referred to as "debunking pseudoscience." He's told his students to attend the conference - but he said he's preparing them with material to put it into a scientific context.

But he wishes the conference wasn't happening.

"I think that by having them on campus, we are giving them legitimacy," he said.

In other words, the other side must not be allowed to speak lest someone, somewhere realize that there is an intellectually compelling alternative to Darwinian materialism. The pretense of illegitimacy must be maintained so that students not be tempted to think for themselves.

SMU: Branch campus of Indoctrinate U.

RLC

Thought For A Sunday

Here's a passage from Great Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews Chapter 11 by E.W. Bullinger pp. 176-7. I just love this guy. He presents his position on how we should conduct ourselves that should be considered not just by those who wallow in a guilt-induced neurosis from obsession about sin and spiritual failure, but all of us.

The context follows his discussion of "Faith-obedience", "the obedience which proceeds from, and is produced by, a living faith in the Living God. In other words, it is the acting as if what we heard were true."

Written about 100 years ago, parts of it are so refreshing, so revolutionary yet some, I suspect, will find them controversial. I'll try to finish the article next Sunday.

We hear, for example, what God says about our condition by nature; that we are not only ruined sinners, on account of what we have done, but ruined creatures, on account of what we are. Do we believe it? If so, we shall act accordingly, and the belief will make us so sad and miserable, that we shall thankfully believe what He says when He declares that He has provided a substitute for the sinner so believing and so convicted; and that He has accepted that perfect One in the sinner's stead.

If we believe this we shall be at peace with God; and have no more concern or trouble about our standing, in His sight; we shall have nothing to do but to get to know more and more of Him, and to be giving Him thanks for what He hath done in making us meet for His glorious presence. We shall not be for ever putting ourselves back into our old place from which we have been delivered. We shall not be always asking for forgiveness of the sins for which He was delivered, because we shall be always rejoicing in Him "in Whom WE HAVE redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins" (Col. i. 14), and while we are giving Him thanks for "HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES" (Col. ii.13), we shall forget our old occupation of for ever confessing our sins and praying for forgiveness.

We shall be looking and pressing forward to the "CALLING ON HIGH" (Phil. iii. 14).

We shall be free to witness for Him, and to engage in His service, being no longer occupied with ourselves, our walk, or our life. We shall be no longer taken up with judging our brethren, knowing that the same Lord has "made them meet" also; and that they are members of "the same body," and that we shall soon be called on high together. We shall cherish our fellowship with them here (if they will let us) knowing that we shall soon be "together" with them there.

We shall hold not only the precious doctrinal truth connected with Christ the Head of the one Body, but the practical truths connected with the members of that Body.

We shall seek to learn ever more and more of God's purposes connected with "the great mystery concerning Christ and His Church," and to enter into all that concerns its glorious Head.

We shall have such an insight into His wondrous wisdom Who has ordered all these things that we shall thankfully prefer it to our own.

We shall recognize that His "will," manifested in the working out of His eternal purpose, is so perfect, that we shall prefer it to our own, and desire it to work out all else that concerns us.

To be continued...

Gonzalez Must Go

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, currently on the griddle for his role in the perfectly legal dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, should indeed resign, but not for the reason that the Democrats are squawking about.

He should resign for failing to uphold our laws and defend our borders as reported in this story:

Documents released in the controversy about eight fired U.S. attorneys show that federal prosecutors in Texas generally have declined to bring criminal charges against illegal immigrants caught crossing the border - until at least their sixth arrest.

A heavily redacted Department of Justice memo from late 2005 disclosed the prosecution guidelines for immigration offenses, numbers the federal government tries to keep classified. DOJ officials would not say Thursday whether it has adjusted the number since the memo was written, citing "law enforcement reasons."

The prosecution guidelines have been a source of frustration for years among the ranks of U.S. Border Patrol agents, said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. Smugglers can figure out the criteria by trial and error, he said, and can exploit it to avoid prosecution.

"It's devastating on morale," Bonner said. "Our agents are risking their lives out there, and then they're told, 'Sorry, that doesn't meet the criteria.' "

The sad thing is that in failing to arrest illegals Gonzalez is simply doing George Bush's bidding. Bush has been great on taxes, the economy, supreme court nominees (except Harriet Meiers) and the war on terror, but his border policy has been an abject disgrace.

RLC

Doctors Don't Need Evolution

From time to time we hear Darwinists claim that among the fruits of evolutionary biology is the great success of modern medicine. The claim is usually accepted with a knowing nod and very little curiosity about how accurate it is. Neurosurgeon Michael Engor would have us know, however, that there's not much accuracy to it at all. He explains why in this brief but punchy essay.

RLC

Post-Normal

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

Phillips begins with this:

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

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

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

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

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Islam and the West

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

RLC

Power to the People

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

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

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Chickens Coming to Roost

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

The NAE on Torture (Pt. III)

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

The NAE document states that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Ad Man Fired

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

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

RLC

Unspeakable Depravity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Five for One?

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

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

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

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

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

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

RLC

Crawley and Dawkins (Pt. II)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Something for Everyone

Senator Clinton has her bases covered:

RLC

Kurt G�del

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC

The Ugliness of American Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC