Hard to Refute

How can anyone doubt that living things, or at least bananas, are intelligently designed after seeing this?

RLC

The Un-Principle

Allahpundit throws down the gauntlet to the Pelosicrats: He asks them, in effect, to please explain precisely what principles guide their policy on foreign interventions. His request was triggered by this astonishing statement by Senator Joseph Biden:

Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, called Wednesday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.

"I would use American force now," Biden said at a hearing before his committee. "I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it."

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could "radically change the situation on the ground now."

"Let's stop the bleeding," Biden said. "I think it's a moral imperative."

Allahpundit wants to know why it's a moral imperative to intervene in Darfur where we have no national interest but not a moral imperative to stay in Iraq even though leaving there too soon could precipitate a humanitarian disaster that would far exceed the one in Darfur.

He also wonders what guides the Dems' decision to refuse to talk to George Bush about funding our troops in Iraq when they're willing to travel all the way to Syria to talk to the murderous tyrant Bashar Assad who supports Islamic terrorism throughout the world. The Dems also refuse to debate on Fox News but they have no qualms about being seen and feted in Damascus, the hub of world terrorism. Exactly what principles are consulted in the making of these decisions?

The Democrats seem totally incoherent about how the U.S. should exercise its power and influence in the world because, I suspect, their prescriptions are not arrived at as a result of the application of any kind of principle at all, except the principle of political expediency. The rule seems to be: Observe what George Bush is doing, condemn it, and urge something different. That's a principle of sorts, I guess, but not one that commends the moral or intellectual gifts of those who govern by it.

RLC

Conclusive Proof

The debate is over. The Darwinians have won. This computer simulation proves it. All those who invested their epistemic lives in Intelligent Design must now slink abjectly onto the dust heap of history.

If you watch the sim be sure to read the comments. My favorite is #7: "...how showing something that was programmed to change proves that things change without programming is beyond me." Me too.

RLC

NorK Defectors

According to Strategy Page high-ranking defections are becoming a real worry in North Korea:

April 8, 2007: The North Korean regime has issued a strong "reminder" to its diplomats, and other personnel stationed abroad, that they are not to have more than one child with them on a foreign posting. This suggests North Korea is worried about possible defections by diplomats, consular officials, business agents, etc., who've got their wives and kids with them in some foreign country. If they can only take one child with them, those that remain home essentially become hostages to their good behavior. The North Korean government has become increasingly alarmed at the number of diplomats defecting and, even worse, those who stick around, but in the pay for American, South Korean and Chinese intelligence agencies.

The response to this order was startling; many of these parents have refused to send children back to North Korea. To old North Korea hands, such defiance to authority is startling. But these North Korea government officials know their country is a basket case, and are willing to risk losing their jobs, rather than send any of their children back to a home country that is, day-by-day, becoming a hellish parody of the communist "workers paradise."

Historians of communism consider North Korea the pinnacle of police state perfection. Josef Stalin would be envious, or maybe proud, because Stalin was one of the founding fathers of North Korea. The degree of state control in North Korea is far in excess of anything ever achieved in the Soviet Union. But this was achieved using a population already disciplined by centuries of efficient feudalism, and several decades of Japanese colonialism. The Japanese were very disciplined, very strict and very brutal.

By comparison, the North Korean communist government was something of a relief. Moreover, the North Korean communists worked the nationalist and cultural angle successfully. Because of the total control of the media, the North Korean communists created an alternate universe for their subjects to live in.

As small numbers of North Koreans managed to escape over the years, and make their way to South Korea, usually via China, it was amazing to see the culture shock. The North Korean refugees were numbed by the degree of difference between the fantasy view of the outside world created by the North Korea communists and the reality.

But in the last decade reality has seeped into the Perfect Police State, changing the attitudes of the guards as well as the inmates. True Believers have been gradually replaced by Practical Pretenders. What's happening now, with North Korean government officials openly defying their government while pretending not to, is the best example of how North Korea culture is evolving. It's weird, it's wretched, and, in a perverse way, wonderful.

Yes but is it enough to cause them to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons?

RLC

Einstein's Religion

People on both sides of the debate about the existence of God occasionally cite the views of Albert Einstein as providing support for their side. This is tricky business since Einstein's views were unorthodox. He was not a theist who believed in a personal God nor was he an atheist who discarded the idea of God altogether.

He was, in fact, a good example of a modern deist who believed that there is some force or intellect which established the moral and physical laws of the universe but which does not interfere with those laws in any way. Einstein did not believe in life after death and did not believe that humans possessed free will, although he did believe that we have to live as if we are free.

The current issue of Time has an interesting column by Walter Isaacson on Einstein's religion which explores these beliefs in more detail. It's worth a read for those curious as to what, exactly, Einstein thought about God.

RLC

It's All Your Fault

I was watching Meet the Press last Sunday morning and was appalled to hear Chuck Todd of NBC News suggest that were he a Republican what he would advise them to do is let the Democrats have their way on the Iraq war, let things devolve into chaos after we pull out, and then capitalize on Democratic ineptitude in the 2008 election.

I was astonished that a prominent news commentator would so baldly place political success above peoples' lives. Rarely is a public figure willing to be seen as so utterly unprincipled as to sacrifice tens of thousands of innocent lives in order to make political hay out of the debacle. Yet that's what this Democrat cynically advises the Republicans to do.

Here's the exchange, which was triggered by discussion of Bush's promise to veto the Democrats bill authorizing funding for the troops and setting a timetable for withdrawal:

MR. CHUCK TODD: What I don't understand [about] what the White House is doing is that every time Democrats propose something that allows them to potentially take co-ownership of the war, Bush actually stops them, and politically it actually puts the Democrats in an advantageous position because they can sit there and say, "Well, you know what, we've tried to take some responsibility for this war. The president won't do it. He's vetoing this legislation. This is still Bush's war. This is still a Republican war." And that's sort of the frustration that I'm sensing from some Republicans, not, not inside the White House, but on Capital Hill and on the campaign trail a little bit, to sit there and say, "Guys, let the Democrats share some ownership of this thing or this war's going to make 2006 seem like a party." In 2008 it's going to be a real death knell for the Republican Party.

MR. RUSSERT: So if you're a real cynic, you can say all right, let the Democrats have their way, let them set the deadline of March or August of '08.

MR. TODD: And let them own this war. That's right.

MR. RUSSERT: Start bringing the troops home then. Chaos breaks out, you say that's the Democratic solution.

MR. TODD: That's right. "We tried it - we tried it - we tried it your way," and then suddenly it's a referendum on, well, do you want the Republicans to run this war or the Democrats to run this war? And you've gotten a taste of what it would look like if the Democrats ran this war.

And then what? What does Todd think we should do when Iraq spirals into chaos and the whole Middle East is in flames - point fingers at each other and say, "It's all your fault"? This is an incredibly repugnant piece of advice, as impractical as it is immoral. Todd, of course, would love to see the president acquiesce to timetables for withdrawals and he's trying to argue that this would in fact be a good political move for the president. On the contrary, it would be utterly reprehensible and Todd's cynicism should be lambasted by his media colleagues.

But of course it won't be.

RLC

He Didn't Like it Here*

It was hard to have come of age in the 60s without having read something by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's novels Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (1965), and SlaughterHouse Five (1969) captured the spirit of that turbulent time better than perhaps anything else that young people were reading. Among other contributions his work made these novels presaged the ripening of modernity's twin fruits of nihilism and meaninglessness that have afflicted European and American culture since the 70s.

Vonnegut died yesterday from brain injuries suffered during a fall some weeks ago. So it goes.

*Read the poem at the link.

RLC

Justice for Nifong

What sort of person must a man be who knowingly destroys the reputations of three young men, wrecks the lives of all their families, ruins an athletic season for dozens more, all on the testimony of a notoriously unreliable witness who the man, a district attorney, had every reason to know was lying? It seems hard to believe that anyone could be that contemptible but that's precisely what Michael Nifong did in the Duke "rape" case.

What his motives were is unclear. Some speculated that he saw a political opportunity to ingratiate himself with the African-American community and the ideological left by pressing charges against privileged white males accused of raping a black woman. It turns out that the woman was a liar, both emotionally and mentally unstable, and whatever Nifong's intentions were in prosecuting this case he clearly was guilty, at best, of total incompetence and at worst of prosecutorial abuse in being willing to destroy the lives of people he knew were innocent.

Now he faces eviction from the North Carolina Bar as well as civil suits which will almost certainly be brought against him by the families of the students. His career as a lawyer and a politician is evidently over. He'll doubtless be paying damages to the families for the rest of his life. If so, he'll be getting what he deserves.

We might hope that next somebody gets after the 88 Duke faculty who signed a letter condemning the accused boys before the whole world, and the craven president of the university who acted as if the students were guilty before any evidence had been produced against them.

We might also hope that somebody calls to account the various race hustlers, like Jesse Jackson, who were so blinded by their own racism that they assumed that a black girl known to be of dubious virtue was more credible than the protestations of innocence of privileged white boys.

The whole episode highlights the moral poverty and intellectual bankruptcy of common liberal assumptions about race, class and gender and the utter fatuousness of political correctness. Many liberals are so invested in the dogma that a woman who claims rape is not lying, they're so committed to the mythology of the exploitation of black women at the hands of white men, that the young Duke students were, in their minds, guilty as a matter of course.

What is on trial in the Duke imbroglio is more than the abuses of one arrogant, cruel, and stupid prosecutor. What is on trial in Durham is the mindset of many in the secular far left which demands that justice be subordinated to ideology. A lot of people have, in this sordid episode, vividly demonstrated that they are willing to believe anything, no matter how vile, about wealthy white men if the allegation against them is made by a black woman. That tells us a great deal about where the locus of racism and sexism is to be found in this country.

RLC

More on Demeaning Blacks

Our post Demeaning Blacks elicited a number of questions about what, exactly, my point was. Did I think it inappropriate to compliment blacks, some wondered. Am I so PC that I think that anything a white person says to a black person is automatically suspicious?

Well, no, but I do think that there are assumptions buried in much of what we say about matters of race, and some of those assumptions would surprise us if we were aware of them. I think they would especially surprise liberals since these folk often make a special effort to demonstrate that they are certainly not racist, even if those rednecks for whom they have such disdain are.

The basic purpose of our original post was to observe that when someone says about a black man that he's "articulate," the tacit meaning of the statement is that "he's articulate for a black man." This is a compliment to the individual, I suppose, but in my view it's an insult to blacks in general. The assumption on the part of the speaker is that it's not the norm to find a black man who can speak properly. The fact that one rarely hears whites described this way is evidence that articulateness is taken for granted among whites but not among blacks and that the speaker is mildly surprised to encounter a black man who expresses himself in standard English.

When I was growing up I used to hear people say about some handsome celebrity that he's "a good-looking black man." They didn't say that he's a good-looking man but that he's a good-looking black man. What they were actually asserting, without realizing it, probably, was that the celebrity was good-looking for a black man, as if black attractiveness is to be measured on a different, and doubtless more relaxed, scale than that of whites.

I thought this was insulting to blacks then, and I think the "articulate" compliment is, for the same reason, insulting now - not to the individual, of course, but to African-Americans in general.

The funny thing is that neither the person who insults by voicing the compliment nor the person who is complimented usually realizes what's really being said and what assumptions give rise to it.

Perhaps it would be interesting when we hear someone say that so and so is "articulate" to ask them if that surprises them. The question might help to expose the unfortunate assumptions that underlie their observation.

RLC

Dispelling the Myths

Our Feedback page has an interesting reply from a student to a post from a while back that addressed several myths about intelligent design. The student believes that these claims are not myths at all, but are indeed accurate criticisms of ID. I encourage readers to check out his argument.

I've copied my reply to him here:

Excellent reply A_. I'm very impressed with your knowledge of this issue. Let me see if I can respond to your critique of the three myths you address.

You wrote that:

Myth #1: The theory of intelligent design is a modern version of Creationism.

Right or wrong it is true that in our country the modern interpretation of ID comes from fundamental creationist Christians. The Dover trial clearly proved this. This does not mean that ID is not true. It only means that in our society, the vast majority of those that buy into the "faith" in ID happen to be Christians. It may be true that abstractly ID goes back deep in history, but it is not a myth that the modern rebirth of ID is a Christian mechanism to reduce what Christians see as the corrupting influence of Darwinism on the youth.

It is true that most, though not all, proponents of ID are Christians and that ID can trace it's lineage back to earlier creationists. It does not follow, however, that ID is a modern version of Creationism any more than the fact that chemistry can trace its lineage to alchemy or astronomy to astrology means that these sciences are modern versions of their predecessors. Chemistry is not alchemy and ID is not Creationism.

The theoretical structure of Creationism is completely different than that of ID. Creationism depends upon the literal truth of Genesis and upon the creator being the God of the Bible. ID doesn't. Creationism is incompatible with macroevolution. ID isn't. If Genesis were shown to be false and God not to exist, Creationism would be destroyed, but ID as a theory would be unscathed.

The fact that most ID proponents are Christians is irrelevant to the validity of the theory. Suppose most evolutionists were Christians (many are). Would that count against the truth of evolution? Or suppose that most atheists are Darwinians (which they are). Does that count against the truth of Darwinism?

You also wrote:

Myth #2: The theory of intelligent design claims that the designer is the God described in the Bible.

Well, in fact, the modern view is indeed a Christian invention. The modern ID movement is one that has been fueled almost entirely by "The Discovery Institute". There is no dispute over the fact that the Discovery Institute is a Christian based organization.

If one were to simply ask Americans that believe in ID the question: if there is an intelligent designer what or who do you think it is? ....it is undeniably true that the vast majority of those Americans would answer that the designer is none other one or all of the Holy Trinity. Even though, at a philosophical level it is true that ID in no way implies any specific God or even a God at all.

The fact that the DI is comprised of Christians or that many ID proponents believe that the designer is the Judeo-Christian God does not mean that it must be God. There is nothing in ID theory or literature which makes a necessary connection between the two. The fact that most people believe that the designer is God does not weigh against the theory of ID any more than the fact that most people believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had an accomplice when he shot JFK weighs against the theory that he acted alone.

The designer could be an alien residing in some other galaxy, it could be an inhabitant of the multiverse, it could be a Platonic demiurge, it could be a Hegelian universal spirit, or it could be the God of Christianity. ID takes no position on the identity of the designer.

Myth #3 "Conservatives and Christians necessarily accept the intelligent design argument".

This would only be a myth if it said that all Christians accept ID. Nevertheless, it does seem true that very few non-Christians or non-conservatives believe in the ID "religion".

The word necessarily means the same thing as logically must so the above sentence in the myth is equivalent to saying that all Christians logically must accept ID; they cannot be a Christian and not accept it. It's like saying that if a figure is a triangle then it must have three angles. It cannot be a triangle and have four angles. It is not the case, of course, that Christians must accept ID in the same way that they must accept that a triangle has three angles and that's why it's a myth to say that the two are logically connected. Indeed, some of ID's most effective opponents are Christians (Ken Miller of Brown, for example).

Likewise, from the fact that few non-Christians accept ID one cannot conclude that therefore Christians must accept it. That would be like arguing that because few Democrats support the president that therefore Republicans must (in the logical sense, not the practical sense) support him.

Anyway, you did an outstanding job with this critique, A_, and I hope you continue to follow the debate on this issue. We post on it often at Viewpoint. ID may in the end turn out to be false. It may be that it's not good science (though it's certainly philosophy of science), but right now it's a much more powerful and compelling idea than it's detractors would have us believe, and few of the arguments against it seem, to me at least, very convincing.

RLC

The World as Information

Here's an abstract of an article by Carlos Gershenson on information in the biosphere. It's interesting that, though Gershenson is not, as far as I know, sympathetic to Intelligent Design, he finds it much easier to think of the world as information than as matter. Yet information (specified complexity) is invariably in our experience produced by minds, not physical forces.

ABSTRACT: This philosophical paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter difficulties because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms of matter and energy, falling into a dualist trap. However, if matter and energy, as well as life and cognition, are described in terms of information, evolution can be described consistently as information becoming more complex. Moreover, information theory is already well established and formalized. The paper presents five tentative laws of information, which are generalizations of Darwinian, cybernetic, thermodynamic, and complexity principles. These are further used to discuss the notions of life and cognition, including their origins and evolution.

Having in mind that we are using metaphors, this paper proposes to extend the concept of information to describe the world: from elementary particles to galaxies, with everything in between, particularly life and cognition. There is no suggestion on the nature of reality as information. This work only explores the advantages of describing the world as information.

He goes on to say in his paper that:

...the difference between biological and physical systems is given by the meaningful information content of the former ones. Not that information is not present in physical systems, but...information is passive in physics and active in biology. However, it becomes complicated to describe how this information came to be in terms of the physical laws of matter and energy. In other words, it is not obvious to describe information in terms of physics, as it requires an interpreter to "decode" the information.

...if we cannot relate properly matter and energy with life and cognition, we are forced to see these as separate categories. Once this breach is made, there is no clear way of studying or understanding how systems with life and cognition evolved from those without it. If we see matter and energy as particular, simple cases of information, the dualist trap is avoided by following a continuum in the evolution of the universe.

Unfortunately, the author defines information as any stimulus detected by any entity. Thus the negative charge of an electron is information when it is reacted to by another electron. Thus everything is information, and if everything is information then nothing is.

Even so, the important point in all this is to note that materialists are finding it more and more difficult to account for the world solely in terms of matter. The world has the aspect of that which is produced by minds even if the materialist recoils from so blunt a concession and even if he resists following the implications to their logical conclusion in a creative mind.

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

An IPod in Every Pot

The Detroit News doesn't think that the state Democrats' plan to buy every kid in Michigan his/her own ipod while the state faces a $1 billion deficit is such a good idea:

We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.

No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to "invest" in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.

The Democrats, led by their increasingly erratic speaker Andy Dillon of Redford Township, also pledge $100 million to make better downtowns. Their plan goes beyond cluelessness. Democrats are either entirely indifferent to the idea that extreme hard times demand extreme belt tightening, or they are bone stupid. We lean toward the latter.

We say that because the House plan also keeps alive, again without specifics, the promise of tax hikes.

We wonder how financially strained Michigan residents will feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else's kid an iPod.

This is actually mild rhetoric compared to the title of the column which you can see at the link. Even so, it's hard to disagree with the paper's assessment of the foolishness of the state legislators' proposal.

RLC

More on Imus

Yesterday I wrote about the Don Imus imbroglio (see below), and I thought I should explain that the purpose of that post was to point out the disparity in treatment between Imus's suspension and the punishment meted out to others whose offenses were far less racially offensive than was his.

Having said that, I want also to point out that I don't think Imus, for whom I have no sympathy, said anything in the present episode that was racist or malicious (although his producer, I think it was, uses a racist epithet that should have gotten him fired). Imus's remark was racial, to be sure, but not racist, and much of the commentary that I've heard on this incident, by mistakenly focussing on it's alleged racism, misses the really outrageous aspect of it.

Watching the video of Imus it's clear that he was, in his mind, actually praising the girls on the Rutgers basketball team. He was using what he doubtless thought was black street-slang in order to compliment their prowess on the court. This is what I think the media is missing, and what is so despicable about the incident.

It is only in a degenerate culture that someone of Imus's stature, much less the millions of young people who use language like he used, could think that he was being complimentary by calling these young women "whores."

We have feted and celebrated rap culture to the point now where millions of people think that it is high praise to call a young woman a whore and a lot of young women are no doubt flattered by being called one. "Artists" in this culture dehumanize women by treating them as little more than receptacles for male libido and then the larger pop culture treats the artists as though they are some sort of prophet.

The depressing thing about the Imus incident is that the media, missing the point as usual, is trying to turn Imus's words into a manifestation of racism when in fact they're nothing of the kind. It's really an instance of the language of a sleazy, depauperate American popular culture bubbling to the surface.

Imus should indeed be censured by his employers, but not, in this instance, for being racist or racially hateful, but for perpetuating the demeaning, degrading, dehumanizing view of women rampant in a sub-culture that the media itself has helped spawn.

RLC

Slap on the Wrist

Rush Limbaugh was fired from ESPN for claiming that the media overrated Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb because they wanted to see a black QB succeed in the NFL. Trent Lott was fired as Senate Majority leader because he said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday that he would've made a fine president when he ran for the office back in 1948. Jimmy the Greek and Tom Brookshier lost their jobs as sports announcers, the first because he suggested that blacks were bred during slavery for physical excellence and Brookshier because he suggested that the members of a college basketball team, all of whom were black, weren't too bright.

Think what you will about any of these firings for real or alleged racially offensive remarks, none of them was anywhere near as repugnant as Don Imus's remark calling the members of the Rutgers girls basketball team "nappy-headed 'hos." So, what punishment did the reliably anti-Bush Imus get from his employers at the very liberal MSNBC? Two weeks suspension and that only after there was an outcry from the African-American community over Imus' outrageous insult of these girls.

When it comes to race it seems that some people get a pass and some don't. No matter how egregious your remarks, if you're on the right (actually left) side of the ideological divide you get a slap on the wrist. No matter how innocuous your words, if you're on the wrong side you get crucified.

By refusing to can the perpetually offensive Imus MSNBC is saying that calling a group of black female athletes "whores" on national radio/television is not that big a deal.

RLC

Journalistic Embarrassment

Journalists need to write to justify their paycheck, to be sure, but most journalists prefer to write about things they know something about so as not to make themselves look utterly foolish. Few of them are as eager to display their ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and contempt for the concept of the free exchange of ideas as eagerly as is Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News.

Consider this passage from her recent column on the Intelligent Design conference to be held at Southern Methodist University:

"Those who favor intelligent design seek to prove that evolution is impossible because the complexity of human systems is beyond the capacity of the Darwinian process to accomplish. Hence, humankind must have been created by a supreme designer."

In just two sentences she manages to make at least four errors all of which she could have avoided had she taken the trouble to do a little research:

1. ID proponents do not seek to prove evolution is wrong. Many of them are themselves evolutionists. The seek to show that the materialist assumptions which undergird contemporary evolutionary theory are inadequate.

2. It is not the complexity of living systems that is at odds with physicalist versions of evolution such as Darwinism, rather it is the ubiquity of specified complexity - complex arrangements of things in specified patterns - that makes the claim that physical mechanisms like natural selection and genetic mutation are all that are needed to account for life implausible. Specified complexity, i.e. information such as we find in DNA and proteins, has never been shown to be a product of blind, mechanical forces, but is always the product of intelligence.

3. It is not just the specified complexity of human systems which needs to be explained, as anyone with even a minimal knowledge of the subject is aware, it is the specified complexity found throughout the entire biosphere as well as the exquisite fine-tuning of the cosmic constants, force strengths, and other parameters that have led many scientists and philosophers to the conclusion that there is an intelligence behind it all.

4. ID says nothing at all about who or what the designer is. To suggest that it is a supreme being is to go well beyond what ID posits. The designer could be a "demiurge" as Plato thought, or the impersonal prime mover of Aristotle, or it could be a universal mind such as the European Idealists envisioned, it could be an alien in our own universe, or it could be an inhabitant of one of the universes in the multiverse, or it could be the Judeo-Christian God. On the identity of the designer ID is officially silent.

Ms. Cullum, having acomplished the remarkable feat of having proved herself to be a journalistic lightweight in just two short sentences, is nevertheless unabashed. She plods resolutely on, determined to make herself look as benighted as one person can possibly look. She declares, for example, that:

"Their [ID proponents] mistake is presenting themselves as a science and Charles Darwin as their natural enemy when, in fact, they are arguing from a religious base."

It's not clear how people can present themselves "as a science" but leave her maladroit syntax aside. What exactly does it mean to argue from a "religious base"? Does the fact that most IDers are believers disqualify them from advancing a theory about biology or cosmology? Does Richard Dawkins' anti-religious "base" disqualify him from talking about origins? Of course not, but perhaps we're expecting Ms Cullum to have thought matters through more thoroughly than she is accustomed.

Maybe this is what she means by ID's "religious base":

"The principal funder of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, sponsor of this confab along with the Christian Legal Society at SMU's Dedman School of Law, is Howard Ahmanson, who long has shown interest in conservative religion."

Ah. Well, that settles that. The driving force behind the conference is a man of traditional religious views. It's an outrage that a Methodist school would host a scientific conference financed by a man who is a Christian. Imagine. Someone with conservative religious views, in Ms Cullum's world, should not have the same rights to support his ideas as everyone else, and if a religious person funds an academic institute then that Institute is perforce religious and thus out of place in a Methodist university. I wonder what John Wesley thinks of all this.

Much of the remainder of the column is pretty much incoherent but there are a few lines worthy of note. She says, for instance, that:

"If advocates of intelligent design would assemble a conference with their own speakers and professors versus, say, Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and an evolutionary biologist, that would be a solid and fascinating program."

Does this mean that if the organizers sought to make this a religious debate rather than a discussion on the philosophical assumptions of science that that would meet with Ms Cullum's approval? As long as it were an entertaining conference then SMU would be justified in hosting it? Are all academic conferences at SMU required to offer platforms to opposing points of view? Would Ms Cullum place the same demand upon a conference of Darwinians? The questions raised by Ms Cullum's column are endless and none of them flatter her.

Interestingly, the organizers of the conference did issue an invitation to each science department at SMU, including the anthropology department, to debate the issues during the conference. None has accepted. Perhaps Ms Cullum would be willing to step in and fill the void by debating, say, Bill Dembski or Michael Behe, since the Darwinians at SMU have suddenly realized that they're busy that evening and since she obviouisly, being a journalist, has a great deal of expertise in these matters.

Undaunted, Ms Cullum presses on:

"Intelligent design is not science, and SMU, though unassailable in its defense of free speech, needs to rethink its policy regarding future use of its facilities and their implied prestige."

So, if a theory is not a scientific theory in Ms Cullum's thinking then it has no business using SMU's facilities to air it's ideas. Does she editorialize against allowing historians, or literary scholars, or philosophers use of the university's facilities? Even if it were granted that ID is not science, a concession I'm not convinced is necessary, it is at least philosophy of science. Has the materialist inquisition whose water Ms. Cullum is carrying suddenly decreed that philosophy of science is intellectually and academically disreputable?

"The university does not have a First Amendment obligation to provide a venue to intellectually suspect arguments, unless they are framed in a way that does not violate settled history (the Holocaust) or settled science. Care must be taken, of course, in discerning which bodies of knowledge are rooted in fact and which are not. But an institution devoted to the life of the mind does have a right and a duty to make those choices."

There are two things about this paragraph that merit comment. First, Ms. Cullum's rule would have prevented Albert Einstein from speaking at SMU, or, for that matter, Charles Darwin. It would also have banned the early advocates of quantum theory and the Big Bang and modern advocates of string theory and science writers like Paul Davies who support the idea of the multiverse. Each of these has certainly "violated" settled science.

Second, Ms Cullum glides seamlessly from declaring ID to be extra-scientific to declaring it therefore to be intellectually suspect. This is a fine example of scientism - the view that whatever is not scientific is intellectually inferior and not suitable for discussion at an academic institution.

Since Ms. Cullum has set herself up as an authority on what is called the demarcation problem in science perhaps she'll be so gracious as to answer a couple of questions about it.

ID's fundamental claim is that natural processes by themselves are not adequate to explain the fine-tuning of the cosmos nor the specified complexity of the biological world. If that claim isn't science, then how does its denial, the claim that natural processes are sufficient to explain these things, qualify as science? Indeed, how would one scientifically test the claim that natural processes alone produced our world?

I doubt Ms. Cullum has an answer to those questions, but we won't press her any further. She's embarrassed herself enough already.

RLC

Sam Harris and Self-Refutation

An L.A. Times article quotes anti-theist writer Sam Harris as saying that, "Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music."

Apparently Harris embraces the credo of evidentialism, famously expressed in William Clifford's (1845-1879) syncopated cadences, that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence."

The problem for Harris and Clifford is that they both deeply believe this proposition even though they can not cite an iota of evidence in support of its truth. What evidence could possibly be adduced in support of the claim that it is always wrong to believe anything on insufficient evidence? In fact, the evidentialist claim, ironically enough, is an article of faith.

This puts our evidentialist friends in an awkward philosophical pickle: If their credo is false then obviously Harris and Clifford should not believe it since it's not true. But if it is true they still should not believe it because they have no evidence for it. Either way, Harris clearly believes something he should, by his own standard, not believe. This is how we define a very confused man.

Mr. Harris is featured in the current Newsweek in a conversation with Pastor Rick Warren moderated by Jon Meacham. The conversation was supposed to be about the question "Is God Real?" but unfortunately the interlocutors wandered off on digressions into the truth of the Bible and Christianity and other matters even less relevant to the question of God's reality. Even so, Harris' confusion was prominent in this piece when he insisted that:

"I'm not at all a moral relativist...I think there is an absolute right and wrong. I think honor killing is unambiguously wrong...."

Now this is very odd. If there is no transcendent moral authority how can anything be wrong at all much less absolutely wrong? What Harris is doing is simply expressing his personal dislike for "honor killing" (killing a daughter or sister who has brought sexual disrepute upon the family - a practice not uncommon in the Arab world). He's declaring that honor killing displeases him and is offensive to his tastes, but he has no grounds for saying that the practice is "wrong" unless he wants to argue that whatever displeases him is ipso facto morally wrong. This move, however, would require an extraordinary measure of hubris, even for Mr. Harris.

Harris believes honor killings and so on are wrong because they are the negation of human empathy which is a product of evolution, but just because evolution gives rise to some trait like empathy, assuming that it does, is no reason to think that that trait is morally incumbent upon us, and certainly no reason to think it is absolutely so. To reason this way is to try to derive an "ought" from an "is." It is to say that because things are a certain way that therefore they ought to be that way. In logic this error is called the naturalistic or genetic fallacy, and it's really quite surprising to come upon a well educated person in this day and age who still commits it.

RLC

Johnny Hart (1931-2007)

One of the best cartoonists in the business died Saturday while working at his storyboard. Johnny Hart, creator of the comic strip B.C., died at the age of 76. Michelle has details and a lot of background on Hart. His characters were always among my favorites, and it seems like I had been reading his stuff ever since I can remember. He'll be missed.

RLC

Re: Amazing Grace

A student of mine, Eric, replies to our recent post on the movie Amazing Grace with this very thoughtful and insightful essay:

I was also moved and inspired after seeing the movie. After reading an article or two and talking with one of my professors, I appreciate and respect Wilberforce all the more. Reading a few snippets from his book, Real Christianity, I was even further impressed and challenged. With Wilberforce as an example, I wonder how effectively most Christians (myself included) are living their convictions. It seems that the majority of evangelicals (especially in America) should be at least a bit more existential than they presently are.

What I have in mind, particularly, is how the existentialist, because of his conviction, is compelled toward authenticity. For Wilberforce to attempt to portray "real" Christianity is just another way of stressing the importance of "authentic" Christianity, a Christianity that is so ingrained in an individual that it makes a difference in one's life and world.

It seems that, like the existentialist, the Christian should be compelled to live out his or her beliefs. How can this be done? I think that again we should turn to existentialism. The existentialist is affected and molded and driven to action by his or her worldview precisely because the individual has faced honestly what he or she perceives to be the reality of the situation: be it meaninglessness or something else. There has been no attempt to makes things prettier.

Just like the existentialist, the Christian needs to realize the ugliness of the situation of existence (though it may be for different or additional reasons than the existentialist acknowledges). But in the end, the predicament is the same. The Christian and the existentialist (or, for that matter, the Christian existentialist) both see something, or many things, that disturbs their consciences. They are disturbed because the situation does not match how "things are supposed to be."

For the existentialist, he or she knows that the better part of the world's people do not recognize their responsibility to create meaning for themselves. People live blindly in ignorance and perpetual meaninglessness. For the Christian also, the world is not as it should be. It continues, for the most part, outside the recognition and experience of a loving and personal God who desires relationship with the beings created in his imago dei. The result, among other things, is a failure to participate in loving relationship with God and a failure to then extend that [love] to our fellow human beings. Likewise, the result of this is prevalent and intentional evil done by humans against humans.

How is all of this related to Wilberforce and an authentic Christianity? Wilberforce lived his faith, he faced the problems straight on. He saw the evil mankind does to itself (in his case, slavery) and the failure of the bulk of the Christian community to respond authentically according to their convictions. Then he did something about it. He didn't let twenty years of failing to get his bill passed stop him.

And this is how he was authentic. Those twenty years were not true failure because, while he was unable to affect change in British society, he continued to live an authentic Christianity. Such an individual is an inspiration to me, and I hope, to many other Christians as well. Wilberforce recognized the horror of the real situation before him, that things were not the way they should be, and he confronted it with authentic conviction. And that's what we should all be compelled to do.

EB

God Is Love

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1 John 4:9

When one stops to consider that the Creator of heaven and earth, of the universe, of all that is, our Creator who knew us from before the foundations of the world loved us to this degree, it is, quite simply, unfathomable. Perhaps the only way we can grasp such a thought is to try to understand and believe that God is, in fact, love.

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8

Easter Sunday is a significant day of honor for it celebrates the resurrection of Christ. Everything in Christianity hinges on the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection completes the work of God and His plan for our salvation and, at the same time, marks the defeat of Satan as predicted all the way back in the book of Genesis. If the resurrection didn't actually happen, then Christ was a fraud and the Bible is just a bad joke. Verse 9 of John 20 is the key. Your either believe that the resurrection occurred or you don't. We're not going to argue the point at this time.

1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Mag'dalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
5 And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
7 and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
9 For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
John 20:1-10

Easter is also a time to dwell on the love of God.

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4

It is relatively easy for us to love God, isn't it?. It costs us little to love God, and it's amazing that so many don't, but God loved us, even as we were sinners rejecting Him, and He loved us to the degree that He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins so that we might be restored to Him. And Jesus loved us so, that He submitted completely to the will of the Father, even unto death on a cross.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:16-17

You've probably heard the following many times most likely being read during a wedding. It's a template, if you will. A model of perfect love, of the love of God. It provides an insight into the being of God, an aspect of His perfection. On this Easter Sunday, let's reflect on this passage and ponder its message.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth:
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

Already?!

We think this is a little premature, but ....

RLC