Retrocausality

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

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

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

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

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

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

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC

The Battle of Diyala

As American and Iraqi pressure mounts in Baghdad insurgents and al Qaeda fighters are fleeing the city for other refuges. One such destination is a city named Diyala, but coalition forces are not permitting them to find a haven there. Bill Roggio gives us an update on the Battle of Diyala.

RLC

Crawley and Dawkins (Pt. I)

William Crawley of the BBC conducts an excellent interview with Richard Dawkins. Anyone wishing to get an idea of what the controversy surrounding Dawkins' views is all about will find this session to be a useful introduction.

In the course of the interview Dawkins makes some interesting claims. For example, there's this one:

"Before Darwin it was very hard (intellectually) to be an atheist. After Darwin it was very hard not to be one. Darwinism makes it very hard to be a theist."

So much for efforts by those who believe that one can be both a Darwinian and a theist to find common ground with the anti-theist Darwinians. For people like Dawkins there is no common ground. One is either a complete naturalistic materialist or a superstitious ignoramus.

It should be mentioned that the word "Darwinism" isn't strictly synonomous with "evolution." Darwinism is the metaphysical belief that materialistic, natural processes and forces are adequate by themselves to account for all aspects of life. It is possible to be both a theist and an evolutionist, but I agree with Dawkins that it is very difficult to be a Darwinian evolutionist and a theist.

Dawkins then wonders:

"Why should there be a point to life? The meaning of life is whatever you make it. From a Darwinian point of view it is to propagate the species."

In other words, as long as you don't give the question of purpose too much thought you can avoid the depression and despair that seeps into the psyche when it begins to dawn on people that their lives are merely "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Dawkins seems to recognize that materialism strips life of any real meaning or purpose and leaves us to try to find some reason for getting out of bed in the morning. For Dawkins meaning comes from trying to prove there is no God, but as I think C.S. Lewis pointed out, there's something peculiar about making it one's purpose to prove that there is no purpose.

He adds that:

"It doesn't make much sense to go around and count the number of people who believe something in order to decide whether [a belief] is a delusion or not. The best thing to do is to look at the arguments for or against a belief."

Precisely. Which is why it's somewhat beside the point to insist, as so many anti-IDers do, that ID is bogus because no top scientists believe it. This is a diversion and a fallacy. What's important is not whether a majority of scientists believe something but rather the reasons why they believe it or don't beleive it. In many cases Darwinism is embraced because it is a necessary crutch to sustain a materialist metaphysics. In other words, as Dawkins has said elsewhere, Darwinism makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

In response to the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe Dawkins offers three counter-arguments:

He first raises the question of where the designer comes from. If God designed the universe, he asks, then what designed God?

His second reply, which he conflates with the third 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 as precisely as it is.

Sensing perhaps, the absurdity of the WAP he 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 it becomes more likely, even probable, that one world will 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. The more tickets/universes, the more likely one of them will have just the right sequence of numbers.

I'd like to consider these three arguments in another post.

RLC

Precipitous Drop in Violence

This article contains some important good news:

Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, Iraqi military spokesman, said the number of Iraqis killed by violence in Baghdad in the 30 days since Operation Enforcing the Law began was 265, down from 1,440 killed in the previous month. He said that the number of attacks in surrounding provinces had increased, although he did not provide figures.

Major General William Caldwell, US military spokesman, meanwhile said: "Murders and executions have come down by over 50 per cent [in Baghdad]."

He acknowledged there had been a slight climb in the number killed in the last seven days, but not as much as at the equivalent point in the cycle of previous Baghdad security plans. "This past week is normally the week in which the number of murders goes back to their previous levels," he said.

And this with only two of the five brigades called for by the surge tactic currently in place. Perhaps we might ask a question of those of our friends who opposed George Bush's troop increase: If the murder rate continues to decline in Baghdad or to remain at low levels, was the Presidents' tactic the right thing to do?

Perhaps congressman Murtha might like to entertain the question.

RLC

Iranian Defections

Things are getting very curious in Iran. Now come reports that yet another high ranking Iranian military officer has disappeared along with his family. Whether he has defected or whether he has been eliminated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for unknown derelictions is not known, but a lot of people in Iran, from the top on down, must be wondering whom they can trust. This whole article is fascinating, especially the last several paragraphs:

Three weeks ago the Iranian armed forces command in Teheran lost contact with a senior officer who had been serving in Iraq with the al-Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to a senior Iranian official cited in the Wednesday edition of the London-based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

The Iranian source said that it is still unclear why contact with the officer, Colonel Amir Muhammad Shirazi, was lost. "It is possible that the American forces in Iraq arrested him along with a group of 13 Iranian military and intelligence officials," he said, adding that this is just one of the scenarios being investigated by Tehran.

The lack of word from the al-Quds officer is attracting heightened interest because of the mysterious disappearance - or perhaps defection - of Iran's former Deputy Defense Minister, General Ali Reza Asgari , a week ago.

An Iranian source denied reports circulating in Iran that Asgari was being held prisoner by the Americans and is being tortured. "The people investigating the affair have no new information about him. Such reports are part of a propaganda campaign intended to ... prevent other high-ranking Iranian officials who may be thinking of defecting from doing so," the source told the Iranian news agency FARS.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that a Tehran military court sentenced to death a colonel in Iranian military intelligence who recently returned from service in Iraq. The officer was accused of collaborating with American forces and providing them with details on the deployment and activities of the al-Quds unit and Iranian military intelligence operatives. He was also accused of providing the Americans with classified documents, photographs and maps related to Iran's nuclear program and armed forces.

The newspaper reported that over the past three years, dozens of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and military intelligence units have defected to the American forces in Iraq.

Officers from various branches of Iran's armed forces operate in Iraq in both covert and overt roles. The United States accuses Iranian agents of aiding Shiite militias in Iraq with training, weapons and funding. Over the past few months, American forces in Iraq have arrested a number of Iranian officers.

I'd like to think that somehow the good guys are behind all these defections and disappearances and that we are reaping an intelligence bonanza from it.

HT: HotAir which has more on the story.

RLC

Coulter's Evil, Rock's Cool

According to Drudge when LIFE recently asked comic Chris Rock if America is ready for an African American president, Rock told LIFE: "It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African American president?"

Well, now. Perhaps in liberal salons there are nuances punctiliously limned and fine distinctions carefully drawn between calling a politician a "faggot" and calling a president "retarded." Indeed, we might conclude that they must be different sorts of attributions altogether since we heard all about Ann Coulter's insensitivity and coarseness when she referred to John Edwards as a faggot, but we haven't heard a peep of liberal criticism of Chris Rock for calling George Bush retarded. Nor, of course, do we expect to.

The difference between the Coulter and Rock episodes is telling. Coulter's slur made news primarily because it is in fact so unusual to hear a highly placed conservative indulge in such unseemly rhetoric. Rock's insult, however, is not news, at least not on the left, because such rhetoric is almost de rigueur among liberals. It's so commonplace and so widely accepted that it scarcely gets noticed.

RLC

Same As the Old Boss

There is a civil war simmering in the Democratic party and this will not help soothe the hostilities:

Senate Democrats will unveil a 2008 budget today that would boost spending for uninsured children, students and veterans without cutting funds for defense or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The budget also would not roll back any of President Bush's tax cuts after 2010, when they are set to expire. It says the tax cuts can be extended if they are paid for.

The Democrats have been proclaiming since last November that they have a mandate from the people to end the war and repeal the Bush tax cuts. It turns out the leadership is inclined to do neither. Lots of folks in the rank and file, however, are incensed at what they see as a massive betrayal by the people they elevated to power in November. We expect that pretty soon there'll be open warfare on the left. It'll be fun.

RLC

The NAE on Torture (Pt. I)

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has released an 18 page document laying out the theological, moral and legal basis for its opposition to any resort to torture. It is in many ways a fine document and in some ways an unfortunate one. The document is commendable for its affirmation of human dignity and human rights grounded in divine revelation and the imago dei, but it really does not grapple convincingly with the matter of torture. It's biggest failing, though not its only failing, is that it absolutizes its proscription of torture and makes no allowance for the motive or reason for which torture is employed.

It is certainly true that for Christians subjecting someone to torture for the purpose of punishment, revenge, or the amusement of the torturer is absolutely and heinously wrong, but there are circumstances in which, in our opinion, a ban on torture makes no moral sense.

Over the course of several posts we'll critique the reasoning in the NAE's document and try to show why we think it to be inadequate. We begin with this claim:

We believe that a scrupulous commitment to human rights, among which is the right not to be tortured, is one of these Christian moral convictions.

There is of course for the Christian a prima facie right of all persons to be secure and safe in their person, but that this right can never be forfeit is obviously false. We do not feel that a policeman is violating someone's rights when he kills an attacker in self-defense, for example. In other words, no human right is absolute, inviolable, or inalienable. My right to life and liberty does not confer upon me a further right to commit crime with impunity. A man's right not to be harmed is surrendered the moment he sets out to harm another.

The sanctity of life is the conviction that all human beings, in any and every state of consciousness or self-awareness, of any and every race, color, ethnicity, level of intelligence, religion, language, nationality, gender, character, behavior, physical ability/disability, potential, class, social status, etc., of any and every particular quality of relationship to the viewing subject, are to be perceived as sacred, as persons of equal and immeasurable worth and of inviolable dignity. Therefore they must be treated with the reverence and respect commensurate with this elevated moral status. This begins with a commitment to the preservation of their lives and protection of their basic rights. Understood in all of its fullness, it includes a commitment to the flourishing of every person's life.

All of this is, of course, entailed by Jesus' command to love our neighbor. It does not follow, however, that a commitment to "the preservation of their lives and protection of their basic rights ... [and] to the flourishing of every person's life" is absolute. If it did then we would be enjoined by such a commitment to abjure always and everywhere the use of force in defense of ourselves and in defense of others. There are some who strive to make the case that Scripture enjoins this degree of pacifism upon us, but I find their arguments to be in direct conflict with the law of love and the command to do justice.

It is not loving to permit an aggressor to harm one's family when the harm could be prevented by using force against the attacker. It is foolish to insist that police not use force to restrain criminals. It would be suicidal, given the world in which we live, to do away with our military, and it is unjust to refuse to punish criminals. Yet were we to follow the logic of the NAE's argument we would have to renounce the use of force in every situation and bend to the will of the criminals in our midst, suffering their depredations, rapes, and murders while refusing to take up arms to prevent them.

If we hesitate to follow the NAE logic this far, as I think all but a few would, then we must acknowledge that there are times when force against another human being is legitimate. The question then is what kinds of force are legitimate and under what circumstances may it be employed?

We'll take up those questions as we continue to examine the NAE statement. Meanwhile interested readers may want to peruse the document at the above link.

RLC

The Religion of Global Warming

Is there unanimity among scientists about global warming?This British program answers with a very firm "no."

The feature is over an hour long but if you watch just the first six minutes you'll get the feeling that a lot of what you've been told about global warming is probably not true. This is an important documentary for anyone who wants to hear a side of the story not often publicized in the MSM.

RLC

We Need a Scorecard

It seems that when Arab Muslims can't kill Jews or Americans they content themselves with killing each other. Killing in the Arab world is a sport much like soccer or basketball in the civilized world. Take Palestine, for example. Fatah and Hamas were at each other's throats for months until they decided to attempt a rapprochement. This triggered a rebellion among those Hamas members who wanted to destroy Fatah. These malcontents are now killing other Hamas as well as Fatah.

Then the local branch of al Qaeda decided to join in the fun and has declared that it wants to kill all of them, both Hamas and Fatah, and has proclaimed itself at war with both groups. DEBKAfile gives us the play-by-play:

As Palestinian and Israeli leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert finished discussing the Gaza Strip's fate Sunday, March 11, three events showed how little they and Hamas are in control.

Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahri issued a declaration of war on the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in a videotape aired by the Arabic TV Al Jazeera.

An hour later, the Islamic Brotherhood of Justice (another name for al Qaeda's operational branch in the Gaza Strip) announced the launching of its Operation White Land, targeting the political and military leaders of Fatah and Hamas.

DEBKAfile's military sources also reveal that a rebellion has sprung up against the top Hamas leadership.

Olmert and Abbas nonetheless continue to act out a Pan-Arab diplomatic process at Washington's behest (see separate item on this page), which has as much chance of getting off the ground in Gaza as Fatah's Abbas' assurance that the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilead Shalit, would be freed very soon.

The Zuwahri statement assailed the legitimacy Saudi Arabia extended to moves for a Palestinian unity government at the Mecca peace conference as recently as Feb. 8. Negotiations between the two factions are bogged down anyway.

"The leadership of Hamas government has committed an aggression against the rights of the Islamic nation by respecting international agreements," thundered Ayman Zawahri Sunday. "I am sorry to have to offer the Islamic nation my condolences for the Hamas leadership as it has fallen into the quagmire of surrender."

The Gaza al Qaeda cell then defined the four missions of Operation White Land:

1. Targeting the most senior figures of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders.

2. Focusing on group abductions rather than individuals, especially symbols of political corruption.

3. Beheading is ordained for members of these groups. Their executions and confessions will be videotaped and aired as they are in Iraq.

4. Blowing up Internet cafes and businesses selling alcohol; putting prostitutes to death to cleanse the streets of Gaza of prostitution.

Announcing these missions have won the sanction of Palestinian religious scholars, the communiqu� ends with the words: "Operation White Land has begun."

As for the revolt in Hamas, its Executive Force chief Jemal Jarah and his deputy, Yusouf a-Zahar (brother of Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud a-Zahar), accuse prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of being too soft with Abbas and Fatah and failing to follow through to victory on the battles they fought for weeks against Fatah. Determined to finish the job, Hamas rebels were back on the streets of Gaza this week, shooting and abducting their rivals, the Mecca Reconciliation Accords already a dead letter.

It'll soon be every man for himself in Gaza as the aborigines take to the streets to see how many heads they can lop off before they themselves are killed. I guess you have to be an Arab to appreciate the attractions of such sport.

RLC

Only One?

The Secular Coalition for America has done some investigating and come up with this:

There is only one member of Congress who is on record as not holding a god-belief.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), a member of Congress since 1973, acknowledged his nontheism in response to an inquiry by the Secular Coalition for America. Rep. Stark is a senior member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and is Chair of the Health Subcommittee.

Although the Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office, the Coalition's research reveals that Rep. Stark is the first open nontheist in the history of the Congress.

Surveys vary in the percentage of atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists in the U.S, with about 10% (30 million people) a fair middle point. "If the number of nontheists in Congress reflected the percentage of nontheists in the population," Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition, observes, "there would be 53-54 nontheistic Congress members instead of one."

Given the number of congresspersons who seem to be completely bereft of any sense of ethical obligation or conscience I suspect that Ms Brown's estimate is a little low.

RLC

Highway to Heaven

Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, seems determined to confirm the opinion of those who think him to be little more than a knave and buffoon. This statement which he delivered last weekend suggests that the future of Venezuela is in the hands of a man completely oblivious to modern economic realities:

"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism," Mr Chavez said in the town of Trinidad in Bolivia. "And those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism," he added.

Which country, especially in the Spanish speaking world, has ever followed socialism to heaven on earth? How many times does the left have to relearn the lesson that attempts to coercively establish socialist paradises almost always end in firing squads, tyranny and dystopia.

On the other hand, though their achievements are certainly more modest than the establishment of "heaven on earth," the greatest engines of high standards of living for all its citizens have been capitalist societies: England in the 19th century, the U.S. in the 20th century along with Asian economic successes like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Historian Rodney Stark makes the point exceptionally well in his book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success: Everywhere free markets and private property are protected there is prosperity, at least until governments can no longer resist the temptation to levy onerous taxes and kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

Socialism deadens economic growth because it sucks wealth from those who produce it and thus provides not only a disincentive to produce (why create if the state is going to take it), but it also prevents businesses from investing in improvements and research and development because the funds needed for these projects have been siphoned off by a parasitic state. Socialist governments kill off wealth production in other ways by burdening businesses with heavy regulations, onerous paper work, litigation and other barriers to success that businessmen find too difficult to surmount. Often they just give up, sell their businesses, and get a government job so they can live off the tax revenues imposed upon their former colleagues.

Socialist countries are often economically moribund, as we see in large swaths across Europe, and although there may be some people, usually state employees, who do well, most who live in socialist societies would dispute Chavez's characterization that they are heaven on earth. When socialism is combined with despotism, as it was in the communist world, and as it appears it may soon be in Venezuela, it becomes a literal hell.

Chavez aspires to be another Castro. No doubt he hopes to turn Venezuela into another Cuba. We should keep the Venezuelan people in our prayers.

RLC

Massive Retreat

Stephen Weinberg, a brilliant cosmologist, makes some very puzzling assertions in his favorable review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Indeed, if Weinberg weren't such a brilliant scientist I'd almost think some of what he says is kind of dopey. Take this excerpt for instance:

[Dawkins] calls the God of the Old Testament "the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully". As for the New Testament, he quotes with approval the opinion of Thomas Jefferson, that "The Christian God is a being of a terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust". This is strong stuff, and Dawkins obviously intends to shock the reader, but his invective has a constructive purpose. By attacking the God of sacred Scripture, he is trying to weaken the authority of that God's commands ....

Well. Which commands would Dawkins and Weinberg wish to weaken, I wonder. The command not to murder? The command not to commit sexual infidelity, or steal, or lie? The command to honor our parents? Maybe it's the command to love our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves that Messers. Dawkins and Weinberg find offensive.

Maybe these two prominent atheists want to weaken all of God's commands the better to facilitate the creation of an atheist paradise. Of course, should they manage to bring such a utopia about they'd have to build a Berlin wall to keep people from trying to escape it.

Weinberg goes on to meditate on the mass retreat from Christianity he sees reflected in the high degree of religious tolerance he finds everywhere in the U.S.:

Most Christian groups have historically taught that there is no salvation without faith in Christ. If you are really sure that anyone without such faith is doomed to an eternity of Hell, then propagating that faith and suppressing disbelief would logically be the most important thing in the world - far more important than any merely secular virtues like religious toleration.

How does it follow that suppressing unbelief would follow from a conviction that unbelievers are eternally lost? Why not think instead that Christians recognize that a belief that is not freely accepted is not genuine belief and that the suppression of dissenting views does nothing to change the hearts of those inclined toward unbelief.

Weinberg has more:

Yet religious toleration is rampant in America .... My many good friends in Texas who are professed Christians do not even try to convert me. This might be taken as evidence that they don't really mind if I spend eternity in Hell, but I prefer to think (and Baptists and Presbyterians have admitted it to me) that they are not all that certain about Hell and Heaven. I have often heard the remark (once from an American priest) that it is not so important what one believes; the important thing is how we treat each other. Of course, I applaud this sentiment, but imagine trying to explain "not important what one believes" to Luther or Calvin or St Paul. Remarks like this show a massive retreat of Christianity from the ground it once occupied, a retreat that can be attributed to no new revelation, but only to a loss of certitude.

Of course there are people in the church who say that it doesn't matter what you believe, and of course religious toleration is rampant in America, but why conclude from that that there's a massive retreat from Christianity going on? It could be as easily assumed that professor Weinberg's Christian friends pray for him often and believe his salvation is in God's hands, not their's. It might also be the case that professor Weinberg's friends are only nominal Christians.

In any event, the most interesting part of his statement is his use of the phrase "loss of certitude."

It's not at all clear what he means by this. Is Professor Weinberg claiming that American Christians are less sure today than in earlier times that God exists? Does he think that Christians are losing their confidence that there is an afterlife? If so, I doubt very much that he's correct. I don't think that Christians are any less convinced of the truth of these beliefs than they ever were.

Perhaps what Professor Weinberg means is that Christians are not as certain about the fate of non-Christians as they once were, but if they are (and I think they are)that's hardly indicative of a massive retreat from Christianity. For an atheist to take hope that Christianity is weakening because Christians are not as soteriologically exclusive as they were in the early 20th century is to doom oneself to a frustrated hope. It'd be like a 16th century atheist hoping that the Reformation's challenge to the doctrine of papal infallibility would result in the collapse of the Christian faith.

Since we're talking about hopes, I hope Weinberg's Christian friends haven't given up on him, but I have to admit that it'd take a miracle to bring him to belief.

RLC

Barking Mad

You have doubtless heard by now of the unfortunate confrontation between House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) and some anti-war folks in the hallway outside his office. Unaware that he was being taped, Obey candidly demonstrated the disdain our public servants sometimes have for their constituents who pay their salaries. It appears that liberals cannot even be civil to each other. Michelle has the video and the transcript at the link.

A little background: Obey is trying to end the war in Iraq through a piece of legislation that will remove the president's authority to wage the war. The citizens he encounters in the hallway are apparently anti-war activists who want him simply to vote to defund the war. Obey doesn't want to do that because it will put the troops in the field in jeopardy and take resources away from veterans' programs and hospitals.

Obey quickly grew impatient with the woman, who is evidently the mother of an Iraq war vet in his third deployment there, and acts pretty much like the south end of a north-bound horse in this intramural squabble among opponents to the Iraq war. In the process he offers some choice descriptions of those groups who are pressuring congressional Democrats to take more radically decisive action to end the war - at one point calling them "idiot liberals."

The incident reminded us of Peggy Noonan's quip that elected officials of both parties are contemptuous of their base but that Democrats tend to think of theirs as "barking mad."

Obey later apologized when he learned that his whole ugly performance is now on YouTube.

RLC

Environmental Ethics

The following exchange took place in the course of an interview with Mike Huckabee, formerly Republican Governor of Arkansas and likely Presidential candidate. Huckabee articulates a view one wishes all conservatives shared:

Q: "But do you believe there's a human role in climate change?

A: There may be. But whether there is or there isn't, it doesn't release us from the responsibility to be good stewards of the environment. It's the old boy scout rule: you leave your campsite in as good or better shape than how you found it. It's a spiritual issue. [The earth] belongs to God. I have no right to destroy it. I think we work toward alternative energy sources. [We need to make it] like the Manhattan Project or going to the moon. We need to accelerate our energy independence."

We could vote for a guy like that.

HT: Prosthesis

RLC

Sudden Impact

Those who wish a vivid reminder of how the war against terrorists is being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan are invited to watch this video of a recent action against enemy combatants who made the mistake of firing on American aircraft. R.I.P.

RLC

The Good News

I just finished reading Beginning at Moses by Michael P.V. Barrett several weeks ago. It's about finding Christ in the Old Testament. Mr. Barrett is talking about Psalm 22 on page 312.

The Lord expresses His confidence that His prayers have been heard and then in the next section begins to detail the answer to those prayers. It becomes clear in the second division that all the suffering of the first division was not in vain. As you meditate your way through this Psalm, do so with what should become an overwhelming impression that you are reading what the blessed Savior said, thought, and prayed while He was suffering vicariously for His people on the cross. The New Testament reveals that the initial lament was audible: 'My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?' (see Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). There is no indication that men could hear the rest of the prayer, but God heard. In this Psalm, we are allowed into the mind and soul of the Savior. You can see why I say that this is holy ground.

The first division highlights three spheres of suffering endured by the Savior. He suffered before the holy God (1-5), by cruel men (6-11), and in His whole person, body and soul (12-18) The opening stanza brings us to the heart of the atonement. The simple answer to Christ's agonizing question 'Why has thou forsaken me?' is that God forsook His Son in order that He might forgive us. With our sin and guilt imputed to Him, He who knew no sin, having become sin for us, took the full force of God's just and necessary wrath against our sin. While Christ was suffering on the cross, God dealt with Him in terms of us. I confess a total inability to explain the utter dereliction of Christ that is expressed by this statement. It boggles the mind. It declares how absolutely offensive sin is to the holiness of God and how absolutely gracious God is in giving His dear Son to be the only Savior. How dare any man say that there is any other way to God!

Well, it would be silly of me to try to add anything to that.

What it Would Take

How can the President get the media to pay attention to all the important things going on in the world? Perhaps the best way, maybe the only way, would not be popular with GW. At least Ramirez doesn't think it would:

RLC

Dumb and Dumber

George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinks that the new generation of atheists is angrier and dumber than their intellectual forbears. I don't know about dumber, but they certainly are angrier.

RLC

Idealism

The blog Conscious Entities has an interesting post on Idealism and also one on the moral, intellectual, and phenomenal gaps between animals and humans.

Idealism is the view that everything we encounter in the world is ultimately reducible to ideas in minds. There is no material substratum to reality.

It was given its most notable expression by George Berkeley (1685-1753) in Principles of Human Knowledge where he argues that all we can experience are sensory phenomena like color, fragrance, sound, etc. But these sensory phenomena exist only in minds, thus all we can have experience of are ideas in our minds. It follows that if knowledge is a product of experience then all we can know are these ideas. A material "stuff" that generates the phenomena of experience is not only absurd but unknowable.

Since Berkeley was an empiricist and believed that all of our knowledge comes through sense experience, he concluded that we can know nothing of anything other than these ideas in our minds. We have no experience of, and therefore no knowledge of, matter. The notion that there is a material world behind the phenomena of our senses is superfluous and should therefore fall victim to Occam's Razor.

All that exists, according to Berkeley, are ideas in minds, and for Berkeley the entire world exists as idea in the mind of God. The world is a virtual reality generated by God, which may be one way to read Hebrews 1:3 and Colossians 1:13.

RLC

Why Are Students Bored?

So why do American kids find school boring? Is it because of poor teaching as the No Left Turns guys say? Probably to some extent, but there's more to it than that, as many of our readers have pointed out.

American kids are jaded by affluence. It takes a lot to excite young people surrounded by stimulants that appeal to their hedonism and materialism. Having never wanted for anything, many students find any kind of intellectual work unappealing and unnecessary. They do enough to get by, but any glimmer of concern for the life of the mind is easily extinguished by social and extra-curricular concerns.

Schools minimize academics. In many schools today only lip-service is paid to the importance of academics. Everything else the school does implicitly sends students the message that the least important thing they do in their school day is what they do in the classroom. At the school at which I taught for thirty-five years a student could be taken out of an academic class for almost any activity imaginable, but a teacher of an academic subject dare not insist that the student remain in class nor could he take the student out of another activity to do academic work. For instance, if the band needed to rehearse, or the swim team had a meet, or the student council had an activity students could leave class to participate, but a classroom teacher was not permitted to take the student out of band class, or swim practice, or student council to tutor him/her on what was missed.

In other words, every activity trumped the academic program in my school, and, I suspect, the same situation exists at most schools. When the school administration tacitly communicates to the student the lesson that academics are the school's lowest priority, only the exceptional students can be expected to take a particular interest in them.

Modern culture devalues great literature, art, history, and philosophy. The value of these disciplines is intrinsic, not instrumental. One studies them for the intellectual satisfaction and enrichment one gains from them, not because they'll enable the student to one day buy a new Lexus. Our culture, however, tacitly disdains any curriculum which is not oriented toward a career or the making of money. Subjects which are pursued for their own sake are deemed less important than those which are more utilitarian. Students realize this and take such classes only because they are a state requirement, and they embark upon it with the attitude that they'll put forth the minimum effort necessary to get whatever grade they feel they need.

Finally, many kids in many schools come from homes and neighborhoods which are so dysfunctional that the student starts out way behind and can never catch up. He/she has no idea what's going on in the classroom and tunes it out. This starts in the earliest grades and continues all through school. By the time the student is in tenth grade he/she is often languishing at a second or third grade level. Understanding nothing of what's going on in the classroom it's little wonder they're bored.

So, to Peters Lawler and Schramm at No Left Turns, yes, there are too many teachers in classrooms who are uninspiring and apathetic, but that situation certainly exists in schools in India and Asia. It's in fact probably worse there than it is here. So why do those kids do so well and ours perform sub-optimally? Look at the affluence, look at the importance placed on academics and the life of the mind, and look at the culture.

RLC

Astonishing Human Being

This young man is perhaps the most astonishing human being you will ever see. I started watching the documentary about him (at Telic Thoughts) and couldn't stop. It's 48 minutes long, but it only takes about five minutes to realize that you're watching something that is both incredible and spooky at the same time.

At the end of the film one man observes that he wonders what abilities are latent in the human mind that most of us cannot use. I wondered the same thing as I watched the video, and wondered, too, if perhaps we will ever be able to access those capacities.

RLC

Easy to Defend

Rick Pearcey offers a very clever analysis of the Ann Coulter contretemps in light of contemporary thinking and concludes that there's really nothing wrong with what she said. Pearcey is being satirical, of course, but there is a truth implicit in his essay that should be teased out.

The only people who have any basis for criticizing Coulter for her specific remark are Christian conservatives. There are several reasons for this, but let me focus on just one: If one believes, as liberals do, that there is nothing wrong with being gay then there's no reason to be upset that Coulter calls someone a "faggot"? Sure she meant to be insulting, which is kind of insulting all by itself, but the insult is akin to a secularist calling a conservative Christian a "fundie." The term is meant to be insulting since it connotes a certain lack of sophistication, but a lot of conservative Christians would be only mildly irritated by the epithet and a lot of them would simply laugh at the idea.

People who believe that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle, however, see a much deeper insult in Coulter's words and are upset that one who speaks for conservatives and for Christians would engage in that sort of discourse. But, and this is the point, it is only those who see homosexuality as deviant who have reason to find her language offensive.

Meanwhile, compared to the vicious rhetorical felonies the left commits everyday (Remember Alec Baldwin saying that people should stone Henry Hyde to death, along with his entire family?) against the people they hate, which is about everybody to the right of George McGovern, Coulter's words, as bad as they were, are a misdemeanor.

As Pearcey observes, there are lots of others who have no reason to take umbrage in her words. Read his piece titled "Faggot" Easy to Defend.

RLC

St. Petersburg Declaration

A number of people whose heritage is Muslim but who may or may not themselves still be Muslim met recently in St. Petersburg to proclaim their intention to contend against the brutes and thugs who dominate the Islamic world on behalf of fundamental human rights. Here is the declaration that resulted from their convocation:

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called "Islamaphobia" in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.

We call on the governments of the world to:

- reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostacy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;

- eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women; protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;

- reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;

- and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.

We say to Muslim believers: there is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine;

To Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'is, and all members of non-Muslim faith communities: we stand with you as free and equal citizens;

And to nonbelievers: we defend your unqualified liberty to question and dissent.

Before any of us is a member of the Umma, the Body of Christ, or the Chosen People, we are all members of the community of conscience, the people who must chose for themselves.

God bless those who signed off on this document, and may God protect them from those who will inevitably seek to kill them for their heresy.

RLC

Justice For Jessica

A terrible story nears its end:

MIAMI (AP) - A sex offender was found guilty Wednesday of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old girl and burying her alive in a case that led to a crackdown around the country on people convicted of sex crimes.

Jurors deliberated about four hours before returning the verdict against John Evander Couey in the slaying of Jessica Lunsford, who was snatched from her bedroom in 2005 about 150 yards from the trailer where Couey had been living.

Her body was found in a shallow hole, encased in two black plastic trash bags. She had suffocated, and was found clutching a purple stuffed dolphin.

Couey had a record as a sex offender. In 1991, he was arrested on a charge of fondling a child. In 1978, he was accused of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her.

This case raises two questions which might be asked of those who oppose the death penalty. First, does John Couey deserve to be executed or doesn't he? Second, if he does deserve it what good is served by not doing it?

By refusing to execute a man such as this for the horrific crime he commited we send the message to society that Jessica Lunsford's life is not worth executing her murderer over. A society which refuses to execute people like Couey sends the message that it just doesn't value innocent life very highly, at least not highly enough to make taking a life punishable by the most severe penalty.

To allow him to live is a bit like assessing a rapist a $50 fine. The penalty sends the message that the crime isn't very serious and that women really aren't worth protecting.

Justice is served by nothing less than the execution of John Couey. It's better than what he deserves.

RLC

Who Is John Galt?

Mark Skousen commemorates Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged 50 years later in the Christian Science Monitor. Rand's work is not literature, exactly, but it is, according to a 1991 poll of American readers, the second most influential book ever written. Only the Bible was voted more influential.

I'm not sure about this assessment myself, since back in the late fifties and early sixties everyone was reading Rand, and then shortly thereafter we suffered our national, wrenching lurch to the left which represented in many ways everything Rand deplored.

In any event, Atlas Shrugged is a book of philosophical ideas about morality, economics, and collectivism set as a novel. Her ideas are both good and bad. When they're good they're very good and when they're bad they're very bad. Skousen's essay sorts them out.

RLC

If Only Jesus Knew

John Edwards seeks political traction with Christians by invoking Jesus on behalf of the poor, but either he's tone deaf to how evangelicals regard Jesus or he's just not as articulate in talking about Christ as he is when he's appealing to a jury to award a huge settlement to his client and thus to himself:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering, and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.

Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country's willingness to go to war "when it's not necessary."

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," Edwards told the site. "I think he would be appalled, actually."

What exactly does Edwards mean when he says that "Jesus would be appalled"? Does he mean that if Jesus only knew about the plight of today's oppressed masses He would be appalled by it? Does he think that Jesus doesn't know about it, but would be outraged if He did? If so, then Edwards has a long theological road to travel before he rests in evangelicalism's good graces. Most Christians believe that Jesus was divine, that He is alive today and quite aware of everything that happens in this world. It's Christologically incongruous, in other words, for Edwards to speak in hypotheticals.

Edwards failure to fire his two potty-mouthed anti-Christian bigot bloggers didn't do much to endear him to Christians, and he certainly won't score any points by using clunky rhetoric that suggests that Jesus is purely past tense or otherwise oblivious to what's going on in the world.

But setting all that to one side, what might appall Jesus even more than the plight of today's poor is the hypocrisy of people who live in opulent extravagance and ostentation while invoking His name to criticize others for their alleged lack of concern for those who live in hovels.

RLC

Iranian Defector

Here's an interesting development in the deteriorating state of affairs concerning Iran. An Iranian general with much knowledge of his country's espionage efforts and weapons programs has either defected or been kidnapped:

One respected analyst with sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard says Gen. Ali Reza Asgari has defected and is now in a European country with his entire family, where he is cooperating with the U.S.

Other reports have suggested that the general may have been kidnapped by the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. A spokesperson at the CIA declined to comment on the reported defection.

"This is a fatal blow to Iranian intelligence," said the source, explaining that Asgari knows sensitive information about Iran's nuclear and military projects. Iran called tens of its Revolutionary Guard agents working at embassies and cultural centers in Arab and European countries back to Tehran out of fear that Asgari might disclose secret information about their identities, according to the analyst.

In either case, it seems that there will be an intelligence bonanza for the U.S., unless, of course, the guy is a double agent out to plant disinformation.

RLC

More on Boring School

More readers have weighed in on why school is boring on our Feedback page and have between them said much of what I wanted to say, so I've postponed my response to tomorrow.

RLC

Another Difference

Here's another example of the difference between liberals and conservatives, at least in the media and in the blogosphere. Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a "faggot" and conservative commentators, if not everyone in the rank and file, have been quick to condemn the insult and to all but require Coulter to do penance in sackcloth and ashes. Her mean-chick schtick has run its course and worn itself out in the minds of many conservatives. They'd rather leave that kind of rhetoric to the Maureen Dowds of the world.

Meanwhile, Bill Maher suggests that the world would be better off if the Taliban had succeeded in assassinating vice-president Cheney last week, and there has been utter silence from the libs. I have seen nothing in any liberal news media about this dreadfully cruel remark.

Name-calling and hateful speech is considered despicable by most conservatives no matter who does it, but, judging from their silence, liberals have no problem with it, at least if it comes from one of their own. Indeed, they scarcely seem to notice it unless it has a conservative provenience.

The silence on the left causes one to fear that this kind of vicious, ugly thinking and speech has simply become part of how many contemporary secular leftists see the world and part of who they are.

RLC

Sensus Divinitatis

Sunday's New York Times Magazine has an article by Robin Marantz Henig which explores current scientific thinking on the question of why people are religious. What is the best explanation, scientists are asking, for the fact that belief in God or gods is almost universal? Henig writes:

Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.

Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God - evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God, what then? Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away? Are the nonbelievers right, and is religion at its core an empty undertaking, a misdirection, a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or are the believers right, and does the fact that we have the mental capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them there?

In short, are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are, how and why did that happen?

I think Reformed philosophers would reply that of course we're "hard-wired" to believe in God. That's almost precisely the point Paul was making in Romans 1. It's what John Calvin meant when he wrote about the sensus divinitatis, the sense of God that everybody seems to have as long as they don't squelch it.

Of course, this isn't what many scientists have in mind when they talk about belief in God being a product of our evolutionary past. Their agenda is to discredit belief in God by showing that it's nothing but an illusion foisted upon us by our genes to equip us for life in the paleolithic epoch.

This little parlor game can be played as well by theists, however. I wonder, for instance, if next these scientists are going to take up the question why many people don't believe in God. Are atheists actually genetic mutants intellectually maladapted to their environment and doomed to be eliminated by natural selection? Is atheism simply an evolutionary aberration, like Down's syndrome, such that the person who suffers from it really can't help holding the beliefs he does? If so, then the rationality that atheists enjoy claiming for themselves is an illusion. Their belief, or lack of it, is a completely non-rational, genetically determined state of mind.

Isn't this fun?

RLC

Hammering on the Lunatics

University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers has gained some reknown and much criticism from both supporters and adversaries alike for his acidulous attacks on anyone who is skeptical of the Darwinian paradigm. He advocates humiliating and firing school science teachers who want to teach both sides of the intelligent design/materialistic evolution issue and considers ad hominem abusive to be the pinnacle of intellectual discourse:

Please don't try to tell me that you object to the tone of our complaints. Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians (See here).

I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It's time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots. If you don't care enough for the truth to fight for it, then get out of the way.

don't even suggest that we're being too partisan. I am on the side of reason and human rights, and my only failing is that I'm not partisan enough (See here).

When these words were read by a disputant during a debate with an ACLU lawyer the ACLU supporters in the crowd actually cheered. So much for liberal tolerance of diversity and cherishing the freedom of speech among that crowd.

Anyway, it's ironic that Paul Myers, an avowed atheist (if one didn't know it would be apparent from his total rejection of the idea that one should treat one's opponents with dignity, respect, and kindness), claims himself to be on the side of reason and human rights. Perhaps no one has told him as yet, but atheistic naturalism offers its devotees absolutely no grounds for either stance.

In other words, both his devotion to reason and to human rights are arbitrary, non-rational commitments somewhat akin to one's devotion to oreo cookie ice cream. Now one may be passionate about oreo cookie ice cream, of course, but to establish a blog and to spend one's time excoriating those who have a different view of oreo cookie seems at least a little perverse.

Perhaps professor Myers might spend a few moments reflecting upon why he believes that reason is a reliable guide to truth or why he believes that human rights are rooted in anything more than an arbitrary preference. If he gives these questions just a few moments of serious attention he might realize that he can only argue for the trustworthiness of reason by using reason, which is irrational.

Given his view that matter, or nature, is all there is, neither his trust in reason nor his devotion to human rights is grounded in anything more than his own personal taste, bias, or prejudice.

RLC

Amazing Grace

Christianity Today gives Amazing Grace a pretty good review. The film hasn't arrived at our little backwater yet, but we're looking forward to seeing it when eventually it does. William Wilberforce was an impressive man, motivated, as were so many abolitionists throughout history, by his sense that Christ wanted him to do what he could to fight the injustice and inhumanity of the slave trade.

Rodney Stark, in his excellent historical work titled For the Glory of God, points out that had it not been for Christians and the Church, slavery would not have been eradicated in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, and when it rose again after the discovery of the New World, it was both the Church and the work of Christians like Wilberforce which eventually got it abolished in the Western Hemisphere.

There is nothing in any other religious tradition, and certainly nothing in the philosophies of naturalism or materialism, that affords grounds for condemning slavery. Indeed, Islam's founder, Mohammed, himself owned slaves.

To the extent that slavery, which has been practiced all through history and all throughout the world (and still is today), has been meliorated or abolished, it has been because of the efforts of people operating out of a Judeo-Christian worldview which teaches that men are made in the image of God and are loved by Him. As such they have individual dignity and are all equally precious in God's eyes. Each man is the property of the Creator, and it is therefore an affront to God to treat as one's own property a man or woman who is one of His children.

If, though, we abandon this worldview we must also abandon the notion that man has any special dignity or worth or rights. If there is no Creator then if one has the power to enslave another there can be nothing morally wrong with doing so. In a world without the Christian God might makes right, and owning people is no different, morally speaking, than owning horses.

RLC

Re: School is Boring

There's an interesting response to our post on students being bored in school on our Feedback page.

I'll share some thoughts on this on tomorrow's Viewpoint.

RLC

The Other Front

An intriguing series of events unfolds in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Vice-president Cheney visits Pakistan, a senior Taliban leader is arrested right after he leaves, and an attack on a "high value target" takes place on a terrorist compound in Afghanistan. Is this all a coincidence or are the Pakistanis throwing us a bone by arresting the Taliban guy and persuading him to give up some of his confreres? Allahpundit has the details and a few caveats.

RLC

Conservative <i>Agonistes</i>

Social conservatives in the Republican party find themselves in a real bind as they prep for 2008. They're pretty sure Senator Clinton will be their opponent, but there is a sense that only candidates whose social conservatism is suspect or absent altogether are in a position to beat her. The genuine social conservatives like Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter are scarcely a blip on the voters' radar screen, at least at present.

There are Republicans who doubtless could defeat Hillary - John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, Mitt Romney - but none of these excite conservatives who see each of them as personally or ideologically problematic. One person who does get conservative juices flowing and who might be able to at least give Hillary a run is Newt Gingrich, but he's not a candidate at this point, and he's carrying an awful lot of personal baggage.

Peggy Noonan summed up the Republican plight when she quipped, that of the major Republican contenders - McCain, Guiliani, Gingrich, and Romney - it is ironic that the only one who has only one wife is the Mormon.

My friend Jason linked me to this article which delves into this matter in a little more detail.

RLC

News Flash: School is Boring

This story reports that a big study has found that most students are bored in school most of the time. I'm not sure that that they needed a study to find this out or that it's news, but apparently some people think it is.

No Left Turns has some interesting commentary that blames teachers (both in high school and college)for this state of affairs. Pete Schramm writes:

Students in high school are bored. We can argue all day why that may be so, but, in general it is my considered opinion that it has to do with the massive fact that students aren't asked to do enough, and are not exposed to interesting things well enough. They are given much busy work, and not enough poetry or beauty or something good or high or noble to consider and think about.

There was a very big international(UN funded?) study that came out of the Netherlands maybe ten years ago that compared students from dozens of countries. In general we didn't fare too badly in the early years of schooling, but the US fared worse the longer the students stayed in school. So, by the time our students were in high school, they were at the bottom of the pack.

This was also not surprising to me, but what was surprising is that for the first time in any study they gave a reason why: American students were more bored than students in other countries; the more they were in school (through high school), the more bored they became. That is an important fact. I regret that I am unable to find that study. My experience confirms this fact. Almost all students think their education in high school was boring.

And Peter Lawler responds:

Peter [Schramm] is right. High schools are very, very boring. What most students end up doing there could be done in a couple of years, at most. High school students are in class way too much, and high school teachers are too. The teachers have no time to prepare for class, and they're stuck with boring books that come with test banks that they don't have time not to use.

Most high-school teachers simply don't have the time to do much reading, and many of them aren't even allowed to let their students (outside of English class) read anything much but the dumb, boring textbook. (The fantastic lectures of our Tony described on the first boredom thread below our a mighty, mighty rare treat for high school students.) Most of them can't fall back on something like Tony's fine undergraduate or graduate liberal arts majors (thanks to schools of education). And various techno-innovations such as power point only make things worse; they insult the student's intelligence and induce yawn after yawn. There are many exceptions to these broad generalizations (many or most of them in serious science and math classes), but the exceptions prove the rule.

Whenever a new student comes to me full of enthusiasm for learning--or turns in 14 pages for a 500-word assignment, I pretty much assume that the student was homeschooled. I'm not one who thinks most homeschooling is all that good. But one of the most positive things about it is that the homeschooled spent a lot less time on school, a lot less time with textbooks, etc. than the kids in public schools. School doesn't rule their lives, and it's not a contemptible source of boredom for them. They haven't had the love of learning strangled out of them.

And, of course, most college classrooms aren't that different. The "teaching style" fading quickly is the faculty member coming to class with nothing but the serious book the students have been assigned and talking BOTH to and with them about it. College professors don't have the excuse of not having time to read and generally prepare for class. Even those with a "4-4" load are on a leisure cruise compared to 95% of high school teachers. They have to think up pedagogical theory and assessment mechanisms to avoid doing their real jobs. They convince themselves that they can "teach without talking," or by surrendering their privileged positon in the classroom and taking one place among many in an egalitarian community of learners, or by lazily boring themselves and the students to death with classes devoted to group presentations or "peer review" or (worst of all) breaking up into small groups to "dialogue" about some generic issue or another.

But I'm sure there are studies that show that boring schools prepare us for the boring jobs that we'll be stuck with. There really are studies that show that students are prepared for the business world through group projects. They don't learn to cooperate or work together like a well-oiled machine or anything like that. The fact that one student ends up doing all the work and the others get by by taking credit allegedly is a key insight into way the "real world" works.

There is much to say about all this, and I'll have some thoughts to offer on a future post.

RLC

Analyze This

The American Psychological Association has adopted a resolution opposing the teaching of intelligent design as science.

After having adopted the position they released an unfortunate statement which offers rhetoricians everywhere a textbook case of muddled thinking:

"While we are respectful of religion and individuals' right to their own religious beliefs, we also recognize that science and religion are separate and distinct. For a theory to be taught as science it must be testable, supported by empirical evidence and subject to disconfirmation. Thus, intelligent design lacks a basis in science."

This statement suffers from a number of shortcomings. The truth of the second clause of the first sentence, for instance, is by no means obvious. It's easy to say that science and religion occupy different domains of human experience until you try to define the boundaries of those domains. Once you embark upon that project you find that there's much overlap and that the overlap is unavoidable. In other words, the difference between science and "religion" is not as clear-cut as the APA would have us believe. Indeed, for many materialists science is a religion.

Roy Clouser explains in his book The Myth of Religious Neutrality that what all religions share in common, maybe the only thing they share in common, is the belief that there exists something which does not depend upon anything else for its existence but upon which everything else depends. For theists this is God. For atheistic materialists it's matter. The point is that religious belief is inescapable. Everyone has it. The only questions are what specific religious beliefs are to be excluded from science and why those and not others?

There is, then, a sense in which ID is religious, since it holds that there is a designer upon which all else, at least in our cosmos, depends. But so, too, is Darwinism religious in that it holds that matter and energy are the ultimately necessary existants. So where is the line between science and religion to be drawn?

The second sentence of the APA statement has the unintended consequence of ruling neo-Darwinism out of science. The fundamental premise of NDE (Neo-Darwinian evolution)is that natural processes, chiefly natural selection and genetic mutation, are sufficient to account for all biological phenomena. But precisely how does one go about testing or disconfirming that claim? What empirical evidence would bear upon its truth or falsity?

If that claim is indeed scientific then its contrary, i.e. the claim that natural processes by themselves are not sufficient to account for all biological phenomena, is also scientific, and that's the fundamental premise of ID.

Here's another problem: Many scientists are of the view that there are other uiniverses besides our own. Articles on this exotic hypothesis can be found all through the scientific literature. So evidently at least some people in the field believe this to be a legitimate topic for scientific inquiry despite the fact that it is neither testable, supported by empirical evidence nor subject to disconfirmation. But if the idea that there are many worlds is legitimate science why is the possibility that an inhabitant of one of those worlds designed this world considered to lack a basis in science? Why is it considered "religious" to think that the designer of our cosmos may dwell in some other universe when the existence of those universes is not considered to be religious speculation?

Perhaps the APA needs to reanalyze their opinions on this issue and attempt to think a little more deeply about it than they evidently have.

RLC

Inconvenient Truth

Ramirez pokes a little fun at Hollywood's limousine liberals:

Living large while telling the rest of us to carpool. That's Hollywood ... and Al Gore.

RLC

Problems of Consciousness

One of the most fascinating problems philosophers wrestle with is the problem of consciousness. What exactly is consciousness? How is it produced? What is its relationship to the brain? Etc.

Usually we think of consciousness as a state of being aware, but how does awareness arise from inanimate matter? How can atoms and molecules make us aware of ourselves and of the world external to ourselves? How does this all happen? How, for example, does an electro-chemical reaction in the brain generate the sensation of red?

Peter at Conscious Entities has an interesting discussion of what he calls the Three and a Half Problems of Consciousness.

The problems he discusses are the problems of Qualia, Intentionality, Morality, and Relevance. The article is a good primer on what is one of the most cutting edge fields in contemporary philosophy and also one of the most vexing because the problems seem so intractable.

Qualia are the sensations that we experience as part of our conscious awareness of the world. The sensations of color, sound, emotions, etc. are the qualia of our experience.

Intentionality refers to the fact that thoughts are about things. How is it that a particular flow of atoms, chemicals, and electricity can be about something.

The problem of moral responsibility concerns, among other things, the question of how we can be responsible for our actions unless we somehow cause them, but if we are bound by the laws of physics then in what sense is it us who causes our actions rather than the laws of physics which constrain us?

Anyway, read what Peter has to say on these things and you'll be well on your way to a Ph.D. in the philosophy of mind.

RLC

Patriotism

Dennis Miller instructs the ladies on how to be an American. HotAir has the video.

RLC

When Race, Religion and Ideology Matter

John Leo at City Journal explains why one can't be too careful when reading or listening to the news:

Sometimes news stories omit important religious and political identifications, too. In Nashville last week, readers of the Tennessean were probably able to deduce the religious affiliation of a cabbie who tried to run over two Christian students after a heated discussion of religion. His name: Ibrahim Sheikh Ahmed. The paper reported: "Metro police spokeswoman Kris Mumford said one of the students is Catholic and the other is Lutheran. Mumford said that Ahmed's religion was not known." Maybe so, but many readers probably wondered: if the driver had been a conservative Christian trying to run down a Muslim, wouldn't the newsroom have summoned the energy to find out, and to confront Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the evils of Islamophobia?

Evidently, race, religion and ideology are only important to a news story when identifying them can make white male Christians look bad.

Leo's whole piece is worth reading.

RLC

Cheap Shot

I've written several times about the viciousness that resides all too comfortably on the left and how it is almost a uniquely left-wing phenomenon in contemporary politics. I say "almost" because from time to time someone on the starboard side of the ship will let go with something that's just plain gratuitously mean. It doesn't happen often, but it shouldn't happen at all, and it would happen a lot less often if Ann Coulter would just stifle herself when she feels the need to step over the line of "edgy and witty commentary" into the realm of just plain meanness.

Alas, she doesn't stifle herself often enough, and so conservatives are made to wince at episodes like this one reported by Hot Air:

Ann Coulter is speaking at CPAC as I write. As is typical, she gave a brief speech full of her usual witticisms, including a few brilliant attacks on Al Gore's green hypocrisy. All was good. Untill the last few seconds, when she launched into a joke about John Edwards. Here's what she said.

"I'd say something about John Edwards, but if you say 'faggot' you have to go to rehab."

I'm no fan of John Edwards, but that's just a stupid joke. It's over the line. The laughter it generated across the room was more than a little annoying.

Last year it was "raghead." This year it's calling John Edwards a "faggot." Two years in a row, Coulter has finished up an otherwise sharp CPAC routine with an obnoxious slur that liberals will fling at conservatives for years to come.

Thanks, Ann.

Coulter's penchant for the gratuitous insult is why we rarely cite her commentary anymore which is unfortunate because she is bright, usually right, and often funny. This sort of "joke," however, just confirms her reputation as a cheap-shot artist. She owes Edwards an apology.

RLC

Plantinga on Dawkins

Books and Culture features a review by philosopher Alvin Plantinga of Richard Dawkins' much talked about anti-theistic book The God Delusion. Plantinga's essay is a bit longish, but every paragraph rewards the reader with wonderful insights into both the shortcomings of Dawkins' book as well as the shortcomings of the metaphysical naturalism upon which the book relies.

An example of what Plantinga has to say about the latter comes toward the end where he recaps an argument that he's been making for years and which no one seems able to refute:

But from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a naive hope. The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology.

In fact he'd have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.

If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable-a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he [the naturalist]has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs-including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; naturalism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.

The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins' naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided. So a broader conclusion is that one can't rationally accept both naturalism and evolution; naturalism, therefore, is in conflict with a premier doctrine of contemporary science. People like Dawkins hold that there is a conflict between science and religion because they think there is a conflict between evolution and theism; the truth of the matter, however, is that the conflict is between science and naturalism, not between science and belief in God.

Plantinga spends time throughout the review analyzing Dawkins' argument that God had nothing to do with the appearance of living things. The argument distills to this:

1. We know of no irrefutable objections to the claim that life is solely the product of mechanical processes.

2. Therefore, life is the product of mechanical processes.

In other words, because it is possible that life arose without God, therefore life must have arisen without God. Plantinga writes:

It's worth meditating, if only for a moment, on the striking distance, here, between premise and conclusion. The premise tells us, substantially, that there are no irrefutable objections to its being possible that unguided evolution has produced all of the wonders of the living world; the conclusion is that it is true that unguided evolution has indeed produced all of those wonders. The argument form seems to be something like:

We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p; Therefore, p is true.

Philosophers sometimes propound invalid arguments (I've propounded a few myself); few of those arguments display the truly colossal distance between premise and conclusion sported by this one. I come into the departmental office and announce to the chairman that the dean has just authorized a $50,000 raise for me; naturally he wants to know why I think so. I tell him that we know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that the dean has done that. My guess is he'd gently suggest that it is high time for me to retire.

Dawkins' most talked about anti-theistic argument in The God Delusion is one which reasons that since the biological world is very complex, and since the more complex something is the more improbable it is, and since the Creator of life would have to be even more complex than what He created, the Creator must be an extraordinarily improbable being - so improbable as to be not worth believing in.

Plantinga explains why this argument is essentially nonsense, but there's one reason for rejecting it which Plantinga doesn't delve into very far. When we say that the complexity of the living world is improbable we mean that it is improbable that it could arise solely by unguided processes. The processes that produced it must have been purposeful. It is highly improbable that a stick would appear to be whittled to a point if only mechanical forces ever acted upon it, but it's not at all improbable that the stick takes on this appearance given the existence of a boy with a knife.

In other words, complex living things are only improbable on the assumption that they arose by happenstance. They're not at all improbable if there's an intelligent creator.

Moreover, although it's improbable that complex things will be produced by purely mechanical processes, God is not something which is produced. God is a necessary being which does not depend on anything else for His existence. Thus it is a category mistake to talk about the improbability of God coming to be. God is not the sort of thing which "comes to be."

Dawkins either doesn't understand the concept of necessary and contingent being or he simply confuses God with contingent entities, which is perhaps why Plantinga observes that Dawkins is no philosopher.

RLC

The Anti-God Crusade

Denyse O'Leary has an excellent series of posts on the New Atheism and its accompanying neuroses at The ID Report.

Links to each of the posts in her series can be found at the bottom of the post linked to above.

RLC

The Threat We Face

Our highly esteemed staff of professional foreign policy experts here at Viewpoint have been cautioning us for over three years now that the biggest threat we face from our enemies may be a scenario something like this: A terrorist organization manages to smuggle a single suitcase nuke into a major American city. They publicly announce, falsely, that they have numerous such weapons planted in cities around the country and demand that we get out of the Middle East, abandon Israel, and impeach the current president or they will begin to detonate these bombs.

The nation is hurled into crisis. Everything shuts down because people are afraid to go into our cities. The economy begins to plummet and chaos reigns in our urban centers. The administration stands firm, however, and refuses to bend to the blackmail. The terrorists tell us that we asked for it, and set off their one bomb killing tens of thousands of Americans and destroying, say, Manhatten.

They then announce that we have one week to comply with their demands or they will detonate another. No one knows, of course, that there isn't another. So panic ensues. The pressure on the White House to capitulate would be irresistable. The United States would almost have to yield and the door would swing wide open to the Islamofascists who would sweep the world imposing Islam on every nation on earth.

That's the scenario that causes our greatest anxiety. Now Michael Crowley of the New York Times Magazine writes an article on former Senator Sam Nunn that says that his greatest nightmare is a scenario very similar to the one we've outlined above. It's really quite disconcerting.

Even moreso since despite the Islamists' stated determination to destroy us, the Democrats' biggest concern seems to be preventing the president from eavesdropping on terrorists' phone calls and otherwise acting as a president should when our very existence is under assault. For some of the president's opponents, the most frightening threat to our future is not the likelihood of nuclear terrorism on our shores, but rather that the average mean temperature of the planet has gone up almost a degree in the last century.

As if to illustrate the unseriousness that exists in some precincts of the left in the face of the most serious threat to our national survival since the Cuban Missile Crisis, a television person named America Ferrera recently delivered herself of the opinion that America won't be free until George Bush leaves office. This empty-headed nonsense was boffo with her audience, of course, but it's positively moronic given the nature of the real threats that face us.

RLC

Leiberman Calls for a Truce

Here's a must-read plea in the Wall Street Journal from Senator Joe Lieberman, perhaps the only Democrat in the Senate with a sound understanding of what's at stake in Iraq. I've edited out some of the essay for the sake of brevity:

Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare--trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world.

What is remarkable about this state of affairs in Washington is just how removed it is from what is actually happening in Iraq. There, the battle of Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago. And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital.

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq--or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security--meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda's stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war, precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize the country's politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

The new strategy at last begins to tackle these problems. Where previously there weren't enough soldiers to hold key neighborhoods after they had been cleared of extremists and militias, now more U.S. and Iraqi forces are either in place or on the way. Where previously American forces were based on the outskirts of Baghdad, unable to help secure the city, now they are living and working side-by-side with their Iraqi counterparts on small bases being set up throughout the capital.

But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago--with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security--and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have already made up their minds about America's cause in Iraq, declaring their intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see whether our new plan will work.

There is of course a direct and straightforward way that Congress could end the war, consistent with its authority under the Constitution: by cutting off funds. Yet this option is not being proposed. Critics of the war instead are planning to constrain and squeeze the current strategy and troops by a thousand cuts and conditions.

Among the specific ideas under consideration are to tangle up the deployment of requested reinforcements by imposing certain "readiness" standards, and to redraft the congressional authorization for the war, apparently in such a way that Congress will assume the role of commander in chief and dictate when, where and against whom U.S. troops can fight.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake--assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

In fact, halting the current security operation at midpoint, as virtually all of the congressional proposals seek to do, would have devastating consequences. It would put thousands of American troops already deployed in the heart of Baghdad in even greater danger--forced to choose between trying to hold their position without the required reinforcements or, more likely, abandoning them outright. A precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake, which terrorists, insurgents, militias and Iran would rush to fill--probably resulting in a spiral of ethnic cleansing and slaughter on a scale as yet unseen in Iraq.

I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next. Instead of undermining Gen. Petraeus before he has been in Iraq for even a month, let us give him and his troops the time and support they need to succeed.

Gen. Petraeus says he will be able to see whether progress is occurring by the end of the summer, so let us declare a truce in the Washington political war over Iraq until then. Let us come together around a constructive legislative agenda for our security: authorizing an increase in the size of the Army and Marines, funding the equipment and protection our troops need, monitoring progress on the ground in Iraq ...

We are at a critical moment in Iraq--at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America's cause--the cause of freedom--which we abandon at our peril.

Senator Leiberman is absolutely right, and his Democratic colleagues know it. Perhaps that's why they've had second thoughts about trying to slow-bleed the troops to force a halt to our involvement.

RLC

Moral Authority

Alyaan Hirsi Ali, a woman who has been placed under a death fatwa by Islamic mullahs for her impertinence in telling the truth about Islam, instructs Bill Maher's audience, guests, and Maher himself on the nature of dhimmitude.

Maher's understanding of Christianity is regrettable, but the chance to hear Ali makes it worth putting up with his arrogance for a while. The movie critic spoof at the end is pretty funny, too.

If you're interested in learning about who Ali is check out at Slate by Anne Applebaum. RLC