Europe’s conflicts with Islam—the reminders of which present themselves to the discerning eye—are not new but stretch back centuries.It's a centuries long war, driven by hatred for anyone who is seen as infidel and the belief among Muslims that Allah commands them to convert all nations to Islam, by the sword if necessary. The only time there has been a respite in the conflict has been when Muslims were too weak to fight. Their great advantage today is that whereas Westerners no longer believe in anything firmly enough to be willing to fight for it, Muslims do. Not only do they have the will to spend their entire lives waging jihad, not only do they glorify dying for the cause of Islam, many of them feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing so. To such a foe a decadent and effete West, steeped in the delusions of political correctness, must look like an easy target.
At its height, the Ottoman Empire, the last great Islamic caliphate, reached far into central Europe, into the Balkans and up to present-day Hungary. Twice “the Turks” unsuccessfully besieged Vienna, once in 1529 and again 1683. These defeats coupled with the defeat of the Ottoman navy by Europe’s so-called “Holy League” at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) heralded the onset of the Ottoman Empire’s long decline and the problems that this created—designated as the “Eastern Question” by nineteenth-century diplomats. Incidentally, the place/subway stop in Rome right before the one closest to the Vatican is called Lepanto in memory of the naval victory of 1571.
From 711 until 1492, Islam had a robust presence in Spain and Portugal and even briefly in France. The legacy of Muslim subjection of the Iberian peninsula—or “Al-Andalus” as it is known—persisted until the Reconquista during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The legacy of Al-Andalus is still richly apparent in the architecture of southern Spanish cities such as Cordoba, Seville, and Granada, the last Muslim stronghold.
Some 80 towns in Spain still celebrate what is known as the Fiesta de Moros y Cristanos, in which locals—not unlike America’s doughty Civil War reenactors–dress up in elaborate traditional costumes of Christian soldiers and “Moorish” fighters and reenact the expulsion of Muslims from Spain. The Islamicists who blew up 191 Spanish commuters in Madrid in 2004 gave as one of their motivations … you guessed it: revenge for the Reconquista of 1492.
Between 827 and 1300 Islamic influence penetrated present-day Italy. Sicily once had far more mosques than churches, and incursions by Muslim pirates extended far up the peninsula. “Saracen” raiders even tried to attack Rome in 846. What is more, before and after the conquest of Constantinople (1453), the Ottomans later tried to make inroads into Italy. The Republic of Venice was involved in ten costly wars against Ottoman fleets between 1423 and 1718. Today, many Italian coastal towns still celebrate festivals marking the defeat of Muslim raiders many centuries ago.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Unending War
Thomas Albert Howard at Patheos reminds us that the current conflict between Muslims and Europeans is not a new phenomenon, but actually the most recent recrudescence of a war that has been raging for about 1300 years and will continue to rage as long as Muslims have the power to wage it. Here's the heart of his piece:
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
An Amazing Thing to Watch
President Obama certainly knows an opportunity when he sees one. For six years under his presidency the economy has been lethargically plodding along with high unemployment and weak business performance. Nothing the administration did to create jobs and get business moving had any success.
Then, largely as a result of the boom in domestic oil production, a boom that Mr. Obama didn't want, refused to assist by opening up public lands and offshore sites for drilling, and sought to strangle with his cap and trade proposals in 2009, gasoline prices have declined dramatically.
The lower cost of fuel has been the equivalent of putting hundreds of dollars in the pockets of consumers and giving businesses a huge tax cut. It has almost by itself resulted in whatever moderately favorable economic trends there have been in the last couple of months, but none of it had anything to do with Mr. Obama. Indeed, if he had his way, none of it would have happened. Mr. Obama doesn't want lower gas prices and said so when he ran for president in 2008. The president wants gasoline prices high so that people will be forced off of carbon-based fuels and on to cleaner energy. Nevertheless, there he was before the nation last night during his State of the Union message declaring with a straight face that his policies have resulted in a "bustling" economy and that lower gas prices are creating jobs:
We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet. And today, America is number one in oil and gas. And thanks to lower gas prices and higher fuel standards, the typical family this year should save $750 at the pump.
According to TownHall fact checkers,
In 2012 Sarah Palin was roundly mocked by the liberal media for urging us to "Drill, baby, drill." They laughed then, but with fracking and other techniques we've been doing just what she encouraged us to do, and now those who mocked her, including the White House, are taking the credit for the results. It's an amazing thing to watch.
Then, largely as a result of the boom in domestic oil production, a boom that Mr. Obama didn't want, refused to assist by opening up public lands and offshore sites for drilling, and sought to strangle with his cap and trade proposals in 2009, gasoline prices have declined dramatically.
The lower cost of fuel has been the equivalent of putting hundreds of dollars in the pockets of consumers and giving businesses a huge tax cut. It has almost by itself resulted in whatever moderately favorable economic trends there have been in the last couple of months, but none of it had anything to do with Mr. Obama. Indeed, if he had his way, none of it would have happened. Mr. Obama doesn't want lower gas prices and said so when he ran for president in 2008. The president wants gasoline prices high so that people will be forced off of carbon-based fuels and on to cleaner energy. Nevertheless, there he was before the nation last night during his State of the Union message declaring with a straight face that his policies have resulted in a "bustling" economy and that lower gas prices are creating jobs:
We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet. And today, America is number one in oil and gas. And thanks to lower gas prices and higher fuel standards, the typical family this year should save $750 at the pump.
According to TownHall fact checkers,
None of these gains in domestic oil and gas production would have occurred if Obama had been able to pass the carbon cap and trade plan he pushed in 2009, the stated goal of which was to decrease oil and gas consumption by driving up the cost of producing it.For Mr. Obama to now act as if he's delighted that gas prices are low and, worse, that he had something to do with it, is almost like watching a Stephen Colbert riff. In 2012 he ridiculed Republicans for suggesting that drilling for oil would lower the price:
Only because Republicans stayed unified, and rejected Obama's cap and trade carbon tax, was the shale oil and natural gas boom able to produce the astounding results we are all enjoying today.
And you can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling. We heard the same thing in 2007, when I was running for president. We hear the same thing every year. We’ve heard the same thing for 30 years.Yet the reason gas prices are dropping, according to many analysts, is because the Saudis are trying to make American oil production unprofitable by flooding the market with oil to force the price lower so that the expense of American drilling is greater than the profit the oil companies are making. In other words, our production is causing the price to plummet both by adding directly to the supply and by forcing our competitors to also add to the supply.
Well the American people aren’t stupid. You know that’s not a plan — especially since we’re already drilling....You know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.
In 2012 Sarah Palin was roundly mocked by the liberal media for urging us to "Drill, baby, drill." They laughed then, but with fracking and other techniques we've been doing just what she encouraged us to do, and now those who mocked her, including the White House, are taking the credit for the results. It's an amazing thing to watch.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The Future of ISIL
Hot Air is running a report claiming that the leader of ISIL was wounded in an Iraqi air attack recently. The report may be true, but there have been similar reports in the past. In any case there's reason to believe that ISIL's morale is plummeting. Hot Air cites a Fox News report that over fifty ISIL fighters were executed by ISIL itself for losing a battle with the Kurdish Peshmerga. When soldiers are being executed for losing battles it's a sign of desperation in the leadership.
Losing battles isn't ISIL's only problem. They're also losing momentum, revenue, and a lot of disenchanted recruits are going AWOL even though this, too, is a capital offense. Of course, under ISIL almost everything is a capital offense. I heard on the radio today that they even executed a couple dozen young boys merely for watching a soccer game. ISIL's ambassadors are certainly doing very little to make Sharia law attractive to any civilized individual.
Strategy Page has an interesting account of the tribulations ISIS is suffering and also inflicting on their fellow Muslims. Here are some excerpts:
Losing battles isn't ISIL's only problem. They're also losing momentum, revenue, and a lot of disenchanted recruits are going AWOL even though this, too, is a capital offense. Of course, under ISIL almost everything is a capital offense. I heard on the radio today that they even executed a couple dozen young boys merely for watching a soccer game. ISIL's ambassadors are certainly doing very little to make Sharia law attractive to any civilized individual.
Strategy Page has an interesting account of the tribulations ISIS is suffering and also inflicting on their fellow Muslims. Here are some excerpts:
ISIL is the most ruthless of dozens of rebel coalitions (or the government forces) involved [in the Syrian civil war]. Moreover ISIL territorial gains have mainly been thinly populated desert in the west or depopulated (by years of fighting) areas in the north and central Syria. When it comes to actually controlling population ISIL is at a big disadvantage. The degree of savagery practiced by ISIL, especially against unarmed civilians who do not cooperate has made ISIL the group people are most likely to flee.There's more at the link. An army of evil, savage men can do a lot of harm and create a lot of terror, but eventually it begins to eat its own and when it does it's doomed. ISIS in Iraq will require a trained Iraqi army to root it out and kill it, but that'll eventually happen, maybe as early as this spring or summer. What it's fate will be in Syria where there is no competent army to confront it is a different matter, but in any case it seems that it's no longer the juggernaut it was a few months ago and its power is waning.
Most other rebels and the Assads offer civilians benefits (economic and personal security) if they stick around. Not so ISIL which treats civilians like farm animals to be exploited and, if they are troublesome, killed. ISIL is the classic example of why Islamic radicalism has failed in reality (but never in theory or in the sermons of hard core clerics) for over a thousand years. The only benefit of this nightmare is that ISIL’s actions have united the Islamic world like nothing else for a long time. Conservative and more secular Islamic leaders are all condemning ISIL and some are even asking that something be done within the Islamic world to kill this endemic support for extremism once and for all. That last development is long overdue.
The air strikes against ISIL have been most effective at hitting economic targets. ISIL has been trying to establish an “Islamic State” in the thinly populated areas it controls in eastern Syria and western Iraq. These areas contain working oil fields and there has long been a network of dealers in the area who will buy oil, cheap (about $25 a barrel from ISIL), for cash and no questions asked. That only works if the oil fields are undamaged and still capable to pumping oil.
The air strikes not only shut down most ISIL oil production but have driven away the technicians needed to make even an undamaged oil field work. ISIL has been advertising for replacement staff, offering high pay and security. ISIL’s reputation makes it difficult to attract competent people especially since the Arab and Western nations opposing ISIL would prosecute anyone going to work for ISIL, especially skilled oil field technicians and managers.
The economic activity in ISIL controlled territory is either wrecked by fighting or crippled by poor access to the outside world. ISIL is willing to allow food and other aid into their territory but given the ISIL reputation for kidnapping aid workers (even Moslem ones from Syria or Iraq) there is growing reluctance to even send aid. This fear is made worse by the experience with groups similar to ISIL (like al Shabaab in Somalia) who would sell a lot of aid to fund their terror operations.
In short, time is against ISIL because as the months go on the population of its Islamic State grows hungrier and more desperate to rid themselves from this nightmare. ISIL, like al Shabaab, will try some imaginative, desperate and ultimately futile ideas to remedy the situation but there really is no solution for Islamic State that is, economically, a failed state from the beginning.
The best example of the ISIL future is seen in Raqqa, the capital of the west Syrian province of Raqqa. ISIL has remained in control of Raqqa, the largest city in eastern Syria, since early 2014. Normally Raqqa has a population of 220,000 but nearly half have fled since ISIL took over. These refugees all tell the same stories of a wrecked economy and savage rule. Throughout ISIL occupied portions of Syria schools have been closed, leaving over 600,000 children without an education.
Raqqa still has some phone service and some residents risk execution by reporting, usually to family outside the city, what is happening in Raqqa. Apparently many of the inhabitants are hoping the Americans will invade and free them from ISIL control. This despite the fact that American and Arab air attacks on Raqqa have killed hundreds of civilians living near ISIL targets. Yet that is not the major cause of violent death. Since mid-2014 ISIL is believed to have executed nearly 2,000 people. Most of the victims have been civilians or captured soldiers and police. But a growing number of the executions involve ISIL members who attempted to desert or otherwise misbehave.
ISIL is facing a very costly, public and embarrassing defeat at the town of Kobane on the Turkish border. A three month effort to take the town from Kurdish defenders has turned into a slaughter of the ISIL attackers. Over a thousand ISIL men have been killed and over 3,000 wounded in Kobane since October. Worse, by mid-December the Kurds began pushing ISIL out of Kobane and other areas around the town. By early January the Kurds control over 80 percent of Kobane.
Despite ISIL counterattacks the Islamic terrorists keep losing ground. This is largely because the Kurds are better (trained, experienced and led) fighters, and have air support. A major factor in the high ISIL losses was the air support. There were over 200 air attacks since September. The Americans appear to have had air controller teams with the Kurds in or near Kobane as well as UAVs constantly watching the town from the air for targets and movements by the ISIL gunmen.
By December it appeared that ISIL was no longer sending its best fighters to Kobane but instead using mainly new recruits. These men have, at most, a few weeks training (and indoctrination) and don’t last long against the Kurds. For new ISIL recruits orders to go to Kobane came to be seen as a death sentence or, as their leaders put it, a quick ticket to paradise (after a glorious death as a Holy Warrior). ISIL made a big deal of showing no fear of the air strikes, but the reality was that those smart bombs and missiles killed you whether you were afraid or not.
It is known that ISIL has been accusing senior officials of treason and spying for the enemy and some of these ISIL officials have been executed. From what is known (via civilians inside ISIL territory talking to kin “outside”) ISIL is caring for lots of casualties and ISIL deserters (who are now being executed by ISIL if caught trying to leave) report heavy losses among new recruits. These men get a few weeks training but are still basically amateurs going into their first fire fight and most do not survive more than a few weeks. This is normal for armed groups like this, there is decades of data from research and interviews with survivors to prove it.
ISIL has released recruiting videos showing the training of young (apparently as young as 14 or less) teenagers. Refugees report that children of that age are often coerced (taken at gunpoint from their families) and compelled, on pain of death, to undergo “training” which, initially consists mainly of indoctrination. Those that seem to resist the indoctrination are killed, which encourages others to at least pretend to be enthusiastic. It has been noted that a growing proportion of foreigners among ISIL dead and those taken alive. Deserters and refugees report the same trend. Fewer Syrians and Iraqis want to work for ISIL, which is not a good sign for the Islamic state seeking to gain control over all of Syria and Iraq. You can occupy territory, but without a population you preside over a wilderness.
Just Kidding
The other day we heard that NASA and NOAA both claimed that 2014 was the hottest year on record, the implication being that global temperatures are rising and we better get serious about stemming the production of greenhouse gases and the use of fossil fuels.
We also heard from the skeptics who pointed out that even if it's true that 2014 was hotter than the next two hot years (2005, 2010) it was by a mere few hundredths of a degree which is insignificant and that what the data really shows is that global temperatures continue their nearly two decade-long plateau.
Now comes word that, in effect, NASA was just kidding. They don't know if 2014 was a record-breaker or not. Here's the report from the Daily Mail:
We also heard from the skeptics who pointed out that even if it's true that 2014 was hotter than the next two hot years (2005, 2010) it was by a mere few hundredths of a degree which is insignificant and that what the data really shows is that global temperatures continue their nearly two decade-long plateau.
Now comes word that, in effect, NASA was just kidding. They don't know if 2014 was a record-breaker or not. Here's the report from the Daily Mail:
The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true.In other words, it's much more likely that their original claim was wrong than that it was right. Is it any wonder that so many people doubt these people when they tell us we're headed for eco-catastrophe. Until climatologists can make predictions which come to pass and until they stop trying to scare the bejabbers out of us on the basis of a 38% probability and non-existent "hockey stick" temperature increases, the reasonable course is to take their pronouncements with a healthy dose of skepticism.
In a press release on Friday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’.
The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.
Yet the Nasa press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.
As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond.
Monday, January 19, 2015
How Far Have We Come?
The following is a post I put up last year at this time:
When I was in high school in a suburb of Philadelphia in the early '60s there was a working class ethnic neighborhood not far from mine into which a black couple named Baker wished to move. The neighborhood, named Delmar Village, was all-white and there was a great deal of turmoil generated by residents who wanted to keep it that way. The mob smashed the windows of the Baker home and attacked police. Mounted state police were called in to quell the disturbances that lasted for at least a week and which at the time were called a race riot by the media.
The black family believed they had a constitutional right to live wherever they wished and could afford. Presumably, they wanted their children to have the same opportunities that white children of similar economic means had. The white residents, or many of them, felt that regardless of what the constitution says about equality under the law, the black family had no place in that neighborhood. They didn't belong there by virtue of their skin color.
Martin Luther King Day is a good time to reflect on that awful episode and lament the bigotry that leads one American to tell another that he has no place in a neighborhood simply because of his race. But even though this event happened fifty years ago last August and September, and even though we've come a long way in many respects since those years, that kind of bigotry is still around today, not just among the lower socio-economic classes of both whites and blacks, but at the highest levels of the liberal-progressive movement in this country.
As a case in point consider the statement last Friday by the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who said this about conservatives:
It's not clear what Mr. Cuomo means by being "anti-gay," but if he's referring to people who oppose gay marriage then he's saying that those who hold a view of marriage that almost everyone held up until the day before yesterday are extremists and also have no place among tolerant New Yorkers.
This is what Jonah Goldberg calls "liberal fascism." It's the sort of bigotry that says to people "We don't want your kind here. You have no place in our neighborhood, not because you don't look like us, but because you don't think like us." It's the kind of bigotry in which one American tells other Americans that, regardless of what the Constitution says, their opinions are so odious that liberals don't want them living in even the same state as they live in.
Cuomo's statement is ironic on several levels. It's ironic because liberals like to appear in public clothed in the theoretical raiment of tolerance and diversity, but in practice, they're intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them, and their openness to diversity only applies to things like skin color, gender identity, and sexual preference. Ideological and often religious diversity are unwelcome.
It's ironic because the governor is proposing to exile from the state probably 50% or more of its citizens for the crime of embracing both traditional views of marriage and constitutional freedoms.
It's ironic because the governor refers to conservatives as holding extreme views, but which is more extreme, to protect unborn children or to kill them at a rate of a million annually? Which is more extreme, to honor a provision of a constitution which has governed this country for two centuries or to seek to abrogate it? Which is more extreme, to hold to a view of marriage that has thousands of years of tradition behind it or to revise and probably end it for the sake of a notion of equality that was unheard of just a a few decades ago?
The governor's statement is also ironic because it's symptomatic of exactly the sort of thinking that led not only to the riot in Delmar Village in 1963, but also to the Japanese internment camps during WWII, and to the expulsion of Indians from Georgia and elsewhere in the 19th century, all of which liberals rightly deplore.
The tactic of the liberal fascists is to cover their own extremism in octopus ink while hurling the allegation at anyone with whom they have a political disagreement. I suppose it works with the uninformed, the gullible, and those who wish to be gulled, but I think we'd do well to recall the words of Martin Luther King who longed for the day when his children (and ours) would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin (or on which side of the ideological divide they reside).
When I was in high school in a suburb of Philadelphia in the early '60s there was a working class ethnic neighborhood not far from mine into which a black couple named Baker wished to move. The neighborhood, named Delmar Village, was all-white and there was a great deal of turmoil generated by residents who wanted to keep it that way. The mob smashed the windows of the Baker home and attacked police. Mounted state police were called in to quell the disturbances that lasted for at least a week and which at the time were called a race riot by the media.
The black family believed they had a constitutional right to live wherever they wished and could afford. Presumably, they wanted their children to have the same opportunities that white children of similar economic means had. The white residents, or many of them, felt that regardless of what the constitution says about equality under the law, the black family had no place in that neighborhood. They didn't belong there by virtue of their skin color.
Martin Luther King Day is a good time to reflect on that awful episode and lament the bigotry that leads one American to tell another that he has no place in a neighborhood simply because of his race. But even though this event happened fifty years ago last August and September, and even though we've come a long way in many respects since those years, that kind of bigotry is still around today, not just among the lower socio-economic classes of both whites and blacks, but at the highest levels of the liberal-progressive movement in this country.
As a case in point consider the statement last Friday by the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who said this about conservatives:
"Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are."In other words, people who believe that we should protect the weakest among us by protecting their right to life, and people who believe that the second amendment of the Constitution allows them to defend themselves and their families are extremists and have no place among the good people of the state of New York.
It's not clear what Mr. Cuomo means by being "anti-gay," but if he's referring to people who oppose gay marriage then he's saying that those who hold a view of marriage that almost everyone held up until the day before yesterday are extremists and also have no place among tolerant New Yorkers.
This is what Jonah Goldberg calls "liberal fascism." It's the sort of bigotry that says to people "We don't want your kind here. You have no place in our neighborhood, not because you don't look like us, but because you don't think like us." It's the kind of bigotry in which one American tells other Americans that, regardless of what the Constitution says, their opinions are so odious that liberals don't want them living in even the same state as they live in.
Cuomo's statement is ironic on several levels. It's ironic because liberals like to appear in public clothed in the theoretical raiment of tolerance and diversity, but in practice, they're intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them, and their openness to diversity only applies to things like skin color, gender identity, and sexual preference. Ideological and often religious diversity are unwelcome.
It's ironic because the governor is proposing to exile from the state probably 50% or more of its citizens for the crime of embracing both traditional views of marriage and constitutional freedoms.
It's ironic because the governor refers to conservatives as holding extreme views, but which is more extreme, to protect unborn children or to kill them at a rate of a million annually? Which is more extreme, to honor a provision of a constitution which has governed this country for two centuries or to seek to abrogate it? Which is more extreme, to hold to a view of marriage that has thousands of years of tradition behind it or to revise and probably end it for the sake of a notion of equality that was unheard of just a a few decades ago?
The governor's statement is also ironic because it's symptomatic of exactly the sort of thinking that led not only to the riot in Delmar Village in 1963, but also to the Japanese internment camps during WWII, and to the expulsion of Indians from Georgia and elsewhere in the 19th century, all of which liberals rightly deplore.
The tactic of the liberal fascists is to cover their own extremism in octopus ink while hurling the allegation at anyone with whom they have a political disagreement. I suppose it works with the uninformed, the gullible, and those who wish to be gulled, but I think we'd do well to recall the words of Martin Luther King who longed for the day when his children (and ours) would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin (or on which side of the ideological divide they reside).
Saturday, January 17, 2015
War on Science
A column by Greg Satell at Forbes is remarkable for the degree of misunderstanding it reveals.
His ostensible purpose is to explain how the "war on science" hurts us all, but what does he mean by a "war on science"? He seems to be saying that there are just too many people out here in the boondocks who are unwilling to accept pronouncements from scientists if they're not supported by empirical data. In other words, there are too many people who are holding scientists to the standards that scientists claim make science different from other pursuits. Satell seems to find this skepticism among the laity unsettling. He writes this:
In other words, the conflict is not between science and something else - there's no more a "war" on science than there is a "war" on women - but there is a conflict between two metaphysical understandings of reality. Materialists, as we saw above, often accept Darwinism, not because it's "reproducible and testable," as Satell claims a scientific hypothesis must be, but because materialism demands that any explanation for life exclude any non-physical entities. Those whose metaphysics permits or includes such entities (God, for example) are skeptical of any rival metaphysical theory that's advanced under the flag of science. It's not the science they oppose, it's the metaphysics, the religious assumptions that are smuggled in under the scientific banner.
Mr. Satell would do well to understand that there's a big difference.
His ostensible purpose is to explain how the "war on science" hurts us all, but what does he mean by a "war on science"? He seems to be saying that there are just too many people out here in the boondocks who are unwilling to accept pronouncements from scientists if they're not supported by empirical data. In other words, there are too many people who are holding scientists to the standards that scientists claim make science different from other pursuits. Satell seems to find this skepticism among the laity unsettling. He writes this:
The work of scientists, when properly done, is reproducible and testable and that makes all the difference....By "Darwin's theory" Satell presumably means the Neo-Darwinian view of molecules to man evolution driven by natural selection and random mutation. If he thinks that this theory is testable and falsifiable through experiment then he's unfamiliar with what many of its most devoted supporters have said about it. Here are a couple of examples:
One of the great debates that politicians seek to devoid [sic] by touting their lack of scientific credentials is the one between Darwin’s theory of natural selection and intelligent design. Many people in the US, more than 40% in fact, believe in some form of creationism and want it taught in schools.
At first glance, they would seem to have a point. After all, no one actually saw humans evolve, so who’s to say that Darwin’s theory is true and creationism is false? Why, in the interest of academic inquiry, shouldn’t both be included in state curricula?
The reason is that Darwin’s theory is science — a subject taught in public schools — while intelligent design is a matter of faith, which is not. Darwin’s theory produces testable hypotheses that can be falsified through experiment. Creationism does not. It is a matter of belief, not a subject for investigation.
Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the the only alternative, special creation, is unthinkable. Sir Arthur Keith, physical anthropologist and head of the Anatomy Department at London Hospital.Geneticist Richard Lewontin, speaking about evolution, said that:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.D.M.S. Watson, chair of evolution at the University of London, said that he believed in evolution, "not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
In other words, the conflict is not between science and something else - there's no more a "war" on science than there is a "war" on women - but there is a conflict between two metaphysical understandings of reality. Materialists, as we saw above, often accept Darwinism, not because it's "reproducible and testable," as Satell claims a scientific hypothesis must be, but because materialism demands that any explanation for life exclude any non-physical entities. Those whose metaphysics permits or includes such entities (God, for example) are skeptical of any rival metaphysical theory that's advanced under the flag of science. It's not the science they oppose, it's the metaphysics, the religious assumptions that are smuggled in under the scientific banner.
Mr. Satell would do well to understand that there's a big difference.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Hottest Year Ever
Last October I did a post in which I cited a statement to the effect that in some ways 2014 may turn out to be one of the coolest on record in the U.S. This displeased some readers who wrote to tell me what an idiot I was. Actually, that characterization of their correspondence gives it credit for being more polite than it actually was.
Anyway, at the risk of eliciting more juvenile email from those who have yet to mature to the point where they're able to disagree without employing insult, I note that NASA and NOAA have released a report that claims that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Here's an excerpt from the AP story:
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, for example, notes that 2014 was only .07 degrees F warmer than the previous highs of 2010 and 2005, an amount which is within the margin of error of the measuring devices, and statistically insignificant. She notes that this means 2014's global average is essentially about what it's been for a decade and that the conclusion to be drawn is that there has been no significant warming throughout that period. In other words, global warming has, if not stopped, at least taken a long hiatus.
Other scientists at the link argue that the static period, or "pause" has been almost two decades long and that the skyrocketing temperatures predicted by some of the same folks cited in the AP story have failed to materialize.
Whether the alarmists are right or the skeptics are right I don't know, but the data do seem to show that the predictions of a global temperature "hockey stick" such as Al Gore prophesied simply haven't been fulfilled. Maybe there's a reason why global temperatures have plateaued over the last decade or so, or maybe the alarmists are simply wrong.
In any case, science is based on accurate predictions. When a theory's predictions fail to come to pass then that theory is in trouble. The question I'd like to ask is how long must the "pause" in warming last before scientists consider the current global warming theory to be falsified? If the theory is essentially immune to falsification, if it's maintained no matter what the global temperatures do, then it's not a scientific hypothesis, it's more like religion.
Anyway, at the risk of eliciting more juvenile email from those who have yet to mature to the point where they're able to disagree without employing insult, I note that NASA and NOAA have released a report that claims that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Here's an excerpt from the AP story:
For the third time in a decade, the globe sizzled to the hottest year on record, federal scientists announced Friday.This sounds pretty dire, and it may be, but it's apparently not the whole story. The report has its critics and, pace professor Dressler, they're not non-scientists.
Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA calculated that in 2014 the world had its hottest year in 135 years of record-keeping. Earlier, the Japanese weather agency and an independent group out of University of California Berkeley also measured 2014 as the hottest on record.
NOAA said 2014 averaged 58.24 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average.
But NASA, which calculates temperatures slightly differently, put 2014's average temperature at 58.42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.22 degrees above their average, which they calculate for 1951-1980.
Earth broke NOAA records set in 2010 and 2005. The last time the Earth set an annual NOAA cold record was in 1911....
Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler and other experts said the latest statistics should end claims by non-scientists that warming has stopped.
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, for example, notes that 2014 was only .07 degrees F warmer than the previous highs of 2010 and 2005, an amount which is within the margin of error of the measuring devices, and statistically insignificant. She notes that this means 2014's global average is essentially about what it's been for a decade and that the conclusion to be drawn is that there has been no significant warming throughout that period. In other words, global warming has, if not stopped, at least taken a long hiatus.
Other scientists at the link argue that the static period, or "pause" has been almost two decades long and that the skyrocketing temperatures predicted by some of the same folks cited in the AP story have failed to materialize.
Whether the alarmists are right or the skeptics are right I don't know, but the data do seem to show that the predictions of a global temperature "hockey stick" such as Al Gore prophesied simply haven't been fulfilled. Maybe there's a reason why global temperatures have plateaued over the last decade or so, or maybe the alarmists are simply wrong.
In any case, science is based on accurate predictions. When a theory's predictions fail to come to pass then that theory is in trouble. The question I'd like to ask is how long must the "pause" in warming last before scientists consider the current global warming theory to be falsified? If the theory is essentially immune to falsification, if it's maintained no matter what the global temperatures do, then it's not a scientific hypothesis, it's more like religion.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Once More on Fine-Tuning
VP readers are doubtless aware that the topic of cosmic fine-tuning is something of a favorite interest of mine. Since several recent posts have dealt with this subject in one way or another I thought it'd be useful to new readers to explain what it's all about, or, better yet, let philosopher Jay Richards explain what it's all about:
First, there are Cosmic Constants:
(1)Gravitational force constant
(2)Electromagnetic force constant
(3)Strong nuclear force constant
(4)Weak nuclear force constant
(5)Cosmological constant
Then there are Initial Conditions and “Brute Facts”:
(6) Initial distribution of mass energy
(7) Ratio of masses for protons and electrons
(8) Velocity of light
(9) Mass excess of neutron over proton
And “Local” Planetary Conditions:
(10) Steady plate tectonics with right kind of geological interior
(11) Right amount of water in crust
(12) Large moon with right rotation period
(13) Proper concentration of sulfur
(14) Right planetary mass
(15) Near inner edge of circumstellar habitable zone
(16) Low-eccentricity orbit outside spin-orbit and giant planet resonances
(17) A few, large Jupiter-mass planetary neighbors in large circular orbits
(18) Outside spiral arm of galaxy
(19) Near co-rotation circle of galaxy, in circular orbit around galactic center
(20) Within the galactic habitable zone
(21) During the cosmic habitable age
Finally, Richards mentions the Effects of Primary Fine-Tuning Parameters:
(22) The polarity of the water molecule
Some of these examples express a balance of several features. A spectacular instance of this is the cosmological constant (#5) which is a relationship between the repulsive force of dark energy, which is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, and the force of gravity which causes the universe to tend toward collapse. This balance must be set with a precision of one part in 10^120. If the value of the cosmological constant were off by that much, an incomprehensibly tiny amount, the universe would either collapse or rip itself apart.
In talking about the gravitational force (#1) Richards creates a word picture to give us a mental image of the amazingly fine tolerances that physicists have discovered:
Richards gives a brief explanation of each of the twenty examples here.
“Fine-tuning” refers to various features of the universe that are necessary conditions for the existence of complex life. Such features include the initial conditions and “brute facts” of the universe as a whole, the laws of nature or the numerical constants present in those laws (such as the gravitational force constant), and local features of habitable planets (such as a planet’s distance from its host star).Richards goes on to list and explain twenty two of those widely accepted examples of these precisely calibrated features.
The basic idea is that these features must fall within a very narrow range of possible values for chemical-based life to be possible. Some popular examples are subject to dispute, and there are some complicated philosophical debates about how to calculate probabilities.
Nevertheless, there are many well-established examples of fine-tuning, which are widely accepted even by scientists who are generally hostile to theism and design. For instance, Stephen Hawking has admitted: “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers [the constants of physics] seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”
First, there are Cosmic Constants:
(1)Gravitational force constant
(2)Electromagnetic force constant
(3)Strong nuclear force constant
(4)Weak nuclear force constant
(5)Cosmological constant
Then there are Initial Conditions and “Brute Facts”:
(6) Initial distribution of mass energy
(7) Ratio of masses for protons and electrons
(8) Velocity of light
(9) Mass excess of neutron over proton
And “Local” Planetary Conditions:
(10) Steady plate tectonics with right kind of geological interior
(11) Right amount of water in crust
(12) Large moon with right rotation period
(13) Proper concentration of sulfur
(14) Right planetary mass
(15) Near inner edge of circumstellar habitable zone
(16) Low-eccentricity orbit outside spin-orbit and giant planet resonances
(17) A few, large Jupiter-mass planetary neighbors in large circular orbits
(18) Outside spiral arm of galaxy
(19) Near co-rotation circle of galaxy, in circular orbit around galactic center
(20) Within the galactic habitable zone
(21) During the cosmic habitable age
Finally, Richards mentions the Effects of Primary Fine-Tuning Parameters:
(22) The polarity of the water molecule
Some of these examples express a balance of several features. A spectacular instance of this is the cosmological constant (#5) which is a relationship between the repulsive force of dark energy, which is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, and the force of gravity which causes the universe to tend toward collapse. This balance must be set with a precision of one part in 10^120. If the value of the cosmological constant were off by that much, an incomprehensibly tiny amount, the universe would either collapse or rip itself apart.
In talking about the gravitational force (#1) Richards creates a word picture to give us a mental image of the amazingly fine tolerances that physicists have discovered:
Imagine a measuring stick like a ruler that extends from one end of the universe to the other. Imagine that this ruler represents the range of force strengths from the weakest force (gravity) to the strongest (the strong nuclear force). If the force of gravity deviated from its actual value by the equivalent of about one inch on the ruler there would be no life-sustaining planets in the universe.No doubt the most remarkable example of fine-tuning is #6, the initial distribution of mass/energy in the nascent universe just after the Big Bang. Richards says:
One way of summarizing the initial conditions is to speak of the extremely low entropy (that is, a highly ordered) initial state of the universe. This refers to the initial distribution of mass/energy. In The Road to Reality, physicist Roger Penrose estimates that the odds of the initial low entropy state of our universe occurring by chance alone are on the order of 1 in 10^10^123. This ratio is vastly beyond our powers of comprehension. Since we know a life-bearing universe is intrinsically interesting, this ratio should be more than enough to raise the question: Why does such a universe exist?Good question. Here's another: Is this unimaginable degree of fine-tuning more likely on the assumption that theism is true or on the assumption that naturalism is true?
Richards gives a brief explanation of each of the twenty examples here.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
More on Metaxas
In an earlier post I mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal by Eric Metaxas, and a couple of days later I mentioned in an update that the article has stirred up some controversy. The controversy is a bit surprising, actually, since what Metaxas wrote about has been circulating among philosophers and scientists, both theist and atheist alike, for the last twenty years. Perhaps the thought of facts like those cited by Metaxas being disseminated among the general public has aroused concern among those who desire to keep the divine foot from getting in the door, as biologist Richard Lewontin once put it.
One critic who has taken exception to Metaxas' piece is atheistic physicist Laurence Krauss. He wrote a letter to the WSJ which Daniel Bakken at Evolution News and Views excerpts and to which he offers a cogent reply.
Philosopher V.J. Torley has a lengthier and more thorough response to another of Metaxas' critics, Catholic philosopher Francis Beckwith, at Uncommon Descent.
In the course of his critique of Beckwith Torley quotes writer Damon Linker who contends that even if Eric Metaxas’ argument were valid, it doesn’t prove the existence of a God who loves us, let alone the God of the Bible. Says Linker:
Surely we could conclude that the agent is transcendent, i.e. it's not itself the universe - not material nor temporal - but is rather the being which fashioned the physico-spatio-temporal manifold and that it did so out of nothing since the material universe came into being, according to most cosmologists, ex nihilo (i.e.out of nothing).
We could also conclude that this being must be both unimaginably powerful and incomprehensibly intelligent. Since it transcends time it might also be eternal. Since it transcends space it's not limited by space. Moreover, since it has created, either directly or indirectly, personal beings with a sense of morality, justice, beauty and humor, it's reasonable to believe that it itself is personal and either possesses the aforenamed qualities or at least understands how they operate and "feel."
Finally, since it is the being upon which the contingent universe depends it's reasonable to think that this being has the property of being self-existent, not dependent on anything else for its own existence, otherwise we're faced with the absurdity of an infinite regress of creators.
Now all this may not add up to the God of traditional Christian theism, but it's pretty close. In other words, once it's admitted that the universe was created it's not a big leap to to the belief that the creator possesses many of the qualities of the God of Christianity. Thus, although a compelling argument for a cosmic designer does not amount to a knockdown proof that God exists, that's not what's important or significant about the argument. What's significant is that it provides rational justification for the theist's belief that God exists.
Indeed, it's also warrant for believing that theism is more rational than atheism. After all, the rational course is always to believe what's more probable than what's less probable, and the fine-tuning of the universe that Metaxas talks about is certainly more (epistemically) probable given that theism is true than it is given that naturalism is true. Put differently, intentional agency is a much better explanation for cosmic fine-tuning than is blind chance.
One critic who has taken exception to Metaxas' piece is atheistic physicist Laurence Krauss. He wrote a letter to the WSJ which Daniel Bakken at Evolution News and Views excerpts and to which he offers a cogent reply.
Philosopher V.J. Torley has a lengthier and more thorough response to another of Metaxas' critics, Catholic philosopher Francis Beckwith, at Uncommon Descent.
In the course of his critique of Beckwith Torley quotes writer Damon Linker who contends that even if Eric Metaxas’ argument were valid, it doesn’t prove the existence of a God who loves us, let alone the God of the Bible. Says Linker:
...[N]atural theology doesn’t demonstrate the existence of the God of the Bible....Even if we consider it reasonable to speculate about the possible, mysterious role played by some form of divine intelligence on the origin of life, that provides not one ounce of support for the detailed, specific stories of divine revelation laid out in the pages of scripture. The God of the philosophers (and the scientists) is not the God of the Bible. At least not obviously or inevitably. And no new piece of scientific evidence is likely to change that.Linker is technically correct, of course, but it's a little difficult to place much weight upon his objection. To see why, imagine for a moment that it were established with a high degree of probability that the universe is in fact the work of an intelligent agent. What might we reasonably conclude about the nature of that agent?
Surely we could conclude that the agent is transcendent, i.e. it's not itself the universe - not material nor temporal - but is rather the being which fashioned the physico-spatio-temporal manifold and that it did so out of nothing since the material universe came into being, according to most cosmologists, ex nihilo (i.e.out of nothing).
We could also conclude that this being must be both unimaginably powerful and incomprehensibly intelligent. Since it transcends time it might also be eternal. Since it transcends space it's not limited by space. Moreover, since it has created, either directly or indirectly, personal beings with a sense of morality, justice, beauty and humor, it's reasonable to believe that it itself is personal and either possesses the aforenamed qualities or at least understands how they operate and "feel."
Finally, since it is the being upon which the contingent universe depends it's reasonable to think that this being has the property of being self-existent, not dependent on anything else for its own existence, otherwise we're faced with the absurdity of an infinite regress of creators.
Now all this may not add up to the God of traditional Christian theism, but it's pretty close. In other words, once it's admitted that the universe was created it's not a big leap to to the belief that the creator possesses many of the qualities of the God of Christianity. Thus, although a compelling argument for a cosmic designer does not amount to a knockdown proof that God exists, that's not what's important or significant about the argument. What's significant is that it provides rational justification for the theist's belief that God exists.
Indeed, it's also warrant for believing that theism is more rational than atheism. After all, the rational course is always to believe what's more probable than what's less probable, and the fine-tuning of the universe that Metaxas talks about is certainly more (epistemically) probable given that theism is true than it is given that naturalism is true. Put differently, intentional agency is a much better explanation for cosmic fine-tuning than is blind chance.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Drawing Opposite Conclusions
One of the frustrations of dialogue with those who hold opinions opposite our own is that so often we look at the same event and come to completely different conclusions about it. The conclusions we draw are shaped by our worldview, including our political ideology and religious convictions. Liberals and conservatives often talk past each other because they begin from different philosophical starting points and also because it's often hard for either to really understand how the other thinks.
There was an example of this over the weekend in the Washington Free Beacon which featured an excerpt of an interview on MSNBC with the very liberal columnist from the Washington Post Eugene Robinson. Here's the Beacon's report:
This, though, makes no sense to me. The Paris terrorists apparently had no difficulty procuring weapons and were heavily armed. The problem in France was that there weren't enough weapons in the hands of the victims. One reason, it might be argued, that incidents like the Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher deli attacks would actually have a smaller chance of "success" in the U.S. is that the shooters would be more likely to encounter someone who could shoot back.
If Mr. Robinson thinks the chances of slaughter in this country would be diminished if Americans would disarm all he has to do is look at what happened in France where most citizens and even the responding police were unarmed. Indeed, every mass killing in this country, whether in a school or a movie theater or even on a military base, occurred when the only person who had a gun was the killer, and these tragedies often ended when the killer encountered another person with a gun.
Pace Mr. Robinson, if Americans were to disarm the chances of carnage like we saw last week in Paris would actually increase because the killers would have certainly no trouble obtaining weapons and they'd know they'd encounter no immediate resistance. This seems to me to be pellucidly obvious, but evidently it's not so to Mr. Robinson, and I have to wonder why not. Of course, he'd probably wonder the same about me.
There was an example of this over the weekend in the Washington Free Beacon which featured an excerpt of an interview on MSNBC with the very liberal columnist from the Washington Post Eugene Robinson. Here's the Beacon's report:
While appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said it was good that the terrorist attacks taking place in France this week didn’t occur in the United States because America has more guns. Robinson said that the wide availability of firearms in the United States would lead to further violence in similar situations to those the French are now dealing with. He did not elaborate on why he believed that was the case.As near as I can figure Robinson seems to be suggesting that should terrorists wish they could do a lot more harm in the U.S. than in France because weapons are more readily available here than there.
“Just to keep it in perspective, I don’t think we should imagine that the conditions and the threat are exactly the same in the United States as they are in France,” he said. “They are different.”
“In fact, one thing that is different here is weapons are universally available and so, uh, it is actually a very good thing that…that…that the tensions are not exactly the same because we would expect to have a lot more of that sort of carnage here.” The Islamic extremists who have attacked locations across Paris were reportedly heavily armed despite the country’s strict gun laws. However, most of their victims were reportedly not armed.
This, though, makes no sense to me. The Paris terrorists apparently had no difficulty procuring weapons and were heavily armed. The problem in France was that there weren't enough weapons in the hands of the victims. One reason, it might be argued, that incidents like the Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher deli attacks would actually have a smaller chance of "success" in the U.S. is that the shooters would be more likely to encounter someone who could shoot back.
If Mr. Robinson thinks the chances of slaughter in this country would be diminished if Americans would disarm all he has to do is look at what happened in France where most citizens and even the responding police were unarmed. Indeed, every mass killing in this country, whether in a school or a movie theater or even on a military base, occurred when the only person who had a gun was the killer, and these tragedies often ended when the killer encountered another person with a gun.
Pace Mr. Robinson, if Americans were to disarm the chances of carnage like we saw last week in Paris would actually increase because the killers would have certainly no trouble obtaining weapons and they'd know they'd encounter no immediate resistance. This seems to me to be pellucidly obvious, but evidently it's not so to Mr. Robinson, and I have to wonder why not. Of course, he'd probably wonder the same about me.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Are We Charlie?
David Brooks puts his finger on a peculiarity in some of the reaction in the United States to the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo staff. Brooks notes that the same intolerance of those who voice opinions we don't like, of those who ridicule our most cherished beliefs, exists right here in the putative bastion of free speech, the American university.
It does seem both fatuous and hypocritical for American liberals to proclaim "Je suis Charlie" while at the same time establishing campus speech codes, disinviting speakers, and punishing faculty for holding opinions that lie outside the mainstream of acceptable progressive thought.
Brooks puts it this way:
It does seem both fatuous and hypocritical for American liberals to proclaim "Je suis Charlie" while at the same time establishing campus speech codes, disinviting speakers, and punishing faculty for holding opinions that lie outside the mainstream of acceptable progressive thought.
Brooks puts it this way:
The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.Brooks' column provokes a question: How much of the left's willingness to identify itself with the Charlie Hebdo staffers is a consequence of the fact that much of Charlie Hebdo's satire was aimed at targets the left holds in contempt? Would the left be as sympathetic if the magazine were written from a more "right-wing" perspective and went to great lengths to lampoon the pieties of the left? In any case it certainly is ironic to see folks of the same ideological stripe as those who seek to silence critics of global warming, Darwinism, gay marriage, and other progressive sacred cows painting, if only in a figurative sense, "Nous sommes Charlie" on their faces.
Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home.
Just look at all the people who have overreacted to campus micro-aggressions. The University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic view on homosexuality. The University of Kansas suspended a professor for writing a harsh tweet against the N.R.A. Vanderbilt University derecognized a Christian group that insisted that it be led by Christians.
Americans may laud Charlie Hebdo for being brave enough to publish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, but, if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is invited to campus, there are often calls to deny her a podium.
So this might be a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, it’s a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Sky Dancers
Sean Davis at The Federalist applies C.S. Lewis' description of men without chests in his Abolition of Man to that segment of our modern media which has allowed themselves to be intimidated into dhimmitude by Islamic violence.
Here's an excerpt:
Even so, I don't fault our cultural elites for their fear nor their reluctance to give offense, and I can understand why devout Muslims might be offended at some of those cartoons. What I fault the elites for is their sanctimonious self-congratulation for their "bold" and "daring" "transgressions" against Christian piety while cowering in fear of doing anything that might provoke angry Muslims. I fault them for their punctilious regard for the sensibilities of intolerant devotees of the Prophet and their complete disregard for the sensibilities of Christians. They know they can mock the pope and even the Christ whom Christians believe to be God incarnate, and the most unpleasant consequence that'll befall them will be that Christians will pray for them. They also know, on the other hand, that if they publish a cartoon of Mohammed in an unflattering light they may find their workday interrupted by automatic rifle fire aimed in their direction.
Given those realities they choose to mock Christ and profess reverence for Mohammed. Wouldn't it be more virtuous and less cowardly to just show respect for both?
Here's an excerpt:
Following the Charlie Hebdo attack, CNN allegedly issued a memo to staff detailing what types of images and words would be banned by the network and what would be allowed:It's surpassingly ironic that a media and arts culture which praises Andres Serrano's photos of Jesus Christ on the cross immersed in a jar of urine, which admires Chris Ofili's painting of the virgin Mary covered in elephant dung, which mocks the Catholic priesthood because of pedophile priests, which scoffs at religious believers who dare question the creation myths of the metaphysical naturalists, which produces scores of books seeking to debunk and deride Christian belief, nevertheless wriggles and twists like journalistic sky dancers trying to explain why they won't show the cartoon images published by the Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo that so outraged the Muslim psychopaths.
"Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension between free expression and respect for religion.
"Video or stills of street protests showing Parisians holding up copies of the offensive cartoons, if shot wide, are also OK. Avoid close-ups of the cartoons that make them clearly legible.
"It’s also OK to show most of the protest cartoons making the rounds online, though care should be taken to avoid examples that include within them detailed depictions of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons."
Where to begin? For starters, note that the network is apparently afraid of even using the word Muhammad. Instead, the Islamic religious figure is referred to by CNN merely as “the Prophet.” Not a prophet. And not even the prophet. “The Prophet,” with a capital P.
If we are to take CNN’s memo at its word, no other prophets existed before or after Muhammad. He is literally the only one. Forget Moses. Forget Abraham. Forget that both are major prophets for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Nope. Muhammad is the only one (even if that statement itself is heretical to the ideology they’re desperately trying not to offend) and he will be faux-respected by fearful news executives, even if that faux respect results in the blatant disrespect of other religions that outright reject Muhammad’s alleged teachings. Your offense is only worthy of note if comes packaged with a death threat.
I look forward to CNN referring to Jesus Christ as “the Messiah” from now on. I look forward to CNN referring to God as “G-d” out of respect for Jews who believe it is sinful to utter His name. And I really look forward to never seeing another historically illiterate Easter-time screed masquerading as news about how Jesus is just a silly myth who never really existed and that people who put any stock in the most well-attested historical documents in all of antiquity are just a bunch of nutty kooks.
I mean, if we’re talking about respect for religion, surely that must mean respect for religions that don’t send masked terrorists to gun down your news bureau whenever it publishes something stupid and insensitive, right? Or do my views only deserve respect insofar as they refuse to acknowledge your right to even exist?
For the Men Without Chests, however, history, theology, and even grammar must bow low before the altar of terrorism.
Even so, I don't fault our cultural elites for their fear nor their reluctance to give offense, and I can understand why devout Muslims might be offended at some of those cartoons. What I fault the elites for is their sanctimonious self-congratulation for their "bold" and "daring" "transgressions" against Christian piety while cowering in fear of doing anything that might provoke angry Muslims. I fault them for their punctilious regard for the sensibilities of intolerant devotees of the Prophet and their complete disregard for the sensibilities of Christians. They know they can mock the pope and even the Christ whom Christians believe to be God incarnate, and the most unpleasant consequence that'll befall them will be that Christians will pray for them. They also know, on the other hand, that if they publish a cartoon of Mohammed in an unflattering light they may find their workday interrupted by automatic rifle fire aimed in their direction.
Given those realities they choose to mock Christ and profess reverence for Mohammed. Wouldn't it be more virtuous and less cowardly to just show respect for both?
Friday, January 9, 2015
Feral Philosophy
In a column for the New York Times' Opinionator Steve Neumann discusses the need for popular, as opposed to academic, philosophy. It's not that academic philosophy is not important for Neumann, it's just that, like any academic discipline, it's inaccessible to the public which would benefit greatly from its insights and ideas. Neumann writes:
Those who find this puttering to be a frivolous use of one's time either leave the profession or settle for teaching others about those great advances. Neumann gives us a couple of examples of philosophers who have followed both paths:
The great value of philosophy, at whatever level it's taught, is that it teaches people what the important questions in life are are, what others have thought about those questions, and helps us to think about them for ourselves.
Philosophers have for thousands of years debated questions like why am I here? What purpose, if any, does my life have? How did the cosmos and life ever come to be? Does God exist? If so, what is God like? Is the material world all there is? Do we have minds? Do we have free will? If not, does anyone ever deserve reward or punishment? Is love more than just a chemical reaction in our brains? In what sense is the world outside of our minds real? In what sense is time real? What does it mean to know something? Can we have knowledge without certainty? What's the difference between knowing and believing? What is right to do? What makes something right? Must I care about other people's welfare or just my own?
These and many other questions we could think of weave together to form the tapestry of philosophy and it's mind-expanding and fascinating to ponder them. We may not ever arrive at the correct answers to these questions, indeed for some questions there may be no correct answers, but what addressing them does is enable us to develop a more coherent view of our life, our place in the world and of human existence in general.
Neumann says something like this when he writes that:
I really do believe we need philosophy journalists in the same way and for the same reason we have science journalists — to prepare the arcana of academia into a dish digestible by the public. But philosophy journalists like me certainly aren’t enough — we also need professional philosophers practicing their craft outside the academy.This sentence, perhaps inadvertently, sums up why so much contemporary scholarship, not just in philosophy but in other humanities subject areas as well, seems so pointless and arid. Once most of the great advances in a discipline have been made there's little left to occupy its practitioners but to putter around the margins. This is stifling for many bright minds, and it's the reason, in my opinion, why a lot of academics advance novel theories and churn out work that borders on the bizarre. They're desperately trying to do something original so that their life's work doesn't seem so meaningless to them and to others.
The strength of philosophy — the unflinching interrogation of existence, in accord with the highest standards of reasoned argument — is mostly being exercised between academics relegated to making incremental refinements to their areas of specialization....
Those who find this puttering to be a frivolous use of one's time either leave the profession or settle for teaching others about those great advances. Neumann gives us a couple of examples of philosophers who have followed both paths:
Nigel Warburton, who left his position as a senior lecturer at the Open University in 2013 to devote his time to the popular Philosophy Bites podcast, among other things, told me it was primarily the limited opportunities for teaching subjects that he was interested in that led him to leave. “It didn’t work for me. Perhaps that’s my problem,” he said. “But I’ve been heartened by the number of academics who have written to me saying they feel more or less the same but don’t have a straightforward escape route.” He added that he wished more philosophers would follow suit, but that “many are too timid, or are effectively gagged on controversial topics by their institutions.”These are examples of what Neumann later refers to as "feral" philosophy. It's philosophy geared to the layman outside the formal university classroom.
Another philosopher who left academia to try his luck in “nature red in tooth and claw” is Dan Fincke, the author of Camels With Hammers, a blog on the atheist channel of Patheos. Fincke told me that, like Warburton, he left his position as an adjunct philosophy professor at both Hofstra and Fordham Universities because of “the demands to produce technical scholarship rather than just continue to follow my philosophical interests.” Fincke is a prolific blogger who was excited by the prospect of being able to “speak to the wider educated lay audience out there about the relevance of philosophical concepts to what they actually cared about.” In addition to his daily blog, he also runs an online philosophy class via videoconference.
The great value of philosophy, at whatever level it's taught, is that it teaches people what the important questions in life are are, what others have thought about those questions, and helps us to think about them for ourselves.
Philosophers have for thousands of years debated questions like why am I here? What purpose, if any, does my life have? How did the cosmos and life ever come to be? Does God exist? If so, what is God like? Is the material world all there is? Do we have minds? Do we have free will? If not, does anyone ever deserve reward or punishment? Is love more than just a chemical reaction in our brains? In what sense is the world outside of our minds real? In what sense is time real? What does it mean to know something? Can we have knowledge without certainty? What's the difference between knowing and believing? What is right to do? What makes something right? Must I care about other people's welfare or just my own?
These and many other questions we could think of weave together to form the tapestry of philosophy and it's mind-expanding and fascinating to ponder them. We may not ever arrive at the correct answers to these questions, indeed for some questions there may be no correct answers, but what addressing them does is enable us to develop a more coherent view of our life, our place in the world and of human existence in general.
Neumann says something like this when he writes that:
I think the key difference between science and philosophy is that we need the results of science more than we need everyone in the body politic “doing science.” By contrast, we need everyone “doing philosophy” more than we need the results of philosophy. In other words, we don’t need to know or understand how the scientist has gone from the minute molecular intricacies of DNA to a public good like genetic counseling.I agree.
On the other hand, the emulation of the critical thinking and logical argument of a philosopher is a virtue that can be applied to any area of life — from where you stand on the most important social and political issues of the day to how best to spend the rest of your days on this planet.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
The Paris Massacre
There has, of course, been a lot of commentary in the wake of the Paris mass murder of two police officers and ten employees of the magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Some of the commentary has focused on the nature of the magazine, which is, in my opinion, irrelevant. To be sure, the magazine and its staff were despicable. They specialized in offensive portrayals of religious figures (masturbating nuns and popes wearing condoms), but that's certainly no justification for their murders. Murdering those who offend is the sort of thing that savages do. Murdering innocent civilians and police who get in the way is beneath savagery.
Speaking of the slain police officers, their deaths are an example of the needless tragedy inflicted upon people by liberal policies. The officers arrived at the scene unarmed and on bicycles. Other officers were forced to retreat because they had no weapons with which to confront the terrorists. If they had had access to what the average cop in America has in his squad car, or if any of the victims had had a gun in his desk drawer, the death toll might not have been nearly as high. One has to wonder why on earth French police are not armed.
Whatever the case, other commentary has been devoted to the nature of the religion which motivates people like these three to commit murder. The editors of National Review have written a very good piece on this. Here's an excerpt:
Some of the commentary has focused on the nature of the magazine, which is, in my opinion, irrelevant. To be sure, the magazine and its staff were despicable. They specialized in offensive portrayals of religious figures (masturbating nuns and popes wearing condoms), but that's certainly no justification for their murders. Murdering those who offend is the sort of thing that savages do. Murdering innocent civilians and police who get in the way is beneath savagery.
Speaking of the slain police officers, their deaths are an example of the needless tragedy inflicted upon people by liberal policies. The officers arrived at the scene unarmed and on bicycles. Other officers were forced to retreat because they had no weapons with which to confront the terrorists. If they had had access to what the average cop in America has in his squad car, or if any of the victims had had a gun in his desk drawer, the death toll might not have been nearly as high. One has to wonder why on earth French police are not armed.
Whatever the case, other commentary has been devoted to the nature of the religion which motivates people like these three to commit murder. The editors of National Review have written a very good piece on this. Here's an excerpt:
A religion that commands murder as the punishment for blasphemy offends the God it professes to worship. In reality, it worships the Devil. And by such deeds as the half-random murders of innocent people ye shall know that truth.There are indeed two Islams. Those who adhere to the religion of "peaceful accommodation" need to face a very unhappy truth: Until those who adhere to the "religion of death" are repudiated and expunged from the umma, Islam will continue to be seen in the eyes of the world as a great evil rather than the work of God. Nothing any secular Westerner could do could cause as much harm to the image of Allah, the Prophet, or of Islam as what has been done in their name by those who profess to revere them. People like those French Muslim terrorists are the worst enemies Islam could have.
Is Islam that religion? For most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, it is not. They follow the precepts of the Koran and seek to live harmoniously alongside their infidel neighbors, and where two Koranic interpretations clash, they choose to believe the one that conforms more to the civil laws and social customs of their societies. Most of the time they don’t ponder much on religious texts but get on with the daily business of living.
That is not so, however, for a large minority of Muslims — maybe hundreds of millions worldwide — who cleave to interpretations of their faith that enjoin murder, rape, torture, and cruelty as pious, even mandatory, acts. They take their diabolic faith seriously, and the result is what we saw in Paris today.
Thus, there are in practical terms two Islams — a religion, if not of peace, then of peaceful accommodation, and a religion of death.
Western political leaders try to dismiss this second death cult as a perverted or false Islam, or even as nothing to do with Islam at all. That dismissal is false and, worse, completely unpersuasive. The death cult has learned imams and sophisticated theologians among its adherents. They can quote Islamic texts in support of their revolting doctrines — and do so far more convincingly than President Obama, David Cameron, or Tony Blair do in support of their own.
Their scholarship strengthens the faith of the suicide bombers and child soldiers. And because they justify murder and issue fatwas mandating it, they exercise some intimidation even over the leaders of the other Islam.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Galston on Americans' Religious Beliefs
William Galston, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, served in the Clinton administration and in the presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale and Al Gore. He's written a piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he reflects on American exceptionalism and cautions his fellow Democrats against disregarding the religious sentiments of the American people that are largely responsible for it:
In any case Galston issues a warning to his colleagues on the left:
It's not that they like everything Republicans stand for, but rather that they see Republicans as their only realistic hope, short of divine intervention, for arresting the progressive statist juggernaut that threatens to steamroller them.
Although this phrase [American exceptionalism] is much abused in partisan polemics, it should not be discarded. The United States does continue to differ from most other developed democratic countries. And the heart of that difference is religion. The durability of American religious belief refutes the once-canonical thesis that modernization and secularization necessarily go hand in hand....It's common to hear modern western society described as post-Christian, but Galston cites statistics to indicate that this isn't quite accurate, at least not in the U.S.:
[D]espite the enormous growth in the nation’s diversity over the past 225 years, Christian conviction remains pervasive.All of this may be true, but what it suggests, I think, is that Americans live in a manner very inconsistent with what they profess to believe. Majorities of Americans may cling to the traditional Christmas story, perhaps for sentimental reasons, but an awful lot of us evidently live as though the significance of that story were irrelevant to modern life.
If you doubt this, take a look at the survey the Pew Research Center released without much fanfare two weeks ago. Among its principal findings: 73% of U.S. adults believe that Jesus was born to a virgin; 81%, that the baby Jesus was laid in a manger; 75%, that wise men guided by a star brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh; and 74%, that an angel announced the birth of Jesus to shepherds. Fully 65% of Americans believe all four of these elements of the Christmas story, while only 14% believe none of them.
Although Republicans are more likely to espouse these beliefs than are Democrats and Independents, each group endorses them by a two-thirds majority or more. As expected, conservatives are more likely to espouse them than are moderates and liberals. But here again, majorities of each group endorse each belief. Among liberals, 54% profess a belief in the virgin birth.
What about the growth of secular thought in young Americans? As the Pew report dryly notes, there “is little sign of a consistent generation gap on these questions.” That’s an understatement. Seventy percent of adults age 18 to 29 believe that Jesus was born to a virgin; 69% that an angel announced his birth; 80% that he was laid in a manger; and 74% that the wise men made their gift-laden trek.
To be sure, the most-educated Americans are less likely to profess belief in the Christmas story. But even among adults with postgraduate degrees, 53% affirm the virgin birth of Jesus, with comparable or larger majorities for the story’s other elements.
In any case Galston issues a warning to his colleagues on the left:
These public beliefs have constitutional consequences. When it comes to church and state, many Americans are soft rather than strict separationists. When asked whether religious symbols like Christian nativity scenes should be permitted on government property, 44% said yes, whether or not the symbols of other religions are present. An additional 28% said that Christian symbols would be acceptable only if accompanied by symbols of other faiths. Only 20% took the position that no religious symbols should be allowed.I'm not sure what the excesses were to which Galston alludes, nor do I think that whatever they were they were the motivating factor driving secularists into the arms of the Democrat party, but, nevertheless, skeptics and their philosophical allies have indeed taken up residence there, and their views have come to dominate the party's agenda. Even those who claim to be religious subordinate their religious views to the ambitions of the secular wing of the party.
Democrats should pay careful attention to these findings. In reaction to the excesses of the religious right in recent decades, many secularists and strict separationists took refuge in the Democratic Party. Their voices are important. But if the party takes its bearings only from their concerns, it risks serious misjudgment.
Many Americans believe that religion has a legitimate if limited role in public life—including politics. Many Americans believe that it is wrong—not always, but usually—for laws and regulations to coerce individuals contrary to their conscientious beliefs. As Democrats pursue new policies in areas from health care to equal rights, they should work hard to minimize their intrusion on these convictions.They should, but it's doubtful that they will. Much of the Democrat party stands for too many things the opposition to which comes almost exclusively from those whose convictions are informed by their religion. Abortion on demand and gay marriage are just two examples. Put differently, Democrat policies have, wittingly or unwittingly, facilitated the erosion over the last few decades of sexual restraint, the traditional family, the importance of work, individual liberty, and religious freedom. This is why many religious people tend to be conservatives and gravitate to the Republican party.
It's not that they like everything Republicans stand for, but rather that they see Republicans as their only realistic hope, short of divine intervention, for arresting the progressive statist juggernaut that threatens to steamroller them.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Why Dads Matter
One of the chief concerns of many Americans, including those who are socially liberal, is domestic violence and abuse. The irony of this concern is that the high rates of domestic turmoil we've witnessed over the last several decades may largely be the result of successful attempts by liberals to weaken the traditional family structure.
W. Bradford Wilcox at The Federalist has a column in which he in effect makes the politically incorrect claim that the safest place in our society for women and children is in a home in which the biological father is present. He writes:
The disparity depicted in this chart is rather startling. Wilcox adds:
W. Bradford Wilcox at The Federalist has a column in which he in effect makes the politically incorrect claim that the safest place in our society for women and children is in a home in which the biological father is present. He writes:
[V]iolence against women (not to mention their intimates and children) is markedly rarer in families headed by married parents regardless of how well-off or well-educated mom is. We can speculate about the precise mechanisms—is it the commitment, the stability, the mutual support, the kinship ties, or the sexual fidelity marriage fosters more than its alternatives?—that accounts for this empirical link. But what should be clear to analysts willing to follow the data wherever it leads is this: a healthy marriage seems to matter more than money when it comes to minimizing the scourge of domestic violence in American families.Wilcox develops his argument by citing a study that includes this graph:
The disparity depicted in this chart is rather startling. Wilcox adds:
[H]omes headed by never-married, separated, or divorced mothers are about five times more likely to expose children to domestic violence, compared to homes headed by married, biological parents. What’s more: family structure outweighs education, income, and race in predicting the odds that children witness domestic violence in the home.Women and children are in much greater jeopardy when the male in the household is not married to the woman than when the male is the woman's husband and the father of her children. The left has been telling us since the sixties that the traditional family is an oppressive, patriarchal social structure that women and children are often better off without and that other arrangements are at least as conducive to their flourishing as is the traditional structure. Well, we've largely abandoned the traditional structure, the data are in, and the results are not anything the left is likely to boast about.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Who's Angry?
I have to say that as one who considers himself moderately conservative, I cringe when listening to some of the major voices on talk radio. Some conservative talkers too often sound shrill and angry. I thought of this the other day reading a piece by James K.A. Smith a philosopher at Calvin College and the editor of the journal Comment. I like Smith's work and have enjoyed and profited from reading several of his books, but in the course of his editorial in which he made the case for redeeming and refashioning conservatism as a more sunny sort of ideology I felt vaguely miffed.
Smith wrote (subscription required):
A second reason I was somewhat consternated by Smith's criticism is that although it certainly does apply to two or three radio talkers, there's far more humor and good cheer on the contemporary right than on the left. Think of the work of Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, P.J. O'Rourke, Jim Geraghty, and many others and compare them to the utter desert of mirth that is liberal/left journalism. Has Smith never opened the pages of the Nation which is the most humor-deficient political magazine on the American newsstand? Car and Driver is funnier to read. For that matter, has he never listened to a Hillary Clinton speech and compared it to, say, a Mike Huckabee peroration?
Third, Smith unwittingly insults his friends and loved ones whom he claims are driven left, not by rational analysis of the ideologies of right and left, not because they've taken the trouble to think seriously about the ramifications of liberal and conservative policies, but because they're put off by personalities, of all things. Smith makes these people whom he says he loves sound like they have the maturity of a bunch of middle-schoolers.
Finally, it occurred to me that if some conservatives are angry, just maybe they have good reason to be. Are we not assured that if women and African-Americans are angry their anger is totally justified because they see themselves treated like second-class citizens, they see their "rights" under assault? Yet conservatives see the country they love being dismantled and the values they cherish being discarded and presumably they're supposed to put on happy faces and yuk it up with the people doing all the damage.
As I said above, I agree with Smith that the tone of people like Mark Levin or Michael Savage is counterproductive, and I agree that it's not something a Christian should be comfortable with, but it's hardly a problem unique to the right, and I find it a little annoying when it's insinuated, implicitly or explicitly, that it is. If he keeps writing like this it may push me toward being a little "leftish," perhaps without realizing it.
Smith wrote (subscription required):
...those Christians who trumpeted their 'conservatism' just seemed so, well, angry. Their demeanor felt more like reactionary warfare than charitable hospitality. In many ways their moral crusades demonized the people we went to college with and the causes our friends care about. What they decried as ominous threats and menaces had names and faces for us: they were our classmates, our teammates, our roommates - and we liked them, loved them. For a host of reasons, then, we shouldn't be surprised that the default posture for a new generation is leftish, perhaps without realizing it.When I asked myself why I was bothered by this several thoughts came to mind at once. First, it seems like the only people on the ideological spectrum who are ever described pejoratively as angry are conservatives. If a black liberal or a liberal woman is angry, then their anger is "righteous." If the talking heads at MSNBC look like they're about to burst a carotid artery, well, they have good cause to be outraged considering what those right-wing extremists in Congress are trying to do to our sainted president's agenda. Indeed, has Smith never read the writers and academics on the left who talk about "hating" Republicans, conservatives, and George W. Bush? Who on the right talks that way? When someone like Ann Coulter traipses close to the line she's repudiated and reproved for it by other conservatives.
A second reason I was somewhat consternated by Smith's criticism is that although it certainly does apply to two or three radio talkers, there's far more humor and good cheer on the contemporary right than on the left. Think of the work of Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, P.J. O'Rourke, Jim Geraghty, and many others and compare them to the utter desert of mirth that is liberal/left journalism. Has Smith never opened the pages of the Nation which is the most humor-deficient political magazine on the American newsstand? Car and Driver is funnier to read. For that matter, has he never listened to a Hillary Clinton speech and compared it to, say, a Mike Huckabee peroration?
Third, Smith unwittingly insults his friends and loved ones whom he claims are driven left, not by rational analysis of the ideologies of right and left, not because they've taken the trouble to think seriously about the ramifications of liberal and conservative policies, but because they're put off by personalities, of all things. Smith makes these people whom he says he loves sound like they have the maturity of a bunch of middle-schoolers.
Finally, it occurred to me that if some conservatives are angry, just maybe they have good reason to be. Are we not assured that if women and African-Americans are angry their anger is totally justified because they see themselves treated like second-class citizens, they see their "rights" under assault? Yet conservatives see the country they love being dismantled and the values they cherish being discarded and presumably they're supposed to put on happy faces and yuk it up with the people doing all the damage.
As I said above, I agree with Smith that the tone of people like Mark Levin or Michael Savage is counterproductive, and I agree that it's not something a Christian should be comfortable with, but it's hardly a problem unique to the right, and I find it a little annoying when it's insinuated, implicitly or explicitly, that it is. If he keeps writing like this it may push me toward being a little "leftish," perhaps without realizing it.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
The Cosmological Argument
One of the classical arguments for the existence of God is called the Cosmological argument. The name refers to the fact that the argument is based on the existence and/or nature of the cosmos (it was first called the Cosmological argument by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century in his Critique of Pure Reason).
There are many variations of the argument. Here's one that's been championed in recent years by philosopher William Lane Craig. It's simple, easy to understand, and enjoying renewed popularity: UPDATE: Several days ago I cited a column by Eric Metaxas in the Wall Street Journal in which Metaxas expressed his amazement at the examples of fine-tuning scientists have discovered to pervade the universe and which he attributed to a Cosmic Designer. Since then, atheistic cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has responded in a letter to the editor criticizing Metaxas' column.
Another cosmologist, the Australian Luke Barnes, has weighed in on his blog Letters from Nature. He faults Metaxas for sloppiness (though I don't think Barnes' criticisms affect Metaxas' overall argument) and faults Krauss for just being wrong. Readers interested in the exchange are invited to follow the links Barnes provides.
There are many variations of the argument. Here's one that's been championed in recent years by philosopher William Lane Craig. It's simple, easy to understand, and enjoying renewed popularity: UPDATE: Several days ago I cited a column by Eric Metaxas in the Wall Street Journal in which Metaxas expressed his amazement at the examples of fine-tuning scientists have discovered to pervade the universe and which he attributed to a Cosmic Designer. Since then, atheistic cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has responded in a letter to the editor criticizing Metaxas' column.
Another cosmologist, the Australian Luke Barnes, has weighed in on his blog Letters from Nature. He faults Metaxas for sloppiness (though I don't think Barnes' criticisms affect Metaxas' overall argument) and faults Krauss for just being wrong. Readers interested in the exchange are invited to follow the links Barnes provides.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Cosmic Fine-Tuning
One of the most impressive arguments for the existence of an Intelligent Designer behind the universe is the extraordinary precision with which so many of the parameters, forces and constants that comprise the structure of our universe are set. The precision is so fine that should the value of any one of them have deviated from its actual value by the most unimaginably tiny amount the universe would either not have formed, or not have lasted, or not be the sort of place that could sustain life.
I suspect that 99.9% of the people who have lived on this planet have had no idea how incredibly improbable it is that such a universe as ours could have come into being.
Anyway, I came across a short video the other day which does an excellent job of illustrating this. The video is accessible to any reasonably intelligent, educated, and interested viewer and is only a few minutes long. Despite its brevity it provides a great education on the topic of cosmic fine-tuning. Give it a look:
I suspect that 99.9% of the people who have lived on this planet have had no idea how incredibly improbable it is that such a universe as ours could have come into being.
Anyway, I came across a short video the other day which does an excellent job of illustrating this. The video is accessible to any reasonably intelligent, educated, and interested viewer and is only a few minutes long. Despite its brevity it provides a great education on the topic of cosmic fine-tuning. Give it a look:
Thursday, January 1, 2015
2014's List of Books
In keeping with established precedent here's a list of books I completed in the year just past with a sentence or two of description:
1. Knowing Christ Today (Dallas Willard): A contemporary examination of who Jesus Christ is and was.
2. Coming Apart (Charles Murray): A sociological study of the increasing divergence in attitudes between upper and lower class whites toward traditional values.
3. The Rebel (Albert Camus): A study in European nihilists and nihilism.
4. Human Traffic (Craig MacGill): A look at the worldwide problem of human trafficking.
5. The Possessed [2nd reading](Fyodor Dostoyevsky): Dostoyevsky's novel about 19th century Russian leftist anarchists.
6. The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): An allegorical account of innocence in the midst of a materialist superficial culture.
7. The Fault in Our Stars (John Green): A rather implausible story of two teenagers both afflicted with cancer.
8. Crime and Punishment [2nd reading](Fyodor Dostoyevsky): Dostoyevsky's classic treatment of a man who believes himself beyond the slave morality categories of good and evil. Dostoyevsky guides the reader through the man's fall and redemption.
9. The Pursuit of God (A.W. Tozer): A classic in Christian devotional literature.
10. Poor Folk (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): An exchange of letters between an impoverished man and the similarly poor younger woman he loves illustrating both the hopelessness of their condition and of his love for her.
11. Who's Afraid of Relativism (James K.A. Smith): Smith defends postmodern epistemological relativism.
12. How (Not) to be Secular (James K.A. Smith): A helpful commentary on philosopher Charles Taylor's massive work A Secular Age.
13. Return to Life (Jim Tucker): Fascinating accounts of young children who apparently have memories of events that occurred long before they were born.
14. Nothing to be Frightened of (Julian Barnes): Barnes' amusing and thoughtful meditation on death. Written from an atheistic point of view.
15. The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak): A novel about a girl living in Munich toward the end of WWII and how she coped with the war.
16. How the West Won (Rodney Stark): Stark enumerates the virtues of western civilization and why it has achieved cultural ascendancy.
17. Quantum Enigma [2nd reading](Rosenblum and Kuttner): A lucid and fascinating introduction to the mysteries of quantum mechanics.
18. Finite and Infinite Goods (Robert M. Adams): A fairly technical treatment of Adams' version of Divine Command ethics.
19. Five Views on Apologetics (S. Cowen, ed.): Five approaches to Christian apologetics by practitioners of each.
20. Flags of Our Fathers (James Bradley): An account of one man's experiences during the WWII battle for Iwo Jima.
21. Diary of a Superfluous Man (Ivan Turgenev): The diary by a man who has a few days left to live as he recounts incidents of his life.
22. The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri): Dante's famous journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Highly recommended that anyone reading this work do so with a commentary in hand.
23. The House of the Dead (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): A novel based on Dostoyevsky's own experiences in a Russian prison camp.
24. The Broker (John Grisham): A novel set in Italy read enroute to Italy to get me in the mood for my visit.
25. The Harbinger (Jonathan Cahn): A book by a rabbi who finds current events foretold in the book of Isaiah.
26. Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh): A novel about life among the British upper crust in the early years of the 20th century.
27. Ameritopia (Mark Levin): Levin traces the history of utopian ideas and discusses how these same ideas are extant today among contemporary statists.
28. From Union Square to Rome (Dorothy Day): Dorothy Day's account of her conversion from atheistic communism to devout, socially-conscious Catholicism.
29. Scholastic Metaphysics (Ed Feser): A treatment of the metaphysics of Aristotle, Aquinas, and their medieval successors.
30. Mysteries of the Middle Ages (Thomas Cahill): Fascinating details of of the lives of some figures whose names are often the only thing about them that appears in our history books.
31. Morality: It's Critics and Defenders (Timm Triplett): A fictional series of student discussions on ethics.
32. Being as Communion (William Dembski): A metaphysical analysis of information and the difficulties it poses for naturalism.
33. Bonhoeffer (Stephen Nichols): A look at Bonhoeffer's Christian beliefs.
34. True Paradox (David Skeel): A collection of arguments in support of the Christian faith.
35. This Town (Mark Leibovitch): An amusing exposé of the foibles and conceits of the Washington elite.
36. Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson): A wonderful book written by a man who has given his life to providing legal and emotional support to poor people on death row in Alabama.
37. Bad Religion (Russ Douthat): An account of the decline of the Christian church from the years prior to WWII up to the present. Douthat prescribes what he thinks is needed to reverse the decline.
I wish you all much personal growth and accomplishment in 2015.
1. Knowing Christ Today (Dallas Willard): A contemporary examination of who Jesus Christ is and was.
2. Coming Apart (Charles Murray): A sociological study of the increasing divergence in attitudes between upper and lower class whites toward traditional values.
3. The Rebel (Albert Camus): A study in European nihilists and nihilism.
4. Human Traffic (Craig MacGill): A look at the worldwide problem of human trafficking.
5. The Possessed [2nd reading](Fyodor Dostoyevsky): Dostoyevsky's novel about 19th century Russian leftist anarchists.
6. The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): An allegorical account of innocence in the midst of a materialist superficial culture.
7. The Fault in Our Stars (John Green): A rather implausible story of two teenagers both afflicted with cancer.
8. Crime and Punishment [2nd reading](Fyodor Dostoyevsky): Dostoyevsky's classic treatment of a man who believes himself beyond the slave morality categories of good and evil. Dostoyevsky guides the reader through the man's fall and redemption.
9. The Pursuit of God (A.W. Tozer): A classic in Christian devotional literature.
10. Poor Folk (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): An exchange of letters between an impoverished man and the similarly poor younger woman he loves illustrating both the hopelessness of their condition and of his love for her.
11. Who's Afraid of Relativism (James K.A. Smith): Smith defends postmodern epistemological relativism.
12. How (Not) to be Secular (James K.A. Smith): A helpful commentary on philosopher Charles Taylor's massive work A Secular Age.
13. Return to Life (Jim Tucker): Fascinating accounts of young children who apparently have memories of events that occurred long before they were born.
14. Nothing to be Frightened of (Julian Barnes): Barnes' amusing and thoughtful meditation on death. Written from an atheistic point of view.
15. The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak): A novel about a girl living in Munich toward the end of WWII and how she coped with the war.
16. How the West Won (Rodney Stark): Stark enumerates the virtues of western civilization and why it has achieved cultural ascendancy.
17. Quantum Enigma [2nd reading](Rosenblum and Kuttner): A lucid and fascinating introduction to the mysteries of quantum mechanics.
18. Finite and Infinite Goods (Robert M. Adams): A fairly technical treatment of Adams' version of Divine Command ethics.
19. Five Views on Apologetics (S. Cowen, ed.): Five approaches to Christian apologetics by practitioners of each.
20. Flags of Our Fathers (James Bradley): An account of one man's experiences during the WWII battle for Iwo Jima.
21. Diary of a Superfluous Man (Ivan Turgenev): The diary by a man who has a few days left to live as he recounts incidents of his life.
22. The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri): Dante's famous journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Highly recommended that anyone reading this work do so with a commentary in hand.
23. The House of the Dead (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): A novel based on Dostoyevsky's own experiences in a Russian prison camp.
24. The Broker (John Grisham): A novel set in Italy read enroute to Italy to get me in the mood for my visit.
25. The Harbinger (Jonathan Cahn): A book by a rabbi who finds current events foretold in the book of Isaiah.
26. Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh): A novel about life among the British upper crust in the early years of the 20th century.
27. Ameritopia (Mark Levin): Levin traces the history of utopian ideas and discusses how these same ideas are extant today among contemporary statists.
28. From Union Square to Rome (Dorothy Day): Dorothy Day's account of her conversion from atheistic communism to devout, socially-conscious Catholicism.
29. Scholastic Metaphysics (Ed Feser): A treatment of the metaphysics of Aristotle, Aquinas, and their medieval successors.
30. Mysteries of the Middle Ages (Thomas Cahill): Fascinating details of of the lives of some figures whose names are often the only thing about them that appears in our history books.
31. Morality: It's Critics and Defenders (Timm Triplett): A fictional series of student discussions on ethics.
32. Being as Communion (William Dembski): A metaphysical analysis of information and the difficulties it poses for naturalism.
33. Bonhoeffer (Stephen Nichols): A look at Bonhoeffer's Christian beliefs.
34. True Paradox (David Skeel): A collection of arguments in support of the Christian faith.
35. This Town (Mark Leibovitch): An amusing exposé of the foibles and conceits of the Washington elite.
36. Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson): A wonderful book written by a man who has given his life to providing legal and emotional support to poor people on death row in Alabama.
37. Bad Religion (Russ Douthat): An account of the decline of the Christian church from the years prior to WWII up to the present. Douthat prescribes what he thinks is needed to reverse the decline.
I wish you all much personal growth and accomplishment in 2015.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Superintelligence
We've run a few posts here at VP lately which talk about reasons for believing that the conditions necessary to permit the emergence and persistence of advanced life may be exceedingly rare in the cosmos and that intelligent life may exist only on one solitary planet in the entire cosmos, ours.
There are some philosophers and scientists, however, who still think that there must be many planets out there which exhibit the properties necessary for life and among these thinkers are those who believe that many of those planets must host civilizations much older and far more technologically advanced than ours.
This line of thinking has led some like Nick Bostrom to assume that at some point computers would be built by a race of beings so incredibly brilliant that they'd be able to program their machines to run simulated universes much like your computer can run a simulation of a medieval battle. Indeed, Bostrom argues that it's likely that we ourselves are living in one such simulation.
Others believe that technology must be so far advanced elsewhere in the universe that computers have replaced brains and that the intelligence of these silicon-based creatures is to human intelligence as human intelligence is to the intelligence of a goldfish. Motherboard has an interesting, though highly speculative piece on this theory. Here are a few excerpts:
Anyway, like I said above, as interesting as all this is, it's highly speculative. So far, after decades of searching, there's absolutely no evidence of any life anywhere else but earth. That doesn't mean there's none out there, but as of now there's little reason, as opposed to faith and hope, that there is.
There are some philosophers and scientists, however, who still think that there must be many planets out there which exhibit the properties necessary for life and among these thinkers are those who believe that many of those planets must host civilizations much older and far more technologically advanced than ours.
This line of thinking has led some like Nick Bostrom to assume that at some point computers would be built by a race of beings so incredibly brilliant that they'd be able to program their machines to run simulated universes much like your computer can run a simulation of a medieval battle. Indeed, Bostrom argues that it's likely that we ourselves are living in one such simulation.
Others believe that technology must be so far advanced elsewhere in the universe that computers have replaced brains and that the intelligence of these silicon-based creatures is to human intelligence as human intelligence is to the intelligence of a goldfish. Motherboard has an interesting, though highly speculative piece on this theory. Here are a few excerpts:
If and when we finally encounter aliens, they probably won’t look like little green men, or spiny insectoids. It’s likely they won’t be biological creatures at all, but rather, advanced robots that outstrip our intelligence in every conceivable way. While scores of philosophers, scientists and futurists have prophesied the rise of artificial intelligence and the impending singularity, most have restricted their predictions to Earth. Fewer thinkers — outside the realm of science fiction, that is — have considered the notion that artificial intelligence is already out there, and has been for eons.Schneider argues that given the fact that alien civilizations that we might come in contact with would be vastly older than our own they'd likely be far more technologically advanced than we are. According to Schneider:
Susan Schneider, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, is one who has. She joins a handful of astronomers, including Seth Shostak, director of NASA’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, program....
Everything about their cognition — how their brains receive and process information, what their goals and incentives are — could be vastly different from our own. Astrobiologists need to start thinking about the possibility of very different modes of cognition.The reason for all this has to do, primarily, with how old those civilizations may be. Seth Shostak explains:
There’s an important distinction here from just ‘artificial intelligence.’ I’m not saying that we’re going to be running into IBM processors in outer space. In all likelihood, this intelligence will be way more sophisticated than anything humans can understand.
As soon as a civilization invents radio, they’re within fifty years of computers, then, probably, only another fifty to a hundred years from inventing AI. At that point, soft, squishy brains become an outdated model.One question all this raises is whether any kind of artificial intelligence could be conscious in any meaningful sense. Schneider acknowledges the possibility that it's not, but thinks that consciousness could nevertheless arise in superintelligent artificial beings.
The way you reach this conclusion is very straightforward. Consider the fact that any signal we pick up has to come from a civilization at least as advanced as we are. Now, let’s say, conservatively, the average civilization will use radio for 10,000 years. From a purely probabilistic point of view, the chance of encountering a society far older than ourselves is quite high.
I believe the brain is inherently computational — we already have computational theories that describe aspects of consciousness, including working memory and attention. Given a computational brain, I don’t see any good argument that silicon, instead of carbon, can’t be an excellent medium for experience.Be that as it may (I'm skeptical), the article addresses several other interesting questions. One of them is whether superintelligent aliens would care to contact us. Schneider and Shostak don't think it's likely. Here's Shostak:
If they were interested in us, we probably wouldn’t be here. My gut feeling is their goals and incentives are so different from ours, they’re not going to want to contact us.I have my doubts about this, too. Suppose we had the chance to study some earlier evolutionary precursor to human beings (assuming for the moment such precursors existed), some australopithecine apes, for example. Would we not want to examine these more primitive species and perhaps communicate with them if we could? Would we not be fascinated by the prospect of gaining more clues as to where we came from and how we arrived where we are? Why think the super-advanced creatures out there would not be curious enough to want to treat us as living fossils to be studied for clues about their own ancestry?
I’d have to agree with Susan on them not being interested in us at all. We're just too simplistic, too irrelevant. “You don’t spend a whole lot of time hanging out reading books with your goldfish. On the other hand, you don’t really want to kill the goldfish, either.
Anyway, like I said above, as interesting as all this is, it's highly speculative. So far, after decades of searching, there's absolutely no evidence of any life anywhere else but earth. That doesn't mean there's none out there, but as of now there's little reason, as opposed to faith and hope, that there is.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
NYPD Work Stoppage
It appears that the NYPD has decided that for whatever reasons it's not going to go out of its way to enforce minor infractions of the law such as illegally selling loose cigarettes. Apparently the officers have decided that if one unfortunate bungled arrest attempt resulting in tragedy is going to bring down the wrath of a sizable number of protestors and the contempt of their boss, Mayor de Blasio, then why risk it? The following is from the New York Post's report:
If the police did limit their presence in these neighborhoods we'd get a chance to see who it is the people really fear. How long would it be before the citizens of these neighborhoods would be pleading with the "racist" cops who "don't care about black people" to come back and risk their lives to protect them from the predators in their midst?
They might not like or appreciate the cops, they might not like being hassled on occasion, but they have far more cause to fear their own neighbors than they do to fear the cops, and if they don't know that I suspect they'd learn it pretty quick were the police to simply stop responding to calls in those precincts. In other words, the real problem, the real threat, to black kids in cities all across the country is not racist cops, though there probably are some, the real threat is other black kids. That's what Mayor de Blasio should have cautioned his son about, that's what the protestors should be demonstrating about, and that's what the talking heads on tv should be addressing.
It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.The lack of police protection doesn't extend to felonious behavior, for which the people of New York can be thankful, but if it did we'd be able to witness an interesting experiment. Throughout the protests of the last days angry protestors and pundits have frequently alleged that people in black neighborhoods live in fear of the cops. Perhaps so, and if so, it should not be so, but if the police were to stop protecting the people who say they fear them what would ensue? What would these neighborhoods look like if all the thugs, miscreants, rapists, and thieves that inhabit them knew that they could perpetrate their depredations on the innocent with impunity?
NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.
Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.
It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.
Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.
Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.
Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241. Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.
Police sources said Monday that safety concerns were the main reason for the dropoff in police activity, but added that some cops were mounting an undeclared slowdown in protest of de Blasio’s response to the non-indictment in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner.
“This is not a slowdown for slowdown’s sake. Cops are concerned, after the reaction from City Hall on the Garner case, about de Blasio not backing them.” The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has warned its members to put their safety first and not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.”
If the police did limit their presence in these neighborhoods we'd get a chance to see who it is the people really fear. How long would it be before the citizens of these neighborhoods would be pleading with the "racist" cops who "don't care about black people" to come back and risk their lives to protect them from the predators in their midst?
They might not like or appreciate the cops, they might not like being hassled on occasion, but they have far more cause to fear their own neighbors than they do to fear the cops, and if they don't know that I suspect they'd learn it pretty quick were the police to simply stop responding to calls in those precincts. In other words, the real problem, the real threat, to black kids in cities all across the country is not racist cops, though there probably are some, the real threat is other black kids. That's what Mayor de Blasio should have cautioned his son about, that's what the protestors should be demonstrating about, and that's what the talking heads on tv should be addressing.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Theory of Everything
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking is perhaps the most famous living scientist, famous not only for his brilliance but also for his decades long battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. What's less well-known, perhaps, is that Hawking, an atheist, had been married until the mid-nineties to a woman named Jane who is a devout Christian.
A movie based on his life has just been released titled A Theory of Everything which is a reference to the holy grail of cosmologists: a single equation that would tie together both relativity and quantum mechanics and unite the four fundamental forces in a single force. Fr. Robert Barron at Real Clear Religion has some interesting things to say about the movie which he describes as "God-haunted."
It seems remarkable, at least to me, that so many people, brilliant people like Stephen Hawking, accept that principle in every precinct of their personal philosophy and professional endeavors except when it comes to God. In that one sector of their intellectual life they for some reason set the principle aside.
I wonder how they'd explain that.
A movie based on his life has just been released titled A Theory of Everything which is a reference to the holy grail of cosmologists: a single equation that would tie together both relativity and quantum mechanics and unite the four fundamental forces in a single force. Fr. Robert Barron at Real Clear Religion has some interesting things to say about the movie which he describes as "God-haunted."
In one of the opening scenes, the young Hawking meets Jane, his future wife, in a bar and tells her that he is a cosmologist. "What's cosmology?" she asks, and he responds, "Religion for intelligent atheists." "What do cosmologists worship?" she persists. And he replies, "A single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe." Later on, Stephen brings Jane to his family's home for dinner and she challenges him, "You've never said why you don't believe in God." He says, "A physicist can't allow his calculations to be muddled by belief in a supernatural creator," to which she deliciously responds, "Sounds less of an argument against God than against physicists."Their relationship is reminiscent of that between Charles Darwin, who was an agnostic, and his wife Emma who was devout, and is interesting on its own, but the more important part of Barron's piece is what he has to say about how the science Hawking (and Darwin) loved so deeply was actually the product of a Christian worldview:
This spirited back and forth continues throughout the film, as Hawking settles more and more into a secularist view and Jane persists in her religious belief. As Hawking's physical condition deteriorates, Jane gives herself to his care with truly remarkable devotion, and it becomes clear that her dedication is born of her religious conviction.
[I]t is by no means accidental that the modern physical sciences emerged when and where they did, namely, in a culture shaped by Christian belief. Two suppositions were required for the sciences to flourish, and they are both theological in nature, namely, that the world is not divine and that nature is marked, through and through, by intelligibility.Hawking's pursuit of what scientist's call the TOE (Theory of Everything) serves to illustrate Barron's point:
As long as the natural world is worshiped as sacred - as it was in many ancient cultures - it cannot become the subject of analysis, investigation, and experimentation. And unless one has confidence that the world one seeks to analyze and investigate has an intelligible structure, one will never bother with the exercise. Now both of these convictions are corollaries of the more fundamental doctrine of creation. If the world has been created by God, then it is not divine, but it is indeed marked, in every nook and cranny, by the intelligence of the Creator who made it.
In light of these clarifications, let us look again at the central preoccupation of A Theory of Everything, namely, Hawking's quest to find the one great unifying equation that would explain all of reality.... Why in the world would a scientist blithely assume that there is or is even likely to be one unifying rational form to all things, unless he assumed that there is a singular, overarching intelligence that has placed it there? Why shouldn't the world be chaotic, utterly random, meaningless? Why should one presume that something as orderly and rational as an equation would describe the universe's structure?Why, indeed, is the universe the sort of place that discloses its secrets to reason and logic? Why is it intelligible? Barron and many other scientists and philosophers, both past and present, have argued that the intelligibility of the universe is much more probable given the belief that the universe was created by an intelligent agent than on the assumption that it's the product of sheer chance. Moreover, since reason instructs us to always believe what is more likely than what is less likely the rational position is to incline toward the view that the universe is the product of an intelligent creator.
It seems remarkable, at least to me, that so many people, brilliant people like Stephen Hawking, accept that principle in every precinct of their personal philosophy and professional endeavors except when it comes to God. In that one sector of their intellectual life they for some reason set the principle aside.
I wonder how they'd explain that.
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