The Religion Test

E.J. Dionne writing at Tech Central Station, detects a whiff of hypocrisy among those conservatives who thought it outrageous that senate liberals were hinting that John Roberts' religion might disqualify him from a seat on the Supreme Court but who are encouraging support for Harriet Miers on the basis that she's an evangelical Christian.

Dionne approvingly cites Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters blog:

"The push by more enthusiastic Miers supporters to consider her religious outlook smacks of a bit of hypocrisy," Morrissey wrote. "After all, we argued the exact opposite when it came to John Roberts and William Pryor when they appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.... Conservatives claimed that using religion as a reason for rejection violated the Constitution and any notion of religious freedom. Does that really change if we base our support on the same grounds?"

The answer to this last question is "Why would it not?" That a particular trait should not be allowed to count against someone is no reason to believe that the trait shouldn't count in his or her favor. A candidate for the presidency, for example, should not be disqualified because he holds religious beliefs similar to those held by a large swath of Americans, but he certainly may be seen as a more suitable candidate because he does. Similarly, a woman should not be disqualified on the basis of her gender from serving in public office, but her gender may help make her an attractive candidate for such an office.

This seems like such simple logic that although we're not surprised that it escaped Dionne, we are surprised that Morrissey doesn't see it.

The only question that should be raised by the religious beliefs of a candidate for the Supreme Court is whether those beliefs will prejudice his or her reading of the constitution. That she is a devout Christian suggests to many people that the answer Miers would give to that question is "no." Her faith imposes upon her an obligation to maintain the highest standards of judicial integrity and to live by the oath she will take to uphold the constitution. Knowing that she feels so obligated, both to her conscience and to her God, should be a source of comfort to those who must decide upon her suitability to serve.

Smelly Little Orthodoxies

Academic freedom at the University of Idaho is in serious peril. The totalitarian thought police have ascended all the way to the office of the presidency and anyone who abridges the accepted orthodoxies will be disciplined.

Were this not so serious it would be funny. University professors are free to do and say virtually anything in their classrooms no matter how irrelevant to the curriculum as long as it is either anti-American, anti-Christian, or pro-gay. Whether it's salacious, lubricious, banal, or just plain stupid doesn't matter - it's speech consonant, we are told, with the university's responsibility to challenge students to question the "smelly little orthodoxies" of our time. But if a professor decides to challenge his students to consider the possibility that Darwin had things wrong, he'll be out on his ear. Evidently, some dogmas are more sacred than others.

Real Reform

A former teacher named Aaron Belz lays out his vision for improving schools in the U.S. Having taught in a pretty good public high school myself for thirty five years I found much of what he says to be worthwhile and, on the other hand, much to be completely impractical. Despite the latter, Belz writes an interesting essay though his five concluding suggestions for improving schools seem much too idealistic:

1. Campuses should be carefully designed to create space for thinking, writing, reading, and athletics. Classrooms should be open, comfortable environments that respect students as intellectuals in the making. Seating should be at tables or in a circle;

2. Rules for behaviour on campus should tend toward principle rather than specific code, and they should be enforced in large part by a student honour council. Rules should err on the side of giving students too much liberty;

3. Coursework should center on primary books, poems, plays, and physical objects rather than pre-fabricated textbooks and quizzes. As a general rule, no books should be used that later will be discarded as "only for school." Discussion - equal and open-ended, not Socratic needling - should be the centerpiece of each course. Practice (field work) is essential;

4. Subjects should be studied in much larger blocks of time - weeks, perhaps months. Inter-disciplinary threading is essential, so that students have a sense of holism about their quest; and

5. Assessment should be radically reconsidered, with the likely result of eradicating the alphanumeric grading system. Teachers must be given time to assess their students' progress individually.

I don't like to be put in the role of naysayer, but I'm afraid these suggestions would prove either too expensive, unworkable, or otherwise ineffective. As an alternative, I would like to offer eleven suggestions of my own for improving public schools. If we were really serious about having the best educational system possible here's what we would do:

1. Allow students to graduate after their tenth grade year with the option of staying on through twelfth grade if their grades and behavior qualify them for the extra two years. Most students in the bottom 10% to 15% of their class learn almost nothing between ninth and twelfth grades. These students are often alienated and behaviorally difficult and they frequently create an atmosphere in the classroom that diminishes the chances their classmates will learn and which demoralizes teachers. Give them the opportunity, if they meet certain standards, to get a provisional diploma after tenth grade and let them get out of school and into the work force. Little good comes from having them hang around.

2. Raise the driving age to 18. Nothing diverts a student from the books like a car (unless its a girl/boy friend). Raising the driving age will be an inconvenience for parents who will have to provide more of the transportation, but keeping kids at home rather than having them out wasting gas is worth the trouble.

3. Prohibit students under 18 from holding a job during the school year. Most students who work are trying to pay the insurance on their car and buy gas. The jobs they hold are often not the sort which build skills that can be translated into future benefit. Their work often doesn't even bring them into contact with people outside their peer group. Every hour flipping burgers or bussing tables is an hour away from home and homework.

4. Institute dress codes and enforce them. There is no good argument against them and lots of good arguments in their favor. Conservatives ridiculed Clinton for proposing that school's require student uniforms, but that was one of his best ideas. Quality of dress sets the tone for one's attitude about his/her role. Students wearing ties behave differently than when they're dressed more casually. We insist on buying our athletes the sharpest looking uniforms we can afford because we know that classy dress elevates one's performance and instills pride. That's why most coaches have their athletes dress up to travel to away games. But we let our students dress like exotic dancers or refugees from some natural disaster when in the classroom, and then we wonder why they don't take more pride in their school work. The argument that dress codes rob a student of his "individuality" is silly. Sports superstars like Michael Jordan and others had no trouble establishing their "individuality" while wearing the same uniform their teammates did.

5. Permanently expel students who are disruptive, disrespectful, malicious, violent, or chronically in trouble. Such students are a cancer in the student body and just one such individual in the classroom greatly alters the learning atmosphere in that room. Their presence is corrupting and demoralizing. Yet we refuse to remove them because the law says that taxpayers have to provide for their education if they're not in school. This is a ridiculous law and should be rescinded.

6. Encourage academic/intellectual elitism (as opposed to snobbery) just like we encourage athletic elitism. The idea that elitism is bad is nonsense. What's bad is snobbery based on economic status. Elitism based on achievement or values, the sense of pride in one's accomplishments and convictions because they're right and better than those of people who disdain them is a good thing and needs to be stimulated.

7. Hire teachers who are scholars. Not all teachers can or need be scholars, but no one who is not should be teaching the top 50% of students in an academic discipline.

8. Let teachers determine the curriculum or at least give them a dominant role in the decision-making. Administrators are managers, they're not educators, and few of them have much experience as teachers. Many administrators never read anything other than Sports Illustrated magazine or mass market novels. They're mostly good men and women, but they don't see themselves as particularly interested in developing their own intellects, and it's hard to cultivate and nourish student minds if you have no idea based on your own experience what such a task entails. Administrators should handle discipline, organization, and public relations and stay out of the academic affairs of the school to the extent that that is possible.

9. Don't let anything take precedence over academics in the school day. One of the biggest pet peeves of teachers I've known is that in many schools everything and anything trumps the classroom. Kids in the school in which I taught were forever getting out of class for pointless field trips, theater or band practices, and a myriad of other silly reasons. Yet a teacher could never take a student out of one of these other activities in order to insist he be in class. My school sent the subliminal message to kids that the least important thing they do in their day is attend class. When the culture of the school instills that attitude in students, even if inadvertently, a teacher's job becomes much harder than it needs to be.

10. Put a limit on how many students will occupy a building. When student populations reach a certain size they become too impersonal. Impersonal schools may be able to churn out students who are academically competent, but they cannot easily teach the virtues students need to learn to be whole persons and citizens.

11. Segregate middle and high schools by sex. Having young men in the midst of testosterone hyperdrive share close spaces with young ladies awash in a pheromonic miasma is no way to keep either of them focused on the eight parts of speech. When young men share classrooms with young women their behavior is often distorted, their attentions are diverted, and their focus is disrupted. Education would be easier and more effective if such distractions were minimized.

Of course, none of these suggestions will ever be implemented as long as taxpayers are content with mediocre education. If, however, legislators ever decide to make American public schools truly excellent, if they ever become interested in genuine educational reform, adopting any of these measures would be a big step in the right direction. And most of them would hardly cost a cent.

Hide the Salami?!

Howard Dean is always good for laughs at his own expense. The other night on Chris Matthews' Hardball Dean, in talking about whether the White House would release documents that might contain information that would give insight into Harriet Miers' suitability to serve on the Supreme Court, said:

"Well, certainly the president can claim executive privilege. But in this case, I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, Hide the Salami, or whatever it's called."

We doubt that "Hide the Salami" was the precise construction for which Dr. Dean was groping. In our recollection, "Hide the Salami" has very little to do with matters involving the White House, or at least it hasn't since President Clinton left office.

Howard Dean seems intent on confirming the widespread opinion that he's a buffoon. One wonders whether anyone takes seriously anything he says.

From The "R Man", Richard Russell

Here's Richard Russell's latest take on the state of things. Must reading in my opinion.

What I believe is happening is that investors, both domestic and international, have collectively recognized that the dollar's in trouble. And if the dollar's in trouble, everything denominated in dollars is in trouble. This concept has such enormous implications that it's almost beyond the comprehension of most professionals and totally beyond the comprehension of the great American retail public.

What, America's "mighty" reserve currency in trouble? The answer is "yes," but it's an answer that few analysts or journalists are addressing. The US population has depended on the dollar's reserve-status and "invincibility" for so long that it has never occurred to them that their debt-laden currency could be slowly losing its reserve status. And you have to ask yourself -- when a nation has to borrow money to pay off its own rising debts, how long can it be before it's currency reflects this dire state of affairs?

My own opinion is that the stock market's weakness is a function of big money leaving the scene. Where is the big money going? The answer is -- away from US dollars. But towards what? Towards other paper currencies such as the euro or even the yen -- but mainly towards tangibles, towards anything of real value unencumbered by debt. And world money is certainly moving toward the only intrinsic (non-debt) currency -- gold (with silver as a second choice).

Is oil a tangible? Yes, I consider oil a tangible, but unlike gold, you can't buy actual oil and put it in your bank vault. Of course, there are oil futures, but I don't recommend futures for most subscribers. This reduces oil to oil stocks and ETFs, including XLE and VDE.

A few days ago I made the statement that this is not just another "emergency oil spike," this is our first primary bull market in oil and energy. Thus, I would treat oil in the same way I treat gold. I'm not trading oil, I'm not timing oil purchases. You take your position, and you sit and allow the primary trend to do its work.

Oil became overbought, and as expected, oil is now correcting. I don't know how far the correction will carry, but I suspect it will be mild. Those wanting to participate in the oil-energy bull market should think in terms of ERFs, or the closed-end fund PEO.

The ominous but brilliant piece below was from the PrudentBear site, a site that I never fail to turn to -- Russell.

Guest Commentary, by Rob Lee Signals of the End of the Dollar Standard October 5, 2005

Rob Lee is an economist who has been involved in investment markets for 30 years, the last few in nominal retirement. I am an economist who worked for 25 years in large investment companies in South Africa.

I "retired" to the UK a few years ago. For most of my career I lobbied for policies such as money supply targets and later inflation targets that were (implicitly) intended to substitute the role of gold as an independent anchor for the monetary system. I was never an advocate of any form of gold standard, unlike the current Fed Chairman, now ironically testing the fiat money system to destruction.

However, in recent years the scales have fallen from my eyes. As Voltaire said in 1729 "paper money eventually goes down to its intrinsic value - zero." Every fiat paper currency before or since has confirmed to this prediction. A fiat paper currency that is also the global reserve currency becomes this problem writ large. A US Treasury official of old - Sam Cross - put it this way: "if you postulate a system that depends on one country always following the right policies, you will find that sooner or later no such country exists. The system is eventually going to break down". In my view the Dollar Standard system is irretrievably breaking down, as signaled by four recent developments described below:

1. China has ended its currency peg to the dollar. The new exchange rate system for the Yuan is admittedly not yet a dramatic break from the dollar fixed peg . That is not the Chinese way. It is nevertheless hugely symbolic. It serves notice that China will be increasingly reluctant to accumulate dollars they know will depreciate in value over time. Chinese economic spokesmen have made no secret in public of their alarm at US profligacy - what is said behind closed doors?

China is clearly intent on exchanging its paper assets (predominantly dollars) for real assets, notably commodities in general and energy products in particular. On gold the strategy focuses on encouraging private citizens to own gold- deregulation of the gold market has been rapid by Chinese standards. [Ironically it may now be easier for citizens of China to invest directly in gold than it is in many western democracies].

China is likely to prefer to remove dollar support only gradually. Bear in mind though that most of the smaller economies in Asia tend to follow China - Malaysia announced a similar change to its exchange rate system very soon after the Chinese. Other countries from outside the region - notably Russia and Saudi Arabia - have indicated an intention to downgrade the dollar in their currency arrangements. Iran is attempting to create an oil trading exchange that does not transact in dollars. These are ominous straws in the wind for a currency so dependent on foreign capital.

2. Deflation in Japan is coming to an end. Japan is the biggest foreign holder of US dollars. For example, Japan held $680bn in US Treasury Securities at the end of June - nearly 34% of total foreign holdings. This compares with $291bn held by China (including Hong Kong). Japan will therefore play a critical part in any changes to the world's currency system.

US-Japan relations are far closer than those between the US and China. Japan also has literally more to lose from the demise of the dollar than China. Nevertheless the same logic that impels China's move away from US paper applies to Japan. As long as deflation remained the key economic concern in Japan supporting the dollar was the paramount objective of its exchange rate policy. However, there are clear signs of a self-sustaining recovery of domestic employment, investment, and consumption in Japan. The recent election victory of PM Koizumi should reinforce reform and recovery. These forces are simultaneously bringing an end to both the deflationary process and to dependence on exports for growth. The imperative to support the dollar will erode and interest rates in Japan will begin to normalize. Another straw in the wind - Japan did not increase its holdings of US Treasuries in the first half of 2005.

3. The US in effect now has to borrow abroad in order to service all its foreign debt. The remarkable down spiral in the US foreign financial position took another crucial but little noticed twist recently. In the second quarter of 2005 the US paid out more in income to foreigners on their US assets than it received in income on its foreign assets. Technically net foreign investment income went negative. No comfort should be taken from the fact the second quarter investment income deficit was a mere $0.5bn. The income deficit will deteriorate rapidly in coming years. The US has net foreign debt (foreign liabilities minus foreign assets) of more than $ 2.5 trillion, and this debt will grow rapidly as the US continues to rack up huge current account deficits (now roughly $800bn annually). The income deficit on this debt has only just gone negative because the US receives a rate of return on its foreign assets roughly double that of overseas investors in the US - about 7% versus 3.4% between 2002 and 2004.

This differential return reflects the fact that Americans have invested largely in riskier assets abroad while foreigners have opted more for Treasury securities. A world economic downturn (likely in my view) would reduce returns on US overseas assets, while rising US interest rates will raise the return to foreigners. The longer term dynamics of this process are alarming. Within a short period of years the US will be borrowing hundreds of billions merely to service existing debt. Economists call this the "debt trap" - and the US economy is heading inexorably into it Can the US dollar sustain its position as the world reserve currency in the face of these fundamentals? As the saying goes, you only have to ask the question to know the answer.

4. The gold price is breaking out in all key currencies. Not all the world's investors (or central bankers!) are blind to the scary developments sketched above. Gold in dollars has definitively been in a bull market for some time, but in recent weeks gold has decisively broken out all key currencies including the Euro, Yen, Swiss Franc and Sterling. Markets are recognizing that the failure of the Dollar Standard is one not only of US economic management but one inherent in the fiat money system itself. In the long term they may demand gold's return as an anchor to the global monetary system.

The flight from paper assets (and especially dollars) towards hard assets is now underway in earnest. There is still time - this is a multi-year trend - for investors to switch from devaluing dollars to rising gold. Those ahead of the herd are moving but the herd itself is yet to stir.

There you have it folks.

Winning Without Fighting

Bush once again has the Democrats discombobulated. They are almost forced to support his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court despite her pro-life opinions and strong evangelical faith. They know so little about her that they can still plausibly hope that she might not be as "bad" as Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia. Should she fail to be confirmed, however, whoever is nominated in her place is most likely going to be a Thomas/Scalia clone, and it will be much harder to defeat a second nominee. Miers is about the closest thing to what the Dems want that they're likely to get, and they'll almost have to see her confirmed or face a far tougher fight over a more obviously qualified substitute.

If Miers really is a conservative and an intelligent strict constructionist, and if that's truly what the President wanted on the Court, then he is indeed a wizard at political strategy. He gets (ex hypothesi) a qualified originalist on the Bench by forcing the Dems to vote for her and without having to fight them for their vote.

Hugh Hewitt linked to someone today who recalls the words of Sun Tzu:

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence."

I think Sun Tzu would admire the Miers gambit.

Chaos and Anarchy

The LA Times tells us that media reports of chaos and anarchy in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina were highly exaggerated and largely incorrect. Indeed, it was these reports which caused relief teams to delay going into the city.

We'd do well to keep this in mind when we read the next dispatches from the MSM about how Iraq is descending into chaos and civil war.

Consciousness and Materialism

Philosopher David Chalmers notes that there has been a shift among philosophers of mind in the last decade from a strict materialistic reductionism (or physicalism) toward the view that mind cannot be reduced to matter (dualism), that mind and matter are essentially disparate entities. Dualists, by Chalmers' estimation, are still in the minority, but their numbers are growing. This is a fascinating development after a century and a half of philosophers and neurobiologists trying to show that mind is nothing more than a word we use to describe the function of the brain.

Materialism seems to be under assault everywhere. Marxist economic materialism has long been discredited, of course, and within the last fifteen years materialist conceptions of the cosmos have become increasingly untenable in light of discoveries being made by cosmologists about the fine-tuning of the fundamental forces, laws, and constants which govern the universe. Similarly, Intelligent Design is challenging materialism in the realm of biology, and now many philosophers are concluding that consciousness is something other than just chemical reactions in the brain.

Next thing you know philosophers will be resurrecting the concept of soul. It reminds me of the closing words of Robert Jastrow's God and the Astronomers. Jastrow notes that scientists have struggled, like men climbing a mountain, for every foothold and handhold that would help them reach the pinnacle - an understanding how our universe works. Every scrap of knowledge came at a great cost in effort and labor. Finally, after centuries of working their way toward the summit, they heave themselves over the last ledge only to find a bunch of theologians who've been sitting at the top all along.

It's the RINOs' Fault

No Left Turns' Julie Ponzi makes the point that if conservatives are unhappy with Bush's pick for the Supreme Court they shouldn't blame Bush they should blame the Quisling Republicans in the Senate:

And finally, if we really want to pick a fight with someone, why not take it to the spineless Republicans in the Senate whose shameful behavior in the last year has given us this moment? One might ask WHY Bush feels the need to play politics right now instead of complaining about the fact that he does. The Senate is why. We all know the Senate is why. Voinovich and DeWine--Ohio's two senators--are why. We need to do something about that before before we demand more of Bush. To do less is peevish and, worse, it hurts our cause. We will get another shot at it. The problem is that I think the people we most want to get the next nomination will be so tainted by the support of these childish rants that they won't be taken seriously. Too bad.

Quite so. Bush chooses to avoid a fight because he's not sure he can win it if he has to rely on RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) like Chafee, Snowe, Specter, Collins, as well as weak knees like Voinovich and DeWine. We, too, wish he would have selected a known quantity and that we'd have the fight the Democrats keep pushing us into, but we can't join with those conservatives who are essentially proclaiming that they just don't trust Bush to make a wise selection to the Court. For perhaps sound reasons he's chosen someone he believes he knows well, and there is some reason to expect that Ms Miers will vote with the Court's conservatives. Whether she has as solid an understanding of the constitution as an Antonin Scalia is much more uncertain but will no doubt become more clear at the hearings.

We understand conservative frustration and disappointment, but we think that people like William Kristol and George Will, who have excoriated the President for his selection of Ms. Miers, might well wind up looking foolish in the backlight of their harsh words. We'll see.

Uh, Oh. Not a <i>Christian</i>!

From the New York Times comes this shocking revelation about Harriet Miers:

"I think the one thing that comes across is she genuinely cares about people, at every level - professionally, personally, socially," said Hugh Hackney, a lawyer in Dallas who has known her since their undergraduate days at S.M.U. "She has always taken a great deal of time to really consider other people."

One thing Ms. Miers shares with her boss is a deep faith. She was introduced to Valley View Christian Church in Dallas by Justice Hecht, of the Texas Supreme Court. He was an elder at the church and often plays the organ during Sunday services.

"Harriet has placed her faith in Jesus," said the Rev. Ron Key, who was the longtime pastor there until recently. "She may have been religious before, but it's become more of a priority, more of a focus of her life. She has become a strong example of what happens in a person's life when they come to the faith."

Even as you read this, urgent letters from People For the American Way and other left-liberal organizations are being delivered to blue state homes all across the country calling on concerned liberals to rise up in outrage that Bush would nominate a Christian to the Supreme Court. How dare he treat the wall of church and state with such disdain? Christian women should be in church serving pot-luck suppers. They don't belong on the Supreme Court where who knows what mischief they'll stir up. There's no telling how much harm the nation could suffer by giving that kind of power to someone whose convictions are informed by the gospel.

This is going to be an ugly fight. We can't wait.

Assisted Suicide

The first case the Supreme Court is hearing this session is whether Oregon's assisted suicide law should be allowed to stand. The Bush administration opposes it on the grounds that the federal government has final authority on how controlled substances can be used and since federal legislation prohibits the use of drugs to help people end their lives, state laws allowing doctors to prescribe lethal doses of these substances should be struck down.

There are several questions raised by this case: Is it wise to have doctors assisting people in killing themselves? If doctors should not do this why do we have doctors assist the state in executing condemned prisoners? Will allowing the state to help people die erode the value we place on life? These are all important questions, but I'm not sure that they're relevant to the Supreme Court's ultimate decision. The narrow issue is whether it is unconstitutional for the state of Oregon to allow doctors to prescribe lethal dosages of drugs when federal law forbids it. The wider issue is whether the states have the right under the constitution to permit their citizens to take their own lives under certain circumstances.

It seems that there is really only one way a conservative can consistently answer this latter question and that is to say that the states should indeed have that right. This is ultimately a state's rights matter, just like conservatives say abortion should be. It would be very difficult to argue, as conservatives do, that whether their citizens should have the right to kill their unborn children should be left to the voters of each state to decide, but that whether their citizens will have the right to kill themselves must not be left to the voters of the states.

This is not to say that laws permitting self-euthanasia, or assisted self-euthanasia, are wise or moral. It's simply to say that the decision as to whether such practices should be legally condoned should be left to the citizens of the state in the same manner conservatives believe laws on abortion should be. How it can be argued that euthanasia is a matter for the federal government to control but that Roe v. Wade should be overturned and abortion laws thrown back into the lap of state legislatures is not very clear, at least not to me.

Testing ID

There's an interesting article in the New York Times on the great clash between the magisteria of religion and science at the first Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science and Religion.

Whatever the arguments may be for rejecting evidence of intentional design in the biosphere, it seems that one must be not only unable but a forteriori unwilling, to see the evidence that the cosmos itself is the product of purpose and intelligence. Even if only half of what Michael Denton says in Nature's Destiny or Stephen Barr writes in Modern Physics and Ancient Faith is true, the evidence for a telic universe is simply astounding.

The atheist, I suppose, can always fall back on the old chestnut that no amount of evidence is sufficient to constitute proof that the universe was created by a mind and that it is incumbent upon the one who asserts the existence of something to prove that the entity exists.

What this ignores, however, is the fact that proof is person-relative. What constitutes proof for one who is willing to be persuaded will not constitute proof for the man who is unwilling to be moved by it. There is, as Pascal said, enough evidence to convince any man who is not dead set against it, and Denton and Barr have written books which bring that evidence into bold relief. There is indeed sufficient evidence to convince all but the most obdurate that something besides randomness and coincidence were at work in the crafting of this universe.

The writer of the Times article, George Johnson, states that "If the God hypothesis [i.e. the Designer hypothesis] is meaningful, it should be subject to a test. But the theistic gloss Dr. Polkinghorne and others give to science is immune to this kind of scrutiny. It has, by design, no observable consequences."

Whether this is true for Polkinghorne's work or not we cannot say, but it is hardly true for the work of others. Denton, for example offers this test:

If any fundamental force or physical law or chemical property were found which could have been other than what it is and not make the existence of higher life forms impossible then the teleological interpretation of the world would be discredited. If higher forms of life were to be discovered elsewhere in the universe thriving in environments significantly different from our own, there would be no grounds for maintaining the opinion that our world is uniquely suited for life. The argument from cosmic design rests on the conviction that our world is so exquisitely fine-tuned for life that if it were structured just a little bit differently than it is life would be impossible. If that conviction were to be falsified the argument from cosmic design would lose its force.

Having said that, it should be pointed out that the criterion of testability as a measure of meaningfulness is a two-edged sword. If an assertion must be testable to be scientifically meaningful then what are we to make of the Darwinist claim that life arose and evolved to its present state through purely mechanistic, blind, and unguided processes acting over long periods of time? The task of contriving a test of this assertion would baffle the finest minds in science, yet it's considered by all hands to be a perfectly meaningful claim.

There are many similar claims in science that defy testing, but which are considered meaningful propositions. If we are to dismiss the claim that the universe is the product of intentional design because of an alleged inability to be tested then we're going to have to also throw out a great deal of evolutionary biology and modern physics.

The American Soldier

Yesterday we posted an account of the toughness and courage of American soldiers and Marines. Today we direct you to this story which illustrates another side of the American soldier.

Despite the Left's steady focus on the mistreatment of prisoners that occured over a year ago at the hands of a relative few sadists, the average American G.I. is more like these guys in "Deuce Four" than they are like Lynde England.

The Peculiar Story of Judith Miller

The Judith Miller story is more than a little odd (See here for a complete account of the affair). Miller, you will recall went to prison rather than reveal her sources for a story - which she never wrote - on the matter of how Valerie Plame's identity as a covert operative for the CIA came to be made public.

The source she was ostensibly protecting was Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby, but Libby told her over a year ago that she had his permission to testify about any conversations she had had with him.

He then wrote a letter last month repeating his permission to reveal anything she wanted to the grand jury investigating the matter. Even so, she chose to remain in jail for another ten days before agreeing to testify.

Why? PowerLine has the details of the story and offers these three possibile answers to the question:

1) Miller went to jail because she wanted to pose as a martyr, and she just needs an excuse for why she now wants to go home. That's plausible as far as it goes, but it doesn't explain why Miller stayed in jail for another week and a half after getting Libby's "clarification," while her lawyer negotiated with the prosecutor. 2) Miller went to jail because she didn't want to answer questions about her tipping off a terrorist-supporting group [for whom] the FBI was about to execute a search warrant, an episode that also could have come before Fitzpatrick's grand jury. She and her lawyer laid the blame on Libby so that the public wouldn't learn about the other episode, which is pretty much unknown. Plausible, and consistent with what we've been told about her lawyer's deal with the prosecutor--if, indeed, the terrorist tipoff was something that Fitzgerald could have pursued. I'm not sure whether that's correct or not. 3) The third alternative is the most sinister: Miller went to jail to protect not Libby, but another source or sources, and the prosecutor has agreed not to ask her about those other sources. If that's true, it suggests that someone in the administration--presumably, either Karl Rove or Scooter Libby--is being set up.

Whatever the answer her behavior is strange, and it will be interesting to see what she has to say to the grand jury. Our hunch is that this investigation is going nowhere, at least nowhere that the enemies of Karl Rove would like to see it go. All of the excitement that rippled through the MSM last spring and summer as they eagerly anticipated seeing Rove brought low and maybe even led out of his office in leg irons, has evaporated away like a morning mist. Just another case of a great deal of left-wing sound and fury signifying nothing. Next up, Tom DeLay.

Tough Breed

Here's a brief story about the kind of men who are fighting against Islamic extremists in Iraq so that our families are safer from them here:

Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez was awarded the Silver Star for his actions during multiple firefights his Marines were engaged in during battles in al Qaim, Iraq, in April 2004. Shot in the back during an ambush on his convoy and with multiple broken ribs, it was not until after a second firefight further down the road and well into the night that he recieved treatment.

Lt. Col. Lopez was awarded the prestigious Silver Star today for his actions during Operation Iraqi Freedom, when his unit came under fire near the Syrian border in Iraq.

Riding in the 3rd vehicle of an 8-vehicle convoy, heading to assist other Marines in another firefight, Lopez's own unit was suddenly hit with enemy fire. The Marines fired back as they had numerous times before.

When the smoke cleared, Lopez and his Marines had killed 25 insurgents. Twenty-two Marines in the convoy lay wounded, including Lopez himself.

"The shot hit (my) back," said Lopez. In addition, the impact of the round also broke a few of his ribs.

"My first thought was I didn't want to pass out," said Lopez, a Chicago native. "We'd already fought through one ambush and I wanted to get the injured Marines to the (corpsman) as quickly as possible."

The Marines were involved in another fight at a forward base checkpoint, and needed fire support. It wasn't until that night that Lopez was treated for the wounds he sustained.

Lt. Col. Lopez was Cpl. Jason Dunham's Battalion Commander, who saved his fellow Marines by selflessly diving on a grenade thrown by an insurgent. Dunham's Kilo Company 3/7, has a lion's share of honorable Marines, right up the chain to their commanding officer.

Brave, tough men. It's little wonder the enemy has never won a single combat engagement with our troops in Iraq. Nor is it any wonder that the enemy prefers to attack women and children rather than take on Marines like these.

Fly Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

Conservatives are split on George Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court. The American Center for Law and Justice calls Miers an "excellent" choice. But others are less pleased. A group called Public Advocate has released a statement which states that:

"The President's nomination of Miers is a betrayal of the conservative, pro-family voters whose support put Bush in the White House in both the 2000 and 2004 elections and who were promised Supreme Court appointments in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Instead we were given 'stealth nominees,' who have never ruled on controversial issues, more in the mold of the disastrous choice of David Souter by this President's father.

"When there are so many proven judges in the mix, it is unacceptable this President has appointed a political crony with no conservative credentials. This attempt at 'Bush Packing' the Supreme Court must not be allowed to pass the Senate and we will forcefully oppose this nomination."

Strong stuff. William Kristol at the Weekly Standard is no less dismayed, claiming to be "disappointed, depressed, and demoralized."

Viewpoint joins Kristol in being disappointed that Bush didn't pick a proven conservative from among the eight or nine candidates that have outstanding judicial records, and we're concerned, too, that Meirs has no real record from which her views can be gleaned. Most of all, we're concerned that her nomination seems to have delighted Senator Chuck Schumer.

Conservatives fear that the specter of David Souter hangs ominously over both John Roberts and Harriet Miers since, like Souter, they both purport to be conservatives but also like Souter, we have no way of assessing the depth of their commitment to an originalist reading of the constitution. Souter has turned out terribly, and the trepidation among conservatives is due to the possibility that Roberts and, even more, Miers, may turn out likewise.

Perhaps. But the difference in the present case is that George Bush is committed, we hope, to putting constitutional originalists on the court. He also knows Miers very well. Unlike his father who didn't know anything about Souter, W. knows Miers' philosophy. Presumably, her convictions mesh with those of the President. If we believe his own judicial convictions and instincts to be correct then it is probably unwise to condemn him for his selection at this point in time. Conservatives have been disappointed by George Bush on more than one occasion, but in picking judges he's been impeccable and has, in our view, earned the benefit of the doubt. One is justified in withholding it only if one thinks that Bush is unprincipled enough to go back on his word that he wants conservative judges on the court. Whatever one thinks of Bush, however, "unprincipled" is hardly a fair description of his conduct in office over the last five years.

We think that much of the disgust and frustration expressed by conservatives over the Meirs pick derives from a desire for a resolution of the power struggle going on in the Senate. Conservatives want Republicans to apply the coup de grace to the floundering Dems who act as if they are still the majority party. Republicans, unfortunately, too often act as if they're still in the minority and seem loath to use the prerogatives bestowed by their majority status. This frustrates conservatives who want Bush to nominate a Scalia/ Thomas type justice and then dare the Democrats to filibuster.

In other words, conservatives are spoiling for a slugfest, but Bush prefers to beat the Democrats with finesse rather than brute force. That's what he did with Roberts and what he'll probably do with Meirs. He has taken something of a gamble, to be sure, but if both picks turn out to be more conservative than Sandra Day O'Connor then Bush will have succeeded in his goal of moving the court to the right without shedding much blood. Conservatives want him to fight like Joe Frazier, but he prefers to dance like Muhammed Ali. If he's confident of the conservatism of his selections then it's hard to fault him for his tactics.

The President has enough enemies on the Left. He doesn't need criticism from the Right unless we're sure he deserves it. On this matter we're not yet sure that he does.

The Next Pick

ConfirmThem.com thinks the next SCOTUS nominee will be either Michael Luttig or Karen Williams. Here's an article on Williams. We'll probably find out tomorrow who the nominee will be.

Operation Iron Fist

The Fourth Rail describes in a series of posts what's going on along the Syrian border with Operation Iron Fist. Go here then scroll down to the post titled Operation Iron Fist in Qaim. This post has a map which shows the locations of the towns mentioned in subsequent entries. After reading this one, work your way back up to the most recent posts. It's interesting reading and it gives a perspective on what the American strategy is there that is at odds with what the media has been saying.

Is There <i>Anything</i> They Won't Say?

A friend writes to express dismay with the testimony at the Dover ID trial in Harrisburg, PA:

Has reading the paper about the ID trial driven you crazy?? To say under oath, as testimony in a major court proceeding, that the ID thinkers want to return us to a time when epilepsy [was believed to be] caused by demons is so ludicrous. Does that guy really think that [ID theorists] don't believe epilepsy [is an illness]? Outragous accusations!

He's quite right, of course. There's a lot of outrageous stuff being said in this courtroom. Two especially irritating examples leap to mind. One is that the plaintiffs are going to great lengths to discredit Intelligent Design by showing that the people who were instrumental in getting the ID statement read in Dover classrooms are very outspoken about their religious convictions. This may be relevant in showing that the introduction of ID into classrooms was driven by sectarian considerations, but even if board members went too far in voicing their religious views that is simply irrelevant to whether or not ID is a legitimate topic for a science classroom.

Scientists from Darwin to Dawkins have not been reticent about their atheism and how it derives from their evolutionary views. Yet no one in the media or in the courtroom seems to think that this disqualifies evolution as a legitimate topic for a science class, nor should they. But if it is acceptable for atheistic scientists to talk about how Darwinism "makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," and so on, why is it disqualifying for a Christian to voice an alternative opinion? If it is perfectly acceptable to teach students that evolution is the product of a "blind, unguided natural process," which is essentially a religious rather than a scientific claim, why is it not acceptable to tell students that not everyone believes this to be so?

The second frustrating thing about the case is the repeated attempts to hitch ID to creationism so that by discrediting creationism ID is discredited as well. Intelligent Design is not creationism, at least not as that term has come to be used in the current debate, but a supine national media, anxious to believe the worst of the rubes who embrace ID, decline to undertake the journalistic labor necessary to investigate the philosophical legitimacy of the linkage. They'd much prefer to write smug, supercilious columns poking fun at the Dover school board members than to actually do their jobs and give the public pertinent information about what creationism and Intelligent Design actually are.

So my reply to my friend is yes, what's being said is outrageous and frustrating, but then there's some comfort in realizing that for the plaintiffs to succeed, their witnesses have to distort the truth and the media have to be complicit in the deception. If one has to lose, it's much better to lose because the other side had to misrepresent one's position than to lose because the other side had a better argument. There's consolation in the fact that, if this is the best the other side can do, ID is in very good shape indeed.

Religion and Social Well-Being

We hope that this is not what's passing for scholarship in the social sciences nowadays:

Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today. According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: "Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world. In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions. He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world's only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from "uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: "The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America." He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. "I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states," he added.

He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.

"The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. "The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted."

I wasn't aware of it, but apparently those pious Christians fervently worshipping in their churches on Sunday morning and poring over copies of The Purpose Driven Life are also leading secret lives of murder, mayhem, and sexual promiscuity the rest of the week. I also never realized that devout Christians lead the world in suicide. Looks can be be very deceiving, apparently, and we will henceforth be reluctant to sit in the front of the church lest one of those homocidal maniacs in the pews behind us suddenly pulls out a gun and starts filling the sanctuary with bullets.

On the other hand, has there ever been an academic study more counter-intuitive, more self-serving, or more simple-minded than this one? Mr. Paul commits the fallacy of assuming that because there's a correlation between high dysfunctionality and high levels of religiosity that therefore religion is not beneficial to national social health. It's a bit like arguing that because the U.S. has a high incidence of cancer and also has high numbers of doctors that therefore doctors are not really beneficial to our nation's well-being.

In order to prove his bizarre conclusion Meyer would have to show that the set of dysfunctional people is identical to the set of religious people, but this he does not do. It is far more likely that the two sets scarcely even overlap in this country, in which case the results of his study are meaningless.

He also misses the mark when he conjures up an alleged widely-held fear that "a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster" in order to show that the putative fear is refuted by his study. The problem with a non-theistic citizenry, however, is not that it must experience societal disaster, but rather that it is far more likely to. A citizenry that lacks a transcendent ground for moral values, human dignity and human worth, must eventually either acknowledge that these things really don't exist at all or invent some fiction in which to ground them.

Either way, such a society will gradually become increasingly more cynical, skeptical, and nihilistic. Government may keep the wheels on the wagon with legal duct tape for a couple of generations as the religious bolts that fasten them to the axles work their way loose, but it's quite likely that when the bolts have all fallen out, the wheels will spin off too. That it hasn't happened yet in some European countries (Though see here) means only that the masses have yet to realize the full implications of their abandonment of the transcendent.

Indeed, in those European nations where authorities have sought to work out the full logic of their atheism and where they have possessed the power to impose their will on the masses - nations like the Stalinist U.S.S.R. and Nazi Germany, for example - societal disaster is precisely what we have seen.

Mr. Paul strikes us as an atheist who aspires to prove that atheism is beneficial to society. If so, his work is still ahead of him, because this silly study certainly gives no one any reason to think that he's made his point.

For a technical critique of Paul's work by a statistician go here.