For Logophiles

A friend forwarded me a delightful piece titled Twenty English Words That Should Make a Comeback. The words have passed into obsolecence and are hard to find even in a good dictionary, and it's too bad. Some of them are marvelous. I told my friend that when a word passes out of usage it's as if a species of plant or animal has gone extinct except that the word can be brought back if people start using it again.

Take a look at the list of words at the link and see if you can't find an opportunity to use one or two of them in your scriptitations or the next conversation you have. Be careful, though, not to jargogle your listeners with perissology or you'll make yourself ludibrious.

On the other hand, such adroit use of the language may make you illecebrous to members of the opposite sex so go for it.

It's Come to This

A seven year old Maryland boy was recently punished by school administrators for the crime of having sculpted a pop tart into the form of a gun. The horrified authorities sprang into action and quickly taught the young terrorist a lesson he'd never forget. They suspended his miserable little redneck self from school.

Now a Maryland lawmaker, incredulous that the stupidity of these administrators makes such measures necessary, has introduced a bill that would prevent schools from suspending students for making a gun with their fingers, and, presumably, out of the fearsome pop tart as well.

Zero tolerance for zero tolerance. That’s how one lawmaker feels about young children being suspended from school for forming their finger or food in the shape of a gun. As [reporter] Gigi Barnett explains, he has a bill designed to keep students in class if they’re caught.

State Senator J.B. Jennings says he does not intend for this bill to be a part of the growing gun debate in Maryland, but he does say he wants it to bring some common sense discipline to state schools.

Anne Arundel County school leaders suspended 7-year-old Joshua Welch last week for eating a pastry in the shape of a gun.

“When you compare the caliber of the offense to the caliber of the punishment, they don’t match up,” the boy’s father said.

Uh, oh. I hope the school principals didn't read this. It'd afford them the perfect explanation for why the little miscreant is obsessed with guns. "The apple falls nigh to the tree," we can hear them say. "His father thinks in terms of calibers. Get it? Calibers? Ammo? Guns?" Doubtless the school authorities believe the father should also be penalized for setting such a loathesome example for his son.

Back in January, 6-year-old Rodney Lynch received the same punishment for forming his fingers in the shape of a gun. Montgomery County school leaders sent Lynch home for two days.

“These kids are 6 or 7 years old. They don’t understand what they’re doing,” said Sen. Jennings.

"Well," our Solomonic administrators are probably objecting, "what does that matter? Who says the urchins have to understand what they're doing?" When you're on a mission to eliminate gun violence, as these zealous educators are, you have to assume that anything that remotely resembles a gun strikes terror into the hearts of students and teachers, and anyone who simulates use of a deadly weapon must be punished.

Jennings says zero tolerance rules on school campuses are going too far, so he wrote a bill. It bans school leaders from suspending students who make the shape of a gun with their fingers or food, or students who draw a gun on a piece of paper.

“If it’s done in a violent manner, then yes, we can take it to the next level. We can look at suspension,” said Jennings.

By all means, any use of a pop tart suggestive of violence should be taken to the "next level." So, too, should suggestive displays of donuts, which, when pointed at someone can vaguely resemble the muzzle of a gun. Any child who points a donut at someone, assuming those agglomerations of fat and sugar are even allowed on school campuses in politically correct Maryland, should be summarily suspended for perpetrating an act of violence.

Jennings says his office has received several calls from parents who fear that a suspension in elementary school will mar their children’s academic career.

“So the parents are the one’s who’ve had concerns saying ‘OK, now my kid has to carry this.’ So when they get into middle school and they start placing them in classes, they’re going to look and say ‘Well wait a minute, this kid has been suspended when he was in second grade.’ And he’s always going to be looked at as ‘what did he do?’” Jennings said.

Indeed, why not brand a scarlet G for "gun" into his forehead so everyone knows that when this psychopath was in second grade he actually - with malice aforethought and without remorse - shaped a pop tart to look like a firearm, and if he ever points an index finger at someone - whether the thumb be raised or not - perhaps he should have the offending digit cut off.

If the bill passes and a student is caught forming their food or fingers in the shape of a gun, they would be sent to a counselor’s office first–not suspension.

By all means, get the child counseling. Who knows what terrible crimes a young boy who draws pictures of guns is capable of? If he's not shown the wickedness of his ways the next thing you know he'll be pointing bananas and pickles at people and saying "bang." Then what does an administrator with an advanced college degree that presumably implies an IQ somewhere above the freezing point of water do?

I wonder en passant if counseling is required for young boys who, as boys are wont to do, fashion their food into the simulacrum of genitalia and festoon their notebooks with sketches of marijuana leaves and depictions of various pornographic fantasies. Probably not. Those creations are no doubt deemed by the liberal sachems to be imaginative, if inchoate, artistic expressions and are only offensive to prudish conservatives. The real problem are the children who make guns out of pop tarts.

Alas, there seems to be no end to this lunacy.

Absence Featured in Sunday Paper

Sarah Chain does a column on books for the local paper, and she did a piece for last Sunday's edition on my novel In the Absence of God (Follow the link at the top right of this page for more info on the book).

Sarah's article was marred only by the fact that it included a picture of me, but other than that it was a fine summary of the book. Check it out at the link, and if you haven't read Absence yet it's available at Amazon and at Hearts and Minds bookstore. It'll soon be available in other bookstores as well. It'd make a fine gift, I say humbly, for someone of a philosophical frame of mind interested in questions surrounding the existence or non-existence of God.

An Innate Disposition Toward Theism?

Big Questions Online has an interesting topic this month. Justin Barrett asks whether belief in God - or rather, is receptivity to belief in God - innate in the same way as the propensity for language formation is innate? If it is, then that fact has interesting epistemological implications, though Barrett doesn't address this aspect of the question. If we are in some way wired to believe a priori in God then it would seem that theistic belief is epistemically warranted or justified apart from any evidence one could present on behalf of the belief.

The inclination to believe in God would be as natural, as rational, as the belief that my memory of having spent last night reading Dickens is reliable. Both beliefs are what epistemologists call properly basic beliefs. They require no evidential support, one is justified in believing them unless and until dispositive evidence is adduced to show that the belief is wrong.

If the inclination to believe is somehow hard-wired into us then there's no need to provide a justification for one's belief that God exists, and the claim by skeptics that belief in God is irrational, a very weak claim in any case, is simply mistaken.

Here's how Barrett frames the question:

Let us take “God” to mean an intentional being or agent with mental states and a will, who can and does act in the natural world. Let us also understand “God” to designate such an agent who has played some role in designing or ordering the natural world, has superhuman access to information about what is the case in the world, and is immortal. With these definitions in mind, then, the big question is: Are typical humans born with such propensities that, under ordinary developmental conditions, belief will likely arise in the existence of at least one God (i.e., an intentional agent who has played some role in ordering the natural world, has superhuman access to information about the world, and is immortal)? If that is our question, then we have reason to think the answer is yes.

The question whether there's a natural disposition to believe raises further questions. Is this disposition genetic? If not, what is it? If there is an innate disposition to believe, how do we come to have it? How is the possession of such a trait explicable in evolutionary terms? Does everyone possess it? If so, why does a significant fraction of the world's population not believe?

Lots to chew on. Check out the link.

Something From Nothing

Lawrence Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, is an atheist cosmologist at pains in his book to give a completely naturalistic answer to the question why there is a universe at all. His explanation, however, has failed to impress David Albert, a philosopher of science at Columbia University who penned a review of Krauss' book in the New York Times last March in which he pretty much demolishes Krauss' argument.

Krauss contends that the universe arose out of the quantum vacuum, a state which he insists is tantamount to sheer nothingness. Thus the universe popped into being out of nothing, but, according to Albert, that's all hogwash. Albert writes:

But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields!

In other words, real nothing is not a field (fields are areas of influence where forces operate - like gravitational or magnetic fields). It's the complete absence of any field. The quantum vacuum state is not nothing, it's a particular arrangement of the basic stuff of the universe. Albert explains:

The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.

Just as a fist is a particular arrangement of one's hand, but the hand is not nothing, so, too, the universe is an arrangement of a particular kind of quantum field that manifests itself as particles (atoms). A vacuum state is a field that manifests no particles at all, which is why it's sometimes misleadingly referred to as "nothing." But the vacuum is still physical stuff, it's still something, just as a hand that's not clenched is still something even though it's not a fist.

Albert has much more to say about Krauss' argument, but the significance of it all is this: Krauss wants to argue that the universe doesn't need an explanation for its existence. He's trying to make the idea of a Creator superfluous. The universe doesn't need a cause, he maintains, to explain its coming into being. It's simply something that popped into existence out of nothing just as particles pop into being out of the primordial relativistic quantum field. Thus Krauss flatters himself to have obviated the cosmological argument for God's existence.

But, as Albert points out, he's done no such thing. Even if he's correct that the universe formed out of a particular configuration of the primal field, all he's achieved is push the problem back a step. We still need to ask where the relativistic quantum vacuum field came from. It's as though having explained that the fist is simply an arrangement of the fingers of the hand, Krauss is satisfied that he has explained all that needs to be explained. The question, though, is where did the hand come from?

Is Liberalism Doomed Or Is the Country?

Former Delaware governor Pete DuPont argues that the liberal coalition which seems ascendent in today's politics is actually doomed to disintegrate. I'm not sure he's right about that, but here's the crux of his argument:

But the primary reason today's liberal Democratic coalition will fade is because the very policies it pushes sow the seeds of its own destruction. The coalition can survive over time only by allocating slices of our nation's economic pie in a way that favors and placates its constituent members. But people, being human, will continually want larger slices of our economic resources, so continued success in placating those members, while at the same time adding the necessary new members, requires a continuing and ever-growing economy. A flat or shrinking economy will never generate the resources needed to feed the coalition.

Yet the White House and congressional Democrats are working to stifle economic growth. From their views on taxes and redistribution, to their policies on energy and regulation, liberal Democrats are standing in the way of the strong economy their coalition needs.

DuPont goes on to say that as a result of those policies the liberal coalition will ultimately collapse because the policies will not be able to produce the wealth needed to sustain it.

Maybe so, but that's not been the lesson much of history teaches. History tells us that what often happens is that the demands imposed by a burgeoning class of "takers" upon the shrinking class of producers cause the whole system to rot from within and ultimately collapse before the governing class takes the measures needed to prevent it. Victor Davis Hanson wrote about this very phenomenon recently. After citing examples from the ancient world Hanson turns to our modern era:

After the end of World War II, most of today's powerhouses were either in ruins or still preindustrial -- China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan. Only the United States and Great Britain had sophisticated economies that survived the destruction of the war. Both were poised to resupply a devastated world with new ships, cars, machinery and communications.

In comparison to Frankfurt, the factories of 1945 Liverpool had survived mostly intact. Yet Britain missed out on the postwar German economic miracles, in part because after the deprivations of the war, the war-weary British turned to class warfare and nationalized their main industries, which soon became uncompetitive. The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense. Americans have never had safer workplaces or more sophisticated medical care -- and never have so many been on disability.

Given our unsustainable national debt -- nearly $17 trillion and climbing -- America is said to be in decline, although we face no devastating plague, nuclear holocaust, or shortage of oil or food.

Americans have never led such affluent material lives -- at least as measured by access to cell phones, big-screen TVs, cheap jet travel and fast food. Obesity rather than malnutrition is the greater threat to national health. Flash mobs go after electronics stores, not food markets. Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria. If Martians looked at the small box houses, one-car families and primitive consumer goods of the 1950s, they would have thought the postwar United States, despite a balanced budget in 1956, was impoverished. In comparison, an indebted contemporary America would seem to aliens flush with cash, as consumers jostle for each new update to their iPhones.

By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed new finds of natural gas and oil, the world's pre-eminent food production, continual technological wizardly, strong demographic growth, a superb military and constitutional stability.

Yet we don't talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality rather than liberty is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.

In August 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles, while Detroit was among the most innovative and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Hiroshima now resembles a prosperous Detroit of 1945; parts of Detroit look like they were bombed decades ago.

History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

And I need not mention, of course, that wealth redistribution is President Obama's Holy Grail.

The Passing of a Bad Man

Hugo Chavez, the autocratic semi-dictator of Venezuela has died and bizarrely (or maybe expectedly) the left mourns.

The usual suspects among the Hollywood left (Sean Penn, Oliver Stone) and leftists at the Nation (Greg Grandin) join political figures like Jimmy Carter, Democrat congressman Jose Serrano, former mayor of London George Galloway who've lined up to pay their respects to a thug who came to office in 1998 with little to his name and died fifteen years later worth over $2 billion. How did he do that? Do the folks who eulogize him and lament his passing even care?

It's disappointing, of course, but on the left thugs and mass murderers are often worshipped as heroes: Fidel, Che, Mao, Stalin - the list of tyrants and killers lionized by the American left is as sickening as it is long.

There was a time when liberals could be counted upon to truly admire virtue and character and care, too, about the distinction between good and evil. That time is apparently past. Whereas liberals were once primarily concerned about human welfare today too many of them are concerned only about wielding power. They too often revere the people who have it, and use it, no matter how nefariously they apply it.

Slouching Toward Tyranny

We must seriously fear for our country when 41% of Democrats, the party of American liberals, believe that the president should be able to decide, on his own, whether to kill by drone strike an American citizen on U.S. soil merely because he's suspected of being a terrorist.

If we have fallen so far that such a large fraction of liberals would countenance such an extraordinary breach of constitutional rights as to kill an American who has not been charged, much less tried and convicted in a court of law, simply on the suspicion he might do us harm, then we are on the doorstep of tyranny. Would these Democrats have approved of the assassinations Bill Ayers or any of the other violent domestic terrorists of the sixties and seventies?

And what constitutes a terrorist? Nancy Pelosi said that the Tea Party consisted of terrorists. Do the liberals in the above cited poll think that it would be okay for Mr. Obama to attack the next Tea Party rally with hellfire missiles?

Nor are our fears that this administration sees itself as above the law allayed when the Attorney General of the United States refuses to answer a simple yes/no question as to whether he, and thus the president, think extra-judicial executions are constitutional. Attorney General Holder eventually says he doesn't think so, but only after repeated attempts to duck the question from Senator Ted Cruz:

Why can't he give a firm yes or no answer? Why is he resorting to obfuscation and sophistry? What's he trying to avoid saying? These are people who professed to be outraged that the Bush administration was holding foreign terrorists at Guantanamo Bay without a trial, but they evidently can't now bring themselves to unequivocally state that killing such people, even when they are American citizens and could be arrested and tried, would be wrong.

Yesterday Senator Rand Paul launched an old-style filibuster in the Senate in an attempt to elicit from President Obama a denial that he thinks it constitutional to kill on U.S. soil suspected terrorists who are U.S. citizens but who don't pose an imminent threat. As of last night the president hadn't replied.

It's astonishing that Rand's colleagues on the other side of the aisle, men and women who've portrayed themselves for decades as staunch civil libertarians, defenders of the rights of all citizens, have all fled for the tall grass (with the honorable exception of Sen. Ron Wyden) and have refused to join Senator Paul in his effort to establish that American citizens will not be denied their rights by this administration. Evidently, for these Democrats, political loyalty to party supercedes loyalty to the constitution and the American people.

When our political leaders seem so blithely indifferent to the constitution, when over 41% of the Democrats in the country are okay with the president unilaterally killing American citizens who are terrorist suspects, is it any wonder that gun stores are doing a booming business?

Metaphysics and Science

A decade or so ago Dover, PA became internationally famous because the local school board inserted mention into high school biology classes of the availability of an intelligent design textbook in the school library. For this grievous transgression of secular decorum the board was thrown out on its collective ear by the good citizens of Dover, the ACLU sued, and a judge who acquired whatever expertise he possessed in such matters by virtue of having served as head of the state liquor control board, ruled that the school board was in violation of the sacred principles enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution.

That case and similar controversies since have revolved around the scientific status of intelligent design. Is ID a scientific theory or is it a religious, i.e. metaphysical, hypothesis? If it's the latter, it is presumed, then it has no place in the science classroom, and this is in fact how the judge ruled.

It was an odd ruling since metaphysical hypotheses are discussed in science classes all the time. Indeed, a couple of years later the new school board blithely rubber-stamped a proposal to teach a unit in biology classes on the ethics of cloning, a decision which seemed to me absurd given the community's history of opposition to even the slightest insinuation of the nose of the metaphysical camel into the tent of science. Here's a post I wrote on the subject at the time:

The morning paper brings word that the Dover School Board has unanimously approved the biology curriculum for next year and that the good people of Dover, having struggled mightily to successfully purge their science classrooms of the metaphysical taint of ID, have added a unit in which they will discuss the ethical implications of cloning!

To arms, citizens! How can the same people who campaigned against the previous board because they wanted a mere mention of intelligent design to fall upon their students' ears now approve a unit in a biology class that is so clearly a matter of values (metaphysics) and so obviously unscientific? Where are the hearty defenders of scientific purity? Where are the staunch advocates of allowing only those matters to be discussed in public school science classes which can be subject to empirical testing? Where are Judge Jones and the ACLU?

Perhaps the failure of the board and the Dover biology teachers to see the richly amusing inconsistency of their position is understandable. One can scarcely pick up a book written on some topic of science today without finding discussions of topics which are not in any sense empirically testable but which many scientists evidently find to be suitable topics for a book on science nonetheless.

Presumably, many of these topics would not precipitate the arch of a single eyebrow were they to be discussed in a public school science classroom (except possibly #14 below) yet every one of them is a metaphysical, not a scientific, idea. Here's a tentative list of such topics off the top of my head:

1. Many universes: The idea that ours is just one of a nearly infinite number of universes all of which are closed off from each other defying detection.
2. Oscillating universe: The theory that our universe has expanded and collapsed an infinite number of times.
3. String theory: The idea that the fundamental unit of material substance are unimaginably tiny vibrating filaments of energy.
4. Other dimensions: The theory that the four dimensions of space-time are only part of physical reality.
5. Principle of uniformity: The assumption that the laws and properties of the universe are homogenous throughout the universe.
6. Assumption of uniformitarianism: The idea that the same processes and forces at work in the world today have always been at work at essentially the same rates.
7. Scientific method: The idea that there is a particular methodology that defines the scientific process which ought to be followed.
8. Law of parsimony: The principle that assumes that the simplest explanation which fits all the facts is the best.
9. Assumption that reason is trustworthy: The notion that a faculty which has evolved because it made us better fit to survive is nevertheless a dependable guide to truth which is an entirely different matter than what's most propitious for human survival.
10. Assumption that we should value truth: The idea that truth should be esteemed more highly than any competing value, like, for instance, personal comfort.
11. Preference for naturalistic explanations: A preference based upon an untestable assumption that all knowable truth is found only in the natural realm.
12. Naturalistic abiogenesis: The belief that natural forces are sufficient in themselves to have produced life.
13. Assumption that if something is physically possible then given the age of the universe it probably happened.
14. Anthropic principle: The idea that the fine-tuning of the cosmos points to the conclusion that the universe has purpose.
15. Assumption that there's a world external to our own minds.
16. Reductionism: The conviction that all phenomena, including mental phenomena, can be ultimately explained solely in terms of physics and chemistry.
17. Assumption that the universe arose out of a "vacuum matrix" rather than out of nothing.
18. Ethical claims regarding the environment, nuclear power, cloning, and genetic engineering.
19. Assumption that the cosmos is atelic, i.e. that it has no purpose: This assumption is acceptable in science classes. The opposite claim that the universe is telic for some reason is not.
20. Memes: According to biologist Richard Dawkins memes are the cultural analog to genes. They are ideas or customs that are believed by Dawkins and others to get passed along according to their survival value rather than their truth value. An example of this, unfortunately, would have to be the concept of the meme itself.

Mind you, I'm not passing judgment on the truth of any of the above, nor am I saying they shouldn't be discussed in a science classroom. They should. I'm merely noting that with so much philosophical theorizing flying about in the scientific literature and in public school science classes, it seems a little ironic that people are catapulted into outrage and hysterics at the mere suggestion that a teacher might also mention to our children that some scientists believe that mind played a role in the creation of the universe and the appearance of life. Some metaphysical ideas, apparently, are less acceptable in a science classroom than others, although one wishes there were consistent, reasonable criteria for determining acceptability.

The demand that unscientific concepts be kept out of the science classroom is really a ploy, of course, designed to keep a particular allegedly non-scientific view, Intelligent Design, out of the public school while allowing other non-scientific views and topics, which pose no danger to the regnant materialist orthodoxy, free access to our students' hearts and minds.

The Dover board, oblivious to the bias they're displaying, sees no contradiction in having students talk about ethical issues in a science class after having just replaced a board that was voted out because they sought to introduce a topic from the philosophy of science into the science classroom.

It's sad that such is the blindness of those who make these decisions, but we have to laugh nonetheless. It's too funny not to.

One Percenters

Does the top one percent make too much money in our society? The message of this video is that they certainly do. The video has for obvious reasons gone viral. It illustrates in a powerful, succinct, and understandable way the fundamental disproportion in wealth distribution in this country. The difficulty, unfortunately, is not in identifying the disproportion, it's in trying to find the best way to ameliorate it without destroying the economy altogether.

Here's the vid:

The left will say that we should raise taxes on the very wealthy, and few Americans would object to that if raising taxes would actually produce more revenue, or if the additional revenue would actually be used for something worthwhile instead of paying for boondoggles of one sort or another. Sadly, raising taxes will not produce significantly more revenue, nor would it help the poor whose problems transcend the lack of money, nor would the revenue be used efficiently or productively by government. In fact, the only thing raising taxes on the wealthy would accomplish, in my opinion, is that it would punish the rich simply for being rich, and that seems to me to be a morally insupportable reason for doing it.

If taxes on just the top 1% were raised again (they were already raised on January 1st)most of them would simply take their money and/or their business offshore or otherwise shelter their wealth so that the revenue gained from raising their taxes would be minimal.

Another problem with the video is that it makes it seem as though there's a fixed amount of wealth in the country and that when the rich monopolize it the poor have no chance to share in it. This just isn't so. Wealth can be created and grow. Wealth is not like a pie that gets cut into slices of different sizes. It's more like a balloon which can expand indefinitely.

Nor is the reason that average incomes are down among the the middle class that the wealthy are hogging all the money. It's because these people are suffering from the worst jobless rate in decades, and joblessness is up largely because businesses won't hire because they don't know what their costs are going to be when Obamacare kicks in. Nor do they know what additional regulations this administration is planning for them and what additional taxes they'll be paying if the Democrats win back the House of Representatives in 2014. In other words, one reason for the stark discrepancy between rich and poor is the economic policies and predilections of the Obama administration.

Here's an interesting fact to consider when thinking about taxing the rich. Most of the charitable foundations, endowments and trusts in this country are supported and financed largely by the rich. What will happen to charities, endowments, etc. if we we make it harder for the rich to stay rich? How many hospitals, schools, and benevolences of all kinds will simply have to cut back or close their doors? We may not like the wealthy and their opulent, ostentatious lifestyles, but they are the geese that are laying a lot of golden eggs. To turn the geese into chickens is the work of fools.

Here's another fact: According to CNBC the rich in this country are going to contribute more wealth to the treasury this year than any year in the history of the nation:

With Washington gridlocked again over whether to raise their taxes, it turns out wealthy families already are paying historically high federal tax bills even as the rest of the population continues to pay at historically low rates.

President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress say the wealthy must pay their fair share if the federal government is ever going to fix its finances and reduce the budget deficit to a manageable level. A new analysis, however, shows that average tax bills for high-income families rarely have been higher since the Congressional Budget Office began tracking the data in 1979. It's middle- and low-income families who aren't paying as much as they used to.

If this is so, our fiscal problem is not that the rich don't pay enough in taxes, they've never paid more. The problem is that we simply spend too much. The solution is not to raise taxes. It's to cut spending. The sequester is a small step in the right direction.

Somethin' Happenin' Here

Two articles in Science Daily remind me of the lyrics from the old Buffalo Springfield song from the 60s: "There's somethin' happenin' here, what it is ain't exactly clear."

In 2009 scientists were attributing the tropical climes prevailing in prehistoric epochs to massive volcanic activity which spewed millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Recently, however, scientists have been casting about for an explanation as to why the earth, despite their doleful predictions, hasn't shown any warming in over a decade, and their culprit is - volcanoes. Evidently, volcanoes also emit vast quantities of sulfur dioxide which reflects light in the upper atmosphere thus offsetting the greenhouse effects of the carbon that both volcanoes and humans are pumping into the air.

It's all very perplexing. Carbon causes global warming, volcanoes emit carbon, ergo volcanoes cause global warming. But, sulfur dioxide causes global cooling, volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide, ergo volcanoes cause global cooling. Volcanoes, we are told, are the cause of both global warming and of global cooling. What's a layman to think?

Next thing they'll be telling us that after due consideration they've concluded they don't have any idea what the heck is really going on with the earth's climate, but whatever it is, it's bad and we better stop using fossil fuels just in case carbon has something to do with whatever it is that's happening.

The Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument

The argument for a cosmic Designer based on a phenomenon called cosmic fine-tuning is one of the most psychologically compelling and breathtaking arguments in all of philosophy. Philosopher John T. Roberts of the University of North Carolina has recently come up with a somewhat new version of the argument for a Designer based on cosmological fine-tuning that avoids some of the objections to earlier versions of the argument. VJTorley at Uncommon Descent offers a helpful summary of Roberts' argument that may be easier for readers to understand than Roberts' paper which was written for professional philosophers.

Fine-tuning is the term used to describe the incredibly precise calibration of dozens of cosmic laws, parameters, and initial conditions whose values have to be fixed within unimaginably small ranges in order for life to be possible. That these amazingly fine tolerances are both necessary for life and actually exist is something of which scientists have only become aware in the last twenty to forty years. Examples of some of these may be found here.

Roberts' argument goes like this: Life (L) exists in the universe. Life could be the result of the work of a Designer (D) or it could be the result solely of chance (C). We can represent the alternatives as (L + D) and (L + C).

With the discovery of fine-tuning and its critical importance to life, a conjunction he designates (R), we can ask whether it'd be more probable or likely that R would be found if there is life and a designer or whether it'd be more probable that R would be the case given the existence of life and chance. Philosophers express such comparisons of probability (Pr) like this:

Pr (R / L + D)

which is read: the probability of R on L and D which, translated, is "what is the likelihood that fine-tuning would exist and be necessary for life given that there is life and there is a designer?"

The question, then, is: between the two alternatives which has the higher probability? Is Pr (R / L + D) higher than Pr (R / L + C). The answer, of course, is that the exquisite precision of the cosmic fine-tuning being needed for life is clearly more probable on the assumption that it's the product of an intentional agent than that it's the product of blind chance. Thus:

Pr (R / L + D) > Pr (R / L + C)

Since we should always believe what is more probable than what is less probable fine-tuning counts as strong evidence that there is a Designer. Of course, as Roberts observes, other factors might count against the claim that there is a Designer and must also be considered.

Parenthetically, I'd add that the factors that are often cited as counting against the existence of a Designer, e.g. evil and suffering, do not count against the existence of a Designer but rather count against the claim that the Designer is omnibenevolent. After all, a malevolent designer is still a designer.

Roberts goes on to explain how this version of the argument differs from earlier versions and how it avoids objections to earlier versions. Torley summarizes these nicely.

Extra Dimensions

Scientists, or at least some of them, believe that the universe may consist of as many as eleven dimensions - the three with which we are familiar, a fourth dimension (time), and seven additional dimensions which are "folded up" so that we can't perceive them.

To grasp what's meant by "folded up" imagine a piece of paper representing a two-dimensional plane. Now imagine that the sheet is rolled up very tightly so that it looks like a tube. Imagine that it's rolled up even more tightly so that it looks like a wire. If we could do that to the paper we would have converted it from a two-dimensional plane to a one-dimensional line by folding it. The second dimension is still there but it's "folded up" so we don't perceive it.

Not only can't we perceive dimensions beyond the first four we can't very well conceive them either, but the first 12 minutes of this video by Rob Bryanton explain how scientists conceptualize them. The video is helpful, but Bryanton moves quickly and doesn't allow much time to think about what you've heard so be ready to back it up from time to time and review it.

Exit question: What's the point of these extra dimensions if they're imperceptible? What function do they serve?

Thanks to Michael Weiss for the link to the video.

Nixonian

Democratic pollster Pat Caddell who served numerous Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates, writes that Barack Obama is more like Richard Nixon than any president in the last forty years. This is a startling claim coming from a well-known Democrat, but the present administration's record of mendacity, opacity, legal circumventions, and cover-ups are, in his view, unrivaled by any administration since Nixon's.

Caddell's particularly incensed by the White House's treatment of journalistic icon Bob Woodward, the sequester hysterics, and most of all the scandalous cover-up of the Benghazi debacle. Here are a few excerpts from his column:

While Barack Obama may not share the Nixon pedigree, he and his White House are the closest thing to the Nixon regime of any that we have seen since then -- both in the extent of their paranoia and their willingness to suppress the truth and push the boundaries of law.

In my lifetime, in over 40 years in national politics, Mr. Obama is the only president who comes close to rivaling Richard Nixon for fundamental disingenuousness.

As the youngest person on Nixon's enemies list in 1972, I am particularly sensitive to a White House where they have utter disregard for trampling on dissent and on the rights of individuals.

As important as these other issues are, however, nothing rivals Benghazi. During the Chuck Hagel confirmation fight, it was revealed that to this day, neither the public nor the Congress know the names of those who were evacuated out of Benghazi. Nor have we ever seen the transcripts of the interviews which were conducted immediately after the event.

The White House's excuse, that this information cannot be revealed because of an FBI investigation, is eerily and frighteningly similar to Nixon telling H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman to "turn off" the Watergate investigation as it threatened national security.

Since Benghazi, when I raised the alarm about a media that was not only willing to blatantly support one political party or one political candidate but for the first time seemed willing to suppress or ignore the facts and truth as related to a disaster of American foreign policy, my fear has been that we are now on a slippery slope. Almost everything since then has helped to realize that fear.

What this Woodward/White House sequester battle highlights is the crisis in our democracy. Not so much for what it says about Mr. Obama and his administration but for what it says about the establishment press and all the members of my own party.

During Watergate, there were a number of Republicans who were willing to stand against the president of their party in defense of the United States of America.

Sadly, as a Democrat, I must confess, that today there is no Democratic Senator or member of the House who appears to be willing to publicly put the country ahead of Barack Obama's White House.

When Mr. Obama first campaigned for office he gave most people to believe he would return us to the days of Franklin Roosevelt. This was frightening enough for many who were disposed to oppose him in the first place, but little did those who supported him expect that on the way back to FDR he'd stop at Richard Nixon.

Why Politicians Are Despised

About five weeks ago I did a post titled "No Exchanges, No Obamacare" which explained that if states refused to create the insurance exchanges called for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) the federal government would have to set them up and this they're not equipped to do. A reader whose job it is to understand and help implement this monstrosity at her workplace writes to explain some of the implications. She writes:

My view on "Obamacare" is this: If the members of Congress were too busy or too good to actually sit down and educate themselves on PPACA, then how can they expect the states to comply? I wish I had a job that allowed me to rush through my daily tasks, not bother to pay any attention to what I was doing, and certainly not be concerned with the consequences of my actions. Unfortunately my job requires that I spend countless hours educating myself on PPACA.

I have attended numerous seminars, participated in a number of meetings with our benefits broker, and drafted many employee communications, all to ensure that my company is in compliance with PPACA's myriad of requirements. And we are just scratching the surface here.

Do I believe that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable healthcare? Sure I do. Do I believe that employers should be penalized for not offering such quality, affordable healthcare (the "pay or play" option)? Not so much. If a small business cannot afford to offer its employees healthcare coverage now, how will they be able to afford to pay into the exchange? I expect PPACA may drive many small companies out of business.

And for those employers who can afford to either offer the coverage or pay into the exchange, the additional cost of compliance has been and will continue to be significant. Further, we are now restricted as to the changes we can make to our benefit plans and are required to allow such things as covering dependent children up to age 26, regardless of marital status and (for the moment) availability of other coverage. While I did say I was in favor of access to affordable healthcare for all Americans, having to provide coverage for Joe Employee's married dependent child is just ridiculous.

As for the states that are refusing to set-up an exchange, I say bravo. Again, shame on Congress for not taking their time on this to anticipate the various problems that passing PPACA would create. I myself would not be upset in the least if this resulted in Obamacare's demise. My only issue is that I could never recoup all of the hours spent on education and compliance. But I guess Congress wouldn't lose sleep over that.

It is a disgrace that the Democrats would pass a bill that places enormous burdens of time and cost on employers who must ferret out all of the bill's nooks and crannys when these politicians couldn't be bothered to take the time themselves to read the bill to find out what was in it.

Peter and the Darwinian Wolves

Peter Hitchens, brother of the famous atheist Christopher, is himself as unlike his late brother in his theological commitments as could be. He has a fine column in the UK Daily Mail in which he responds to critics who complain that his confidence in, and enthusiasm for, the efficacy of natural selection falls short of what's expected from informed modern laity by the Darwinian priesthood.

The column is interesting throughout, but a thought he shares toward the end struck me as particularly worth emphasizing:

Mr Platt’s assertion that ‘to suggest that the theory is “based upon speculation, not upon observation” is an insult to Darwin, and to the many biologists who have studied and refined the theory over the years.’ , with its interesting use of the word ‘insult’, is a mild but important warning of the inquisition-style rage which quickly enters arguments on this subject, and which is in fact the biggest single argument against the theory. Why are its supporters so furiously intolerant of doubt and dissent, if they are so confident?

It is indeed striking that when one visits web sites which discuss intelligent design one usually finds calm, reasoned arguments and patient respect, even occasional admiration, for those who disagree. On the other hand, Darwinist websites often offer little more than bitter vituperation for those who hold a different opinion. A sense of inquisitorial hatred often pervades the posts and the smell of smoldering heretics hangs thick in the air at these places.

I think Hitchens is correct that the anger and hostility bespeak a lack of confidence in the defensibility of the writer's position. It's a good rule of thumb that people who are confident of their convictions and their ability to articulate them don't feel the need to resort to name-calling and insult, and people who do often aren't.

Such behavior often appears in debate when someone becomes aware that his opponent is making him look bad in front of his fans and followers or that the cause to which he's devoted his life is at risk of collapsing all around him. He thinks, perhaps, that he can nevertheless maintain the allegiance of his admirers by out-shouting his opponents and publicly mocking them and their ideas.

Eventually, though, his disciples and others begin to wonder, if their master's ideas are so powerful, why doesn't he just simply refute the arguments that are raised against them? Why employ dodges and diversions? Why obfuscate the issues by resorting to ridicule and ad hominem?

Of course there are many Darwinian materialists who don't behave this way, but the point is that there are an awful lot who do. Why is that?

Give Him the Knife

Mandatory spending cuts are set to kick in on Friday and Mr. Obama continues to forecast woe and debacle. It's a lot like the Y2K scare. Remember that? Ramirez offers a visual to place the sequester into its proper perspective:

Senators Imhofe and Toomey are advancing a plan that would allay Mr. Obama's fears about what will happen when these cuts kick in: Simply allow the president to decide where the cuts will occur.

If Mr. Obama is concerned about essential services being cut indiscriminately then let him make the cuts where he thinks best instead of simply demagoguing the issue as he has been for the past couple of weeks. I think this is an excellent idea, and we here at Viewpoint even have a few suggestions, should Mr. Obama deign to ask us, as to where he might start.

He could, for example:

• Postpone the navy's program to switch machinery to run on biofuels which will cost more than $2 billion a year more than conventional fuel.
• Postpone the army's $28 billion battlefield intelligence processor that has failed operational tests.
• Use the savings from the Afghanistan conflict which is now being wound down to fund other military needs.
• Stop spending $1.7 billion a year on maintaining unused federal property.
• Stop giving $115 billion a year in benefits to people not entitled to them.
• Stop giving out $1.6 billion worth of free public cellphones.
• Cancel the $100 million in grants awarded by EPA to foreign countries.
• Cancel the $51.6 million being spent to promote Obamacare.
• Cancel the $4 million spent each year to maintain a television studio at the IRS.
• Cancel the $1.2 million spent by the National Science Foundation to teach senior citizens how to play the World of Warcraft video game.

Surely it's easy to find fat to cut out of the government, and I'm confident that if Congress gives Mr. Obama the paring knife he'd set about slicing it away just as he promised he would when he was campaigning in 2008.

What's the Point?

Philosopher Helen De Cruz at Prosblogion notes the emergence of churches for atheists and contemplates the question whether there is any point in an atheist going to an atheistic church. My answer is, not if you have to get up early to do it.

At any rate, her discussion of the question is pretty interesting as are the comments. Here's how she starts:

I am deeply intrigued by atheist religious practice. An atheist church in North London has opened last month. It proves to be very popular; as a matter of fact, vastly outstripping the neighboring Anglican evangelical church in congregation size. The ca. 300 members of this church congregate to sing secular songs, celebrate life and the natural world, have readings from secular texts, like Alice in Wonderland, and have secular sermons, on topics like "life is all too brief and nothing comes after it."

The atheist church fits in a broader tendency of atheists to incorporate aspects of religious practice, including Alain de Botton's temples for atheists. Is there any point for an atheist who is attracted to religious practice to attend atheist ceremonies, structured in ways similar to traditional religions?

When discussing the matter with a friend, who is a member of the Episcopal church, she thought it was pointless (and verging on the ridiculous) for atheists or agnostics to attend such a church. Couldn't an atheist who likes ritual and religious practice just make use of the structures that already exist, bracketing or privately denying the doxastic elements? In fact, as Gutting observed, many religious people (I suspect many religious academics, for instance) are agnostic at best about the doxastic aspects of their faith.

This last remark is interesting. I wonder how many people recite the creeds of their church, but don't really believe parts or even much of it. How many people who attend church or synagogue fairly regularly do so for the social or aesthetic experience and simply bracket out the doxastic elements of the service? I suppose there's no way to answer the question, but, like Cruz, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a significant number.

The Nanny Impulse

There is among liberal/progressives an inveterate and insufferable tendency toward what might be called nannyism - an irresistable desire to protect people from themselves for their own good whether people want to be protected or not. Thus, Mayor Bloomberg in New York has promulgated an ordinance which prohibits selling sodas in containers larger than 16 oz. because, evidently, he feels it's his moral duty to prevent people from choosing behaviors which are harmful to themselves.

When the tendency manifests itself on a small scale it's irritating, but when government takes on the role of a "nanny" it becomes dangerous and frightening. This, however, is exactly what Sarah Conly advocates in a book titled Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism which is guaranteed by its price of $95 for 206 pages to be read by almost no one.

Fortunately, we need not buy it to know how Conly thinks. We can get some insight into the working of the nanny mind by reading a review of the book by another votary of governmental officiousness, Cass Sunstein, in The New York Review of Books. Sunstein is sympathetic to Conly, but even he finds her prescriptions for government coercion of its citizens a bit over the top. Where she would advocate government compulsion, Sunstein advocates what he calls governmental "nudges." The question for both Sunstein and Conly, though, is what measures do they advocate should people prove unyielding to their nudges and compulsions? How far should government be willing to go to protect people from themselves? How much freedom should the state usurp from its citizens in order to make them healthier and happier against their will?

This excerpt from Sunstein's review of Conly's book offers a peek into the progressive mindset. Conly puts into print what many liberals think but are reluctant to make explicit. They want to control peoples' lives and decisions, for their own good, of course, but if the people don't appreciate it and don't want to go along, well, the poor saps just won't be given that option:

Sarah Conly’s illuminating book Against Autonomy provides such a discussion. Her starting point is that in light of the recent findings, we should be able to agree that ... human beings [are incompetent] choosers. “We are too fat, we are too much in debt, and we save too little for the future.” With that claim in mind, Conly insists that coercion should not be ruled out of bounds. She wants to go far beyond nudges....Even when there is only harm to self, she thinks that government may and indeed must act paternalistically so long as the benefits justify the costs.

Conly is quite aware that her view runs up against widespread intuitions and commitments. For many people, a benefit may consist precisely in their ability to choose freely even if the outcome is disappointing. She responds that autonomy is “not valuable enough to offset what we lose by leaving people to their own autonomous choices.” Conly is aware that people often prefer to choose freely and may be exceedingly frustrated if government overrides their choices. If a paternalistic intervention would cause frustration, it is imposing a cost, and that cost must count in the overall calculus. But Conly insists that people’s frustration is merely one consideration among many. If a paternalistic intervention can prevent long-term harm—for example, by eliminating risks of premature death—it might well be justified even if people are keenly frustrated by it.

To [the] claim that individuals are uniquely well-situated to know what is best for them, Conly objects that [this fails] to make a critical distinction between means and ends. True, people may know what their ends are, but sometimes they go wrong when they choose how to get them. Most people want to be healthy and to live long lives. If people are gaining a lot of weight, and hence jeopardizing their health, Conly supports paternalism—for example, she favors reducing portion size for many popular foods, on the theory that large, fattening servings can undermine people’s own goals.

At the same time, Conly insists that mandates and bans can be much more effective than mere nudges. If the benefits justify the costs, she is willing to eliminate freedom of choice, not to prevent people from obtaining their own goals but to ensure that they do so.

Conly’s most controversial claim is that because the health risks of smoking are so serious, the government should ban it. She is aware that many people like to smoke, that a ban could create black markets, and that both of these points count against a ban. But she concludes that education, warnings, and other nudges are insufficiently effective, and that a flat prohibition is likely to be justified by careful consideration of both benefits and costs, including the costs to the public of treating lung cancer and other consequences of smoking.

Again the question presents itself to our attention, how far are people like Conly, who doubtless consider themselves our betters, prepared to go to force others to act in ways that promote their own good? Sunstein's summation of her ideas reminds one of that early progressive hero Jean Jacques Rousseau who wrote that the state knows what you really need and want and if you persist in thinking otherwise the state will just have to kill you. What Rousseau made explicit has been the tacit conviction of the left ever since, and whenever they've managed to seize power, from Bonaparte to Kim Jong Il, that's pretty much what they've done.

Sequestration Silliness

If you're like most people you're probably suffering crisis fatigue from the latest iteration of Mr. Obama's governing philosophy which is to fabricate a faux crisis every other month or so to keep the American people thinking that we're teetering on the brink of total collapse.

This month's crisis is the automatic reduction in the increase in government spending over the next few years. The size of the reduction amounts to less than 2.5 cents on every dollar, but Mr. Obama, doing his best Chicken Little impersonation the other day, sounded as if our whole economy was at risk and that we were all headed for the soup lines. It was nonsense of course, and the president managed only to make himself look silly in the eyes of anyone who has been paying attention.

Here's the video of the president's talk:

Anyway, even if you've had it up to here with sequestration silliness you still need to read George Will's column. It's an excellent summation of why - if Mr. Obama doesn't soon adopt a different approach for dealing with the nation's fiscal problems and doesn't stop trying to paint Republicans as people who secretly eat babies - he's going to wind up in the history books as one of the most unserious men ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Here's an excerpt from Will's skewering of the phony, contrived "panic" we've been subjected to over the past week or so:

Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out the door (supposedly, but not actually) for victims of Hurricane Sandy! Or: Heaven forfend, the sequester will cut 47 percent as much as was spent on the AIG bailout! Or: Famine, pestilence and locusts will come when the sequester causes federal spending over 10 years to plummet from $46 trillion all the way down to $44.8 trillion! Or: Grass will grow in the streets of America’s cities if the domestic agencies whose budgets have increased 17 percent under President Obama must endure a 5 percent cut!

The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government’s size is at any moment, it is the bare minimum necessary to forestall intolerable suffering. At his unintentionally hilarious hysteria session Tuesday, Obama said: The sequester’s “meat-cleaver approach” of “severe,” “arbitrary” and “brutal” cuts will “eviscerate” education, energy and medical research spending. “And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf.”

In fact, the sequester, which, let us remember, was Mr. Obama's idea in the first place, will reduce spending to about what it was a year ago. I don't remember that level of spending imposing any of the dire hardships that we're being told a return to that level will surely produce.

Read the rest of Will's column. It's good.