Structure of Scientific Revolutions at 50

2012 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The book presented a novel and unorthodox interpretation of the way science operates and changes and is still being read and cited today by every philosopher of science.

Contrary to the classic picture of scientists as dispassionate, objective investigators following the empirical evidence wherever it leads, Kuhn argued cogently that scientific theories are held dogmatically, often for reasons that have nothing to do with the evidence and sometimes even in spite of the evidence, and are overturned only when a new generation of scientists arises which has no particular allegiance to the old view. It's only when the old guard fades away and a younger cohort of independent thinkers arises that a paradigm shift, a term coined by Kuhn, occurs.

In recognition of Kuhn's achievement Matthew Rees at The New Atlantis has a feature story on his book. Here are some highlights:

The argument of Structure is not especially complicated. Kuhn held that the historical process of science is divided into three stages: a “normal” stage, followed by “crisis” and then “revolutionary” stages. The normal stage is characterized by a strong agreement among scientists on what is and is not scientific practice. In this stage, scientists largely agree on what are the questions that need answers. Indeed, only problems that are recognized as potentially having solutions are considered scientific. So it is in the normal stage that we see science progress not toward better questions but better answers. The beginning of this period is usually marked by a solution that serves as an example, a paradigm, for further research. (This is just one of many ways in which Kuhn uses the word “paradigm” in Structure.)

A crisis occurs when an existing theory involves so many unsolved puzzles, or “anomalies,” that its explanatory ability becomes questionable. Scientists begin to consider entirely new ways of examining the data, and there is a lack of consensus on which questions are important scientifically. Problems that had previously been left to other, non-scientific fields may now come into view as potentially scientific.

This leads to the emergence of a new competing paradigm:

Eventually, a new exemplary solution emerges. This new solution will be “incommensurable” — another key term in Kuhn’s thesis — with the former paradigm, meaning not only that the two paradigms are mutually conflicting, but that they are asking different questions, and to some extent speaking different scientific languages. Such a revolution inaugurates a new period of normal science. Thus normal science can be understood as a period of “puzzle-solving” or “mopping-up” after the discovery or elucidation of a paradigm-shifting theory. The theory is applied in different contexts, using different variables, to fully flesh out its implications. But since every paradigm has its flaws, progress in normal science is always toward the point of another crisis.

Kuhn quotes Max Planck, who famously wrote that “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Over time, there again comes to be almost unanimous agreement on the validity of the predominant theory — it achieves paradigmatic status. Scientists tacitly assume agreement on the meanings of technical terms, and develop a shared and specialized technical vocabulary to facilitate data accumulation and organization. They establish journals dedicated to their scientific field, begin to cross-reference one another, and scrutinize each other’s work according to whether or not it conforms to the theory. Their students, likewise, learn to approach problems in the same way they do, much as an apprentice learns from a master. Normal science has resumed and the cycle begins anew.

Kuhn was accused of being a post-modern relativist because he didn't think that science progresses toward truth and didn't seem quite sure whether there even was a final, complete "truth" about the world at all.

It was important for Kuhn that his conception of the history and process of science was not the same as that of scientific progress. He maintained that the process of science was similar to biological evolution — not necessarily evolution toward anything, only away from previous error. In this way, Kuhn was rather skeptical about the idea of progress at all. This was the most controversial aspect of his thesis, the one that most concerned the contemporary critics of Structure, on the basis of which they accused — or celebrated — Kuhn as a champion of relativism. As University of Toronto philosophy professor Ian Hacking notes in an introductory essay prepended to the new fiftieth-anniversary edition of Structure, Kuhn’s notion that science moves away from previous error:

seems to call in question the overarching notion of science as aiming at the truth about the universe. The thought that there is one and only one complete true account of everything is deep in the Western tradition.... In popular versions of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cosmology, there is one true and complete account of everything, namely what God knows. (He knows about the death of the least sparrow.)

This image gets transposed to fundamental physics, many of whose practitioners, who might proudly proclaim themselves to be atheists, take for granted that there just is, waiting to be discovered, one full and complete account of nature. If you think that makes sense, then it offers itself as an ideal towards which the sciences are progressing. Hence Kuhn’s progress away from will seem totally misguided.

Rees talks about the extent of Kuhn's indebtedness to Michael Polyani and also compares and contrasts him to Karl Popper. He also gives a great deal of space to Kuhn's impact on the social sciences, a discussion which should be of interest to those in these fields.

Rees also mentions that Kuhn, who was a physicist by training, doesn't talk much about the Darwinian revolution in biology. I thought the point was apt, but I wonder if the more interesting point isn't that biology seems to be in the midst now of a Kuhnian crisis of its own wherein the anomalies of the Darwinian claim that high levels of complexity and information are the products of blind, purposeless forces are piling up. Perhaps we're witnessing a paradigm shift in our own time in biology.

Why We Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

Millions of Americans, many of them descendents of Irish immigrants, celebrate their Irish heritage by observing St. Patrick's Day today. We are indebted to Thomas Cahill and his best-selling book How The Irish Saved Civilization for explaining to us why Patrick's is a life worth commemorating. As improbable as his title may sound, Cahill weaves a fascinating and compelling tale of how the Irish in general, and Patrick and his spiritual heirs in particular, served as a tenuous but crucial cultural bridge from the classical world to the medieval age and, by so doing, made Western civilization possible.

Born a Roman citizen in 390 B.C., Patrick had been kidnapped as a boy of sixteen from his home on the coast of Britain and taken by Irish barbarians to Ireland. There he languished in slavery until he was able to escape six years later. Upon his homecoming he became a Christian, studied for the priesthood, and eventually returned to Ireland where he would spend the rest of his life laboring to persuade the Irish to accept the Gospel and to abolish slavery. Patrick was the first person in history, in fact, to speak out unequivocally against slavery and, according to Cahill, the last person to do so until the 17th century.

Meanwhile, Roman control of Europe had begun to collapse. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410 A.D. and barbarians were sweeping across the continent, forcing the Romans back to Italy, and plunging Europe into the Dark Ages. Throughout the continent unwashed, illiterate hordes descended on the once grand Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books. Learning ground to a halt and the literary heritage of the classical world was burned or moldered into dust. Almost all of it, Cahill claims, would surely have been lost if not for the Irish.

Having been converted to Christianity through the labors of Patrick, the Irish took with gusto to reading, writing and learning. They delighted in letters and bookmaking and painstakingly created indescribably beautiful Biblical manuscripts such as the Book of Kells which is on display today in the library of Trinity College in Dublin. Aware that the great works of the past were disappearing, they applied themselves assiduously to the daunting task of copying all surviving Western literature - everything they could lay their hands on.

For a century after the fall of Rome, Irish monks sequestered themselves in cold, damp, cramped mud huts called scriptoria, so remote and isolated from the world that they were seldom threatened by the marauding pagans. Here these men spent their entire adult lives reproducing the old manuscripts and preserving literacy and learning for the time when people would be once again ready to receive them.

These scribes and their successors served as the conduits through which the Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the benighted tribes of Europe, newly settled amid the rubble and ruin of the civilization they had recently overwhelmed. Around the late 6th century, three generations after Patrick, Irish missionaries with names like Columcille, Aidan, and Columbanus began to venture out from their monasteries and refuges, clutching their precious books to their hearts, sailing to England and the continent, founding their own monasteries and schools among the barbarians and teaching them how to read, write and make books of their own.

Absent the willingness of these courageous men to endure deprivations and hardships of every kind for the sake of the Gospel and learning, Cahill argues, the world that came after them would have been completely different. It would likely have been a world without books. Europe almost certainly would have been illiterate, and it would probably have been unable to resist the Muslim incursions that arrived a few centuries later.

The Europeans, starved for knowledge, soaked up everything the Irish missionaries could give them. From such seeds as these modern Western civilization germinated. From the Greeks the descendents of the Goths and Vandals learned philosophy, from the Romans they learned about law, from the Bible they learned of the worth of the individual who, created and loved by God, is therefore significant and not merely a brutish aggregation of matter.

From the Bible, too, they learned that the universe was created by a rational Mind and was thus not capricious, random, or chaotic. It would yield its secrets to rational investigation. Out of these assumptions, once their implications were finally and fully developed, grew historically unprecedented views of the value of the individual and the flowering of modern science.

Our cultural heritage is thus, in a very important sense, a legacy from the Irish. A legacy from Patrick. It is worth pondering on this St. Patrick's Day what the world would be like today had it not been for those early Irish scribes and missionaries thirteen centuries ago.

Buiochas le Dia ar son na nGaeil (Thank God for the Irish), and I hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day.

Freedom and Fascism

Lars Hedegaard is a Danish writer who has had to go into hiding because of attempts that have been made on his life. He was recently interviewed by Dennis Prager and the interview is instructive. I urge readers to read the whole thing at the link but I want to offer a few highlights.

After Hedegaard's description of the attempt to murder him Prager asks this:

DP: You were nearly murdered. What did you write and what are you fighting for?

LH: I don't know exactly what motivated the attack. I've been writing on Islam, Islamic history and Islamic ideology for about ten years. I haven't done anything differently recently except that we started our new newspaper, the weekly Dispatch International, on the third of January. It's a Swedish language newspaper, but we have an online edition in English.

I've been wondering, of course, why someone wanted to shoot me, and I cannot think of anything that I've done differently recently than what I have been doing these last couple of years. I've been called a hate speaker, and I'm not a hate speaker. I've been called a racist, and I'm not a racist. I'm just a normal historian and a journalist. It's my job to describe what's going on in the world, and that's what I've been trying to do to the best of my abilities.

DP: Correct me if I'm wrong: You are a man of the left.

LH: Yes.

DP: Where are the attacks on you being racist coming from? What part of the ideological spectrum?

LH: I would say almost exclusively from the left. (Of course, also from Muslims. Not all Muslims, but some.) I seem to be very unpopular with my old friends. I think the problem is that I know what it's all about to be left-wing; I used to be a leading Marxist in this country. But I've held to the opinion that we first of all have to fight for free speech and freedom and equality between the sexes and the rule of law; and also, that we should not bow before religious fanatics of any type, regardless of where they come from. This seems to me what was the essence of being left-wing back in the days. No longer.

The left now seems to have reverence for fanatics -- as long as they are Muslim. Of course, they can criticize Christianity all they want. But when somebody threatens with violence -- if you criticize me, I'll come and kill you -- then all of a sudden they become soft. They become understanding. They talk about tolerance; we have to show respect. I don't want to show respect for people who say that men are worth more than women, that women can be killed if they are adulterers; that apostates from Islam should be killed; that people should be stoned, etc. I mean, I don't like that. I want to fight that. I want to describe it. And I don't think the left does.

The biggest threat to freedom today, the tactics most similar to those employed by 20th century fascists, are arising on the left. This is an important point to understand. The left side of the ideological spectrum may be described as shading from centrists to liberals to socialist/progressives to totalitarians (communists and fascists). Communists and fascists are fraternal twins. The only real difference between them is that, whereas fascism tends to be militaristic and nationalistic, communism is an international movement which professes to disdain the military, at least until they have managed to seize power for themselves.

The similarities communists and fascists share, however, are much more important. They both aspire to exercise total control over the life of the individual whose freedom must be suppressed or extinguished. The citizen must be subordinate to the state in everything he says, thinks, and does. Any deviation from what is permitted by the state must be prohibited and punished.

This is why political correctness is so pernicious. It's a step by liberals and progressives, whether they realize it or not, toward habituating the citizen to acceptance of state control over his life.

Hedegaard makes an important observation in this regard:

[In Europe] we don't have your First Amendment. The Free Press Society has been fighting for nine years to introduce a first amendment in Denmark and other places in Europe. We don't have that. We have an article in our penal code called 266(b), which means that you can be convicted of hate speech, racism, denigration of religion, or a number of things, which is despicable.

I agree with the American Constitution -- you should be able to say anything you want, and if you're an idiot or a jerk you should be corrected by other people. You can lose your career, you can lose your reputation if you talk ill of people because of their race, which I have never done. But you should have the right to say anything. You should have laws against libel, lying about people, threatening people with violence, revealing state secrets, etc. You have that in any civilized country. But apart from that, I agree with the First Amendment. We don't have it here.

DP: I'll tell you another thing you don't have there....: You don't have talk radio. This has been a major factor in America in offering the alternate universe to that which the Swedish press and the American left, such as the New York Times, which would be perfectly at home in Stockholm, present to us.

LH: You're right. Speaking about the New York Times, they had an article today about me, that I'm full of "bile and viciousness and racism" and what-not. No, we don't have talk radio. What we do have is state radio, something that the people are forced to support by their tax dollars.

The First Amendment is critical to a people remaining free, and the Second Amendment is critical to our being able to keep the First. When progressives are in power in Washington, as they are now, both of those freedoms will come under assault because they're seen as impediments to the government's ability to aggrandize control over peoples' lives.

The entire interview may be heard at www.facebook.com/dennisprager.

Free Thinking

For the last two or three centuries religious skeptics have been pleased to refer to themselves by the self-flattering term "freethinkers." Today that word is fraught with irony since there's no group of people more disdainful of "free thought" than freethinkers. Just ask Thomas Nagel.

As we've mentioned on previous occasions Nagel has written a book that has created a firestorm of controversy, and not a little calumny, because he had the temerity to express doubt that materialism, and thus Darwinism, offers satisfactory accounts of consciousness, cognition, and moral value.

This heresy from a prominent philosopher who is himself a former materialist has earned him the opprobrium of those eager to celebrate heretics as long as their apostasy is from theistic religion. Free thinking is only free, apparently, for those who think the proper thoughts, and Nagel doesn't.

Leon Weiseltier in The New Republic has a perceptive essay on the hypocrisy of those who extol intellectual rebellion against orthodox religion but seek to suppress it when it's naturalistic religion that's called into question. Here are a few paragraphs from his column:

Is there a greater gesture of intellectual contempt than the notion that a tweet constitutes an adequate intervention in a serious discussion? But when Thomas Nagel’s formidable book Mind and Cosmos recently appeared, in which he has the impudence to suggest that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and to offer thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained as having evolved tidily from, its material dimensions, Steven Pinker took to Twitter and haughtily ruled that it was “the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker.”

Here was a signal to the Darwinist dittoheads that a mob needed to be formed. In an earlier book Nagel had dared to complain of “Darwinist imperialism,” though in his scrupulous way he added that “there is really no reason to assume that the only alternative to an evolutionary explanation of everything is a religious one.” He is not, God forbid, a theist. But he went on to warn that “this may not be comforting enough” for the materialist establishment, which may find it impossible to tolerate also “any cosmic order of which mind is an irreducible and non-accidental part.” For the bargain-basement atheism of our day, it is not enough that there be no God: there must be only matter.

Now Nagel’s new book fulfills his old warning. A mob is indeed forming, a mob of materialists, of free-thinking inquisitors. “In the present climate of a dominant scientific naturalism, heavily dependent on speculative Darwinian explanations of practically everything, and armed to the teeth against religion,” Nagel calmly writes, “... I would like to extend the boundaries of what is not regarded as unthinkable, in light of how little we really understand about the world.”

This cannot be allowed! And so the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Secular Faith sprang into action. “If there were a philosophical Vatican,” Simon Blackburn declared in the New Statesman, “the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index.” I hope that one day he regrets that sentence. It is not what Bruno, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Voltaire, Hume, Locke, Kant, and the other victims of the anti-philosophical Vatican had in mind.

I understand that nobody is going to burn Nagel’s book or ban it. These inquisitors are just more professors. But he is being denounced not merely for being wrong. He is being denounced also for being heretical. I thought heresy was heroic. I guess it is heroic only when it dissents from a doctrine with which I disagree. Actually, the defense of heresy has nothing to do with its content and everything to do with its right. Tolerance is not a refutation of heresy, but a retirement of the concept.

I am not suggesting that there is anything outrageous about the criticism of Nagel’s theory of the explanatory limitations of Darwinism. He aimed to provoke and he provoked. His troublemaking book has sparked the most exciting disputation in many years, because no question is more primary than the question of whether materialism (which Nagel defines as “the view that only the physical world is irreducibly real”) is true or false.

Weiseltier has more at the link. It's interesting that so many of Nagel's critics have shied away from actually addressing his arguments and have aimed their fire at him personally. That's what people do, of course, when their worldview is threatened and they realize they have no convincing defense.

You might wish to check out Alvin Plantinga's column on Nagel's book in the same magazine. It's a treat.

Like Us

Have I mentioned lately that I have a book out (Follow above link to In the Absence of God)? Now you can help get the word out by "liking" it (whatever that might mean) on Facebook. It'd be great if you could take a moment and stop by. Thanks.

Cultural Chauvinism

We sometimes hear the claim, though not as often as formerly, that all cultures are equally worth celebrating and that it's chauvinistic, which is assumed to be a bad thing, to believe that some ways of thinking and living are superior to others.

On the other hand, we also sometimes wonder why it is that some groups of people never seem to advance but appear content to live as they have for thousands of years. We're reluctant to think that this is not good because we don't want to be thought to be chauvinists, but deep down we really do think that we'd much rather live in a society that has electricity, indoor plumbing, and human rights than one which doesn't. Deep down we believe that a culture which promotes hard work and discipline is superior to one in which indolence is a way of life.

In fact, we tacitly admit this when we raise money to send to those who are suffering in cultures, whether foreign or domestic, which never seem to progress. I thought of all this as I was reading a piece on Strategy Page about why it's so hard for Americans and our European allies to work effectively with Arabs.

I quote the article at some length because it gives us a good insight into the Arab mindset and culture:

[T]he unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 12 percent and many of those men are unemployed by choice. Not even counted are most women, who are barred from most jobs because they are women. Arab men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves and most available jobs, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy.

Thus most Saudis prefer a government job, where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering, and life is boring. Thus 90 percent of employed Saudis work for the government. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the jobs are performed by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs and actually make the economy work. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. One might say that many of them are desperate for some test of their worth, but a job in the competitive civilian economy does not do it, nor does the military.

The Saudi employment situation is not unique. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has foreigners occupying 99 percent of the non-government jobs. The unemployment rate is 23 percent, but only a tenth of those are actually looking for a job. A survey indicated that most of the unemployed are idle by choice. Kuwait is more entrepreneurial, with only 80 percent of the non-government jobs taken by foreigners. The other Gulf Arab states (which have less oil) have a similar situation.

Arabs in general don't care for the Western custom of establishing minimum standards for, say, fighter pilots. It's long been known that it's very difficult to wash out an Arab pilot who is well connected (especially a member of a powerful local family). There are some very good Arab pilots but they are a minority. The rest get by. As long as they can take off and land, they can stay in a squadron.

During combat exercises, especially with American squadrons, it's understood that the low overall performance of Arab pilots is not to be discussed with the Arabs, or anyone else. Junior American officers get irked by this but it is career suicide to disobey orders on this point. The Gulf Arabs do spend a lot of money on training and letting the pilots fly. For this reason, they are considered marginally better than other Arab air forces. But against the Iranians, who more enthusiastically accepted Western training methods, they would have problems. Iranian aircraft are older and less well-equipped, but pilot quality would make up for a lot of that.

The problem extends to ground crews, who don't take responsibility seriously and have to be constantly hounded by their foreign advisors and specialists hired to make sure the aircraft are flyable. And when something goes wrong, the foreign experts are expected to take the blame. That's what the foreigners are there for. In many cases the foreigners simply do most of the work and let their Arab maintainers take very long coffee breaks.

Many Arab leaders are aware of the problem, especially those who have studied in the West or spent some time there. As a result, there are some very competent Arab doctors, scientists, and bankers. But this minority knows they are up against an ancient and well-entrenched culture that does not seek out innovation and excellence as it is done in the West. The more insightful Arabs seek ways to work around these problems.

It comes down to a different cultural attitude towards taking responsibility for your actions. It's human nature to avoid failure or taking responsibility for a mistake. Thus we have the concept of "saving face." One reason the West has made such economic, cultural, military, and social progress in the last five hundred years is because they developed a habit of holding people responsible for their actions and giving out the rewards based on achievement. In the West, this sort of thing is taken for granted, even if it is not always practiced.

But in much of the rest of the world, especially the Arab world, things are different. Most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority, as in Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq (formerly), and Nejdis in Saudi Arabia. This means that officers are usually assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.

Then there are the Islamic schools, which are so popular in Moslem countries, which favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. This has resulted in looking down on Western troops that will look something up that they don't know. Arabs prefer to fake it and pretend it's all in their head. Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged. Arab armies go by the book, Western armies constantly rewrite the book and thus usually win.

All of this makes it difficult to develop a real NCO corps. Officers and enlisted troops are treated like two different social castes and there is no effort to bridge the gap using career NCOs. Enlisted personnel are treated harshly. Training accidents that would end the careers of US officers are commonplace in Arab armies and nobody cares.

Arab officers often do not trust each other. While an American infantry officer can be reasonably confident that the artillery officers will conduct their bombardment on time and on target, Arab infantry officers seriously doubt that their artillery will do its job on time or on target. This is a fatal attitude in combat.

There's a lot more in this vein at the link.

I am among the first to point to serious problems in our society, and a not insignificant fraction of our population is in several respects similar in mindset to what we just read above, but I think it's silly to think that a culture in which men lack the discipline to work, which oppresses women, and which produces nothing of any real value other than what others have been able to extract from their portion of earth is somehow just as much worth celebrating as one which has none of these liabilities.

Call me a cultural chauvinist if you wish, but as bad as things might be in much of the Western world and as much as some in the West might think like those young Saudi men, I wouldn't want to live in any country whose culture is not shaped by the values traditionally taken for granted in the West. I suspect that most of those who "celebrate" multicultural diversity and insist that no culture is superior to any other feel the same way I do, even if they won't admit it.

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.