ELCA Churchwide Assembly Update

The work of the ELCA Assembly continues in Orlando, and a lot of the folks in the pew are going to wish that it wasn't. Today (Wednesday) the Assembly voted 75% to 25% to adopt a new hymnal that its critics decried as theologically inept, musically vapid, and very politically correct. The new hymnal will de-emphasize masculine references to God, de-emphasize trinitarian references, and change lyrics of well-known hymns for reasons that no one seems to be able to figure out. Images of God as Father are downplayed because, in the words of one supporter, fathers are too often abusive and oppressive and that's not the image we wish to connote when we talk of God. The individual didn't mention that this view of fatherhood suggests that the Church views families as essentially dysfunctional units and views fathers as overall negatives in the lives of their families.

For the benefit of my Lutheran readers, most of the opposition to adoption of the new hymnal came from the Lower Susquehanna Synod, several of whose members spoke out strongly against it, including the Bishop.

Meanwhile, Lutherans in Assembly adopt what they call memorials, which are non-binding resolutions or statements which express the sense of the church. Discussion Tuesday and Wednesday centered on a memorial concerning world hunger. To read the memorial and listen to some of the discussion one got the feeling that it is the consensus view of many of the Voting Members (delegates) that if only we in the West would give more money to starving people we could eliminate world hunger. In fact, there was no mention in the memorial about what is perhaps the major cause of hunger in much of the world: tyrannical, corrupt regimes, especially in third world countries.

In Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, and North Korea people are starving because the leaders of those countries are brutal thugs who take whatever we offer and use the money to line their pockets and the food to feed their soldiers. The problem is not an unwillingness in the West to do enough to alleviate the hunger. The problem is psychopathic dictators who have their boot on the necks of their people.

Anyway, your humble scribe entered a motion to amend the memorial to include the statement that the Lutheran Church will oppose tyrannical, oppressive governments whose policies result in chronic hunger among their people, and defended it by stating essentially what is written in the preceding paragraph. It was supported by two different pastors who grew up in Ethiopia and felt very strongly that what was said in the motion needed to be said. The motion carried by a 95% to 5% vote. One critic later sniffed that the amendment was too simplistic and that it blamed the people in Africa for their plight when the real cause of their suffering was greedy Americans.

Thursday, there will be speeches from the floor on whether to bless same-sex unions and ordain gay and lesbian pastors. It should be interesting.

Another Prisoner Escapes the Cave

Another British leftist breaks free. Here are a couple of highlights from Nick Cohen's essay about his ideological apostacy and subsequent excommunication:

I'm sure that any halfway competent political philosopher could rip the assumptions of modern middle-class left-wingery apart. Why is it right to support a free market in sexual relationships but oppose free-market economics, for instance? But his criticisms would have little impact. It's like a religion: the contradictions are obvious to outsiders but don't disturb the faithful. You believe when you're in its warm embrace. Alas, I'm out. Last week, after 44 years of regular church-going, the bell tolled, the book was closed and the candle was extinguished. I was excommunicated.

The officiating bishop was Peter Wilby, a former editor of the New Statesman and a friend of long-standing, who delivered his anathema in the Guardian. The immediate heresy was a piece I'd written about how difficult the courts made it to deport suspected Islamist terrorists.

The least attractive characteristic of the middle-class left - one shared with the Thatcherites - is its refusal to accept that its opponents are sincere. The legacy of Marx and Freud allows it to dismiss criticisms as masks which hide corruption, class interests, racism, sexism - any motive can be implied except fundamental differences of principle. Wilby went through a long list of what could have motivated mine and similar 'betrayals'. Perhaps we became right wing as we got older. Perhaps we wanted to stick our snouts into the deep troughs of the Tory press. Perhaps taking out a mortgage committed us to the capitalist system or having children encouraged petit bourgeois individualism of the most anti-social kind.

The reason why one million people marched through London without one mounting a platform to express solidarity with the victims of fascism was that it never occurred to them that there were people in Iraq who shared their values.

[G]ood motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives.

Who is going to help the victims of religious intolerance in Britain's immigrant communities? Not the Liberal Democrats, who have never once offered support to liberal and democrats in Iraq. Nor an anti-war left which prefers to embrace a Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who believe that Muslims who freely decide to change their religion or renounce religion should be executed. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to suggest the same treatment for renegade Christians all hell would break loose. But as the bigotry comes from 'the other' there is silence.

The thing to watch for with fellow travellers is what shocks them into pulling the emergency cord and jumping off the train. I know some will stay on to the terminus, and when the man with the rucksack explodes his bomb their dying words will be: 'It's not your fault. I blame Tony Blair.'

My advice to my former comrades is to struggle out of your straitjackets and get off at the next station. It would be good to see you on this side of the barrier.

Plato tells the story of a a group of men imprisoned since birth in a cave, chained to a rock so that all they can see are flickering shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners pass their time debating the significance and meaning of this or that shadow. Their whole existence is spent speculating upon flickering, insubstantial images. The shadows are all they have to put meaning into their bleak lives.

One day one of the prisoners breaks free and climbs up out of the dark cave. At first he's blinded by the brilliance of the sun, but once his eyes adjust he becomes aware of a world infinitely more beautiful and substantial than the dark realm of the cave. He experiences life as he had never known it before. He hastens back to tell his comrades, but they're unreceptive. The cave is all they know. They're comfortable enough, and they don't care to hear of any sun or colors or anything else. They think their former friend mad, and if he persists in pestering them, Plato warns, they may even kill him.

I think of that parable almost every time I hear an account of another lefty climbing out of the ideological cave in which he had been chained.

Narcissistic Neo-Nazi Darwinian

Biologist P.Z. Myers explains his noted rhetorical felicity in response to a column by John Hawks advising restraint in the Evo/ID controversy:

It is correct that if I were talking to a student or a parent, trying to persuade them to abandon misbegotten notions of creationism that are affecting the student's ability to be a good biologist, I wouldn't call them lunatics. It isn't very effective to try and persuade an individual by calling them idiots, and in most cases I don't think the creationist students I occasionally get are idiots-just sadly misled.

However, I was not attacking such individuals, but the president of the US and the preachers at the Discovery Institute. You know, the responsible people who are lying to the public or working to disseminate destructive delusions.

Oh, but Hawks has that covered; his last sentence suggests that the people they "know and respect" should not be so harshly criticized, lest we alienate them. I strongly disagree. It is the leaders and enablers who must be vigorously attacked, the ones who abuse those positions of authority and respect to poison minds.

[I]t is my responsibility as a scientist to oppose ignorance, especially ignorance that has power and influence. Let them find comfort and forgiveness for stupid mistakes in their religion, because I sure as hell am not going to give it to them.

Don't tell me to be dispassionate or less unreasonable about it all because because 65% of the American population think creationism should be taught alongside evolution, or that Americans are just responding to common notions of "fairness". That just tells me that we scientists have not been expressing our outrage enough. And yes, we should be outraged that the president of our country panders to theocrats, faith-healers, and snake-oil artists; sitting back and quietly explaining that Bush may be a decent man who is mistaken, while the preachers are stridently condemning all us evilutionists to hell, is a damned ineffective tactic that has gotten us to this point.

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

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

His only failing? Oh, what ineffable joy it must be to be P.Z. Myers.

Anyway, we can be grateful to Myers for nicely summing up for us the Left's preferred modus operandi in debate of any kind: Try to defeat your opponent through the power of your ideas. If that fails then kick him in the groin. And Myers says, after admonishing all and sundry not to expect him to be less unreasonable, that he's on the side of reason? The man sounds more like a narcissistic neo-nazi brown-shirt.

Questioning Roberts About His Religion

The following is an imaginary exchange with John Roberts at his judicial committee hearings:

Sen. Leahy: Judge Roberts, we've read that your Catholic faith is very important to you. Will your religious views affect your decisions as a Supreme Court justice?

Judge Roberts: The answer to that question, senator, is both Yes and No. Permit me to explain. My religious faith imposes upon me moral obligations to be diligent, honest, and fair in fulfilling my role as a justice of the Supreme Court, and I pray that with God's help I will meet those obligations.

However, my role as justice will be to decide what the constitution says about the matters that will be before me. It is not my task to decide what it should or shouldn't say, nor to decide on the basis of what I think is moral or immoral. I have been nominated to be a jurist, not a legislator.

Thus even if I thought that the constitution stated something in direct opposition to my religious convictions my responsibility would be to decide the case on the basis of the constitution and not on the basis of my convictions. It is not the Court's job to make law or to change the constitution. That is the province of the legislative branch of government.

Indeed, it is my religion, senator, that dictates that I be honest in assessing what the constitution says and that I carry out its mandates faithfully. So to that extent, yes, my religion will certainly influence my decisions.

Such an answer would almost certainly bring an end to the questions about Roberts' religion.

Every Day, In Every Way ...

We reported several weeks ago on a story that credited abortion on demand for the sharp drop in crime in the U.S. since the 1970s.

David Brooks writes to tell us, though, that the decrease in criminality is only one social indicator that suggests that we are becoming a healthier society. He gives four reasons for this happy state of affairs, and none of them is that we've aborted all the problems:

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of family violence in this country has dropped by more than half since 1993. I've been trying to figure out why. A lot of the credit has to go to the people who have been quietly working in this field: to social workers who provide victims with counseling and support; to women's crisis centers, which help women trapped in violent relationships find other places to live; to police forces and prosecutors, who are arresting more spouse-beaters and putting them away. The Violence Against Women Act, which was passed in 1994, must have also played a role, focusing federal money and attention.

But all of these efforts are part of a larger story. The decline in family violence is part of a whole web of positive, mutually reinforcing social trends. To put it in old-fashioned terms, America is becoming more virtuous. Americans today hurt each other less than they did 13 years ago. They are more likely to resist selfish and shortsighted impulses. They are leading more responsible, more organized lives. A result is an improvement in social order across a range of behaviors.

The decline in domestic violence is of a piece with the decline in violent crime over all. Violent crime over all is down by 55 percent since 1993 and violence by teenagers has dropped an astonishing 71 percent, according to the Department of Justice. The number of drunken driving fatalities has declined by 38 percent since 1982, according to the Department of Transportation, even though the number of vehicle miles traveled is up 81 percent. The total consumption of hard liquor by Americans over that time has declined by over 30 percent.

Teenage pregnancy has declined by 28 percent since its peak in 1990. Teenage births are down significantly and, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions performed in the country has also been declining since the early 1990's. Fewer children are living in poverty, even allowing for an uptick during the last recession. There's even evidence that divorce rates are declining, albeit at a much more gradual pace. People with college degrees are seeing a sharp decline in divorce, especially if they were born after 1955.

I could go on. Teenage suicide is down. Elementary school test scores are rising (a sign than more kids are living in homes conducive to learning). Teenagers are losing their virginity later in life and having fewer sex partners. In short, many of the indicators of social breakdown, which shot upward in the late 1960's and 1970's, and which plateaued at high levels in the 1980's, have been declining since the early 1990's.

I always thought it would be dramatic to live through a moral revival. Great leaders would emerge. There would be important books, speeches, marches and crusades. We're in the middle of a moral revival now, and there has been very little of that. This revival has been a bottom-up, prosaic, un-self-conscious one, led by normal parents, normal neighbors and normal community activists.

The first thing that has happened is that people have stopped believing in stupid ideas: that the traditional family is obsolete, that drugs are liberating, that it is every adolescent's social duty to be a rebel.

The second thing that has happened is that many Americans have become better parents. Time diary studies reveal that parents now spend more time actively engaged with kids, even though both parents are more likely to work outside the home.

Third, many people in the younger generation, under age 30 or so, are reacting against the culture of divorce. They are trying to lead lives that are more stable than the ones their parents led. Post-boomers behave better than the baby boomers did.

Fourth, over the past few decades, neighborhood and charitable groups have emerged to help people lead more organized lives, even in the absence of cohesive families. Obviously, we're not living in a utopia, where all social problems have been solved. But these improvements across a whole range of behaviors are too significant to be dismissed. We in the media play up the negative, as we always do. The activist groups emphasize the work still to be done, because they want to keep people mobilized and financing their work.

But the good news is out there. You want to know what a society looks like when it is in the middle of moral self-repair? Look around.

Brooks may be a Pollyanna, but there certainly is a difference between what our society is today and what it was in the 1970s when it seemed that it was coming apart at the seams. His article is encouraging news, but we wonder how things can possibly be as good as he says they are after having suffered through five years of George Bush.

An Argument For the Death Penalty

This is a good argument for the death penalty for crimes other than murder:

A gloating rapist called his teenage victim's mother on a stolen mobile phone to tell her about the depraved attack, police revealed today. Armed with a screwdriver, he subjected the 15-year-old girl to two sickening sex assaults in west Belfast. A second thug used a metal bar to batter three boys she was with and stop them rescuing her.

The girl, who is from the north of England but was holidaying in Belfast, has been left severely traumatised by the double rape early today. Police chiefs shocked by the brutality of the attack have launched a hunt for the men, both in their late teens. Chief Superintendent Ken Henning said: "This was horrendous and disgraceful. It has caused untold distress to the victims and their families." The girl and her friends were confronted by the pair as they walked along Blacks Road just before 3 am.

Cash and mobile phones were stolen before the girl was dragged into a BP petrol station forecourt and raped. The boys, two 15-year-olds and one aged 14, were ordered to strip to the waist and beaten repeatedly. "These three men were literally held hostage while this went on," Mr Henning said. "They were helpless to go to her aid as they were being threatened and struck by a metal bar." The terrified youngsters were then taken up a driveway at the nearby Colin Valley Golf Centre where the girl was raped again.

"The individuals who carried out the attack took her mobile phone, rang her mother and told her what they had done," Mr Henning added. SDLP member Patricia Lewsley was outraged at the level of cruelty involved. "It is hard to imagine the kind of ordeal that this young girl endured," she said. "It was cruel in its planning and evil in its execution. It is clear that this attack was not spontaneous.

"It is clear that these sick criminals will strike again. That is why, for the safety of everyone in the area, I am appealing for anyone who may have any information on this evil crime to contact the local police as soon as possible."

Why should these animals, if caught, have their existence subsidized at taxpayer expense, including the taxes that will be paid by their victims and her family. They will live off the state for twenty years or so and then be released back into society while this girls' life and that of her family is doubtless seriously damaged. If a dog behaved this viciously it would be put to sleep. So, too, should people be who would do something as depraved and cruel as this.

ELCA Assembly

Posts on Viewpoint may be a little sporadic this week as I am at the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Churchwide Assembly in Orlando and the folks here have our time pretty much filled from morning till night.

Yesterday's session may be of interest to those following the changes occuring in churches around the country with respect to ordaining homosexual clergy. There are two resolutions to be voted on this week related to the ELCA's handling of gay and lesbian issues. Resolution two would essentially permit churches to bless commited same sex unions and reolution three would permit the ordination of gay and lesbian pastors.

Last evening the assembly, some 1000 laypeople and clergy from synods across the country, decided on the rules which would govern the assembly's voting procedures. To summarize, the conservatives (or traditionalists) wanted to make it harder to adopt resolutions 2 and 3 (although the resolutions themselves were only obliquely referred to, everyone knows that they're the five hundred pound gorilla in the middle of the living room), by adopting rules that would require changes to traditional practice to achieve a 2/3 majority. The liberals wanted to make it easier to adopt the resolutions on sexuality and worked to have these rules struck out or amended.

It seemed that there was good news and bad news for both sides. The liberals' motions to strike out or amend the rules required a simple majority to pass, and this they rarely achieved. However, the conservatives' motions to accept the rules required a 2/3 vote and this they consistently fell short of by a few tenths of a percent.

On balance, it seemed to go well last night for the liberals who managed largely to get their way even though they were often in a 66% to 34% minority. In the long term, however, conservatives can be encouraged that even if they don't have a 2/3 majority, they do appear at this point to have a large enough majority to block adoption of the controversial resolutions later this week.

This is just my take on the events from one little corner of the assembly hall, of course. Perhaps, it will prove to be wrong. I'll try to post further updates on Viewpoint for those of our readers who might be following the issue.

Teaching ID (Pt. II)

A couple of days ago we did a post on teaching Intelligent Design. Today I'd like to advance the discussion a bit by examining how ID could be presented in public school science classrooms in such a way as to allay the fears, perhaps, of those who see it as a Trojan Horse for sneaking religion into schools.

Science teachers discuss a host of topics in which it would be appropriate to include in the presentation of the scientific content a simple statement that scientists disagree on the philosophical significance of the material being covered. Some believe that the data which they've gleaned from their investigations have a purely natural explanation while others believe that natural processes by themselves are inadequate to explain what they observe and that the phenomena bear the impress of intelligent input.

Consider discussions likely to occur in a high school physics class whenever any of the dozens of forces, constants, and parameters of the universe are explained. These phenomena of physics are so exquisitely fine-tuned that were they different in just the slightest degree life would be impossible. The electromagnetic spectrum, for example, has a vast range of frequencies but only an extremely thin sliver of them is not only not harmful but is also necessary for carbon-based life to exist. Even more astonishing precision appertains to gravity, the strong nuclear force, and other such topics of interest to physics students. A teacher who wishes to enrich his students' understanding might point out that some scientists say this fine-tuning points to intelligence and purpose. Others say it's just a brute, inexplicable fact of nature. But to simply leave the matter hanging, as it were, is to deny students an important piece of information and, worse, to deny them an opportunity to do some good thinking.

An earth sciences teacher discussing cosmology with her classes will present to them the theory of the Big Bang. If she's skillful she might mention that a beginning to the universe implies a cause and a cause implies something which transcends the effect. If the universe had a beginning (like the Bang suggests) then it's reasonable to assume that something caused it. If so, that cause would've been either personal or impersonal, intelligent or not. She could then mention that scientists and arguments can be found on both sides of this controversy.

The earth sciences teacher will also have occasion throughout the year to mention dozens of details concerning the location of the earth in the solar system and in the galaxy as well as its physical structure (size, mass, composition, atmosphere, period of rotation, plate tectonics, amount of water, etc.). All of these properties of the earth seem to be exactly what is necessary for advanced life to be sustained and that the number of geophysical characteristics required by life is so high, the earth, in the minds of some scientists may well be unique in the cosmos.

Some scientists believe, our teacher might explain, that because the earth and universe seem so finely calibrated for the demands of living things, and because it is very difficult to account for how this could have happened just by chance, there must be a nearly infinite number of universes. If there are infinitely many worlds then it becomes more probable that there will be one like our own in which life can exist. Against this view many other scientists argue that talk of other universes is mere speculation and that there's no evidence for any universe but ours, as improbable as it is, and that the precise settings of the forces, constants etc. are better explained in terms of purposeful engineering in the design of the cosmic structure.

A chemistry teacher might well make clear to his students while discussing the properties of water why the chemical and physical characteristics of this substance are absolutely astonishing. Every one of the properties of water make it perfect for the role of sustaining living things. If any one of these properties were even slightly different, life as we know it could not exist. The same is true of a host of elements like oxygen, iron, and especially carbon and carbon compounds, particularly carbon dioxide and the bicarbonate buffer system.

The teacher might note that many chemists are awe-struck by the suitability of these substances for life and consequently conclude that the laws of chemistry are biocentric. Others, however, simply impute this fitness to the "way things are."

A biology teacher discussing the origin of life could rightly point out that there is no plausible theory in the scientific literature which explains how chemicals could have been ordered and arranged by purely mechanistic processes to construct self-replicating, information-filled, living cells. She could also mention that some scientists like Fred Hoyle have argued that the mechanistic origin of life under the conditions believed to have prevailed on the early earth is so difficult to imagine that life must have originated on some other planet and subsequently been imported to earth as spores. Other scientists, she could add, think that the extreme improbability of life emerging as a result of blind, undirected forces suggests that in fact it didn't emerge this way at all, and that it was instead the result, at least in part, of the work of an intelligent mind.

She might go on to instruct her students that a minority of biologists have come to believe that the mechanisms of evolution, natural selection and genetic mutation, are inadequate to explain the rich abundance of both specified and irreducible complexity found ubiquitously in biological structures, biochemical pathways and molecular machines throughout nature. Such complexity, these biologists believe, points at least as emphatically toward intentional design as to blind fortune.

It might also be pointed out that the differences between these scientists are matters of philosophy not science. They don't disagree about the empirical facts so much as they disagree about how best to account for those facts. Darwinians, for example, assume that natural forces and processes are sufficient to account for the vast richness and complexity of life, but this is not a scientific assumption. It does not lend itself to empirical testing or observation. The very act of trying to test it requires the input of an intelligent mind. As such the Darwinian assumption should be no more privileged in science classrooms than its denial.

A science teacher might also have occasion to discuss the wonders of the human brain and wish to note that only brains generate consciousness. How they do it is a mystery but that they do is an amazing fact. Matter and machines are not conscious. Computers are not conscious. Conscious states (feeling, hoping, desiring, hating, guilt, fear, wishing, moral judgment, understanding, believing, doubting, etc.) exist only in brains and possibly only in human brains. Even if a computer could be built that would be capable of "conscious experience" it would never have those experiences unless it were appropriately programmed by an intelligent software designer. The notion that consciousness can arise spontaneously out of the inherent properties of brute matter is a dubious hypothesis for which there is scant evidence.

The teacher could also mention that the marvelous uniqueness of consciousness is nevertheless believed by some scientists to be an inevitable consequence of gathering together the right matrix of biochemical and electrical phenomena. Other scientists are convinced that human consciousness cannot be explained in purely material terms and that it instead suggests the input of an underlying mind.

The preceding is a relatively tiny sample of topics and concepts which could serve as springboards for discussion of the controversy between materialism and Intelligent Design. There is nothing in the above examples which involves anything religious. Indeed, the debate is not a conflict between science and religion. Science is not in dispute nor is religion at issue. It is rather a controversy between philosophical physicalism (or materialism) and a kind of philosophical dualism. The physicalist insists that nothing but physical forces and processes are at play in the universe. The dualist maintains that physical forces by themselves cannot account for the precision, complexity, or high information content of every aspect of the cosmos all the way down to the tiniest sub-atomic particle. Matter, the dualist argues, is only one aspect of reality, mind is another.

Any science teacher would find that discussing these differences in how scientists explain the phenomena they observe in the world with his or her students would spark tremendous interest and learning. Science teachers are always searching for ways to stir a sense of awe in students, but the demand to limit science instruction to empirical facts detached from any philosophical interpretation or explanation of those facts leaves their lessons more sterile than they have to be and deadens enthusiasm.

It's a shame that students are being subtly discouraged from experiencing the exhilarating wonder good science inspires, but the fear that such emotions will lead young minds to questions about transcendence drives secularists into a panic. Better, the tacit thinking seems to be, to dampen the intellectual satisfactions students could experience than to have the physicalist paradigm subject to challenge. So one philosophical position, physicalism, or materialism, enjoys an unjustifiable monopoly in science classes, protected by those who would rather children not think at all than that their thinking lead them to suspect that perhaps materialism is false.

Teachers and others interested in exploring this topic in more depth might want to read one or more of the following: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr, Nature's Destiny by Michael Denton, Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe, The Design Revolution by William Dembski, and Rare Earth by Peter Ward & Donald Brownlee.

Profiling Sex Offenders

Profiling terrorists or drug runners may not be politically correct, but evidently profiling sex offenders is. Here's an interesting article by Daniel Engber which explains how it's done:

On Wednesday, convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan was charged with kidnapping two small children and murdering their older brother, their mother, and her boyfriend. When he was an inmate in 1999 and 2000, forensic psychologists evaluated Duncan using two different tests; both indicated he was likely to carry out a crime after being released from prison. How do psychologists assess the risk that a sex offender will strike again?

Through a combination of clinical judgment and statistics. A forensic psychologist interviews the convict, speaks with his family, and reviews police reports and prison records. The psychologist combines this research with actuarial assessments designed to predict whether an offender will commit another crime.

These actuarial tools have become common only in the past 10 years; today, most forensic psychologists recognize their value in predicting recidivism. Researchers design the assessments by examining sex offender databases. They look for the variables that best correlate with repeated criminal activity, then whittle these down to the most important factors.

The simplest tool for evaluating sex offenders is the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offense Recidivism. The RRASOR (pronounced "razor") includes just four items. A sex offender gets one point for being under the age of 25 at the time of his release from prison, another if any of his victims were male, and a third if he wasn't related to his victims. He gets up to three more points depending on how many sex crimes he's been charged with.

The most dangerous offenders, then, are young adults who have committed multiple sex crimes against boys they've never met before. According to the RRASOR's table of probabilities, these six-point cases have more than a 73 percent chance of committing another crime within 10 years. (Psychologists did use the RRASOR to assess Duncan, and found he was likely to strike again. He'd have received at least two points: His earlier victim was male and a stranger.)

Viewpoint offers this suggestion: Two to three points should be sufficient warrant to place the villain in jail until age 65; Four to five points should land him in prison for life, and six or more points should win him an appointment with his Maker.

Conservative Writers on ID

With President Bush having given his opinion on the matter of teaching Intelligent Design in public schools there's a lot of buzz about the issue in the print media and blogosphere.

Dan Peterson offers an excellent introduction to ID, explaining in layman's terms what exactly ID theorists believe and why they believe it.

George Neumayr has two good articles on the growing intolerance of Darwinians and the increasing appeal of ID. See here and here.

David Klinghoffer avers that the vitriolic response of Darwinists to the inroads made by ID theorists is all about status.

David Limbaugh agrees with President Bush.

Lots of fascinating reading.

Roberts' Views on Religious Freedom

No Left Turns' Joseph Knippenberg has done some digging on John Roberts' likely position on first amendment cases involving freedom of religion. He says this:

I've written a very long piece examining the publicly available evidence regarding John Roberts's position on the First Amendment religion clauses. Did I mention that it is VERY LONG? Here's the relatively short conclusion:

A careful review of the publicly available evidence suggests that John Roberts has put his name to positions solidly within the mainstream of judicial interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses. As seems to be the case in many other areas of law, he would be careful to stay within the proper bounds of judicial competence and be respectful of the role and judgments of the political branches. Above all, he would apparently continue and perhaps extend somewhat the Court's tendency to look favorably on attempts to accommodate religious expression, not necessarily as a matter of judicially-enforced constitutional right, but rather as a matter of what might be called legislative grace.

This deference and "judicial restraint" would require a rethinking of the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence, continuing the move away from a mechanical application of the Lemon test and perhaps an abandonment of Sandra Day O'Connor's "endorsement" test, in favor of a return to a focus on the traditional elements of establishment ("force and funds").

This would, of course, mark a change in the Court, just as Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement of Byron White marked a change in the Court. Our first opportunity to see what sort of change will come in the next term, when the Court hears Ashcroft et al. v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, a case addressing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act-based challenge to the Controlled Substances Act.

Will Roberts take the opportunity-as Sandra Day O'Connor did in her dissent in City of Boerne v. Flores-to call for a reexamination of the Court's holding in Employment Division v. Smith, stare decisis to the contrary notwithstanding? Or will he likely follow Antonin Scalia in deferring to the legislative judgment of "compelling state interest" embodied in the Controlled Substances Act itself? We will see soon enough how he balances his apparent clear concern with religious liberty with his deference to the political branches.

I saw nothing in the seven briefs I read to dampen my enthusiasm for Roberts; if he believes what he wrote, he'll generally vote with Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist. When Kennedy can be brought along for the ride (which is a somewhat more frequent occurrence than was O'Connor's fellow traveling), there is a working majority on Establishment Clause cases.

This is exactly what many Christians voted for George Bush for. Once Roberts is seated, and assuming Rehnquist's health holds out, it appears there may be a return to sanity in the rulings which come down to us from Mt. Olympus on matters of religious expression and many other matters as well.

Chris Matthews Redefines Shamelessness

We stated in a post a couple of days ago titled Sinking in the Mire that the NYT was positively shameless in their obsession to hand Bush a defeat by trying to mine scandal in the adoption records of John Roberts' children.

A day later Chris Matthews decided he would not be outdone by the Times. On his MSNBC show Hardball, which after last night might be called Sleazeball, Matthews interviewed the parents of a young Marine killed in Iraq less than 24 hours before.

The tenor of his questions made it clear that Mr. Matthews sought to exploit the grief of this couple in order to score cheap political points against the administration. The questions he asked follow below. I've omitted the parents' responses, which were pretty much what Matthews was hoping for, because those parents should be given our sympathy, not our criticism. If the reader wishes to see how they answered the questions the complete transcript can be found at the link.

Ms. Palmer, did you sense that this war was very dangerous for your son, even before yesterday?

What made you feel that the danger was growing?

Let me ask you, Mr. Schroeder, why do you think we're in this war? What do you think is the real reason for this war in Iraq?

Rosemary, let me ask you what is your feeling about this war and the goal of trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? And do you think that was a smart thing for us to try to do?

Do you think that the war is going to get any better now that your son - I mean, you have paid the ultimate price? And, by the way, thank you. I don't know what it means to say thank you for your service, except I mean it. The courage of these young guys and some women over there is unbelievable. And I guess everybody wonders about the conduct of the war, whether these lives are being wasted or these lives are being put to good purpose. What is your feeling about that now?

The way you describe it [the war], it is like pouring water into a sand hole on the beach and having it drain right through and start over again. It seems like a repetitive process that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.

What should be the reaction of the American people who pick up their newspapers, watch television, and learn of these horrors? What should they do as a result of seeing that news, Mr. Schroeder?

It's hard to come to any other conclusion than that these questions, aside from being dumb, were designed to elicit criticism of the Bush administration and its conduct of the war. That Matthews used people who had just learned that their son had been killed to achieve this purpose is unconscionable. The only good thing about this sordid affair is that scarcely anyone watches MSNBC.

Marine Losses

Bill Roggio has some details on how the six Marines were lost in fighting several days ago and also some thoughts on the war in Anbar province.

You'll also want to read Wretchard's analysis of a Department of Defense news briefing with General Carter Ham about the ambush. You'll also want to read Wretchard's analysis of a Department of Defense news briefing with General Carter Ham about the ambush.

Roggio and Wretchard are far more informative than anything you'll find on the evening newscast.

Plantinga on Schonborn

Alvin Plantinga, one of the best known epistemologists in contemporary philosophy, enters the lists on behalf of Cardinal Schonborn:

A renowned philosopher from the University of Notre Dame supports recent comments by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn that belief in evolution as accepted by some in science today may be incompatible with Christian beliefs.

"Cardinal Schonborn has it right," said Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy and one of the world's leading scholars in the philosophy of religion. "Evolution means different things to different people. Some of these things are perfectly consistent with Christian belief, but others are not.

"Some think of evolution as the theory of common ancestry: Any two living things share ancestors, so that we and the poison ivy in our back yard, as well as other living creatures, are cousins. This is surprising, but compatible with Christian belief."

Problems arise, according to Plantinga, when "scientists and others take evolution to be a process that is wholly unguided and driven by chance, so that it is simply a matter of chance that rational creatures like us exist. This is not compatible with Christian belief, according to which God has intentionally created us human beings in His own image. He may have done so by using a process of evolution, but it isn't by chance that we exist."

Plantinga adds that the idea that "human beings and other living creatures have come about by chance, rather than by God's design, is also not a proper part of empirical science. How could science show that God has not intentionally designed and created human beings and other creatures? How could it show that they have arisen merely by chance. That's not empirical science. That's metaphysics, or maybe theology. It's a theological add-on, not part of science itself. And, since it is a theological add-on, it shouldn't, of course, be taught in public schools."

This last paragraph is especially pertinent. Darwinism is the view that natural processes are sufficient by themselves to have produced the entire biosphere. This assertion, however, is completely untestable. No observation could serve to confirm it or to refute it. It is, as professor Plantinga notes, pure metaphysics which is why it must not be allowed a position of privilege in public school science classes. It is no more scientific nor less theological than the Intelligent Design theorists' claim that natural processes by themselves are inadequate as explanatory mechanisms for the structures, pathways, and processes we find in the biosphere.

<i>Argumentum Ad Snarkum</i>

Our local newspaper, The York Dispatch, ran an editorial on the president's perfectly sensible comments on teaching Intelligent Design last Wednesday that might best be described as argumentum ad snarkum. The editor wrote:

Yet here's the president of the United States, saying schools should teach both "theories" on the creation and development of life.

And global warming has no scientific basis, mercury pollution is not the threat most scientists say it is, drilling for oil in the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge will have no effect on one of the world's last great wildernesses -- and are there really such things as endangered species?

Well, maybe so. If sarcasm was a reason to accept an implied conclusion then the paper would have a strong case against the Bush administration's attitude toward science-related issues, but it's not and they don't. Each of these issues is framed by the writer in a highly tendentious way. The controversy surrounding global warming, for instance, is not about whether it's happening but about its cause. No one claims that drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge will have no effect. The debate is over whether the effect will be significant and permanent. Part of informing one's readers is accurately presenting the facts, but this the editorial fails to do, preferring the rhetorical appeal of snarkiness to the difficult work of thinking.

The writer then gets to the point he/she really wishes to make:

Intelligent design is not a "theory," but strictly a religious concept that may have its place in Sunday school and in the home -- not in high school biology class.

Not a theory? Does the editor mean that ID is not a proposed explanation for a set of observations? Does the editor know what a theory is? Has he/she ever actually read anything written on ID by a prominent advocate?

And what about ID makes it a "strictly religious concept"? Is it religious because some wish to use it to promote a religious agenda? Is Darwinism fascist because some have employed Darwinian principles like survival of the fittest to justify the extermination of the less fit? Is ID religious because it posits a Designer? How, exactly, would that make it religious?

The president's view on intelligent design would, no doubt, warm the heart of William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and anti-evolution champion in the Scopes trial who saw Darwin's theory as heralding the end of western civilization.

But for a man who presides over the most powerful and most scientifically advanced nation on earth to be spouting such a fundamentalist mantra in the name of "improving" education is more than unseemly, it's irresponsible and embarrassing.

Why is it irresponsible for the president to state his personal views on this issue when asked to do so? He didn't say that ID should be federally mandated. He merely opined that it would be a good thing to stimulate students to think about a very important question. Why is it embarrassing to hold a view consonant with the opinion of the majority of people one leads? Is it that the editor is embarrassed that the president lacks the same level of scientific enlightenment possessed by his/her fellow sophisticates in the media?

Moreover, what does the Dispatch mean by calling the president's words a "fundamentalist mantra"? Does the paper mean to suggest that only creepy fundamentalists believe that an intelligence underlies the world of our observation and that it's appropriate to mention this possibility in a science class? If so, what epithet does the editor assign to those who think it perfectly appropriate to discuss in science classes the view (called Darwinism) that no such intelligence is required to explain the biological phenomena we observe?

What is really "unseemly, irresponsible and embarrassing" is lazy, otiose polemic masquerading as informed argument. The editor of the Dispatch knows nothing of what he/she is talking about so, like a middle schooler caught in an argument over matters he does not understand, the writer just sputters insults. It's pretty immature, actually.

For a more adult response to President Bush's comments go here.

NYT Hot on the Scent of Scandal

Michelle Malkin wonders why the NYT has the time and resources to devote to looking into John Roberts' adoptions of his children but have been absolutely mute, as has been almost the entire liberal media, about the scandal involving the liberal radio network Air America. Good question.

You'll find lots of links to other commentators on this story as well as a statement of quasi-explanation by the Times at Michelle's site.

Wallis' Advice to Dems: Become Conservatives

Jim Wallis is a good guy, I'm sure, but he says several things in a NYT editorial that suggest that he's just not the guy to be giving Democrats advice. He writes:

Because the Republicans, with the help of the religious right, have captured the language of values and religion (narrowly conceived as only abortion and gay marriage), the Democrats have also been asking how to "take back the faith."

If Wallis really thinks that values and religion means only "abortion and gay marriage" to conservatives then he's too uninformed to serve as an effective advisor to the Democrats on these matters. If he's deliberately distorting what conservatives value then he's being dishonest. Conservative values encompass a wide range of moral issues, both social and economic. They include, but are not limited to, maximizing economic freedom, equality under the law, equality of opportunity, minimizing the corrosive effect of the entertainment industry, strong commitment to one's family and God, a commitment to individual and property rights, a bias in favor of innocent life and a commitment to justice for those who harm others, peace through strength, the importance of hard work and charitable giving, a willingness to help those who are willing to help themselves and a reluctance to help those who aren't, and a belief in the wisdom of abiding by the original intent of the constitution written by the founding fathers. This is a little more comprehensive than Wallis' insulting caricature but much more accurate.

The discussion that shapes our political future should be one about moral values, but the questions to ask are these: Whose values? Which values? And how broadly and deeply will our political values be defined? Democrats must offer new ideas and a fresh agenda, rather than linguistic strategies to sell an old set of ideologies and interest group demands.

Wallis is implying, in other words, that Democrats must cease to be liberals. After all, how can they "offer new ideas and a fresh agenda" without changing who they are?

To be specific, I offer five areas in which the Democrats should change their message and then their messaging. First, somebody must lead on the issue of poverty, and right now neither party is doing so....Democrats need new policies to offer the 36 million Americans, including 13 million children, who live below the poverty line, as well as the 9.8 million families one recent study identified as "working hard but falling short."

Is this the new vision Wallis is offering the Dems? Do something for the poor? I'm sure that Democratic pols everywhere are saying, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

In fact, the Democrats should draw a line in the sand when it comes to wartime tax cuts for the wealthy, rising deficits, and the slashing of programs for low-income families and children. They need proposals that combine to create a "living family income" for wage-earners, as well as a platform of "fair trade," as opposed to just free trade, in the global economy....Many Americans, including religious voters who see poverty as a compelling issue of conscience, desire such a platform.

Mr. Wallis' "new ideas" for the Democrats sound very much like the old ones. Resist tax cuts for the wealthy, resist welfare reform, and establish a guaranteed income. Anyone who wonders how this is any different from what the left has been advocating ever since Karl Marx gets a star.

Similarly, a growing number of American Christians speak of the environment as a religious concern - one of stewardship of God's creation. The National Association of Evangelicals recently called global warming a faith issue. But Republicans consistently choose oil and gas interests over a cleaner world. The Democrats need to call for the reversal of these priorities. They must insist that private interests should never obstruct our country's path to a cleaner and more efficient energy future, let alone hold our foreign policy hostage to the dictates of repressive regimes in the Middle East.

The environment is more than just clean air, and it's not in trouble because it's getting dirtier. In many ways it's healthier now than it's been in the last 700 years, at least in the developed world. The chief environmental problems we face today are the loss of terrestrial habitat for many species of wildlife and the depletion of ocean fisheries. These problems have little to do with oil. Even so, if Mr. Wallis wants a cleaner more energy efficient future the simplest, most effective long term means to that end is to build more nuclear power plants. The first Democrat willing to support that please raise your hand.

On the issues that Republicans have turned into election-winning "wedges," Democrats will win back "values voters" only with fresh ideas. Abortion is one such case. Democrats need to think past catchphrases, like "a woman's right to choose," or the alternative, "safe, legal and rare." More than 1 million abortions are performed every year in this country. The Democrats should set forth proposals that aim to reduce that number by at least half. Such a campaign could emphasize adoption reform, health care, and child care; combating teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse; improving poor and working women's incomes; and supporting reasonable restrictions on abortion, like parental notification for minors (with necessary legal protections against parental abuse).

Not only are none of these suggestions new, Wallis gives us no clue as to how any of them are to be accomplished. What he seems to be advising his fellow Democrats is that they should accept what conservatives have been advocating and working toward for decades. Fat chance of that happening.

As for "family values," the Democrats can become the truly pro-family party by supporting parents in doing the most important and difficult job in America: raising children. They need to adopt serious pro-family policies, including some that defend children against Hollywood sleaze and Internet pornography. That's an issue that has come to be identified with the religious right. But when I say in public lectures that being a parent is now a counter-cultural activity, I've found that liberal and conservative parents agree.

In order to do what Wallis recommends Democrats would have to repudiate no-fault divorce, moral relativism, their sympathy for single parent households, and much of modern feminism. They would also have to endorse at least some form of censorship and consequently antagonize their deep-pocket friends in Hollywood and elsewhere in the entertainment industry. In other words, once again Wallis' advice to liberals is to become conservatives.

Rather than fighting over gay marriage, the Democrats must show that it is indeed possible to be "pro-family" and in favor of gay civil rights at the same time.

The two things he advises here are mutually exclusive. How do Democrats stop fighting for gay marriage and still demonstrate to the left that they support gay civil rights? Conservatives have been opposing gay marriage while supporting other civil rights for gays for a couple of decades now, and as far as the left is concerned they're all just a bunch of homophobes. To ask the Dems give up the fight for gay marriage is to ask them to cast off another one of the boards in the liberal tree-house.

Finally, on national security, Democrats should argue that the safety of the United States depends on the credibility of its international leadership. We can secure that credibility in Iraq only when we renounce any claim to oil or future military bases - something Democrats should advocate as the first step toward bringing other countries to our side.

This is just nonsense. We've had bases in Europe and Asia ever since WWII and so far from detracting from our leadership of the world, it has insured it. As for the need to renounce any claim to Iraqi oil, what claim is there to renounce? The U.S. has made no claim to the oil in Iraq, and for Wallis to insinuate that such a claim exists is bizarre.

While Republicans have argued that international institutions are too weak to be relied upon in the age of terrorism, Democrats should suggest reforming them, creating a real International Criminal Court with an enforcement body, for example, as well as an international force capable of intervening in places like Darfur.

Yet again Wallis is trying to revivify leftist ambitions that have long been moldering in the museum of bad ideas. What's novel about the proposal for a strong ICC? It's a terrible suggestion, but it's not new. What's new about the idea of an international quick reaction force? The U.S. has been trying for decades to cajole the United Nations into being something other than a slush fund for corrupt bureaucrats to wallow in, but to no avail. Unless the United States is prepared to use its military muscle no other western nation will. Even if we do employ our power most other nations are content to sit back and say let's you and him fight. The institutions Wallis is talking about don't need reformed, they need abolished.

Stronger American leadership in reducing global poverty would also go a long way toward improving the country's image around the world.

The question must be asked again: Exactly what does Wallis suggest we do that we haven't done? Hurl money at the problem like Live 8 urges us to do? To what end? Throwing money at poverty only lines the pockets of dictators and undermines the ability of indigenous farmers and tradesmen to make a living because they can't compete with the cheap goods that flood their markets from the donor countries. The U.S. has been the chief agent in trying to alleviate poverty around the world for fifty years and our image is what it is. Tossing more money overseas isn't going to change it. As long as we're successful and they're not their resentment will cause them to hate us. Giving people help only exacerbates the resentment because it makes them feel inferior to have to rely on us and underscores the disparity between our accomplishment and their failure.

Until Democrats are willing to be honest about the need for new social policy and compelling political vision, they will never get the message right. Find the vision first, and the language will follow.

Unfortunately, Wallis offers nothing in this essay in terms of either vision or solutions. To the extent that he proffers any substantive advice at all it's that Democrats either need to adopt the same old failed nostrums that leftists have been proposing for the last century and a half or transform themselves into conservative Republicans. The latter course seems much the wiser, but liberal readers of the Times surely aren't likely to follow it.

Sinking in the Mire

Just when you think the left can't sink any lower it surprises you:

The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts' two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.

Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants. Both children were adopted from Latin America. A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper's "standard background check."

Roberts' young son Jack delighted millions of Americans during his father's Supreme Court nomination announcement ceremony when he wouldn't stop dancing while the President and his father spoke to a national television audience. Previously the WASHINGTON POST Style section had published a story criticizing the outfits Mrs. Roberts had them wear at the announcement ceremony.

One top Washington official with knowledge of the NEW YORK TIMES action declared: "Trying to pry into the lives of the Roberts' family like this is despicable. Children's lives should be off limits. The TIMES is putting politics over fundamental decency."

One top Republican official when told of the situation was incredulous. "This can't possibly be true?"

One would think it couldn't be true, one would think that no one would stoop this low, but then one reminds oneself that these are liberals we're talking about, and for these people standards of decency are all relative to the political demands of the moment.

The New York Times has embraced the ethics of the National Enquirer and has become the journalistic equivalent of dumpster divers.

The War in Western Iraq

Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail gives a little background to the fighting in western Iraq which led to the deaths of two dozen Marines in the last several days. He also discusses a meeting of disparate insurgent groups that took place recently in Lebanon to try to find some common ground. Apparently there was none to be found.

Details of that meeting can be found at Iraq the Model.

Some Hard Evidence, Please

Front Page Magazine's Jamie Glazov has an interview with Joseph Farah of World Net Daily in which Farah claims that the Islamists have plans to detonate nuclear weapons in American cities and that the weapons are already here waiting for the signal.

Such claims are much easier to make than to refute, but I came away from this interview disturbed. Not just because of the nature of Farah's alarm call, but also by his refusal to really explain what his basis is for believing that such a calamity is on the way.

His evidence seems to be that we all know that al Qaida wants to execute a spectacular strike murdering tens of thousands of Americans. We know that Russian nukes are missing. We know that our Mexican border is porous. We know that people like Dick Cheney have said that another terror strike is inevitable. Therefore, Farah concludes, a nuclear strike is imminent. Well, maybe, but the evidence Farah gives us is pretty thin.

Nor does he enhance his credibility when he slyly implies that George Bush hasn't sealed our borders because he's part of a master plan "for global governance being plotted in meetings of groups like the Council on Foreign Relations. You can read its reports. And, I believe this open-borders policy is a direct result of those plans, which have been secretly adopted by our highest leaders, including President Bush."

This response as well as the hemming and hawing he tries to pass off as answers to Glazov's request for supporting reasons for his dire prophecies makes one wonder whether Farah isn't just a part of the black helicopter crowd.

He may be right, of course, or he may be just guessing. There's no way to falsify his claim since no matter how long we go without a strike he could still argue that it's going to happen soon. One way to measure his accuracy, though, is by seeing what happens on August 6th. Farah says this:

Again, according to captured documents and captured al-Qaida leaders -- and some defectors -- the plans are to detonate multiple nuclear weapons in major U.S. cities -- either all at once or over a period of days. You can guess most of the prime targets -- New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. The only surprise, according to my sources, is that al-Qaida's list is not based on the cities with the most population. The list is based on where most American Jews live. So you see some cities like Miami and Las Vegas and San Francisco on the list. Dates are very important to al-Qaida, as we have come to know, and one of the dates mentioned in connection with this "American Hiroshima" plan is Aug. 6, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945. No year has been set, but it is worth noting that this Aug. 6th is the 60th anniversary of that attack.

Of course, if nothing happens on the 6th that doesn't mean that it won't happen next year on the 6th. Or the year after that.

In any case, Farah hopes he's wrong. So do we. We just think that unless he had more to go on than what he shares with us in this interview it would have been better to have not said anything. Conservatives don't need to have their spokespersons passing off their own speculations as if they were solid fact. One does not go about scaring the bejabbers out of people without having credible reasons for doing so. Credibility, especially in a matter as frightening as this, is too precious to squander.