Believers and Unbelievers

The Barna Group has released the results of a new survey which examines differences and similarities between people who claim a religious faith commitment, primarily Christianity, and those who embrace atheism/agnosticism:

[The] new survey shows there is indeed a significant gap between Christians and those Americans who are in the "no-faith" camp. For instance, most atheists and agnostics (56%) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam. At the same time, two-thirds of Christians (63%) who have an active faith perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity. ("Active faith" was defined as simply having gone to church, read the Bible and prayed during the week preceding the survey.)

The "reality-based" folk, as they are pleased to call themselves, see no difference between those who balk at killing babies and legalizing non-traditional forms of marriage and those who strap bombs to their babies' carriages so that they can blow to bits other people's babies. The reality-based crowd, or at least a majority of them, sees no difference between those who prefer that gays not demand that their relationships be endorsed by the larger society and those who hang gays for being gay. One marvels at the strange reality the majority of atheist/agnostics are living in.

One of the most significant differences between active-faith and no-faith Americans is the cultural disengagement and sense of independence exhibited by atheists and agnostics in many areas of life. They are less likely than active-faith Americans to be registered to vote (78% versus 89%), to volunteer to help a non-church-related non-profit (20% versus 30%), to describe themselves as "active in the community" (41% versus 68%), and to personally help or serve a homeless or poor person (41% versus 61%). They are also more likely to be registered to vote as an independent or with a non-mainstream political party.

In other words, atheists/agnostics tend to be more oriented toward themselves than toward others. No surprise here. The default position in human ethics is egoism. Atheism affords no non-subjective basis for caring about the welfare of others. People have to have a transcendent incentive to teach their young to respect and care about those they don't know, and they have to be able to give their young a reason when their young ask them why they should do it. Unfortunately, if there is no God there is no reason.

One of the outcomes of this profile - and one of the least favorable points of comparison for atheist and agnostic adults - is the paltry amount of money they donate to charitable causes. The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults.

Like I was saying....

RLC

The Materialists' Tar Baby

The editors at Nature are a bit confused. They want to take Senator Sam Brownback to task for an editorial he wrote in the New York Times defending his position on evolution, but they wind up producing an argument whose conclusion is that either Brownback is right or Intelligent Design is scientific. I doubt that they want to advance either of these claims, but that seems to be the logic of their position as Michael Egnor explains:

In a remarkable editorial, the editors of Nature recently responded to Senator Sam Brownback's essay What I Think about Evolution in the New York Times. Senator Brownback wrote:

"The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it...."

Referring to materialistic evolutionary theories for the emergence of the human mind, Senator Brownback notes:

"...Aspects of these theories that undermine [the] truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

Natures' editors took Brownback to task for 'crossing lines':

"...there are lines that should not be crossed, and in a recent defence of his beliefs and disbeliefs in the matter of evolution, US Senator Sam Brownback (Republican, Kansas) crosses at least one."

They asserted, with confidence in their science:

"Humans evolved, body and mind, from earlier primates. The ways in which humans think reflect this heritage ... the idea that human minds are the product of evolution is not atheistic theology. It is unassailable fact."

The editors assert that the emergence of the human mind without intelligent design is an 'unassailable fact'. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this claim, aside from the problems with their interpretation of the scientific evidence itself, is the admission by the editors that the question of intelligent design in biology can be adjudicated by the scientific method.

If the evidence for or against intelligent design can be evaluated scientifically - as the editors at Nature firmly assert that it can - then intelligent design is a real scientific inference, albeit, according to the Nature editors, a mistaken one. And if they are asserting that intelligent design is mistaken from a non-scientific standpoint, then the editors are advancing an atheistic theology, as Brownback pointed out.

The mainstay of the materialists' argument against intelligent design has been that it isn't science. Yet, as the Nature editors inadvertently demonstrate so clearly, the materialists' argument against intelligent design is self-refuting; they argue that intelligent design isn't science, and that it's scientifically wrong. Yet if intelligent design is scientifically wrong - if it is an 'unassailable fact' that the human mind is the product of evolution, not intelligent design - then the design inference can be investigated (and, they claim, refuted) using the scientific method. Then intelligent design is science.

Either the conclusion that the editors reached is the result of a scientific analysis of the design inference, or the conclusion that the editors reached is the result of a non-scientific analysis of the design inference, which would be, as Senator Brownback observed, atheistic theology posing as science.

Either intelligent design is science, or Senator Brownback got it right.

Intelligent Design is the materialists' tar baby. The harder they flail about trying to discredit ID and its advocates the more they entangle themselves in their own confused rhetoric. It's pretty funny to watch.

RLC

Fire Up Ol' Sparky

Here's why we need capital punishment, but I'd settle for mandatory emasculation:

British police, aided by U.S. authorities, have smashed a global Internet pedophile ring that broadcast live-streamed videos of children being abused, investigating more than 700 suspects worldwide and rescuing 31 children in a 10-month probe, officials said Monday.

The ring was traced to an Internet chat room called "Kids the Light of Our Lives" that featured images of children being subjected to horrific sexual abuse, including the streaming live videos.

Read the rest of the article at the link. The electric chair used to be called "ol' Sparky." For people like these a ride in ol' Sparky would be an act of consummate mercy given the punishment they actually deserve.

RLC

Me and Him

Mike Mentzer, writing for the Clapham Commentary (E-mail subscription only), laments the erosion of grammatical standards in the King's English:

During halftime of the NCAA lacrosse finals, two Duke players were describing the key to successful passing and shot making. "Me and him have to have eye contact."

Me and him?

There was a time not too long ago when "me and him" would have been considered bad form and poor grammar. More formal language was the key to success in making the world a better place. Today however casual language like "me and him" is considered more "authentic." Formal language is deemed to be detached. The poles have been reversed. Should we care? How does formal language make our world and us better?

Movies migrated to our lips in the 1960s, writes linguist John McWhorter. The sixties' rebellion against authority included overthrowing formal language for the casual language of everyday life (or, in McWhorter's words, beer-drinking speech). Casual language gained a reputation as intimate and "authentic." Formal language was disdained as detached and distant, boring and insincere.

Well, maybe that's part of it, but I have another theory about why standards in grammar have declined.

I suspect that in the sixties and seventies white guilt placed a lot of teachers in a dilemma. Minorities, particularly African-Americans, speak in a patois that is often grammatically atrocious even if culturally endearing. White teachers, confronted by minority students who seemed unable or unwilling to conform to grammatical convention, were faced with a difficult choice. If they demanded proper grammar from their students they looked like whitey imposing his standards on the black man by trying to make him "talk white." This would surely be seen as racist and oppressive and no self-respecting liberal white person wanted to be tarnished with that brush. But what to do?

The answer was simple in a relativistic world: abandon traditional grammatical rules and just let everyone decide for himself what was proper speech. Rather than maintain one standard for whites and a different one for blacks it was easier to just relax standards for both.

As with morals in the post-modern world so with everything, what's right is whatever works for you ... and he.

RLC

They Walk Among Us

Now we read that teams of Taliban suicide bombers have been dispatched to the U.S. to kill as many of us as possible. Makes you wish there was a fence in place along our southern border:

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9.

A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

"It doesn't take too many who are willing to actually do it and be able to slip through the net and get into the United States or England and cause a lot of damage," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism official.

No, it doesn't take too many, especially when the net is as porous as our border and those whose responsibility it is to protect us see no urgency in securing that border.

RLC

Israel Prepares for War

The London Times Online reports that war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is inevitable:

Israel's new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there. According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas's military capability in days.

The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.

Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

The Israeli forces would expect to be confronted by about 12,000 Hamas fighters with arms confiscated from the Fatah faction that they defeated in last week's three-day civil war in Gaza.

Israeli officials believe their forces would face even tougher resistance in Gaza than they encountered during last summer's war against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

A source close to Barak said that Israel could not tolerate an aggressive "Hamastan" on its border and an attack seemed unavoidable. "The question is not if but how and when," he said.

Presumably, the Israelis will fight this war more aggressively than they fought Hezbollah last summer. The question is, assuming they defeat Hamas, what do they do then with Gaza? None of the options seem appealing. They could reoccupy it, or they could turn it over to Fatah, or they could set up a government more congenial to Israeli interests. Unfortunately, such a government is not likely to be popular with the masses.

Israel may rid itself of Hamas but they're not likely to rid themselves of the problems indigenous to Gaza.

RLC

Where the Preposterous is Normal

From time to time I've opined that when we focus upon and celebrate the things that make us different it divides us rather than unites us. When we pigeon-hole ourselves on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation we are no longer one nation but a loose confederation of competing interest groups tied together by nothing more than cultural inertia.

John Leo writes in City Journal about one particularly risible manifestation of the Frankenstein monster that our fascination with "diversity" has created:

Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women's studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, "Raza," is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later.

Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian-Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and Vietnamese commencements, and some talk of a Cambodian one in the future. Years ago, UCLA sponsored an Iranian graduation, but the school's commencement office couldn't tell me if the event was still around. The entire Middle East may yet be a fertile source for UCLA commencements.

Not all ethnic and racial graduations are well attended. The 2003 figures at UCLA showed that while 300 of 855 Hispanic students attended, only 170 out of 1,874 Asian-Americans did.

Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.

But the core reason for separatist graduations is the obvious one: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism. On many campuses, identity-group training begins with separate freshman orientation programs for nonwhites, who arrive earlier and are encouraged to bond before the first Caucasian freshmen arrive. Some schools have separate orientations for gays as well. Administrations tend to foster separatism by arguing that bias is everywhere, justifying double standards that favor identity groups.

As in so many areas of American life, the preposterous is now normal.

Read the whole sad story at the link. It's ironic that a nation which, at the prompting of the left, did so much to banish all forms of invidious segregation, is now, again at the prompting of the left, doing so much to reestablish it.

RLC

Stuck in the Cave

At the Claremont Institute Tom West reflects on the philosophical assumptions of the late Richard Rorty:

In the New York Times obituary Rorty is quoted as saying, "At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice."

Rorty saw his life as fundamentally political (fighting injustice on the basis of conviction, not knowledge) and not philosophical. At the age of 12, after all, one does not "know" the purpose of life; one has opinions or faith.

In his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Rorty wrote, "About two hundred years ago, the idea that truth was made rather than found began to take hold of the imagination of Europe." In other words, it was believed that human reason can discover nothing of importance about the world except for man's utter dependency on his contingent historical setting and circumstances - on "truth" that is "made" by man. The meaning of reality is determined not by reason but by will or command. Rorty's postmodern "philosophy" was perfectly consistent with his choice for the political life over the philosophic life, the life of faith or submission to authority over the life of reason.

In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Leo Strauss wrote that "it is in contrast to the essentially solitary philosopher that the truly good or pious man is called 'the guardian of his city,' phulax poleos." Rorty saw himself deep down not as a philosopher in Strauss's sense, but as "fighting social injustice." Rorty saw himself as a "guardian of his city" (the utopian "city" of today's liberalism). To justify his political-religious commitment, Rorty enthusiastically embraced postmodernism. One wonders, then, if postmodernism is nothing more than a sophisticated set of arguments which are meant to make men at home with what Locke called "the smoke of their own chimneys," i.e., with whatever authoritative opinions they happen to be shaped by, whether before or after the age of 12.

Plato's metaphor of the cave implies that most of us live most of the time blinded by the smoke of our own chimneys, stuck inside our contingent political, religious, and moral convictions. But for Plato, unlike Rorty, there is an escape. Philosophy, as Plato understood it, was the successful effort to ascend from the cave to the light of the sun, to see things as they really are.

Rorty's response to Plato was that there is no escape from the cave, and so there is no point in even making the effort. Rorty's position seems to have been anticipated in this 1948 remark of Strauss: "People may become so frightened of the ascent to the light of the sun, and so desirous of making that ascent utterly impossible to any of their descendants, that they dig a deep pit beneath the cave in which they were born, and withdraw into that pit."

This use of arguments borrowed from philosophers to deny that philosophy in the Socratic sense is possible or necessary is an old story. It is no accident that the philosophers whose teachings were most influential in the American founding held views closer to the Socratic understanding of philosophy as ascent from the cave (from the smoke of one's own chimney) than to Rorty's understanding.

Rorty was typical of many thinkers whose starting point is atheism. From that assumption everything Rorty said is understandable. Atheism leads one who follows its implications consistently, to epistemological and metaphysical despair. If there is no God then there is no truth worth knowing and no values which are any better than any other. We are chained in our philosophic caves, truth is whatever we want it to be, and there's no escape.

Ideas have consequences and no opposing pair of ideas is more gravid with consequences than atheism and theism, both for this life and the next. Richard Rorty's thought is an outstanding example.

RLC

Open to Amnesty

National Review's David Frum, like many conservatives, is open to discussing amnesty for illegals. Here's how he puts it:

I for one am absolutely open to considering an amnesty plan at any date after the FIFTH anniversary of the completion of border control measures, including an effective employment verification system.

I am open to an amnesty plan after the flow of new illegals has been halted and we have seen significant attrition from the existing illegal population.

I am open to amnesty after - and only after! - federal judges start assisting local law enforcement agencies that wish to enforce the law rather than forbidding them to do so.

I am open to amnesty after a US president demonstrates a willingness to respond with some modicum of respect to the immigration concerns of the American public - and is not looking for any transparent gimmick that will get him from here to the bill signing.

Hey, here's a thought: Why doesn't President Bush condemn the decision by federal judge Colleen McMahon to require the town of Mamoreneck, NY, to pay $550,000 to illegal aliens and create a center from which they may violate the immigration laws of the United States conveniently, publicly, and with impunity? If ever one legal case destroyed what little "confidence" remained in the seriousness of the US government on immigration, this was that case. And the president has said ... what exactly?

If we have learned anything from the hard experiences of the recent past it is that amnesty must be the last step in any intelligent program of immigration enforcement. When it is the first step, it rapidly becomes the only step - or rather, the first step to the next amnesty and the next after that.

We have learned, too, that the political leadership in Washington wants a radically different outcome to this immigration debate from that desired by the large majority of the American people.

Confidence? Well in the words of an expert on the subject (President Bush):

"Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

Amnesty for illegals is not something most people reject out of hand, but they do reject an amnesty that doesn't secure our borders and which puts illegals on a path to citizenship. There's no reason why the American taxpayer should be saddled with the enormous expense that illegal immigrants will impose on our nation if they are entitled to the benefits of citizens. Indeed, it has been estimated by some to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Politicians are learning that the times have changed. No longer can they do whatever they please without the American people knowing about it. With talk radio and the blogosphere they're under a magnifying glass and they don't like it. Too bad.

RLC

Zero-Tolerance Dopiness

We need to follow rules, certainly, and we need the stability that rules bring to a society, but some people seem to believe that mindlessly adhering to rules is some sort of virtue. For a certain kind of person rules serve as a substitute for common sense and thoughtfulness.

No where is this more evident, unfortunately, than among public school administrators. Consider for example the actions taken by these educators:

Fifth-graders in California who adorned their mortarboards with tiny toy plastic soldiers this week to support troops in Iraq were forced to cut off their miniature weapons. A Utah boy was suspended for giving his cousin a cold pill prescribed to both students. In Rhode Island, a kindergartner was suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school so he could cut cookies.

It's all part of "zero tolerance" rules, which typically mandate severe punishments for weapons and drug offenses regardless of the circumstances.

Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions.

"A machete is not the same as a butter knife. A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island state Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.

Some have long been aware of the problems of zero tolerance. For the last decade, Mississippi has allowed local school districts to reduce previously mandatory one-year expulsions for violence, weapons and drug offenses.

More recently, Texas lawmakers have also moved to tone down their state's zero-tolerance rules. Utah altered its zero-tolerance policy on drugs so asthmatic students can carry inhalers. The American Bar Association has recommended ending zero-tolerance policies, while the American Psychological Association wants the most draconian codes changed.

It is astonishing that these school districts have had to reword their rules so that asthmatics can carry inhalers and water guns. Why can't administrators figure out for themselves that these are not the sort of items that the rules were intended to prohibit? How much intelligence does it take to realize that an asthmatic kid is not the same as a drug dealer or user?

How can these people possibly think that suspending elementary school students for the infractions given above is a rational interpretation of a zero-tolerance policy? Perhaps there's more to these stories than what we're being told, but we hear so many of them that we have to wonder.

In any event, if there's not more to them then it's very hard to think very highly of the intellectual powers of these administrators. Indeed, its a good thing for them that school districts don't have a zero-tolerance policy for dopiness or a lot of educators would be out of a job.

RLC

Arrogant Indifference

As everyone knows by now Michael Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke "rape" case, has been found guilty of gross professional misconduct and disbarred.

Incredibly, the guy was so arrogant and so indifferent to the harm he was inflicting on the young men he charged, that he broke 27 of 32 rules of professional conduct in order to try to get his conviction. How he thought he would get away with it is beyond me.

Go here to see a list of his derelictions. It really is amazing.

Disbarment may be the least of his worries right now. No doubt the parents will press suit against him and take him for everything they can get. When next we see Mr. Nifong he'll be wearing a barrel and holding a cup on the street corner.

It's too bad there's not some way to disbar the Duke president, Richard Brodhead - who's now making himself sound like a victim - and the faculty members who went out of their way to pronounce these students guilty when there was no evidence against them except the completely unsubstantiated claim of an unstable black woman that she had been raped. In the intellectually arid precincts of left-wing faculty lounges any allegation of a minority against rich white kids is evidence enough, I suppose, but that seems likely to change after this sleazy episode. If so, then something good will have come from Nifong's abuse of prosecutorial power.

UPDATE: Duke University has settled with the families of the victims. The report doesn't name the amounts, but one wishes that they'll garnish the salaries of the faculty who were ready to hang these kids from the nearest tree to pay for it.

RLC

God and Family

Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution advances an interersting thesis in an article in Policy Review.

Most people, she says, assume that religion induces people to have bigger families. Eberstadt believes this gets it backward:

People who have larger families tend to be more religious. In Europe the decline in religiosity began after the decline in family size. In America where families still tend on average to be larger than their European counterparts religion is still relatively popular, though family size and religious popularity are both in decline.

To begin sketching an explanation of religious belief complementary to this one, one must answer this question: What could it be about the experience of the natural family that might make an individual more disposed toward religion than he is without it? Though merely a preliminary attempt at an answer, several lines of explanation suggest themselves.

You can read her reasoning at the link.

Oddly, Eberstadt omits perhaps the biggest reason why family-oriented people are more committed to church. This is the recognition by parents that children need all the moral instruction they can get and they're not likely to get it in any other institution in our society. If religion or the church should ever die it won't be too many generations afterward that the family will die as well.

Eberstadt makes a very good point when she notes that women are usually more invested in family than men and are also usually more invested in church than men. Churches are like a glue that helps hold families together. When churches are vibrant and strong the families which attend them are generally stronger. Women, on balance, are more conscious of their family's welfare and are much more likely to turn to the church for the help it can give.

Take away religion, as the secularist urges, and human beings soon come to see themselves as nothing more than autonomous random particles bouncing aimlessly through their meaningless lives until death puts an end to their empty, absurd existence. There's not much point to the commitments and sacrifices required to sustain a family in the cold, sterile world the secularist would create for us.

RLC

Junk DNA

Junk DNA is the term given to long segments of DNA that scientists had assumed for many years simply had no function. It was believed to be vestigial, like an appendix, or the result of duplication of genetic material that subsequent mutations rendered inoperative.

At the same time intelligent design theorists predicted that it would one day be shown that junk DNA wasn't junk at all but rather had some function in the organism. This was a clear case of a prediction that could be verified and would lay to rest the claims of critics that ID can't be empirically tested.

Now it turns out that the predictions have indeed been verified. Junk DNA does appear to be operative during early development.

Darwinians are now retroactively asserting that this is to be expected as a result of natural selection, but the point is that ID theorists had been predicting this all along, whereas the Darwinians, including Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins, were saying the opposite.

There's a story on this at Wired which, despite its annoying tics (the author insists on calling Michael Behe a creationist), gives a good overview of recent developments in this matter.

The folks at Uncommon Descent are indulging themselves in a little understandable gloating.

RLC

Waving the Wand

Newsweek's Sharon Begley pens an article which includes some lamentably uninformed criticism of the concept of Irreducible Complexity. She writes, for instance, that:

The intelligent design camp also argues that some biological structures are just too darn sophisticated to have evolved through random mutation and natural selection. They must therefore have been designed by an intelligent agent. In particular, since complex structures have lots of components, how could the components have been just hanging around for eons waiting for the final component to emerge? Think of it this way: if you don't already have all the other components of a mousetrap, why would you keep a spring around? A spring is only useful if you also have the base, the bar and the rest. This is the argument called "irreducible complexity," and it has proved very persuasive to the public.

Which brings us to the latest discovery in evolution: DNA needed to make synapses, the sophisticated junctions between neurons, in none other than the lowly sea sponge. Considered among the most primitive and ancient of all animals, sea sponges have no nervous system (or internal organs of any kind, for that matter), notes Todd Oakley, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But, he adds, they "have most of the genetic components of synapses."

He, Oakley and the rest of the team listed all the genes known to be operative in synapses in the human nervous system. They then examined the sponge genome. "That was when the surprise hit," said Kosik. "We found a lot of genes to make a nervous system present in the sponge."

What were genes for synapses doing in a sponge, which has no neurons and therefore no synapses? This is where the irreducible-complexity crowd makes a fatal error: they assume that whatever the function of a biological component (gene, protein, biochemical pathway . . . ) today must have been its function in the past. Maybe you noticed that my mouse trap example above wasn't very persuasive; even without a base and a bar, a spring can be a useful little device. So it goes with biological systems. For instance, of the 42 proteins known to make up the bacterial flagellum, 40 have been found to serve as ion channels or something else in bacteria. It is therefore perfectly plausible that they really were hanging around-serving some function that would have allowed evolution and natural selection to keep them around generation after generation-until they all got together and formed a flagellum.

This is called the wave of the wand method of scientific explanation. According to Begley all these proteins just happened to get together to make a flagellum, as if the fairy godmother waved her wand and magic happened. Begley omits mention, however, of the incredible obstacles the magic wand has to overcome in order for the proteins to find themselves located in just the right place, at just the right time, with just the right partner proteins with which to bind. She also neglects to tell us where the genetic plan came from which synchronizes the arrangement of these molecules in the flagellum, where the enzymes necessary for carrying the proteins to the assembly point came from, and what mechanism coordinated it all and how did it arise.

These and many more puzzles are supposed to be explained by just pointing out that some of the proteins found in a flagellum are also found elsewhere in the cell. It's like arguing that the construction of a jet plane in California can be explained in purely mechanistic terms without reference to any intelligent input by noting that many of the parts needed for the plane already exist and can be found in warehouses scattered around the state.

To watch a video of a flagellum being assembled and to get some idea of what Begley is leaving out when she says that the proteins just got together and assembled a flagellum, go here and click on movie #5. Note the timing necessary for the assembly and how the end cap protein constantly adjusts its shape to allow flagellar proteins to take their proper place.

I know incredulity is not an argument, but nevertheless - that such a system evolved by blind, random mutations of genes that established the production and placement of the proteins, the timing of their insertion into the developing flagellum, the precision of the amino acid sequence that allows the protein to take on precisely the correct shape and function, all strikes me as literally incredible. But perhaps I just lack imagination.

Begley continues:

So it seems to be with the genes for synapses. The sea sponge did not use them for their current purpose, but that doesn't mean the genes had no use. "We found this mysterious unknown structure in the sponge, and it is clear that evolution was able to take this entire structure and, with small modifications, direct its use toward a new function," said Kosik. "Evolution can take these 'off the shelf' components and put them together in new and interesting ways."

Sure. Just like parts scattered in warehouses around California, given enough time and enough tornados, floods, and other prodigies of nature to move them around, will eventually produce a fully assembled, fully functional fighter jet. People like Begley can keep waving the wand, but it just doesn't seem to a lot of us to have much magic left in it.

RLC

Bad Omen

What does this vote tell us about the chances of a revived immigration bill passing the house of representatives?

The U.S. House of Representatives this morning voted to withhold federal emergency services funding for "sanctuary cities" that protect illegal immigrants.

Anti-illegal immigration champion Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sponsored the measure, which he says would apply to cities such as Denver and Boulder. He was elated by its passage, which stunned critics and supporters alike.

The House passed the amendment, 234 to 189, with 50 Democrats voting in favor.

Tancredo has introduced similar amendments at least seven other times since 2004, but each has failed - often by wide margins.

The amendment comes as the Senate is poised to take up debate again next week on an immigration reform plan that some opponents criticize as giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Tancredo said he thinks his amendment is an indicator that the House would crush the reform plan if it passes in the Senate.

"If I were (Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi, I'd be asking if she could pass a vote on amnesty on the House side," Tancredo said. "If she lost 50 Democrats on this one, and she says she needs 70 Republicans to pass the immigration plan, this is an interesting indicator of things coming down the pike, and that the times, they are a-changing."

The more exposure this issue gets the more of a loser the immigrant amnesty bill becomes. It seems that until about a year ago most Americans were essentially in the dark about what was happening on our southern border, but gradually they've come to learn that politicians and businessmen have formed a cabal to work toward making Mexico a de facto 51st state. Most Americans find this outrageous, and they're turning up the heat on their legislators. Evidently, a lot of congressmen are beginning to feel a little warm.

RLC

Dying Schools

Yesterday I wrote that I thought the future of public schools was bleak. Then I came across this essay by Jonah Goldberg which says the same thing except with more evidence to back it up:

Here's a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?

Ok, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave any child behind.

The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run nearly all of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run the vast majority of the schools - particularly when it gets terrible results?

Consider Washington, home of the nation's most devoted government-lovers and, ironically, the city with arguably the worst public schools in the country. Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil ($12,979) but last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar go to administrators who, it's no secret, do a miserable job administrating, even though D.C. schools have been in a state of "reform" for nearly 40 years.

In a blistering series, the Post has documented how badly the bureaucrats have run public education. More than half of the District of Columbia's teenage kids spend their days in "persistently dangerous" schools, with an average of nine violent incidents a day in a system with 135 schools. "Principals reporting dangerous conditions or urgently needed repairs in their buildings wait, on average, 379 days ... for the problems to be fixed," according to the Post. But hey, at least the kids are getting a lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get "proficient" scores or better for a majority of students on the district's Comprehensive Assessment Test.

A standard response to such criticisms is to say we don't spend enough on public education. But if money were the solution, wouldn't the district, which spends nearly $13,000 on every kid, rank near the top? If you think more money will fix the schools, make your checks out to "cash" and send them to me.

Private, parochial and charter schools get better results. Parents know this. Applications for vouchers in the district dwarf the available supply, and home schooling has exploded.

As for schools teaching kids about the common culture and all that, as a conservative I couldn't agree more. But is there evidence that public schools are better at it? The results of the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress history and civics exams showed that two-thirds of U.S. high school seniors couldn't identify the significance of a photo of a theater with a sign reading "Colored Entrance." And keep in mind, political correctness pretty much guarantees that Jim Crow and the civil rights movement are included in syllabi. Imagine how few kids can intelligently discuss Manifest Destiny or free silver.

Right now, there's a renewed debate about providing "universal" health insurance. For some liberals, this simply means replicating the public school model for health care. (Stop laughing.) But for others, this means mandating that everyone have health insurance - just as we mandate that all drivers have car insurance - and then throwing tax dollars at poorer folks to make sure no one falls through the cracks.

There's a consensus in America that every child should get an education, but as David Gelernter noted recently in the Weekly Standard, there's no such consensus that public schools need to do the educating.

Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?

Milton Friedman noted long ago that the government is bad at providing services - that's why he wanted public schools to be called "government schools" - but that it's good at writing checks. So why not cut checks to people so they can send their kids to school?

What about the good public schools? Well, the reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government's special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good education. That wouldn't change if the government got out of the school business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind.

Indeed, there are still some good schools, but even these often provide a quality education to only the top half of their student population. Most of the rest of that population disdains education and makes it harder and more expensive to educate those who do value it. Courts and legislatures have made it exceedingly difficult to remove this academic deadwood from our schools, so these surly, disaffected young people sit in class or roam the halls and cafeterias, intimidating students and teachers alike, and poisoning the atmosphere and morale of everyone in the building.

The situation grows worse every year, but educational bureaucrats, sounding like Saddam's spokesman Baghdad Bob, keep telling us that there's really no problem, and anyway the problems can be solved if we just give them more money.

What schools need to do, but either cannot or will not do, is take back control of their hallways and classrooms and turn their buildings into places of civility where education, not stress or crisis management, is the top priority. Until they do, parents will continue to seek alternatives.

In other words, the biggest need of schools is not money, it's discipline. Without a disciplined student body (and faculty) no learning is going to take place in even the most handsomely appointed educational edifices. Yet schools cannot expel troublesome students without jumping through costly hoops and paying to have the student educated elsewhere. Nor can they easily establish dress codes, search lockers without probable cause, or physically reprimand the insolent thugs who understand only the language of superior force.

Students know they can say anything they please to teachers, no matter how demeaning, insulting, and vulgar, and all teachers can do is ship them off to the office where an administrator may or may not decide to impose some sort of punishment. Frequently the administrator just doesn't want all the hassle of disciplining the student so he simply returns him to class more impudent and uncontrollable than before. Little wonder some teachers wake up every morning dreading having to go to school and face their classes.

Or perhaps the administrator will impose a punishment like making the miscreant sit in a room with other boneheads for three days, as if this were some sort of deterrent for bad behavior instead of a reward. In more serious cases the wretch might be sent home for ten days, which is like throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.

Public schools should have a three strikes policy. If a student is sent to an administrator three times they're automatically suspended from school. If the student is suspended three times in a school year he/she is expelled. For good. And the taxpayers should not have to pay to have the incipient criminal sent to an alternative education facility. Either the family pays the cost of their student's education or the he would be required to enroll in some sort of distance learning program where he gets his education by computer at home where he's not a drag on the education of hundreds of others.

This would do wonders for teacher and student morale in many of our schools, but it won't happen anytime soon because the political left will oppose it. Instead, we will maintain the status quo, attempt to salvage our public schools by pouring more money into them, and watch helplessly as those who continue to attend these schools sink quietly into academic oblivion.

RLC

Immigration Vote Perilous for Dems

No Left Turns' William Voegeli explains why he thinks House Democrats will not support the immigration bill which the Senate recently allowed to pass into a coma. It will not surprise you that politics, Voegli thinks, is the chief motivation:

If Democrats really like this [immigration] bill, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel could pass it in the House on a party-line vote without a single Republican. (There are no cloture votes in the lower chamber.) Their reluctance to do so says something about the politics of immigration.

There are 232 Democrats and 203 Republicans in the House. Republicans need a net gain of 15 seats in the 2008 elections to regain a majority. As Michael Tomasky has pointed out, 62 Democrats represent districts that gave majorities to Bush against Kerry in 2004, while only 8 Republicans represent districts that Kerry won. Many of those 62 Democrats are freshman in districts that have been colored red on the electoral map for a long time.

Emanuel knows, in other words, that many of these Democrats are going to be vulnerable if they vote for McCain-Kennedy and then have to explain their vote next year in a campaign against a secure-the-border-first Republican challenger. Every Republican vote for McCain-Kennedy in the House will let one more vulnerable Democrat off the hook. They can vote against the bill, mollify their conservative constituents, and blame it all on Pres. Bush and Republicans. The Democrats get to have the bill they want, with all the political benefits and none of the political dangers it entails.

House Republicans who enjoy being in the minority have clear reasons to go along with this scheme, as do those who find the policy arguments in favor of the Grand Compromise compelling, or those who lie awake at night worrying about the Bush domestic legacy. If there are 40 such Republicans, then a revived Senate bill could pass the House. If, however, the Stupid Party is not quite stupid enough to sign onto this suicide pact, then Pelosi and Emanuel will either have to gamble their majority on enacting immigration reform with Democratic votes only, or shelve the whole question.

Wanna bet they'll find an excuse to shelve the whole thing?

RLC

The Quantum and Consciousness

Denyse O'Leary links us to this article on the quantum and this one on the intellectual inadequacy of materialism.

RLC

Cheap Labor

A local talk show host read this on air the other day. He claimed that it was written by a Californian of Hispanic ancestry, but I could find no corroboration of that. It doesn't matter, though, because the argument stands on its own merits. I've edited it slightly:

As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of.

I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title I school, meaning that its students average lower socio-economic and income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title I schools.

Title I schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll, but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten.

I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more have cell phones. The school also provides day-care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.

I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.

I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them "putas" (whores) and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.

Free medical, free education, free food, day care, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements?

To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they like their gardener and housekeeper, and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the true costs.

Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases, etc. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.

We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it.

Does anyone in their right mind really think [illegals] will voluntarily leave and return?

There are many hardworking Hispanic/American citizens that contribute to our country, and many that I consider my true friends. We should encourage and accept those Hispanics who have done it the right and legal way.

It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15, and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about "politically correctness" that we don't have the will to do anything about it.

Cheap labor?

Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?

� Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage.

� Consumers don't want expensive produce.

� Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.

But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor".

Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or $6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.

� He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.

� He qualifies for food stamps.

� He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.

� His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.

� He requires bilingual teachers and books.

� He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.

� If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI.

� Once qualified for SSI, they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense.

� He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.

� Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.

� He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.

� Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills.

� The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.

Cheap labor?

Whew. And people are called racist and xenophobic for wanting to do what's necessary to put an end to this?

RLC

$22.5 Million to Catholic Education - From Atheist

How bad must the public school system be if an atheist is willing to bequeath $22.5 million so that kids can afford to attend Catholic schools? Here's the story:

Philanthropist and retired hedge-fund manager Robert W. Wilson said he is giving $22.5 million to the Archdiocese of New York to fund a scholarship program for needy inner-city students attending Roman Catholic schools.

Wilson, 80, said in a phone interview today that although he is an atheist, he has no problem donating money to a fund linked to Catholic schools.

``Let's face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,'' Wilson said. ``Shunning religious organizations would be abhorrent. Keep in mind, I'm helping to pay tuition. The money isn't going directly to the schools.''

My opinion is that the future of public schools in America is bleak. As Denyse O'Leary says, public schools used to be the protestant alternative to Catholic schools and they inculcated protestant virtues and discipline into students. In the last fifty years, however, they have almost completely abandoned this role and in many places they are little more than holding-pens. There's very little discipline, very little, if any, moral instruction, and precious little education taking place, at least among the lower academic half of the school population.

Unless the trajectory of the public schools is miraculously reversed parents in the years ahead will increasingly turn to private schools for their children's education, leaving public schools to devolve into day care for the poor and dysfunctional.

If liberals think there's an unjust disparity between rich and poor today, wait until they see what it'll be like after a couple of generations from now. In twenty to forty years almost the only people who will be getting an education will be the children of families who have the means to send them to private schools, and the irony will be that since almost all the problems besetting public schools are due to liberal innovation and policies, beginning in the late sixties, the radical divide between socio-economic classes will be one of their own making.

RLC