Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

Christianity Today's Stan Guthrie tells us about the cool new summer camps for young atheists:

While tens of thousands of kids head out to Christian camps, Camp Quest is offering an alternative for those who take their summer recreation without God. About 150 young people attend Camp Quest programs in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, California, and Ontario, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

The founder, Edwin Kagin, is legal director for the group American Atheists. He said the atheist camp was founded after the Boy Scouts barred atheists and gays from leadership roles during the 1990s. "We wanted a camp not to preach there is no God," said Kagin, "but as a place where children could learn it's OK not to believe in God."

The Tribune interviewed several young campers in Ohio about their beliefs, or lack thereof. I don't think Christians have a lot to worry about. Here is a sampling:

"[Sophia] Riehemann notes that a secular perspective takes away childhood joys other kids have, such as Christmas. But that doesn't bother her. 'They have Santa Claus,' she said, 'and we have Isaac Newton.'"

Actually, Sophia, I hate to break this to you, but you have Santa Claus, and we have Isaac Newton.

Then there is Allison Page, who is described as a 9-year-old only child. Reflecting on the biblical story of Cain and Abel, Allison opines, "It just doesn't make sense. A brother wouldn't kill his brother."

Ah, the innocence of children. Just wait until you have siblings, Allison.

I wonder why parents would send their children to such a camp. Are they afraid that unless they innoculate their children against the disease of religious belief that their children will grow up to think it more reasonable and plausible than atheism? And who's telling these kids that it's not okay to disbelieve?

I wonder, too, about what sorts of activities the children engage in during their outings. Perhaps there are campfire discussions about why the youngsters' life doesn't have to have meaning in order to be meaningful and how they can be moral even though goodness doesn't exist. Maybe the young atheists are instructed by their counsellors on how human beings can still have dignity and worth even though they're nothing but sacks of blood, bone and excrement. Or perhaps there's a session on how to make up human rights when there really is nothing upon which to base them. This session is probably combined with one that explores how the universe emerged out of nothing all by itself since the two ideas are so similar.

Anyway, the camp sounds like enormous fun, and I'm sure the tykes come home excited about facing the world as atheists.

RLC

Morphing Myth into Truth

Bruce Chapman catches The New York Times in a bit of a fib about the power of Darwinian evolution to accomplish its alleged miracles:

On June 26 The New York Times ran an article by Douglas H. Erwin, senior scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, in which he stated as demonstrated fact the power of natural selection to create the eye. We now can see (forgive the pun) that natural selection "is the primary agent in shaping new adaptations."

His example? "Computer simulations," he declares, "have shown how selection can produce a complex eye from a simple eyespot in just a few hundred thousand years."

Really, Dr. Erwin? Where is your proof of this important fact? What computer simulations, published where and when and by whom? Just a citation or two will do.

One also might scoff at the exaggerated faith shown computer simulations in general, since they frequently cannot even predict next week's weather accurately. But leave that topic alone for now. Let's just have the evidence of published computer simulations referred to by Dr. Erwin.

One suspects that the Erwin claim is based on Dan Nilsson & Susan Pelger's study, "A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve,".... However, as Dr. David Berlinski pointed out a few years ago in Commentary, that paper contains no computer simulation whatsoever, a point obvious to anyone reading it and confirmed in writing by its senior author. It was Richard Dawkins who conveyed the widespread impression to the contrary, both in River out of Eden (1995) and The New Statesman of July 16, 1995. The thesis that there exists a computer simulation for the development of the eye is an urban myth that has built upon Dawkins' uncorrected error.

Details may be found in Volume 115, Number 4 of Commentary, April 2003, under the title "A Scientific Scandal."

The New York Times should retract Dr. Erwin's claim or substantiate it. So should Dr. Erwin. This isn't hard to research and the reply should not be fudged with the name-calling and hand waving that has become standard Darwinist dialogue. Either there are actual computer simulations that back the Dawkins/Erwin/New York Times assertion about evolution of the eye by natural selection, or there are not.

If a myth is repeated often enough, the Freudians have taught us, it soon becomes an accepted truth, even if it's false. But setting aside the lack of veracity to the claim that their are computer simulations that show the development of an eye from a simple eyespot, the even bigger problem, it seems to me, is that even if such simulations existed they would prove nothing about the power of undirected, purposeless, unintelligent, mechanistic forces to produce a structure like the eye.

A computer simulation is itself the product of an intelligent mind acting purposefully with a preconceived goal and purpose. If a computer can simulate the production of an eye, all that demonstrates is that an intelligence is capable of designing a complex organ. It demonstrates nothing about whether such an organ can result from blind natural processes.

RLC

Who Knows?

Amidst all the talk of global warming one question that needs to be asked more often is, if the planet warms would that be necessarily bad? If so, why?

Indeed, much evidence shows that the earth was significantly warmer in the past than it is now. If a warming panet should make the equatorial regions uninhabitable it may open up vast areas in Canada, Siberia, and Greenland to human habitation and agriculture. It may also increase rainfall and increase food production in other, currently more arid, lands. Who knows?

It's interesting that Al Gore, who famously screamed that George Bush had "played on our fears," is doing precisely that with his film An Inconvenient Truth. The earth may be warming, or it may not be. If it is warming it may be due to human activity, or it may not be, and if it's warming, whether due to human activity or solar fluctuations, the temperature rise may on balance be a good thing, or it may not be. How does Gore, or anyone else, know?

RLC

Assault on the Red Mosque

For those of you following the seige of the Red Mosque and the adjacent madrassa in Islamabad, Pakistan Bill Roggio gives some details of the army's assault on the compound and the killing of the leader of insurrectionists, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, early this morning.

The assault by Pakistani forces on the radical Islamist mosque known as the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, has resulted in the death of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the mosque's leader. Ghazi was shot and killed in the basement of the Jamia Hafsa, a madrassa adjacent to the mosque, along with upwards of 100 "militants." Last evening, it was reported Ghazi was captured. Ghazi had sworn he would not be taken alive, but would die as a martyr.

The Pakistani government confirmed Ghazi was killed in the fighting, however, his body has not been recovered. "He was spotted in the basement and asked to come out. He came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces," said Brigadier Javed Cheema, a spokesman for the Inter Services Public Relation branch. "The troops responded and in the crossfire he was killed. ... There are still certain areas to be cleared. The body is in the compound. The other militants were also killed in the fighting."

AllahPundit has more details at Hot Air, and Sky News has a helpful video.

RLC

The Man With No Base

The National Review's Byron York, writing in the WaPo, explains why he thinks Bush's presidency is all but over. The depressing thing about his column is that it may well be right. There's still much to admire about Bush but he seems determined to try to placate his implacable political opponents and to alienate his supporters.

York starts his essay this way:

Let's say you're a Republican president, a bit more than midway through your second term. You're scrambling to salvage what you can of a deeply unpopular war, you're facing a line of subpoenas from Democrats in Congress and your poll ratings are in the basement. What do you do?

You estrange the very Republicans whose backing you need the most.

That's precisely what President Bush has managed to accomplish during the two big political developments of recent weeks: the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence and the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform.

York explains why many conservatives think that Bush should have pardoned Libby altogether, but for the record, I think Bush did the right thing in commuting Libby's prison sentence rather than pardoning him. Libby was, after all, convicted by a jury of perjury. Nevertheless, the sentence was indeed excessive, given the nature and context of the offense, and Libby will still, despite the commutation, pay a steep price for his dissimulations.

At any rate, the President's stance on immigration was unnecessarily insulting to his Republican supporters who thought him to be flat wrong on the matter. It was another Harriet Miers moment and, coupled with his addiction to government spending and his inability to bring the Iraq war to a timely conclusion, a lot of his base is starting to shuffle away.

Here are three things he can do to start bringing them back: Show more visible and energetic leadership on the war in Iraq, get the border fence built, and pardon (or commute) the sentences of border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. It is beyond comprehension that a President willing to grant a full pardon to millions of people who snuck into this country illegally has nevertheless failed to pardon two law enforcement officers who may have exercised poor judgment in shooting at a known drug smuggler.

What message does this send to Bush's base, to law enforcement, or indeed to the nation?

RLC

Evo-Psych

Evolutionary psychology is the name given to the discipline which used to be called sociobiology. In short, it asserts that all of our basic behaviors and drives are programmed by our genes which have evolved these characteristics in order to increase the likelihood that they would be perpetuated into future generations.

Richard Dawkins first gained fame for his book on this theory called The Selfish Gene. At any rate, Evo-Psych has led to an outpouring of explanations for human behavior, some of them interesting, some of them ridiculous, and most of them impossible to subject to empirical test. The only limit to Evo-Psych explanations is the imagination of the person doing the explaining.

A good example of this is an article by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa in Psychology Today magazine. The authors make a number of claims, some of which are simply wrong and many of which are ludicrous. An example of the former is the claim that:

Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage.

This is not true. There's nothing in the Judeo-Christian tradition that suggests that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. Monogamy is not enjoined upon Jews and Christians because it's natural or normal but rather because it is just. Polygynous societies tend to treat women as property, monogamous societies tend to treat them as equals. In polygynous societies a few men monopolize the majority of women, in monogamous societies each man and each woman have a chance to marry.

Despite its flaws, however, the article is an interesting read. Even more interesting, and certainly more amusing, is Fred Reed's blistering critique of it. Reed's essay can be found here and the link to the article is at the bottom of his post.

RLC

Why We Must Stay

Michael Yon is an independent journalist embedded with American forces in Iraq whose dispatches from the war will someday earn him a Pulitzer, or should. His latest is worth reading in its entirety, but here are some excerpts:

The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the "al Ameriki tribe," or "tribe America."

I've seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift, many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people can-more or less and with giant caveats-rely on.

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it's not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don't want to stay here, and that many of us can't wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us.....

The argument that the war was about oil was always ridiculous. If we wanted oil we could have invaded Saudi Arabia or stayed in Kuwait. The idea that we would take on the world's third largest military for oil when we could have taken it without breaking a sweat from somebody else was an argument born of intellectual desperation.

Then Yon gives us this horrifying report:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As Lt. David Wallach interpreted the man's words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, "What did he say?" Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

It is absolutely unimaginable that human beings who profess to be doing the work of God would be so depraved and inhuman. But there's more. Yon describes another al Qaida horror in this dispatch. Read the whole report.

That's the nature of the enemy we fight, and it's the fate the average Iraqi will face if the Democrats and MoveOn.org have their way and we pull out too soon. How anyone with any sense of responsibility to their fellow man can just walk away and leave people to this kind of savagery and barbarism is beyond me.

Their reply, of course, is that we're there now and this sort of thing is still happening so how much worse can it be if we leave? I find that argument to be utterly specious. Everything we've seen about al Qaida's behavior suggests that if we leave the whole country will be turned into an abbatoir as the terrorists rush in to eliminate any and all who stand in the way of their total domination. If we stay we will gradually flush the barbarians from their havens, as we've been doing since the surge began, and save the lives of millions.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that leaving now would be the most heartless, cruel, and immoral thing our nation could do.

Before you say you disagree, please read Yon's dispatches at the links above.

RLC

On Being a Jerk

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has a confession to make: He is, he claims, a jerk. Despite this short-coming he makes a serious point about how not to be one.

I don't like being a jerk and I don't like making excuses for my nasty behavior. So I attempt to be nicer, more likable. I pretend to be genial and gregarious in the hope that I'll eventually become less of a jerk.

But it doesn't work. The more I pose and pretend that I'm something I'm not, the more I appear to be a hypocritical jerk.

The main problem is that I go about it all wrong. Instead of trying to be more likable I should focus on being more loving. As C.S. Lewis once noted, "Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbors is quite a different thing from liking or affection."

Read the whole thing. There's as much wisdom in it as there is humor.

RLC

Addressing Illegal Immigration

Yesterday the local Sunday paper ran the fourth column in the series they've invited me to participate in. I re-worked some material from earlier Viewpoint posts on illegal immigration, and the result can be read at the link or here:

Prior to last week's Senate vote the White House insisted that there was no alternative to the ill-fated immigration bill. It was that bill or nothing we were told by its supporters, but I doubt that most people believed that. I think the American people would've been willing to accept a two-stage measure which looked something like this:

The first stage would guarantee that a border fence be built and the border secured. This is the sine qua non of any serious immigration reform. There's no point in painting the house while the ceiling is still leaking. Once our borders are impervious to all but the most dauntless and determined, and once this has been duly certified by a trustworthy commission, then the situation of those already here could be addressed, but not until.

After certification, any subsequent plan for what to do with those already in the country illegally could be crafted to avoid the worst elements of amnesty and yet demonstrate compassion for people desperate to make a decent living. To that end, once the border is secure, I believe Congress would find public support for legislation that allows illegals to stay in the country indefinitely as "guest workers" with no penalty if the following provisos were also adopted and enforced:

1) Illegal aliens would be required to apply for a government identification card. After a reasonable grace period anyone without proper ID would be subject to deportation. This would be a one-time opportunity so that aliens entering the country illegally in the future would be unable to legally acquire a card.

2) No one who had entered the country illegally would at any time be eligible for citizenship (unless they leave the country and reapply through proper channels). Nor would they be entitled to the benefits of citizens. They would not be eligible to vote, or to receive food stamps, unemployment compensation, subsidized housing, AFDC, earned income tax credits, social security, Medicare, etc. They would have limited access to taxpayer largesse, although churches and other charitable organizations would be free to render whatever assistance they wish. Whatever taxes the workers pay would be part of the price of living and working here.

3) Their children, born on our soil, would no longer be granted automatic citizenship (This would, unfortunately, require a constitutional amendment), though they could attend public schools. Moreover, these children would become eligible for citizenship at age eighteen provided they graduate from high school, or earn a GED, or serve in the military.

4) There would be no "chain" immigration. Those who entered illegally would not be permitted to bring their families here. If they wish to see their loved ones they should return home.

5) Any criminal activity, past or future, would be sufficient cause for immediate deportation, as would any serious infraction of the motor vehicle code.

6) There would be no penalty for businesses which employ guest workers, and workers would be free to seek employment anywhere they can find it. Neither the workers nor their employers would have to live in fear of the INS.

This is just an outline, of course, and there are details to be worked out, but it's both simpler and fairer than the Senate bill. Those who have followed the rules for citizenship wouldn't be leap-frogged by those who didn't, and illegals who have proper ID would benefit by being able to work without fear. The long-term cost to taxpayers of illegal immigration would be considerably reduced, trouble-makers among the immigrant population would be deported, and American businesses would not be responsible for background investigations of job applicants. It would also provide incentive for American youngsters to get an education and acquire skills so they don't have to compete for jobs with unskilled immigrants willing to work for lower wages. The one group that would "lose" would be the politicians who wish to pad their party's voter rolls. They'd be out of luck.

Of course, this proposal won't satisfy those who insist that we send all illegals packing, nor will it please those who think the requirements for letting them stay are too stringent, but it seems a more simple, practical, just, and humane solution to the problem than most other plans that have been suggested.

To be sure, it entails a kind of amnesty, but it doesn't reward illegals with the benefits of citizenship as the Senate bill would have. The "amnesty" is contingent upon first stopping the flow of illegals across the border and also upon immigrants keeping themselves out of trouble while they're here.

If, however, the conditions for being allowed to work in this country sound too onerous, if illegal immigrants conclude they could do better elsewhere, they would, of course, be free to leave.

RLC

Suicide by Political Correctness

The Brits have discovered that at least eight radical Muslims work for their police, but they can't be fired. Apparently, the fear is that firing Islamists will cause offense in the Muslim community. I guess I'm just an unsophisticated redneck on these matters, but my response is to ask, "Who cares?" Anyway, here's the gist of the story:

Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda. Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Their names are featured on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff.

Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the "legal power" to dismiss them.

We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq. He is said to have argued that he was trying to "enhance" debate about the war.

Classified intelligence reports raising concerns about police staff's background cannot be used to justify their dismissal, sources said. Instead, the staff who are under suspicion are unofficially barred from working in sensitive posts and are closely monitored. Political correctness is blamed for the decision not to sack them.

Read the rest of this absurd tale at the link. Things have come to a pretty pass when the police force is compelled by political correctness to retain in their employ people who sympathize with those who commit the most horrid crimes against the people the police are sworn to protect.

The charge of racism makes even brave men cower, but it shouldn't. It's time the allegation cease to be taken seriously by intelligent people and that those on the receiving end of it greet it with the derision it almost always deserves. Scorn and ridicule are the best tools for defanging this rhetorical snake.

Let's worry about doing what is right and not about what will offend those whose umbrage sensors are set on a hair trigger. In England they can start by getting rid of any police employee who demonstrates a sympathy for terrorists and terrorism. If the mullahs in the mosques think that's racism they should be told that they're welcome to call it whatever they like but that it won't change a thing.

RLC

Is Iran Collapsing?

John Mauldin has an interesting piece of analysis of Iran's future at Forbes.com. He asserts that Iran, a country with the second or third largest oil reserves in the world, will be unable to export any oil within the next seven years due largely to its reckless economic policies and the amount of revenue it spends on subsidizing global jihad.

Read the essay for the details. Mauldin concludes it with this sentence:

"Iran looks to me like Russia did in 1988. They were in the process of self-destruction, although few recognized it at the time. Iran is a matter of time."

If the West could muster the will to impose sanctions on Iranian oil and cut off Iranian imports of gasoline, the government of the mullahs would likely collapse overnight without the need for a bomb to be dropped to destroy its nuclear facilities. Shutting off Iranian gasoline imports may well be the reason why we have moved three carrier battle groups into the Persian Gulf region, and may be sending a fourth.

RLC

Summer Reading

Summer is a great time to catch up on the books one has wanted all year to read but never had the time. So far this summer I've managed to finish three books each of which I enjoyed very much:

The Edge of Evolution by Michael Behe: Most of the hostile reviews of this book have been long on ad hominem and short on substantive criticism. That may be because one of the favorite criticisms of any book on intelligent design, i.e. "Whatever it is it's not science," simply doesn't stick to this one, so critics like Richard Dawkins are reduced to pathetic exercises in personal insult. Behe makes a strong case that random mutation is a very limited mechanism for producing viable genetic novelty. Those interested in following the controversy surrounding this book can find plenty of links here (scroll down). I also commented on the book here.

A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson: This 1976 tome by the prolific British historian has been sitting on my shelf for about fifteen years waiting for me to work up the resolve to commit to its 500+ pages. Well, last May I finally started it, and finished it at the end of June. Johnson directs much of his attention to the Roman Catholic church which means that we learn not as much as we might have liked about Orthodoxy or some of the pre-Reformation movements. The book is also almost obsessively concerned with highlighting the negative aspects of Christianity's history, and, of course, there's much ore in that vein to mine. There's also a great deal in its history that redounds to Christianity's credit, but Johnson doesn't seem much interested in exploring this terrain. Even so, I found it a rewarding read and would recommend it to anyone who has a some knowledge of European history and who wants to enrich his/her understanding of the development of the Christian church.

Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga: This past week I, my wife, and youngest daughter joined my oldest daughter and her two children on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas and thereabouts. The flight down and back, as well as a day spent on the beach at Castaway Cay afforded much opportunity to read, and I spent the time with Huizinga's classic biography of the 16th century reformer Desiderius Erasmus, who in several respects I found to be a man after my own heart. Erasmus was a scholar and lover of ancient texts who once said that "When I get a little money I buy books. If I have any left over I buy food and clothing." He was also a theological minimalist who was distressed by the violence wrought over what, to him, were trivial matters of doctrine. He was not without his faults, of course, but compared to some of his contemporaries, like Luther and Calvin, his life and spirit were estimable and every Christian would profit from learning a little bit about him.

Having completed the above I'm working now on Escape From Evil by Ravi Zacharias, Are the Gospels Reliable by Mark Roberts, and a reread of Del Ratzsch's Nature, Design, and Science.

Waiting on deck are Journey to the Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward O.Wilson and the formidable 800 pages of Joakim Garff's Soren Kierkegaard: A Biography. Unfortunately, that last one might be another book that sits on the shelf for fifteen years before I muster up the courage to take it on.

RLC

Davies Must Be Desperate

Physicist and science author Paul Davies tries hard to explain the incredible fitness for life of the cosmos without invoking either an intelligent designer or a multiverse:

We will never fully explain the world by appealing to something outside it that must simply be accepted on faith, be it an unexplained God or an unexplained set of mathematical laws. Can we do better? Yes, but only by relinquishing the traditional idea of physical laws as fixed, perfect relationships. I propose instead that the laws are more like computer software: programs being run on the great cosmic computer. They emerge with the universe at the big bang and are inherent in it, not stamped on it from without like a maker's mark.

Davies is much too smart to be proposing something like this as an alternative to an intelligent designer. If the laws of physics are to be compared to computer software then the question shouts itself at us: Who do you think wrote the software? Software does not arise from non-rational, non-intelligent sources. It doesn't just appear ex nihilo. It must be designed by a mind.

He goes on:

Man-made computers are limited in their performance by finite processing speed and memory. So, too, the cosmic computer is limited in power by its age and the finite speed of light. Seth Lloyd, an engineer at MIT, has calculated how many bits of information the observable universe has processed since the big bang. The answer is one followed by 122 zeros. Crucially, however, the limit was smaller in the past because the universe was younger. Just after the big bang, when the basic properties of the universe were being forged, its information capacity was so restricted that the consequences would have been profound.

Here's why. If a law is a truly exact mathematical relationship, it requires infinite information to specify it. In my opinion, however, no law can apply to a level of precision finer than all the information in the universe can express. Infinitely precise laws are an extreme idealisation with no shred of real world justification. In the first split second of cosmic existence, the laws must therefore have been seriously fuzzy. Then, as the information content of the universe climbed, the laws focused and homed in on the life-encouraging form we observe today. But the flaws in the laws left enough wiggle room for the universe to engineer its own bio-friendliness.

Gosh, this sounds positively marvelous. Information - which in our experience is always the product of mind - pervades the universe, constructing it in such an astonishingly precise way that life can exist in it. But, you must remember, it all happened totally by accident - like a million monkeys fiddling with the parts of a computer for billions of years somehow serendipitously producing a fully functional PC, only almost infinitely more improbable.

Somehow the universe in the first nano-seconds of its existence, "wrote" the laws that would subsequently govern it. This raises the question of what laws were operating in the early cosmos that enabled it to "write" the laws of physics as we know them and where did they come from?

Anyway, distinguished scientist Dr. I.D. Finetunski - no doubt an untenured university prof who doesn't want to lose his job - is unimpressed by Davies' theory and proceeds to shred it into little pieces here.

RLC

Among the Great Unwashed

George Packer, writing for The New Yorker, is appalled at the new Creation Museum in Kentucky. He can't believe people really believe what many Christians, including some of the greatest scientists in history, commonly believed up until about 100 years ago. He's especially upset that children might be brainwashed to accept this awful tripe:

Many of the quarter of a million people expected to visit the Creation Museum by the end of the year will be children. They will be indoctrinated into an ideology that systematically warps their understanding of the physical world and fills them with hostility toward the facts and concepts of modernity.

Well, one can hope. Modernity has certainly not been a uniform blessing as even Mr. Packer must know. At the very least, our children should be trained to have a healthy skepticism toward the assumptions of the modern era, particularly its metaphysical claims, and especially its simultaneous deification and debasement of man.

The Creation Museum, a combination of a natural-history museum and a Communist Party propaganda center, will help to arm and arouse the next generation of Christianists in the ongoing war against secular and scientific America.

Mr. Packer apparently believes that museums which indoctrinate youngsters in materialism and naturalism are just fine, but museums which challenge those worldviews are evil Communist propaganda centers for nefarious Christianists. Perhaps Packer also found Count Dracula lurking in the shadows of the Creation Museum waiting to pounce on the kiddies.

The mass of ordinary visitors were every bit as alien to me as the few Mennonite families in their nineteenth-century bonnets and long beards. We might speak the same contemporary American dialect, wear the same T-shirts, and eat the same fatty foods, but our basic beliefs are so incompatible that it's hard to know what political arrangement could ever satisfy us both.

Exactly so. Mr. Packer, unlike most of his fellow travelers on the left, evidently grasps the reason why there is a culture war in this country. There are millions of people out in the hinterland who don't think at all the way he and his friends do. The visitors to the museum believe, with good reason, that Western elites made a serious wrong turn when they abandoned traditional religion, and they don't want their children making the same mistake.

I had the sense of being a dissident surrounded by the lies of a totalitarian state, and I kept my reactions to myself.

A sentence like this leads us to wonder if Mr. Packer has a background in paleontology or evolutionary biology that enables him to recognize the lies perpetrated by the boneheads at the Creation Museum. But no. Mr. Packer is a journalist. A distinguished journalist, but, alas, just a journalist. Nothing in his background suggests that he has any expertise at all on the issues which he finds so offensive to his intellectual sensibilities. Nothing in his background suggests that he has any way of knowing exactly why the Young Earth Creationists are wrong.

Perhaps that's why he kept his reactions to himself.

RLC

Artful Insults

My friend Byron sends along a sampling of historical quotes that raise the act of insult to the level of art. In light of our post the other day on "Civil Discourse" I thought sharing these might be somehow appropriate:

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." -- Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." -- Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." -- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -- Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." -- Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." -- Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend .... if you have one." -- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one." -- Winston Churchill's response

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." -- John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -- Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." -- Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." -- Paul Keating

"He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -- Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." -- Mae West

"Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!" -- Lady Astor to Winston Churchill at a dinner party

"Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it!" -- Winston Churchill, in response

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." -- Oscar Wilde

Reading the quotes from Churchill, one can only admire a wit so quick and keen that it can, in a moment, think of such devastatingly clever retorts.

RLC

An Independence Day Meditation

I thought it would be worthwhile on this July 4th to rerun a post we did last year on this date. It's just as relevant today as it was then, maybe moreso:

In a time of terror and war, when the demands of security seem sometimes in tension with freedoms we've enjoyed for over two centuries, it's good to take a moment to reflect on what is at stake in the conflict in which we find ourselves.

The Islamic world, or at least that part of it that has embraced Wahhabism, is comitted to an eternal war against those whom they believe to be infidels. They see this as a war that Allah commands them to wage, and they believe themselves enjoined by God to fight until either the infidels are no more or until we have all converted to Islam. The Islamists believe that Allah has blessed them in this struggle and that he will ultimately give them victory. They have the resolve of men convinced that they walk in the will of God.

There is then no negotiating with them, no persuading them that they should give up the fight. Our only options are to fight them or surrender to them. Our choice is between constant vigilance and more 9/11s.

There are those who think that the Islamists are driven by oppression, or poverty or grievances against the United States for its policies in the Middle East, and they argue that if we could mitigate these conditions the Muslims would relent. This is a grave mistake.

The Islamic terrorists are driven by an amalgam of religious fanaticism, an inferiority complex, and hatred for Western societies which have historically surpassed them in every way. They see the war they are waging as the continuation of hostilities that failed at Tours in France in 732 and again at Vienna in 1683. After each unsuccessful invasion the Muslim tide receded in order to regather its strength for another assault. In other words, for them this is the resumption of a 1300 year long war that began within a century of the death of Mohammed and will continue as long as there are infidels left on the earth. We can be thankful that President Bush seems to understand this even if many who oppose him do not.

In light of the long struggle in which we are engaged, and the alternatives which are set before us, it is appropriate on this July 4th that we pause to reflect upon what it is we hold precious, what it is we fight for, and whom it is that we fight against.

RLC

Tall Order

Newt Gingrich has an excellent piece of analysis in the Washington Times on the challenges that global jihad confront us with and the type of leadership we need to guide us through the rest of this century.

Newt's right, unfortunately, that our current leadership has failed to really lead and do what needs to be done to defeat jihadism. President Bush's instincts have been good, but he has failed to explain to the American people exactly what is at stake and what is demanded of us. Good leadership requires good policies and the ability to articulate those policies to the people. Bush has certainly not done an adequate job of the latter, as his approval ratings show.

Gingrich lays out what must be done, specifically in Gaza, if we can have any hope of ultimately prevailing against those who are committed to our destruction:

The West will sooner or later have to confront several hard realities if it is to defeat its enemies.

First, terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah will have to be rooted out and destroyed. We do not today have the strategy, the doctrine or the techniques for defeating these kinds of organizations. In Iraq, after more than four years of effort, our current doctrine for population control and for effective local policing and intelligence is pathetic. To defeat ferocious committed and enthusiastically violent organizations like al Qaeda and the Taliban will take new energy, new drive and new determination on our part.

Second, the indirect strategies of propping up corrupt dictatorships have to give way to direct people-to-people help, securing private-property rights and direct financial assistance so we can improve their families' lives and they can be empowered to defend their neighborhoods from evil men. Hernando de Soto will be vastly more effective in designing this than all the bureaucrats at AID and the United Nations combined.

Third, the U.N. camp system of socialism with unearned anti-humanitarian charity has to be replaced with a totally new system of earned income and earned property rights to restore dignity and hope to every Palestinian.

Fourth, the current system of schools under both Fatah and Hamas control have to be replaced in their entirety with a system dedicated to genuine education and to teaching human rights rather than jihad and hatred.

Lastly, mosques can no longer be allowed to preach hatred and violence. The de-Nazification that seemed obvious in Germany in 1945 will have to be matched by a dehatred campaign today. The haters have to be defeated, disarmed and detained if the forces of peace and freedom are to win.

These steps are only the beginning, but the gap between our current pathetic reaction to the Hamas victory and the requirements of victory give some indication of how far the West has to go before it starts winning. In Churchill's phrase, we are not even at the end of the beginning. However, we may be at the beginning of recognizing that this will be a real war.

Churchill was not only a man of powerful intellect who possessed a clear-eyed view of human nature and realities, but he was also a soldier and fighter who believed in sacrifice and honor and refused to accept retreat or surrender. So where do we go to find another like him?

Certainly not the Democratic party which acts as if it is the fault of the U.S. and Israel that the jihadis hate us and that if we'd just retreat to our borders, and the Israelis would march themselves into the sea, peace would break out in the world. The Democrats offer us Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Edwards. No Churchills there.

Perhaps the Republicans have someone who can lead us through the perils which lie ahead, but if so, the opposition media will try their best to ensure that his candidacy is stillborn. What's clear is that we need someone with Bush's instincts, Clinton's intellect and articulateness, and Reagan's ability to inspire.

Pretty tall order.

RLC

Return of the Eagles

Here's a great news report. The bald eagle, our national bird, is soon to be removed from the endangered species list:

In 1967, there were fewer than 500 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. The national bird was in danger of disappearing from much of the United States.

Though the eagles were never in danger of extinction-the vast majority, over 100,000, were in Alaska and Canada-Americans understandably wanted to protect a national symbol.

Today, the bald eagle is doing well. On June 29 the bald eagle in the lower 48 states will be officially removed, or delisted, from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Yet delisting the bald eagle from the ESA has been a decade-long process that shows how even the most well-intentioned policy can be overcome by politics and ulterior motives.

The bald eagle should have been delisted in the early-to-mid 1990s, when it surpassed the original goal of around 3,000 pairs in the lower 48 states. Since then, the population has continued to grow at the very healthy rate of about 8 percent annually, reaching at least 9,921 pairs in the continental U.S. this year.

Along the Susquehanna River near where I live, it's hard not to see an eagle these days. They are majestic birds, literally breathtaking to watch close-up, and their return to the lower 48 states is a wonderful success that makes all our lives richer.

Photo by Howard Eskin on Susquehanna river near the Conowingo dam, MD Bald eagles concentrate here in numbers that often reach into the fifties during the winter months.

Perhaps we might attach some metaphorical significance to the comeback of our majestic national bird on this July 4th.

RLC

Human Evolution

If the conclusions drawn from this research are correct, if Homo erectus was forming settlements 400,000 years ago, then on what basis is H. erectus considered a different species from H. sapiens (us)? It takes a lot of intelligence, and probably spoken language, to do what this article claims H. erectus was doing. Biologically speaking two populations are of the same species if they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. We don't know that H. erectus was "reproductively isolated" from H. sapiens and the evidence now is that it probably wasn't. Isn't it about time that we recognized that the evolutionary paradigm for human evolution needs to be revised:

The accepted timescale of Man's evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus - mankind's early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe - began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.

The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity's cultural development.

Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.

Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.

He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.

The implications for our knowledge of human evolution - and of our intellectual and social beginnings - are "profound" and a "staggering shift", he said.

Yes, they are. The implications are that however long humans have been on the earth they have been the same species they are today.

RLC

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Michael Egnor continues his reflections on the problem that consciousness (or mind) poses for materialistic naturalism. The materialist argues that mind is merely an epiphenomenon of matter. Mind isn't a structure, the materialist insists, it's merely a word we use to describe the function of the brain, like the word "digestion" is simply a word used to describe the function of the stomach.

Egnor maintains that the materialist position is more than just a metaphysical stance. It's a hypothesis which can, in fact, be empirically tested.

The irony is that whatever the results of the test turn out to be the materialist loses.

You can read Egnor's argument here.

RLC