More evidence that intelligent design evolved from young-earth creationism

Panda's Thumb has some more evidence showing that the book Of Pandas and People, the subject of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, was originally explicitly creationist. Parts of the book by Nancy Pearcey were originally published in the Bible-Science Newsletter, which was one of the worst young-earth creationist publications in terms of poor quality of arguments and evidence. For example, it published Tom Willis' "Lucy Goes to College," which originated the bogus creationist claim that Lucy's knee joint was found 2 km from the rest of the skeleton. This is a bogus claim I've been trying to get creationists to stop making for the last ten years, with few successes.

Baylor student accused of terrorism for parody email

After an offended student, Christopher Stone, walked out of an Intro to Neuroscience lecture when the professor stated that the Bible is not a science textbook, he sent an email to his classmates explaining his actions. Another student, Cody Cobb, sent out a parody email, which led to a visit from the Baylor police. The latter student has blogged the details. Via Pharyngula.

Companies under fire for religiously themed ads

A number of companies have recently come under fire for using religious themes in advertising. Sony and Ikea both ran ads in Italy which have been criticized. Sony's ad for the Playstation showed a boy wearing a crown of thorns with the slogan "Ten Years of Passion." The crown of thorns was made of the geometric shapes that make up the Playstation logo. Ikea ran an ad saying "There's no religion anymore" to advertise that their stores are open on Sundays.

In Ireland, bookmaker Paddy Power ran a billboard depicting the Last Supper, with poker chips and cards, featuring the slogan "There's a place for fun and games."

Chang, the Mystical Warrior

Apparently several members of the Bush family (including Florida Gov. Jeb and former President George Sr.) are advocates of a mystical conservative warrior named Chang. Here's Jeb, in a speech naming Marco Rubio as Florida Speaker, after which he gave Marco a golden sword:

Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society. I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.

The Guardian article linked above also quotes Bush Sr. periodically asking during tennis matches, "Should I unleash Chang?" (Thanks to Jack Kolb on the SKEPTIC list for this item.)

Add this to the accumulating evidence for dispensationalist Christians that George W. Bush is the Antichrist, along with his former Health and Human Services director's support for RFID tags in humans. (Tommy Thompson, like Bush, is a born-again Christian who supports "faith-based" organizations getting government money.)

How many of the most-banned books have you read?

As per Majikthise and Pharyngula: How many books on the American Library Association's most-challenged books list have you read? Apparently having children gives you quite an advantage that I lack (I haven't read any of the children's books published after the 1970s). Looks like about 25 of them for me, though some of them I didn't read all of (like William Powell's idiotic and dangerously inaccurate The Anarchist Cookbook). I'm also not sure I actually read all of the Judy Blume books listed here. Do I get any bonus points for being a contributor to a challenged book (though not one of the top 100, it was actually removed from a South Carolina public library in response to complaints)?

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Ashley Smith shared meth with captor

It's now come out (via her book) that Ashley Smith, who was taken hostage by Brian Nichols after his shooting at an Atlanta courthouse, shared her crystal meth stash with her captor in addition to sharing with him about Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life. She says in her new book that she stopped using drugs the night before she was taken hostage, and that it was her hostage experience that persuaded her that she was a drug addict.

Rates of religious belief correlate with homicide, abortion, early mortality, and STDs

Pharyngula cites and quotes from a study in the Journal of Religion and Society which observes that

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.

Why "Conservatism" is Meaningless

I don't know precisely what to call this. A sad irony? A mindless contradiction? Sickening?

Here we have a guy with a "Commies aren't cool" T-Shirt on, and yet he is engaging in the most brazen form of state-worship I could imagine - short of blowing the president, perhaps.

This is why I can't stand conservatism - "neo" or "paleo", it doesn't matter.

I wouldn't be surprised if this gentleman is in favor of anti-price-gouging legislation "for the good of the country", or that he thinks "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is one of the amendments to the Constitution. It's these kinds of mindless drones that give anti-communism a bad name.

"6 Months to Nukes"

When I read this article today, I couldn't help thinking to myself that this tune sounds a little bit familiar. Then I remembered President Bush saying this just slightly more than 3 years ago:

Today Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program, and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.

"Dee doo doo doo, dee da da da" is all I want to say to you.

Home values and CPI

Don Boudreaux, chairman of the George Mason University Department of Economics, weighs in - tangentially - on the housing bubble with this entry in his blog at www.cafehayek.com.

Willamette Week goes through government leaders' garbage

After the district attorney, police chief, and mayor vocally defended the Portland Police Department's practice of going through people's garbage (arguing that it becomes public property when placed out on the street for pickup), reporters for Willamette Week went through their garbage. Suddenly, the police chief and mayor changed their positions (though I suspect they were legally right in the first place, and fools for not using shredders). The mayor went so far as to threaten legal action, even though all they got was her recycling (her trash was up against her house on her property, and they chose not to risk trespass). Only the DA responded without being upset.

They got the police chief's credit card number, found that his wife is a member of Focus on the Family, a summary of his wife's investments, an email to the mayor about his application to be police chief of Los Angeles, a cigar stub, and "a handwritten note scribbled in pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe."

March of the Penguins: Argument for Monogamy and Intelligent Design?

Michael Medved recently wrote that the documentary film "March of the Penguins" "passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing." Andrew Coffin writes that the movie makes "a strong case for intelligent design." These claims have been rightly ridiculed all over the blogosphere.

Ed Brayton notes that there are gay penguins, as does the Reason magazine blog.

Pharyngula notes that the penguins stand by while their eggs or children are eaten, that they get new breeding partners each season (so it's serial monogamy without long-term commitment), and their practices could only have been designed by a cruel and heartless designer.

Carl Zimmer points out that if we are going to take lessons in morality from the animal kingdom, there are even more horrific examples available, which is also pointed out in the book and British TV series Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation.

The Panda's Thumb provides a similar list of links to the above, and there are enjoyable and informative comments at each of these sites, such as one commenter on Zimmer's site who pointed to this article about Boston's lesbian swans.

The variation of deviant activity in nature is greater than it is within the human species alone. I look forward to seeing an Intelligent Design theory that attempts to explain it.

Do-it-yourself satellites

This CNet article talks about the CubeSat program, which allows students to design, build, and launch their own satellites into low earth orbit (240-360 miles). The cost is about $40,000 to build and $40,000 to launch; the article quotes a Stanford professor calling these the Apple IIs of satellites.

Phoenix City Council election

City Councilman Mike Johnson was re-elected in my district (District 8) with more than 70 percent of the vote, defeating Al Sharpton protege, teenage Reverend Jarrett Maupin. Maupin, who was featured in a recent New Times article which leveled charges of institutional racism against my alma mater, Brophy College Prep, was apparently a Republican when he was at Brophy. Today he heads Sharpton's National Action Network in Arizona and has a show on Air America in Phoenix.

UPDATE (December 22, 2006): A lot of the links above have gone bad. Confirmation that Maupin was in the Young Republicans at Brophy can be found on this Brophy graduate's blog.

"Under God" is unconstitutional in Sacramento, again

The Supreme Court left the door open for Michael Newdow to bring his case again, since they threw out his case on the basis of his lack of standing (he is not the legal guardian of his daughter) and refused to address the specifics of his case. The District Court rightly relied on the precedent of the 9th Circuit's previous ruling in his case, and entered an injunction against Elk Grove schools to prohibit the use of the "under God" language. Newdow refiled the case including two additional families as plaintiffs, where there's no issue of standing to allow the case to be thrown out on a similar technicality this time.

This will go back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will most likely rule the same way (thus making "under God" unconstitutional throughout the 9th Circuit), then get appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we will find out what John G. Roberts really meant when he said (near the end of Day 2 of his confirmation hearings) that he believes that the First Amendment protects the rights of nonbelievers as well as one religious sect against another (unlike Scalia, who said in his dissent in McCreary that government can endorse belief over nonbelief):

DURBIN: Let me just wrap this up by asking -- I think you've alluded to this -- is it your belief that what we are trying to establish in the constitutional protection on the exercise of religion is not only to protect minorities, religious minorities, but also nonbelievers?

ROBERTS: Yes.

The court's decisions in that area are quite clear.

And I think the framers' intent was as well; that it was not their intent just to have a protection for denominational discrimination. It was their intent to leave this as an area of privacy apart -- a conscience from which the government would not intrude.

Pentagon drafts new policy on first-strike use of nuclear weapons

Today's Washington Post reports that

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The new doctrine has not yet been approved by Rumsfeld.

Designed for Iran and North Korea?

Rehnquist remembered, Rashomon-style

Clint Bolick and Alan Dershowitz have written two very different--yet only occasionally directly contradictory--rememberances of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Bolick, in a piece distributed by the Goldwater Institute and published in the Arizona Republic, describes Rehnquist as a conservative, moderating influence on a liberal court, advocating state's rights, school choice, and presiding over a court that has been "usually (though less frequently lately) siding with individual liberty over state power." Dershowitz, on the other hand, in a piece published on the Huffington Post, describes Rehnquist as a bigot who enjoyed racist and anti-Semitic jokes, who defended the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson as a law clerk for Justice Jackson, and who began his legal career as a Republican thug who obstructed African-American and Hispanic voters at Phoenix polling places.

Bolick gives a more nuanced view that actually addresses more of Rehnquist's work on the court (though less than I would have expected), while Dershowitz emphasizes evidence of Rehnquist's personal character which mostly derives from before he was on the Supreme Court. I was surprised that Bolick didn't mention some of the recent cases (such as Raich v. Ashcroft and Kelo v. New London) where Rehnquist voted for liberty (and was unfortunately in the minority).

Yet I have no doubt that there is accuracy in both descriptions. Bolick has in the past seen people as defenders of liberty who have done much to destroy it, such as former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Dershowitz alternatively takes courageous stands in defense of liberty and crazy stands which oppose it.

One area where I was less than impressed with Rehnquist was on religious liberty, specifically for nonbelievers. He (like the majority) went the wrong way on Elk Grove v. Newdow (the Pledge of Allegiance "under God" case) and (unlike the majority) the wrong way on the McCreary County v. ACLU case (Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courtroom which included a written statement that the display was "in remembrance and honor of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Ethics").

Space Opera in Scientology

Tomorrow's featured article on Wikipedia is "Space Opera in Scientology Doctrine," a very well-written entry that tells you pretty much all you need to know about Scientology's cosmology. Oh, the entry on Xenu is also a good one.

NOAA bulletin about Hurricane Katrina

The apocalyptic-sounding NOAA bulletin that was released Sunday morning which Brian Williams described on tonight's Daily Show may be found online here.

The REAL Truman Show

Chris Roller's web site (www.mytrumanshow.com), aside from being a guided tour through a profoundly disturbed--though mostly harmless--mind, is immensely entertaining. He updates it often, so it pays to visit it every couple of months.

Especially funny is the clip he's provided of a segment (an amazingly long one, considering the ridiculous subject matter) that some Entertainment Tonight clone did on his $50,000,000 suit against David Copperfield for "using his Godly powers" without his permission. You can tell they were skirting along the edge of blatantly making fun of him.

Roller must be a real trip to be around.

Paramedics in New Orleans

Here's an interesting first-hand account of trying to get out of New Orleans from a couple of socialist paramedics from San Francisco who were attending a conference. This account is critical of both the federal and local responses, but praises spontaneous individual order that kept being stifled by the officials.

Bush Disaster

Here's a great photo, via James Redekop on the SKEPTIC mailing list.

New Orleans catastrophic hurricane disaster plan

DHS/FEMA hired a Baton Rouge company called IEM to develop a "catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for New Orleans & Southeast Louisiana" in June 2004. IEM has now edited this from their website, apparently in embarrassment.

After this was pointed out in the blogosphere, IEM restored the press release.

Internal criticism

Denyse O'Leary (an appallingly bad journalist who blogs in favor of Intelligent Design) wrote that she won't become an internal critic of ID because she opposes the "academic fascism" of ID critics. I find that an appallingly weak justification for being a propagandist. Internal criticism tends to strengthen the quality of arguments and evidence, not weaken them--unless, of course, what you're advocating is false.

Evolution and economics / Daily Show and Evolution

A couple of items from Pharyngula:

1. P.Z. wonders, citing John Allen Poulos, why there's not more affinity between economists and evolutionists. What, no mention of Rothschild's Bionomics? There are some interesting comments on this Pharyngula entry, worth the read.

2. The Daily Show is going to settle the evolution vs. creation battle once and for all with a special called "Evolution Schmevolution: A Daily Show Special Report," filling the "Daily Show" timeslot during the week of September 12. This should be a good one...

Empirical argument for billboard restrictions

The Economist reports on research from Steven Most at Yale into a condition called "emotion-induced blindness" (apparently similar to and named analogously to motion-induced blindness). Most's research shows that gory and erotic images trigger a condition which lasts for two-tenths to eight-tenths of a second during which the viewer fails to process what they see immediately afterwards. This is attributed to "an information-processing bottleneck in the brain when it is presented with important stimuli," the categories in question being relevant to avoiding dangers and reproductive success, respectively.

This phenomenon provides grounds for an argument that some content-based restrictions on visual material in certain locations (e.g., alongside highways) are justified on the basis of their potential to cause physical harm. (Or that liability should be incurred for resulting accidents by those who put such material in place.)

Photography and the Occult

The NY Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibition on "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult" that appears quite interesting.

Bush vs. Reality: New Orleans disaster

Pharyngula points out this latest example of a Bush statement at odds with reality:

George W. Bush, September 2005:
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Scientific American, October 2001:
"New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far."

It seems to me there's at least as much blame to place on Louisiana state and New Orleans city government as on the feds for this one.

The Words of the President

I've become somewhat of a fetishist regarding President Bush's speeches, starting from around January, 2002, up to the present day. They're all available at the White House web site in transcript form, with many also in video. For some reason I find it fascinating to watch his mind-numbingly repetitive talking points evolve over time. It's also fascinating to read his stammering--faithfully transcribed, mind you--when he gets asked that oh-so-rare "tough" question by one of the press corp. Reading his words like that, you wonder (or I do, anyway) why his lies weren't immediately clear to everyone.

So I found this little Daily Show video essay particularly enjoyable. It's hard to imagine a more brilliantly funny parsing of presidental spin. I keep half-seriously wondering when that show is going to get yanked off the air and Jon Stewart sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Theo's Prophecies

As President of the Internet Infidels, I occasionally get some interesting email. Yesterday, a guy named Theo sent me a list of three prophecies which he claims will prove the existence of precognition. Here are his three prophecies:

1. Between September 7-9 (probably on the 8th) police make dramatic news of a crazy person doing something. Lots of drama. Alot of people die.

2. On September 17 someone of importance is assasinated in the middle east. This may be related to terrorism.

3. On September 26 thousands of people are forced to relocate due to either tornado or earthquake.

I objected that the first happens every day somewhere, and asked him to make it more specific--by "crazy person" did he mean someone who is mentally ill? Is the crazy person causally related to the people dying? How many people is "a lot" (at least give an order of magnitude).

On the second, again I said that is nearly a daily event. Could he narrow it down to a country, or the field in which the assassinated person is "someone of importance"?

On the third, I asked whether the date is the date of the event or the relocation, and whether he could be specific about the nature of the disaster and add a geographic location.

Theo also claims that he predicted Hurricane Katrina "right to the day" (but didn't say which day of the multi-day event he predicted), and in a later email said that he had made three similar prophecies (presumably one of them was about Katrina) last month, but he hasn't yet given me the specifics. I'll press him, and post here if I get the details. (Update: Theo says I can find the information in AOL's "Christian Living" chat room logs, but didn't provide them. In response to my request for specifics about what he said, he says "Several weeks ago I predicted that a major catastrophe would occur in this country and that thousands would be forced to relocate between August 29-30." What happened to a "right to the day" prediction of a hurricane?)

In my response, I asked him if he could be more specific, in which case I'd be willing to entertain a $500 wager on it with him (with proceeds donated to the charity of his choice if he gets all three right, and donated to the Internet Infidels otherwise). He told me that I don't understand how precognition works and that my demands are unrealistic.

How to Stop Worrying...

Ever been walking along somewhere, when suddenly you wonder, "If the bomb went off now, would I be vaporized instantly, or would I be one of the unlucky ones? Could I 'duck and cover' and be okay?"

Well, wonder no more! This site has come to your rescue!

Now you can know your minimum safe distance from, e.g., a 50 Megaton thermonuclear detonation. In my case, if we assume the Capitol building as Ground Zero, then out here in Reston, VA, I'm just outside the "widespread destruction" radius, but well within the "3rd degree burns" radius. Uh oh.

Or, just for fun, plug in the historical values for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki fission blasts (a quaint 0.15 and 0.22 Mtons, respectively).

You'll gain a new appreciation of Seizo Yamada's picture of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud, taken at about 7 km.

Or, perhaps even better, this shot of the "Buster Dog" troop test in Nevada, 1951. These guys are roughly 13 km away.

"What seems to be the trouble, soldier? You look a little bit worried."

The Discovery Institute misleads the New York Times

That they are primarily involved in a PR effort is made clear by the way they declare victories where they've lost, as they did with regard to science standards in New Mexico. This time, they suckered the NYT into repeating the falsehood.

Things the Intelligent Design camp doesn't talk about

An excellent article at The Panda's Thumb about the evolution of the blood clotting system and the flagellum (Michael Behe's examples of "irreducibly complex" systems) that ID theorists don't seem to want to discuss, as evidence that ID advocates aren't practicing science.

The Price of Oil

In spite of the evidence that Lew Rockwell seems intent on sullying the name of Ludwig von Mises with his antics, I can't help but admit that the Rothbard/Hoppe Institute's daily articles are almost always interesting and informative.

Today's article, on oil's price fluctuations over the past 35 years, I found especially good.

My favorite quote is this reminder of the beneficial role that speculators--selfish money-grubbers, all--play in the health of a complex economy:

Of course, all speculators render a useful service by conveying the market’s evaluation of scarcity. Their activity also evens out price movements over time: in the case of oil, they buy now, when prices are lower (in their expectations), in order to sell later, which will bring future prices down. As usual, greed is useful.

Another thing that caught my eye was the graphical representation of the fall of oil's price in 1986, when the OPEC cartel collapsed. It would also seem--at first glance anyway--that they've never really been able to get their act together again.

One of the Notes for the article links to this fascinating page that goes into the details surrounding Julian Simon's bet with Paul Ehrlich. Definitely a fun read. We need more Julian Simons.

Intelligent Design and Genetically Engineered Bioterror

Blogger Tacitus makes a weak argument that Intelligent Design may be good for science. What caught my attention is a comment under the heading "Andromeda Strain" by user Irving, who writes:

Certainly normal statistical models "do not work for such things." That's the point of the research...to find new models and frameworks.

...and we may not need to rely on merely statistical models either.

Let me put this another way in a story perhaps more attuned to the Tacitus readership...

In a period of 24 hours 3,000 people contract an illness in Omaha and die mysteriously. The country is alarmed. Medical teams have recovered bodies and isolated the causing organism. In the White House Situation Room the President ask the CDC...Is this the result of a chance mutation, or is this organism evidence of a specifically, genetically-engineered biological warfare attack? What does this organism tell us?

Perhaps an important question...one with critical, far reaching impacts to National Security.

Now some are saying that it will forever be impossible for science to know...perhaps to prove. That development of such an analytical framework is impossible (and a waste of even any effort). That such an analytical process must forever remain a mystery of the universe and that if you can't prove it, there is zero value in any effort to even try to develop a framework that might establish design as--likely. And others are saying that any effort to do so is not even science at all.

I suggest that that is dogmatic fundamentalism from the Evolution camp which is willing to trash the foundational elements of science in a "means justifies the end" battle in the Culture Wars. I contend, that while it may turn out to be impossible, or at least beyond our current technology...that the efforts to distinguish design from nature can have positive impacts in society, and at the least, is legitamite scientific research.

Irving has created a straw man--I don't think any opponent of ID would argue against the possibility of methods (forensic or otherwise) for determining whether human beings--entities whose behavior we can study--are responsible for observed effects. What is questioned is whether it is possible to have methods which determine whether a deity--an entity whose behavior we cannot study, and who is capable of bringing about any possible state of affairs--is responsible for observed effects. (Now, certainly if such an entity existed it could bring forth evidence conclusive of its own existence, or at least fully persuasive of its own existence, but in the absence of its desire and action to make itself known, such evidence is not forthcoming.)

Irving also fails to notice that ID theorists are arguing for a position which amounts to the elimination of the distinction he argues science should be able to discover. According to ID theorists, biological organisms are produced by the interventions of an intelligent designer, not chance. (Presumably most ID theorists also maintain that even nonbiological things are the product of the interventions of an intelligent designer, so the distinction between natural and artifact disappears, leaving only the distinction between divinely created artifact and non-divinely created artifact.)

Opponents of ID oppose teaching ID in science classes (as do the major advocates of ID, now that the Dover, PA case looks like it's going to go against them) because ID has yet to put forth any theories or methods which have been shown to work. If ID can put forth methods that can distinguish between design and non-design--or between human interventions and natural occurrences--then they will have something that's scientifically useful. But it doesn't look like the advocates of ID are even working on such methods.

An Atheist's Self-Deception

I can see that the combination of work, calculus, and an attempt at having some sort of a life is going to make it difficult for me to contribute to this blog all that often, but after Jeff Downs put up the link to a Greg Bahnsen article on Tom Wanchick's The Good Fight, I just had to say something.

Calculus can wait a few minutes while I riff on some of the stupider things in the article.

[The Apostle] Paul asserts that all men know God so inescapably and clearly from natural revelation that they are left with no defense for their unfaithful response to the truth about Him.

Well, then, if Paul said it, it must surely be true! After all, it's in the Bible! This argument is so bald-faced in its arrogance (what the hell does Paul--or anyone else, for that matter--know about my beliefs and mental states?) and stupidity (it assumes, after all, what it is trying to prove) that it makes me want to... well... beat up a Christian fighter!

Christianity can be shown to be, not 'just as good as' or even 'better than' the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience.... Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself. [my emphasis]

The first question that comes to mind, here, is: Which "Christianity"? The second one is this: If the whole of logic and epistemology is dependent on the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave 3 days later, then wouldn't it be possible--in fact inevitable--that people engaged in philosophical or scientific inquiry would be able to derive Jesus's sacrifice entirely independent of exposure to the Bible? Has such a thing ever happened in the history of science or philosophy? And how, then, does one account for the inconsistencies between the 4 gospels?

The article goes on for a considerable stretch after that. It would be tiresome to attack the rest of it, since its foundation is entirely baseless, anyway. Calculus awaits.

Carnival of the Godless

The twenty-first Carnival of the Godless may be found here. The P.Z. Myers (Pharyngula) contribution is particularly noteworthy.

Truth and Bullshit

Here's an interesting essay/review from The New Yorker about Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit, Simon Blackburn's Truth: A Guide, and the difference between liars and bullshitters (the former care about the truth but want to lead away from it, the latter have complete disregard for truth).

Hoppe on "Libertarian Society"

An, uh, interesting excerpt from Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed:

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal."

For inquiring about some of the implications in that paragraph, John T. Kennedy, of the No Treason blog, became the first non-spammer to be kicked off the Mises.org (sic) blog. You can read that exchange here.

Now, what is one to make of the Hoppe quote above? Should we, like the more rabidly dogmatic Rothbardian "paleo-libertarians," put it down to simply unclear writing that has been taken out of context anyway? Or should we, like John T. Kennedy and some of the other "atheist individualist left-libertarians," count it as incontrovertible proof that Hoppe is a Nazi in disguise? (The "Nazi" accusation is more an insinuation than an actual bald assertion, to be sure. In fact it's often hard to figure out just what it is, exactly, that those no-treason and left-libertarian guys are saying.)

Now, I'm no fan of Hoppe. I think he's an embarassment to the Austrian school of economics (his "Argumentation Ethics"--which would undoubtedly get him laughed out of any college sophmore's philosophy class--are a perfect example of the depth--or lack thereof--of his thinking). But I'm not entirely sure yet whether we should really throw Hoppe out with the bathwater.

I want to take a little time and really dissect what Hoppe said, in as unemotional a way as possible, since that didn't happen on the "Mises Institute" blog. So, let's begin...

In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism.

What Hoppe seems, at root, to be saying here is that it would make no sense to join in a covenant with a person or persons who question the legitimacy or the very idea of covenants. I'm with him so far, but he loses me here: "...no one is permitted to advocate...democracy and communism." Can someone please explain how that follows logically? And what exactly is meant by "[not] permitted"? Hoppe, at least in this quote, doesn't provide much of a clue, though what he implies doesn't seem too pleasant:

There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal.

What I find most damning to the Rothbardian position that Hoppe is simply describing the optimal arrangement for the functioning of stable and thriving voluntary private communities is the phrase "libertarian social order." I could understand a community getting together and mutually agreeing to kick out anyone who didn't tow the Rothbardian line, but isn't that a far cry from "[t]hey will have to be physically...expelled from society"?

You've Got Mail--From the Pope

German Catholics who can't attend a talk from the Pope can get it text messaged to themselves.

The CatsupCrapper

MIT remains on the forefront of robotics and AI with the CatsupCrapper.
Thanks to Jerry Goodenough via the SKEPTIC mailing list for the link.

Richard Bejtlich reviews Extreme Exploits

Richard Bejtlich of Tao Security (a prolific Amazon.com reviewer) has posted a four-star review of Extreme Exploits, a book I did the technical editing on.

"Teach the Controversy"

The Intelligent Design movement recently hired a PR firm to promote its views. A critic using the name "vax" commented on this at William Dembski's (the "Isaac Newton" of ID) blog:

Why would ID need to be ‘promoted’? If it is science (as claimed) then the arguments and facts and should speak for themselves.

If it’s just a public relations exercise combining religion, politics and deceptive scientific-sounding jargon, however…

This led to a response from "Dan":

It is obvious why it needs to be promoted…because it is being shut out by radical left wing atheists that control the science ciriculum at the University level who control the peer reviewed journals. Also, ID is young and it has the right to have time to germinate or die-with a fair hearing.

To which "vax" replied:

Sounds a bit paranoid to me - not all scientists are “radical left wing atheists”! In fact there are scientists across the globe of every political hue and holding every creed who understand that all living beings on this planet share common ancestry. How do they know? Because the hypothesis has stood up to intense scrutiny over the past 150 years. ID is not science because there is no hypothesis; nothing that could be falsified.

“ID is young and it has the right to have time to germinate or die-with a fair hearing.”

Yes, that’s true, but ID proponents don’t want a fair hearing. They want to bypass the hypothesis, the data collection, the analysis, the peer reviewing etc, and have their ideas placed straight into school science classes! To be taken seriously by the scientific community (radically left wing or otherwise) perhaps the discovery institute would be better off using their money to fund actual research rather than for hiring a top public relations firm (Creative Response Concepts).

The result of this exchange? William Dembski bans "vax":

Vax, you are repeating the party line. I have no patience for it here. You are out of here. –WmAD

More commentary may be found at The Panda's Thumb blog.

Christian apologetics

Christian apologetics is the process of defending the faith by constructing rational arguments to particular predefined doctrinal conclusions, and presenting those arguments as a defense of the faith. The presentation of the arguments may either be in the form of monologue (such as through printed publication in a forum where no responses are possible) or in a dialogue, where the only acceptable outcomes are a revision of the steps of the arguments, but not the ultimate conclusions.

Sometimes, those involved in the process do not even bother to make sure their apologetic arguments are consistent with each other--they engage in a shotgun approach of throwing out whatever arguments they can come up with to reach the desired conclusion.

Examples of this may be found at Tom Wanchick's "Christian Fighter" blog. In a discussion of an essay by agnostic Paul Draper, Wanchick notes that "Draper goes through the arguments for theism and naturalism and finds the cases for both worldviews equally compelling. Neither has a clear advantage." But then, Wanchick notes:

But Draper makes an interesting statement at the end of his contribution. He notes that this situation with the ambiguous evidence appears almost intentional, as if humans have been given enough evidence to find God, but not enough to give them utter certainty regarding His reality.

In other words, the fact of the ambiguity is itself evidence for theism. But Wanchick goes on to say:

I disagree with Draper in that I think the evidence for theism is far greater than any purported evidence for naturalism. Thus, theism is the clearcut winner. But even granting his point, the Christian position comes out on the winning end.

Wanchick's has thus argued that (a) there is an ambiguity, which is evidence for theism, and (b) there is no ambiguity, theism is the clearcut winner. He clearly favors (b), which is inconsistent with (a), but he seemingly still wants to advocate (a), since it leads to a conclusion he favors, as he writes that "the apparent ambiguity seems intentional," implying that he thinks the ambiguity exists. (Thanks to Einzige for pointing out this last point--Wanchick really does seem to advocate both contradictory positions.)