From Whence Came We?

From an early age, I wondered about where I came from. Perhaps it is why fairy tales failed to trigger my imagination, for I took such things literally and soon discovered that they didn’t live up to logical expectations.

Take Santa Claus. I loved Christmas more than any holiday as a child, and of course I believed in Santa as all young children do who are raised in the Christmas culture. I was not plagued by older siblings who told me it was phooey, or well-meaning adults who “slipped” and brought that belief to a screeching halt.

No, I figured it out all alone, one pre-Christmas night as I lay in bed, trying to will Christmas morning a more hurried arrival. Ignore all that problem of reindeer and flying, and just how much any sleigh could carry, the time just made no sense. Even with a full 24-hours across the globe, Santa would have to travel faster than fast to visit all us boys and girls. I started with just my own “neighborhood” of about one square mile. Why it would take at least an hour, but even it only took 15 minutes to visit a few hundred homes, why there was the city, and then the state, and then all the states, and then ALL of Canada, and then Europe, and even those awful Ruskies had children, and that was a BIG country too.

Well, that is one story, but eventually that grew to all the other questions that needed answering about how the earth came to be, and how the moon came to be, and how humans came to be. I systematically investigated all these things from childhood to adulthood, getting more and more sophisticated answers surely. I became a student of sorts of astronomy and later cosmology, and paleontology. I read books about these subjects for fun, marveling at great mysteries.

I became of course no authority, and understood only up to a point, for sooner or later much of this turns into mathematical equations far beyond my learning. But I got the scientific answers for the most part. As I matured, and developed some sense of a spiritual life, God entered the equation as well, and over the years I discerned that these are really two questions. One demands reproducible proof; the another a philosophical elegance of argument.

Of course the argument rages on, with fundamentalists entering where they do not belong, and atheists peppering them with irrefutable logic at most turns. Both are wrong, because as I said, one does not really relate to the other except when one (the fundamentalists) demands that the Bible be used as a scientific text, and the other (the atheist) insists that all believers are fundamentalists.

Science, in the area of cosmology does posit that there may be unknowables, forever unknowable. Brain scientists question the ability of the brain to know itself in all it’s complexity. There may be limits therefore to human knowledge. If there are, then God has the place of “unmoved mover” as Aristotle suggested.

Fundamentalists fundamentally don’t understand or don’t choose to understand things like the 2nd law of thermodynamics for instance. Sooner or later, in an attempt to sound scientific, a fundamentalist while draw herself up and point out that Darwin’s evolutionary theory violates it. Now, if pressed, she would not have a clue as to why, but she read it somewhere in one of her “how to stump your evolutionary friends” and prove Darwin wrong. Of course it does not, because entropy only works in closed systems. The earth is not a closed system because it is being bombarded continuously with solar radiation (energy).

This is only their second best argument, for their first is always, “if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” Well, my fine airhead, it’s because we didn’t evolve from monkeys, and nobody ever said we did, except another uninformed fundamentalist. First, we are related to apes, not monkeys (and there is a rather big difference), and second we are not evolved from them, but actually share way way back, a common ancestor. We both branched off in different directions (picture the fork in the road), one leading to life in the savannah and mountains, another covering the earth and developing bigger and more complex brains.

Why do I rehash all this?

Why because there has been a significant breakthrough as of late. And it’s worth your time to learn about it. The results are far from in, and it may not prove to be what the author thinks it may be. But it has the scientific world of evolutionary biology and probably physics as well in a tizzy as other research facilities begin the wonderful process of devising experiments to test out the new hypothesis.

As people like myself, and hopefully you as well know, evolutionary theory does not purport to explain “how life began” a common mis-argument of the fundamentalist sort. Such a thing is called abiogenesis. Evolutionary theory has to do with how species change over time due to natural selection. However, a rather smart guy has offered an explanation of “how life began” in a sense, and it involves that 2nd law we talked about earlier.

He posits, by way of mathematical equations, that replication of cells may be a response to infusions of energy (the sun) into the primordial soup. In other words, life arises as a methodological answer  to the desire to “even” out or reduce the heat of the energy. Because the 2nd law suggests that energy dissipates across the spectrum of the system seeking equanimity, replication of cells actually fosters that law England claims.

If this is true, then it is the underlying foundation of Darwin’s theory, and of course it means that life is what is to be expected in the universe, and not at all a rarity.

Of course, not everyone agrees that Jeremy England is right.

That is what science is all about. There is and will be, as I said, plenty of testing and experimentation to determine whether his hypothesis is correct. But it’s exciting news to anyone who, like I, is always wondering and asking “how and why”.

*Do read the article. It’s not that long.

 

Running Smack Dab Into the First Amendment

You would think that it is a simple enough concept, but a whole lotta people seem pretty confused about it when you get right down to it.

We live in a country that guarantees us the right to say what we wish.

Except that there are limits.

The most famous of which is “you don’t have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater”–unless of course the theater is actually on fire.

You can’t go around trying to encourage people to riot either.

People on the Right think that if you are denied a creche in a public place that that is somehow a denial of their freedom of speech and/or religion, which it definitely is not.

There is such a thing as appropriate venue. It’s probably not a good idea to set up an outdoor symposium about the benefits and joys of orgies next door to an elementary school.

But this is really not so much about what is free speech as it is about venue.

A day or so ago, I learned that my Alma mater, MSU was hosting  a “Creationist Forum” of some sort, put on by some bunch of loons who believe in that stuff. I fired off an angry letter stating my objections and got the obligatory form letter the next day, reminding me that a “public” institution has an obligation to provide a venue for “ideas” whether we like them or not.

Well it’s not like I expected anything else.

But it did get me to thinking. While it’s always easy to hide behind the “Black rule” –“I can’t define pornography but I know it when I see it”, it fails as a critical argument of just when a university is properly within its rights legally and ethically to grant or deny access to its campus for ideas that are distasteful to rational beings.

So I propose to set out at least some standards here by which we might intelligently discuss the issue. There is no particular order.

1. Is it a proposed scientific claim or wholly an opinion? While being the latter is not always disqualifying, I think opinions need not be provided a forum in most cases. You are entitled to yours, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthy of my spending money to insure that you can pontificate. There are exceptions and we will discuss them later.

Assuming we say yes, it is a proposed scientific claim then the following analysis suggests itself. We can start with evolution versus creationism since that is what opened this issue in the first place.

One can argue successfully I think that creationism is not any sort of science at all. It is in reality a rather strange concoction that arises not out of any particular desire by its adherents that it be true on the merits. Let me explain. Those people who believe in creationism and espouse it, are folks that have chosen to designate a book, the bible, as some inerrant creation by God, fashioned by human hands, but containing nothing God does not want out of it and everything He does want in it. It is purposefully designed to be readable by the average person without training or guidance. It is meant to be taken quite literally as the words themselves are commonly understood by the reader.

This of course all works out magnificently for the holder of said belief, since an entire world view is thus created about all manner of things in life, to suit one’s own interpretation of what words and sentences mean, and if pressed that one’s beliefs about say slavery or homosexuality, or women’s role in society is questioned, one need only point out that it is God’s opinion and they are simply in obedience. In other words, the bible can be used as a defense to charges of racism, homophobia, plain old greed and stingyness. Creationism only becomes important because if they give in on this then they may have to admit that they really are racists, homophobes and a whole host of unsavory characteristics they can now foist onto the shoulders of a God who “must have a good reason” for that.

Such self-serving beliefs of course need not be given any credence at all. Similarly those hangers on who “preach” and write books, and create homeschooling curricula, create therapies to “cure” the biblically ill, and so forth join these true believers.

Quite simply, their theories are entitled to no weight because they have everything to gain and everything to lose in holding their “belief”.

2. If there is actual “scientific” inquiry into this belief, who is paying the bills? This is clear of course in some manner as to “evolutionary” research that is funded by religious organizations, but is more clear in the area of climate change.

It is now apparent that some 97% of the scientific community world-wide (whose business it is to understand the subject) are agreed that the climate is warming and that it is doing so at an alarming rate AND that human beings are largely responsible for this surge. These 97% are employed in divergent locations, and under many different auspices, but many are university professors who are doing pure research.

If you follow the money as to the deniers, you find that they are all pretty much being paid by fossil fuel companies. They are being paid to find that the real science is faulty and that it is therefore a good idea to continue to spare no expense environmentally to locate and retrieve the oil and natural gas where ever it may be found.

Again, there is little reason to given them a hearing when they patently have a desired outcome.

3. Is there a general consensus in the scientific community? We do well to remember that many abrupt and shocking turn arounds in science start from one person who has a completely unorthodox explanation of the same events as is the norm. Therefore, that alone is not a disqualifier. What it then requires is a fair examination of the new theory, and its supporting documentation. We are aware that there are probably difficulties getting funding when you are going against the grain, and there is probably difficulty in getting published if your ideas are  inopposite as well, but truth does win out and if you have the facts, people start to listen.

It seems to me that where there is a general scientific consensus, and where the opposing “science” has been examined and found lacking, no university should feel the least obligated to provide a venue for strange and bizarre ideas that are clearly self-serving and are merely trying to “dress” themselves in scientific jargon. Groups who promote creationism, denial of climate change, and so forth should not be granted university services to promote their voodoo.

This is not a denial of freedom of speech. Said groups are free to rent halls anywhere and from anyone who wishes to make a buck and then spout their nonsense to willing fellow-travelers. But a university should not lend its prestige and imprimatur to wacky flat-earthers and gravity deniers in the name of providing an open forum for the exchange of “ideas”. These are not ideas, but self-serving clap trap.

4. Opinions. Here I speak of ethical issues arising from philosophic concerns. At one time, slavery was accepted throughout the world. Yet someone certainly sought to examine the issue for the first time. Absent, (at that time) any scientific evidence, it became a philosophic discussion on the nature of humanity. Something quite similar might be said about “woman’s place” at some long ago time. While these were more opinions than scientific inquiry, they deserve, it seems to me, consideration by being given a forum even when they suggest a quite radical change in thinking.

One might argue that this opens the door to the KKK being given a meeting hall on campus, or other hateful groups whose agenda is to place blame and/or punishment on this or that group.

I think that is rather easily addressed by a simple question–is the new radical idea one that is inclusive, welcoming to more people, fair, equality driven, broadening in its scope of who or what is acceptable? This errs on the right side I think rather than opinions that would give rise to exclusiveness, sexism, racism, or other limiting factors.

Surely there will be issues that run a fine line. I understand that some seek to bar Bill Maher from speaking at Berkeley’s commencement because of his remarks about Muslims. I’m not sure how I feel about that, though I surely disagree with Mr. Maher’s remarks. No one says the decisions will be easy, but I think that the above analysis makes the decisions at least reasonably defensible. After all, we must believe that there is a better answer to all of our ethical questions. If not, then why bother with civilization at all?

What say you?

 

 

 

More Patriotic Bullshit

Tags

fundamentalists, right wing nuts

Seldom does there rise up an example of abject stupid of such gargantuan proportions as a fellow named Todd Kincannon. It is perhaps, should be we prone to speculating on God’s designs, His way of showing the rest of humanity how not to do it.

Todd was once upon a time executive something or other in the GOP of South Carolina, and grad-u-ate, of the law school of the University of South Carolina. That second part should give parents of graduating seniors pause. Somehow that university failed to weed out the chaff and gave this fool a degree.

By now, you no doubt have heard of Todd. He is an equal-opportunity coconut of the first order. In fact, as I said, he may well be the prototype of all nut jobs.

In response to Ebola, Todd suggests that we just “humanely” put them down. He has also tweeted that we need to deal with ISIS pretty much as Columbus dealt with the “filthy savages” he found in Merika–exterminate them. He suggests that African-Americans are good but Africans are savages with AIDS and Ebola, and our President is the latter. There is more, but who cares. The official GOP is pretty much disowning the guy who seems intent on encouraging the scorn.

I rail about stupid, but not stupid in general. Nobody can be faulted for being stupid if that is their fate based upon too few brain cells. I mean one can’t control such things and the most one can hope in such a case, is that the few that exist can get together and counsel their owner to keep his beak clamped firmly shut to notify as few as possible of the infirmity of being rock stupid.

What I rail at is stupid that is willful and deliberate (if there is a difference between willful and deliberate, otherwise I’m repeating myself). There is no excuse for it. Yet people hide behind “two things you don’t discuss in polite society are politics and religion” and other such trite phrases. Another is being “too busy”. Well aren’t we all? If you want to take that route, then you by definition leave the field to those who are so rich that they have nothing but leisure or so rich they have a vested interest in things being done their way. Neither is a good thing, yet this is what we find today.

Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, was recently interviewed by Stephen Colbert and had this rather profound remark to make:

“A thoughtless citizen of a democracy is a delinquent citizen of a democracy.”

Unlike other forms of government, we get the government we elect, we get the government we demand, we get the government that we choose. If we choose to opt out by our failure to learn the truth about all the issues that confront us, if we fail to vote, we are unworthy of the land in which we live. We are not patriotic, we are nothing but ignorant “feel-good” loafers who are so involved in our own lives that we can spare none for the country we claim to love so much. Patriotism is a good deal more than thanking veterans for their service, singing national anthems, and critiquing the correctness of Presidential salutes upon exiting Marine One.

Opinions don’t count, opinions based on actual facts do. And actual facts are discerned through a sifting process of reading and THINKING about a host of sources, determining what can and cannot be given credence. It does not involve looking for arguments that support what one really wants to be true because it suits one’s worldview, religious needs, or pocketbook.

We have to laugh at the likes of a Ted Cruz, who when confronted with the fact that SCOTUS was refusing to take up a number of circuit cases involving same-sex marriage laws, determined that this inaction constituted some gravest of all forms of judicial activism. We have to shake our heads at the continued doomsday reports from the hate groups like Family Research Council who beat the drums of impending Armageddon should people of the same sex be allowed to marry. Mike Huckabee has threatened to leave the GOP if crazier heads like himself don’t prevail and carry on the fight against this god-less movement.

The FACT is that this idiocy of fundamentalism is not something that can be traced to the apostles of our Lord. This brand of fundamentalism with all it’s “inerrancy, creationism,anti-climate change, and young-earth-ism” is of recent vintage, being born in the early 60’s, about the same time that a periodic Spiritual awakening was occurring among the Boomers. Most went the way of exploring an expansion of God, encompassing other faiths, and new approaches, but the reactionaries withdrew and made God smaller and easier to fit inside their tiny braincases.

The FACT is that homosexuality is not by any means “prohibited” in the bible, and anyone who suggests it is, is engaging in the same literalist interpretation that is  incorrect and utterly unsupported by biblical experts around the world. The literature is extensive and profound on the issue and only awaits the fundamentalist’s courage to actually read it. Contrary to their claims based on nothing, learning truth does not destroy God, but rather it makes God really God, and not some human caricature designed to make one feel okay about ones miserable self.

We are awash in a sea of stupid these days. And for reasons that should shock and astound us all, the stupidest of all seem to seek office. Like minded stupid people find solace across the Internet, finding compatriots of ignorance and losing what should be their isolated “otherness” mantle that used to keep them securely locked in their garrets tormented by a world that rejects their insanity. Such people don’t procreate, since in small town America their numbers are still so small that they seldom by chance run into someone as stupid as themselves and join forces. At least pre-Internet that was true.

Over sixty-percent of 18-20somethings in the GOP are okay with same-sex marriage. What does that tell ya? It should tell you that you need to rethink your stupid, but of course, being stupid you won’t. You’ll rail that this generation of kids just wasn’t properly disciplined with the belt as you were, and thus has grown up without real morals.

Real morality I hate to tell you, has to do with respecting other people and their rights. But you won’t learn that any time soon, since you protect your thin-skin by surrounding yourselves with others like yourselves and then telling the biggest lie of all–most people are like us. Well, they aren’t.

You have no guts, no integrity, no moral compass, and not a modicum of intelligence. You  are unable to hold up your end of a “debate” and are reduced to coded ad hominem attacks to replace the arguments you cannot make. You prefer to believe what makes your tiny simplistic world work for you, and damn the vast rest of humanity who must be wrong-headed, atheistic, commie, socialist, fascist, feminist, racist, lazy and dogs. Half of the above you couldn’t define if put to the test. You wave the flag and tout how “blessed” you are and “share if you love God too”. You question everyone else’s faith while not following a single dictate of the man you claim as your savior.

And still, and still when it all comes down to it, you have to try to cheat to win an election. So where are your hordes of followers? The two thousand who showed up for your “family values” annual lovefest? The three who showed up at your border protests? Or was it the 2 semis and 4 pickups who showed up for your Washington protest? You can try to suppress Democratic votes, but the result will be the same as last time. We will vote in greater numbers than ever before.

And you will lose, and lose and lose until finally you all retreat to your basements and your hoarded food and weapons while we continue to create a world that is fair for all. We have a long way to go, but at least we are moving forward, and you can only slow things down, never stop it.

Stew in that!

 

 

I AM My Sister’s Keeper

Tags

citizenship, editorial, humanity, poverty, the religious right, women's rights

As with so much with me, a number of widely disparate notions traverse my synaptic receptors before it dawns on me–the greater issue–that is.

Thus it starts with the insanely stupid Hobby Lobby decision, brought to us by five Catholic men who have probably long-since stopped depositing seed in the fertile womb of any woman married to or otherwise.

A perusal of but a few of the rags that pass for “right-wing” blather turns up gems such as “you want to have your fun and make me pay for it”, “keep your legs together or pay for it yourself”, or this upside-down logic, “if you can’t afford contraception, you can’t afford to have a baby anyway!”

Hey there brain-dead XY’er, umm, it seems that you fundamentally misunderstand some rather basic stuff. One,  if women are using contraception to “have fun” well guess who they are having fun with? Second, contraception coverage under an insurance plan is not a “gift”, it is a benefit owed to the employee in lieu of a bigger paycheck. Taxpayers have nothing to do with it bozo. Third, umm, under this theory why are you still getting your I-can’t-get-it-up-without-ya Viagra in your insurance plan? If you want to have fun, pay for it? And fourth, uh, contraception is the way you avoid a pregnancy you cannot afford stupid.

I am post-menopausal, yet this fight is my fight. For I am a woman. For I am a human being.

Some many years ago, when I still worked for a living, I had a work colleague. “B” as we shall call him was an African-American male and law schooled at U of M. “B” was inordinately proud of his U of M alumni status and wore a lapel pin announcing his alumni status virtually every day.

One day, “B” wandered into the law library (which contained a lunch room at one end) where a number of us (mostly women, Black and white) were discussing affirmative action and how we all were grateful for the opportunities it had given us as both women and women of color to advance in various professions. Added to that were the men and women before us who had labored on our behalf to ensure that we as young women had more opportunities than their generation.

“B” was asked if he too were grateful for the boost given him in his pursuit of a better life. He exploded in a vehement denial of being such a recipient. He got where he was, “by his own talents and abilities” and was beholden to no one for his success. We all were shocked, attempted to argue with him, but B left the room quickly in disgust at our suggestion.

I am retired and no longer work. Yet this fight to level the playing field is my fight.  For I am a woman. For I am a human being.

A friend just a day ago, talked about how she and her family had needed food stamps and other forms of public assistance to get by for a time in the past. All who know her, know she is a hard-working mom, a dedicated wife, a thoroughly responsible person. She puts a face on all “those” people that the Right so snidely likes to look down upon as “takers” and as developing a culture of expectation that the government will take care of them. She belies that picture assuredly.

I can echo that story by one of about my housekeeper who is struggling, working from sun-up to sun-down to raise six children all the while in the midst of a divorce from their father who continues to refuse to pay one penny toward their care as a way to punish her for putting him out for his drinking, drugging, and abusive ways. She receives what aid she can from where she can, and we struggle to find better ways to help her.

I am not receiving assistance, and if all goes as it seems to be, I never shall. But this fight is my fight. For I am a woman. For I am a human being.

How does this all tie together?

Only in one respect. Read Matthew 25.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37Then the righteous^* will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ 40ⁱ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ 41^{* j} Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42^k For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 44^* Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ 45He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’

There are many who say that we are genetically wired to care about each other. Certainly humans are not meant to be alone like the cheetah or polar bear. We have found camaraderie and safety in numbers. We have sacrificed some independence, some freedom for the protection of those numbers. Somewhere in that movement from tribe to village to town and city, we have learned to care about the needs of others, not just ourselves. Beyond our concerns for the progeny we bear, we care for the old, and for the disabled.

Recently remains of a Down’s Syndrome child was found among early human burial remains. The skeleton suggests that rather than kill or expose these disabled babies, they were cared for until their natural death. Similarly we find the remains of elderly who certainly could not have survived without help from others.

From this we learn that the desire to care for each other is ancient. We seek to serve each other,  either by genetics or at the very least by the call of the most perfect prophet the world has known–Jesus Christ.

Unlike our Right-wing evangelicals who twist scripture to reflect a Jesus who counsels against government assistance, eschews the minimum wage, and Paul who taken out of context tells us that those who will not work will not eat, we respond to what is in our hearts and/or in our DNA, called to reflect that what we do to others we inevitably do to ourselves.

When I hear the voices of hate-bearing sanctimonious condemnation, when I listen to their explanation that we are “coddling” and “creating a dependence culture”, I am not sure what comes first to me, the tears of grief that people can drape themselves in the flag while waving the bible in order to hide from the world their true self-centered motives, distorting Christ and his sermon of empathy and love, or the flashes of red-hot anger that wish to explode in slapping such people across the face as hard as I can, watching the self-satisfied holier-than-thou smugness fade as the cheek brightens into a red imprint.

We do what is right because it is right, quite simply. Women as poor as they may be deserve as good health care as the CEO of GM. Everybody gets to where they are in life due to the helping hands of untold dozens if not tens of dozens, and lack of means is no definition of worthiness or lack of it. Dr. Ben Carson has become the darling of the Right with his claims that government assistance to the poor, is akin in some measure to a return to slavery. Well Dr. Carson was the recipient of plenty of that assistance as a child and young adult, and that assistance gave him the opportunity to study hard and do all the things he had to do to achieve great success. He did not do it alone and he would be the first to be offended had his mother or he been treated as something less than the kids who grew up in better circumstances.  How soon we forget from whence we have come.

How soon we fall victim to our own greed for the “good life” and turn our backs on all those who are left behind. How soon we forget that but for the “grace of God, go I”. How soon we twist self-righteous religiosity into some sort of club with which to bludgeon all those who don’t do as we say, while we do as we wish, crying out to God when caught, that we too are sinners, but somehow still not sinners like those awful others. 

So we will gladly pay a little more if it means that everyone has a decent minimum. Everyone should have a home, clothing, medical care, quality education, and a job at a fair and living wage. We will do it because we don’t see the world as them and us, but as we.  It is the human thing to do quite simply. And you will never dissuade us otherwise, though you may win a battle here and there. You will not win in the end, because

WE ARE BETTER THAN YOU ENVISION US AND YOU TO BE.

 

 

The Pretzel God

Tags

creationism, evolution, fundamentalism, ham, ID, Nye, science

I found myself once again engaged in that never-to-be-solved conversation with a creationist, commonly referred to as a YEC’er (young-earth creationist). That such conversations are tedious is obvious. I never sought it, rather the usual folks just have to respond when you make fun of their favorite belief.

The other day I posted  a thing from Buzzfeed, which merely and perfectly objectively showed the “questions” that some YEC’ers would have asked Bill Nye after attending the “debate” at the Creation “Museum” run by Ken Ham. Ken Ham is either a silly lunatic who believes the nonsense that spews from his mouth, or he is a grifter. I’m not quite sure which.

Actually Buzzfeed, I now find, has answered these 22 questions, sometimes humorously, but always factually as far as my knowledge goes. My post was met by, not a reasoned response but the highly laughable video created by one Ray Comfort called Evolution vs God. In it Ray confronts a few professors but mostly students and demands that they produce a “change of kinds” that he can see, peppered with the now standard question, “were you there?” The upshot seems to be the rather bizarre notion that Ray has that if “you were not there, you can’t prove it happened.”

Now we already know Ray from his enormous boo-boo in the Banana Proof, calling it the “evolutionist’s nightmare. Here Ray tells us that the banana is clear evidence of something created by God just to fit the hand of the human being. We will skip his retraction when he learned about how the banana has been altered by humans and no longer resembles what it did originally and well, how monkeys of course seem to have hands that work pretty darn good too in eating bananas.

Now I did not watch the famous debate between Nye and Ham. Both sides undoubtedly have not changed their mind one whit nor anyone elses. Both sides will claim victory. That Ham, as I’ve been told, made lots of assertions without any proof such as “it is not proven that the earth is old”, when it clearly is, is par for the course.

The reality of all this is that the only real loser here was Intelligent Design. Actually I was a bit surprised to learn that the ID folks hate the YEC folk. See, the ID people actually in some cases are scientists, and they are trying mightily, though usually falling short, in bringing some actual science to the discussion. They, for instance, don’t believe at all in a young earth. They simply believe in a grand master God who created such things that they say are “irreducibly complex”–God is the designer of such things as the eye , and the blood clotting cascade. So Ham really screwed them  in their longed for resurrection from the damned which occurred in the case of Tammy Kitzmiller, et al vs. Dover Area School District, et al. (400 F. Supp. 2d 707, Docket no. 4cv2688).

The meme above gives voice to the real problem with these fringe fundamentalists. And fringe is what I do mean. While Ham and his cohorts often tout the “fact” that nearly 50% of all Americans believe in creationism, that is not at all accurate. As with all polling, how the question is framed matters greatly. When you get to the extreme of a Ham–the earth is only a few thousand years old, ditto the universe, and Adam and Eve were the original humans, and the bible (usually only the KJV translation) is the literal word of God–we are talking about something less than 10% of the population.

The problem is this: faith is a matter of belief. People who assert (and it’s always these ultra uber “Christians” or extreme fundamentalists who do) that they are “positive” “sure” “absolutely certain” that what they belief is true, are deluded by their own arrogance. Faith is belief. More clearly it is belief in the face of doubt. Some of the most famous of saints struggled the most with their faith–languishing for years in doubts and questioning. Ironically, if God were as the uber fundies contend–a god of judgment, they would fail. It is no great thing to believe what is proven. Faith is believing in spite of doubt. I suspect a god of judgment would favor the one who believes in spite of doubt rather more than the one who believed because he was convinced the proof was complete. Don’t the atheists do as much?

Worse, the YEC’er likes to claim that they “follow the word of God”, in other words, they do the bidding of God which is clearly set out in their translation. But this is false. For the bible is not something that is capable of one and only one meaning, not in its sum or in its parts. It is an interpretive document, informed by many other disciplines. For instance the word na ‘ar in Hebrew literally means “youth”. The word zaqen literally means “old”. However it would be a mistake to conclude that a youth is younger than an old person. For from learning about the sociology of ancient Israel, we learn that the term youth is attached to any male not yet head of a household, while old is attached to any male who is head of a household. Thus a na ‘ar can be older than a zaquen. (From Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, “Sociological Approaches: Toward a Sociology of Childhood in the Hebrew Bible” pg. 262,[Society of Biblical Literature: Atlanta, 2009]

Fundamentalists will deny all this simply because they truck in being able to discern the meaning of scripture by reading it. In that way it is they who believe in the “their own vain thoughts”, not the scholar who knows that the texts are not literal in nature, and that translation and context mean everything to meaning. God is twisted in the fundamentalist mind to fit what the mind needs Her to be.

My fundamentalist opponent dropped her side of the conversation after I produced any number of critiques of Ray Comfort’s silly video. That is the way of all such people, for in the end, they have no facts that they can articulate beyond scraps of talking points that they essentially don’t understand in the first place. She left with this parting shot, from Matthew 7:6:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast
ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Ironically, it is one of the more controversial passages from the Sermon on the Mount, and there is much disagreement of what it means. But I’m betting she is sure what it means. And that says it all.

Items to Make You Queen of the Watercooler Next Week

Tags

brain, dinosaurs, education, evolution, GOP, humans, life, meaning, philosophers, physics, quantum mechanics, teabaggers, War, what you should read, words

See that’s me. I mean, imagine a woman instead of a man, and that’s me. I’m spend hours reading just so that you don’t have to. I mean you can if you want to of course. God forbid that fine education goes to waste, but I have burned up the Intertubes in an effort to find all the news that you missed.

And I read it all. And some of it was crap upon further inspection, and so I ditched it. And the rest, well you gotta know this stuff. Especially if you want all your friends and aunt Tilde to think you are just a real smart ass. (meant in the kindest way of course)

So, let’s get to it, in no particular order.

Paul Krugman has a fine op-ed in the NYTimes detailing the crazy party, AKA, the GOP. What he says is very true. The GOP argument for deliberately toying with the very health of our economy goes something like this: I have put a gun to your head and demanded your money or your life. If you refuse to give me your money, it’s your fault that you’re dead. I gave you the option to live after all!

On the other hand, this may all go to prove that one can actually get admitted to Harvard and get through it with flying colors and still be utterly and profoundly stupid. Ted Cruz may be set to be one of the most spectacular blazing super nova that sputtered out in record time in the history of horses asses, err, super novae.

¶

If it is true that humans have an individualized predisposition to violence, is it equally true that humans in community have a predisposition to violence in the form of war? It seems many assume this to be true. But evolutionary biologist, David P. Barash argues that this may in fact not be true. The latter may be only a capacity rather than an adaptation. Want to learn more? If you don’t think it matters, think again. We base our defense systems on assumptions of what other groups are likely to do. If we assume all people are driven to war to achieve ends, we build a different defense system than if we do not. And we’ve sure got the tax bills to reflect that.

¶

I know that most of you are just thrilled every time you get a chance to read about quantum mechanics, I mean what self-respecting grease monkey or grocery check out lady  isn’t obsessed with the working of the universe at the extra-tiny scale? Ever heard of an aplituhedron? I bet not. It all means that all the complicated mathematical twists and turns are eliminated as well as the super computer to do the computations. Now little Bobby can explain the most complicated sub-particle interaction with nothing more than a pencil and paper again!

If you are going, uhh, okay so what? Well, you all know that physicists have been since the beginning of time, trying to join the big universe with the small universe (macro and micro forces?) and it has just never fit well, and well, the don’t call it the elegant universe for nothing. Everybody who knows this stuff figured the answer would eventually be simple. This might be it. I’m not a physicist as you might have guessed by now.

I mean this is simply delicious early fall reading. Get to it.  🙂

¶

Now I know you will love this one. There is a new book out there that you probably will want to get. I can imagine about half a dozen of you will be on Amazon in moments. It’s called Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing, by Melissa Mohr. Colin Burrows review of the book is worth the reading. Now read it your grouthead gnat snapper!

Steven Pinker from Harvard has written a book that details how we are becoming less violent as societies over time. He also argues that the world would be better led by science than by the humanities. Some beg to differ. A great essay from The Berlin Review of Books, and Gloria Origgi, A Reply to Steven Picker’s Scientific Manifesto.

¶

Love words? Lots of words? Okay.

The American Scholar has a fun essay called Is There a Word for That? Words are being made up all the time, but you knew that. Want to know who created some words we now take for granted? Who is responsible for katydid? Or neologize ? Or Anglophobia? Blurb? Gerrymander? Bromide? Oh I bet I got your attention now.

Similarly, if you have ever remembered the quote but not the quoter, and the more you looked the harder it got? Who Really Sad That? You would be surprised at how often we get the attribution wrong. Amaze your friends by correcting their quotes!

“Whoever is not a socialist when he is 20 has no heart; whoever is not a conservative when he is 30 has no brain.” Usually attributed to Churchill. Actually? Nobody knows.

Enter the fine world of WAS–Wrongly Attributed Statements.

¶

I betcha thought that the human mind created the gear, that round thingie that has “teeth” and meshes with other objects similarly constructed? That together makes things turn and other things go up and down and maybe side to side? You would be wrong. Scientists have found a gear in nature for the very first time. And YOU are some of the first non-specialists to know that, so don’t you feel so very proud?

A cute little guy called a planthopper (he has a very important scientific name you need not memorize) has a couple of gears in his back legs that mesh together and then when he calls on them to, spin backward sending him off on a leap across the earth that looks pretty fun. I’m sure it made sense to him too in terms of escaping predators or getting up as high as he wanted to feed. It’s called evolution folks. There is a little embedded video so you can watch him go!

¶

Must a life be meaningful in order to be happy? Do we prefer meaningfulness over happiness if we can’t have both? They are not the same by the way. Happiness in part is getting what you want or need in life. Meaningfulness can have zero to do with this. Similarly happy people report that health is essential, yet health has nothing to do with meaningful lives. Happiness is apparent in the now, while meaningfulness tends to be a future assessment. This is a long article but one that raises lots of questions to think about. Well worth your time.

¶

Nautilus brings us the ever-beloved essay on dinosaurs. The discovery and explanation of our bird predecessors have had a varied history as scientists working from small numbers of bones, continually revised their thinking of these creatures over time. As is usual, it is the unsung tiny dinosaurs that have done the most to correct our understanding over time of what these cuties looked like and how they lived. For the kid in all of us, this article will satisfy. I still wish there had been Brontosaurus, they were so neat!

¶

With the advent of all the cute devices we have now from phones to tablets to readers to computers, all with calendars and reminders of one sort or another, there is less and less reason to have to memorize things. Nobody has to write down a phone number or address. The call is registered, switch it to contacts and it’s saved forever. Enter an address in your Google maps app, and you don’t need to record that address again. And maybe, just maybe that’s a good thing. Memorization may be a much over-rated thing. Curious? Read on.

¶

How many late night gab fests have lingered long into the night over the ever-present question– Why was Spinoza excommunicated anyway? I mean this guy was ostracized with a big O, like in members of the congregation being order to be no closer that four cubits to the man. That’s some serious excommunication! Worse, payment of a fine served to dissolve most bans. Spinoza’s was life long. Spinoza himself never spoke of the harem, most of his works and fame came long after it. What is as interesting as why is by whom: Jews who had escaped forced Catholicism in Spain and Portugal and once free in Amsterdam, practiced a form of Judaism that was anything but normative. All in all, quite fascinating.

Happy reading everyone, and to all a good day!

Did You Know That. . . .?

Tags

cosmology, evolution, foreign affairs, genius, Good stuff to know, mind, pseudo-scientists, science, Syria, Writers

A lot of disparate thoughts travel through this brain case I can safely inform you. You know me well enough to recognize the dangers of entering into my sandbox of synaptic pleasures. I’m either hopelessly unfocused or a cobbled together unrecognized genius. Some days it’s more one, other days, well.

I’ve come to see it as a blessing of sorts. At least I try to see it that way. I should have been a college professor, but of course that but begs the question–on what subject?

Any the hoo, I have a lot of thoughts about Syria but not a lot of coalesced conclusions, so I’ll beg off at the moment. Is it too trite and cowardly to just say, I’m conflicted?

I had a bizarre discussion with fellow high-school mates about the issue of spanking as discipline which proved to me once again how easy it is to stay with ideas that are both comfortable and supported by simplistic memes that denote little if any critical thinking. More and more I conclude that indeed advances in the human condition are the result of a very few minds indeed, and put into place by mostly brain-dead human hordes who are spoon fed some “reason” for implementing them.

If all that sounds rather cloudy and vague, well, it’s a cloudy and vague day here in Las Cruces. It’s been raining off and on for several days, which is highly unusual, at least for us recent arrivals–we saw so little rain last year that it made one appreciate water as a life-giving commodity surely. This year, we were told, as of Monday at least we had not yet received four inches of the wet stuff, and we might get at least that during this week. Since the desert is nothing but sand covering a rock hard-pan, the danger in these parts is floods in low-lying areas. Water races to its lowest place and rushes along, making gullies and rivulets through the desert. These become ditches or arroyos as we call them here, and eventually the Grand Canyon if you can stick around that long.

So anyway, here are some things I’ve read this week that you might find interesting.

Vlad, who appears to be in the driver’s seat at the moment internationally that is, has some things to say and said them in the NYTimes.

It’s an interesting “open letter to the American people“. Part propaganda, part history lesson, part chutzpah, it is worth a couple of minutes to read.

Having a power mad ex-president of the Communist party and ex-KGB officer, Putin deigns to give America a lesson in democracy. One can but admire the rich irony of that alone!

What he has to say about the subject of exceptionalism is worth reading. There is truth in those words.

As I said, my thoughts on the subject of Syria are unclear. That Putin wants to be a “player” is clear. What it will cost is not so clear.

A man so determined to show off his “masculinity” bespeaks something surely. What that is, I am not at all sure of.

 

¤

I did mention the possibility that I am a hidden genius didn’t I?

That is almost surely a good reason for concluding that I am not.

Like “hero” we bandy about the word genius rather loosely these days.

If you would like to read an interesting take on what genius is and is not, then read I Dream of Genius over at Commentary. I found it a good read.

At least you can see if those you think of as geniuses are what the author does.

¤

If you would like to look at the mind in a different way, a more evolutionary way perhaps then you might want to pick up a new book out there by E. O Wilson, emeritus professor of biology at Harvard.

If you are unsure of whether you want to invest in The Social Conquest of Earth, then you can read through a review of the book from The Spectator.

HINT: once more we are compared to insects. All it all, it looks worthy of some good reading and some very good thinking ahead if you opt in. The review is not favorable on Wilson’s book. See if you agree. In either case, it seems a worthwhile read.

¤

Cosmic archaeology, need I say more?

Some say that aliens have looked and found us. But there is a thriving scientific community that spends its time looking for them. This is way more than looking for Goldilocks planets my friends, much more.

This is the type of scientific speculation that leads young boys and girls to dream of going into space, and leads them to enrolling in our best science and technology universities.

Come and dream for a few minutes. What can it hurt?

Go and read Distant Ruins.

¤

What happens when we both hear and see something? Do these two senses work together to enhance our fact gathering?

Is there a hierarchy of the senses? Do some matter more? Does one?

Oh I’m sure in the late recesses of a bleak and cold winter’s night, you too have asked this question.

So go and get the answer: Who did you hear, Me, or your lying eyes?

HINT: You might just have been McGurked!

¤

Another thing I imagine you’ve given a lot of thought to is why we are so fascinated by the lives of the writers we read and admire. I mean how much has been written about the life of Hemingway for instance? Are we not enthralled with the secret world of Proust, or Dickinson? How about Emerson or Fitzgerald? Balzac? Oh come now, you know you are curious.

A biography writer, shares some thoughts on what we can and cannot learn about those whose words cause us to depart this reality and enter another, one that sometimes we would rather inhabit.

Good reading here.

¤

Finally, if you have ever had the occasion to be “linked” to a “scientist” or other “expert” on something like global warming or evolution, or biblical literalness, American exceptionalism, the Judeo-Christian roots of American government, or similar things, you know what you are up against.

If you had the resources and or time to do the research,  you would almost surely find that most of these experts are anything but. Some our out-and-out failures who can be bought for a price, others are traveling into areas for which they have no formal expertise at all, and others are simply grifters, ready always to make a buck upholding any cockamamie “theory” that comes down the pike.

There is a great little site called Encyclopedia of American Loons. You can look up the biography of a startlingly large group of imposters and get the real low down on what they know and don’t know. An invaluable site. Since they seem to be novice bloggers I asked to them add the widget for a search engine and they have. Now you can enter a name and find out if they have bio’ed him or her. Or if you just want some fun reading, just go read a few.

So, now that I have solved all your reading needs for the weekend, I’ll leave you to it, with promises of more to come.

Related articles

• Sen. Menendez reacts to Putin’s op-ed: I wanted to vomit (thelead.blogs.cnn.com)
• Vladimir Putin Lectures the US on Morality in the New York Times, Greenwald Co-Signs (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• The Social Conquest of Earth – Edward O. Wilson (konradebooks.com)