As the John Roberts confirmation hearing approaches, the debate on "activist judges" is heating up again. To my mind, Glenn Reynolds had the last word on this back in 2002 (and actually back in 1990). Findlaw also has a good review.
It's really very simple. The founding fathers explicitly anticiapted and rejected the argument that if a right is not enumerated in the Constitution that it doesn't exist. To this end they ratified the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It couldn't be clearer, and it never ceases to amaze me that the "intellectually dishonest" (as Reynolds puts it, and that is precisely what it is) strict-constructionist argument gets as much traction as it does because to accept it you have to completely ignore the ninth amendment. And indeed, that is exactly what the IDSC camp does. Robert Bork famously suggested that the Ninth Amendment is nothing but an "ink blot". I don't see how much "activist" a jurist can be than to say he's going to just ignore part of the Constitution because it conflicts with his ideology.
It amazes me that there is even one American who, after a comment like that, does not agree that running Bork out of town on a rail was the right thing to do. And yet there are tens of millions who hold him up as a symbol of liberalism run amok. Have none of them ever read the Ninth Amendment?
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It's not that complicated. But given the Conservative capacity to bury its head in the sand it shouldn't surprise me too much that some people can look at those twenty-one words and see nothing but an inkblot.
Friday, August 26, 2005
What if they elected Saddam?
It could happen.
Hussein Supporters Rally Against Constitution
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD -- Up to 3,000 demonstrators waving portraits of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and chanting slogans against the proposed draft constitution marched in a largely peaceful demonstration this morning through downtown Baqouba, a heavily Sunni Arab city 40 miles north of capital.
"With our souls, with our blood we will defend you, Saddam," some of the demonstrators chanted in a rare public display of support for the former Iraqi leader, now awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
Hussein Supporters Rally Against Constitution
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD -- Up to 3,000 demonstrators waving portraits of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and chanting slogans against the proposed draft constitution marched in a largely peaceful demonstration this morning through downtown Baqouba, a heavily Sunni Arab city 40 miles north of capital.
"With our souls, with our blood we will defend you, Saddam," some of the demonstrators chanted in a rare public display of support for the former Iraqi leader, now awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The First Amendment takes another hit
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
No, it doesn't. It waves o'er the land of the secure and the home of the frightened.
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
No, it doesn't. It waves o'er the land of the secure and the home of the frightened.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" did you not understand?
Allow me to add my voice to the growing chorus of those condemning Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuela's president. I can't imagine how anyone could support Robertson after this, but there is no doubt in my mind that a mind boggling number of people will. Sigh.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
ID in schools, round 2
God works in mysterious ways.
There I was, scratching my head trying to figure out how to explain to my loyal readers (hey, a boy can dream, can't he?) where I've been the last five months, when along comes John Mark Reynolds with the perfect softball in the form of his response to my letter to him about Intelligent Design theory. Happily, responding to him turns out to be the perfect segue for explaining where I've been the last five months. So, off we go! (Quotes from Reynolds are in italics.)
When Michael Shermer, whose main day job is running a Skeptic advocacy group, is allowed to frame the debate no good can come of it. Shermer is not a scientist. . .
I happen to agree that Michael Shermer did an embarrassingly poor job of holding up his end of the argument. But it's not because Shermer "is not a scientist" or because "his main day job is running a Skeptic advocacy group." I don't think Shermer's profession (he's a writer by trade, by the way. Running the Skeptic Society is something he does on the side.) ought to have anything to do with it. Einstein was a patent clerk in 1905. Should he have been denied a seat at the table because he didn't have any academic credentials?
I bring this up because I'm not a scientist either, not any more. I used to be. I was a card-carrying scientist at a leading national research lab. I have a Ph.D. I held the title of Principal, which was the highest rung on the non-management career ladder. (Actually, it turned out there were higher rungs, but their existence was not publicly acknowledged.)
Having played the scientific/academic career game with a degree of success I believe I have a certain amount of insight into how one becomes one of the "big kids", as Reynolds so charmingly puts it. By some measure I was one of the "big kids." The truth is that becoming a "big kid" (by which is meant a "respected" academic, by which is meant someone whose papers get referenced a lot) depends as much on being a good marketeer as it does on being a good researcher or teacher. All else being equal people will tend to focus their attention where it has been actively drawn. Especially in the age of information overload there just isn't time for anything else.
Turns out I am an absolutely terrible marketeer. I won't get into details, but suffice it to say that my career hit a wall because I was not willing to compromise on certain principles. So last November I quit my job to start a new career in the movie industry. That's why I've not been blogging. Too busy shopping screenplays around.
I can't help but wonder, then, where I stand in John Reynolds' academic pecking order. Am I entitled to "frame the debate" because I was recently a scientist, or do I just get to be a "mirror" of other people's views because my day job now is to write screenplays and sell DVDs?
Having been through the experience I can say I think people put far too much weight on titles. I have met Ph.D's who were complete idiots, and people who dropped out of high school who were absolutely brilliant. The whole degree and title thing is largely a scam. But that's a topic for another day. I'll just point out that Einstein didn't have a Ph.D. and was working as a patent clerk in 1905.
Back to the matter at hand.
First, I think Reynolds and I have some common ground in the belief that public school science education sucks big fat honking weenies (though I suspect he might choose different terminology). Where we differ is in our belief about whether introducing Intelligent Design theory would make the situation better or worse. Reynold's position (as I understand it) is that it would improve the situation by illustrating the breadth of possibilities in philosophy of science and free students from the narrrow straightjack of methodological naturalism.
My position, following the mainstream of anti-ID-in-public-schoool-science-classes, is that ID is not science and ought not to be taught as such. I have no problem with ID in a comparative religion or history class. (The problem is that it is nearly impossible to design a comparative religion class that doesn't piss anybody off, but that's a topic for another day.)
So to respond to Reynolds' specific points:
Actually, I would argue that there is a possibility (if theism and psychological dualism are true), that science is held back by dogmatic adherence to MN [Reynolds originally wrote ID here but he meant MN]. Of course I cannot be sure that this is true.
In fact we can be reasonably certain that the exact opposite is true, that science has accomplished what it has only through a dogmatic adherence to MN. See below.
Science frequently claims to explain reality or even to exhaustively explain reality.
No, I don't think this is true. Where has any respectable scientist ever made such a claim? At best (or at worst depending on your point of view) I think you will find people who take it on faith that science has the *potential* to explain all of *physical* reality. You can also find people who take it on faith that physical reality is all of reality. But this is very different from exhaustively explaining reality."
Is reality limited to the physical?
No. (Actually, if you push hard on quantum mechanics you can make a pretty good argument that what we perceive as the physical world is not real at all. See this paper for an in-depth discussion of this fascinating tangent.)
If one wants to explore all of reality, then does one have to leave science by definition?
That depends on the nature of reality, which is, of course, an open question.
I will make this observation though: if you want to leave room in your worldview for the mysterious then you must, by definition, leave science. This is not a bad thing. Humans have two mutually irreconcilable psychological drives: they want to know, and they want to wonder. Science fulfills the former need, religion (and drama, and magic) the latter. The reason ID is not science is that it necessarily leaves a mystery about the nature of the designer. That is precisely the source of its appeal. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's not science.
Reality is reduced for these "scientists" (doing philosophy without training) to those things that can be explained by science.
No, this is a straw man. Reality is not reduced. When one is doing science ones attention is focused in a way that leaves no room for the irreducibly mysterious (or the supernatural, or the divine). Focusing one's attention in this way is, empirically, effective with respect to certain goals (notably manipulating the physical world to one's own ends). And some people find that they can live fulfilled lives with their attention focused in this way all the time, just as some people can live fulfilled lives without romantic love, or without alchohol. This says nothing about reality. All it says is that different people focus their attention in different ways.
Let us agree that science then is limited to providing explanations of the physical (natural?) world.
Agreed.
The question then becomes: What parts of reality are parts of this merely physical world? Is human personality?
There are clear connections between the physical and chemical structure of the human brain and personality. Whether the brain is sufficient to account for *all* of the phenomenology of human personality is an open question.
This question is not much different than asking if weather is entirely part of physical reality, or if there are extra-physical agents (like Zeus) controlling where the thunderbolts fall. The only difference is that suggesting that the weather is purely physical doesn't seem to bother people as much as suggesting that they themselves are purely physical.
Is God?
That depends on what you mean by God. There are certain views (like Taoism) in which God is purely part of physical reality and others (like the fundamentalist Judeo-Christo-Islamic view) where He is partially physical, and still others (like the Deist view) where He is not part of physical reality at all, at least not any more.
Is there a Person (divine?) that did work in that cosmos? In that case, science would be limited (if an active God is true) in what it could explain even in the material world. That is: It could be the case that not all caused events in the material world have (at their base) physical causes. At their base are human actions subject to merely physical or functional explanations? Is a psychological dualism possible?
Yes, these are valid questions, but they are not scientific questions. They are meta-scientific questions. They all boil down to: is science sufficient to explain all of reality? That is an open question (but, again empirically, the number of areas where non-physical causation remains a reasonable possibility is monotonically decreasing).
One cannot just proclaim: "Science is what scientists do."
Yes, I always cringe when I hear Shermer say this. It's so obviously circular and non-sensical. He really ought to know better.
Science is the idea that one way to arrive at the truth about the physical world is not to argue about it from first principles (which is what people did for thousands of years) but rather to make direct inquiries of the physical universe, a.k.a. experiments. It's that simple. That is what distinguishes science from philosophy, religion, the law, drama, art, etc.
Of course, this simple idea leads to lots of complications, like how to interpret the results of experiments, but the core is non-negotiable: if you're doing experiments to arrive at truth you're doing science. If you aren't then you're not.
Why accept such a limitation, however?
Because this limitation turns out to be very powerful and produces useful results, like antibiotics, fertilizers, computers, and internal combustion engines.
It should be noted that accepting such a limitation when one is trying to do certain kinds of things (like cure disease) does not imply that one necessarily accepts that same limitation when one is trying to do other kinds of things (like create a beautiful painting). But it is wrong to try to ride on the coattails of the achievements of science by calling something scientific when it clearly isn't. It is not science's problem that religion has an inferiority complex.
If we do limit science, then interesting questions will still be examined, just "outside of science." All that will happen is that certain real things (perhaps psychological phenomenon) for example will be removed from "experimentation" in what we call "science." There will of course be experimentation in meta-science or some such "new" field.
No, if you do experiments then you're doing science. But to my knowledge no one has ever done, or even proposed, an experiement to test ID theory. Until that changes, ID isn't science.
Of course, this limitation did not exist until late in the history of science.
I would put this a different way: science itself did not exist until fairly late in he history of humanity. There were some false starts going back as far as the ancient Greeks, but real science as we understand it today is generally acknowledged to have begun with Newton (or, arguably, Galilleo).
Scientists frequently make statements with philosophical assumptions bulging out from them. My own position is that this is fine. . . and that everyone should get to present their point of view about "what is science" to students.
I vehemently disagree with this. One of the big differences between science and other areas of intellectual endeavor is that science has an external arbiter of truth, namely experiment. I suppose it might be true that "scientists frequently make statements with philosophical assumptions bulging out from them." After all, scientists are human too. But what counts in science is not your credentials, it is whether what you say jibes with the experimental results.
This is not a "point of view", it is a historical observation. Once you start letting experiments be the arbiter of truth you start to produce a certain kind of result that you do not obtain in any other way that anyone has been able to figure out. *That* is what makes this a useful definition, not just because I (or Feynman or anyone else) say so.
We have to accept that for years the prestige of science gained in one area has been used (in a bad argument) to support Naturalism or scientism.
Sure, but that is a whole other discussion. The prestige that religion has gained has been used in all kinds of ancillary ways as well. You don't fix the problem of people turning science into a religion by introducing more religion.
This [the claim that MN is the source of the power of science] is a strong statement and requires strong evidence.
Just look at your history. Every example of technological advancement (including, e.g. figuring out how to build gothic cathedrals) has been the result of people doing experiments. No technology has ever been produced in any other way.
If one defines science as control of the physical world by physical means
No, that is not the definition of science. The definition of science is relying on experiments to determine truth. The ability to control the physical world is a *result* of applying science. It is not the definition.
The notion that "truth" is best found by experiment is (it need not be said) a philosophical prejudice.
Another straw man. I never said that the truth is best found by doing experiments. Empirically, doing experiments is more effective at producing certain kinds of results, but this is an observation, not a prejudice (and indeed can be tested experimentally).
After all: What counts as an experiment?
That is an excellent question, and delving into the details would take us far afield. But the general answer is that it is a procedure designed to test a claim. To be considered a scientific experiment the result must be unambiguous and reproducible. (Note that the *interpretation* of the result need not be unambiguous, only the result itself.)
We cannot prove God exists physically, but we could devise ways of making His existence more or less probable.
Really? I'd love to hear about those.
In any case, saying "experiments are the way to the truth" is a good slogan,
It's more than a good slogan, it actually produces tangible results.
but leads to many, many questions. What will count as an experiment is one of them!
Indeed. That is a valid topic for a science class.
However, even if assume that this slogan is right, we could still do experiments without the MN assumption
No, you can't. MN is part and parcel of the definition of the word "experiment" in the sense in which it is used to define science.
If science no longer is about "truth," but about "finding physical answers" to "physical questions" let's make that clear.
Well, science is about "the truth" insofar as it chooses a particular methodology (experiment) to arrive at truth. This methodology is limited by definition (specifically by the definition of "experiment") to the physical. Science has never had as part of its *definition* any claim to completeness. It just happens to turn out (again empirically) to be effective across a very broad range of application.
Let's also NOT assume publicly or in scientific writings that all possible questions (What is the soul?) are therefore subject to scientific answers.
Yet another straw man. No one claims that all possible questions are "subject to scientific answers." However, it is the case (again empirically) that the reach of science seems inexorably to extend into areas that were once thought were not amenable to scientific inquiry. For example, science has made some progress in explaining the phenomenon of consciousness, which might be related to the soul (whatever that is).
Let's limit the scope of scientific investigation hubris. . .
Why? Hubris is not necessarily a bad thing. It takes a certain amount of hubris to stand up to the gods and the forces of nature and say, for example, "disease and floods and locusts are *not* punishments sent from God because we are sinners. They are physical process that we can understand and perhaps even control to our own benefit." The difference between science and non-science is not that one engages in hubris and the other one doesn't, it is that scientific hubris produces results that non-scientific hubris does not. That is the long and the short of it.
Instead, let's say: We don't know what is physical and what is not.
The problem is, however, that we do know a great deal about what is physical and what is not. And all indications are that nearly everything is physical, even things that one might wish were not.
Some things are best understood by experiment. Other things are not.
I certainly agree with that. In fact, it may well be that our own origins are best understood by some means other than experiment. But just don't call it science then, because it isn't.
One feels like sighing here. It is not hubris to follow Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Bacon et al in looking for intelligent design in the universe.
No, it is hubris to claim that one is doing science, or contributing to science, by looking for intelligent design in the universe without doing (or even proposing) experiments.
If an advocate of ID were to propose an experimental test of ID we would not be having this argument.
we are making a point in philosophy of science which has implications on the practice of science.
No, what you (the advocates of ID in science classes) are doing is claiming to do science when you are not. You philosophers need to come to grips with the fact that in the last few hundred years we scientists have got this science thing pretty well figured out without your help, and that we've used it to better humanity's lot in ways that philosophy and religion could not and can not. This is not to say that philosophy and religion have no value; they do. But they are not science, and no amount of tortured logic, twisted definitions, or straw-man arguments will make them so.
There I was, scratching my head trying to figure out how to explain to my loyal readers (hey, a boy can dream, can't he?) where I've been the last five months, when along comes John Mark Reynolds with the perfect softball in the form of his response to my letter to him about Intelligent Design theory. Happily, responding to him turns out to be the perfect segue for explaining where I've been the last five months. So, off we go! (Quotes from Reynolds are in italics.)
When Michael Shermer, whose main day job is running a Skeptic advocacy group, is allowed to frame the debate no good can come of it. Shermer is not a scientist. . .
I happen to agree that Michael Shermer did an embarrassingly poor job of holding up his end of the argument. But it's not because Shermer "is not a scientist" or because "his main day job is running a Skeptic advocacy group." I don't think Shermer's profession (he's a writer by trade, by the way. Running the Skeptic Society is something he does on the side.) ought to have anything to do with it. Einstein was a patent clerk in 1905. Should he have been denied a seat at the table because he didn't have any academic credentials?
I bring this up because I'm not a scientist either, not any more. I used to be. I was a card-carrying scientist at a leading national research lab. I have a Ph.D. I held the title of Principal, which was the highest rung on the non-management career ladder. (Actually, it turned out there were higher rungs, but their existence was not publicly acknowledged.)
Having played the scientific/academic career game with a degree of success I believe I have a certain amount of insight into how one becomes one of the "big kids", as Reynolds so charmingly puts it. By some measure I was one of the "big kids." The truth is that becoming a "big kid" (by which is meant a "respected" academic, by which is meant someone whose papers get referenced a lot) depends as much on being a good marketeer as it does on being a good researcher or teacher. All else being equal people will tend to focus their attention where it has been actively drawn. Especially in the age of information overload there just isn't time for anything else.
Turns out I am an absolutely terrible marketeer. I won't get into details, but suffice it to say that my career hit a wall because I was not willing to compromise on certain principles. So last November I quit my job to start a new career in the movie industry. That's why I've not been blogging. Too busy shopping screenplays around.
I can't help but wonder, then, where I stand in John Reynolds' academic pecking order. Am I entitled to "frame the debate" because I was recently a scientist, or do I just get to be a "mirror" of other people's views because my day job now is to write screenplays and sell DVDs?
Having been through the experience I can say I think people put far too much weight on titles. I have met Ph.D's who were complete idiots, and people who dropped out of high school who were absolutely brilliant. The whole degree and title thing is largely a scam. But that's a topic for another day. I'll just point out that Einstein didn't have a Ph.D. and was working as a patent clerk in 1905.
Back to the matter at hand.
First, I think Reynolds and I have some common ground in the belief that public school science education sucks big fat honking weenies (though I suspect he might choose different terminology). Where we differ is in our belief about whether introducing Intelligent Design theory would make the situation better or worse. Reynold's position (as I understand it) is that it would improve the situation by illustrating the breadth of possibilities in philosophy of science and free students from the narrrow straightjack of methodological naturalism.
My position, following the mainstream of anti-ID-in-public-schoool-science-classes, is that ID is not science and ought not to be taught as such. I have no problem with ID in a comparative religion or history class. (The problem is that it is nearly impossible to design a comparative religion class that doesn't piss anybody off, but that's a topic for another day.)
So to respond to Reynolds' specific points:
Actually, I would argue that there is a possibility (if theism and psychological dualism are true), that science is held back by dogmatic adherence to MN [Reynolds originally wrote ID here but he meant MN]. Of course I cannot be sure that this is true.
In fact we can be reasonably certain that the exact opposite is true, that science has accomplished what it has only through a dogmatic adherence to MN. See below.
Science frequently claims to explain reality or even to exhaustively explain reality.
No, I don't think this is true. Where has any respectable scientist ever made such a claim? At best (or at worst depending on your point of view) I think you will find people who take it on faith that science has the *potential* to explain all of *physical* reality. You can also find people who take it on faith that physical reality is all of reality. But this is very different from exhaustively explaining reality."
Is reality limited to the physical?
No. (Actually, if you push hard on quantum mechanics you can make a pretty good argument that what we perceive as the physical world is not real at all. See this paper for an in-depth discussion of this fascinating tangent.)
If one wants to explore all of reality, then does one have to leave science by definition?
That depends on the nature of reality, which is, of course, an open question.
I will make this observation though: if you want to leave room in your worldview for the mysterious then you must, by definition, leave science. This is not a bad thing. Humans have two mutually irreconcilable psychological drives: they want to know, and they want to wonder. Science fulfills the former need, religion (and drama, and magic) the latter. The reason ID is not science is that it necessarily leaves a mystery about the nature of the designer. That is precisely the source of its appeal. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's not science.
Reality is reduced for these "scientists" (doing philosophy without training) to those things that can be explained by science.
No, this is a straw man. Reality is not reduced. When one is doing science ones attention is focused in a way that leaves no room for the irreducibly mysterious (or the supernatural, or the divine). Focusing one's attention in this way is, empirically, effective with respect to certain goals (notably manipulating the physical world to one's own ends). And some people find that they can live fulfilled lives with their attention focused in this way all the time, just as some people can live fulfilled lives without romantic love, or without alchohol. This says nothing about reality. All it says is that different people focus their attention in different ways.
Let us agree that science then is limited to providing explanations of the physical (natural?) world.
Agreed.
The question then becomes: What parts of reality are parts of this merely physical world? Is human personality?
There are clear connections between the physical and chemical structure of the human brain and personality. Whether the brain is sufficient to account for *all* of the phenomenology of human personality is an open question.
This question is not much different than asking if weather is entirely part of physical reality, or if there are extra-physical agents (like Zeus) controlling where the thunderbolts fall. The only difference is that suggesting that the weather is purely physical doesn't seem to bother people as much as suggesting that they themselves are purely physical.
Is God?
That depends on what you mean by God. There are certain views (like Taoism) in which God is purely part of physical reality and others (like the fundamentalist Judeo-Christo-Islamic view) where He is partially physical, and still others (like the Deist view) where He is not part of physical reality at all, at least not any more.
Is there a Person (divine?) that did work in that cosmos? In that case, science would be limited (if an active God is true) in what it could explain even in the material world. That is: It could be the case that not all caused events in the material world have (at their base) physical causes. At their base are human actions subject to merely physical or functional explanations? Is a psychological dualism possible?
Yes, these are valid questions, but they are not scientific questions. They are meta-scientific questions. They all boil down to: is science sufficient to explain all of reality? That is an open question (but, again empirically, the number of areas where non-physical causation remains a reasonable possibility is monotonically decreasing).
One cannot just proclaim: "Science is what scientists do."
Yes, I always cringe when I hear Shermer say this. It's so obviously circular and non-sensical. He really ought to know better.
Science is the idea that one way to arrive at the truth about the physical world is not to argue about it from first principles (which is what people did for thousands of years) but rather to make direct inquiries of the physical universe, a.k.a. experiments. It's that simple. That is what distinguishes science from philosophy, religion, the law, drama, art, etc.
Of course, this simple idea leads to lots of complications, like how to interpret the results of experiments, but the core is non-negotiable: if you're doing experiments to arrive at truth you're doing science. If you aren't then you're not.
Why accept such a limitation, however?
Because this limitation turns out to be very powerful and produces useful results, like antibiotics, fertilizers, computers, and internal combustion engines.
It should be noted that accepting such a limitation when one is trying to do certain kinds of things (like cure disease) does not imply that one necessarily accepts that same limitation when one is trying to do other kinds of things (like create a beautiful painting). But it is wrong to try to ride on the coattails of the achievements of science by calling something scientific when it clearly isn't. It is not science's problem that religion has an inferiority complex.
If we do limit science, then interesting questions will still be examined, just "outside of science." All that will happen is that certain real things (perhaps psychological phenomenon) for example will be removed from "experimentation" in what we call "science." There will of course be experimentation in meta-science or some such "new" field.
No, if you do experiments then you're doing science. But to my knowledge no one has ever done, or even proposed, an experiement to test ID theory. Until that changes, ID isn't science.
Of course, this limitation did not exist until late in the history of science.
I would put this a different way: science itself did not exist until fairly late in he history of humanity. There were some false starts going back as far as the ancient Greeks, but real science as we understand it today is generally acknowledged to have begun with Newton (or, arguably, Galilleo).
Scientists frequently make statements with philosophical assumptions bulging out from them. My own position is that this is fine. . . and that everyone should get to present their point of view about "what is science" to students.
I vehemently disagree with this. One of the big differences between science and other areas of intellectual endeavor is that science has an external arbiter of truth, namely experiment. I suppose it might be true that "scientists frequently make statements with philosophical assumptions bulging out from them." After all, scientists are human too. But what counts in science is not your credentials, it is whether what you say jibes with the experimental results.
This is not a "point of view", it is a historical observation. Once you start letting experiments be the arbiter of truth you start to produce a certain kind of result that you do not obtain in any other way that anyone has been able to figure out. *That* is what makes this a useful definition, not just because I (or Feynman or anyone else) say so.
We have to accept that for years the prestige of science gained in one area has been used (in a bad argument) to support Naturalism or scientism.
Sure, but that is a whole other discussion. The prestige that religion has gained has been used in all kinds of ancillary ways as well. You don't fix the problem of people turning science into a religion by introducing more religion.
This [the claim that MN is the source of the power of science] is a strong statement and requires strong evidence.
Just look at your history. Every example of technological advancement (including, e.g. figuring out how to build gothic cathedrals) has been the result of people doing experiments. No technology has ever been produced in any other way.
If one defines science as control of the physical world by physical means
No, that is not the definition of science. The definition of science is relying on experiments to determine truth. The ability to control the physical world is a *result* of applying science. It is not the definition.
The notion that "truth" is best found by experiment is (it need not be said) a philosophical prejudice.
Another straw man. I never said that the truth is best found by doing experiments. Empirically, doing experiments is more effective at producing certain kinds of results, but this is an observation, not a prejudice (and indeed can be tested experimentally).
After all: What counts as an experiment?
That is an excellent question, and delving into the details would take us far afield. But the general answer is that it is a procedure designed to test a claim. To be considered a scientific experiment the result must be unambiguous and reproducible. (Note that the *interpretation* of the result need not be unambiguous, only the result itself.)
We cannot prove God exists physically, but we could devise ways of making His existence more or less probable.
Really? I'd love to hear about those.
In any case, saying "experiments are the way to the truth" is a good slogan,
It's more than a good slogan, it actually produces tangible results.
but leads to many, many questions. What will count as an experiment is one of them!
Indeed. That is a valid topic for a science class.
However, even if assume that this slogan is right, we could still do experiments without the MN assumption
No, you can't. MN is part and parcel of the definition of the word "experiment" in the sense in which it is used to define science.
If science no longer is about "truth," but about "finding physical answers" to "physical questions" let's make that clear.
Well, science is about "the truth" insofar as it chooses a particular methodology (experiment) to arrive at truth. This methodology is limited by definition (specifically by the definition of "experiment") to the physical. Science has never had as part of its *definition* any claim to completeness. It just happens to turn out (again empirically) to be effective across a very broad range of application.
Let's also NOT assume publicly or in scientific writings that all possible questions (What is the soul?) are therefore subject to scientific answers.
Yet another straw man. No one claims that all possible questions are "subject to scientific answers." However, it is the case (again empirically) that the reach of science seems inexorably to extend into areas that were once thought were not amenable to scientific inquiry. For example, science has made some progress in explaining the phenomenon of consciousness, which might be related to the soul (whatever that is).
Let's limit the scope of scientific investigation hubris. . .
Why? Hubris is not necessarily a bad thing. It takes a certain amount of hubris to stand up to the gods and the forces of nature and say, for example, "disease and floods and locusts are *not* punishments sent from God because we are sinners. They are physical process that we can understand and perhaps even control to our own benefit." The difference between science and non-science is not that one engages in hubris and the other one doesn't, it is that scientific hubris produces results that non-scientific hubris does not. That is the long and the short of it.
Instead, let's say: We don't know what is physical and what is not.
The problem is, however, that we do know a great deal about what is physical and what is not. And all indications are that nearly everything is physical, even things that one might wish were not.
Some things are best understood by experiment. Other things are not.
I certainly agree with that. In fact, it may well be that our own origins are best understood by some means other than experiment. But just don't call it science then, because it isn't.
One feels like sighing here. It is not hubris to follow Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Bacon et al in looking for intelligent design in the universe.
No, it is hubris to claim that one is doing science, or contributing to science, by looking for intelligent design in the universe without doing (or even proposing) experiments.
If an advocate of ID were to propose an experimental test of ID we would not be having this argument.
we are making a point in philosophy of science which has implications on the practice of science.
No, what you (the advocates of ID in science classes) are doing is claiming to do science when you are not. You philosophers need to come to grips with the fact that in the last few hundred years we scientists have got this science thing pretty well figured out without your help, and that we've used it to better humanity's lot in ways that philosophy and religion could not and can not. This is not to say that philosophy and religion have no value; they do. But they are not science, and no amount of tortured logic, twisted definitions, or straw-man arguments will make them so.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Is Intelligent Design science?
Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? I'll tell the story of why I've been away for so long in another post. For now...
Living in Southern California I am fortunate to be in range of one of the finest journalists of our time, Larry Mantle, who hosts a show on our local NPR station called AirTalk. Larry has an extraordinary ability to tackle controversial subjects without bias, and to keep probing sensitive issues without actually pissing off his guests.
Today's show (which is not up on the KPCC web site yet) was a debate between Michael Shermer and John Reynolds about Intelligent Design (ID) theory. I thought the debate missed a couple of important points, which I sent to Dr. Reynolds in an email. He wanted to respond in his blog, so to facilitate that I'm posting the email I sent to him (lightly edited for blogging):
I listened with interest to your appearance on Larry Mantle's Air Talk this morning.
You kept making the point that adhering to methodological naturalism (MN) was somehow holding science back from certain kinds of progress. You also made the point that there is debate about what science is, and that philosophers are the ones best equipped to make this determination. You are mistaken on both counts. This can be demonstrated (somewhat ironically) with an elementary philosophical argument, to wit:
What distinguishes science from other arenas of human intellectual endeavor like drama, religion, law, etc. is that it produces certain kinds of results that these other arenas do not, e.g. antibiotics, semiconductors, nuclear weapons, etc. (One might go out on a limb and say that science seems uniquely suited among all arenas of human intellectual endeavor to produce results that allow humans to manipulate the physical world according to their desires, and that indeed this is the reason that people care so much about science and that we are even having this discussion. But this is not necessary to make the argument. All that is necessary is to agree that science produces results of a particular character, that these results "matter" in some sense, and that they are not generally produced by non-scientific endeavors.)
The *reason* that science is able to do these things is its adherence to MN. MN does not hold science back; quite the contrary. MN is an *empowering* constraint. It is the reason that science produces the results that it does. Science without MN is like drama without conflict. It is eviscerated. It has been robbed of its essential character.
This is not a deduction; it is an empirical observation. When one adheres to MN one produces "science-like" results. When one rejects MN one fails to produce such results. This is why all scientists (including Feynman, to whom you appealed to support your position) agree: science is the proposition that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth (Feynman's words). Inherent in this definition is the MN assumption. That is what the word "experiment" means.
To suggest then that science would be well served by philosophers who wish to "free" it from the "constraint" of MN is rather like a non-lawyer suggesting that the law be freed from its dependence on legal texts. After all, textual law often offends our intuitive notion of "justice", just as MN often offends our intuitive notions of self or soul. Why not instead appeal to "intuitive justice" (as an analog to "intelligent design")? This is not a bad thing to wish for. Indeed, the law (and science) has many shortcomings when measured according to how well they fulfill all of mankind's needs. And indeed if you strip the text from the law you may actually end up with something worthwhile, but it will no longer be the law. Likewise, if you strip MN from science you may end up with something worthwhile, but it will no longer be science. It will be something else.
I would close by observing that if you (or one of your philosopher colleagues) succeeds in making an actual contribution to human intellectual endeavor by rejecting MN then your names will be remembered with the likes of the greatest philosophers that ever lived. Powerful ideas like MN (or textual law, or conflict in drama) do not come along every day. There have probably been less than half a dozen ideas of such power in all of human history. To embark on such an endeavor requires a certain hubris. I point this out not to discourage you (all human progress has been predicated on the hubris that such a thing as "progress" is even possible) but merely to point out the magnitude of what you claim to be doing, and why some scientists might take offense at the suggestion that philosophers wishing to discharge the MN assumption are contributing something to science.
A clarification: although I am very skeptical of the possibility of making fundamentally new contributions to the human condition by rejecting MN, clearly such contributions have been made in the past. (See e.g. my earlier post on logic envy.) There is no shame in this. After all, humans have been doing philosophy for a lot longer than they have been doing science, and so it's not altogether unexpected that the situation might have converged to a sort of steady state. Of course, it's entirely possible that philosophers are out there doing all sorts of cool new things that I'm not aware of. But I don't think anyone would argue that the products of science are much easier to discern in today's world. That is, after all, the reason I think we're having arguments over things like Intelligent Design in the first place.
Living in Southern California I am fortunate to be in range of one of the finest journalists of our time, Larry Mantle, who hosts a show on our local NPR station called AirTalk. Larry has an extraordinary ability to tackle controversial subjects without bias, and to keep probing sensitive issues without actually pissing off his guests.
Today's show (which is not up on the KPCC web site yet) was a debate between Michael Shermer and John Reynolds about Intelligent Design (ID) theory. I thought the debate missed a couple of important points, which I sent to Dr. Reynolds in an email. He wanted to respond in his blog, so to facilitate that I'm posting the email I sent to him (lightly edited for blogging):
I listened with interest to your appearance on Larry Mantle's Air Talk this morning.
You kept making the point that adhering to methodological naturalism (MN) was somehow holding science back from certain kinds of progress. You also made the point that there is debate about what science is, and that philosophers are the ones best equipped to make this determination. You are mistaken on both counts. This can be demonstrated (somewhat ironically) with an elementary philosophical argument, to wit:
What distinguishes science from other arenas of human intellectual endeavor like drama, religion, law, etc. is that it produces certain kinds of results that these other arenas do not, e.g. antibiotics, semiconductors, nuclear weapons, etc. (One might go out on a limb and say that science seems uniquely suited among all arenas of human intellectual endeavor to produce results that allow humans to manipulate the physical world according to their desires, and that indeed this is the reason that people care so much about science and that we are even having this discussion. But this is not necessary to make the argument. All that is necessary is to agree that science produces results of a particular character, that these results "matter" in some sense, and that they are not generally produced by non-scientific endeavors.)
The *reason* that science is able to do these things is its adherence to MN. MN does not hold science back; quite the contrary. MN is an *empowering* constraint. It is the reason that science produces the results that it does. Science without MN is like drama without conflict. It is eviscerated. It has been robbed of its essential character.
This is not a deduction; it is an empirical observation. When one adheres to MN one produces "science-like" results. When one rejects MN one fails to produce such results. This is why all scientists (including Feynman, to whom you appealed to support your position) agree: science is the proposition that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth (Feynman's words). Inherent in this definition is the MN assumption. That is what the word "experiment" means.
To suggest then that science would be well served by philosophers who wish to "free" it from the "constraint" of MN is rather like a non-lawyer suggesting that the law be freed from its dependence on legal texts. After all, textual law often offends our intuitive notion of "justice", just as MN often offends our intuitive notions of self or soul. Why not instead appeal to "intuitive justice" (as an analog to "intelligent design")? This is not a bad thing to wish for. Indeed, the law (and science) has many shortcomings when measured according to how well they fulfill all of mankind's needs. And indeed if you strip the text from the law you may actually end up with something worthwhile, but it will no longer be the law. Likewise, if you strip MN from science you may end up with something worthwhile, but it will no longer be science. It will be something else.
I would close by observing that if you (or one of your philosopher colleagues) succeeds in making an actual contribution to human intellectual endeavor by rejecting MN then your names will be remembered with the likes of the greatest philosophers that ever lived. Powerful ideas like MN (or textual law, or conflict in drama) do not come along every day. There have probably been less than half a dozen ideas of such power in all of human history. To embark on such an endeavor requires a certain hubris. I point this out not to discourage you (all human progress has been predicated on the hubris that such a thing as "progress" is even possible) but merely to point out the magnitude of what you claim to be doing, and why some scientists might take offense at the suggestion that philosophers wishing to discharge the MN assumption are contributing something to science.
A clarification: although I am very skeptical of the possibility of making fundamentally new contributions to the human condition by rejecting MN, clearly such contributions have been made in the past. (See e.g. my earlier post on logic envy.) There is no shame in this. After all, humans have been doing philosophy for a lot longer than they have been doing science, and so it's not altogether unexpected that the situation might have converged to a sort of steady state. Of course, it's entirely possible that philosophers are out there doing all sorts of cool new things that I'm not aware of. But I don't think anyone would argue that the products of science are much easier to discern in today's world. That is, after all, the reason I think we're having arguments over things like Intelligent Design in the first place.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
A lovely quote
"In Iraq and Afghanistan, would-be theocrats who think they're channeling God want to impose their narrow-minded vision on everyone else. In our country … oh, never mind"
Friday, March 18, 2005
Thirteen splendid little mysteries
New Scientist has a really cool story about 13 things that do not make sense. Obviously science hasn't got it all figured out yet.
Monday, November 15, 2004
The Next Five Big NASA Failures
If you want a glimpse of how NASA really works (or doesn't work as the case may be) read this.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Leprechauns are real!
Wow, this is turning out to be a pretty good day for news. From rednova.com: [UPDATE: which now seems to be defunct]
A 3ft tall 'hobbit' discovered on a remote Indonesian island has raised the extraordinary possibility that our human species might not be alone on Earth.
The female creature has been identified as a completely new member of the human race.
But, although she lived 18,000 years ago, scientists believe her relatives survived for thousands more years on the island of Flores.
And experts have not ruled out the possibility of her descendants, or other unknown human species, still hiding in the impenetrable forests and cave systems of South-East Asia.
Mythical tales abound in the region of a race of little people that dwell on the islands of Indonesia.
Dutch explorers who colonised Flores 100 years ago were told colourful stories of a human-like creature local inhabitants called 'ebu gogo'.
The tales described how they could be heard 'murmuring' to one another, and how, parrot-fashion, they repeated back words spoken to them.
Dr Henry Gee, senior editor of scientific journal Nature, said scientists who made the discovery were now having to think again about these stories' source.
'Until they found this creature they would have dismissed them as tales of hobbits and leprechauns, but no longer,' he told a news conference last night.
Are we still the good guys?
When we attacked Iraq we didn't bother to count the civilian casualties, but now someone has. The grand total: over 100,000. To put this number in perspective, according to published reports, in the much-ballyhooed poison gas attack by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds, 5,000 people died. Fewer than 3,000 died in the World Trade Center. I don't know what Saddam's grand total is, but it certainly appears based on these latest figures that the U.S. in contention for having killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam Hussein and all the terrorist attacks in the history of the world combined.
I've asked this before, I'll ask it again: what exactly is it that makes us the good guys?
I've asked this before, I'll ask it again: what exactly is it that makes us the good guys?
We've won the war on terror
The Deparment of Homeland Security has apparently made so much progress in the war on terror that now have extra time and manpower available to try to enforce copyright and patent law. That would be funny (or sad depending on how you look at it) even apart from the fact that their first target hadn't actually broken any laws. What's next? Breaking into people's houses to arrest them for jaywalking?
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Just in time for Halloween
This is really scary.
(The PDF is huge, around 5MB, so if you have a slow connection here's the original PowerPoint presentation , which is only 900k.)
(The PDF is huge, around 5MB, so if you have a slow connection here's the original PowerPoint presentation , which is only 900k.)
Friday, September 03, 2004
Some reason for hope in Iraq
This is the most hopeful thing I've read about the Iraq war. My respect for the editors of Slate keeps increasing.
"The problem is that our understanding of successful warfare, like our definition of legitimate governance, is different from the region's. And a lot of people -- from Muqtada and Osama to the mullahs in Tehran and the Baathists in Damascus -- have a lot at stake in defining their own version of success. If history is written by the victors, the outcome of this war partly depends on how well we describe it, and how well we enforce those descriptions while we're fighting it.
Trouble is, the Bushies are much worse at describing this war than Lee Smith. And, alas, John Dukak--, er, Kerry, doesn't seem to be much better.
"The problem is that our understanding of successful warfare, like our definition of legitimate governance, is different from the region's. And a lot of people -- from Muqtada and Osama to the mullahs in Tehran and the Baathists in Damascus -- have a lot at stake in defining their own version of success. If history is written by the victors, the outcome of this war partly depends on how well we describe it, and how well we enforce those descriptions while we're fighting it.
Trouble is, the Bushies are much worse at describing this war than Lee Smith. And, alas, John Dukak--, er, Kerry, doesn't seem to be much better.
Cold fusion resurrected?
Another good example of how science really works: turns out there may be something to cold fusion after all. That is what distinguishes science from faith: in science experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth, and there is the ever-present possibility that the authorities are wrong.
Personally, I wouldn't rush out to buy palladium futures just yet, though.
Personally, I wouldn't rush out to buy palladium futures just yet, though.
Monday, August 16, 2004
Informed Comment
Just found (via Fred Kaplan over at Slate) a really great blog about Iraq by Juan Cole, a Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Worthwhile albeit lengthy reading.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Did the Resurrection really happen?
I was browsing through the Bible today looking up some passages that were cited in a discussion of Mel Gibson's "The Passion" (which I still haven't seen and probably never will -- I don't think I have the stomach for that much gore). I was struck by the sparseness of the description of the Resurrection in Mark, which is the earliest and hence presumably the most historically reliable of the Gospels. Here is the most important event in all of Christianity (in the history of the Universe if you're a Christian) and all the coverage it gets is about a dozen verses. The chronology of events as reported in Mark is:
1. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb of Jesus (who is dead three days now) to annoint his body with spices.
(As an aside, doesn't this seem like a rather odd thing for them to want to do? Remember, they don't know that Jesus is about to be resurrected. They expect to find a three-day-dead body.)
2. The three women puzzle over how they are going to gain access to the tomb given that its entrance is blocked by a large stone, but when they arrive at the tomb they find the stone has been rolled away and Jesus's body is missing. They enter the tomb and find "a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side."
3. The "young man" tells the women that "He [Jesus] has risen!," askes them to pass the word along to "his disciples and Peter" (I always thought Peter was a disciple), and that they will shortly see the risen Jesus with their own eyes.
4. The women flee the tomb, "trembling and bewildered" and say "nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."
All the quotes are from the New International Version as reported by Biblegateway.
At this point in the narrative there is a note in the NIV that reads:
((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))
Now, that came as a bit of a shock to me, because this is the cornerstone of modern Christianity. If this note is true it means that there is no contemporary account of the Resurrection whatsoever beyond what I have just detailed above, and that's a pretty scant account. Taken at face value, it sounds a lot more like an account of a grave robbery than a resurrection.
I note in passing that as the Resurrection took on more of a central role in Christian mythology, so did Jesus's miracles, which also tend to get more embellished and grandiose as one moves through the chronology of the Gospels from Mark to Luke and Matthew and finally to John, where we first encounter the story of Lazarus. Remember Lazarus? He was dead four days when Jesus resurrected him. Funny how that didn't make enough of an impression on the authors of the other three Gospels to be deemed worth mentioning. Maybe it's because they realized that if you're going to hang your religion on a resurrection it's probably best to at least report it as if it were a singular event. The author of John perhaps got a tad carried away and didn't think it all the way through. But that's just a guess.
1. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb of Jesus (who is dead three days now) to annoint his body with spices.
(As an aside, doesn't this seem like a rather odd thing for them to want to do? Remember, they don't know that Jesus is about to be resurrected. They expect to find a three-day-dead body.)
2. The three women puzzle over how they are going to gain access to the tomb given that its entrance is blocked by a large stone, but when they arrive at the tomb they find the stone has been rolled away and Jesus's body is missing. They enter the tomb and find "a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side."
3. The "young man" tells the women that "He [Jesus] has risen!," askes them to pass the word along to "his disciples and Peter" (I always thought Peter was a disciple), and that they will shortly see the risen Jesus with their own eyes.
4. The women flee the tomb, "trembling and bewildered" and say "nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."
All the quotes are from the New International Version as reported by Biblegateway.
At this point in the narrative there is a note in the NIV that reads:
((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))
Now, that came as a bit of a shock to me, because this is the cornerstone of modern Christianity. If this note is true it means that there is no contemporary account of the Resurrection whatsoever beyond what I have just detailed above, and that's a pretty scant account. Taken at face value, it sounds a lot more like an account of a grave robbery than a resurrection.
I note in passing that as the Resurrection took on more of a central role in Christian mythology, so did Jesus's miracles, which also tend to get more embellished and grandiose as one moves through the chronology of the Gospels from Mark to Luke and Matthew and finally to John, where we first encounter the story of Lazarus. Remember Lazarus? He was dead four days when Jesus resurrected him. Funny how that didn't make enough of an impression on the authors of the other three Gospels to be deemed worth mentioning. Maybe it's because they realized that if you're going to hang your religion on a resurrection it's probably best to at least report it as if it were a singular event. The author of John perhaps got a tad carried away and didn't think it all the way through. But that's just a guess.
Life imitates art again
Once again my favorite movie, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, has prophesized an actual event:
"Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals."
Compare with:
Maybe Terry Gilliam is the Messiah.
"Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals."
Compare with:
INTERVIEWER
And the cost of it all, Deputy
Minister? Seven percent of the gross
national product ...
HELPMANN
I understand this concern on behalf
of the tax-payers. People want value
for money and a cost-effective
service.
...
That is why we always insist on the
principle of Information Retrieval
Charges. These terrorists are not
pulling their weight, and it's
absolutely right and fair that those
found guilty should pay for their
periods of detention and the
Information Retrieval Procedures used
in their interrogation.
Maybe Terry Gilliam is the Messiah.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
A time and a place for everything
I think Bill Timmons, president of the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas, was right to fire Linda Ronstadt for praising Michael Moore's film "Farenheit 9/11" during a recent concert. This is not a freedom-of-speech issue. The people in the audience paid good money to hear her sing, not proseletyze. She can say whatever she wants on her own time, but during a concert she's on the job, and her job is to entertain the audience, even if some of them happen to be Republicans.
Michael Moore has come to Ronstadt's defense, calling her firing "un-American." I disagree. One of the defining features of a country based on free enterprise is that if you don't do your job you can get fired. Reasonable people can differ about whether this is good or bad, but to call it un-American is completely untenable. In my opinion, firing Ronstadt was not only American, it was the right thing to do.
Michael Moore has come to Ronstadt's defense, calling her firing "un-American." I disagree. One of the defining features of a country based on free enterprise is that if you don't do your job you can get fired. Reasonable people can differ about whether this is good or bad, but to call it un-American is completely untenable. In my opinion, firing Ronstadt was not only American, it was the right thing to do.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Well, that's a relief
The reports that the Bush Administration had plans to postpone the election in the event of a terrorist attack seem to have been a false alarm. But there's still electronic voting machines to contend with. As long as Diebold controls the elections the world is not safe for Democracy.
Elections postponed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and ... the U.S.
The United States may join the ranks of countries where elections are "postponed" because of security concerns.
I hope we are not witnessing the beginning of the end of American Democracy. But I wouldn't bet my life savings on it at this point.
I hope we are not witnessing the beginning of the end of American Democracy. But I wouldn't bet my life savings on it at this point.
Free to do anything you want as long as no one objects
One thing that the Bush administration doesn't seem to get is that freedom to do only those things of which the government approves isn't freedom at all. Freedom means nothing if it does not mean being free to do things that are annoying, obnoxious, even offenseive, without fear of being driven into bankruptcy by the government. To be fair, a good percentage of the American People don't seem to get this either.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Knock me over with a feather
Clarence Thomas actually went against right-wing doctrine and did the right thing. Astonishing.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Things that need saying
Something else that in my humble opinionneeds to be said: with all due respect Mr. Vice President, you're a fucking asshole.
Monday, June 21, 2004
The last thing we need
Much as I hate to admit it, the right-wing wackos who hang out on Rand Simberg's blog were apparently right about Michael Moore. Sigh.
A happy day for HMOs
It's a happy day if you're an HMO. The Supreme Court has ruled that HMOs cannot be sued in state court for damages arising from witholding medical care against a doctor's orders. HMOs can now only in Federal court, where awards are capped at the cost of the care withheld.
If you think this through, this makes it fiscally irresponsible for an HMO to pay for any medical care at all! If they pay then they're out the money. But if they don't pay then the worst case scenario for them is that they have to pay out that exact same amount of money. And, of course, if they don't pay then they have all sorts of opportunities to avoid paying forever, like if the care really did turn out to be unnecessary, or of the patient doesn't decide to sue for one reason or another, or if they prevail in court.
Of course, if an HMO really stopped paying altogether they'd probably stop getting customers, so the wisest course of action for an HMO now is to pay out the bare minimum necessary to keep up the appearance that the HMO is not just a scam. But any more than that and the HMO faces a lawsuit by its stockholders. I wonder if the damages would be capped in that case.
If you think this through, this makes it fiscally irresponsible for an HMO to pay for any medical care at all! If they pay then they're out the money. But if they don't pay then the worst case scenario for them is that they have to pay out that exact same amount of money. And, of course, if they don't pay then they have all sorts of opportunities to avoid paying forever, like if the care really did turn out to be unnecessary, or of the patient doesn't decide to sue for one reason or another, or if they prevail in court.
Of course, if an HMO really stopped paying altogether they'd probably stop getting customers, so the wisest course of action for an HMO now is to pay out the bare minimum necessary to keep up the appearance that the HMO is not just a scam. But any more than that and the HMO faces a lawsuit by its stockholders. I wonder if the damages would be capped in that case.
Slip-slidin' away
Once again the Supreme Court refuses to toss a line to a country continuing to slide down the slippery slope towards Nazism and the day when a citizen may no longer legally refuse a police officer who demands, "Let me see your papers."
Where have you gone Harry Blackmun? A nation turns its frightened eyes to you.
Where have you gone Harry Blackmun? A nation turns its frightened eyes to you.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Thursday, June 17, 2004
An unlikely advocate of states' rights
I am a second class citizen again. As an atheist, I cannot in good conscience declare my allegiance to "the flag of the United States of America, one nation under God" because I do not believe that there is any God for this nation to be under. For a while, the U.S. Court of Appeals recognized what has always seemed like a no-brainer to me: the inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge is an unconstitutional establishment of religion. But three days ago the Supreme Court overturned the decision on the grounds that the person who brought the suit had no standing.
Fucking cowards.
Still, some of the Justices wrote dissenting opinions declaring that the Pledge is constitutional. It makes very interesting reading. Some of the reasoning is sound, some of it is twisted, and some of it is very, very scary.
Clarence Thomas, ironically, has the most clear reasoning among the dissenters. He squarely faces the fact that:
... as a matter of our precedent, the Pledge policy is unconstitutional.
But that is an unacceptable outcome to a religious fanatic like Thomas, so he goes on to rewrite the law in a most interesting way:
I believe, however, that Lee was wrongly decided. Lee depended on a notion of “coercion” that, as I discuss below, has no basis in law or reason. The kind of coercion implicated by the Religion Clauses is that accomplished “by force of law and threat of penalty.” 505 U. S., at 640 (SCALIA, J., dissenting); see id., at 640– 645. Peer pressure, unpleasant as it may be, is not coercion.
An ironic observation for a black man to make, but then Thomas was always the poster child for the proposition that even a man with dark skin can be a bigot.
But wait, there's still hope:
But rejection of Lee-style “coercion” does not suffice to settle this case. Although children are not coerced to pledge their allegiance, they are legally coerced to attend school. Cf., e.g., Schempp, supra; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962). Because what is at issue is a state action, the question becomes whether the Pledge policy implicates a religious liberty right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
So far so good. Here's the scary part:
I accept that the Free Exercise Clause, which clearly protects an individual right, applies against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Zelman, 536 U. S., at 679, and n. 4 (THOMAS, J., concurring). But the Establishment Clause is another matter. The text and history of the Establishment Clause strongly suggest that it is a federalism provision intended to prevent Congress from interfering with state establishments.
So on Thomas's view, the First Amendment is not there to insure individual freedom of religion. It is there to prevent Congress from interfering with the rights of the states to establish official State religions!
Astonishing.
Does Thomas not recall that we fought a civil war over this very issue? The civil war was not about slavery per se, it was about states' rights.
How ironic that one hundred and forty years after the issue was settled that states' rights are being resurrected by a black man named Tom. You couldn't sell that story as a movie.
Fucking cowards.
Still, some of the Justices wrote dissenting opinions declaring that the Pledge is constitutional. It makes very interesting reading. Some of the reasoning is sound, some of it is twisted, and some of it is very, very scary.
Clarence Thomas, ironically, has the most clear reasoning among the dissenters. He squarely faces the fact that:
... as a matter of our precedent, the Pledge policy is unconstitutional.
But that is an unacceptable outcome to a religious fanatic like Thomas, so he goes on to rewrite the law in a most interesting way:
I believe, however, that Lee was wrongly decided. Lee depended on a notion of “coercion” that, as I discuss below, has no basis in law or reason. The kind of coercion implicated by the Religion Clauses is that accomplished “by force of law and threat of penalty.” 505 U. S., at 640 (SCALIA, J., dissenting); see id., at 640– 645. Peer pressure, unpleasant as it may be, is not coercion.
An ironic observation for a black man to make, but then Thomas was always the poster child for the proposition that even a man with dark skin can be a bigot.
But wait, there's still hope:
But rejection of Lee-style “coercion” does not suffice to settle this case. Although children are not coerced to pledge their allegiance, they are legally coerced to attend school. Cf., e.g., Schempp, supra; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962). Because what is at issue is a state action, the question becomes whether the Pledge policy implicates a religious liberty right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
So far so good. Here's the scary part:
I accept that the Free Exercise Clause, which clearly protects an individual right, applies against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Zelman, 536 U. S., at 679, and n. 4 (THOMAS, J., concurring). But the Establishment Clause is another matter. The text and history of the Establishment Clause strongly suggest that it is a federalism provision intended to prevent Congress from interfering with state establishments.
So on Thomas's view, the First Amendment is not there to insure individual freedom of religion. It is there to prevent Congress from interfering with the rights of the states to establish official State religions!
Astonishing.
Does Thomas not recall that we fought a civil war over this very issue? The civil war was not about slavery per se, it was about states' rights.
How ironic that one hundred and forty years after the issue was settled that states' rights are being resurrected by a black man named Tom. You couldn't sell that story as a movie.
The rules of Republican politics
The LA Times (and every other newspaper in the world) reports:
One day after the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks reported it could find 'no credible evidence' of cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda in targeting the United States, President Bush today held to his repeated declarations that the two were connected.
'The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda,' the president said.
...there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda."
Well, you know what? Since 9/11 there have been numerous contacts between the United States and Al Qaeda too. And numerous contacts between the United States and the Taliban. And there were numerous contacts between the United States and Saddam Hussein for a period extending over decades. And unlike Saddam's refusal to cooperate with Al Qaeda, the United States supplied weapons to Saddam. (I believe that we actually supplied him with WOMD, though I could be wrong about that and I don't feel like looking it up right now.)
The point is that Bush's use of the word "contacts" in the context of justifying the war implies a cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda for which there is no evidence whatsoever. For Bush to continue to cling to this rationale is disingenuous in the extreme. Not that this is at all surprising. This is the way it is with Republicans since Herbert Hoover refused to take any action to halt the spread of the Great Depression. Rule #1 of Republican politics: Republicans are never wrong. (Rule #2 is: when Republicans are wrong, see rule #1.)
Hey ho, Bush must go!
One day after the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks reported it could find 'no credible evidence' of cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda in targeting the United States, President Bush today held to his repeated declarations that the two were connected.
'The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda,' the president said.
...there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda."
Well, you know what? Since 9/11 there have been numerous contacts between the United States and Al Qaeda too. And numerous contacts between the United States and the Taliban. And there were numerous contacts between the United States and Saddam Hussein for a period extending over decades. And unlike Saddam's refusal to cooperate with Al Qaeda, the United States supplied weapons to Saddam. (I believe that we actually supplied him with WOMD, though I could be wrong about that and I don't feel like looking it up right now.)
The point is that Bush's use of the word "contacts" in the context of justifying the war implies a cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda for which there is no evidence whatsoever. For Bush to continue to cling to this rationale is disingenuous in the extreme. Not that this is at all surprising. This is the way it is with Republicans since Herbert Hoover refused to take any action to halt the spread of the Great Depression. Rule #1 of Republican politics: Republicans are never wrong. (Rule #2 is: when Republicans are wrong, see rule #1.)
Hey ho, Bush must go!
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Shhh... we're hunting wabbits (on Mars)
Another wonderful example of science at work, the great Mars bunny hunt. This example really show's Occam's razor at work. Even though we lack conclusive proof, the simplest explanation is probably correct.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Friday, May 28, 2004
Morons!
The California Senate has passed this bit of legislative idiocy. Let's hope that there are more operative neurons in the Assembly. Somehow, I wouldn't bet my life savings on it.
You know, I read about how George Bush's approval ratings are plummeting, and that cheers me up because that means we have a chance to get rid of him in November. Then I remember that if we do that, the Democrats will be back in charge, and I sink into a deep pit of utter despair.
You know, I read about how George Bush's approval ratings are plummeting, and that cheers me up because that means we have a chance to get rid of him in November. Then I remember that if we do that, the Democrats will be back in charge, and I sink into a deep pit of utter despair.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Blame it on porn
Rebecca Hagelin has it all figured out: the abuse of prisoners at Abu Graib is the result of too much porn (and not enough attendance at church).
The logic escapes me. It is certainly true that Americans spend a lot more on porn now than they did, say, fifty years ago, but we also spend more on just about everything else. One could just as easily say that Abu Graib was the result of too much money spent on beer, or SUVs, or fast food.
Or guns.
For that matter, let's take a closer look at the premise behind Hagelin's position: Abu Graib is a reflection of a "culture gone stark raving mad" and urges a return to the Halcyon days before the 60's corrupted us.
Of course, even Hagelin acknowledges that the history of the country before the 60's is not unblemished. "The horrors of slavery come to mind." But what Hagelin doesn't mention is society's reaction to slavery as contrasted to society's reaction to Abu Graib. It took us almost 100 years and a civil war to settle the question of whether slavery was moral. (And, I note in passing, we're still arguing about the question of whether state-sponsored discrimination against minorities is moral.) How long did it take us to settle the question of whether women ought to be allowed to vote? Or whether blacks ought to be allowed to marry whites?
The response of today's American society to the atrocities at Abu Graib stands in stark contrast to the lengthy, painful, and often shameful history that has brought us to where we are. Today's response was immediate and unequivocal (with the exception of a few on the far right who maintain that "those terrorists" got what they deserve): what happened at Abu Graib was wrong. I'll take that over anything our past has to offer.
The problem with today's society, if indeed there is one, is that it is starting to focus too much on the Ten Commandments and not enough on the Ten Amendments. Abu Graib happened not because we gave up on church or God, it happened because we gave up on due process of law.
The logic escapes me. It is certainly true that Americans spend a lot more on porn now than they did, say, fifty years ago, but we also spend more on just about everything else. One could just as easily say that Abu Graib was the result of too much money spent on beer, or SUVs, or fast food.
Or guns.
For that matter, let's take a closer look at the premise behind Hagelin's position: Abu Graib is a reflection of a "culture gone stark raving mad" and urges a return to the Halcyon days before the 60's corrupted us.
Of course, even Hagelin acknowledges that the history of the country before the 60's is not unblemished. "The horrors of slavery come to mind." But what Hagelin doesn't mention is society's reaction to slavery as contrasted to society's reaction to Abu Graib. It took us almost 100 years and a civil war to settle the question of whether slavery was moral. (And, I note in passing, we're still arguing about the question of whether state-sponsored discrimination against minorities is moral.) How long did it take us to settle the question of whether women ought to be allowed to vote? Or whether blacks ought to be allowed to marry whites?
The response of today's American society to the atrocities at Abu Graib stands in stark contrast to the lengthy, painful, and often shameful history that has brought us to where we are. Today's response was immediate and unequivocal (with the exception of a few on the far right who maintain that "those terrorists" got what they deserve): what happened at Abu Graib was wrong. I'll take that over anything our past has to offer.
The problem with today's society, if indeed there is one, is that it is starting to focus too much on the Ten Commandments and not enough on the Ten Amendments. Abu Graib happened not because we gave up on church or God, it happened because we gave up on due process of law.
A small island of sanity
A Federal Appeals Court has ruled that John Ashcroft overstepped his authority when he ordered that Oregon ignore a democratically approved initiative.
This is good news. The bad news is that the vote was 2-1. That's a thin margin.
We liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein. When George Bush has stacked the courts with conservative judges who think the U.S. should be a Christian theocracy, who will liberate us? Who will defend individual freedom and democracy against the overreaching dictatorship of John Ashcroft.
I fear for my country.
This is good news. The bad news is that the vote was 2-1. That's a thin margin.
We liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein. When George Bush has stacked the courts with conservative judges who think the U.S. should be a Christian theocracy, who will liberate us? Who will defend individual freedom and democracy against the overreaching dictatorship of John Ashcroft.
I fear for my country.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
That does it
Despite the fact that I have an Israeli heritage and a certain amount of sympathy for the suffering of Israeli civilians at the hands of Palestinian terrorists (and the fact that my grandmother still lives in Haifa) I can no longer muster any support for the government of Israel after reading this. To destroy a zoo is unalloyed evil.
Friday, May 07, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
The end of the world as we know it
There is more evidence that global warming is real and worse than previously thought. The Earth's temperature is rising nearly 1 degree Farenheit per decade.
That's a pretty alarming rate of change. It means that the average temperature of the Earth could change by as much as ten degres F in a single human lifetime.
To put this in perspective, it is probably not a coincidence that the rise of argiculture and civilization coincided with the end of the last ice age about ten thousand years ago. It's not so much the warming up per se that allowed civilization to arise, but rather the fact that global temperatures remained relatively constant for ten thousand years. It's hard to build a civilization if the city you build today will be underwater (or in the middle of a barrent desert) by the time your grandchildren grow up.
Ice core evidence shows that the last ten thousand years have been unusual in the grand and glorious scheme of things, and that radical global warming and cooling have been the rule rather than the exception. That has led some people to be complacent about mankind's contribution to the recent round of global warming, saying that this is just the Way Things Are. That may be. It may also be that civilization now has a firm enough grip that it will survive the end of the conditions that allowed it to arise in the first place, much like a plant, once established, can survive a drought that might have killed it as a seedling.
But even the hardiest plant cannot survive a drought forever.
Global climate change has the capacity to subject us to stresses that we as a species have not known for five hundred generations, possibly within the lifetime of some people alive today. That is certainly a worst-case scenario, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
One reason to be optimistic: we will probably run out of oil first.
That's a pretty alarming rate of change. It means that the average temperature of the Earth could change by as much as ten degres F in a single human lifetime.
To put this in perspective, it is probably not a coincidence that the rise of argiculture and civilization coincided with the end of the last ice age about ten thousand years ago. It's not so much the warming up per se that allowed civilization to arise, but rather the fact that global temperatures remained relatively constant for ten thousand years. It's hard to build a civilization if the city you build today will be underwater (or in the middle of a barrent desert) by the time your grandchildren grow up.
Ice core evidence shows that the last ten thousand years have been unusual in the grand and glorious scheme of things, and that radical global warming and cooling have been the rule rather than the exception. That has led some people to be complacent about mankind's contribution to the recent round of global warming, saying that this is just the Way Things Are. That may be. It may also be that civilization now has a firm enough grip that it will survive the end of the conditions that allowed it to arise in the first place, much like a plant, once established, can survive a drought that might have killed it as a seedling.
But even the hardiest plant cannot survive a drought forever.
Global climate change has the capacity to subject us to stresses that we as a species have not known for five hundred generations, possibly within the lifetime of some people alive today. That is certainly a worst-case scenario, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
One reason to be optimistic: we will probably run out of oil first.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Couldn't have said it better myself
I have to admit that I found George Bush's speech yesterday inspiring. Too bad it bore little resemblence to reality.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Techno-idiocy 101
California State Senator Liz Figueroa is seeking to block Google's new Gmail service on the grounds that it invades people's privacy.
I can't summon the words to describe how moronic this response seems to me. For one thing, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to sign up with GMail. If anyone doesn't like the terms of service they are free to pass.
But the bigger issue is the technological ignorance (or Machiavellian idiocy) that must underlie this position. Email isn't private. It never has been, and until people start to use encryption (which the government is actively trying to prevent them from doing) it never will be.
Getting upset about GMail on privacy issues is kind of like getting upset at GM for making the Hummer on the grounds that you are shocked, shocked! to learn that SUVs aren't fuel efficient.
---
Followup 4/16: Paul Boutin says it much better.
I can't summon the words to describe how moronic this response seems to me. For one thing, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to sign up with GMail. If anyone doesn't like the terms of service they are free to pass.
But the bigger issue is the technological ignorance (or Machiavellian idiocy) that must underlie this position. Email isn't private. It never has been, and until people start to use encryption (which the government is actively trying to prevent them from doing) it never will be.
Getting upset about GMail on privacy issues is kind of like getting upset at GM for making the Hummer on the grounds that you are shocked, shocked! to learn that SUVs aren't fuel efficient.
---
Followup 4/16: Paul Boutin says it much better.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Burying the lead
It seems to me that the press is giving President Bush a free pass on the August 6 memo. For example, the LA Times, whose reputation would lead one to believe that it could be relied upon to hold a Republican President to account, leads with "Memo Cited Fears of Attacks in U.S....But the newly declassified presidential briefing from August 2001 is short on specifics."
Well, that's not really true.
The August 6 memo says:
Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1997 demonstrates that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993...
FBI information since [1998] indicates patterns of suspicious activities in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings and other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
Condoleeza Rice defends the Administrations lack of action in the face of this information on the fact that there is no indication of when the attacks were to take place. But then in her own testimony before the 9/11 comission she reveals that there were indications that attacks were imminent:
Most often, though, the threat reporting was frustratingly vague. Let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer:
"Unbelievable news coming in weeks," said one.
"Big event -- there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar."
"There will be attacks in the near future."
Troubling, yes. But they don't tell us when; they don't tell us where; they don't tell us who; and they don't tell us how.
Um, Dr. Rice, with all due respect, the chatter and the August 6 memo did in fact tell us when ("in weeks"), where ("New York"), who ("Bin Laden"), and how ("hijackings"). Or were you expecting someone to give you the exact dates and flight numbers?
Now, to be fair, hindsight is 20/20, and I actually think it's a defensible position to look at that information at the time and make a considered decision not to act on it. But they didn't do that. They did what they did because they were willfully ignorant, because they had all their attention focused on Iraq, and because of familial obligations to the Bin Ladens and the House of Saud.
What is astonishing to me is that even in the face of news like that (and this) there will still be somewhere around fifty million Americans ready to vote for George Bush in November.
Well, that's not really true.
The August 6 memo says:
Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1997 demonstrates that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993...
FBI information since [1998] indicates patterns of suspicious activities in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings and other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
Condoleeza Rice defends the Administrations lack of action in the face of this information on the fact that there is no indication of when the attacks were to take place. But then in her own testimony before the 9/11 comission she reveals that there were indications that attacks were imminent:
Most often, though, the threat reporting was frustratingly vague. Let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer:
"Unbelievable news coming in weeks," said one.
"Big event -- there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar."
"There will be attacks in the near future."
Troubling, yes. But they don't tell us when; they don't tell us where; they don't tell us who; and they don't tell us how.
Um, Dr. Rice, with all due respect, the chatter and the August 6 memo did in fact tell us when ("in weeks"), where ("New York"), who ("Bin Laden"), and how ("hijackings"). Or were you expecting someone to give you the exact dates and flight numbers?
Now, to be fair, hindsight is 20/20, and I actually think it's a defensible position to look at that information at the time and make a considered decision not to act on it. But they didn't do that. They did what they did because they were willfully ignorant, because they had all their attention focused on Iraq, and because of familial obligations to the Bin Ladens and the House of Saud.
What is astonishing to me is that even in the face of news like that (and this) there will still be somewhere around fifty million Americans ready to vote for George Bush in November.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Friday, April 02, 2004
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Chicken little was right
Martin (whose URL doesn't seem to be working at the moment) pointed me to this editorial by Donald Sensing in the Wall Street Journal. Sensing concludes:
Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce without social stigma, and talk in 2004 of "saving marriage" is pretty specious. There's little there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages till death do them part do so in spite of society, not because of it.
If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?
I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God. But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it.
I completely agree (except, of course, for the part about all this being contrary to the will of God). Christian conservatives have been asleep at the switch for a long time, and not just about gay marriage. They're getting outraged about Janet Jackson's tit, when what they should be getting outraged about is "Frasier" (one my my wife's and my favorite shows) and "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days", both of which portray pre-marital sex as the norm even among the fuddiest of duddies. And this isn't HBO, this is prime-time network TV and a PG-13 romantic comedy, and they are hardly the eception. I can't remember the last time I saw premarital sex portrayed in popular visual media as anything other than a societal norm. But the religious right seems too busy getting passionate about The Passion to notice.
I am not axiomatically pro-gay-marriage. What I am axiomatically for is consistency and effectiveness. Either we're going to defend marriage as an institution designed to foster procreation or we're not. If we're going to defend marriage on those grounds that means making illegal (or at least taking strong stands against) pre-marital sex, birth control, and divorce (at least for couples with children), taking away tax breaks for infertile couples (and even fertile couples who for whatever reason don't have children within a certain time period), and then wrestling with the very sticky issue of artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization. Most people now laugh at the chicken-littles who warned that the sky would fall as a result of reproductive technology, but it turns out they were right: the sky is falling. Society is coming apart at the seams as a result. Old institutions, like marriage reserved for heterosexual couples, are becoming untenable -- along with suffrage reserved for men and freedom reserved for whites.
Personally, I think that's a good thing. If having society unravel the way it has in the last hundred years is the price we have to pay to realize the American Dream of liberty and justice for all, I say bring it on.
Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce without social stigma, and talk in 2004 of "saving marriage" is pretty specious. There's little there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages till death do them part do so in spite of society, not because of it.
If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?
I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God. But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it.
I completely agree (except, of course, for the part about all this being contrary to the will of God). Christian conservatives have been asleep at the switch for a long time, and not just about gay marriage. They're getting outraged about Janet Jackson's tit, when what they should be getting outraged about is "Frasier" (one my my wife's and my favorite shows) and "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days", both of which portray pre-marital sex as the norm even among the fuddiest of duddies. And this isn't HBO, this is prime-time network TV and a PG-13 romantic comedy, and they are hardly the eception. I can't remember the last time I saw premarital sex portrayed in popular visual media as anything other than a societal norm. But the religious right seems too busy getting passionate about The Passion to notice.
I am not axiomatically pro-gay-marriage. What I am axiomatically for is consistency and effectiveness. Either we're going to defend marriage as an institution designed to foster procreation or we're not. If we're going to defend marriage on those grounds that means making illegal (or at least taking strong stands against) pre-marital sex, birth control, and divorce (at least for couples with children), taking away tax breaks for infertile couples (and even fertile couples who for whatever reason don't have children within a certain time period), and then wrestling with the very sticky issue of artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization. Most people now laugh at the chicken-littles who warned that the sky would fall as a result of reproductive technology, but it turns out they were right: the sky is falling. Society is coming apart at the seams as a result. Old institutions, like marriage reserved for heterosexual couples, are becoming untenable -- along with suffrage reserved for men and freedom reserved for whites.
Personally, I think that's a good thing. If having society unravel the way it has in the last hundred years is the price we have to pay to realize the American Dream of liberty and justice for all, I say bring it on.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Wow, people are reading my blog!
I just realized that people are actually posting comments on my blog and I hadn't realized it. I thought I had it set up to notify me by email when someone posted a comment, but that doesn't seem to be working. I'll have to look into that.
In any case, a response to a noteworthy comment:
On the issue of the California State Supreme Court ordering Catholic Charities to include birth control in their medical benefits:
> What if this organization didn't believe in antibiotics? Would you still feel the same way?
Yes.
This question seems to make a fundamental but common mistake, which is to assume that if a principle leads to an undesirable outcome that the principle must be abandoned. This is a logical fallacy that I call "proof by horror story." The problem is that most people don't stop to consider the negative consequences of abandoning the principle. In this case the principle is religious freedom, and the (hypothetical in this case) negative consequences are that some people will be deprived of life-saving medical treatment. Yes, being denied medical treatment is a terrible thing. But setting the precedent that the government gets to decide what does and does not qualify as a religion is vastly worse.
I would make only two exceptions: one is if the person being deprived of treatment is a minor (as sometimes happens with Christian Scientisits), and the other is in the case of truly egregious abuses, like if Microsoft tried to declare itself a religious organization in order to avoid paying taxes. But in the case of Catholic Charities it is quite clear that neither of these is the case. If an organization says it's religious it must be given every benefit of the doubt, otherwise we'll be left with nothing but state-approved religions.
In any case, a response to a noteworthy comment:
On the issue of the California State Supreme Court ordering Catholic Charities to include birth control in their medical benefits:
> What if this organization didn't believe in antibiotics? Would you still feel the same way?
Yes.
This question seems to make a fundamental but common mistake, which is to assume that if a principle leads to an undesirable outcome that the principle must be abandoned. This is a logical fallacy that I call "proof by horror story." The problem is that most people don't stop to consider the negative consequences of abandoning the principle. In this case the principle is religious freedom, and the (hypothetical in this case) negative consequences are that some people will be deprived of life-saving medical treatment. Yes, being denied medical treatment is a terrible thing. But setting the precedent that the government gets to decide what does and does not qualify as a religion is vastly worse.
I would make only two exceptions: one is if the person being deprived of treatment is a minor (as sometimes happens with Christian Scientisits), and the other is in the case of truly egregious abuses, like if Microsoft tried to declare itself a religious organization in order to avoid paying taxes. But in the case of Catholic Charities it is quite clear that neither of these is the case. If an organization says it's religious it must be given every benefit of the doubt, otherwise we'll be left with nothing but state-approved religions.
Baby shortage? What baby shortage?
I am truly astonished at the number of otherwise apparently rational people who are advancing (and otherwise rational editors who are choosing to publish) the argument that gay marriage ought to be illegal because gays can't reproduce. For one thing, it's clearly not true. From the point of view of reproductive abilities, a lesbian couple is at least as capable (arguably twice as capable) of reproducing as a heterosexual couple whose male partner happens to be sterile or has had a vascectomy. So even if one accepts the premise that society has a vested interest in supporting the production of babies that does not hold up to scrutiny as grounds for opposing the marriage of lesbians.
But the premise is also clearly not true. There may have been a time when society had an interest in encouraging the production of babies, just as there was a time when it had an interest in encouraging everyone to produce (or hunt or gather) food. But those days are long gone. There is hardly a baby shortage in the world. What there is a shortage of, and what the institution of marriage was designed to foster it seems to me, is stable, loving families willing to invest the 18 years or so it takes to raise a child, and in this regard gays are just as capable as anyone else (more so if my gay friends are any indication).
I also wonder in passing how many Americans making the argument that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't produce babies simultaneously support stricter enforcement of our immigration laws. I don't have any data, but I suspect the number is large. This, I think, reveals this argument for what it truly is: a thin disguise for bigotry, because at the same time they wring their hands about the terrible shortage of babies they want to make sure that it's the right kind of babies. Mexican or Romanian babies just won't do. This mindset is no different from the one that led people to oppose interracial marriage in this country not so long ago.
As an aside, there is an interesting review of the history of homosexuality in society here. I'd take some of what he says with a grain of salt, e.g., "There is almost no evidence in any pre-Christian writer of hostility to homosexuality as such." Leviticus 18:22 says "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination," which certainly sounds to me like pre-Christian hostility to homosexuality as such. But maybe that's why he hedged with "almost."
I found another interesting passage while searching for that one: Exodus 22:16 says (or at least strongly implies) that pre-marital sex is OK as long as you marry the person afterwards.
But the premise is also clearly not true. There may have been a time when society had an interest in encouraging the production of babies, just as there was a time when it had an interest in encouraging everyone to produce (or hunt or gather) food. But those days are long gone. There is hardly a baby shortage in the world. What there is a shortage of, and what the institution of marriage was designed to foster it seems to me, is stable, loving families willing to invest the 18 years or so it takes to raise a child, and in this regard gays are just as capable as anyone else (more so if my gay friends are any indication).
I also wonder in passing how many Americans making the argument that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't produce babies simultaneously support stricter enforcement of our immigration laws. I don't have any data, but I suspect the number is large. This, I think, reveals this argument for what it truly is: a thin disguise for bigotry, because at the same time they wring their hands about the terrible shortage of babies they want to make sure that it's the right kind of babies. Mexican or Romanian babies just won't do. This mindset is no different from the one that led people to oppose interracial marriage in this country not so long ago.
As an aside, there is an interesting review of the history of homosexuality in society here. I'd take some of what he says with a grain of salt, e.g., "There is almost no evidence in any pre-Christian writer of hostility to homosexuality as such." Leviticus 18:22 says "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination," which certainly sounds to me like pre-Christian hostility to homosexuality as such. But maybe that's why he hedged with "almost."
I found another interesting passage while searching for that one: Exodus 22:16 says (or at least strongly implies) that pre-marital sex is OK as long as you marry the person afterwards.
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