stranger fruit

A book which I have been dipping into over the past month is Dembski’s recent edited volume Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI, 2004). To anyone familiar with the ID movement, this is very familar territory; a collection of (largely) non-scientists bemoaning evolution and it’s percieved moral effects while rehashing arguments lifted from older anti-evolutionary sources. The tone is the usual paranoid delusion that American creationism seems to specialize in; Darwinism is an “ideology” which exhibits “overweening ambition", it’s a theory that is held “dogmatically and even ruthlessly” by the “Darwinian thought police” who are “as insidious as any secret police at ensuring conformity and rooting out dissent” (all of this in a two page span!). There’s something comforting about the realization that there is nothing really new under the Creationist sun!

Of the fifteen contributors, eleven are fellows either of ISCID or the Discovery Institute. The exceptions are Marcel Schutzenberger (died in 1996 before the formation of the two organizations), Edward Sisson (a lawyer), Michael Denton (somewhat an outlier in the ID camp, see below), and David Berlinski (who used to be an DI/CSC fellow and, while generating some execrable pieces, has provided nothing positive to the argument for ID).

Dembski describes the book as demonstrating that “the public is right to remain unconvinced [about Darwinism]". The first part “shows why Darwinism faces a growing crisis of confidence” and features three articles, two of which are worthless - a piece from 1990 by Phillip Johnson (which interestingly was originally published as “Evolution as Dogma"), and a vague fuzzy interview with the mathematician Schutzenberger. Thus, the intellectual heavy-lifting in this section is being done by Robert C. Koons - a philosopher “currently working on the logic of causation and the metaphysics of life and the mind” - in his article, “The Check Is In The Mail: Why Darwinism Fails to Inspire Confidence.” It is somewhat revealing that Dembski could not locate a scientist to show “why Darwinism faces a growing crisis of confidence.” Jason Rosenhouse offers a three-part dissection of Koon’s piece over at Evolutionblog (Part 1, 2, 3), and I wont rehearse his points here.

Part II “focuses in Darwinism’s cultural inroads” - what I feel to be the real beef of ID supporters. Darwinism is accused of all sorts of evils here with articles by Nancey Pearcy, J. Budzisewski, Frank Tipler and Sisson. Once again, we have a lack of natural scientists - though Tipler is a physicist, his piece is on the apparently strangling effect of peer-review, and I’ve discussed this briefly over at Panda’s Thumb. Pearcy’s screed is is high-pitched attack on the moral effects of Darwinism, ending with the following:

By uncovering evidence that natural phenomena are best accounted for by Intelligence, Mind, and Purpose, the theory of Intelligent Design reconnects religion to the realm of public knowledge. It takes Christianity out of the sphere of noncognitive value and restores it to the realm of objective fact, so that it can once more take a place at the table of public discourse. Only when we are willing to restore Christianity to the status of genuine knowledge will we be able to effectively engage the “cognitive war” that is at the root of today’s culture war [p. 73, emphasis in original]

There, in a nutshell, you have the driving goal behind Intelligent Design Creationism.

Sisson is a lawyer specializing in litigation and government contracts, and his piece is discussed by Rosenhouse (Part 1, 2, 3, 4) who describes the essay as “silly"; upon finishing it, the word “worthless” came into my mind.

Part III features three individuals trained (or training in the case of the latter) as scientists; Michael J. Behe, Denton, and James Barham. Here, one would imagine, we are going to get the hard scientific evidence for design. Unfortunately, no. Instead we get largely autobiographical pieces describing how the author left the “Darwinian fold,” illustrating (as Dembski notes) “the dynamics of converting and deconverting to Darwinism.”

Denton’s case is interesting. While his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986) was one of the founding documents of modern Intelligent Design, he clearly himself does not believe in the sort of Designer advocated by Dembski, Johnson, Pearcey et al. In his contribution to Darwinism Defeated? (1999) he offers the following:

[D]isproving Darwinism is not the same as disproving the theory of common descent. [p. 143]

An irreducible gap in phenotypic space cannot be taken to imply there is a similar gap in genotypic space. [p. 145]

Creationists often claim that the facts do not support the concept of organic evolution. However I believe it is incontestable that the facts of geographical distribution … are far easier to explain by evolution than by special creation. [p. 149]

Johnson is opposed to an vigorously attacks what he calls philosophical naturalism, but he seldom stresses that his own worldview is its logical antithesis - philosophical supernaturalism - a worldview that, if taken seriously, would render impossible any coherent understanding of nature. [p. 151]

I see then the entire course of evolution as driven entirely by natural processes and by natural law. [emphasis in original, p. 152]

In his advocacy of special creationism I believe Johnson is merely the latest in a succession of vigorous creationist advocates who have been very influential within Christian circles, particularly within the United States, during the twentieth century. None of these advocates, however, has had any lasting influence upon academic biologists. This is not because science is biased in favor of philosophical naturalism but because the special creationist model is not supported by the facts and is incapable of providing a more plausible explanation for the pattern of life’s diversity in time and space than its evolutionary competitor. [p. 154]

Denton may be anti-pan-Darwinism (and by that I mean against the idea that gradualism and natural selection explain all diversity) but he certainly is an evolutionist. His brand of “design,” if that is indeed what it is, sits uncomfortably with the Christian concepts of Dembski, Johnson, and Behe, being more akin perhaps to Enlightenment deism.

The final portion of the book examines “the nitty-gritty of why Darwinism is a failed intellectual project.” A bio-physicist, an analytical chemist, a self-proclaimed genius, and the curmudgeonly Berlinski offer their critiques. Hunter’s piece is currently being discussed by Rosenhouse (Part 1). Berlinski’s piece appeared in the Jewish conservative magazine Commentary in 1996 and is widely available online.

It’s indicative of something that the initial best case for the failure of Darwinism is given by a philosopher (Koons) with no apparent background in biology and the last word is given to an eight year old piece by a popularizer of mathematics, novellist, and ‘accomplished poet’. In between we get a poor sandwich - all filling and no substance.

As I promised on Tuesday, I attacked Quicksilver again, starting with Book 2. Have to admit to liking it more this time round, but the last chapters of Book 2 still left me cold. I was happy to see Daniel Waterhouse reappear in Book 3. Probably have the beast finished in a few days. Then I’ll decide whether to pony out the $30 for The Confusion or wait for the movie .

I admit it. I like wine. No, I love wine. I wish I knew more about wines. I wish I could afford better wine. Given a choice, I’d order a good wine before almost any beer. So this rant at Crooked Timber made me laugh. It’s about a French proposal to put the grape variety on the label (which they don’t currently do):

Wine is the expression of a place, not of a grape. This is a fundamental truth of winemaking and no amount of oak chips can make it otherwise. The same Chardonnay grape which Ernst and Julio Gallo squeeze by the bushel to produce lakes of insipid ABC rubbish, is the grape which is the backbone of flint-dry Chablis. Some of the finest Champagne in the world is made from Pinot Meunier, a grape which, grown outside a small corner of France and a small corner of NorthWest America, is not fit for making Welch’s Grape Soda. The factors which determine what a wine will taste like are, in order of importance, climate, soil, water and only then, grape variety. It is true that the very best wines are made year to year with the same grapes, but that is because of careful selection of the vines to match the teroir, not the other way round.

So why then do all other countries’ wines put the grape variety on the label? To put it bluntly, ignorance and snobbery. Back in the days before the marketing industry dreamt up the grape variety labelling wheeze, there were only three ways to know if the wine that you were ordering with your lunch was good or bad:

1) Spend years and years learning a huge amount about wine regions and classifications, or

2) Discuss the matter with a wine waiter employed by the restaurant for that purpose, or

3) Actually bloody taste the thing and make your mind up whether you like it or not.

The first is inconvenient and expensive, the second involves social awkwardness and the third requires independent thought. So obviously, this was not ever going to be a seller in the big export markets of the USA and UK. So, with their never failing blend of entrepreneurial can-do spirit and utter, horrendous crassness, the Yanks and Aussies came up with a fourth alternative:

4) Learn the names of four grape varieties (Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Syrah/Shiraz and Riesling), look on the label for one of them then order the wine with confidence, proclaiming loudly to your fellow diners that you are a man of taste who knows what he likes and to yourself that all Chardonnays taste buttery, Syrahs taste of blackberries and so on, despite the evidence of your own fucking nose and tastebuds screaming the contrary.

For the record, I use strategy #3 (with an occasionally foray into #2). Most people I know are advocates of #4.

Leslie Davis:

John Edwards calls for “One America” in his campaign speeches. That’s nice.

Why doesn’t he just call “One America” what it really is? Socialism.

That, my friends, is the totality of the letter. Sometimes I wonder why papers publish such ignorant opinions.

How to remove IE from your system (despite Microsoft’s claim that it is integral), and Microsoft’s reaction to same (via Boing Boing)

Reuters via CNN is reporting the death of Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. After the double-helix discovery and subsequent Nobel Prize, Crick continued his research at Cambridge University’s Medical Research Council, focusing on the genetics of viruses, protein synthesis and embryology. Subsequently, he moved to La Jolla, where he served as president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. There, he turned his attention to the study of the brain and the nature of consciousness. (xpost to Panda’s Thumb)

Just finished listening to Barack Obama’s keynote at the Democratic Convention. Over on PBS, David Brooks noted that it is a pity that the networks weren’t carrying the Convention because they would have seen history being made. Quite true. This was probably the best single speech I have personally heard in my 36 years. I am speechless.

Once I read the transcript, I will, no doubt, post more. For the moment:

The people I meet - in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks - they don’t expect government to solve all their problems.

They know they have to work hard to get ahead - and they want to.

Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or the Pentagon.

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn - they know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.

No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems.

and

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal Amercan and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and a white America – there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States […] but I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Now I need to listen to Ron Reagan speaking on stem cells.

Finished a couple of books these last few days that may be of interest to any regular readers.

Susan Jacoby Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, Metropolitan, 2004: Useful discussion of the place of secularism in American culture and how the rise of Conservatism since the 1930’s (particularly inspired by the Catholic church) had blurred Church/State line.

Keith B. Miller (ed.) Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, Eerdmans, 2003: Theistic readings of evolution that argue against “creation science” and “intelligent design". Miller’s own chapters on transitional fossils and the Cambrian “explosion” are particularly useful. Latter half of the book is mostly theological.

With those out of the way, I think I’ll tackle Quicksilver again. When I read it late last year, I stopped after the first two thirds - I guess the story of Jack and Eliza didn’t capture me the way the first part on the Scientific Revolution did and overall the book didn’t (imho) match Cryptonomicon. Anyway, I’ll try again. Probably not from the beginning though

Am I the only one who thinks that there is something wrong with the fact that “about 3.2 percent of the adult U.S. population, or 1 in 32 adults, were incarcerated or on probation or parole at the end of last year” (link) ?

This is interesting to play with - a website which shows the age of surface rocks and describes fossils found in them. Here is the page for Arizona, but you can pick your own state or time period. Lot’s of other interesting stuff as well.

Lessig has an excellent open letter on O’Reilly’s treatment of Jeremy Glick. Lessig also provides this clip (MOV) from Outfoxed

(As an aside, you have to admire O’Reilly cojhones for being able to speak for a man - Glick’s father - that he never met. Arrogance.)

AP: The Republican-led House voted Thursday to prevent federal courts from ordering states to recognize gay marriages sanctioned by other states. The Marriage Protection Act (HR 3313) was adopted by a 233-194 vote, buoyed by backing from the Bush administration. Last week, the Senate dealt gay marriage opponents a setback by failing to advance a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex unions.

A revealing quote from Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., the bill’s author, about SCOTUS:

As few as five people in black robes can look at a particular issue and determine for the rest of us, insinuate for the rest of us that they are speaking as the majority will. They are not.

Excuse me? Hostettler and his cronies had no problem when SCOTUS determined for the “rest of us” that GWB beat Gore. The claim that this is an issue of states rights is a smoke-screen - it is evident that the current administration cares little for states rights (which, by the way, I am not a strong supporter of).

In February, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report excoriating the Bush administration for manipulating the results of scientific research to suit political agendas and setting litmus tests for presence on advisory committees. A subsequent report this month reinforced the claim of the UCS. In April, the president’s science adviser, John H. Marburger III, issued a rebuttal to the February report, saying “the accusation of a litmus test that must be met before someone can serve on an advisory panel is preposterous.” The new report gives some examples which clearly prove Marburger to be wrong and the administration guilty of tampering with scientific inquiry (I quote heavily from this summary):
(more…)

(AP) A young monkey at an Israeli zoo has started walking on its hind legs only - aping humans - after a near death experience, the zoo’s veterinarian said Wednesday. Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv, began walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said.

Two weeks ago, Natasha and three other monkeys were diagnosed with severe stomach flu. At the zoo clinic, she slipped into critical condition, said Igal Horowitz, the veterinarian. “I was sure that she was going to die,” he said. “She could hardly breathe and her heart was not functioning properly.” After intensive treatment, Natasha’s condition stabilized. When she was released from the clinic, Natasha began walking upright. “I’ve never seen or heard of this before,” said Horowitz. One possible explanation is brain damage from the illness, he said.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights today said Vice President Dick Cheney is lying to the American public by claiming that capping what juries can give to innocent victims of medical malpractice will lower health insurance premiums.

“America spends more on dog and cat food each year than all medical malpractice payouts combined,” said FTCR president Jamie Court, author of Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom And What You Can Do About It (Tarcher/Penguin) “Malpractice costs are a fraction of 1 percent of all health-care costs. By contrast, prescription drugs are 16 percent of health costs. If Mr. Cheney and the Bush Administration wanted to lower health care costs, they would have permitted the government to bulk purchase prescription drugs for Medicare recipients. Limiting what innocent victims collect from wrongdoers cannot have an impact on health care premiums. Only curbing the greed of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries can make a real difference, but those industries are among biggest campaign donors on the hill.”

Edinburgh is probably my favorite city (even considering the weather!), and it was with great expectations that I started reading James Buchan’s Crowded With Genius: Edinburgh’s moment of the mind (HarperCollins, 2003), a intellectual history of the city in the 18th Century - a period during which it went from dank capital to the “Athens of Britain". We meet Adam Smith, James Hutton, David Hume and others, all in a backdrop of Scottish nationalism, Enlightenment thought, and religious controversy. Buchan is a good writer and Edinburgh comes across as a lively city.

However, I have two issues. Firstly, unless you know the geography of Edinburgh well, you may be a little at sea with locations. Some good maps would have helped as it is impossible to read street names on the two that are reproduced. Secondly, other than Edinburgh itself, the book appears to lack a cohesive thread - it ends up coming across as a series of vingnettes of a city and it’s people. Having said that, if you have ever been to the city, you will probably enjoy this one.

I’m posting the following quotes from a Guardian article, not because I think that Hussein was innocent (he wasn’t), but to point out that the rhetoric of “He killed hundreds of thousands of his people” seems a little shaky and, given the lack of WMDs, seems to be the only available justification for invasion that is currently used. So don’t attack me as if I was defending Hussein.

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that ‘400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves’ is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq’s mass graves.

In that publication - Iraq’s Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: ‘We’ve already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.’

…

And while few have any doubts that Saddam’s regime was responsible for serious crimes against humanity, the exact scale of those crimes has become increasingly politicised in both Washington and London as it has become clearer that the case against Iraq for retention of weapons of mass destruction has faded.

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) unanimously votes to support a boycott of the U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania unless Republican Senator Arlen Specter removes his name from consideration as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Says NFRA president Richard Engle, “I understand that Senator Specter holds to his own opinion on the matter of Judicial nominees but if he can’t support the President’s choices (which he can’t) then he should get out of the way!”

In other words, if a Senator has the temerity to disagree with the President (and *shock* has his own opinion) then he should not be re-elected.

The NFRA is not some kooky little organization (like, say, the Eagle Forum). According to it’s website:

The NFRA is an outgrowth of the California Republican Assembly and is our nation’s oldest and largest Republican volunteer organization. The NFRA is the national umbrella organization for all of the nationwide state Republican Assembly organizations. The NFRA is dedicated to working within the Republican Party to promote the active participation of our members toward the endorsement, support, and election, of principled conservative Republican candidates.