Needles & Threads
The week's best in the Fray.
Buoyed by busy discussions on the Kansas "intelligent design" hearings on Human Nature Fray and the allure of conservative congregations in Faith-Based Fray — and a lot of fun defining the ecology of the pick-up basketball game in Sports Nut Fray — the Fray had one of its best weeks in recent months. And leading the way were some of its biggest stars: All blowhards of limited intelligence and simultaneously irrational and unshakeable convictions which are precisely the opposite of those they held at some earlier point in their life are hereby and forthwith to be considered political authorities until such a time as their current convictions are abrogated in favor of another diametrically opposed set of beliefs, equally irrational and unshakeable, at which point said blowhards will be designated as both a) authorities, and b) "serious." --IOZ, here, invoking "Horowitz's law" to explain Arianna Huffington. --Fritz_Gerlich, here, somehow combining the teleological and the scatological in the intelligent design debate. --BenK, here, on matters faith-based. --ShriekingViolet, here, not really interested in creating runs nor learning her Fray Roland Rating. --The_Bell, here, on whether substantial posting on the Fray takes away from quality time with his better half.
…The problem with this is that it begs the question. (In Latin, petitio principi.) Precisely what we are trying to discover is whether something can exhibit design without being an artifact. The major premise simply assumes that the answer is no, and then quite logically deduces that the world must be an artifact . . . because, by the major premise, everything is inescapably an artifact. There is, after all, nothing that does not exhibit design, in the sense of possessing intelligibility. The turds I leave in the toilet exhibit design, in that sense, because they were formed by quite understandable and predictable processes. Does that mean that they are artifacts?
What the syllogism has done is to obliterate the distinction we normally observe between artificial and natural. An artifact, by definition, is artificial, not natural. Yet the syllogism, if taken as valid, would prove that, ultimately, the word "nature" has no referent, because everything must an artifact. Everything exhibits design in the sense of intelligibility. The only thing that would not be an artifact, by the syllogism's major premise, is what the ancients called "chaos," by which they meant a completely random intermixture of all elements, without pattern and therefore without intelligibility. Chaos is not a concept modern philosophy or modern science has found useful…
…Liberal Churches, focused on social service and piety, can and do thrive. The more demanding, in fact, the better they do. "Religious Right" churches, by the way, are often liberal by this definition - a sign that the words 'right' and 'left' are being tortured in ways that render them useless.
But if real liberals want to see their virtues thrive, there are few better places to look than inner city catholic missions, pentacostals, low episcopalians (the most pious, but the least ritualistic), and a variety of other churches.
These are not 'social gospel' churches that reduce the entire thing to a liberal political/social message. In fact, they often resist some of the modern conclusions that secular liberals have reached about HOW to achieve liberal ends. Freeing people often does not include abortion, heavy government welfare programs, and lax enforcement of laws that heavily impact minorities. Instead, they include huge amounts of personal charity work, calling people to personal account for caring for orphans and the fatherless (single mothers), helping rehabilitate ex-cons, intervening in cases of domestic violence, environmental protection, etc.
All very liberal causes.
…Traditionally, sportswriters wrote epic paeans to their warrior-heroes in the vein of Homer's Iliad, lifting verbs from treatises on medieval warfare and adjectives from Roget's Thesaurus. They couldn't calculate an on-base percentage to save their souls, but they had a feel for the game which grew out of experience, and they didn't need a slide rule to figure out which players had shined and which had disgraced themselves during any given contest. Most were nameless hacks whose work was steeped in kitschy melodrama and human-interest journalism, aimed primarily toward people who didn't really know much about sports and viewed them as light entertainment. But the good ones have always conveyed their love of the game in an infectious way.
I will freely admit that the stat-nerds know what they're talking about. I have absolutely no doubt that Michael Lewis is a better analyst and talent scout than Buzz Bissinger could ever dream of being. Sports have become a big business, and they have naturally developed an economic mentality. If I were a general manager or even a serious, devoted fan and fantasy-sports enthusiast, I'd be reading Michael Lewis' books, too. He's knowledgeable, and he's a solid writer. His work just doesn't interest me personally.
I don't buy into all the trendy "Men are from Mars and women can't do math" pop-science nonsense. I'm a scientist and a former athlete. But the sports-nerd fraternity really does seem to appeal almost exclusively to men. Most female sports fans I know, unless they are actually involved in coaching, spend roughly zero time talking about stats. The enjoyment of a sporting event for me is visceral, not rooted in ERA calculations or the number of years that have passed since a rival team last won the title.
I suspect that many male sports fans still feel the same way…
I would argue that my time here [in the Fray] "enhances my life and makes me a more interesting person." My wife would argue that the more I burden you good folks with my bullshit, the less she will have to hear it. That seems to work out well for both of us. Marriage is compromise.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
The Epistemology of the Posit: William Saletan's piece on the "intelligent design" hearings in Kansas, to no one's surprise, has Human Nature Fray in a tizzy. The majority of fraysters put forward two primary arguments: (1) Intelligent Design, as a hypothesis that cannot be falsified, fails to meet the standards of science. Here's tman: It is not science because it posits a supernatural explanation for natural phenomenon. Existing natural explanations such as macroevolution cannot account for the data, therefore an intelligent creator must exist. This is not a falsifiable claim. If the evidence does support macroevoluation, then will ID proponents concede that there is no intelligent designer? Of course not. Nor is the ID explanation really an explanation. Who designed the designer? How can we find out more about the nature of the designer? This is religion, not science… (2) Intelligent Design is a Trojan horse for creationism. Iron_Lungfish maintains that ID is "a shameless attempt to smuggle religion into schools under the cover of science, and that's reason enough to keep it out." Shrieking_Violet regards Saletan's article as "well-reasoned and thought-provoking" but warns here that It is abundantly clear that most actually-existing supporters of ID are the same flaming unreconstructed young-earth mythologizers involved in the last battle over science curriculum in Kansas … Creationists have never accepted intellectual defeat in the previous battles over science curriculum. They have only accepted political defeat. ID, as currently formulated, is a Trojan Horse. Its purpose is not to allow teachers to deliver lectures on the principles of intelligent design. Its purpose is the same as every other half-baked scheme from the creation crowd: to allow biology teachers to question and criticize evolutionary theory in the classroom. For gtomkins1 and Sissyfuss1 the more important issue is pedagogical—what and how we teach our kids when we've got their collective attention. Here's S1: Education is brain-washing and indoctrination – the question is what thin slice from humanity's enormous reservoir of good and bad ideas to put into little heads. And gt1 adds: We teach kids evolution because familiarity with the concept is basic to being conversant with the life sciences, the technological products of which intrude into our lives every day. S1 expands further on the hazards of the scientific inquiry buffet line: It is a ludicrous idea (which I suppose only the scientifically semi-literate can peddle) that kids in classrooms can critically choose among alternative theories (and non-theories) of human origin. To fully appreciate modern Darwinism itself requires understanding the principles of carbon dating, statistical laws of Mendelian genetics, mathematical techniques like differential equations, to say nothing of digesting a large volume of detailed fossil evidence and zoological observations. That is too much for even the prodigious little Johnny to wrap his mind around. The best we can do is teach the basic principles of critical reasoning and empiricism, and hand out a collection of factoids on which the adult world has hopefully reached some kind of consensus. Curious minds who really want to get to the bottom of it in some circumscribed domain of enquiry can eventually proceed to graduate school to satisfy their curiosity. To assert that centuries of painstaking progress in collaborative thinking by some of the best minds of the species should be continuously judged by a rolling jury of fourteen year olds is utter folly – the usefulness of democracy in science is much more limited. Why not, after all, spread out the entire rainbow – from Maori creation myths to Chinese horoscopes – and let Lizzie decide what she fancies along with her favorite flavor of bubble gum? Which may be why BeowulfSchaeffer suggests: I'd like to see the ID and evolution taught together, in a SCIENCE class. This morning, a frustrated William Saletan jumped into the Fray to inquire, "Doesn't anyone read anymore?": But have you read the definition Calvert and Harris propose? It would define science as a continuous process of 'observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.' Abstract creationism can't qualify for such scrutiny. From PeterE's vantage point, "Finally evolutionists are getting some payback": The debate over ID should be an opportunity to open up the debate over the uses of science. Finally, Fraywatch revisits IOZ's exclusive interview with the Intelligent Designer from January 26. In Memoriam: The Fray mourns the passing of longtime friend Robes. Complications from stage four lymphoma claimed his life this week, and a fitting top thread is running on BOTF here. Fraywatch extends best wishes to his family and friends, both in the Pacific Northwest and here on the Fray … KA 9:05 a.m.
Teach the two as a demonstration as science vs superstition.
Here's evolution. Show how the details of our understanding have changed as evidence has accumulated, but how the net effect has been an overwhelming amount of evidence for natural selection as the mechanism for speciation.
Discuss the numerous ways in which the modern synthesis could have been falsified (and has not been) and then present the accumulation of evidence from paleontology, biology, biochemistry and DNA research…
Next discuss intelligent design.
Note first that it is logically deficient. The idea doesn't even rise to the level of a testable hypothesis because it can't hold itself. The central argument is that complexity is prima facie evidence for intelligence to design the complex apparatus under examination…
Then point out that there are no testable hypotheses available from the claims of intelligent design proponents. They assert that complexity=design, but provide no way to test that assertion other than introspection…This is not a scientific theory that generates testable hypotheses.
Finally, observe that the source for the ID assertion is entirely driven by the result…
Sheesh. Many of you would save yourselves so much grief and bile if you'd just read more carefully.
While evolutionist scientists seem to present their position (as if it were only one) as pure science, school textbooks and TV nature programs take thin evidence and use it as an opportunity to drive home an ideological point: "you don't need to hypothesize a creator to explain this biological fact".
Why don't physicists feel the same need to self-justify? Because evolutionary theory is a part of a cultural battle over ontology and epistemology: does God exist; do we need to assume a creator to explain what we know? This battle was not created by a US school board; it has been going on since the Enlightenment.
Phillip Johnson says biology uses "methodological materialism" in its research. That's fine, he says. What's not fine is to assume that material reality is all there is, and then to teach kids that physical reality is all there is and all we need to know. That is teaching ideology.
In a sense, methodological materialism (like Marxist materialism) is Newtonian thinking. It does not accept the rules changes instituted by Einsteinian physics: matter is not all there is; matter is not the ultimate reality.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Are You Insane? In Monday's Chatterbox, Timothy Noah sheds light on a dubious study that suggests that "conservatives have a screw loose." No different than studies that purport biological underpinnings for homosexuality—never mind that we have no clear definition of what we mean by "gay"—the study ignores that classifications such as "conservative" or "liberal" or "libertarian" are man-made constructs, and fluid ones at that. In his lede, Noah takes up the prevailing political riddle du jour, namely, why middle- and working-class people are voting Republican, against their supposed interests.
J_Mann's explanation makes a lot of sense:
Noah writes:
Between 1989 and 1997, middle-income families (defined in this instance as the middle 20 percent) saw their share of the nation's wealth fall from 4.8 percent to 4.4 percent. Yet Al Gore lost the white working class by a margin of 17 percentage points, and John Kerry lost it by a margin of 23 percentage points.
Well, given that the President between 1989 and 1997 was Bill Clinton, maybe the working class doesn't have the same faith that Franks and Noah do that the Dems are any better for them than the GOP. If the GOP is perceived as better, or at least not much worse, then maybe voting on social issues or defense starts to make more sense . . .
For more nuance, check out historyguy's post:
The article talks about the "working class," but all the linked polls demonstrating the pathology consider only to the "white working class." This is not a subtle difference. In fact, the African-American working class voters vote strongly with their economic self interest, despite disagreements with the Democratic party on some social issues. The trend is clear but not as strong among other voters fo color. The entire working class, which includes black, brown, red and yellow as well as white voters, leans much more Democratic than the White subset.
In fact, among whites, the pathological preference for voting against economic self interest is much stronger in some parts of the United States than in others. In particular, the Southern sector is ground zero for this affliction that affects only working class whites.
