Bill's Comments

For the last several years, homosexuality has become a major discussion topic. The most outstanding event was the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that homosexuals could marry with all the full legal implications of the term. Now there is a furor over a children’s TV show. Generally, the outrage is being described as coming from religious conservatives. That group would indeed be outraged, since male homosexuality is explicitly defined as sinful in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament we have the destruction of Sodom [from whence comes the term sodomy] and Gomorrah, and in the new Paul’s castigations of it.

In the context of the Bible, it is quite understandable that it would be considered sinful. First of all it contravenes the divine injunction to be fruitful and multiply. Fecundity was important in those times, it continued the father’s lineage, provided help in survival, and provided assistance in old age, which in those times was not nearly as old as now.

The biblical attitudes are still very strong among many people today. This comment from Ally’s (Who Moved My Truth?) post on the kids’ show is probably representative:

…the Almighty God has condemned certain people and their actions on the basis of the aforementioned basis. Sodomy is a damnable action. False religions are subject to eternal wrath. Everyone on the face of the planet is defined by either "male" or "female". All mankind is "one blood" (Acts 17:26). There is one way only to eternal salvation: faith in Jesus in Christ and His redeeming work on the cross.

Can one question the wisdom of the all-wise? May we never stop defining others according to the truth of God's Word.

I have a lot of trouble with this comment. Its absolute self-righteousness is the same sort of thinking that leads to persecution of others that are not like ourselves. In addition, it has the epistemic hubris to think that this is the absolutely known will of God.

In an earlier post in October, Ally had this so say (she said it so well, I’d rather quote it than try it myself):

… while all sins may be the same in God's eyes - I can't speak for Him, so I'll have to go with that - the consequences of our actions are drastically different. (I still hold with the idea that a murderer is a bit more of a sinner than, say, Martha Stewart....

What makes no sense to me - it never has - is that homosexuality is a private sin. We all have them....gluttony, lying to ourselves and others, moments of selfishness, etc. If you define homosexuality as a sin - and again, that is IF - it is a private sin that is between that individual and God. What is so horrific about it?...

To suggest that is worse than lying or fraudulent behavior, which can damage many people, seems ridiculous. Call homosexuality a sin....I really don't care. We all take part in "sins" every day, so he who is without sin can start collecting soda cans to whale in my direction. In the meantime, the rest of us better starting checking out that plank sticking out of our cornea - and leave everyone else to their own splinters.

Finally, Ally said this about the kids’ show:

I guess it goes back to my original argument - stop defining people by their sexual preference, gender, race, religious association, etc., and define them by who they are as people. It does not matter if the family is same-sex or opposite-sex, as long as they are good family. The more we draw attention to it, the less we notice the positive aspects, and the more hate grows. Let it be "no big deal," and people will have less concern.

Ally’s point about being a good family is very well stated. I know of a family that consists of two lesbians raising a straight daughter. I also know of a heterosexual family that engaged in continual mental, emotional, and occasional physical abuse of the children. Tell me which is more sinful. Is homosexuality an unforgivable sin? I was under the impression that the only unforgivable sins were presumptive sin and suicide. (in the first assuming forgiveness prior to doing something knowingly sinful, and in the second being unable to seek forgiveness once dead)

The next question to be asked, is it the homosexuality, per se, or other concomitant behaviors and consequences that create or exacerbate the sinfulness. The bible states an absolute prohibition against adultery, and depending on where one reads, condemns non-marital sex, or quietly condones it. The strictures on virginity of the woman have to do with property rights in the Old Testament. Actually there are some public health benefits from chastity and fidelity in Biblical times—it prevented the spread of STDs. Gay relationships seem to be generally less stable than heterosexual ones, though there are some that last a long time. Already there are gay divorces after the recent legalization of gay marriage. Being married doesn’t appear to create additional stability.

From a cultural standpoint, the flaunting of homosexuality or the related transgender and bisexual behaviors, is like waving a flag in front of a bull. It is rather like Mario Savio at Berkeley in 1964 when he defined free speech as being able to say the F… word through a bull horn in public. It is an in-your-face type of behavior that has its sole purpose to offend. To what purpose? Quiet homosexuals are often persecuted when found out, and the persecution is the worse for the image the flaunters create.

Regardless of the cultural aspects, is it reasonable to absolutely condemn homosexuality on religious grounds? To simply quote the Bible on the issue is to close all discussion. I do not consider the Bible inerrant, nor divinely dictated, divinely inspired, yes. It is a record of Judeo-Christian relationships with God and their working out. Other than statements condemning homosexual behavior, there is nothing to provide understanding of why they are sinful.

It crosses my mind that just as there are good and bad forms of heterosexual activity, so there may be, at the least, neutral and bad forms of homosexual activity. Part of it has to do with the source of the homosexuality. If it is genetic, or inborn, is there a moral stigma to be attached? Some would say with the practice of it, yes. But if the biblical literalists follow Jesus teachings, even if it were not physically practiced, the thought would be of equal weight as sin. This would condemn someone to perpetual sin for something that was not their fault. And yes, I have seen a science news article that estimates that about 15% of homosexuals are genetically determined.

But that accounts for only a small part of the homosexual community. I have seen people claim that it is an acquired or learned behavior. If so, what goes into the acquisition or learning? Is it behavior that is of itself bad? Is it the result of bad experiences from growing up that create an animosity, fear, or hatred of the opposite sex? And if it is learned, can it be unlearned? There are now research reports that many experiences can create changes in the hardwiring of the brain even at a late age. Things learned during the powerful emotional surges of puberty are especially resistant to alteration, except by equivalent counter-experiences.

Even if it is a learned behavior, how does one attach a moral stigma to it? What are the premises that lead to its condemnation? One certainly can’t condemn it from a utilitarian viewpoint, as long as the relationships are not harmful to the persons involved. To condemn it from a deontological view requires something other than a Biblical proscription. It would appear to me that as long as the relationship is voluntary, non-exploitive, and loving, there should be no condemnation. Just as we prosecute spousal abuse, so abusive homosexual relationships can be subject to prosecution. The motives and the external results determine the morality of the relationship.

I am going to avoid the whole issue of homosexual marriage. I addressed it to a great degree in another post, and there has been a lot of excellent discussion on it in other blogs. Basically I did an end-run on it, similar to the way I have dealt with theodicy, and established starting rules that avoid the problem.

Just as a truth in blogging measure, I am definitely heterosexual, and am indifferent to other people’s sexual orientation. If they are gay or lesbian, so what? I am concerned with what kind of people they are and how I get along with them. I don’t feel threatened by gay men, in fact my wife and I can still get chuckle out of the time a gay waiter tried to hit on me when she and I were out to dinner one evening.

So what do I think God does about homosexuality? Since I don’t have an all-powerful God, He doesn’t have control over a person’s sexuality. He can look at the kind of person they are and go from there. I see complete parallels between homosexual and heterosexual relationships, the only differences being the sexes involved and the potential for children. To condemn homosexual relationships for their sterility is to also condemn sterile heterosexual relationships as well, so the only possible moral stigma unique to homosexuality would be the orientation itself. Evil is condemned, but not until it acts and has consequences. I think the same would be true for homosexuality. Only if it has bad consequences could it be condemned. The criteria should be the same as for any other bad behavior.

But if homosexuality is not sinful per se, must we approve of it? No, a lack of sinfulness does not force approval. It does not mean that it has to be accepted either. It must be tolerated—it is not illegal, nor immoral. Acceptance and approval are personal issues, and, though more serious or deeper seated, can be considered similar in nature to matters of taste. From a personal standpoint we cannot persecute without committing sin ourselves, but we are not required to accept or approve either.

The worst approach is to consider it a sin or a sickness with its implied forceful proscriptions. It is a difference, and one that is not conducive to procreation. I think research should be done as to its origins, and for those who wish to become heterosexual, counseling and help provided, with research on the most effective ways to accomplish it. But I do not consider condemning those who would remain homosexual. It is their life and that may be the best they can do with it.

One blog on my blogroll is a liberal philosophy professor. Perhaps why I read him is because he comes across as a decent person. This quote shows it:

"Because I am pleased for the people of Iraq, I am very disappointed in myself."

You see, this man considers himself a true left/liberal, but cannot toe the "party line". He is too decent.

This headline appeared in New Scientist today:

"Unusual Arctic cold raises fears for ozone hole"

with the following text:

The seasonal hole in the Arctic ozone layer could be the worst ever this year if the current cold conditions persist, scientists are warning.

Temperatures in the Arctic ozone layer are now the coldest for 50 years and have been consistently low for two months. The ozone layer blankets the Earth at an altitude between 15 to 30 kilometres. It is part of a zone called the stratosphere, and absorbs ultraviolet light.

European Union scientists said on Friday that if the exceptionally cold temperatures continue, and the persistent polar clouds - which alter the chemistry of the ozone layer - remain, then large ozone losses will be likely when spring sunlight returns in the coming weeks.

The researchers from the EU's SCOUT-03 project, which involves over 200 scientists from 19 countries, fear that the ozone hole could be bigger than that which followed the worst-ever winter of 1999-2000. Over 65% of the ozone was eaten away by manmade chemical products in that season, although ozone can naturally replenish itself.

Let me see...

Coldest season in 50 years--but what about global warming?

Ozone hole biggest ever--nature more powerful than halocarbons?

Most of what we react to climate-wise is simply natural noise. We have a much elevated sense of our own importance.

Marion County, OR, is up in arms because the American Nazi Party has sponsored a segment of a backroad to keep clean. Here are some quotes from the article in The Statesman Journal:

County officials say they were legally advised that excluding the organization would violate a constitutional right to free speech. Their choices, they said, were: allow the group to join the program, remove all of the signs from the program or refuse the group and risk a lawsuit.

Commissioner Sam Brentano said he wanted to turn the organization down anyway and face whatever lawsuits came.

He was outnumbered by commissioners Patti Milne and Janet Carlson. The commissioners did not vote on the issue, but gave staff direction by consensus.

Milne said she considers it strictly a constitutional issue that goes to the core of being American.

Carlson said she didn't want to end a good program for many volunteers as a way to keep this group from joining.

Several local residents, some of them who live on Sunnyview Road, said they are upset that the county would allow the signs or attach its own name to that of a hate group.

"To me, it just screams hate," said Jacque Bryant of Salem. "It screams doesn't belong here."

Bryant heard about the sign from her grandmother and had a strong emotional reaction to it when she saw it for herself. She hopes enough community outrage will force the county to remove the sign.

Salem resident Mike Navarro, whose mother lives near the area, also was stunned by the sign.

Navarro said that the group has a right to its own opinions but that it's poor judgment for a county to put itself in the position of appearing to endorse a hate group. There should be some level of sensitivity in these kinds of decisions, Navarro said.

"To me, that's kind of cowardly. 'We don't want to get sued,' " Navarro said. "You're probably offending the majority of the people in your county just to pacify the needs of a very select group of people who thrive on hating."

Marion County Assistant Legal Counsel Scott Norris regards the signs as a form of speech.

....

"The unfortunate effect of these signs is that you become a participant in a hate group's propaganda campaign," Potok said.

Brentano said too much sacrifice already has been made to this kind of organization, referring to Nazi Germany in World War II.

He doesn't want to be cornered into publicizing it.

"They have a right to free speech. I don't have a problem with it," Brentano said. "But don't ask me to promote it."

Milne called the decision gut-wrenching and her most difficult as a county commissioner.

"We can't choose who we're going to give access to or to what extent," Milne said. "If we do that, we're going down a slippery slope."

Carlson said other jurisdictions in the United States already have tested the legal issues.

"It's important to take a stand on things like that," Carlson said. "It's also important to follow the law."

...

Mary Fordyce, who described herself as a Mexican-American, said the sign and the adoption made her uncomfortable.

"That's not my family's -- or our neighbors' for that matter -- frame of mind," Fordyce said. "It's very disturbing to me."

Having just posted earlier a quote from Thomas Paine on this very subject, this is too perfectly to the point.

It becomes very obvious why we are seeing such an erosion of freedom in this country. People think that freedoms have to do with preferences not principles. "I am uncomfortable with another person's beliefs/behavior/appearance. Ban it." The word "hate" has become a trump card in attempts to control speech via Political Correctness. I think all "hate crime" laws need to be revoked. The actions are already illegal.

What kind of nation are we becoming that we can't stand anything different from ourselves? No one is asking that the Nazis be accepted or approved. If they are cleaning up a road, they are actually contributing to this country. Placing a sign acknowledging their contribution is fair, and does not constitute endorsement, regardless of what people think.

Get a life, better yet, live a life outside your shell. When you figure out that there are radical muslims that will happily kill you in an instant, a bunch of skin-heads look tame.

Thanks to Drudge for the link.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption -- a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible." --Thomas Jefferson

Please note this phrase: according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption . There is nothing plain and clear anymore in the interpretations, and certainly not in keeping with the time of its adoption.

Considering the Constitution as a "living" document is incompatible with unalienable rights, since the Constitution is the legal source of those rights.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." --Thomas Paine


In our current secular persecution and intolerance for religion, specifically Judeo-Christian religion, this should be kept in mind. Rights are lost by gradual erosion, in most cases, rarely by sudden destruction. What secularists fail to understand is that anti-religion is functionally the same as a specific religion or a general group of religions, and that someday they may be persecuted for NOT believing in God. Or those who would ban by government edict unpopular speech, may find their speech being unpopular and therefore banned later.

Actually it is the rights of the unpopular that are most critical to protect and defend, because it is there that the erosion first occurs.

The Conservative Philosopher is up and running with eight members. This recent post is a fine example. This is an excellent, very high quality site, and the comments are also well worth the reading. Either Keith monitors comments very closely, or he has been blessed with no trolls or spam so far. Definitely put it in your daily reading.

We have Ally, with the blog and in the other corner Peggy Noonan with the editorial. This rematch is brought to you by Ms. Noonan's need to justify her first editorial.

The winner is Ally. This is the best line:

"Ms. Noonan is too rational for her own good."

Ally has a far better understanding of people than Ms. Noonan.

Having come back from a 19 hour "day"-trip, I find Ally challenging me to take another personality test. Some challenge--I'm like a kid with candy for those things. So here are my results:

Wackiness: 18/100
Rationality: 58/100
Constructiveness: 60/100
Leadership: 74/100

You are a SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a Ayn Rand ideal.

Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

Of the 82201 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 5.5 % are this type.


Actually I considered myself more Reardon or D'Anconia, or Roark's welder friend.

Here is the link for those who want to try also.

I have been following this blog, Vomit The Lukewarm, for about a week or so. His posts are generally short but very much to the point. Today's post is especially powerful on the refusal to see the irrationality in people. Go read it, if for no other reason than it is so well written.

I have added the blog to my blogroll.

Blackfive has an interesting post on the results of a survey he conducted with a few dozen soldiers he has known.

The Becker-Posner blog has some very good discussion with new perspectives on the issue of profiling. Here are Becker's comments, here are Posner's commnents.

The Becker-Posner blog has some very good discussion with new perspectives on the issue of profiling. Here are Becker's comments, here are Posner's commnents.

My friend, the AnalPhilosopher, has started a group blog again, this time for conservative philosophers. I wish him success with The Conservative Philosopher, and plan to visit daily. It is in the blogroll to the right.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature; it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortunate that awaits our State constitution, as well as all others." --Alexander Hamilton

He failed to anticipate the growth of the middle class. There are the "old rich" of the liberal/left that follow this quote, but the bulk of our society has obtained luxury, and still retains much virtue and common sense.

If we could just do something about the education system.....

Unfortunately our Founding Fathers didn't have such a system to contemplate.

In an essay on privatizing Social Security in TCS today, Douglas Kern uses subtle humor to great effect. He makes some important points in a very interesting way.

Here are a couple of quotes:

That's where the genius of American advertising comes in. We have devised campaigns to make people drink crappy beer, eat awful food, sign up to die in foreign lands, and vote for Jimmy Carter. By God, if we can make dumb America enjoy professional wrestling, we can find a way to make dumb America like responsible investing. The sky's the limit: catchy slogans ('The Freshmaker -- Mentos Brand Debentures!"), celebrity endorsements ("Can you smell the interest that The Rock's CDs are earning?"), infomercials ("Gosh, Cher, my rate of return really is increasing!"), giveaways ("Select the Freedom Index 500 fund today, and receive this thirteen-piece knife set absolutely free!) -- you name it.

Yes, yes, some fools will slip through the cracks. Somewhere in America, some nimrod will insist upon investing in old treasure maps and snake oil factories and real estate developments on Anthrax Island and who knows what else. But notice the distinction: these people are fools, not idiots. An idiot wants to invest sensibly, but can't decipher the hard words and long numbers in the investment brochure. A fool wants to get rich quick, and fully intends to suspend his common sense while doing so. A compassionate society protects its idiots. But a prudent society poses no obstacle between fools and the cruel Darwinian realities that pursue them. Consider, too, that even if you prevent the fool from investing stupidly now, the fool will simply squander his money down the road. Foolishness is an aggressively retroactive tax.

...

No investment could be worse than the investment we are all compelled to make into Social Security as it is. Just think: even as your money earns a negligible rate of return, it underwrites the wildly irresponsible spending of the federal government! And what's more, you may never see that money at all! Any private investment choice is better than this mess. It's better to moron-proof Social Security than to keep pumping our money into an archaic system of "savings" that no country in the world would recreate if given the means to do so. Indeed, in a system of free choice, the only person who would invest in today's Social Security system would be -- a moron. Who needs more proof?

By all means read the first two or three paragraphs.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. ... [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." --Albert Gallatin


And succeeding.

There is a young man, the son of my wife’s best friend, who became involved with Campus Crusade. He spent one summer in Virginia Beach handing out tracts, and working, and now thinks he wants to go to Turkey as a “missionary”, which after looking at the web sites he gave his mom to explain it, amounts to handing out tracts to college kids in Istanbul. When asked about his faith, the stock reply is, “God is awesome.” This young man believes he has a calling. I seriously doubt it.

When asked to help with the homeless in the local area, he refused. He only seems to see that going to Turkey is the thing to do. I actually feel sorry for him, because he does not understand belief or have any intellectual support of his belief. He has blindly accepted some feel-good slogans and now blindly follows this idea that he has been given. From reading the website material, we feel that he has been recruited to be essentially “grunt labor” for the organization, not to be a missionary in the more usual sense of going where there is no belief. He does not want to train as a minister, instead opting to go to graduate school to major in a course of study that he only achieved C’s in as an undergrad. He seems to not be connected to the reality he is about to face. When he faces a genuine hardship due to his acquired faith, will he be able to weather it without cracking or losing his faith? I seriously doubt it. Having been brainwashed one way, he is open to the same in a different direction.

In contrast, let us look at others who are called. I know something of both Roman Catholics and Lutherans. Other mainline protestant faiths are similar. One of the things that always impresses me about Roman Catholic religious is their realism about the world and what they are doing in it. It impressed me, when my son took religion at a parochial high school. The teachings were not just given to learn, they had to be applied to the real world and acquire meaning in those terms. The commitment to the religious life in the Roman Catholic church has to be strong. RC religious give up the opportunity to have families, and most of the material things we all think we need and enjoy. To make such a commitment requires a full intellectual and emotional integration towards the goal.

Protestant ministers make their commitment in terms of the amount of study they must pursue in order to become ministers. They also are carefully screened throughout their training. In addition to the technical aspects of their training they also must dig deeply into the meaning of the scriptures and have a broad intellectual as well as emotional understanding.

There are other kinds of calling, and when they are genuine there is an ability to state why one is doing it. My wife feels called to help the homeless, it is her personal mission. She also wants to help provide religious-supported help to the unfortunate in this country. She can tell you what she wants to do, why she wants to do it, and how she expects to get it done. My calling is these Sunday messages on religious topics. They have the purpose of showing that there is room for religious thought in the most scientifically-grounded people. I am one of those, and I also believe in God. I think the benefits of my belief are such that I want others like me to share them. And so I write to show how I now think about those things that I once considered worthless, and how I have not given up any of my scientific and logically constructed beliefs to do so.

Serving God is not just going to church every Sunday, saying a rote set of prayers everyday, and contributing some amount of money. Though those who serve do those things, true service is doing something personal that advances good works in a realistic way. There is a lady in our church who has physical difficulties and lives in a retirement home. She always does part of the laundry when we host the homeless and when possible prepares a meal during the week. There are others that do much more in our church, but all are serving to the best of their ability, and that is all that can be asked.

One of the tasks of all the Martian probes is to look for signs of water and by implication, life. In fact, several years ago, the first Martian lander created quite a stir for a while, when gas evolved from the addition of water to some Martian soil. It was later thought to be inorganic reactions from chemicals that were stable only in very dry environments. There have also been efforts to find extra-terrestrial life using the Arecebo radio telescope and a large network of home computers to analyze radio data for possible patterns of intelligent communication. These efforts are serious attempts based on the best knowledge available.

This week, in the Wall Street Journal, for Friday, January 21, in the Marketplace section (B) there was an article entitled: “Search for Other Life In Galaxy May Require A Broader Outlook,” under the byline of Sharon Begley. The article is based on a journal article in Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. Having studied evolutionary chemistry and given a lot of thought to the issue of non-carbon-based life, I consider the WSJ article, and by implication the journal article, to be junk science. The remainder of this post is both a fisking of the article and a further exposition of the factors that are not being considered that are required for living organisms to exist.

START OF ARTICLE AND THE FISKING:

UPDATE: Because of the length of this post, I have placed the remainder in Bill's Big Stuff, here.

I have commented before that Fr. Matthew, the SoDakMonk has a wicked sense of humor. His discussion of the Zygorthian Death Ray is wonderfully understated. Read it carefully to get all the nuances. [Yes, someone besides JFK is nuanced.]

I have just placed a new blog on my blogroll, New Sisyphus, from a member of the State Department. This promises to be a fantastic blog, with long, thought provoking essays and real world observations.

There is a new blog from the underground Republicans at the State Department, New Sisyphus. This particular post on a trip to France and the comments indicate that it is only the French politicians and intelligencia that hate the US. The same folks that in our country form the left/liberal insanity. Now I understand what is going on. Elitism is a world-wide movement supporting itself in all countries and constantly proposing an agenda to defeat freedom except for itself.

Thanks to Amy Ridenhour's National Center Blog for the link.

With this statement

Thank goodness Peggy Noonan was not one of our Founding Fathers. If it was up to her, we would have stuck with a monarchy, rather than trying to form a government for which we had no precedent - not a long-standing successful one, anyway.

my friend Ally is off and running in an excellent come-uppance to Peggy Noonan's editorial on Bush's Inaugural Address. Go read it.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 73

...the availability of "those who can properly estimate."

...and are willing to give up power to prevent it.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 12

Hamilton just didn't understand the rapacity of politicians, or the strength of the desire to spend other people's money.

I'm on the road again, and once again receiving my favorite hair shirt, USA Today. the main section was filled with its usual nothing-is-right-in-the-world downer headlines and stories, but in the back was a report on the new government guidelines on diet. I'll skip my usual rants on the appropriateness of the government producing such guidelines.

I have no problems with the recommendations given. But I think there will be a tendency to see them not as advisories or guidelines, but as hard rules to be followed at peril of your health. First of all, realize it is YOUR health and then consider them as you wish.

The greatest problem I have with all diet recommendations is they are always one-size fits all. Only a certain balance is considered proper. Just as people can vary in their total caloric needs due to metabolic, age, and activity differences, so they can vary in their nutritional balance requirements. About two years ago there was a stir created by someone who said there were three types of people and they should have diets to suit--high carbohydrate users, high protein and fat users, and balanced carbohydrate/protein users. My wife is in the first group, my son in the second, and I am in the third, tending to the protein side. One type of diet does not suit all.

A proper diet is necessary because it allows us to live and work optimally. We will be less inclined to be sick, and less inclined to be over- or under-weight. We will have more energy for the things we want to do. But a proper diet is not necessarily what someone else tells us it is, and it certainly is not some of these craze diets, grapefruit, Atkins, South Beach, low carb, low fat, etc.

I posted on fat in great length not too long ago, so won't say much more here about it. But fat is an issue as well as the other two energy sources in the Atkins diet and its relatives. Atkins allows the eating of large amounts of protein and fat as long as there is little or no carbohydrate. This is not a new diet, I tried a low carbohydrate diet forty years ago. It was a fad then. What I found was that after a while, I didn't feel quite right inside. I would eat and not feel fed. There was a constant, non-specific craving all the time. I lost some weight, but didn't stay on the diet very long.

From a biochemical standpoint, Atkins is a bizarre diet. The amount of fat that is eaten is very large as a percent of the calories. In fact, I would say that more calories are taken in than can be consumed, and since people lose weight on the diet, there must be some major metabolic inefficiencies and changes. The large amounts of protein create an excess of nitrogen to be disposed of, since the protein has to be used for energy, not just building blocks for enzymes and cell structures. In addition, the risk of gout goes up since many of the allowed foods are good sources of purines, a nucleic acid component that metabolizes to uric acid which is the cause of gout.

There is a portion of the population that can handle large amounts of protein and fat, and for them, Atkins isn't too bad. For the rest of the population, I would consider it risky to harmful, especially for those with marginal liver and/or kidney function.

So what about the rest of us? What makes for a good diet? MODERATION. Not abstinence but moderation. I think if a diet removes pleasure from our lives, it will not be adhered to and will actually be unconciously resisted. This is not to say, unbridled hedonism is allowable. But working out compromises can lead to much healthier eating. Quit thinking of junk food as junk food. It has calories, and tastes good. It can be metabolized and used for energy. It is not harmful in reasonable quantities. To sit down with a big bag of chips and a 8 or 16 oz container of dip and polish it off in an evening, even with 2 people, is excessive. But taking some out of the bag and putting the bag away until the next day is reasonable.

The same concept applies to all our foods. It is not healthier to eat a big steak every day and no bread or potatoes. Protein is fine, but beyond a relatively small amount (4-8 oz) a day the rest just gets burned as energy. This is not to say you can't enjoy a big steak dinner once in a while. You should, if you want to. But you need to compensate somewhere that day or week.

Large amounts of fruits and vegetables are healthy, but you can go overboard there too. Too much fruit creates a large sugar load, and too many veggies can keep you locked in the bathroom. Two cups of fruit a day (fruit is preferable to juice) is about right, and a moderate to large salad and three or four servings of vegetables is about right.

Sure fish and chicken are considered healthier than beef and pork, but again that can be overdone. A variety works best. Eggs and cheese are often demonized, because of the cholesterol in eggs and the butter fat in cheese. What is overlooked is that they are excellent sources of protein, and eggs contain large amounts of choline which is needed by the body to make neurotransmitters (chemicals that the nerves use to signal each other). From several years of blood work and seeing what I eat, I will say that stress is just as important to cholesterol levels in the blood as what we eat. Actually the cholesterol in eggs is a fraction of what we produce in our bodies every day. I like eggs and routinely eat them as well as an ounce or two of cheese every day. Now once in a while we will pig-out on cheese and crackers as a treat, but maybe only once every couple of months or less.

Alcohol is actually beneficial in moderate (1 to 2 drinks a day) quantities. It helps Type II diabetics keep their blood levels down, and has anti-oxidant properties.

Potatoes themselves are very healthy food. It is the grease from deep-frying and the butter and sour cream on baked potatoes that have given potatoes a bad name. Potatoes have significant amounts of Vitamin C, potassium, and parts of the B vitamin complex. They are complex carbohydrates which makes them useful in diabetic diets. Bread and pasta are also complex carbohydrates, and healthy to eat. Again it is how much you eat and what you put on them.

Beans are often considered a high protein food. This is true, but except for soy beans most beans have incomplete protein. There are 10 amino acids out of 22 that the human body cannot make. They must come from the food. Most vegetable proteins are lacking in one or more of these amino acids. However, one can combine two vegetable protein sources and get the equivalent of complete protein. The most common is beans and cornbread. There are probably other pairs, but I haven't investigated.

You need to optimize your diet for yourself. Start with a recommended diet, e.g. the current guidelines, or some other balanced diet. This does not mean a reducing diet--those are a specialty item. Just a good, healthy maintenance diet. Stay with it for a few weeks. After that time, you should notice if it seems like there is not enough, or too much, protein. It will be more like always craving something like meat, or like bread or potatoes. Adjust your diet in the appropriate direction, removing carbohydrate to make room for more protein or vice versa. Don't make big changes. Eventually it will settle down. Do get used to eating more vegetables and fruit. Most people don't eat enough of them.

Finally, I recommend taking a good multiple vitamin. One that provides one day's requirements. Diets that have only 2400 calories or less do not generally provide all the vitamins in optimal quantities. They may be present in enough quantity to prevent overt vitamin deficiency, but not necessarily in the full daily dose. Extra vitamins above this level are wasted. Body builders and atheletes have some of the most expensive urine in the world from the vitamins that are excreted. Excess fat-soluable vitamins can be harmful. Those are A, D, and E.

So what should the take-away be for all this?

-Moderation in everything you eat, avoid binges
-Variety in the ingredients, all the meats, all the veggies,
-Adjust the diet to your needs
-take a multivitamin

Today's post by Bussorah went straight to my heart. Just go read it.

I have just posted a new (to me) blog on the blogroll--Diachronic Agency. This is a philosophical site, written by a professor of philosophy. The politics probably are liberal, but not the unthinking drivel we are used to. He posts on a broad range of topics, and I have yet to read one and not think about what he is saying, even if I end up not agreeing.

Well worth checking out and keeping up with.

I'm sorry, but I don't remember who I got the original link from. I'll update with it, if someone can remind me or I remember.

Today in TCS there is a review of Michael Critchton's latest book, State of Fear.

Here are some choice quotes:

Among the lessons taught by Kenner and company: temperature records from around the world aren't particularly reliable; that global average temperature has changed independent of the level of greenhouse gases throughout history; regional temperature trends vary widely, from stability, to pronounced cooling, to pronounced heating. Crichton's characters also explain that most of the world's ice is not melting, as Antarctica, with some 90 percent of the world's ice, is getting colder-only 2% of Antarctic area has melting ice, the rest is getting icier.

Crichton also hits other climate- and eco-myths, explaining that the world's sea level is not rising faster than normal, the world isn't experiencing more storms or other extreme weather phenomena; DDT doesn't cause cancer, and that native people weren't noble savages living in harmony with nature.
...
Finally, Crichton's third book within State of Fear is something that I've never seen from a fiction writer before: a policy study explicated through the science revealed within the tale, and an Author's Message, explaining what Crichton thinks we should do based on what we know about climate change. Among Crichton's many logical conclusions three stand out:

--"We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history, to its present state, to how to conserve and protect it. In every debate, all sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty.

--Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400 percent, de facto proof that nobody knows; and

--Before making expensive policy decisions on the basis of climate models, I think it is reasonable to require that those models predict future temperatures accurately for a period of ten years. Twenty would be better."

Great storytelling has been a vehicle for education throughout the history of humanity, and, in our times of increasing scientific illiteracy, State of Fear may be a particularly appropriate way to expose common people to the scientific problems that plague the arguments supporting greenhouse gas regulations. State of Fear is an excellent novel that concisely and clearly presents the arguments long asserted by those who are skeptical of claims that we know the climate is changing, that we know what causes the climate to change, and that we know enough to take control over the global climate through the manipulation of greenhouse gases.

Good authors always carefully research their background material. I plan to read this book to see for myself what is said. I read Jurrasic Park, and with the exception of the riffs on Chaos Theory, I thought most of it was spot on, scientifically, with regard to the existing knowledge.

It is a shame when there is more truth in fiction than in non-fiction.

From the Maximum Leader I am playing a meme game he saw on two sites. Here goes:

Copy the following list of first lines to poems. If you are familiar with the poem, leave it there. If not, replace it with one you DO know. Put your changes in Bold, put the rest in normal text. Then link back to me. Here are my results:

1. Let us go then, you and I,
2. When God lets my body be
3. The King sat in Dumfarling Town
4. When shall we three meet again?
5. Do not go gentle into that good night,
6. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree
7. How do I love thee, let me count the ways
8. Cold October wind and rain
9. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
10. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Number 4 is almost a cheat, it's Shakespeare, but that passage is the most rhythmical of any he wrote that I remember, and it does have a rhyme to it.
Number 8 is from a poem I posted back in September or October. I wrote it in 1974.

Update: Ally caught a mistake in the last comment, now corrected to "Number 8". Thanks, Ally.

Lee at Verbum Ipsum has found and reviewed a most fascinating book on our culture. Here are some teasers:

Borgmann says that technology is the characteristic feature of our world. By this he means that the paradigm of the "device" is the predominant way in which we relate to the world. The device has two components, machinery and commodity. Basically this means that the device serves, through an elaborate piece of scientific engineering, to make something (an experience, a product) available for effortless consumption. It is our way of bending reality to our will, and a way that detaches us from a concrete encounter with reality.
...
Borgmann is no Luddite; he freely admits that technology has brought us real blessings in extending lifespans, improving health and saving us from hunger and backbreaking labor. What he thinks we need, however, is to recover a space for what he calls "focal things" and "focal practices," which technology threatens to occlude.

A focal thing is something that calls forth our attention and engagement rather than being immediately available for our use. Focal things are real in their own right, rather than being commodities produced for our effortless consumption. And a focal practice is the activity whereby we engage with this reality. Paradigm instances of focal things for Borgmann are wilderness, musical instruments, the written word and the communal meal. The corresponding focal practices might be hiking, learning to play music, reading to each other and preparing the meal. These all require an active understanding and engagement with the underlying reality and the development of certain skills and virtues.

Definitely go read the whole thing.

The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily

"Thus, each of the principal branches of the federal government will owe its existence more or less to the favor of the State governments, and must consequently feel a dependence, which is much more likely to beget a disposition too obsequious than too overbearing towards them." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Two hundred years makes a difference.

For the first time since I started, I have not been able to find a topic for my Sunday (sometimes Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) post on religion. I have harvested all my previous writings for what I wish to share at the moment, and there were no outstanding scriptural considerations this week. In thinking about what to post, I realized I had a number of scattered thoughts, but nothing coherent. So that is what I will post.

From non-belief to belief in God

One of the things I was thinking about tonight was the process of going from non-belief to belief in God. Some people describe it as a sudden AH HA type incident. Sometimes they describe it as suddenly providing a missing piece, not so much of puzzle, but rather within themselves. I was reading Jeff Miller’s (The Curt Jester, of MS Forgery fame) description of his arrival at belief after years of atheism, and he noted that he spent a lot of time reading everything he could find on religion and religious belief. It was like he was looking for something but wasn’t sure what, other than that it was religious.

I have done much the same in my life. When I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I started seriously questioning religious belief and its basis. When I discussed this with the assistant priest of the Episcopal church I was attending, he gave me a book on Christian Apologetics to read. He didn’t realize it, but from his standpoint it was a big mistake. I found in print that the entire justification of belief in the Bible rested on the Bible’s statements of its authority. [The mistake was in trying to logically justify that which must be assumed.] I saw it as a merry-go-round or in more neutral terms, begging the question. It didn’t take much more, and I was a confirmed atheist. I thought that science had all the answers, and for forty or so years continued to think so. However, during that time I read widely in all the religions of the world except Hindu. I had the most interest in Zen for a while, and still have a strong identity with the tiger Koan.

A man is chased by a tiger. He comes to a cliff. He jumps off and grabs a bush growing out of the cliff. As he is hanging there, with the tiger pacing above, a black mouse and a white mouse start eating the roots of the bush. He looks a branch and sees a large, beautiful strawberry growing there. He grabs it and eats it. How delicious!

A-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks. That is the nature of Zen. Honi soit, qui mal y pense.

After I married, we attended church regularly. I was not so arrogant in my belief that I considered myself to be absolutely correct, and I believed that it was easier to go from belief to non-belief than to go the other way. If I were wrong and encouraged my sons in my beliefs, I would be double-damned, and they would be damned. What I first found was that the ideas frequently were interesting when the scriptures were discussed from the pulpit. In fact I scandalized my wife by trying to take notes. [I never did ask, “Then why do they call them ‘Lessons’ if I’m not supposed to learn?”]

When we moved to Ohio, and changed churches, I then found that not only were the sermons interesting, but I had a feeling of sanctuary in the Sanctuary. For one hour a week, I could simply be, with no demands on me, and no need to be or do anything other than not act rudely. I stood when all did, kneeled when all did, etc. I did not participate in any way like praying, singing, or reciting. I did not participate in communion, considering that with my beliefs at that time, it would be a mockery to do so. That continued for some years. But as I listened, I realized that regardless of whether one believed in God or not, much of what Jesus taught made good sense in its own right. Not in a literal sense, but in the allegorical sense it was given originally.

I then started sensing a conflict in myself. I saw belief in God and religious practice as negating the science that I so strongly believed in. It was like giving up a part of myself. I posted on that feeling with the story of the wonderful fur coat. Finally, I decided to make the existence of God a working hypothesis. This was a psychological trick on myself as it were, since I reassured myself that anything that negated the hypothesis would then allow the discarding of the belief in God. What has occurred is that I have found that my belief structure in God does not conflict with my belief structure about the physical world. In effect the working hypothesis has become an accepted hypothesis.

So rather than a sudden Ah Ha moment, I just slowly moved into a belief. Now that I have that belief, it provides me with the satisfaction of my particular religious cravings.

What does God do?

This question is almost like asking, “What is the point in believing in God?” Given that I don’t believe God can mess with Nature, he is not out there punishing us with floods and tsunamis, or helping us with rain when we need it or sunsets to inspire us. I think what he is doing is helping those of us who need and ask for His help, but in ways that only involve human interaction. I don’t think God puts his finger in our brains and drops in answers or gratuitous advice. He is more interested in our doing as much as we can on our own, but he can provide awareness of choices in ourselves and others.

I have watched some problems get solved, and the solution is so different from what I would have conceived that I have a hard time thinking it came about by chance. I think if we are relaxed and allow our thoughts to be open, we receive suggestions on what might be better courses of action. We are always free to ignore the advice, and in fact there may be no grudge on God’s part, if we do. What happens is that the consequences provide the lesson.

I do not believe in a judgmental God. When we ignore the good and do the bad, the consequences and our own consciences are more than sufficient to punish. For those who desire evil, they eventually get their own pay-off, they spend eternity truly alone, with only the memory of their sins for company, and those from the viewpoint of the victim.

I envision God and the souls in Heaven acting as our advisors and guardians when we let them.

Possible changes to my theology:

In an email I sent to the Big Hominid, I mentioned that I thought God might be the accumulation of good souls over the millennia. And that given that as the mechanism for a good moral agent, one could also argue that the same might occur for an evil moral agent, i.e. the Devil. However, in reading my post on the Devil and why I did not think he existed, I was again convinced by my own arguments that the Devil may not exist as a separate entity.

But, then, from whence comes our feelings of evil and our bad behaviors? I have seen in myself what almost seems like a separate bad agent encouraging really evil thought. Upon closer examination, however, it is not separate, but rather an aggregation of the bad thought passed on to me during my upbringing, and other bad behavior and thought of my own over my life. It is almost as if our brains can accumulate such things into a separate personality. When it becomes overt, one gets the situations in “Three Faces of Eve”, and “Sybil”, where distinct personalities are expressed in the same physical body. The clinical term is dissociation. (This makes a very strong moral point, that we are responsible for our bad behavior—the Devil did NOT make us do it.)

Ah ha! then says the militant atheist or agnostic, then the good is not God, but simply the good side of us accumulated as a personality. A reasonable thought, but I don’t think it is true. Such an approach does not account for or leave a place for the existence of a soul. I have posted on what I consider the nature and source of the soul before, and it is from my considerations of the soul and extensive anecdotal material relating to it, that I created my asymmetrical concept of a Heaven and God with no equivalent Hell and Devil.

A thought that continues this is, that evil is inherently self-destructive. Since it always has as its goal, something ultimately destructive, eventually it must consume itself when nothing else is left to consume.

Having written all this, I will not make any significant changes in my theology at present.

Mission:

In thinking about all this, I started thinking about Paul, the Epistle writer. Paul struggled with trying to put what he saw as the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross into terms that the people of his day could understand. In the process he of necessity had to make interpretations and constructions to fill in the gaps. Though I do not consider myself the equal of Paul in any way, I realized that I am trying to do the same for myself and any who stay with me during these efforts. I am trying to make sense of the desire for religion, the belief in God, and the refusal to negate the findings of science which I have studied all my life. In the process I share what I am doing and try to give meaning in terms of modern understanding to these beliefs.

In the process, I am hoping that there are those who have had the same kinds of struggles I have had, seeing so much of religious belief not make sense in light of modern discovery, and “throwing the baby out with the bath water” denying any religious belief on those grounds, and that they will rethink their total denial of God and belief. This is not an attempt at “conversion”, but simply a presentation of a way to look at things that allows a belief in God without negating that which is strongly demonstrated by science. The choice to believe or not is always there; sometimes we need to remember there is the choice without sacrificing accepted belief about the physical world.

[I have not put the links into my post this time. Everything can be found in Bill’s Religious Archives for those interested, and maybe other things of interest as well.]

For what started as having little to say, this turned out rather big.

Fr. Matthew, the SoDakMonk, has posted this paragraph:

Science is a good tool for discovering truth in proportion to how precisely the question has been defined. Consequently the most precise answers science gives us often tend to be the most trivial, or at least [the most, bk] circumscribed questions. The more profound the question from a human perspective, the less adequately science addresses it. E.g. what is the meaning of life?

This is the most compact and profound statement I have seen on science and its findings.

Blackfive has posted an excellent essay on the difference in Iraq between what the press says occurs and what the real overall situation is like. It is well worth the time to read.

I have discovered I have been honored by Kentucky Packrat as being grouped with the Maverick Philosopher as a theological and philosophical blog. I just got placed in some very illustrious company. In return I am putting his blog in my blogroll. Apparently his first name is David, from one of his posts, and he has a nice, easy-going style. Give him a try.

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? It took five minutes for the TV warm up? Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school? Nobody owned a purebred dog? When a quarter was a decent allowance? You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces? All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels? You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box? It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents? They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . .and they did? When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady? No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked? Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a .." and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game? Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?

And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today? When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"? I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on. To remember what a double dog dare is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember? Candy cigarettes Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers Newsreels before the movie P.F. Fliers Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601). Party lines Peashooters Howdy Dowdy 45 RPM records Green Stamps Hi-Fi's Metal ice cubes trays with levers Mimeograph paper Beanie and Cecil Roller-skate keys Cork pop guns Drive ins Studebakers Washtub wringers The Fuller Brush Man Reel-To-Reel tape recorders Tinkertoys Erector Sets The Fort Apache Play Set Lincoln Logs 15 cent McDonald hamburgers 5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful pink slab of bubble gum Penny candy 35 cent a gallon gasoline Jiffy Pop popcorn

Do you remember a time when... Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"? Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"? "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest? Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening? It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"? The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"? Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot? A foot of snow was a dream come true? Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures? "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense? Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team? War was a card game? Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle? Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Water balloons were the ultimate weapon? If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life . . .I double-dog-dare-ya!

Thanks to Bussorah for the post.

Baron Bodissey has posted Part 2 of the Enemy Within at Gates of Vienna. Go read it, AND the comments.

Smallholder, over at Naked Villainy, in one of the paragraphs of his post mentions a very unlikely event, namely the recovery of his watch, and wants to attribute it to the assistance of a Supreme Being. This is a very natural impulse and one I have frequently. I tend to be assymetrical about it, only the improbable good stuff gets credit given to God. I usually say S... happens when it is bad.

However, it isn't a bad idea to look at the real probability of finding the watch rather than the perceived one. The conditions to look at are:

a= Probability of capsizing at a particular point
b= probability of being barefoot while white-water rafting
c= probability of a watch remaining in a given location when lost
d= probability of a watch coming to rest at a given location
g= probability of someone reporting finding the watch rather than keeping it
h= probability of the same guide being on both trips
e= probability of the loss being remembered by the guide
f= probability of the guide finding Smallholder's name in the book.
The remainder have probabilities of 1 or almost one.

The overall probability is a*b*c*d*e*f*g*h for one trip, and the overall for a season is the probability of one trip times the number of trips in a season.

Since the raft capsized at that point, I would assume that other rafts would do the same with some frequency. Let us say that a= .25

I would expect b to be very high, and I would count wading slippers almost the same as barefoot lets give b= .8

A watch is quite heavy relative to the water, so that if it falls off it will quickly reach an eddy, sink and being below the current, so once it comes to rest c = 1.

Since one doesn't stand up after capsizing unless the water is calm, the probability of the watch being in a particular eddy is probably proportional to the number of eddies just past a common capsizing point. give d=.05

I would imagine the loss being readily remembered by the guide, especially a female guide. The watch was an engagement present--very romantic, and I would imagine Smallholder made quite an impression with his concern over its loss. (I sure would have) Give e=.99

Having gotten to e, it would be foolish to consider f for less than 1. Even if there were more than one Mark, she would have followed up with all of them. so f=1

The majority of people in this country are honest, and I would suspect that the qualities that select for a desire to whitewater raft would also encourage honesty. I think g=.999

The probability of the same guide depends on the size of the rafting company.

Say there are two guides, so h=.5

we have for a given trip, a=.25,b=.8,c=1,d=.05,e=.99,f=1,g=.999,and h=.5.

the overall probability is .0049 for one trip. Let's say 2 trips a day during the season, which I guess is about a month, so 60 trips, gives a probability of .30, or about 1/3 of the watch being found in a given season. (You can play with the individual probabilities, but when you do, don't calculate the answer till ALL the playing is done. Otherwise you will be guilty of trying to get a certain answer.)

This kind of thinking, that a perceived probability is far less than the actual has a counter in thinking that a perceived negative probability is much higher than actual, e.g. the chance of being on another terrorist hi-jacked plane after 9/11. I was flying the next week, but many people still won't fly. They do not see the thousands of successful flights daily.

It is possible that there was some divine assistance in the return of the watch, but the probabilities would indicate that it wasn't necessary.

[See what happens when you call me 'star-student-of-geometry-class-proof'. It goes to my head. My wife says "Don't encourage him." :-)) ]

One of Ally's many virtues is her very straightforward, no BS analysis of events. Case in point is her take on the CBS debacle. A well-worthwhile and quick read.

Today we attended the funeral of a well-respected member of our church. The choir sang, and there were scripture selections and other selected hymns, a eulogy by his eldest daughter, and a eulogistic sermon by the pastor. The overall approach was a classic Christian one that the person’s soul will go to heaven through his Baptism and union with Jesus whose death redeemed all believers to go to heaven.

This is a reassuring message to believers. They are comforted with the idea that eventually they will see their loved ones again, when they die. Because of its reassurance, many atheists will accuse Christians of believing falsehoods because they are comforting, not because they believe they are true. When I once posted a comment to another blog on the belief that my son’s soul did indeed visit me and my God daughter, some so-intellectually-sophisticated person told me it was simply my own wishful thinking due to missing him so much. [I would want him to experience the same thing to prove himself wrong, but the horror that would have to precede it makes me incapable of wishing such.]

For myself, I believe that we have souls, and that we will go to heaven through being as good a person as we can and God’s grace to forgive the rest. I do not attach any particular belief burden to achieving heaven. I don’t think doctrine is as important as right living.

But since we have a belief that comforts us in the sense that we have not permanently lost the loved one, why do we have funerals? primarily because we are still alive, and in such state experience a grief and loss at the death of a friend or loved one, for which we need comforting. Funerals are for the living.

Once the deceased is deceased, he or she no longer experiences anything important to us, at least within our knowledge. The trappings of a funeral will have no impact on them. Therefore the funeral of necessity must be for the survivors. Funerals are a formalized way of saying, “Good Bye,” of marking a place in our existence at which a shift occurs; we must continue without the deceased.

Funerals allow everyone who was positively affected by the deceased and who loved him/her to come together to share their past joy and to comfort one another. It is a time of being thankful for the deceased’s existence, as a way of lessening the pain of the loss. Generally, the funeral is preceded by a viewing the day before at the funeral home. This is a very specific acknowledgement of the death, where as many as possible, some not able to be at the funeral itself, come, pass by the body in a casket, and express condolences with the family.

Viewings and the final viewing before the funeral when the casket is closed permanently, can have some interesting moments. At my son’s viewing, his friends put all sorts of things in for him, in the manner of savages preparing a body for the afterlife, cigarettes, a lighter, a deck of cards, a small basketball. We had memory boards for writing messages or comments, and some of those were definitely interesting. We had pictures showing his life, and those are a common occurrence at viewings. It is as if there is finally a summation of ones life, and the most important things are shown as the essence of the person. Again, it is for the benefit of the living not the deceased.

In an odd way the appearance of the person’s face and body in the casket can be helpful in assisting the separation. Despite all the undertaker’s art, people who were fully alive in life bear only vague resemblance to themselves in a casket. The parishioner today looked little in the face like he did in life, with his ready smile and almost impish gleam in his eye. My son looked very little like himself, in the casket his firm mouth splayed out and his lean face fattened. It is helpful, in that it underscores that this is all that remains, and it is not what once was. That this physical object is not the person I loved, that person is gone forever, except in memory.

The burial is brief. It is the final departing, and has as its emphasis the return of the material body to the earth and the soul to Heaven. Today had as an added feature an honor guard from Wright Patterson AFB, to honor a former fighter pilot. I must say the military knows how to do funeral rituals right, just the right amount of sadness and precision. The playing of “Taps” after the 21 gun salute (three shots from seven rifles) reminds us of all besides the person today who have honorably defended our country, even to death. [The flyover had to be cancelled because the ceiling was too low.] But then again, who has had to bury more people than the military? They have had lots of practice.

Like all good Lutherans, we went back to the church and ate. Again, it is one more thing for the living, a taking up of life by eating and visiting with one another. It is affirming that we will continue to go on living, despite our losses and grief.

Death is faced in many ways. When we are living, we create jokes as we age, laughing at the possibility of infirmity, recognizing it as an aberrant form of existence. When in danger, we often simply ignore death and its possibility and act, bringing ourselves and/or others to safety. Sometimes when pushed beyond our internal limits and strengths, we may actually seek death, seeing it as a preference over life. And almost all of us are afraid not so much of death but of dying. Death appears as nothing, a final stop. It is the process of getting there that is scary. It is almost always painful in one way or another, either physically or emotionally both for the living and the dying. It is at funerals when death has won that we admit its power, and then continue onward, fighting it as before, knowing we shall all eventually succumb.

Quantum Thought has posted an item on the Anthropic Principle, the idea that the universe was created specifically for man since it requires such fine tuning for man to exist in it.

Again from my recent post on Intelligent Design, I approach the Anthropic Principle as follows:

3. Physics -- Why are all the constants so finely tuned?

3. Here is where a lot of ID people point out that the smallest of deviations from the current values would render the existence of Man impossible. They then say that since we are here the Universe must have been created for us. Rather like Pooh, who thought the purpose of bees was to make honey so he could eat it. Hey, we may have been an accident or a chance occurrence along the way.

There is an illogic in the formulation of the Anthropic Principle:

The proper formulation is:
1. Our existence requires a specific set of values for fundamental constants.
2. The fundamental constants have a specific set of values
3. It is possible for us to exist.

The Anthropic Principle states:
1. Our existence requires a specific set of values for fundamental constants.
2. The fundamental constants have a specific set of values
3. We exist.

1a. Any deviation from the specific values would prevent our existence (a reformulation of 1)
2a. The values are so specific that they cannot be due to chance.
3a. They had to be created so we could exist.

Intelligent Design takes it further:
4a. The constants had to be tuned so we could exist.
5a. For there to be tuning, there has to be a tuner.
6a. The tuner is God, so God does exist.

Comments:
2a Is definitely debatable and actually creates a begging of the question.
3a is not a valid conclusion.
4a is a restatement of 3a.
5a an assumption, not a premise
6a Not a proof, since God was assumed in 5a.

I think finding out why the fundamental constants are so precisely fixed and what their inter-relations are is an area for spectacular physical advances when solved, but to presupposed they are that way for our benefit is arrogance to the extreme.

The Maximum Leader has kindly linked to my recent post on Intelligent Design (as also did The Big Hominid and Peg Kaplan). His musings started me thinking about the overall teaching of science in the schools. As a consequence, I realized that I am not aware of a good overall curriculum definition for science in the schools.

In the grade schools, (including jr. high) science is just called science and is sort of a smorgasboard of empirical stuff. Actually there is nothing wrong with this, if the emphasis is on observation, recording, and seeing relationships. It should be light in explanation until jr. high or so.

In high school there is a key element missing, a freshman level course in history and nature of scientific thought. The emphasis would be less on lab work other than to demonstrate historical ideas, and more on what people thought based on what they knew at the time. There would need to be both a history of mathematics and a history of science. I can remember reading Hogben's book on the history of math at a high school age. I also read George Gamow's "1,2,3, Infinity". Both are good, and accessible to high school students. Following that with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics in the Sophomore, Junior and Senior years, respectively would then complete the curriculum. The advantage of the Freshman year of history of science and math would be to provide a better conceptual framework for the following courses. They would not be simple sets of facts to be memorized but examples of a system of knowledge.

The greatest obstacle to such a program would be the education system itself. Having demanded so little of students to date, such a course would be considered high honors level if at all considered, rather than standard college prep. Actually I think the Freshman course should be standard for all HS students. It might give them some hope of grasping science policy issues if they care about them. It might also demystify science, a much to be desired state.

UPDATE: The Minister of Agriculture at Naked Villainy, has sent me the following note in an email:

The course you are asking for does exist in the International Baccalaureate curriculum. The course is called "Theory of Knowledge."

Today in TCS there was an essay by a Harvard Law Professor. In it he claims:

Odds are, George W. Bush will soon appoint a new Chief Justice. More Supreme Court appointments will follow, along with hundreds of lower-court judges. The federal judiciary will soon be Bush Country, a fact that could have larger long-term effects than Social Security reform and the war in Iraq.

Unless something changes, the effects will be bad. Not because Bush's judges and Justices will be too conservative, but because they won't be conservative enough. Most conservative judges today believe in a theory that leads to very un-conservative results -- law that amounts to little more than judges' opinions, concentrated power in the hands of an allegedly all-knowing Supreme Court, and legal rules that reinforce the power of liberal interest groups like teachers' unions. The right has the wrong legal theory.

Go read the rest of the article to see what baloney a law professor claiming to be conservative can spout (It sounds more to me like a liberal in conservative drag) and then read the forum which has some excellent responses. (You do have to register with TCS to read the forum.)

This post makes for very interesting reading....unless you think the Kennedys are very important people.

Thanks to Naked Villainy for the link.

Intelligent Design has become a topic of discussion in a lot of places I have been reading lately. A new site I just stumbled onto via Amy Ridenhour, Deinonychus antirrhopus, (it's named for a dinosaur fossil) had some extensive linkages and sub-linkages on the topic.

The stridency of the debate in some areas is remarkable. The ACLU and liberals are fighting tooth and claw (I'll keep the conceptual pun) to prevent its discussion in the public schools. Others consider discussing it out of place in high school science. Those favoring its presence in curricula, either want it there as a way to encourage belief in God or as a way to demonstrate what science is with an example of what it is not.

As a truth in blogging statement: I do not agree with Intelligent Design statements, and I am a theist, though not a traditional one.

Intelligent Design (ID) seems to be primarily an idea espoused by those with some knowledge of science and a belief in God. It appears to be a means by which they want to use the findings of science to justify a belief in God -- sort of a pseudo-proof of God. In some ways it may be seen as a sophisticated God-of-the-gaps idea, in the sense that its proponents create an apparent gap in the evolution of man or the universe, and then use God as the explanation, similarly to what used to be done with the real gaps in knowledge of the evolution of the universe and everything.

One of the characteristics I see in the presentations I have read is that the science used is generally plausible to a novice or someone not versed in science, but not to someone with a deep education in the particular area being discussed. Most arguments are at a general level without consideration of some important details. I have also seen discussions that are more in the idea of "fun with numbers" than real numerical analysis. What seems to occur is that scientists that agree with ID in some form, generally are impressed with phenomena outside their own expertise. They know enough in general to comprehend most of the ideas, but not enough to really analyse them. Examples would be biologists impressed with physics, and physicists impressed with biological complexity, or engineers impressed with all of it.

Part of what motivates ID is that the current cosmologies and theory of evolution are not perfect answers. They explain some but not all of what we see. There are difficulties in the scientific answer to where we came from, so the ID proponents think they have a more acceptable answer. Some of the difficulties are:
1. Cosmology -- Everything starts with the Big Bang, what was before it?
2. Cosmology -- How do we explain the distribution of galaxies in the Universe?
3. Physics -- Why are all the constants so finely tuned? (I want to return to this)
4. Biology -- If it all started with chemicals, how did life evolve?
5. Biology -- Why does life only use L-amino acids?

Here are my observations on these:
1. Not answerable with what we know or what we might know. Postulating God as starting it all is just another version of "I don't know."
2. There are lots of attempts but none completely successful. It is an active area of research.
3. Here is where a lot of ID people point out that the smallest of deviations from the current values would render the existence of Man impossible. They then say that since we are here the Universe must have been created for us. Rather like Pooh, who thought the purpose of bees was to make honey so he could eat it. Hey, we may have been an accident or a chance occurrence along the way.
4. There are a lot of speculative chemical answers, all suggestive of mechanisms, but none truly demonstrative. However, considering there were about 3.5 billion years from indications of the first, single-celled organisms and the first multi-cellular organisms, there is time to get the job done from primitive to sophisticated mechanisms. This may get a post in the future.
5. Possibly random chance. Just as the universe appears to be composed of matter instead of anti-matter. (However, if it were the other way around we would call it the same thing, matter (common) and anti-matter (rare).)

The current foes of ID, almost appear to be afraid in their intensity of effort to keep ID out of the public schools. In fact my friend, Peg, at What If? has commented on this more than once. I think it is because it does have a flavor of religion about it--intelligent design implying a designer(and executioner). So it provides a good cover for their motives. Generally the idea of the separation of church and state are argued, with ID being considered in the specific theistic doctrine group.

But if that were all that were involved, I can't think the reactions would be so strong. I suspect it is more along the lines of doctrinal purity, that no competing idea should be discussed or presented, possibly because they have no faith that it can be discussed in an insufficiently unfavorable way. Given the quality of teaching I have seen recently in the schools, it would not be able to be discussed, period. Few, if any, teachers would be able to discuss the material in the books successfully beyond the teacher's guide.

For those who don't think it is appropriate in a high school classroom, I would argue that from my experience, students can understand a lot more than they are given credit for. Plus if they have been taught properly from the start, they will have a good time pulling apart both science and ID.

So the debate will rage on. Those who need to justify their belief will continue to quote ID, regardless of how much refutation appears. Their emotional need is too great to give weight to counter-arguments. Those who are insecure in their atheism or who want doctrinal purity will fight ID in any venue except a head-to-head confrontation. And those like me who believe, but not in ID, will continue to try to support the idea of teaching what other ideas are about.

Dennis Mangan could be considered a curmudgeon from many of his posts (I don't. I find his realism refreshing and a good counter to my optimism.), but this one on aid to Indonesia, does a wonderful job of pointing out the basic immorality of government aid and the morality of private aid, while the rest of us either pat ourselves on the back or argue over how much to send.

This op-ed piece,

"Triumph, Tragedy, Farce
Our ideas about adoption have changed in recent years. ';Who's Your Daddy?' is one result.: ",

in the WSJ Opinion Journal reveals a new expression of racism or in another expression, "blood's thicker than water."

Its conceit [Who's Your Daddy?, bk] is to reunite adults adopted as children with at least one of their birth parents. It performs this potentially wholesome[?,bk] task with a special touch.

...

"Who's Your Daddy?" can be easily dismissed as a new low in the new "reality" of television. But it may be more than that, underscoring, in its way, a change in our attitudes toward adoption. Adoption advocates unanimously denounced it. But other voices have been raised in mitigation or defense.

...

Luckily, nature has equipped us with several useful but conflicting instincts that make adoption a safeguard against vulnerable aloneness. We prove able as infants and children to adapt ourselves to new families with virtually no prejudice against them--but also to protect ourselves from hostile new environments. Adults, for their part, show an instinctive desire to foster orphaned children--a desire so strong that it has overwhelmed the natural tribal and racial prejudices that separate nations and races. From Moses' adoption by Pharaoh's daughter to the controversial desire of white parents to adopt black and Asian babies, we show an urge to take the place of lost parents. That children can be fostered, that parents want to adopt--these are tragic but also joyful necessities. At least they were long seen that way.

[where is the tragedy in this? Maybe in the circumstances that create it, but not the child receipt of fostering and adoptive parents love. bk]
...

The do-gooder adoption movement that arose in the 19th century did, on the whole, do immense good--by regularizing and to some degree solemnizing adoption, protecting children who were never protected before. Adoption advocates wanted birth records to be forever secret to protect adopting parents from social risk and adopted children from stigma.

...

Then something odd happened. Advances in medicine and public health in the late-19th and 20th centuries meant that the vast majority of families would remain intact and "normal." In the postwar era, adoption became more a matter of finding children for childless couples than of absorbing "surplus" babies. A good thing, one would think. But as adoption became safe and legal--less a matter of necessity, in the U.S.--its solemnity was transformed into a kind of victimhood.

Adoptees, as well as psychologists like D.W. Winnicott and Betty Jay Lifton, began to speak of the tragic effects of being adopted. They concluded that many children given another home, even as newborns, suffer lifelong grief. At the same time, the sexual revolution virtually erased the stigma of illegitimacy, and modern medicine made it possible to benefit from knowing a genetic history. Advocates deemed the seal that protected adoption records a harmful form of secrecy and won the right to break it.

Thus it has become a rite of passage for adult adoptees to seek reunion with their biological parents. No doubt much good has come from such efforts. But somewhere along the way we lost the conviction that adoption could create a good-enough family.

[I consider the overall tone of this piece to be for the revelation of biological parents. This writer needs to do a bit more research with real people.]

My question is, "Just why do these adoptees long for their biological parents? Who put the idea in their heads.? It's part and parcel of the attitude that considers it "[a] controversial desire of white parents to adopt black and Asian babies".

This makes my blood boil. I have read some of the tragedies from the adoptive parents' side. Or the constant horror that having adopted, the baby may be taken back at any time. As far as I can see, the issue is one of refusal to accept that children can be properly reared by non-biological parents. Says who? Are we to return to some mystical bullshit about the special maternal bond during pregnancy? (There may be some sort of "bonding", but what happens after birth is far more important. I expect the pre-natal "bonding" was Nature's way of keeping the mother from destroying her young.) What about the fathers? They bond after the baby is born.

There is the legal myth that the mother is always the preferred custodial parent in a divorce unless proven to be grossly unfit. Now we have another myth that no matter how well adoptive parents do, the biological parents have greater rights than the adoptive parents. Dammit, the biological parents gave the kid up in the first place. This (and abortion) is why we now have the adoption of foreign orphans by those who can afford it over the adoption of US-citizen babies.

That circumstances change for biological parents later, does not trump giving the child a consistent, loving home. Ripping the child away from what it knows as security and love to give it some new stranger to get used to is wrong. If the biological parents are in a position to support a child later, let them produce a new one of their own. They gave up the other child, and to try to claim it back is not going to undo the decision. It will just create misery all the way around.

As for the show, given the description, it has a subconcious appeal to purience. There is something Freudian about it, and the way it is structured, an appeal to incest. Yes, it is a new low in (un)reality television. But it also reveals a very grave error in our thinking about what constitutes being a family and what are parents.