Putting the Watchmaker Analogy to Bed

I have been working for some time on an extended refutation of the Watchmaker Analogy. It's the only argument creationists really make. Everything else is window dressing.

However, before I could finish what would have been a masterpiece of flawless logic and argumentation, The Edge posted excepts from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's forthcoming book, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction.

One of these excerpts treats the Watchmaker Analogy very well, so I will present it here instead of my own piece. However, in case you are a creationist (and therefore lazy and challenged), I will bracket out the specific part that shows the Watchmaker Analogy fails. Here it is, slightly edited to fit context:

The process of replication can give rise to the illusion of design - that is, design without the foresight of an actual designer. Replicators make copies of themselves, which make copies of themselves, and so on, giving rise to an exponential number of descendants. In any finite environment the replicators must compete for the energy and materials necessary for replication. Since no copying process is perfect, errors will eventually crop up, and any error that causes a replicator to reproduce more efficiently than its competitors will result in that line of replicators predominating in the population. After many generations, the dominant replicators will appear to have been designed for effective replication, whereas all they have done is accumulate the copying errors which in the past did lead to effective replication.

This means that we have an alternative to watchmaker-makes-the-parts-of-a-watch. We know that complicated things with a coherent purpose can in fact - in fact - arise without a designer. But I'm summarizing. For the full story, keep reading.

3. The Argument from Design

A. The Classical Teleological Argument

1. Whenever there are things that cohere only because of a purpose or function (for example, all the complicated parts of a watch that allow it to keep time), we know that they had a designer who designed them with the function in mind; they are too improbable to have arisen by random physical processes. (A hurricane blowing through a hardware store could not assemble a watch.)

2. Organs of living things, such as the eye and the heart, cohere only because they have a function (for example, the eye has a cornea, lens, retina, iris, eyelids, and so on, which are found in the same organ only because together they make it possible for the animal to see.)

3. These organs must have a designer who designed them with their function in mind: just as a watch implies a watchmaker, an eye implies an eyemaker (from 1 & 2).
4. These things have not had a human designer.

5. Therefore, these things must have had a non-human designer (from 3 & 4).
6. God is the non-human designer (from 5).

7. God exists.

FLAW: Darwin showed how the process of replication could give rise to the illusion of design without the foresight of an actual designer. Replicators make copies of themselves, which make copies of themselves, and so on, giving rise to an exponential number of descendants. In any finite environment the replicators must compete for the energy and materials necessary for replication. Since no copying process is perfect, errors will eventually crop up, and any error that causes a replicator to reproduce more efficiently than its competitors will result in that line of replicators predominating in the population. After many generations, the dominant replicators will appear to have been designed for effective replication, whereas all they have done is accumulate the copying errors which in the past did lead to effective replication. The fallacy in the argument, then is Premise 1 (and as a consequence, Premise 3, which depends on it): parts of a complex object serving a complex function do not, in fact, require a designer.

In the twenty-first century, creationists have tried to revive the Teleological Argument in three forms:

B. The Argument from Irreducible Complexity

1. Evolution has no foresight, and every incremental step must be an improvement over the preceding one, allowing the organism to survive and reproduce better than its competitors.

2. In many complex organs, the removal or modification of any part would destroy the functional whole. Examples are, the lens and retina of the eye, the molecular components of blood clotting, and the molecular motor powering the cell's flagellum. Call these organs "irreducibly complex."

3. These organs could not have been useful to the organisms that possessed them in any simpler forms (from 2).

4. The Theory of Natural Selection cannot explain these irreducibly complex systems (from 1 & 3).

5. Natural selection is the only way out of the conclusions of the Classical Teleological Argument.

6. God exists (from 4 & 5 and the Classical Teleological Argument).

This argument has been around since the time of Charles Darwin, and his replies to it still hold.

FLAW 1: For many organs, Premise 2 is false. An eye without a lens can still see, just not as well as an eye with a lens.

FLAW 2: For many other organs, removal of a part, or other alterations, may render it useless for its current function, but the organ could have been useful to the organism for some other function. Insect wings, before they were large enough to be effective for flight, were used as heat-exchange panels. This is also true for most of the molecular mechanisms, such as the flagellum motor, invoked in the modern version of the Argument from Irreducible Complexity.

FLAW 3: (The Fallacy of Arguing from Ignorance): There may be biological systems for which we don't yet know how they may have been useful in simpler versions. But there are obviously many things we don't yet understand in molecular biology, and given the huge success that biologists have achieved in explaining so many examples of incremental evolution in other biological systems, it is more reasonable to infer that these gaps will eventually be filled by the day-to-day progress of biology than to invoke a supernatural designer just to explain these temporary puzzles.

COMMENT: This last flaw can be seen as one particular instance of the more general and fallacious Argument from Ignorance:

1.There are things that we cannot explain yet.

2. Those things must be caused by God.

FLAW: Premise 1 is obviously true. If there weren't things that we could not explain yet, then science would be complete, laboratories and observatories would unplug their computers and convert to condominiums, and all departments of science would be converted to departments in the History of Science. Science is only in business because there are things we have not explained yet. So we cannot infer from the existence of genuine, ongoing science that there must be a God.

C. The Argument from the Paucity of Benign Mutations

1. Evolution is powered by random mutations and natural selection.

2. Organisms are complex, improbable systems, and by the laws of probability any change is astronomically more likely to be for the worse than for the better.

3. The majority of mutations would be deadly for the organism (from 2).

4. The amount of time it would take for all the benign mutations needed for the assembly of an organ to appear by chance is preposterously long (from 3).

5. In order for evolution to work, something outside of evolution had to bias the process of mutation, increasing the number of benign ones (from 4).

6. Something outside of the mechanism of biological change — the Prime Mutator — must bias the process of mutations for evolution to work (from 5).

7. The only entity that is both powerful enough and purposeful enough to be the Prime Mutator is God.

8. God exists.

FLAW: Evolution does not require infinitesimally improbable mutations, such as a fully formed eye appearing out of the blue in a single generation, because (a) mutations can have small effects (tissue that is slightly more transparent, or cells that are slightly more sensitive to light), and mutations contributing to these effects can accumulate over time; (b) for any sexually reproducing organism, the necessary mutations do not have to have occurred one after the other in a single line of descendants, but could have appeared independently in thousands of separate organisms, each mutating at random, and the necessary combinations could come together as the organisms mate and exchange genes; (c) life on earth has had a vast amount of time to accumulate the necessary mutations (almost four billion years).

D. The New Argument from The Original Replicator

1. Evolution is the process by which an organism evolves from simpler ancestors.

2. Evolution by itself cannot explain how the original ancestor — the first living thing — came into existence (from 1).

3. The theory of natural selection can deal with this problem only by saying the first living thing evolved out of non-living matter (from 2).

4. That non-living matter (call it the Original Replicator) must be capable of (i) self-replication (ii) generating a functioning mechanism out of surrounding matter to protect itself against falling apart, and (iii) surviving slight mutations to itself that will then result in slightly different replicators.

5. The Original Replicator is complex (from 4).

6. The Original Replicator is too complex to have arisen from purely physical processes (from 5 & the Classical Teleological Argument). For example, DNA, which currently carries the replicated design of organisms, cannot be the Original Replicator, because DNA molecules requires a complex system of proteins to remain stable and to replicate, and could not have arisen from natural processes before complex life existed.

7. Natural selection cannot explain the complexity of the Original Replicator (from 3 & 6).

8. The Original Replicator must have been created rather than have evolved (from 7 and the Classical Teleological Argument).

9. Anything that was created requires a Creator.

10. God exists.

FLAW 1: Premise 6 states that a replicator, because of its complexity, cannot have arisen from natural processes, i.e. by way of natural selection. But the mathematician John von Neumann showed in the 1950s that it is theoretically possible for a simple physical system to make exact copies of itself from surrounding materials. Since then, biologists and chemists have identified a number of naturally occurring molecules and crystals that can replicate in ways that could lead to natural selection (in particular, that allow random variations to be preserved in the copies). Once a molecule replicates, the process of natural selection can kick in, and the replicator can accumulate matter and become more complex, eventually leading to precursors of the replication system used by living organisms today.

FLAW 2: Even without von Neumann's work (which not everyone accepts as conclusive), to conclude the existence of God from our not yet knowing how to explain the Original Replicator is to rely on The Argument from Ignorance.

Believe me, this is just what I was going to say.

Oh, and I've noticed that over at Uncommon Descent, they're already going ape-shit over Goldstein's book and arguments. For example, they insist that Goldstein's Teleological Argument is not the one they make.

Yes, they are actually trying to argue "That's not MY teleological argument you're talking about," kind of like the old chestnut, "That's not MY religion you are talking about."

One commentator cries:

This analysis doesn’t work because the argument is mis-stated. The first premise is not “anything which exists must have a cause”, but “anything which begins to exist must have a cause”, which makes a huge difference in the analysis. Well known theistic philosopher William Lane Craig states the Kalaam Cosmological Argument this way:
Premise 1 – Anything that begins to exist must have a cause
Premise 2 – The universe began to exist
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

Another commenter posts this:

This is not the classical teleological argument, I’m not even sure that it’s Paley’s argument (which likewise is not to be confused with the classical teleological argument).

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a joke, a sad attempt to delay the inevitable.

The notion of "begins to exist" is about as fuzzy an idea as we can get. When did I begin to exist? At precisely what moment? It's like Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, where one can proceed infinitely to smaller and smaller levels. Think long and hard, but in the end it's people who decide and define when something "begins to exist." The notion is a man-made construct, a logical convention that nature has no obligation to honor.

Then of course there's the problem of God. When did God begin to exist? How do we know whether he did or didn't begin to exist? If the universe had a cause, did that cause have to be supernatural? Could it have been caused by, say, another universe? Could the laws of physics have allowed it to be caused, such as we were told by physicist Lawrence Krauss?

I've mentioned it before. Logic is great stuff except when it doesn't work or when messy reality gets in the way.

Goldstein has solid philosophical credentials (much better than those who criticize her) and is under no obligation to respond every time a creationist wants to try moving argumentative goalposts. In the end, the Kalam Cosmological Argument falls in just the same way as the other variations of the Teleological Argument.

Good night, watch. Good night, watchmaker.

Adolf the Creationist

I'm happy to put to bed the awful lie that creationists love. "Hitler and Darwin, they say. "Darwin led to Hitler. SQUAWK!!"

Ed Brayton shows us how Hitler used creationist ideas and lots o'GAWD to make his assertions.

While we're at it, Brayton also comments on why the "survival of the fittest" line of Social Darwinism is so stupid next to what the theory of evolution actually is and does.

We Are All Connected

I wish I'd watched more Cosmos when I was a kid.



"The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it. But the way those atoms are put together."

How Everything Came from Nothing, No God Necessary

Reality is better than man-made fairy tales, as physicist Lawrence Krauss explains in this wonderful lecture.

The big point that comes out from this is a devastating answer to the common theistic sneer, "Do you believe that everything came from nothing?" Well, yes, I think the cosmologists are onto something just like this. Here, view this video and pay attention starting especially at 33:00. The laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing, no deity needed.



Favorite quote: "The universe is the way the universe is, whether we like it or not."

We Ain't Yer Other!

I stated before that not only do we not need God to be good, but that we also already don't use or need God in our everyday goodness. Practically speaking, I said, we are all atheists.

Of course, this fact drives many theists bat-shit insane. And what do theists do when they cannot face facts? Why, they hope to confuse the issue by resorting to tangents while also fleeing the original issue with giant leaps of logic.

Take the "Jewish Philosopher," for example, who is pretty much the worst example on the Web of both a Jew and a Philosopher. He rants:

According to atheism, there are no consequences to our actions other than the obvious material ones. Therefore if I believe that I am smart enough or lucky enough to get away with crime, I’ll do it.

According to atheism human life has no value. We are merely miniscule bags of chemicals stuck to the surface of an insignificant planet.

According to atheism, we have no personal responsibility for anything which we do. If we murder, this is merely the result of brain chemistry and bad influences, but not any bad choice because free will does not exist.

The quote above is saturated with the worst kind of stupidity, the kind that takes a reasonable premise and then saddles it with all sorts of scary-sounding, insidious implications. When the so-called philosopher says, for example, "According to atheism, there are no consequences to our actions other than the obvious material ones," he makes what I would consider a basically true statement - if it means that there is no divine retribution for human actions. But then he screws up the logic by going straight from the premise to a silly conclusion: "Therefore if I believe that I am smart enough or lucky enough to get away with crime, I’ll do it."

Uh, wait. The so-called philosopher ignores that there are indeed consequences to crime other than divine retribution. Remember all those "obvious material" consequences he mentioned so vaguely just before? Well, they include jail, fining, feeling guilty, hurting someone else's feelings, family shame, and so on - none of which requires a god.

On the other hand, many people commit crime (or crime's avatars, intolerence and chauvinism) because of holy inspiration. They shoot people in a place of worship or fly planes into buildings, or embezzle, or commit espionage in the name of their god - all this because they believe they will receive a divine reward in the afterlife!

We don't have to parse the entire rant of stupidity that is the (ahem) jewish philosopher's comment to realize that like many theists who have a stick in their ass about atheism, he doesn't really know or understand atheism at all.

Every time such people try to insist about what atheists believe and what atheism entails, they err in a serious way by adopting non-sequiturs and conclusions that don't follow from premises.

Let's look at some more of the Jewish Philosopher's wisdom:

If we do find atheists living peaceful, honest, sober lives (which as far as I know is actually rare) this is the result of the influence of parents and grandparents who were not atheists. It is in spite of their atheism.

Atheists may claim that they are good because invariably crime does not pay in the long run (which is not necessarily true – look at Stalin and Mao who died peacefully in bed) or because humans are instinctively good (which is nonsense – read a history book or a newspaper).

Here we have a reverse "No True Scotsman" fallacy, in that the claim is that a good atheist is not a real atheist. What we see here is the Jewish Philosopher trying to retain an unreasoned assumption. Then he resorts to a ridiculous straw man argument in "invariably crime does not pay in the long run." Notice how the oh-so-honest Jewish Philosopher has sought to dilute the stronger argument given by P.Z. Myers:

There is morality in my 'worldview'; don't confuse the fact that I state baldly that there is no external non-human intelligent agent that imposes morality on me with an absence of moral thought. I derive my sense of what is right and wrong from intrinsic properties such as empathy and other social impulses, and from acculturation in a stable, successful society that has expectations of parents to introduce their children to what constitutes reasonable behavior. I also derive it rationally from what I can see as a robust strategy for long term security and happiness within my culture — that is, robbing banks has a very poor long term return on the effort.

Myers gives an argument that is personal and situational. It's a strong argument because it is concrete and specific. The Jewish Philosopher attempts to abstract the argument into a vague sound-bite.

Why do theists like the Jewish Philosopher do this? My hypothesis is that they see atheism as a kind of anti-religion, an Other to use as a receptacle for all the bad things that would otherwise undermine their sense of how great their religion is. That is, they are never far from the thought that none of their core superstitions are actually true, so they intellectually build an Other to serve as the scene for this thinking.

Because they see atheism as an Other, these anti-atheists can rarely understand it in anything but negative and hostile terms. They take a fundamental position toward atheism that is is narcissistic. The believe that it's all about their little religion (cue Bill Donohue) when really their specific combination of fairy tales, lies, and restraints matter very little.

Children and Fatherhood

I should write more often about how much I enjoy my children and how much I love being a father. It really is a fantastic thing to live with the kids and to be part of their growing up (with their mother, my wife, of course!!). But even more, I like that we're connected and I like our connection. Ugh, I'm failing with the words. Maybe that's why I hardly write about the kids - they are so wonderful that I cannot express it coherently.

Hannah is so very smart and sweet. She's also pretty and full of life. I hardly worry about her because I know that she'll succeed in whatever she chooses to do. I think we really get each other.

Emily is such a cutie, and I can tell that she's quite intelligent. She and I share a tendency to be quiet and to be homebodies. I can't wait to see her in school, but another part of me thinks she's perfect as-is and doesn't want her to grow up.

C.J. is a happy, bouncy, boisterous little guy. He's all boy, as the mothers on our street like to say. Gosh is he loud and energetic. He's really a physical kid and very independent. But he has the face of an angel. I'm not quite sure what our relationship will be like. He's so attached to his mother - and I don't blame him - but I wonder sometimes if he sees me as a rival in the house, as if he's already pushing to be the alpha male!

The kids make me laugh - a lot. Although I very much like living in the present, I get volumes of joy from a vague vision of the future, in which my three grown children are all around visitng and laughing with me. Much as my wife has shown me what happiness is, the children have taught me about joy.

Morality: No God Necessary

Anti-atheist folk love to suggest that atheists have no basis for morality. It's a tired, malicious and incorrect argument that claims: If you don't believe in God then you have no objective standard for morality. You make morality a mere matter of opinion or preference. If you want to kill someone because you consider her or him your inferior, there is no moral standard that would lead you to the conclusion that you should not kill.

The anti-atheist argument on morality usually gets formulated as I have expressed above, with little deviation. For example, we get this from Dennis Prager:

Though most college-educated Westerners never hear the case for the need for God-based morality because of the secular outlook that pervades modern education and the media, the case is both clear and compelling: If there is no transcendent source of morality (morality is the word I use for the standard of good and evil), "good" and "evil" are subjective opinions, not objective realities.

In other words, if there is no God who says, "Do not murder" ("Do not kill" is a mistranslation of the Hebrew which, like English, has two words for homicide), murder is not wrong. Many people may think it is wrong, but that is their opinion, not objective moral fact. There are no moral "facts" if there is no God; there are only moral opinions.

And someone at Uncommon Descent recently produced this gem:

[H]ere’s a simple thought experiment for any of the materialists (or philosophical naturalists, or atheists) among our number here at Uncommon Descent. Perhaps this simple thought experiment can bring some clarity to moral questions from a materialist persepctive.

Here goes: You’re in a large city and walk up to a a busy street corner. Heavy traffic is whizzing by in both directions on the street you need to cross. As you prepare to cross, you notice next to you a smallish, frail, elderly woman, carrying some shopping bags, who also needs to cross the street, but is quite obviously nervous and frightened of the attempt. You now have 3 options: 1) you can ignore her completely and just go about your business; 2)you can push her into the traffic; 3) you can assist her to get safely across the street. The moral question is, what is the right thing to do and why is it the right thing to do (that is to say, how can we know that is the right thing to do)?

If you read the comments in the thread from which this quote comes, you'll see that the main thing the person wants to know is "how we can know" what is "in fact the right thing to do."

A few elements stand out to me in this reasoning.
(1) The 'how can we know' part is rather pathetic, as if we need to have worked out our philosophies of right and wrong behavior before we can make any decisions at all. Yet we very often act upon decisions without knowing whether they are right or fully right. Indeed, too often several options have varying degrees of rightness. The 'how can we know' meme is a dodge, an unnecessary rabbit trail that could be pushed out endlessly - well, how can we know that we know?

(2) It is baldly ridiculous to imply that a written law, whether it be a holy book or national legal code, imparts knowledge of what the right thing to do is. Statutes tells us what to do or not to do. They indicate moral thinking, but they don't define or contain it. Just imagine for a moment what the world would be like if Iranian law were equivalent to morality, or Russian law, or Mormon law. But in the end, we cannot know what is the right thing to do from a holy book or from a sense of having a divine judge watching over our thoughts and deeds. To know implies a level of certainty that we rarely can achieve when it comes to morality.

(3) It's even more ridiculous to posit that virtually any moral choice one might make in a given situation is "in fact" the right thing to do. What's a fact is that people can always devise choices. Moral decisions are about reasoning and strategy, not illusory facts.

Theists have a hard time grasping that appealing to God is not the same as appealing to an objective standard of morality. The appeal is always subjective. The timeless, unchanging morality of God depends on whether one is a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian or a whatever. It depends on when in history you live. It depends on your personal sense of values, perhaps shared with the larger culture in which you live. It hardly takes any thought at all to realize that as a practical matter, objective morality is meaningless. It's purely a rhetorical term.

Atheist hero P.Z. Myers has a thoughtful, devastating response to the charge that we cannot be good without God. He says:

There is morality in my 'worldview'; don't confuse the fact that I state baldly that there is no external non-human intelligent agent that imposes morality on me with an absence of moral thought. I derive my sense of what is right and wrong from intrinsic properties such as empathy and other social impulses, and from acculturation in a stable, successful society that has expectations of parents to introduce their children to what constitutes reasonable behavior. I also derive it rationally from what I can see as a robust strategy for long term security and happiness within my culture — that is, robbing banks has a very poor long term return on the effort.

So, I do believe in right and wrong. It's just not handed down from a magical sky-lawyer.

Myers says so succinctly and eloquently what I am trying to offer as my main point: Theistic belief in right and wrong is no better than atheist belief in right and wrong. Furthermore, I am skeptical that idea of God itself plays any role in the everyday goodness most people show. Not only do we not need God to be good, but we also already don't use God in our quotidian moral reasoning and judgments.

Practically speaking, we are all atheists.

Bob Dylan: Last Man Standing

As part of my project to create a "greatest hits" CD for my fortieth birthday, I listened to a few of my CDs by Bob Dylan. The most recent one I have is Time Out of Mind. I don't know that I'd call this a great CD, but it has some truly great songs. And Dylan continues even now to produce excellent material.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan were the great musical forces of my adolescence and early adulthood. They were huge influences and joys in my life. But I rarely listen to the Beatles now, and I don't respond to their songs anymore the way I used to. I still like vintage Stones, but they too are a relic in that they no longer produce new music that excites me.

Dylan, however, remains a "living" artist to me. He still has lessons to tell and stories to teach. Even his old stuff yields rewards. An under-appreciated gem like "Bob Dylan's Dream," from 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, retains a rawness that continues to speak to me. So Dylan is the last man standing, the one artist of my youth who still has relevance.

My first Dylan record was Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. I had high expectations because in my reading everyone seemed to talk so admirably of him. Most of my books were about the Beatles, and they clearly saw Dylan as a great songwriter and a dominant intellect. So when I put on the record and heard the first track, "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35," I thought it was a joke. That voice of Dylan's: was that his real voice? That raw, acoustic sound which was so ragged and poor compared to the studio polish of the Beatles: was this the stuff that drew everyone's admiration?

I went through the other cuts that first time, from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Like a Rolling Stone." I don't think I liked it all very much, but I didn't dislike it. Some of the songs had neat hooks, like "Just Like a Woman" and "It Ain't Me, Babe." So I continued to listen and to be intrigued by that voice, that unpretty voice. That ever-biting, surprisingly malleable, and ultimately perfect voice.

At 16, I was an unabashed Dylan fan when no one else in my peer group was. I took some grief for this but I didn't care. I knew Dylan was saying things that were better than Rush, R.E.M, Van Halen, and even U2. Here, for example, is the opening to the Prufrock-ian "Ballad of a Thin Man":

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home.

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Dylan could be positively Shakespearean in his wordplay, as in "Highway 61 Revisited":

Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren't right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmm you're right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61.

Like no one else, Dylan put conversation and drama in songs. In "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest," the dialogue stacks questions and misunderstandings and establishes a vision of the mythic American west as a place of desolation and self-inflicted violence:

Well, Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,
They were the best of friends.
So when Frankie Lee needed money one day,
Judas quickly pulled out a roll of tens
And placed them on a footstool
Just above the plotted plain,
Sayin', "Take your pick, Frankie Boy,
My loss will be your gain."

Well, Frankie Lee, he sat right down
And put his fingers to his chin,
But with the cold eyes of Judas on him,
His head began to spin.
"Would ya please not stare at me like that," he said,
"It's just my foolish pride,
But sometimes a man must be alone
And this is no place to hide."

Well, Judas, he just winked and said,
"All right, I'll leave you here,
But you'd better hurry up and choose
Which of those bills you want,
Before they all disappear."
"I'm gonna start my pickin' right now,
Just tell me where you'll be."

Judas pointed down the road
And said, "Eternity!"
"Eternity?" said Frankie Lee,
With a voice as cold as ice.
"That's right," said Judas Priest, "Eternity,
Though you might call it 'Paradise.'"

"I don't call it anything,"
Said Frankie Lee with a smile.
"All right," said Judas Priest,
"I'll see you after a while."

Well, Frankie Lee, he sat back down,
Feelin' low and mean,
When just then a passing stranger
Burst upon the scene,
Saying, "Are you Frankie Lee, the gambler,
Whose father is deceased?
Well, if you are,
There's a fellow callin' you down the road
And they say his name is Priest."

"Oh, yes, he is my friend,"
Said Frankie Lee in fright,
"I do recall him very well,
In fact, he just left my sight."
"Yes, that's the one," said the stranger,
As quiet as a mouse,
"Well, my message is, he's down the road,
Stranded in a house."

Well, Frankie Lee, he panicked,
He dropped ev'rything and ran
Until he came up to the spot
Where Judas Priest did stand.
"What kind of house is this," he said,
"Where I have come to roam?"
"It's not a house," said Judas Priest,
"It's not a house . . . it's a home."

Well, Frankie Lee, he trembled,
He soon lost all control
Over ev'rything which he had made
While the mission bells did toll.
He just stood there staring
At that big house as bright as any sun,
With four and twenty windows
And a woman's face in ev'ry one.

Well, up the stairs ran Frankie Lee
With a soulful, bounding leap,
And, foaming at the mouth,
He began to make his midnight creep.
For sixteen nights and days he raved,
But on the seventeenth he burst
Into the arms of Judas Priest,
Which is where he died of thirst.

No one tried to say a thing
When they took him out in jest,
Except, of course, the little neighbor boy
Who carried him to rest.
And he just walked along, alone,
With his guilt so well concealed,
And muttered underneath his breath,
"Nothing is revealed."

Well, the moral of the story,
The moral of this song,
Is simply that one should never be
Where one does not belong.
So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin',
Help him with his load,
And don't go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road.

Dylan would revisit this spare (if not bleak) vision again, notably in "The Man with the Long Black Coat" from the Oh Mercy album--except perhaps by now he'd lost some optimism:

Preacher was a talkin' there's a sermon he gave,
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied.
It ain't easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat,
She gave her heart to the man
In the long black coat.

There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way.
But people don't live or die, people just float.
She went with the man
In the long black coat.

Dylan is a modern Jeremiah. He sees how out of joint the world is and tells all of us about it. He senses the strangeness of his position as an icon. Everyone praises the prophet's words instead of heeding them. Today's Dylan just sings and doesn't take his "star" status seriously. All he can do is work his work, as he muses in "Tryin' to Get to Heaven," with its allusion to "Midnight Rambler" by the Rolling Stones:

Gonna sleep down in the parlor
And relive my dreams
I'll close my eyes and I wonder
If everything is as hollow as it seems
Some trains don't pull no gamblers
No midnight ramblers, like they did before
I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door.

Dylan is that performer who will go until he dies. He's a rail rider with a guitar on his back and a harmonica in his pocket. He's a scop, a troubadour, a vaudevillian. And Dylan is the most important songwriter of them all. One can get older with his songs and within their world of outlaws, strangers, and jilted lovers.

Perhaps Dylan's "suffering servant" posture ultimately wins out over the unapologetic, unrepentant rebelliousness of the Stones. If one lives, one becomes put upon and beaten back. The observing voice in Dylan is undefeated and undaunted, yet unpretentious. That voice does not refuse to warn of the storms approaching in the distance, even if no one heeds the warning.

40 Songs for My Fortieth

I've had on my mind making a special CD of music to commemorate my turning 40, which happens in January. Here's a first pass at songs that I think should be included, organized by 'my' decades, that is, what I was listening to or what was important to me.

1970s

• "You've Made Me So Very Happy" or "And When I Die," by Blood, Sweat & Tears
• "Both Sides, Now" by Judy Collins
• "You Are the Woman that I've Always Dreamed Of," by Firefox
• "Afternoon Delight," by Starland Vocal Band
• "Classical Gas," by Mason Williams
  

1980s

• "Mean Street," by Van Halen
• "Night Train" by Guns 'n' Roses
• "One Tree Hill" by U2
• "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles
• "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" by Bob Dylan
• "Astral Weeks (Born Again)," by Van Morrison
• "I'll remember April," by Errol Garner
  

1990s

• "India," by John Coltrane
• "Bitch" or "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" or "Sway" or "Casino Boogie" by the Rolling Stones
• "East of the Sun," by Tony Bennett
• "You Make Me Feel So Young," by Frank Sinatra
• "Mannelig," by Ale Moller and Lena Willemark
• "Wonder Why We Ever Go Home," by Jimmy Buffett
  

2000s

• "'Long as You're Living Yours," by Keith Jarrett
• "Sunshine Song," by Keith Jarrett
• "Have I Told You Lately," by Rod Stewart (for Becky)
  
• "Father and Daughter" by Paul Simon (for Hannah)
• "Nancy (with the laughing face)," by Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra (for Emily)
• "Polska of Despair," by Bobo Stenson
• "The Goldhearted Miner," by Esbjorn Svensson Trio
• "Acherei Mot," by Masada
• Some Vignette by Marilyn Crispell
• "In Wind, in Light" by Anders Jormin
• "We Shall Overcome," by Bruce Springstein
  

Laughing Away

I spent some time yesterday laughing as thoroughly as I ever have (so far as I remember, with the possible exception of one time in college). I was scanning through a bunch of mock "motivational posters" and then some really great fantasy foods, such as the Turbaconucken (a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, all wrapped in bacon).

I was later driving home in a capital mood. It occurred to me that for many years I had been thinking about matters of happiness and morality. At different times I pledged to be better and to do better. I resolved to do more and to do better.

Yesterday I thought I could collapse all of that together into a ball, to allude a bit to Marvell, just by laughing. I love to laugh. Who doesn't? I'm good at laughing. Who isn't?

The upshot of it all is that I realized that laughter is both the sign and the practice of my aspirations. Pretty cool.

I wondered about possibly pursuing the laughter as a dissertation topic. There's been stuff done recently, but I think where I want to come in is from a perspective that also addresses the biology/evolutionary aspects of laughter, the cultural uses of laughter throughout Anglo-Saxon England and Medieval Scandinavia/Europe, and the forward-funniness of Anglo-Saxon England (i.e., the way we today look back in amusement at 'them').

I need to think more about this because I would be using rather standard material. The texts and the linguistic data is pretty well established. The only new thing I can offer is context, so it needs to be full and clear eanough to make obvious avenues of research.

To Theists, To Reject Idolatry

The core question is whether God exists. Atheists think the answer is no. We have pretty good evidence that tells us God is very improbable, if not impossible. This evidence comes from many fields, from biology and cosmology to archaeology and paleography. God is also totally irrelevant to morality. There's no law and no prohibition that requires - requires, I say - the authority of a God.

The God idea offers so little. Yes, it makes some people feel like they have a personal connection with the universe. Yes, it helps some people think through their moral choices and their standards. But it's not true. God is a tool, and that's all. God should not be made into a mental idol.

Atheists totally reject idolatry. In this regard and many others we are the better Jews.

So many Jews become agnostic and atheist. So many intermarry. Why is this? Because they learn to be independent thinkers and to ask questions, such as where the Torah and its commentaries come from. When one looks, it becomes pretty clear (1) that the Bible is man made, and (2) that God is utterly unnecessary.

I'm OK with this. So what that the Torah isn't divine? So what that God doesn't exist? So what that Moses never led 3 million slaves through the sea? So what that there's no messiah? So what that there's no afterlife?

It doesn't matter. It really changes nothing. It makes us no different than before. It has no bearing on the past or the future.

Outside of ancient books and commentary, what is the evidence for theism? Where is it? Isn't there even one single fact of physical reality that would independently verify a claim for existence of god, the devil, heaven, giants, ghosts, golems and so on? Where's the frackin' evidence? Or do people just want to decide such matters based on personal feelings of awe when looking at a sunrise?

Proponents of intelligent design always carp that evolutionists and materialists rule out the possibility of divine intervention from the beginning. But what exactly is the reason we should ever rule it in? They seemingly assume that a supernatural explanation is legitimate prima facie. But I disagree, and I think most atheists do too. This is why the burden of proof is on the theist. They are saying there's a dragon in the garage. That's fine, but don't force others to accept the statement as true unless you have the means to support it independently.

How Life Goes

So the trophy wife has been having headaches recently. Bad ones. At first, we thought it was period-related. But these headaches seem to be happening every day, all day, for three weeks now. Not good. The medicine she's been prescribed does not seem to have much effect.

In two days she goes for a CAT scan (is this how it's represented?), and then by Monday we should get a sense of the results. I have no idea what to expect. Both the wife and I are generally optimistic and calm. We are of course aware of some of the scary possibilities, but we just think they are unlikely. What I mean is that we have no basis for assessing whether - based on probabilities - we should fear the worst or not. Therefore, we choose not to worry.

But then I'm writing this, aren't I? I'm trying to wrap my mind around what I need to do if bad news hits. I need to be able to respond correctly and do what I can to establish a positive and stable environment, or at least not make things worse by undue emotion.

Only a few things will happen. The result will come back negative/clean, which means that the problem is not within the brain but is perhaps related to some infection or other external agent. Or the result could come back positive, meaning that there's something in the brain that shouldn't be, maybe a chemical imbalance or an inflamed blood vessel or a tumor. In any of these scenarios, there would be additional levels of specificity we'd need to reach. I guess I rule out the bad, bad scenario because there have been no seizures or other events to suggest that some pressure on the brain was coming from within.

A third possible result is that the scan is inconclusive. The doctors cannot tell what they see or if they see anything. This of course would be very distressing. I'm not sure how we'd proceed in this case, other than in anger.

So, we wait and we worry and we reason and plan and try to deal as best we can with reality. God has nothing to do with this. We don't need prayers, good thoughts, or crossed fingers. What we need is information, positivity, and support.

UPDATE: "It's not a tumor!" The wife called to say that the scan looks pretty good. The doctors think it may be Lyme disease. It's no picnic, but I think it's treatable.

Some People Just Don't Get It (Or, Poe Bill Donohue)

Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue has a new book out with the awful title Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America. The title says it all, actually: secular means liberal (and vice versa), and the bad secularists/liberals are ruining (his) America.

Sorry, Bill, but there are many religions in America, and they are doing a fine job of ruining themselves. For the Catholic Church, I would think the whole kiddie-fucking and covering-up things would be contributing factors in their demise.

Oh, and spare us the jeremiads about modern culture going down the tubes. Seriously, is this theme - "In my day..."; "Things ain't what they used to be..."; "Today, anything goes..." - ever not played out in a society? Yeah, yeah. The American culture that spawned you was so wonderful and pure and christian. You didn't have any atheists or black people and everyone wept to baby jebus for their sins and absolutely everyone in the nation was humble and selfless and gawd-fearin'.

But Donohue's press release for the book is gold. In the release he gives the blurbs meant to praise the book. You know, these are quotes from notable people letting potential readers know that the book is important, timely, or saying what needs to be said. The blurbs are supposed to stir up positive interest toward book sales.

The only problem with Donohue's release is that one blurb shows Donohue's ridiculousnees. This blurb comes from Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's fake news-analysis program, the Colbert Report.

Here's the full release from the Catholic League website:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue’s new book, Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America, is now in bookstores. Additionally, it can be ordered online at several book outlets. For $20, including shipping and handling, it can be ordered from the Catholic League: go to http://www.catholicleague.org/ for information.

Here is what some are saying about the book:

• “In these dispatches from the culture war, the indefatigable president of the Catholic League fires on all cylinders. With passionate prose he re-creates many of his hard-won religious battles and offers an urgent warning about what lies ahead.” – Raymond Arroyo, bestselling author of Mother Angelica, host of EWTN’s “The World Over Live”
• “In this bracing, brutal exposé of the anti-God movement, Donohue delivers a common sense smackdown that is both informative and entertaining.” – Laura Ingraham, nationally syndicated radio talk show host and bestselling author
• “Like the man himself, the book is feisty, controversial, impassioned, and important.” – Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk show host
• “Bill Donohue is right on target. Every Christian needs to read his book.” – Donald E. Wildmon, founder and chairman, American Family Association
• “SECULAR SABOTAGE is an absolute must-read for anyone who believes the Judeo-Christian ethos is the very heart and soul of civilized society.” – L. Brent Bozell III, president, Media Research Center
• “Wake up, America! The secular minority has cut the brake cables on America’s In-God-We-Trust-Mobile™! Not even all 43 of our Christian presidents can save us now.” – Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report”

Even a quick scan of the blurbs shows that Colbert's quote is different and probably parodic. The fact that it's the last blurb makes the contrast particularly sharp.

Colbert's quote is itself quite brilliant, from the dubious phrase "secular minority" to the trademark to the exclusion of president #44 to the prognostication of doom. It's dead-on parody. Donohue's been Poe-ed

I wonder when/if Donohue or his publisher will realize that the blurb actually pokes fun at the Catholic League's stance. But maybe Donohue already knows that the quote isn't genuine - perhaps he's poking fun at himself. Hmm. I tend not to think of Donohue as the self-deprecating type, if this video is any indication:



Maybe Bill thinks his readers won't catch the rhetoric of the Colbert quote or won't get that Colbert hosts a news show based in satire.

Rant of a Douche

Like a fool, I continue to visit Uncommon Descent. The truth is that I hope to find something that may be useful in my dissertation studies. I have found a few things, but generally the site is home to fairly bright people who crow stupidly.

Case in point: Gil Dodgen, a whiny baby who packed up his toys and stomped away from UD before. He's back, I guess, and here's his latest ridiculousness, "The Sad Case of the Darwinian Fundamentalist":

In the 20th century, a powerful confluence of evidence emerged that essentially eviscerated the creative power of Darwinian mechanisms. This is not hard to figure out.

The most “simple” cell is a marvel of functionally integrated information-processing technology. Those who propose that the Darwinian mechanisms of random errors filtered by natural selection explain all of life are living in an era gone by, a time when it was thought that the foundation of life was chemistry, physics, time, and chance.

The fossil record is a grand and ever-persistent testimony that Darwin was wrong about gradualism. Simple logic, trivial combinatoric mathematical analysis, and the monstrous problems presented by the likelihood of functional, naturally-selectable intermediates, present overwhelming evidence that Darwinian mechanisms are on their deathbed in terms of their explanatory power for anything but the utterly trivial.

In a sense I feel sorry for Darwinian fundamentalists. It must be depressing to realize that one has wasted his life defending a transparently ephemeral goal that has little to do with reality, nothing to do with real scientific investigation, and that has nothing whatsoever to recommend itself besides philosophical nihilism.

*Shakes head*

OK, let's take this bit by bit.

In the 20th century, a powerful confluence of evidence emerged that essentially eviscerated the creative power of Darwinian mechanisms. This is not hard to figure out.

Translation: We are now almost 10 years away from the century that supposedly proved evolution is wrong, so why isn't evolution dead yet? One can already sense Dodgen's bewilderment turning into a temper tantrum.

The most “simple” cell is a marvel of functionally integrated information-processing technology. Those who propose that the Darwinian mechanisms of random errors filtered by natural selection explain all of life are living in an era gone by, a time when it was thought that the foundation of life was chemistry, physics, time, and chance.

If Dodgen is looking to support his position, he's doing a crappy job of it. Sentence #1 is an argument from personal awe and incredulity. His cherished machine metaphor ("functionally integrated information-processing technology") is ultimately unhelpful because it already invokes the watchmaker analogy. In other words, the metaphor stacks the deck in favor of the machine being made by a sentient engineer.

Of course, it's not established that such an engineer made anything. In other words, the very thing under investigation is how the cell came to be what it is today. Dodgen is clearly skeptical about the ability of cells to have evolved. So what's the alternative theory? That they were designed in god's shop and then launched fully-formed on earth? OK. Is there any tangible evidence to suggest that the design hypothesis itself is anything other than gratuitous? What is it? How strong is it as evidence? Does Dodgen have anything more than "I don't like your theory"?

Only two paragraphs in and we're already at the grand stupidity of Dodgen's post: he's completely vague about what - if not everything - in the evolutionary model he takes issue with, and he provides zero argument for how another model better explains the existence and functionality of "simple" cells.

The fossil record is a grand and ever-persistent testimony that Darwin was wrong about gradualism. Simple logic, trivial combinatoric mathematical analysis, and the monstrous problems presented by the likelihood of functional, naturally-selectable intermediates, present overwhelming evidence that Darwinian mechanisms are on their deathbed in terms of their explanatory power for anything but the utterly trivial.

Same problem here. Wrong about what in gradualism, exactly? Is all of gradualism incorrect? How so? If Dodgen has any actual data to back up his topic sentence, he chooses not to divulge them. Instead he goes to a non-sequitur that again argues from personal incredulity. Ho-hum.

In a sense I feel sorry for Darwinian fundamentalists. It must be depressing to realize that one has wasted his life defending a transparently ephemeral goal that has little to do with reality, nothing to do with real scientific investigation, and that has nothing whatsoever to recommend itself besides philosophical nihilism.

OK, here's where Dodgen gets to say what's really on his mind. The stuff before was right out of the ID "science" playbook and he doesn't care about all that anyway. What he really cares about is (1) prognosticating the imminent demise of (the obligatory strawman) "Darwinism" and (2) visualizing mean atheists consigned to the hell-like margins of science and society.

That's what he wants, to fantasize about atheists writhing in a hell on earth. How (christian) loving of him. If we listen hard, we can still hear the echo of his Dr. Evil laugh as he typed up the final paragraph. Maybe he had his eyes closed in a psycho-sexual reverie as he dreamed of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers weeping together that all their work and teaching had been in vain. "Why didn't we see it, chap?" Dawkins asks. "Why weren't we as clever as that Gil Dodgen fellow to see that our work was not based in reality, was not scientific, and was not as philosophically hopeful as a jewish guy/god sending unbelievers to eternal damnation?"

I swear these UD/ID people make perfect mockeries of themselves.

Cornelius on Rye

Cornelius G. Hunter is a remarkably pretentious blogger over at Uncommon Descent. He drinks from the Discovery Institute troth, and makes his schtick the exposure of the "religion" of evolution.

A few examples of how this guy operates. Here is a recent post called "Robert Wright and the New Pragmatism":

In recent years evolutionists have been trying to pin down the theological implications of evolution. If evolution is true--and of course evolutionists believe it is true--then what does this tell us about god? From blogs to books to conferences at the Vatican, the "fact" of evolution is being integrated with our theology. The latest example of this science-informs-religion movement is Robert Wright's op-ed piece in today's New York Times which resurrects Charles Peirce's pragmatism. It is yet another example of evolution's abuse of science.

evolutionary psychologists have developed a plausible account of the moral sense. They say it is in large part natural selection's way of equipping people to play non-zero-sum games - games that can be win-win if the players cooperate or lose-lose if they don't.

So, for example, feelings of guilt over betraying a friend are with us because during evolution sustaining friendships brought benefits through the non-zero-sum logic of one hand washing the other ("reciprocal altruism"). Friendless people tend not to thrive.

Indeed, this dynamic of reciprocal altruism, as mediated by natural selection, seems to have inclined us toward belief in some fairly abstract principles, notably the idea that good deeds should be rewarded and bad deeds should be punished. ...

If evolution does tend to eventually "converge" on certain moral intuitions, does that mean there were moral rules "out there" from the beginning, before humans became aware of them - that natural selection didn't "invent" human moral intuitions so much as "discover" them? That would be good news for any believers who want to preserve as much of the spirit of C. S. Lewis as Darwinism permits.

Something like this has been suggested by the evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker - who, as a contented atheist, can't be accused of special pleading.

Mr. Pinker has noted how the interplay of evolved intuition and the dynamics of discourse tends to forge agreement on something like the golden rule - that you should treat people as you expect to be treated. He compares this natural apprehension of a moral principle to the depth perception humans have thanks to the evolution of stereo vision. Not all species (not even all two-eyed species) have stereo vision, Mr. Pinker says, but any species that has it is picking up on "real facts about the universe" that were true even before that species evolved - namely, the three-dimensional nature of reality and laws of optics.

Similarly, certain intuitions about reciprocal moral obligation are picking up on real facts about the logic of discourse and about generic social dynamics - on principles that were true even before humans came along and illustrated them. Including, in particular, the non-zero-sum dynamics that are part of our universe

The mistake here is at the beginning. Evolutionists have not discovered how the moral sense evolved any more than they have discovered how the brain arose on its own. Indeed, the theory of evolution has become increasingly bizarre in its attempt to reckon with behavior. The lesson here is that it behooves us to be suspicious when "science" just happens to produce theological truths we want to hear, regardless of how bad is the science.

This post gives a pretty good idea of how deranged poor Hunter is. He starts off with his villain, the evolutionists, and how they have been trying - yes, trying but not succeeding - to get the theological implications of evolution.

Immediately we see that Hunter is full of shit because he willy-nilly constructs a strawman - just pulls it out from the same place he gets his magic sky daddy and weepy baby-god. He conjures the shadowy cabal of the evolutionists, then he invokes the image of the secret meetings in smoke-filled backrooms where the evolutionist-in-chief pounds on a table and bellows, "Gentlemen, if we don't figure out the theological implications of evolution soon, all our plans will be ruined. Ruined, I say!" And of course, Hunter makes the "no true scotsman" pitch with his line about evolution abusing science. OK, Hunter, rest easy now. Shh. Yes, real scientists would never find any historical or scientific merit in the theory of evolution. Hush little baby....

Hunter loves to boldface quotes - I guess this allows him to wring his hands as he tells his friends "I'm using their own words against them. Heh, heh, heh." But then he misinterprets the quotes. For example, look above when he crows, "The mistake here is at the beginning. Evolutionists have not discovered how the moral sense evolved any more than they have discovered how the brain arose on its own."

No, there is no mistake at the beginning because in neither the highlighted nor non-highlighted parts does it say or imply the discovery of how the moral sense evolved. When someone interpreting the science for a lay audience says "evolutionary psychologists have developed a plausible account of the moral sense," this is a good way of saying, "they have some confidence that they are on the right track and think that they should continue on."

Notice also that after using the it's-supposed-to-be-controversial term "theological," the idea of theology never surfaces again in any direct or obvious way. Hunter's a bait-and-switch guy, in other words. He starts off with his "now they're into theology" mock-outrage and just blusters himself out at the end of the post with a whiny, "They think they are SO great. Nyah!"

Hunter's real problem is that he sees (people he disparagingly calls) "evolutionists" as too proud or too confident. He says they disingenuously present evolution as if it were a fact. But this supposed pride and overconfidence are all in Hunter's head. In "The Water Strider: Evolution's Gratuitous Explanations" Hunter says:

New research is telling us more about how water striders, those bugs that walk on water, get such long legs. As usual the story is more complicated than evolution would have it. A regulatory gene that helps in the development of the water strider has opposite effects in different limbs, lengthening some and shortening others.

Incredibly, evolutionists were quick to add their gratuitous, scientifically meaningless, interpretation of the findings. As one evolutionist put it:

Many have marveled at the ability of water striders to walk on water, and we are excited to have discovered the gene that has affected this evolutionary change.

How cogent. This would be like entering an automobile manufacturing plant, finding the robot that installs the doors, and claiming to have discovered how the doors evolved.

Hunter thinks he's got a "gotcha" every time he quotes and boldfaces text. He's single-handedly talking down those haughty, dogmatic evolutionists one peg at a time. Of course - no surprise - although Hunter posts regularly, he does not allow comments on his blog. When UD carries his posts, comments are allowed. Over at UD, I myself responded to the water striders article by pointing out his mis-reading:

Sorry, but I don’t get your point. You quote and boldface for emphasis:

Many have marveled at the ability of water striders to walk on water, and we are excited to have discovered the gene that has affected this evolutionary change.

How cogent. This would be like entering an automobile manufacturing plant, finding the robot that installs the doors, and claiming to have discovered how the doors evolved.

To continue with your analogy, I am not sure I read anyone “claiming to have discovered how the doors evolved.” Rather, I read the excitement at discovering the robot (i.e., the gene) that has affected the change.

I can see that we want to know more about this gene and what “robot” installed it. Very interesting and important stuff.

Or have I missed the point completely?

Here is how Hunter responded:

Larry (1):

Sorry, but I don’t get your point.

Perhaps this is an example of what philosophers call incommensurability. Is it conceivable that this gene that causes (or helps to cause) the formation of the limbs is not the blind cause of the original appearance of the limbs, as the evolutionist so claims?

In other words, is it possible that the evolutionary account (which roughly is that there was this bug a long time ago which suffered some mutations which happened to result in a regulatory protein modifying the limb lengths just right so the bug could start to walk on water; it worked pretty well and some more mutations came along and made it work even better; and then some more mutations, and it worked really well) is not true?

The answer to Hunter is "yes" on both counts. Yes, it is conceivable that the gene is not the cause of the original appearance. If the evidence points against this gene being the cause then we need to see if we can do better. And yes, it is possible that the evolutionary account is not true. The question here becomes how much can we say is true and how much remains unknown? Then, how can we learn more about that which remains unknown?

Notice that Hunter's response to me glosses over the big point: that the analogy is poor. Because he jerry-rigs the analogy, the substance of his argument falls apart.

In the end, I think all that ID people like Hunter want is for a standard phrase (e.g., "but it could also have been an intelligent designer at some point") to be thrown in with every science story. So, every article would say something like, "Scientists think they have identified the gene controlling feature x, and they have considered whether an intelligent agent could have been involved at some indeterminate time in the distant past [but not more than 6000 years ago] to actually put together the machinery of the gene. Hallelujah." For them, everything, no matter what, points to gawd. Find a gene, don't find a gene. It's all the same: an elaborate attempt to convince people that they aren't stupid for thinking that their particular belief in a being who sustains it all is correct.

That's what this whole religious "war" on the so-called "new atheists" is, an emotionally driven sideshow rooted in their ultimate awareness of how silly their religious dogmas are.

The Creation “Museum” : Pharyngula

The Creation “Museum” : Pharyngula

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The truth about grit - The Boston Globe

The truth about grit - The Boston Globe

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Me Likey Jokes

When Pharyngula has jokes, you know they'll be good.

Personal Branding

From PBS,

In 2007, Atlantic Media's director of digital strategy Scott Karp was named one of the 40 most influential people in publishing by Folio magazine. But Folio wasn't honoring Karp for his work at Atlantic, which publishes the Atlantic Monthly magazine, but was instead fawning over the work Karp did at his personal blog, Publishing 2.0, which covered how technology is changing the publishing business.

Karp is a great example of someone who worked at a company but also developed his own personal brand, something that's been in vogue since Tom Peters famously touted The Brand Called You at Fast Company magazine. With blogging, Twitter and social networks as springboards, personal branding has spread like wildfire through media and technology companies, allowing people like Matt Cutts (Google), Robert Scoble (Microsoft, PodTech, Fast Company) Xeni Jardin (Wired, NPR) and Scott Monty (Ford) to expand their influence.

Karp says he built his brand at Publishing 2.0, using it as a soapbox of ideas and a forum to discuss them through comments.

"My blog became resume, business card, references, network all in one," Karp told me. "I would go to conferences, meet people, and find they already 'knew' me through my blog -- an odd but useful form of micro-celebrity."

Through his blog, Karp met fellow blogger Robert Young, who ended up co-founding Publish2 with Karp, a startup that helps journalists share ideas and links.

At a time when people jump from job to job (or get laid off from job after job), personal branding is becoming more than just a hobby -- it's a necessity. Matt Cutts, who heads the web spam team at Google and runs a popular personal blog, has become much more than a faceless programmer at the technology giant.

"When you're considering switching jobs, even a personal website with a small portfolio of sample work can be invaluable," Cutts said. "People will search for you online, so it's important to take part in that conversation, and having your own website can be a great way to put your best foot forward."

Dan Schawbel, author of "Me 2.0" and publisher of the Personal Branding Blog thinks that good companies and publishers will give workers the freedom to create personal brands.

"I read a survey last year that showed that college graduates would spend an average of 1.6 years at their first position, after college, before moving on," he said. "That number is going to shrink in the future, so companies should focus on results and let their employees own their brand. Smart companies will look at employees as their greatest asset and by allowing them to engage in social media, they will be that much stronger."

Balancing Personal with Corporate Brands
Personal branding in the media obviously predates the digital age, with newspaper columnists going on TV and TV anchors writing books. But now, there's a chance for many more reporters, editors, marketers and salespeople to use simple digital tools to create their own following online. And the media companies that encourage that -- without too many restrictions -- will end up reaping the benefits.

One of the more tech-enlightened newspaper editors, John Robinson of the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, says that when a columnist or blogger builds a "tribe" of followers, it helps the paper.

"Newspapers should encourage columnists and bloggers to build their own brands online," he told me. "Trust and integrity are two of the coins of the online realm, in my opinion. We know now that it's no longer good enough to tell people that Joe the columnist is trustworthy. People will determine whether Joe is trustworthy by what he says, what he does, who he associates with, how he talks with others, who he links to, what he links to and who he's friends with and follows. People develop that sense of Joe over a period of time watching him and talking with him."

Jeremy Zawodny was a prominent engineer at Yahoo (now working at Craigslist), but built his own personal brand on an independent blog that gained notoriety -- and also caused trouble within Yahoo.

"When I got started it was a rocky road," Zawodny told me. "Several years ago, having a public blog on which I wrote about my employer (Yahoo at the time) rubbed some people inside the company the wrong way. That led to a fair amount of criticism and backlash. In the end, after several uncomfortable meetings and discussions and some careful wording on sensitive topics, everyone agreed that it was a positive thing in the long run. One thing that fell out of that was a set of company guidelines so that others would not have to navigate the minefield that I did."

Scott Monty, who leads social media efforts for Ford Motor Co. and has a successful blog and Twitter feed (more than 26,000 followers), says people should be careful not to overshadow their brands.

"If you're employed by a notable brand, it should always be brand first, self second," Monty told me. "Your personal brand will benefit from the halo effect of your company's brand. If you want to promote your own brand, you should should either (a) go into business for yourself, or (b) figure out a way to do it separate from your company."

Kathlyn Clore is associate editor for the European Journalism Centre and described herself to me as "20something journalist" who has a personal blog. She said she has limited what she writes about reporting work she has done, and is wary about blogging taking away from work.

"The biggest issue for me has been colleagues asking suspicious questions about work-related goals and intentions when they saw me begin blogging about professional topics in January of this year," she said. "It probably raises the most eyebrows if I'm seen to be dedicating time to my own site/brand/portfolio of work when perhaps I could have been doing something for the journalism centre for which I do most of my work. I'm sure that's true for others."

Keeping Talent On Board
Even at a time when people are less likely to quit due to the economy, companies are better off keeping their talented workers happy rather than upsetting them with limits. Branding expert Schawbel notes that some media companies are better than others when it comes to tolerating personal branding.

"Media companies such as Fast Company have completely ripped apart their old website and turned it into a community, while other companies, such as the Wall Street Journal have placed their employees in chains," he said. "For instance, [the Journal's] social media policy states that 'business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter.'"

Tom Regan was a longtime editor at the Christian Science Monitor, but now is a Monitor columnist and freelancer due to an editor who didn't give him enough room to be creative. He says that smart companies that give people space to be themselves have a better change of keeping them on board.

"If a writer believes they are building something up, and the company has nurtured it, then I don't think most people would go," Regan told me. "It's when they feel that they don't have that environment that they say, 'The hell with this, I'm going to do this on my own.'"

Publish2's Karp told me that media companies need to value personal branding above all else.

"In a digital media world where corporate industrial assets like printing presses, delivery trucks, etc. are declining in value, people -- reporters, editors, bloggers -- are the greatest asset that publications have," he said. "They should actively cultivate that asset by helping personal brands flourish...You could define social media as the shift from publication brands to personal brands, as media shifts to the social web. At some point a publication brand without personal brands will have very little value to the people who consume that brand."

Advice on Personal Branding
Here's a roundup of advice for people who want to create a personal brand online:

"Grab a domain name and work on burnishing your personal reputation online. It's definitely not the case that everyone needs a blog, but having one place that acts as a face to the world can really help. There's room for a resume/CV, but also for some writing samples that show off your abilities." -- Matt Cutts, Google (from his Letter to a young journalist post)

"The importance of building your brand online today is an opportunity to survive this print industry crash, and protect yourself by having an asset you can leverage to get your next writing job, whether you want to be a freelance writer or work as an employee. Personal branding has become mandatory recently, not just something to do to get ahead." -- Dan Schawbel, Personal Branding blog

"In the future, personal brands will be everything. As newspapers and media companies get smaller and break apart, journalists will be known as much by their personal/professional brand as by the company they work for. Many will be their own company. The quicker you establish a digital brand -- I recommend shooting for integrity, trust and authority -- the better." -- John Robinson, Greensboro News & Record

"The microphone is always on. Remember that whatever you do, it reflects on you and your company, if you connect those elements of your life. And in this era, you need to be very careful, as search engines can log all sorts of things. Remember: Whatever happens in Vegas...stays on Google." -- Scott Monty, Ford Motor Co.

"I would go so far as to say that journalists without personal brands, like journalists without digital and web skills, are going to be less and less employable. If you want to be a cog in the machine, it's probably not a good idea to be a journalist in a social media world." -- Scott Karp, Publish2

Time to Retire?

I'm considering retiring this blog. Why? Well, I've had it since 2005, but I think it's outlived its usefulness. Of course, I have two more blogs going right now also, so I'm feeling a bit stretched.

This "place" has been my site for personal reflection and venting. I would like to take some of the better posts and convert them into a self-published book. No, not for money. Just for me to have around. I like reviewing the old posts.

Who knows? No harm in keeping this around. We'll see.

Evil Comes Home

Last Sunday, my six-year-old said to me that I wasn't going to heaven because I didn't believe in Jesus. She was upset at the thought of my not going to heaven, and maybe even a bit perturbed at me. I think she sees me as being rather difficult. I sensed why she was upset: she and I (and Mommy and the rest of the family) wouldn't be together in heaven. To her, both my Jewish roots and my atheism meant absolutely that we would be apart. Such a horrible thought for a young girl to have to bear.

Being the director that she is, the poor child was adamant that I had to change my mind and accept Jesus. She gave me five days. Of course, I was too bull-headed to see that she didn't need an argument, and that's just what I gave her. Bad parenting by me.

But one has to consider the supposedly ethical and valuable teachings of religion and wonder if there are any ethics or value in there at all. Why promise a little girl this magical land (for some) after we die? Why coerce her into believing with an afterlife? Why poison her against disbelief?

My wife and I contacted our daughter's Sunday school teacher, just to find out what he'd taught that day so we could sort out what was taught and what was our girl's reasoning. Now, this teacher is a genuinely good and decent person. But he sent three rather raving emails about how he wasn't trying to teach about rewards and consequences for believing, how he respects Judaism, and how he wanted me to be comfortable with the church.

I know he meant well, but the basic yet unspoken message was, "Well, yes, of course you'll spend eternity in hell if you don't repent, but we're not going to say that outright and, who knows, maybe one day you'll be so impressed with how good and decent we are and decide that this is a good enough reason to become a believer yourself."

No, I won't spend eternity in hell. There is no hell. I've looked into matters enough to be satisfied that my conclusion is probably right. There's no heaven and no purgatory either. Also, I'm certainly not going to be bullied into believing some cockamamie story of gods on earth who demand that you believe they really are gods on earth. These folks don't realize that I have concluded that atheism probably best portrays the true state of affairs in the universe. There's no reason they should have known this, but because they didn't their sincere attempts to bridge the gap between their Jesus lunacy and Jewish lunacy came off rather ridiculous to me.

My wife and I spoke to the girl. I told her that it was OK for people not to believe. Indeed, she may decide later that the truth is something very different than what she thinks it is right now. I told her that mommy's beliefs had changed, which was true. I told her that Mommy and I loved each other because we had different beliefs - this was part of what made our relationship special. Mainly, I tried to tell our daughter that she didn't need to worry about heaven for me or anyone else.

My wife, good believer that she is, tried to give the message that god was in control, therefore the girl shouldn't worry about who was going to heaven and hell. Obviously, I think that whole "god is in control, not us" is a loser philosophy and doesn't really make sense for our daughter's situation. My daughter has acted perfectly rationally to try to inspire me to belief. These people are told that they should share their glassy-eyed appreciation of the magic Hebrew. My girl is quick and logical. I wouldn't blame her if she were troubled by the contradictory messages.

One bright spot is that I did get to talk to my daughter about evolution, how about the world came to be, and how life might have arisen. I am not sure if my wife sees it, but even though my daughter is passionate about her belief in Jesus right now, the more she learns about the world and the more we talk together, the far greater likelihood is that our girl will realize that religion is made up and incoherent.

And let us say, amen.

The Elusive God

This is a review I found on Amazon.com for The Elusive God, by Paul Moser. The reviewer seems to think Moser has a great and provocative case, a real challenge for atheists. I beg to differ. The reviewer starts right off on shaky ground.

Where in the world is Waldo!? This is probably the question we ask ourselves when we are looking at a Where's Waldo? book created by Martin Handford, a children's writer and illustrator. John Ortberg says in his book God is Closer Than You Think "This guy Waldo is supposed to be on every page. The author assures us that it is so. But you couldn't prove it by me. He is often hidden to the untrained eye. You have to be willing to look for him. "Surely Waldo was in this place, and I knew it not." When you find him, there is a sense of joy and accomplishment. In fact, developing the capacity to track him down is part of the point of the book. If it were too easy-if every page consisted just of a giant picture of Waldo's face-no one would ever buy the book. The difficulty of the task is what increases the power of discernment. The author said he hides Waldo so children can learn to "be aware of what's going on around them. I'd like them to see wonder in places it might not have occurred to them." But sometimes it takes a while to find Waldo. It demands patience. Some people are better at it than others. Some people just give up. Part of what makes it hard to find Waldo is that he is so ordinary-looking. In the initial pages his presence is obvious. Later on, he's hidden but the other occupants of the page are giants and sea monsters, so Waldo still stands out. Then eventually we come to the last and hardest page. By the end he's in a room full of Waldos virtually identical to himself, the only distinction being that one detail is different, such as he's missing a shoe. Handford allows rival Waldos to counterfeit his identity. You can be looking right at him without even knowing it. Where's Waldo? Why doesn't he show himself plainly? Why does he hide his face? He may not be absent, but he is elusive. He is Waldus absconditus-the Waldo who hides himself." (pages 31-32)

The insult at the beginning is subtle yet familiar: you can't see, sense, or otherwise perceive god because of your "untrained eye." It's your fault. But wait a minute. That Waldo analogy doesn't quite hold up, does it? The Waldo analogy is clearly weak. Unlike god, Waldo can be seen and independently confirmed to be Waldo. People who find Waldo can show him to you. Waldo himself actually is there. Whether I want to see or not, whether my eye is trained or not, Waldo can be brought before me. We cannot say the same for god because there is no direct evidence. Indeed, this supposedly is part of the point of god.

The review continues:

Philosopher Paul Moser argues (without the Waldo analogy) on a sophisticated level yet still accessible to the average person in his book The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology that the Judeo-Christian God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, is like Waldo; there (as in this God does exist) but hidden or incognito for specific divine loving purposes and intentions. Not only is this God's existence disguised but also evidence for this God's existence. In Moser's words, "this book contends that, despite being concealed at times, the reality of the God of traditional monotheism is knowable firsthand by humans on the basis of salient and conclusive, if elusive, evidence." (page 2)

The “reality of the God…is knowable firsthand”?

I can applaud the boldness of Moser's claim, but I still have an issue with the argument that god is "hidden or incognito for specific divine loving purposes and intentions." Instead of explaining the hiddenness - how it works, how it's achieved - Moser decides to defend it. But what business is it of Moser's or mine or yours to defend this god's actions? They tell us this god is inscrutable, except when they are apologizing for him. They tell us his ways are mysterious and beyond our mere human, subjective morality - except when they tell us he's all good, all the time. I am always puzzled and irritated by this asymmetry: We can't say anything about this god or about religious beliefs, unless we're praising or defending them. So, at this point in the review, I'm pretty suspicious. Will we learn just how to know this god firsthand, or will we instead be baited-and-switched to a meditation on these assumed loving purposes and intentions? Place your bets....

This elusive evidence isn't kept hidden because God is morally bankrupt; the evidence is kept elusive due to the morally loving character of God keeping with loving divine aims. The loving divine aims have to do with bringing selfish and destructive humans into a loving, volitionally surrendered fellowship with an unselfishly loving God. To make this possible, the evidence at hand cannot be given coercively. This evidence cannot coerce a will toward or against God, for that would violate a loving God's loving aims, purposes, and intentions for humans. In Moser's words, "Conclusive firsthand evidence for divine reality is, I'll contend, purposively available to humans, that is, available in a way, and only in a way, that accommodates the distinctive purposes of a perfectly loving God. The latter purposes, we'll see, would aim non coercively but authoritatively to transform human purposes to agree with divine purposes, despite human resistance of various and sundry sorts." (page 2)

Hmm. At least as reported here, Moser’s argument is tough to parse. He starts off by asserting something rather straightforward: humans have access to conclusive firsthand evidence for the existence of God.

But here’s the catch: to access this evidence, one must be attuned to whatever the "distinctive purposes" are of a "perfectly loving God." In other words, one must be biased as a condition of obtaining the evidence. One must assume the existence of a perfectly loving being and somehow imagine the purposes of such a being. Moser basically champions confirmation bias: if you believe it, it will seem true.

If this is the big insight, we're already done. But, let's go on and see what's said about the nature of the “evidence” for the reality of god.

This evidence is not spectator evidence. As humans, this evidence challenges us to get off the bleachers of our search and onto the field of our search. In other analogical words, the evidence is found on the field of our search and even challenges who we are becoming as persons and how we play the game of life.

And this evidence is….?

In Moser's words, "we'll consider purposively available evidence that is both person-involving and life-involving in its identifying and challenging both who we are and how we live as morally accountable personal agents under the authority of a perfectly loving personal God. Such purposively available evidence would seek whole-hearted transformation of humans toward God's character via volitional fellowship with God, where such fellowship between God and a human requires sharing in each other's concerns guided by love. The relevant evidence, then, wouldn't assume that humans are just spectators in need of further information or intellectual enlightenment. It would thus contrast sharply with any kind of spectator evidence that fails to challenge humans to yield their wills to a perfectly authoritative agent." (page 2)

All throughout the book, Moser argues that question (a) Do we humans know that God exists? is better answered if we start with question (b) Are we humans known by God in virtue of (among other things) our freely and agreeably being willing (i) to be known by God and thereby (ii) to be transformed toward God's moral character of perfect love as we are willingly led by God in volitional fellowship with God, thereby obediently yielding our wills to God's authoritative will?

We’re bordering on dishonesty now. The silly argument here seems to be that to know god exists we must be willing to be known by god. Well, that’s just balderdash. Imagine if someone said, in order to know my dog exists you must first be willing to be known by my dog. No, I can know your dog even if I don’t want him to know me. We made this point early on when we were thinking about the Waldo analogy. Sheesh.

In Moser's words, "We'll see that question (a) is fruitfully approached via question (b), given that a perfectly authoritative and loving God would be distinctively purposive in relating to humans, cognitively (in terms of evidence and knowledge provided) and otherwise." (page 4) Behind question (b) lurks another important question; question (c) Are we humans known by God in virtue of (among other things) our freely being willing to receive an authoritative call to volitional fellowship from a God of perfect love that is presented to us in order to reveal, at least to us, the adequacy or inadequacy of our moral and cognitive standing before this God? Moser notes that this shift of focus is suggested in some of the apostle Paul's writings found in the Christian writings in the Bible. He goes on to argue that "we are morally responsible for the questions we willingly pursue, just as we are similarly responsible for everything else we intentionally do. The typical focus on question (a) to the exclusion of questions (b) and (c) tends to place the sole responsibility on God for supplying the desired knowledge to humans, as if humans were just spectators who need only to open their eyes to see the relevant evidence. In contrast, this book's focus on questions (b) and (c) as means to answering question (a) directs us to ask whether we humans are well-positioned to receive any purposively available evidence and knowledge of God's reality. Perhaps we aren't thus well-positioned, because our wills have gone awry and thus need attunement to reality, including divine reality." (page 5) Moser argues that this is indeed the dilemma that human beings find themselves in; we aren't well positioned and we are in need of help or a word from a morally loving and perfect God. But what will happen when this elusive word comes? How will human beings respond? Moser argues that there are three main ways humans can respond: conforming (or, obedient) reception, indifferent reception, and negative (or, disobedient) reception. Regarding the most important response (conforming reception), Moser argues that "This book's account of purposively available conclusive evidence and knowledge of divine reality focuses on a distinctive kind of evidence available in experience: evident authoritative divine love expressed via human conscience, including an evident invitation to repentance and volitional fellowship with God." (page 8)

The whole of Moser's book focuses on three main questions: (1) If God's existence is concealed, hidden, or incognito, why should we hold that God exists at all? (2) If God exists, why is God's existence hidden at all, particularly if God aims to communicate with people in some way to lead them into better lives? (3) What are the implications of God's concealment for philosophy and religion as they concern talk of God and of knowledge of God? Without falling into some type of fideism, Moser gives due attention to certain skeptical doubts, questions, concerns, and objections all throughout his work. In his words, "careful attention to skeptical qualms will keep us honest in our inquiry, and save us from any uncritical or cognitively arbitrary dogmatism." (pages 8-9)

Regarding how this Jewish-Christian epistemology works in other religious conditions and geographical situations, Moser notes that "the true God may indeed be troublesome rather than convenient by our preferred standards, and may need to be thus, given our dire predicament of destructive selfishness. If God seeks to rescue us convincingly from our predicament, God would need to convince us of our need of rescue and of God's reliability in the rescue effort. In addition, God would have to challenge and then noncoercively transform our deadly selfishness. A God of perfect love, as suggested, would aim to elicit not just new beliefs in us, but also new volitional attitudes, including unselfish intentions and desires. That's no small task, of course, and it may succeed rarely if at all.

This is classic religious bogeyman-making: “the dire predicament of our destructive selfishness.” Notice how in the quoted phrase religion has portrayed humans as helpless damsels in distress, needing the hero-god to "rescue" us. Dire predicament is a matter of perspective, and I frankly don't think we are or ever were in one. Religion depends on the Romantic notion of being desperately captured in our own passions. Indeed, religion revels in it. But we are not slaves to our desires; neither do we need to be ashamed of them. How sad that in religion people are encouraged and praised for pining away in the hopes of solutions to non-problems.

As indicated, however, we shouldn't assume that divine intervention is just in the life of Jesus; it may be wherever God is at work, regardless of geography, even if Jesus is the authoritatively and morally perfect exemplar of divine revelation in a human." (page 14-15) All in all, as one who was an honest and open agnostic (while also seriously entertaining the possibility of atheism), I think Moser's work does indeed offer an enormously effective challenge to skepticism about the reality of the Judeo-Christian God. This book will not only challenge the way you think but also challenge the way you live your life...if you're willing.

Of course we have to get to the odious figure of Jesus, and of course the reviewer feels the need to say "I was once agnostic, but now I'm found. Amazing Grace, meh-meh." This is standard rhetorical fare, where the writer's former skepticism is supposed to make his present conviction all the more persuasive and fulfilling. Like so much that has come before, it's just and only artifice in intellectual drag.

I can see that Moser's book may challenge the way one thinks, but that's because in the end the thinking seems to be rather shoddy. Maybe it's high-caliber shoddiness - obviously, neither the book author nor book reviewer is a dummy. Moser seems not to produce any firsthand evidence, just assertions that "god-creme will make you feel 100% better instantly. You'll be completely satisfied." God's a placebo-product in this. It's The Emperor's New Waldo - everyone proclaims "I see him!" And maybe they really think they do see him. I wonder if in his book Moser ever considers the idea that Waldo actually ain't there, that god doesn't exist. That would be impressive.

Take a Load Off, Fanny

These days I weigh in at about 211-213 pounds. I'm huge. It's embarrassing, especially after I had once worked so hard to shed the weight and get into shape. That fit me was supposed to be me for the rest of my life.

There's not one good thing about being obese. I look terrible. My body always feels heavy and tired. One morning earlier this week, I got out of bed and my knees almost buckled from my weight.

So, I'm about six months away from birthday number 40, and I want to hit that day in the best shape of my life. Can I do it? Will I do it? What person will turn 40 in January?

Stay tuned....